Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County Public Schools, Student Behavior and Accountability Committee, Monday, September 22, 2025

Date: Monday, September 22, 2025
Place: LCPS Administration Building / School Board Room, Ashburn, Virginia
Length: 14m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1120982035?rel=0

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-13. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:00] Good evening. Thank you for coming to the September 22nd meeting of the Student Behavior and Accountability Committee. I'm Chair Carrie LaBelle, and with me is Dr. Samara Rashid. Ah, there she is.

[00:00:20] Dr. Deans is here with us virtually. Welcome, Dr. Deans. Good to see you. Thank you. Okay, good. All right. We have no members of the public here to speak, so that is taken care of.

[00:00:40] And so I'm calling this meeting of the SBAC committee. It is currently 4.05. We have no public comment, so we're going to review the minutes.

[00:00:57] Have you had a chance to look, ladies had a chance both to look at the meeting minutes? I'm sorry, Ms. LaBelle. Do you have to do the remote participation? Before that? location? I think so. All right, thank you. Dr. Deans, please state your location and whether this is a medical or personal matter. At home in my home office and it's medical. Okay, is anyone present with you at this location? No. So you're home alone, that's a good thing. Well, maybe. Dr. Deans

[00:01:35] has asked for, asked to entertain a motion, I'm entertaining a motion that Dr. Deans requests to participate in this meeting be granted? Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye.

[00:01:53] Seeing as there's no opposition. Welcome Dr. Deans. You're a member now. Thank you. Okay everybody's had an opportunity to look over the meeting minutes from our last meeting which was back in June. Yes. All right do I hear a motion to accept the meeting minutes as written? Motion to accept the meeting minutes as written. Second. I second. Thank you. The minutes are there's been a motion to to

[00:02:28] accept the minutes as written. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Seeing no opposition the minutes are approved. Thank you. Now we can move on. Okay. There are no action items today. We have one information item on our agenda and that's a presentation by Ms. Scanlon of the policy review overview for the coming

[00:03:04] season semester correct yes and I also mapped it out for the entire school year oh good so we can give you a preview of what is upcoming go ahead and go to the chart please there are at the at the current time at least there are five policies that I anticipate will be coming up to SBAC for review and revision and consideration. Four of those five policies are the responsibility of

[00:03:39] the Office of School Administration and then one comes through the Department of Digital Innovation. So the first policy that I intend to bring forward you will note we would be bringing it forward early it isn't due until November 2028 that is policy 8205 discipline authority I do intend to bring this forward as an info item next month and that is simply because I think that policy can be improved upon there are a couple of sections of that policy that I

[00:04:16] I think lack clarity and I think the system could benefit and certainly the students and their parents could benefit if those corrections were made. So we'll be doing that early. It is a relatively short policy. At present, it is a page to a page and a quarter.

[00:04:35] The next policy that I intend to bring forward is policy 8220, Student Disciplinary Consequences. That also will be considered early because there are some improvements I believe that should be made to that policy.

[00:04:52] That policy in particular will set forth the various disciplinary consequences that students can face from in-school restriction to a short-term suspension, a long-term suspension, a reassignment to a different regular school or to an alternative setting, and then an exclusion, and then finally expulsion in the worst case.

[00:05:17] So I do intend to bring that forward maybe even next month. That might be ambitious, but if I can get it done in through cabinet, I would bring both discipline authority and student disciplinary consequences through next month.

[00:05:34] Otherwise, discipline authority would come first, and then in November I would bring forth student disciplinary consequences. It occurs to me I didn't tell you what discipline authority was. It's essentially a jurisdictional piece. It sets forth the conditions under which the school division has the authority to discipline a student because we can't discipline a student for anything and everything under the sun.

[00:06:01] So what it does is it sets forth at what times and under what conditions the school system or the school administration in particular has the authority to discipline. So, for example, for any misconduct that occurs on LCPS property, at LCPS activities, on an LCPS school bus, with LCPS devices or networks, misconduct that interferes with another student's ability to get to and from LCPS schools or LCPS activities safely.

[00:06:36] So it really is a jurisdictional kind of policy. The next policy that I anticipate coming forward, probably in the fall, is the student personal device use.

[00:06:52] Ms. Scanlon? Ms. Scanlon? Yes. I'm sorry. May I have a question about 8205? Yes. Would that not clarify that if the student's misbehavior happens outside of the confines of that policy, then LCPS would not have the authority to discipline?

[00:07:18] Yes, that's exactly what the policy does, is in setting forth when and exactly when we have the authority to discipline, anything outside of those very specific conditions would be times when LCPS has no authority to discipline.

[00:07:37] Discipline, of course, meaning invoking sanctions, such as an in-school restriction, a suspension, a reassignment, an expulsion, an exclusion, et cetera. The school system always has the authority to put interventions in place, the responsibility to make sure that our students feel safe at school.

[00:07:57] So that interventionary approach, we always have the authority to take. But there are certainly times when students misbehave, in particular in the community, where the school system simply has no authority to do anything other than implement interventions.

[00:08:14] Right. That was the clarity that I was seeking. Thank you. You're welcome. So 8655 student personal device use, you've already seen that a couple of times. There was a new mandate that came forth from the state signed by the governor, further restricting even more than LCPS had restrict last school year when students can use their personal devices at school.

[00:08:45] So that is a law, and in order to be compliant with that law, we do have to revise our current policy so that it is in accordance with the new law. I know that Mr. Smith is working on soliciting feedback and wants to best understand what the impacts of the new requirements will be so that he and his colleagues can make the appropriate revisions to that policy.

[00:09:16] I did hear him say that it was his desire to have that new policy in place by January, which means that that will have to come to you in the fall as well. After we get through the semester, probably then in January, assuming that those other three have been done, we will move into Introduction to Student Discipline.

[00:09:43] That actually is something that's due this school year. It is due to be revised no later than June 8th, so we still have plenty of time. that policy essentially provides the lists of rules that schools are expected, or excuse me, that students are expected to obey.

[00:10:04] So it's essentially a list of various violations that if a student does anything on this list, assuming it is under our jurisdiction, then disciplinary action can be taken.

[00:10:20] So those three, 8205, 8220, and 8210, they really work together. 8205 sets forth the authority, 8220 sets forth the consequences that can be taken, and 8210 sets forth the specific violations giving students and families notice of the kinds of behavior that are unacceptable at school.

[00:10:48] And then finally in the spring, we will also be responsible due no later than May 25th for review and revision of 8265, which is student searches and seizure. That policy sets forth the conditions under which school officials can search students and their belongings.

[00:11:15] So that's what we have to look forward to. - Thank you, Chair. Seizure meaning keeping it or? I didn't understand the terminology. Sure. So seizure can essentially refer to two things. One is seizing contraband.

[00:11:33] So in the course of a search, contraband can be seized. And that is the way that it is used here in this policy. Seizure can also, in other contexts, be referred to as a student. For example, not being permitted to leave.

[00:11:48] Like, you're not allowed to leave the office. student has you know under the law been seized so to speak welcome yes miss LaBelle my question is about the introduction to student discipline and we'll be looking at you said at our list of if you do this this is the consequence all the way down the line is that going to involve an updating or rewriting of the student introduction to discipline that we give out every year I guess dr. Mitchell might be able to tell us that the student rights and responsibilities? Yes, that's the one I'm thinking of. So the student rights and responsibilities

[00:12:28] are updated. We start working on them in late winter. We work on them throughout the spring so that when the new school year begins, we have a document that is fully compliant with any changes in policy, regulation, or practice that have occurred. There may be on occasion things that are so important and so different that there might be an amendment or an addendum to the SR&R done earlier.

[00:13:02] But yes, there's a whole team of people that review that document. I'm responsible for reviewing certain portions of the document, and what I would be paying attention to is ensuring that the document for next school year is fully compliant with any changes to policy regulation practice that have occurred this school year. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Any other

[00:13:30] questions? Okay, thank you. That is the whole thing. So, if we have no other questions for Ms. Scanlon, Dr. Deans, anything you'd like to say or ask? No, not at this time. Well, thank you

[00:13:59] for joining us, and I guess we'll see you soon. How are things going? Oh, before that, this This concludes the meeting of the Student Behavior and Accountability meeting.

[00:14:16] We are stopping at 4:18. Thank you.

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