Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County Public Schools, Specialized Programs and Centers Committee Meeting, Tuesday, October 7, 2025

Date: Tuesday, October 7, 2025
Place: LCPS Administration Building / School Board Room, Ashburn, Virginia
Length: 50m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1123717311?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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[00:00:07] All right. Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to call this October 7th meeting of the Special Programs and Centers Committee to order. I'm Dr. Rashid. I'll be the chair of this committee meeting. And we have a lot of items to talk about. And I believe we do not have any public comment. So I think I'll just jump right to it.

[00:00:27] So first of all, we do need to approve the minutes from our last meeting of September 2nd, 2025. Has everyone had a chance to review the minutes? And are there any corrections or additions?

[00:00:43] So did you guys have it did you guys have a chance to review the minutes any corrections or additions and if not I entertain a motion to approve the minutes from September 2nd motion to approve the minutes from September 2nd do I hear second seconded all those in favor say aye aye aye all right we'll go ahead and review the agenda we have a couple of them and we have four items for information and no action items okay so we'll go ahead and jump right into information item 4. 01 And I will go ahead and turn it over to Dr. Ashley Ellis, Chief Academic Officer.

[00:01:22] Thank you, Dr. Ellis. Thank you, Dr. Rasheed. So I'm going to just briefly introduce this item and then turn it over to Mr. Lewis, our Chief Operations Officer. He and I and our departments have had very preliminary conversations about a concept. And so the purpose of this item is truly just for your awareness and to get your initial thoughts and feedback, almost like a temperature check.

[00:01:44] There is no current action being requested or anything like that. And we are happy to keep you updated as plans move forward. But, again, very preliminary opportunity to think about a new program in partnership with the county. And with that, I'll turn it over to Mr. Lewis, who has been in those conversations with the county.

[00:02:04] Good afternoon, committee members. So I appreciate the opportunity to sit with you today. So I'll start with a little bit of background. Board of Supervisors began a process to explore the needs for an Eastern Loudon. And I think it's important to know that they have identified Eastern Loudon for a cultural performing arts facility.

[00:02:21] And they have commissioned a study, and they've taken – this started in 2022, and they've had a number of public meetings. They had some architects do some concept designs, those types of things. They had several to choose from, and they chose from in January of this year.

[00:02:37] they decided to move forward with some more in-depth studies of what they call a scaled performance and visual arts facility. And what that, to summarize that, was planned to have a centralized hub for multipurpose performance hall with 800 to 900 seats, enhanced black box with 300 to 350 seats, art display area, galleries, those types of things for the visual arts, and then art-making spaces, and essentially about 112,000 square feet, which is a little bit bigger than one of our elementary schools, if you make a comparison there.

[00:03:11] So as we talked through with Dr. Spence and Mr. Hemstree of the county administrator, talking about opportunities where maybe the school system in the county could partner in such a project. And so prior boards to this, and many boards for many years, We've had discussions about a performing arts academy, well, visual and performing arts academy.

[00:03:34] And so we started thinking about whether or not there was an opportunity that maybe this facility could be co-located with one of our schools to accomplish the fact that we would have the potential to have an academy and also serve the performing arts needs of the board of supervisors in their original plan.

[00:03:52] So some of the things that would involve maybe having a much larger auditorium that we could have, fair weather, graduation ceremonies, those types of things, a space big enough to be able to use for more than just, you know, performing arts. And so that's one of the things that we've been talking with county staff is whether or not that would be something that we would try to partnership with.

[00:04:13] We have not done any preliminary engineering or evaluations as to whether or not that would be something we could, you know, co-locate with one of our schools. But essentially this exercise, this meeting, as Dr. Ellis said, was, you know, does the board have any interest in staff pursuing that?

[00:04:30] and getting back to the county staff and saying we would like to dig a little bit deeper and move forward with at least exploring what opportunities may be there. So that's the purpose of this today is to see what the committee's thoughts are on that and how possibly you would want us to move forward with doing some preliminary exploration with that.

[00:04:49] Thank you, Dr. Ellis, and thank you, Mr. Lewis. Board members, any questions? Yes, Ms. LaBelle. Mr. Lewis, with this performing arts center, you're talking about being used for things outside of performing arts.

[00:05:08] would this be able to take the place of graduations where we currently have to drive into Fairfax County to utilize those buildings there so I think it's entirely possible but not defined at this point and that's one of the things that as we talked with dr. Spence about is you know if we identified a larger auditorium and that's why we kind of stuck in that number of 2,500 seats but that would all be subject to some real thought behind that and some planning where that what they had looked at was eight to nine hundred seats certainly would not be big enough to do something like that so it would be another option

[00:05:43] for schools to be able to potentially use that for those and you know have community arts associations that aren't associated with the school systems that could also use it that's the I think that's the the impetus of that from the board supervisors perspective is where do we have a home for those performing arts companies and organizations that may or may not be some of our students involved with those as well after schools I think that that's a good idea that is one area in which Loudoun County has been sadly lacking is the

[00:06:19] performing arts so I think that's a pretty good use any other questions yes Mr. Straffi sure I agree I agree this with Miss LaBelle we've had a bunch of conversations over the last two years around just bringing more attention to the performing arts and seeing how much attention that stem and you know CTE gets in our conversations and I think that this is definitely something welcome from my side and I'm happy to hear that it's being contemplated in Eastern

[00:06:58] Loudoun where we have most of our population in Loudoun and frankly where we have some are our oldest facilities and so seeing that investment into the community there is very inspiring my question is about the difference the the pros and cons of you said potentially having it co-located with an existing school versus a standalone building kind of have my own assumptions about what I think is probably better when you think about potential graduations or large events having it as a part of a school campus might be beneficial there but I

[00:07:37] wonder how much space you can actually get for you know you know I think maybe in some ways having a standalone performing arts center if you have that opportunity to build it out could be super beneficial to have it standalone so I'm just wondering what the pros and cons or what what's been talked about when it comes to co-locating versus having it standalone sure and so this is obviously one of those things where we still need to put a lot of thought into into it but as our initial conversations evolved we were talking about you know if you were to build

[00:08:12] a standalone performing visual and performing arts academy for the school system itself it would be an entire comprehensive high school with all the all the offerings and right now we're not seeing the need for the extra seats for that so the co-location thing would allow us to put this thing on a campus with another school and have those students walk across the parking lot or across the hall whatever that way and so that would be a way to be able to offer that any school without building a whole entire new school which probably in the next several years of the CIP there's not a lot of room for doing that so that is where that started I will say that we have

[00:08:50] limited properties that we can consider for something like that so it may be that as we start looking for that the board wants us to continue to look at that we may end up with an opportunity to co-locate it that's not in eastern loudon and then that's a conversation we would have with both you the school board and the the board supervisors whether or not that fits everyone's needs and so I'm not aware of a site that's been identified from the county's work at this point they may have but I'm just not aware of that so those are things that we would just continue to have I would envision that we put a group of folks together from both organizations

[00:09:26] and start hashing out all those details I have two questions Mr. Lewis would this be open to outside entities like if they did outside I guess festivities of different communities would this be open to that if they wanted to celebrate something or be a part of something there I would certainly think so you know our policy allows those types of things to happen in all of our school buildings so those are available I mean of course they compete with space like anybody else but I do believe that was part of the spirit of what the supervisors trying to do with their facilities to have a place where they could I would say rent but

[00:10:06] you know reserved for for different organizations and however they would you know put that together I'm not familiar with their policy on that but certainly I think that's part of the idea is to have you know whether you have a orchestra or a performing arts folks you know theater folks type that would be able to come in and reserve that space and put on their show that it's my understanding of what their vision is for that but we would we would dig a little deeper into that as well thank you and one more other question what is the timeline and maybe you already mentioned this what would be the approximate timeline just generally so to my knowledge the county hasn't set a timeline all they've done at this point is ask their staff

[00:10:45] that's equivalent to my staff over at the county to start looking at preliminary design type of things and in those beginnings of that project planning so as I said I don't know if they have a site involved and picked out or in mind but as as you all know as you go through this process planning a capital project could take years to do and so the first thing is to know if the school board is interested in joining a partnership then that may change the narrative for how we collectively go about looking for that and then a timeline would be established at some point for that thank you so much okay

[00:11:24] before I move on to the next item any other questions okay great thank you so much very exciting so we'll move on to our next item which is 4.02 career and technical education five-year pathway expansion plan I'll turn it over to dr. Michael Grubbs, Director of Career, Technical, and Adult Education.

[00:11:44] Dr. Rasheed, good afternoon, committee members. We are pleased to come back from the September SPC meeting and some of the feedback that you gave us with some new updates. This is also in preparation for the October 28th full school board meeting where we are giving updates on our CTE multi-year pathway plan.

[00:12:04] So we're still focusing on five years, but we also are trying to consider this from a multi-year perspective. So overview what is it driving the needs that we're gonna talk about today. I shared with you last time that what is driving this I think is an opportunity to respond to one LCPS the strategic plan for excellence which we talked about.

[00:12:24] There's a lot of changes at the state level through the state accreditation accountability framework and so we are responding to an increased need for expanding opportunity for students to pursue points in the employment category in 3E. We are also looking extensively at some of the changes to Virginia's high demand occupation list, making sure that we're responsive to the regional and economic needs of Loudoun and Northern Virginia.

[00:12:50] But again, most importantly, this plan is really responding to students that participate in CTE, are better academic learners, they better attendance rates, and just better all-around self-efficacy. And so the plan, as much as it is around the workforce, it's around just benefiting our students to be better learners and better participants in society so just some background again opportunities we're really focusing on goal 1.2 which is expanding opportunities for multiple accessible pathways for students to experience diverse programming we're also again looking at the new state

[00:13:25] accreditation accountability framework by expanding CTE programs the byproduct of expanding those programs are work-based learning opportunities that go those CT pathways industry recognized credentials and increased opportunities for career development to meet those opportunities we really need a multi year plan that we've been talking about over the past year for expanding CT pathways in Loudoun County Public Schools one addition is this plan is making a lot of assumptions and there's a lot of risks with any plan some of those assumptions are what we're bringing forward is the assumption that that the school system is going to support

[00:14:04] from a budget time space scope perspective. We have been having a lot of conversations behind the scenes since we just met with Mr. Lewis and his team around budget and facilities upgrades which we're going to give some updates on today. There's also some assumption that these programs are for all students.

[00:14:22] These are not just for our students that want to go into the workforce right out of high school. They're for our special education kiddos. They're for our English language learners. They're for any student that wants to just have better trajectory after graduating from Laudan County Public Schools risks just like with any plan the programs we're going to talk through today and then we shared with you in advance they are always changing due to high demand and regional needs and so we think that we've really selected programs that we think can sustain the next 5 10 15 20 years but over time these programs will be revisited also these will require staffing changes we're going to need to

[00:15:01] look at new instructors and so we feel like we have a really good plan but also we need to be mindful of with these new programs we need to think about our partnership with HRTD and our recruitment practices and then also we think our plan really responds to student interests a lot of the programs you're gonna see are based on school links data and where our students are focusing a lot of their energy but student interests and balance of opportunities change over time and these programs I'm sure will pivot and we'll constantly have to review our proposal so on the next slide again where we are in the process we

[00:15:37] spent all last school year looking at where our programs were we've been spending a lot of time in the proposed phase with the five-year plan that we shared with you in advance of the meeting we're really trying to shift more towards the planning phase these are the programs that we're looking at bringing into the school system what are those community discussions what do they look like what are the course changes look like facility conversations staffing needs and budget requests we feel like we are really close to the planning phase really getting into the weeds we have some really great mock-ups from facility for the costs of these expansions that we're gonna unpack at

[00:16:13] the October 28th school board meeting slide again the programs that you have in front of you we really vetted all those programs through three categories all those programs meet economic need so we've looked at Department of Labor data equity and access though all yep if you want to what we put in your pamphlet the pathways and the programs we propose in there all those programs we are considering equity and access so how do we bring those programs across the six geographic planning zones and how are we also making sure that some of our programs we are innovating and enhancing there's a lot of programs in the school

[00:16:52] system that we need to we need to revisit we need to enhance a lot of the MATA programs for example some of those same programs were around back when Monroe was there and they're still great programs but there's opportunities for refinements and moving forward so just as as you look at your packet and you look at some of the programs we're proposing on the next slide we just want to capture some of those changes three big changes that we're proposing are expanding trades to Western Loudon where we have a lot of interest from Western Loudon all across the county for trades programs everything from plumbing to

[00:17:30] electrical to HVAC to masonry and so as you look through the plan for some of the programs that we're selecting we are looking to bring some trades programs to Western Loudon as an initial part of this multi-year expansion plan a second summary of changes is that we are looking at enhanced programming at the academies allowed in so a lot of the programs that you see in there are possibilities for enhancements at the academies allowed and then lastly we're looking at increased access in zoned schools beyond just special programs so a lot of the programs that you see in that five-year plan are programs that could

[00:18:09] be open for students that are zoned for that high school health care is a really great example is one of our number one areas of interest for students in the school system right now and we are looking at potentially putting that in every single high school. So that is a summary of some of the major changes that you see in the document and now Mr. Nick Rosita is going to share two examples of some school specific how we're going to bring some of this to fruition. Thank you Dr. Grubbs. Good afternoon. In this first school example you can see where we

[00:18:44] have one program with Fashion Careers 1 and 2. At this particular example school student enrollment although engagement and excitement might be high might be low and so what Dr. Grubbs talked about is repurposing some of our CTE classrooms working with facilities on how we can potentially do that so at this particular school we may replace fashion careers one and two with a law or administration of justice program which is high on our low sorry our survey at school links there's high student interest with that and at this

[00:19:22] particular school we feel like there might be a benefit our early childhood lab we could repurpose that to health services as dr. Grubbs shared we're looking at expanding what health and medical programs could look like around the division rather just being at one or three schools and then some of the unused blocks for a CTE we could carry out that health sciences path with forensic technology next slide so school example two potentially with one of our

[00:20:00] manufacturing labs it's not being utilized we potentially could be adding that army and DCC program that could serve as similar to the annex that we have allowed in County High School for NJROTC gourmet foods we hear repeatedly from our schools that they want commercial kitchens well we might have that opportunity at this school to re-envision what the current gourmet foods classroom looks like and build that and then for the unused blocks for CTE again capitalizing on that student interest and enthusiasm on law and

[00:20:36] administration of justice thank you Nick one thing that I'll add is these two examples are recent examples in the last three weeks where we've gone out to schools we met with the director of school counseling we've met with the principal we asked what their students needs where we looked at unused space so So I think as we're looking at program expansion, it's not just about adding more.

[00:20:57] It's also looking at where we can be more efficient with our existing space and be more responsive to student interests and their needs. And so these are just two small examples. But we've probably met with 40 to 50 percent of our principals and directors of school counseling. We're making our rounds, and we're bringing them along in this process so that it's not just us. It's not happening to them.

[00:21:18] One example that I just want to share with this plan is that we're committed to these programs these opportunities for students but facilities and staffing and classroom space is only one small part of the equation and so I'm going to use aircraft technology as an example we do have high hopes that we're going to bring an aircraft maintenance program into the academies of Loudoun we have principal buy-in we have the regional support we've been meeting with some of the regional airports and even Dulles but if space is an issue or if we can't make it work then we look at off-site space if we can't get off-site space then we look good partnerships with Leesburg Airport if we can't make Leesburg Airport work then we look at potential youth and pre-apprenticeship programs I'm sharing

[00:21:58] that because our focus is on the type of programs and opportunities we're gonna bring the students it's less about facilities and staffing so we're gonna we're really focusing on the type of industries we want to bring here and we're gonna make it we're gonna find some sort of solution to move forward next slide please one update that I want to share is that we provided you our five-year plan in advance we had the fortunate opportunity to present to cabinet yesterday and from a program perspective we got really positive feedback on the types of programs were bringing in the school system some of

[00:22:34] those included changes that you all gave to us and feedback from the September SPC meeting but there was some feedback on where we could move up some of those program expansion efforts and so I did share with you a one-sheet piece of paper that's a summary it's a one sheet we took that feedback yesterday at 11:00 a.m. and work through the night and this morning and so no program changes but where you will notice is that we tried to move things up to try to prioritize some changes sooner than later and so where we would like some feedback is in

[00:23:12] anticipation of the October 28th school board meeting are there any programs that you do not see on there what questions might we want to get ahead of for the full school board meeting or what questions do you have for us thank you thank you so much this is really this is a boatload of information and you know it's really exciting I like how you guys have the back I call it a backup plan for every site I think you mentioned it a couple slides ago the backup plan like if it's not available at ladies Burke Airport you just keep

[00:23:47] going on and on and that that's very ensuring and I think that it's very promising for the students and for the future of the programs. I was just curious do you have or maybe I missed it do we have a hospitality program? We do so on the chart that you have in front of you one of our initial phases is making sure that some of our programs if you flip it over Dr. Ashid the first six to eight lines and the dark shading those are actually programs that we offer already in the school system so hospitality and tourism that includes you know our culinary arts programs our connections to gourmet foods.

[00:24:23] Those are programs that we are looking to make sure are available in either all 17 high schools or all six geographic planning regions. So we're really starting with those ones that we already have in the school system but maybe it's offered at this school and not this school. So that's where we're going after some quick wins to make sure that students regardless of zip code have access to programming.

[00:24:43] Is there such a thing, well, I'm not really good at this, but like hospitality for maintenance? With all these buildings and everything that we're making, is there hospitality with maintenance? I don't know how to say it. Those that keep up with the facility in terms of neatness of it, I don't know how to say it.

[00:25:02] Yeah. Nate, probably not from a, I mean, engineering technician might be possible pathways in terms of, you know, credentials and opportunities for students. But opportunities like that are more pre-apprenticeship, youth apprenticeship, work-based learning opportunities, maybe not a specific CT pathway.

[00:25:19] Yeah, plus I didn't know the interest level. I just was throwing it out there. Okay. Board members, any questions? Yes, Ms. Abel. I was wondering if there's any way agriculture could be moved up higher in the start date column. You knew this was coming, right?

[00:25:37] I knew it was coming, yeah. You know I think we're I think we are positioned to respond to school system support and community support in terms of prioritizing any of the programs that are on that list. I think some of the some of the programs that are at the bottom of that list later in the years those are actually the programs that I want to see come to fruition soon and later.

[00:25:58] We just know that some of those have a longer on ramp. For example, aircraft maintenance, if you want to offer airframe and power plant, that's anywhere between a two- and three-year waiting list to go through the FAA. That's also a significant maintenance request, facility, renovation.

[00:26:18] So I think there is some wiggle room, I think, with the right amount of community and board support. We're also really trying to overlay that with the CIP funding. and right now that plan is almost identical to the funds that are coming for CIP and so we're working really closely with Kevin Lewis and his team but I think there are opportunities for us to think about some of those and try to move a little closer. Neil? I think I would just add while we're calling it a plan it's not it's not like a CIP plan with the board is going to adopt

[00:26:53] and so what Dr. Grubbs and his team are casting is a vision for what's possible over the next number of years and it needs to align to the realities of the CIP the realities of what can happen in a in a in a CTE department in a division our size and so there's room to change that and I could see this plan being what we're pushing off of every year coming back to this committee what adjustments do we need to make what are we accelerating because of community interest so your continued advocacy can can help us with that but it's not locked in and it could

[00:27:28] potentially go out further you know depending on the needs of the school system any other questions yes mr. I appreciate that context I think that's also smart when it comes to the full board to try to frame frame it that way as well that this is kind of a living plan and it's not a full-fledged plan yet it's more of the vision or the foundation behind it and all the thought that's been put in the work that's been put in so far because I was hesitating giving feedback as if it was a plan right um and so i think that that's that's a fair

[00:28:06] comment um i i have a few questions so i would have thought that the trades and i think this might be maybe a facilities challenge is that why they're they're starting a little bit later i would i would imagine trades are pretty high priority yeah it's it's definitely one that's i think through our advisory committee which is something that i left out all those programs we've taken through our career technical ct advisory committee and so that's based on feedback from them as well over the past year and a half we just brought them back together about four weeks ago trades

[00:28:39] continuously comes up and so i think that that that probably requires some of the most significant facility overhaul it also requires some maybe out-of-the-box thinking in terms of renovations or additions to buildings we have Western Loudoun slated because of some of the availability of land and space and working with facilities and so I think if the conditions are right maybe there's some opportunities to slide it up a little bit sooner but also those are tend to be a little bit more difficult to staff that takes a little bit more recruitment to find the right

[00:29:14] instructor so that's kind of why we positioned it where it is okay and what remind me what's mechatronics again if you've ever seen our Robo loco team at the academies allowed it it's very similar to that so our what we're trying to focus on our real-world robotics connecting not just Lego robotics and vex v5 robotics but taking it up a step and having our students engage with

[00:29:48] robotics in the manufacturing and industrial realms yeah I think when I I think about mechatronics not to add another acronym to it or additional technical jargon but like programmable programmable logic controllers PLCs that's a a real area of focus for manufacturing and industry robotics and if you look at any sort of warehouses around the country like AWS their PLCs is one of the major areas of focus for coding and computer science and so I think to just build off of what Mr. Garci just said robotics is all over the place in the school system entry level

[00:30:25] lego first or vex i think mechatronics is an ability for us to really go above and beyond kind of those entry level robotics that we're seeing across the school system okay thank you and um you know one of the things that you kind of touched on was basically taking some of the things that we do really well at the academies of loudon and sprinkling them into rct programs right and i see some of that here i see data science and machine learning and i'm i've been i'm thinking about IOT and just kind of this transformation that we've been going through so I see some of

[00:31:01] that in here I don't know if you want to comment on your approach to that of taking some of the things that we do really well already academies and making them more accessible I'll share one quick example and if Nick has one I think especially when you look at northern Virginia and you look at this region areas like cyber have really caught up what was once Cisco IT networking cyber security which was once kind of this this uh very tough thing to find an instructor maybe have at one school is really becoming through ai baked into multiple programs we have

[00:31:37] we have cyber in multiple high schools um still amazing things happening the academy is allowed in their cyber program is amazing but is that something that we infuse across the county and we have more cyber programs especially in this region that has so many connections to nsa and other regional employers and that allows for our program at the academies allowed them to focus more on cloud computing and advanced programming IOT quantum computing you know all those things so a lot of the programs health care is another example as some of the demand for health care we're looking to push some of those out across the county and then also enhance the health care

[00:32:16] programs and kind of upskill them at the academies allowed them I'll just stop there but that's definitely in terms of the broader board discussion something that I'd like to dig into a little bit more is the how of that right and be able to see that you know high schools in the county that don't have as strong of cyber program that they could have access to that right that's that's just kind of from where maybe at the October 28th we'll put a slide on there that maybe pulls some of those examples out for how we're addressing some of the homeschools thank you. Just one thing I wanted to ask. So once, like you had mentioned, you know, specialized facilities

[00:32:55] obviously at ACL academies of Loudoun, but wouldn't they max out eventually with all these programs? Would that mean we would take these special programs that we have in mind kind of like go to other places? Or did you already mention that? I think it's a great question. And what would determine that? Like what would determine which area would we go in? Yeah, we are, we're bringing the academies along. We're actually meeting with the teachers and with the director and we're asking for feedback on their programs um so some of the programs that are proposing there are um enhancement of the existing program so some of the programs we propose on there for example um maybe a health

[00:33:30] care program gets just upskilled into dental and so we're not adding new seats we're just enhancing the program and other opportunities there might be a program that's um as we enhance it at the academies of loudon maybe that program gets pushed out to four high schools across the county one example that I would just reference is that three of the schools over the last few weeks that their students were significantly had significant interest in becoming lawyers and administration of justice and so I think there's some real opportunities and I think it's back to mr. Streffi's question of where those opportunities could be enhanced throughout the county and maybe some

[00:34:08] spaces freed up for new programming to come in so to your question we're really looking at within the confines of the space in the building so a lot of his replacement of programs potentially and spreading them out around the county yeah because even though the stuff that you said they increased interest so increase enrollment and therefore venturing out okay thank you so much yeah yes yes I was just maybe we touched on this in previous conversations but like and you articulate it really well for me and now I have the same question

[00:34:44] again I probably can't do it again how what is we know now that we have this five-year plan or vision or close to a plan we how are we contemplating the K through 12 approach to CTE again so like I get it for high schools this is all coming together but like how how are we pushing how does this make sense from a K through 12 perspective yeah I think it's a great question I think that's honestly where most my passion is because I think you know that we're not putting these programs in just so a student can graduate and go right into the workforce I think that's an unrealistic goal hopefully it prepares them a little bit better for their first job or

[00:35:23] the college major they pick right I think we're doing some really amazing things down at the elementary level with Nick's Think Big Space so one of the newest concepts that we have is all fifth graders across the county have an opportunity to come over to Think Big Space over at Simpson and we are taking them through a career development module, the RIASAC, to learn about career development and to make connections to our CT pathways.

[00:35:53] So I think to your question, we're really trying to re-envision how we're doing career development around the school system to not say, hey, did you know how much an HVAC technician can make? That model's not working, you know? We need to really say, what are you good at? What are your skills, your values, your interests?

[00:36:09] Then let's think about what careers and what programs we offer that map to that. I think the days of hanging a welding poster up in the hallway and how much you're gonna make is not working and so we're really focusing as well with our new work-based learning resource teachers to think differently how we're talking about careers with kids.

[00:36:29] I don't know if I said that as articulately as last time but thank you. Thank you so much all right okay. And with that we'll move on to item number 4.03 dual language immersion update and expansion considerations.

[00:36:44] I will turn it over to Mr. Roundsley, I think. Okay, never mind. Okay, so I will turn it over to Ms. Clark, Director of Academic Programs. Thank you. Thank you so much for having us.

[00:37:01] And tonight I'm joined by Kelly James, our Supervisor of World Language and Cultures, and she's going to lead us through our information this afternoon. Thank you, Ms. Clark. So just to give you an overview of our Dual Language Immersion Program, we currently have two Dual Language Immersion Program regional model schools Potomac Elementary and Sanders Corner our program is a 50/50 two-way immersion mean that spend students spend 50% of their day in the target language and 50% of their day in English a two-way means that we

[00:37:35] have between 33 and 50% of students are English language learners and the rest are native English speakers and all students we have a regional model so all students across the district are invited to submit interest through a random lottery section these seats are offered at kindergarten for students entering kindergarten and then they become a student at that school and continue all the way through fifth grade and as a reminder transportation is not provided for students who are living outside of that school's attendance

[00:38:07] zone so we do have an update for Potomac Elementary when our schools were selected as dli schools in summer 2022 potomac was not a title one school and its population projections allowed for the additional classrooms needed for the dli program with the growing and transient population in lcps and this area in particular the enrollment and projections have changed and potomac elementary can no longer support dual language immersion as a regional model

[00:38:41] beyond the 2025-2026 school year so this year so you can see the table it's a side-by-side comparison with this year all the way through fy31 with the regional model and how over capacity it would be as well as without the without the regional model so what this means for potomac elementary so what's changing is that potomac elementary is going to become what we're calling a school priority dual language immersion site so beginning fall 2026 the kindergarten seats will be only

[00:39:17] offered to students within the potomac elementary attendance zone and because of the school capacity that's already over enrolled no out of zone students will be able to attend the program with the exception of sibling priority we will ensure that because that's going to be a minimal additional students in the program so what stays the same is that students who are currently in dual language immersion at potomac will continue through this program if they are there as kindergartners even if they're out of zone they will continue and they're guaranteed to see in the program from kindergarten through fifth grade as well as their siblings who may express interest

[00:39:51] in the program so they're going to receive priority admission as long as the family submits interest during the established window this update was communicated to our dual language immersion families at Potomac on September 9th so this shift leaves Sanders corner elementary school as the only regional DLI model which brings us to some future dual language immersion opportunities for expansion we had over 560 families

[00:40:25] expressed DLI interest in DLI across the county so we're looking at is we know that there's interest in there from from families in the district so we're looking at is potentially opening up a new another school priority model which would give local access first so students who are in that school's attendance window or attendance zone would get priority in the program and then depending upon the capacity of the school then it could open up for out of zone students the C's are going to be first offered to students in the zone as

[00:40:58] well as any siblings that they may have who indicate interest in the future and that would address the community demand for this program while ensuring some a program that is sustainable and can support this program at the school so this is this slide is a side-by-side model of what a school priority model versus a regional model in terms of enrollment the lottery so regional model is a district-wide lottery lottery at a school priority would prioritize the attendance on students siblings of students in the program and then the third priority is for students who are out of zone again depending upon the

[00:41:38] school capacity the staffing and budget implications at a school priority the staffing allocations are tied directly to the school's enrollments and the budget items would just include language ambassadors to support that language acquisition in the classroom and curriculum materials the community impact would build a strong neighborhood identity with that program as well as ease the transition into a middle school dual language immersion program and the timeline could be as early as the 26 27 school year and we are happy to take any

[00:42:14] questions that you may have thank you so much this part a lot of clarity board members you have any questions about this item thank you Dr. Rasheed thank you for the presentation I you know I I just want to put it out there that I think even beyond the the current families that have expressed interest in the existing dual language immersion I think there's still a lot of pent-up demand for dual language programs in our county and um just thinking about other neighboring counties and how much they offer when it comes to dual language immersion i know that we're behind

[00:42:52] um and we don't i mean we only offer one language and we only have two schools um where and i joke with my wife that you know if we moved to arlington you know well you know our our child could learn korean or japanese or another language and so um we're not moving but But we can do it here. And so I'm really happy about the intention of expanding dual language immersion. I just don't want to inch ourselves there. I think we did the right thing by being deliberate about how we expand dual language immersion, putting thought behind it, make sure we get it right.

[00:43:30] But maybe we need to put now at this point figure out well how do we accelerate this because there's definitely demand across our county. We live in one of the most diverse counties in Virginia and we are lagging behind. So that's kind of just wanted to put that out there.

[00:43:48] Thank you. And this moving to a school priority would also model the way that many of our neighboring districts do that in a way that's sustainable that we can model that. That does model the way that in terms of offering for school priority first, siblings, and then out of zone students.

[00:44:05] Okay, board members, we're going to move on to the next item. Any other questions or anything like that? All right. We'll now move on to item 4.04, which is Academy of Global and Linguistic Studies update and International Baccalaureate Progress at Parkview High School.

[00:44:23] And I will turn it over to Ms. Clark, Director, Academic Programs. Thank you. Thank you so much. We're excited to give you a short update on two of our programs that are in the planning phase are Academy of Global and Linguistic Studies and IB at Parkview High School. This afternoon I'm joined by Kelly James, Supervisor of Rural Languages and Cultures, Danielle Graham, Supervisor of Social Science and Global Studies, and Grant Schaefer, Supervisor of Academic Programs. I also want to recognize that we have both of our coordinators with us tonight. So we

[00:44:59] have our IB coordinator, Darcy Malone, and we have our AJLS coordinator, Chelsea Northam, with us this evening i'm going to turn it over to agls thank you miss clark um so we're going to begin with just reviewing where we are with our timeline of this program um last year this program was approved we selected our school dominion high school and we hired our coordinator and then this year we are in the planning year our coordinator has been visiting multiple middle schools across County to inform families of the community and recruit the program and

[00:45:37] then we are getting ready to welcome our first cohort of students would be ninth graders next year allowing 100 ninth graders to come into this program at Dominion high school so we've been up to quite a bit in the past few months so we last night we had our first of three meetings for AG LS Advisory Committee We extended invitations to students, educators, and community members to participate in this committee.

[00:46:10] Our fabulous AGLS coordinator facilitated conversations about the profile of an AGLS graduate, and we will be discussing experiences for students and curriculum at future meetings. In terms of community outreach, we've completed the middle school visits. All eighth grade students have now heard about AGLS.

[00:46:29] We've had two nights of special programs fairs, and upcoming we have our information night october 9th at dominion high school as well as a virtual one on november 12th we also have some additional committee meetings and we're already working on opportunities for students have been connecting with community organizations and other international organizations and in terms of finally course progression so we've been making some progress looped in counseling and started outreach for our dual enrollment courses all right so next up for

[00:47:08] park view high school i'd like to first start by introducing darcy malone as the new ib coordinator at park view we're very excited and grateful to have miss malone she has experience not only teaching ib in massachusetts dc and virginia but also leading the middle years program at a title one designated middle school in fairfax so she comes with some great experience and let me tell you a little bit about kind of what we've been up to so far so you can see here in the calendar

[00:47:41] that similar to agls that you just heard we've been doing outreach this fall to our feeder schools we're going to be having again the first group of ninth graders coming in next year to park view for pre-ib we're still working through the authorization process so we have a consultant Now we've been working on professional development for teachers, starting with an IB boot camp in Fairfax County Public Schools a couple Saturdays ago.

[00:48:11] And then working on curriculum development, so figuring out courses, what we're going to be offering. You can see the next two years here are mostly about when our students are going to be coming in from feeder schools and the authorization application.

[00:48:27] And all of that will be taking place in the fall of next year. And then the grand kind of finale there is the kickoff with the first group of students in IB courses in 27-28 school year. To go a bit more granular, again, we've been working with Dr. Jefferson, Ms. Malone, and I on courses.

[00:48:54] So we have blueprints from Heritage and Loudoun Valley, but we know that we want to fit the Parkview community in trying to decide which courses we want to offer. Also, the professional development piece, not only do we have teachers that are geared up to be trained, but that's a big part of being authorized is making sure that everyone is trained and ready to go by the end of next summer.

[00:49:17] In the candidacy phase, we've met with our consultant, and we are working through what are the steps that we need to get done to prepare for not only the checklist for candidacy and authorization, but for a visit that also accompanies the authorization as well in order to be verified.

[00:49:41] So that is our presentation update for this afternoon, and we're happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you so much. This is really exciting because it shows that we're really expanding out there. We're really getting to the students in other areas. Board members, any questions?

[00:49:59] No questions. Okay. All right. Again, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Again, very exciting to get on ahead with the timeline. Okay. so I think we went over through all our information items and now our next meeting is scheduled for next month but you know go ahead and mark your calendars for the next meeting I don't have the date on me but any new business okay there's no further business I entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting motion to

[00:50:37] adjourn a second I second seconded okay all those in favor say aye okay this meeting is adjourned thanks for coming out guys drive safely

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