Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County Public Schools, Special Education Advisory Committee (SEAC) Meeting, Wednesday, December 3, 2025

Date: Wednesday, December 3, 2025
Place: LCPS Administration Building / School Board Room, Ashburn, Virginia
Length: 2h 34m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1142723171?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 2026-10-12. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:03:33] check on to. Good evening everyone.

[00:12:49] Please use the QR code on the screen to sign in. Those of you who are live streaming, please do the same. Also the public comment sheet is in the back and there are other flyers and information also back there. Okay, so welcome everyone. I hope everyone had a very restful and wonderful Thanksgiving. I can't believe how fast this year is just going by.

[00:13:23] Before we begin, I wanted to take a moment to thank Dr. Spence for joining us this evening and for graciously agreeing to hold a Q&A with our SEAC community. When I asked if he would be willing to spend some time hearing directly from families answering these questions, he did not hesitate to say yes.

[00:13:42] We're grateful for his openness, the partnership, and his willingness to engage with us in a meaningful way. Thank you, Dr. Spence. Well, hi. How's everybody doing this evening?

[00:14:03] Good. Good, good, good. I am really pleased to have the opportunity to be here with you, and I know we have some questions. I thought if it was okay, just really quickly share a couple of updates and things that we're looking at and thinking about, and then we'll get to your questions. First of all, have you heard of the three E's? You heard of this, like, new part of our accountability measurements, the three E's, so employed, enlisted, and enrolled, and we're sort now having to calculate and measure that for our high schools. I only bring that up because I have a different set of three E's I thought I would share with you because I'm very excited about the

[00:14:41] new three E's for me. So my three E's are engaged, employed, and elated. My oldest daughter got engaged over the Thanksgiving weekend. Yay for me. Very excited about that. Now have any of you in the room had older children get engaged? This was our first so I don't know what to do. I may come ask you, like, what am I supposed to do next? But I'm very excited for her. And I also found out that my final, all of my college graduates, I have four college graduates, all of my college graduates are now gainfully employed as of last week. So that was also really good, right? So that's the other

[00:15:16] E, which all sort of ties into the elation of, like, raising a good human being. So I'm excited about that. Anyway, I just wanted to touch on a couple of things. I didn't see this in the questions, but I did want to attack it. A little bit about what's going on at the federal government related to special education, and so just to make sure that there's a general awareness about this and that we're paying attention to it. If you haven't seen, the Department of Education recently announced a number of interagency agreements, or IAAs, and what that means is they're transferring their responsibilities out of the Department of Education to other agencies within the

[00:15:56] federal government through these agreements. They can't do it technically by just simply handing it away or getting rid of the responsibility because it's still a congressionally mandated responsibility, but they're using this interagency agreement as a way to sort of hand it off to a different agency, and so my understanding is that IDEA and the responsibility for that will be passed along to Health and Human Services.

[00:16:20] And so I bring that to your attention to say we need to be paying attention to that for a couple of different reasons. One is that a lot of the staff in the Department of Education is not transferring to Health and Human Services. So the staff that will be inheriting responsibility for compliance and monitoring of IDEA and for overseeing the funding mechanisms for IDEA will not have any experience with this.

[00:16:46] And so I think that we need to be thinking about the ramifications of that. I'm also sort of tied into that, paying attention to what's happening in the Office of Civil Rights under the Department of Education. The Office of Civil Rights has been dramatically de-staffed, frankly, to the point where some of our attorneys who are in conversations with the Office of Civil Rights can't get a response.

[00:17:09] And so you know, of course, that the Office of Civil Rights is one of the major movers in the federal government of ensuring that school divisions are in compliance with the regulations under IDEA. So I think we also need to be paying attention to that. And, of course, I'm worried about the funding mechanisms.

[00:17:28] We're okay right now, but as we head into the next fiscal year, I'm a little bit worried about how the funding is going to work coming from the federal government, whether or not that will come as block grants to the states, whether or not that will still come as individual grants to the states to pass through to the localities.

[00:17:48] And we'll need to be paying attention to that to see how those are handled, and particularly as a new administration comes on board and BDOE begins to sort of rebuild itself. So just, you know, wanting to put that on CEAC's radar is something that we should be paying attention to together as we move into the new school year.

[00:18:07] The other thing I just wanted to update you on, you may have heard about the maintenance of effort issues that the division has been dealing with. We've essentially had resolved a demand for the return of $28 million to the federal government based on a different calculation of maintenance of effort on the state's chart of accounts than what had been done for the previous decade.

[00:18:33] I can get into the technical details of it, but essentially the main message I want to communicate about that, if you've heard about that, is number one, we have always spent dollars that were intended for special education on special education, and the division has consistently year over year met its obligation to continue to spend at least as much and then more on special education as it has in years prior which is what maintenance of effort really is all about making sure that you are not under spending on special education and using this funds elsewhere or using federal dollars to supplant the localities need to continue to

[00:19:11] support students with special needs so so for awareness that the division has never been out compliance with the intent of maintenance of effort. I need to be clear about that. There seems to have been some confusion around that. So because of the technical change to the state's chart of accounts, however, we did return $28 million. What I want you to know, A, is that that was out of year-end funds and doesn't impact services. It won't impact your services to our kids. But also what I want you to know is that we have appealed that decision under our rights under federal law to do so. And so we're in the middle of an appeal on that decision because we do believe that that we are in the right and that those dollars should rightfully be returned to

[00:19:47] to serve our kids so be just just kind of an update for your awareness and then uh finally before we get into questions um the questions that you all submitted um just a quick update budget season is coming and um you know one of the key things that i look for from our advisory committees is is support and understanding on your desire around budget issues you guys have been great about that you have not been shy about sharing the things that you're looking for in terms of your your priorities but just be aware you know we are now in the beginnings of budget season the governor will uh we're in a quirky season in virginia you know we have one-term

[00:20:26] governors uh so the current governor youngkin will be submitting his budget in mid-december and then the general assembly and the new governor will take that up in january and uh and so we'll kind of see how things are playing out at the state and then our board will get its first look at an estimate of needs in early january what i can assure you at the outset is that your advocacy is already going to be seen in that budget there are a number of support positions and staffing positions that will be included to meet the needs of our students

[00:21:00] and our programs and so just to give you kind of the high level preview that special education will continue to be a focus as we move forward with the budget so with all of that i'm gonna And Tedra, am I asking you to tell me which questions or who's jumping in?

[00:21:17] Paige. Hi, Paige. All right. So I'll just start with the first question. How are we ensuring special education teachers are implementing appropriate reading and math interventions with fidelity at the building and administration levels? Yeah.

[00:21:34] So, and you all can, you know, this is going to be one of those nights where I'm going to look at my team a lot and go, if I say something wrong, just lean in. We do have what we call instructional match charts. And so these are specifically developed by the Office of Special Education.

[00:21:51] And the goal there is to say, if these are some of the needs that our students have, here are the appropriate interventions in reading and math that would be connected to those needs. And so really it's an effort, frankly, more so than I've seen in other places, to ensure that the appropriate interventions are connected to the identified needs.

[00:22:13] And so what happens then is the Office of Special Education works on those, and then we make sure that our teachers and our IEP teams have access to those so that there is a good conversation about what is the appropriate intervention that is in place.

[00:22:30] Exactly. Thank you. All right, and how are we ensuring consistency teacher-to-teacher and school-to-school? Yeah, I mean, so I think a recurring theme in this conversation with you all is going to be this.

[00:22:46] We have 5,000 teachers, we have 15,000 employees, and we strive for consistency, but obviously there's going to be times when that doesn't occur, right? And so I think the question is how do we approach it to ensure that we get as much consistency as we can, and then how do we deal with it when we don't see consistency?

[00:23:06] So I think the primary driver of consistency first is clarity of expectations. And that's why you have, for example, instructional match charts to say, here are the expectations. This is what should be happening. And then making sure that there's ongoing regular professional development for the folks who are responsible for making those decisions, whether or not those are the case managers, whether or not those are the classroom teachers, and whether or not those are the administrators and designees who are supporting the IEP teams as they're having those conversations.

[00:23:41] So really it's just a function of knowing what the expectations are and then continuing to train on those expectations. And then when we see, you know, it comes to our attention that there is inconsistency, we're seeing an issue that's either identified by our parents or identified by our educators, then that's an opportunity for the team to reconvene, for support to come in from our central staff, and to make sure that we're clarifying what those expectations look like.

[00:24:05] And the one thing I'd like to add is that we have specialized instructional facilitators that are trained very specifically in all of the interventions on the instructional match. And they're trained in such a way that they can support the professional development that our teachers have had.

[00:24:22] And I think the SIFS going out to all the schools is one of the best ways that we provide consistency. Okay, we're going to stay on the same topic. Considering all of the training needs for our staff, would it be possible to front-load training days to the summer so that it doesn't require coverage and additional prep once the school year is in progress and doesn't take away from quarter-end activities?

[00:24:52] Thinking this could be helpful both for teacher and TA trainings? Yes. Anything is possible. Anything is possible. We just have to consider what the constraints are, right?

[00:25:07] So if we, for example, lengthen, I mean, so you have to think about what you lose if you use the existing structure. So in the existing structure, you have a fairly limited amount of time, and our educators can tell you at the beginning of the year, before school starts, when our staff comes on to contract, and our educators in the room would tell you that if we took more of those days for professional development, then that would take away from their ability to prepare their classrooms and get ready to teach, right?

[00:25:38] So that's a constraint. We could add additional days to the beginning of the year. That would create, frankly, a budget constraint. And so we would need to consider within the budget whether or not we can buy additional days because if we're asking people to come in, we're going to want to pay them.

[00:25:57] And there's now an additional constraint that I just want to make sure we're all honest and open about, and that is that our teachers are now covered under a collective bargaining agreement and that in order for us to ask teachers to come in for additional professional development days, that would need to be something that would be negotiated with the union.

[00:26:14] And so, yes, all things are possible, and we would need to talk at some length about how to accomplish that. What we do have is an approved school board calendar that has professional development days built into the school year, and so at a minimum, we'll continue to use those built-in days for professional development.

[00:26:34] Thank you. The next question is given the high turnover rates among TAs and substitutes, and I would like to add teachers as well, will LCPS implement mandatory standardized special education training for all staff who work directly with students with disabilities? And they go on to list, this should include training and behavior supports, de-escalation, communication strategies, safety procedures? So the answer is yes. I mean, certainly for our teaching staff, I think there is already a significant amount of ongoing regular professional development. I do think where we fall

[00:27:14] short is with our substitute teachers in particular. I think we've gotten a lot better, frankly, in working with our TAs, but we still have work to do. But, you know, it's, again, sort of not an excuse, but an issue is with the substitute staff, there's a lot of turnover in that staff. And so So what we are doing is working with our human resources and talent development team so that in the onboarding process, rather than waiting for people to get into the classroom, but during the onboarding process, particularly for our substitutes and our TAs, that our OSE team will be part of the onboarding process and providing some of that mandatory training,

[00:27:53] at least at the kind of bare minimum, this is the expectation for what this has to look like in our classroom. So we definitely have a plan. I know Tedra has been working carefully with our human resources team to ensure that as we onboard, they are included in that process.

[00:28:10] And I don't know if you want to speak any bit to sort of the vision for what some of that training looks like, Tedra. Absolutely. Thank you. So we've been working with HRTD as well as the Department of School Leadership, really identifying the trends that we see across the data, elementary, middle, and high, to then make sure that we're fine-tuning the training that we deliver to our substitute pool.

[00:28:30] So we're also trying to target our site-based subs, as well as those substitutes that are just picking up like a day here or a day there, and then certainly our long-term subs. All right.

[00:28:47] So in that same vein, again, I think we're staying on the same topic a bit because this is really important to people. How is LCPS ensuring that every adult who currently supports a child with a disability is properly prepared and qualified?

[00:29:08] Yeah, I mean, I think it's the same conversation, right? It's the intentional approach to professional development and to required professional development. I think it was just, was it last summer where we had the first kind of countywide professional development?

[00:29:26] Two summers ago. Yeah, so two summers ago where the office organized the first countywide professional development in the summer for our staff. And so we're sort of organizing ourselves around the idea that training is not invitational, training must happen, and the expectation is that it occurs for all staff who do interact with our special needs students, and particularly thinking about the training and support that we have for our staff who are special educators. I would say we need to acknowledge our challenges, and one of the significant challenges is continuing to find

[00:30:03] qualified staff right so i think we all understand that although there's good news out there we are doing well in terms of fill rates with as many new positions as we have um as we have hired but even with fill rates i hear from you know some of you all as i'm out talking in schools and with folks you know i got this great teacher they're new they don't know much about special education even though they have a special education certification and i think that's real you know when i was brand new teacher i didn't know much about teaching either um you know this is not an

[00:30:38] easy profession and it takes years to get really good at it and so we have to acknowledge that and we have to take on the responsibility of ensuring we're doing everything we can so we're putting coaches into our classrooms we're putting our sifs into our schools to ensure that they're supporting our teachers our hr team has asked for mentoring positions for our new special education teachers to provide an additional layer of support so i mean we have to acknowledge and we are acknowledging that we've really got to do everything we can quite frankly we cannot rely on the teacher preparation programs to provide us with qualified staff who know what they're doing we're going to

[00:31:16] have to do it ourselves i don't know what you know about what's happening in teacher prep and maybe i've talked with you all a little bit about this before but i can tell you that i last summer i was at my, or last spring, I was in my daughter's graduation at James Madison, and who, by the way, she's now teaching for us, yay me, and having a great year. This is, by the way, the one who grew up in our special education program in Virginia Beach, so I'm very proud of her. Gosh, I just sidetracked myself. I've been talking too much about my kids tonight,

[00:31:52] my bad. Anyway, where was I? Thanks, teacher prep. I was at her graduation. I'm such a dad. Anyway, I was at her graduation and the school of education. First of all, the thing you need to know about the graduation that was alarming to me because I had two kids graduate from JMU the same time. So hers was the first day and his was the second day. He graduated from the school of business. He graduated from the accounting program. So the school of business graduation was front to

[00:32:27] back of the basketball arena, students sitting on the floor. The school of education was the first third of the basketball arena students sitting on the floor and they separate out the programs as they're calling students across right so you have like the early childhood education and you have the elementary education secondary you also have the special education you know how many special education students walked across the stage at jmu when i was at that graduation three three at one of the one of the state's largest education programs so i i mentioned that to say we are going to have

[00:33:03] to accept the responsibility for making sure we are growing our own and preparing our own and really developing robust professional development and we're not ignoring that. We really are working on robust professional development. I mentioned what had started here a couple years ago and we are continuing to do that and growing our coaching and support positions so that our teachers have folks they can work with, folks they can talk to when they're continuing to develop their skills and and obviously we want to continue to do the same thing with our principals to make sure that they have this knowledge and skill set that they need in order to provide both leadership and

[00:33:40] coaching and also evaluation for those for those positions. Thank you that is one of our greatest challenges. You spoke about it well. Three graduating from JMU scares me but here's the next question. What training do principals, assistant principals, and deans receive on IDEA Section 504, and LCPS policies like 7560, which is professional conduct, and 7014, which are environments free from harassment, discrimination, and abuse. How does LCPS ensure administrators

[00:34:17] apply these policies consistently when working with students with disabilities and their families? So the training is ongoing and annual. Our administrators receive annual training both all of our policies, right? And then certainly around special education, I think you all offer a regulations academy for our administrators to go through the special education regulations to make sure that they're very familiar with what's required of us, to make sure they understand the legality, issues associated with compliance, and just to generally make sure they understand how

[00:34:54] to approach supporting our families and our students with special needs through these processes that we're talking about I would say it would be fair to say Tedra and Paige I think we spend a great deal of our time particularly with the special education designees in our building so in general like these are our assistant principals who really on a day-to-day basis other ones who are supporting the IEP teams and and need to have a great deal of content expertise in this area so I know we spend a lot of time with them.

[00:35:27] And I think the question around how do we consistently ensure that we're applying these policies, right? And, you know, again, common theme, consistency comes from clarity of expectations, and consistency comes from when things are brought to our attention that, you know, we do our due diligence to correct issues that have arisen to make sure that we are coaching, intervening and, where appropriate, taking additional action as necessary.

[00:35:58] Okay, next question. And this is again related to policy 7560. Policy 7560 outlines clear expectations for staff, professionalism, civility, and equitable treatment. What specific systems or accountability measures does LCPS currently use to monitor building level adherence to this policy, and how does the district intervene when multiple families or staff raise concerns about

[00:36:32] unprofessional or discriminatory conduct? Yeah, so, I mean, it's such an interesting word, interestingly worded question, right? Like, how do you ensure that people are civil and professional? I mean, the expectation is that people are civil and professional in our work.

[00:36:54] educators understand that we model that we talk about that we address concerns when we think they have arisen and then I think that was kind of the question like when families tell you that they don't feel that that's happening and there are concerns it's a there's not a standardized response there's a case-by-case response because it really depends on what's happening and so what we try to do is understand what's happening and sometimes there are relational issues that we need to correct, right? It's just a function of can we sit down and can we have kind of restorative conversations with the administration and the teacher and the parent? Or if it's with

[00:37:33] the administrator, can we do that with the support staff from OSE and the parent and the administrator? If the conduct is a violation, a clear violation of policy, then we're going to intervene. We're going to investigate that conduct. We're going to, you know, and again, that's going to be case by case is that is that coachable conduct where we can coach and say this isn't how we do things we're expecting these corrections does it rise to the level of an intervention from our human resources and talent development team you know we have a whole labor relations team that's their job to investigate and understand what's happening in the schools

[00:38:10] when there are concerns about our employees if it rises to the level where they've determined they need to be involved in intervene then they will and there's any number of steps that can be taken there, just like in any organization. All of you who work in organizations presumably have an HR team that ensures compliance with its policies and have steps and measures that they'll take if they feel that there are violations of those policies that are happening. And of course, you know, all of that recognizing that our employees have due process rights. Our employees have the opportunity to have a fair investigation. Our employees have the opportunity to learn and grow through a

[00:38:47] progressive uh policy of intervention and so that's what we do all right thank you the next question is similar to one we had before um but what steps is lcps taking to address the shortage of teaching assistants and substitute teachers in special education and how is the district ensuring um that folks are adequately trained and i think um the difference in this question maybe you could talk about a little bit is the different ways we are growing our own and really trying to utilize, what I hear from principals is that there isn't really as much of

[00:39:26] a shortage of TAs and BAs. It is easier to find those folks, and they tend to come and stay. It is teachers where we have more trouble finding qualified candidates. So, but I just wanted to add that commentary. Sorry. Right. I think that's right. I know there's been some concern expressed to me, and maybe this is where this is coming from, about, you know, when we have our TAs, sometimes they get into the special education setting and it's like too hard for them. And so they just want to go be a TA in a non-special education instructional setting. So one of the

[00:40:03] things that I think about is how do we better prepare and incentivize our TAs to stay in the special education settings. And so, you know, we do have our behavioral assistants who we do incentivize they are paid more to stay in those program settings for example um and and i think we can and should have some conversation in the budget about how we might incentivize our tas to also stay in the special education setting but to the to the point that that is not as big an issue as our educators right we know that we know that we really need to be thinking about how to keep it and we are incentivizing our educators to stay in education in special education i mean there are

[00:40:42] incentives for our special education teachers that are stackable against other incentives that we have for our teachers here in lcps but going back to what i just said about i mean i can only steal so many special educators from other districts right like at some point they just aren't there and i can incentivize a way to get people there but if they're not coming into the programs and they're not available from other districts then we've got to grow our own there's no way around that. And so we are working. We have a number of cohorts with JMU, for example,

[00:41:16] with George Mason, for example, where we are supporting the TAs that we're identifying as really exceptional classroom educators and asking them to pursue the certification path to get certified as a classroom teacher. So we are supporting that through HR. And, you know, we'll continue to do that. And I think, you know, we have that responsibility to tap some of those really dynamic people on the shoulder and ask them to join us in that in that field the other flip side of that is this we have the responsibility together to figure out how to keep our special

[00:41:50] educators in the classroom um and i think that that is a multi-faceted challenge um so since we're all speaking candidly in the room um you know we we ask a lot of our special educators and um what we have to think about we me my team how do we give them the space they need to do the job and stay in it in a way that they love. I mean, teaching is hard. The teachers in the room know this. Teaching is not easy. And when you compound that with caseload management, when you

[00:42:25] compound that with having to design specialized instruction for all of the students that you're working with and what that takes to accomplish that, I mean, that's hard work. That's not easy work. And it's mentally exhausting work and physically exhausting work. You have to really, really love what you're doing to carry on in that environment, and thankfully, I mean, thankfully, truly, like knock on wood, we are blessed with incredible special educators who really love what they're doing, and many of you get to interact with them on a day-to-day basis, but we need to value that, and we need to protect that, and, you know, it certainly, you know, doesn't mean that we

[00:43:04] don't need to hold people accountable and make sure that they're the best that they can be, but we also need to honor the work that they are doing. And I just think, quite frankly, across the country right now and in a lot of conversations about teachers and public education, we're not doing that. We're not honoring our teachers. We're not respecting them. We're sending them messages that they're not valued. And unfortunately, a lot of them are choosing to leave their profession as a result. So I think that we can do our part. And I think as a community and as a nation, I think we need to do our part as well. I think we need to lift our people up and honor them and help them remember that they are loved and valued as people who get up every day to make a difference in the

[00:43:41] lives of our children. So I think that you've hit on quite a bit of some of the additional questions in this area, but one thing I think would be important for us to share is while a lot of the facts that we've shared today on the shortage in programming at the university level and the turnover rates and some of the things that we are doing to stabilize our staffing. I think it is important to talk about some of the glows, right, that we are having right now in staffing. So could

[00:44:18] you talk a little bit about, you know, where we are with stabilizing our special education staff and then, you know, with the staff that we have, what are we doing to ensure that all student service minutes are being met? Yeah, I mean, I think, so out of the gates, just for awareness sake, like we have about a 98% fill rate in our special education vacancies. That's great. I can tell you that we are well ahead of our peers with regards to our fill rate. Now, acknowledging many

[00:44:53] of those are long-term subs. So when I say many, if we account for the long-term subs, which are about 90 of those positions, that number comes down to about 92% fill rate with non-substitute special educators, which is still pretty good given the circumstances that we've been talking about. I mean, I think our HR team, our special ed team are doing a great job to go out and find great educators for our classrooms. So I think that's a positive, but, you know, again, to the question, like, what are we doing to make sure that they have the support that they need and that they're able to manage the caseloads that they have and that they're wanting to stay in the

[00:45:31] classroom is kind of all the things that that I've already been talking about making sure that the professional development is good making sure that the support systems are in place making sure that the coaching is good making sure that it's the culture is good you know all of us who work in organizations understand like one of the number one reasons you leave an organization is because you don't like the culture you know it doesn't feel good to work there you don't feel like you're valued. You don't feel like your voice is heard. And so we're working hard to develop and build the working conditions across our division where all of our teachers can feel that way. And that

[00:46:07] includes our special educators. But again, I feel like we're doing pretty good just from a pure numbers perspective. But I want to acknowledge when I say that, because I can kind of almost like see it in your heads. Like, okay, but if my child's with a substitute, you're not doing very well. I understand that. And know that we're not sitting back and accepting that as our future reality, that we're really thinking about how can we continue to grow folks into those positions, how can we continue to identify partner organizations that we can work with to bring

[00:46:42] qualified educators into LCPS, and then how can we make sure that the folks that we have stay. I want to add one thing that adds a positive spin to our culture is our staffing standard in Loudoun.

[00:47:01] It is robust, especially for our CrossCat teachers. It is well below, and I know you guys have heard me say this before, but well below the state limits. It's less than half the state limit for how many students a case manager can carry.

[00:47:20] And I think that goes a long way to not only as a recruiting strategy, but as a retention strategy for our special educators. And that is one thing that is really important that when I'm speaking with my friends in budget and finance or submitting my desires for the following year is that we maintain that staffing standard to ensure that we are doing everything we can to keep those caseloads manageable.

[00:47:47] And I think that's one of the things that makes our fill rate so remarkable is because there are neighboring school divisions who use the state limits as their staffing standard and their fill rate is lower than ours, probably because they come to Loudoun for our staffing standard.

[00:48:03] So I think that's just something that I wanted to note for our culture. It goes a long way for our special educators and we need to maintain that. And I will say that a lot of that is because of the community in which we live. It's because of you all and your advocacy, because we are in the midst of, and you'll hear this, this is going to happen during the budget season, you're going to read it in the headlines, declining enrollment, we are declining in enrollment, and in the midst of that declining enrollment, we continue to see growth in our identified students with special needs, and therefore we are going to continue to ask for additional resources for those students.

[00:48:38] And so people are going to say, why are you growing your budget when you have declining enrollment? And the answer will be, we've got to take care of our people, and we've got to maintain these staffing standards that make it easier for our teachers to do their jobs. All right, the next question speaks to modified assignments and a central repository for teacher-created materials.

[00:49:02] So why is there no central repository for the teachers to have stored information and assignments that they can share with each other to help a child who is in general education class but needs a modified assignment? If there was a central repository, a teacher could go to it and pull out material relevant to what they are teaching and not have to create modified assignments every single year.

[00:49:24] Why is there no central repository for these special education teachers? Um, I love a central repository of, of curriculum resources. I think, um, that's a positive thing. Um, so long, and, and this, by the way, would not just be a special education conversation, but this would be a, every classroom conversation. A central repository of resources is great so long as it's not something you go to print and hand out to your kids and say, go. Um, you have to understand who your students are. You have to understand what their needs are, what their

[00:49:59] strengths are, and you have to adapt those resources to meet the needs of the students that you're teaching, right? And that certainly is the case for our students with special needs, but beyond that, it's the expectation, right? I mean, we talk about individualized instruction, so if you have a centralized repository of modified assignments, it is still going to be incumbent upon the caseload managers to ensure they're working with the classroom teachers to make sure that those are appropriately modified to meet the specific needs of the student based on their IEP nobody in this room would want us to go and just take a worksheet and go well this is for a student with dyslexia for this unit

[00:50:39] here you'd want them to look at it and make sure it's specifically going to meet the needs of that child and to make sure that any additional modifications that were needed were in fact undertaken and and so I would say it's probably a balance I think we can do a better job I think probably as we're continuing to go through our special education assessment, we can work with our teaching and learning team and take a look at that as part of it. And particularly, you know, like the example I just used, right, with dyslexia. But I also think we have to be careful not to

[00:51:13] allow that to be the reason we stop individualizing the instruction for kids. Does that make sense? I keep looking at Paige and Tedra like, am I making sense? Is this, am I? Okay. It's making perfect sense. Okay, so staying in the area of specialized instruction, how is LCPS compensating for those schools who haven't aligned to the new reading and math interventions and are still educating students on outdated interventions?

[00:51:49] What accountability is there if teams are not aligned to the VLA? How does this get made up to the student who is already grade levels below? Yeah. Well, okay, let's go back to the theme. Consistency matters.

[00:52:07] There are clear expectations for how our teachers are understanding and implementing our curriculum. There is a clear expectation, and there has been significant training around the Virginia Literacy Act. There has been significant training, particularly this year as we've moved into our new math curriculum, for our teachers with the expectation, the clear expectation, there has been no lack of clarity here that this is the way we're going to approach literacy and numeracy in LCPS and these are the content materials that will be used. So if that's the case I think the the answer to the specific

[00:52:41] question Ikea that you asked would be if you are aware of instances where we have teachers who are just recalcitrant and like no I'm not going to do that we have we first of all we should be uncovering that anyway because our coaches and our administrators are also trained in these curriculum and in the pedagogy associated with these curriculum and should be seeing that when they're observing in classrooms and it should rise up in those observations that hey this is not what we have expected and then that should be corrected through coaching through professional development

[00:53:15] for that teacher if that's not happening if you as a parent have noticed that then you have to do what we have always asked you to do, which is surface that with us. Certainly SEAC is a place you can have that conversation, but the other place you can have that conversation is with the teacher, with the principal, and if you're not getting the results or the answers that you're looking for there, then to work with the Office of Special Education who can come in and provide appropriate intervention for the teachers where that's an issue. And I think the latter part of that question was, then what do you do to compensate? I think we all understand the regulatory process.

[00:53:49] If we feel like we're not getting the instruction that we have needed, if we feel like it is not supportive and responsive to what's in the IEP, then the IEP team needs to meet and needs to talk about that and needs to make a determination about what additional supports may be needed, including compensatory services.

[00:54:06] I mean, that's how it works. All right. The next question is timely because next week is Inclusive Schools Week. Sorry. I was doing a time check. I know you also have a business meeting. You have to do something. Thank you.

[00:54:22] All right. um it says i understand 2526 is the year of inclusion i would like to understand how lcps is envisioning inclusivity for special education students um well i mean we could i could talk about the technical plan we have an inclusion plan don't we tedra that we submitted to the state i don't really want to talk about the technical plan you can read that we can get that to you if you're interested i think more broadly uh you know how we envision inclusion is that our students

[00:55:00] all of our students but since the question is specific to our special education students have the opportunity to be engaged with and involved in the activities and the electives and the classrooms that are most appropriate for them as often as possible in with their general education peers, involved in school, the culture of the school, the interaction with their peers in the school, not just in class, but in all of the other things that are part of a school life.

[00:55:31] I was in the school this morning, had the opportunity to visit a unified theater classroom. Do anybody have a child in a unified? It's amazing. It's just incredible, right? To see our young people together just kind of coming to life around something that they're passionate about and you know this this past week at Broad Run High School we had a really incredible like unified athletics event that was taking place I think we have another one coming up at Woodgrove that I'll be at this week and so I think the division has a vision for how can we

[00:56:08] make sure that our kids have every opportunity to feel a part of the school so if you're asking me like what the vision is. It's more of that. It's as much of that as we can possibly make happen. And it's also, you guys probably heard me say this before, it's like grab the bright spots where that's happening best and transfer those understandings and those activities and those opportunities to other buildings to make sure that we're doing it everywhere, right? It should

[00:56:43] not fall on the school that you're in to have a buddy program or unified athletics or mentoring or opportunities for your child to be in art and music together with their peers like that just shouldn't be based on luck of location we we have to make sure that so you're asking again about vision am i saying that we're there no but the vision is that it shouldn't matter where you live your child should have that opportunity no matter where they go to school and and that is our vision

[00:57:19] and that's something that i believe we are striving towards and that we are in many cases doing exceptionally well and in other cases need to continue to grow thank you and i will say that opportunities for united and unified are definitely growing across the division principals are interested they have no idea how to get it started and so they're asking us every day how do I get that here? How do I do that? And I will just say again, never an excuse, but

[00:57:54] making master schedule changes in the middle of a year, especially at the secondary level, is sometimes a little difficult to do. So we are really making plans with schools who don't have as many offerings right now so that they can start next school year on the right foot. We're also working next to our peers and other departments to ensure that equity in things like PE, art, music, those specials, so that all students, even our most vulnerable populations, are being included.

[00:58:26] So that work is happening, and we have stakeholder groups that include principals, so that the principals who are doing a wonderful job can share with their peers on how did they get there, Because everyone started from somewhere. So unfortunately, Dr. Spence, we are at a point where we are out of time.

[00:58:46] I do want to say that the remaining questions that we have, we will continue to answer them. And we will take that opportunity either at the next SEAC meeting where DSS leadership can continue to answer these questions. And there is a QR code that you all can use to add additional questions.

[00:59:04] And we can continue this Q&A session next month. unless there were any questions, Shanaz, from the floor or that people had in the audience. Because if you are here tonight, we want to be sure that we've given you the ability should maybe you have a quick question that we can answer in the last few minutes.

[00:59:24] Does anyone have any questions? Well, I just want to reiterate my thanks for the opportunity to be with you.

[00:59:40] I'm going to continue to repeat. I know we're not perfect. We work really hard at being great and exceptional, and we're going to continue to do that with a mindset of continuous improvement and know that our work, even if we're not right all the time, comes from a deep place of love for the children that we serve.

[01:00:02] And we appreciate you in this partnership because I know that your advocacy also comes from a deep place of love for the kids that we're serving. So thank you. We appreciate you. Thank you so much, Dr. Spence.

[01:00:19] And we did get through quite a bit of those questions, And I really wanted to thank everybody who submitted questions as well because they were very thoughtful, very meaningful, and I do appreciate Dr. Spence taking that time to answer them.

[01:00:35] If you have additional questions, you can use this QR code to scan it and submit your questions. And now we will have Ms. Nakia Purnell doing our connecting activity, connection activity.

[01:00:53] All right. So I wanted to introduce Christina Schmidt.

[01:01:10] Christina Schmidt is our teacher, our special education teacher at the Adult Detention Center. And she is also a dean of our non-traditional programs. So I brought her up here because there's a lot of important work going on at the jail.

[01:01:28] We are really, really, really improving in our services that we provide for our adult students who have found themselves incarcerated. And I could go on and on and on telling you about all the great things she's doing. But the last SEAC meeting, we shared this flyer, the art exhibition, that is happening tomorrow night.

[01:01:50] So I know you're staying late tonight, but if you can miss your bedtime one more night, we hope that you'll be able to join us for another night. I have asked Christina to just share a little bit about the exhibit, especially for those of you who are not going to be able to make it.

[01:02:06] But the reason we are starting with this is because in the spirit of continuing with our division priority of belonging, I think that this art exhibit is another example that shows how we ensure that our community is inclusive and that our students feel like they belong.

[01:02:24] And this quote, I've linked the article, I want to warn you now, if you don't have access to the Loudon Times Mirror, it's going to try to get you to sign up for an account. I'll try to figure out how to get the article some other way. if you're really interested in reading it. But the quote here on the screen is from the article and directly from Christina that says, we are giving these learners hope through art.

[01:02:48] When people collaborate, beautiful things can happen. And this is a prime example of that. Art creates expression and becomes a voice, and the power of that is incredible. So I will let her tell you a little bit about the art exhibit for tomorrow, and then we're going to jump into a really, really exciting activity Thank you. So tomorrow night, the theme is the power of purpose, place, and human connection.

[01:03:14] Our stories matter. And it came from high school students that are special education students needing to have that high school credit bearing, fine art credit, and you cannot classify them together. And I was going to be like, choir for one, that's going to be a long, long instructional period of time and so it became this love and passion for them to be able to have a start out with a crayon or paint chips from Home Depot and stuff like that and it also has allowed them to then find their voice through art because they also have to write their descriptions and it's

[01:03:52] really developed their English skills as well and so while they can't be present tomorrow night I have made it so it's interactive so that if let's say an art piece of a fish speaks to you because you're an angler and that's one of your leisure hobbies you will have the opportunity to write back to the artist and then be able to engage and give them feedback about how it spoke to them also you're going to be able to vote best in show best color composition most powerful art story and so this also builds that confidence and self-esteem that hey they have that sense of

[01:04:27] belonging and as we work on their resumes through their English again that's one of those accolades that they may never have had and so again it's about finding purpose. Okay so the title of our activity today is belonging through art. So what we're going to do at your tables you have little cards and I'd like for you to be very thoughtful about this either using yourself or your child

[01:04:59] and you're going to choose a symbol that represents belonging to you so I asked Christina in preparation for this because remember we're instructors at heart so I'm going to share first Christina what is a symbol that represents belonging to you so I picked a hand okay so why did you choose the hand so I think sometimes in large communities sometimes you need somebody to

[01:05:34] kind of walk a road and help you navigate things and sometimes you might need to know where your resources are and how to connect with others and sometimes having that hand to guide you creates belonging. Okay and so what does your symbol reveal about what students and families might need in order to feel a greater sense of belonging in LCPS? That when we work together and come hand in hand then basically again there can be beautiful outcomes all right so we just modeled the activity for you I'm going to give you time at your tables there are markers there

[01:06:13] if there are colors that you need please share with other tables around you I think we tried to put markers in central locations but there weren't very many people here when we were handing them out and so I'm glad that the audience has increased quite a bit so we may either need to move ourselves around or just share markers with one another, but we're going to take about five minutes and just assemble, not like a whole collage of pictures, right? One symbol, yes, not a mosaic.

[01:06:47] I mean, I would love to keep your mosaic, but I really want just one simple symbol, and we will ask for volunteers to share out, so be ready to either volunteer or to possibly get called on.

[01:07:01] to share.

[01:08:45] I purposely try to bring color into the world. That's why with their school work, I do as color as well. I did a whole graduate school prior to being in color, and how you remember better as a student with a disability with color. Wow. But that's why. Yeah, because it's always-- It's nice because I remember Bible brushes because of the way I-- Oh, you colored with your Bible brushes?

[01:09:03] And I'm like, it's pink. It's in the New Testament. And that's how I like. Oh, my God. I should-- yeah, I need to start coloring. Coloring. I've read-- my whole life is colored. I life coach, and I color-- I teach all my-- I have college clients where it's all Definitely. All right, let me go walk through it and see.

[01:09:17] Good to see you. It was good to see you. Thank you for...

[01:11:18] It's fifth to five.

[01:13:13] How much more time do you need to finish? Zero. About two more minutes, and then we're going to regroup.

[01:13:28] I can. Or not.

[01:14:27] It's not going. Okay, let's think about who would like to volunteer.

[01:14:49] Oh, we've got to volunteer. Somebody, oh, Kim's coming on this side of the room with the mic. So the questions we want you to answer if you volunteer is what symbol did you choose?

[01:15:07] Why? And what does your symbol reveal about what students and families might need in order to feel a greater sense of belonging in LCPS? Okay, so the symbol I choose is river.

[01:15:24] The river is ever-changing, never the same, always flowing. We are not stuck. Every day is an opportunity to get better. And here as LCPS, with our educator or students, if we adopt that growth mindset, just like the river, always changing, staying, forgiving, and curious, we will be better.

[01:15:55] I love it. Thank you. anybody else want to share okay well we've got Aaron and then Liz oh the mic here Kim's coming she's right behind you so my back to people so I drew the circle and I actually went personal with this one to represent my son um there's a joke in our family that anybody you've ever seen

[01:16:29] meet the parents the circle of trust that is my son and for him to feel a sense of belonging in school. He's in high school now. The circle represents his ability to trust not only his peers but also to trust his teachers and when he feels that sense of trust it establishes a sense of belonging within him but the reverse is true for him as well. If the circle gets broken then you see withdrawal, you see isolation, you see shut down. So for him and a lot of his peers a circle really does create that sense of belonging for him.

[01:17:09] I love that. Thank you. Liz? All right. I'm going to show it really quickly, but I'm a horrible drawer, but it's some music notes. And the reason that I did that is because my daughter loves to sing and has found such a sense of belonging by being in her little elementary school chorus.

[01:17:37] And not only is she up there with her peers the whole time singing her little heart out very loudly, but like she's had such an opportunity to shine, which I feel like is such a huge part of belonging for our students to find that place where they can shine, where they get that positive affirmation.

[01:18:00] And, you know, I love that for her that she has so many people then coming up to her and telling her what a great job she did as a parent. I have so many other parents coming up to me and commenting on it, which, you know, I think for some of us, we don't always get that for our kiddos, you know.

[01:18:17] And so just feeling that has been such a wonderful, warm feeling of belonging. And I look forward to those chorus concerts, like, with all my heart. I understand. I will share, and I was sharing with the table in the back, that, you know, I know a lot of people struggle with this. I struggled with it, right? And I said, you know, this is how I came to my answer. I thought about, think about a time where you struggled with something or where you felt like you didn't belong, right? If you start there,

[01:18:56] if you're really thinking about it, think about that right now, especially if you don't have something on your card. And so then think about what would you have needed to change that for yourself so I did that I took some time to reflect because Christina came up with her answer really quickly and I was like show off but seriously and so I chose a mouth not because I love to talk however the mouth represents advocacy I feel like underrepresented populations require advocacy

[01:19:35] right and that is people who are not afraid to say the hard things people that who are not afraid to speak up and I believe that in all the times that I was able to reflect on when I was trying to get to my symbol what did I wish I had that I didn't have and that was an advocate a voice someone to speak up for me when I didn't speak up for myself and I'll be honest weren't a lot of times when I didn't speak up for myself but in some of the harder times where I felt like I couldn't I needed

[01:20:08] someone who could. And so what does this mean for the students in LCPS is more advocates for our students with disabilities. When we sit at tables, when we're at schools and we walk by classrooms or we see things happening, be a disruptor, be an advocate. Okay, I know I said I was working on minding my business. That's my goal. But I didn't say all of y'all had to work on minding y'all's business, right? So I'm working on that. But when you see something that isn't right, you disrupt, you advocate, you say something. So we need more people saying something when they see something,

[01:20:48] right? That's in one of our trainings, maybe not one on special education, but it is see something, say something, right? So let's just expand that over into special education. And so when you see something that's not going right advocate say something and so that is why I chose this picture we have time for maybe one more share if someone wants to be brave go ahead we need a mic Kim is right there and we will collect these so please leave them on the table supervisors who are at the tables please grab them if you are at a table that doesn't have a supervisor I'll come grab it

[01:21:23] hi my name is Udia I'm not a great speaker this is that is okay good to meet you I it's not a symbol, but I draw a caterpillar. Okay. And this is a mirror that where it can look it as like a butterfly. So our kids might look like a caterpillar right now. We just need to let them become butterfly. They just need time. And support. And support. Yeah. Thank you. The right environment. All right. I thank you guys so much. I know this was hard. This was like a

[01:22:03] looking deep inside, which is why I gave you the option to do it from your children's perspective. sometimes it's a little easier to see their struggles than to cope with your own and I understand that so I'm happy whichever you did but I just really want to say thank you for engaging in this and just remembering that even if you can't attend the exhibit tomorrow that the message again that we are sending is that our stories our symbols our experiences our expressions they all matter, even our students who found themselves in a really tough situation. And just like the

[01:22:38] artists that you'll see tomorrow felt, you know, that fostering belonging through art might not be a traditional way, but we have found that the things that connect us the most in this world are things like art and music. Those are the things that don't have any, you know, boundaries.

[01:22:59] Everyone can come together under that umbrella to find some common ground. And that is truly where we find belonging. So I appreciate you guys for engaging in this activity. You will see all of your pictures again, should you want to leave them. Do not try to take them from me.

[01:23:15] I'm coming around to pick them up right now. Okay? All right. No, they don't have to identify themselves. It's a very personal activity. I'm just shaming her dog. No shaming. That is the opposite of belonging.

[01:23:31] I know. Okay. All right, everybody. We're going to take a five-minute break, and then we'll begin the business portion of our meeting. Please use the QR code to scan in.

[01:30:06] Okay. We're going to go ahead and get started. We do have some policies to review this evening, so I do want to get through as quickly as possible. Okay, and here's our agenda for this evening.

[01:30:45] Okay, SEAC is mandated by the state of Virginia and the primary role includes advising the school division on the needs of students with disabilities, helping set priorities and strategies, and submitting recommendations to the school board.

[01:31:02] It also assists in explaining special education plans to the community, reviews policy and procedures before they go to the board, and participates in reviewing the division's annual special education plan. And I'm going to introduce our officers.

[01:31:20] My name is Shanaz Khan. I'm the SEAC Chair. And to my left, we have Catherine Moran, who is the Vice Chair of Planning, Tom Ketchum, our Vice Chair of Membership. To my right, we have Aaron Rizalpo, Vice Chair of Communications, and Liz Crotty, our past Chair.

[01:31:39] And we do have Katie Rosenbrook on my left side over here as our Secretary. We have our Director of Special Education, Dr. Paige Carter, and our School Board Liaison, Carrie LaBelle, and Melinda Mansfield is our backup.

[01:31:58] So we're going to begin by admitting our virtual attendees. Do I have a motion? And we can take attendance first. Carrie Adams, Elizabeth Crotty.

[01:32:15] Here. Jen DiDonato, Marsha Kelly, Tom Ketchum, President, Shanaz Khan, Rosina Kattak, Laura

[01:32:31] Colossi, Mary McLintock, Alicia McFadden, Craig Metz, Stephen Meyer, Katharine Moran, Kelly Ralston, Erin Roselpo, Catherine Rosenbook, Carly Sabatino, Carla Sola, Sharon Trompf, Melissa Waugh, Sakina Zarbuch.

[01:33:12] Wonderful. Can I get a motion to admit our virtual attendees? I'll second. I'm so sorry, but I know I sent the minutes around noon today.

[01:33:31] Did everybody get a chance to kind of look at it, review it? Were there any changes or everything would look good? If there were no changes, we'll go ahead and submit those. Do we have public comment?

[01:33:49] Anyone grab the sheet? Nope. Okay. We don't have any public comment today, so we'll go ahead and move on to Leanne Kidwell from Family Resource Services.

[01:34:05] Good evening, everyone.

[01:34:22] It is December, so a quiet month for us. We only have one workshop, but it's going to be really, really good for those kiddos that are in ECSE that are going to be moving to kindergarten with all the scary things are, and we want to allay your fears.

[01:34:40] That kindergarten is fantastic. So if you have an ECSE kiddo that's moving to kindergarten next Thursday night here in the boardroom, you will learn everything you need to know about kindergarten. And that is it for workshops for this month.

[01:34:57] And if you need to contact me, this is my information. Thank you. Have a great winter break. When the bus stops coming is the first Saturday. So when the bus stops coming is our post-secondary huge event.

[01:35:16] We do presentations from the Department of Aging and Rehab Services, the Community Services Board, the transition team. We'll do presentations first. We have a student panel, which is always fantastic. and then we have a vendor fair that will be even expanded we're opening up 104 and even using some of those rooms uh this year just met with the transition team today and we're really excited and the when the bus stops coming is going to be february 7th which is the first saturday the other

[01:35:50] one that you will hear next month um our january workshop is the thursday after we get back from winter break and that's a middle school connection moving from elementary school to middle school and that's going to be virtual but you'll hear about that next month actually they will not because our next meeting is january 14th so i'm glad you mentioned it um for those of you if you haven't attended when the bus stops coming and um you know that's one of the uh one of the ones i attended

[01:36:25] even when my child was in kindergarten i will tell you it's it's a it's so phenomenal i really would advise anyone even if your child is in kindergarten elementary school middle school to please attend and you will have so much information coming at you that you will have to attend again and again and that's how I mean many years of going there and actually learning to prepare for post-secondary education so yeah if you can put that on your calendar I think that

[01:36:58] would be great. And now we will have, who's coming up next? Is it Dr. Carter? Okay, Ms. Richardson. I never know my side, sorry. Good evening. It's great to see you all this evening. I hope everybody had a great fall break and a wonderful Thanksgiving. We have some happenings across the DSS. I know that a few months ago I gave the presentation on what the VDOE was proposing with regards to cut

[01:37:37] scores they have now paused okay so they have paused so cut scores remain the same for this current school year 2025-26 they are continuing ongoing sort of conversations and planning about the cut scores but as dr spence mentioned we are going to have a change in leadership at at the state level so we're going to keep a quick eye a close eye on any changes that come out once that new leadership is in place and certainly we will make sure that SEAC remains updated.

[01:38:12] As Dr. Spence mentioned, we have now approved and ratified the collective bargaining agreement that takes effect July 1st. It covers all of our teaching staff and classified staff and it focuses on compensation and benefits. So more to come. We do have quite a bit of professional learning ahead of us as administrators on how to implement this agreement. So we will keep you posted.

[01:38:42] And we onboarded just this morning. I had the opportunity to meet with Carrie and our three new board members. We were able to give them about a three-hour overview of the Department of Academics. So that's our Rossi team, our research and school improvement team, teaching and learning and the department of student services that's a lot that's a lot of ground to cover in three hours but we did and they were wonderful they are excited they have great ideas and we did invite them to try to build in some time to stop by for a SEAC meeting that's all I

[01:39:20] have for you across the department of student services we remain busy we're excited we have lots of celebrations and stuff coming up in the next couple of weeks and I would not be telling you the truth if I wasn't clear on saying we're looking forward to a nice winter break.

[01:39:37] And now I'll hand it over to Dr. Carter. Good evening everybody. I know it's been an eventful evening. A little bit different format. A lot of the same information I always share with you guys. That 98% fill rate, I wanted to share a little bit more about that. But first of all, 10,517 students today that we're serving with disabilities across the division.

[01:40:07] Our current vacancies are 19 special education teacher openings, 6 behavior assistants, and 23 teacher assistants vacant and posted across the division. I know there were interviews taking place today for three of those teacher positions, so I'm hoping that those will be filled quickly.

[01:40:28] And I wanted to give a shout out to Lucy Cora Nazario, who is now Dr. Lucy Cora Nazario. She's successfully defended. She is a supervisor, a beloved supervisor on our team who supports the Dominion Cluster.

[01:40:46] And I just wanted to give a shout out to her and share that news with all of you. And next week is Inclusive Schools Week. It is a nationally acknowledged week where we celebrate our inclusive practices. I know Dr. Spence did a great job of highlighting a lot of the things that we do here in Loudoun.

[01:41:07] And indeed, we do do an inclusion plan. The state has requested that we update our inclusion plan. And so that is something we're going to be doing. And I think since the last time we've done it, we have added several United Sound and other different formal collaborative efforts between our general education students and our special education students and how naturally those cooperative sort of activities happen.

[01:41:38] But I think something to be celebrated here in Loudoun is just how naturally integrated a lot of our students are into the general education curriculum and the classroom and just an everyday part of what happens across our schools.

[01:41:57] We have a very high rate of inclusion here in Loudoun, and it is something that we're very proud of, but it is something that we have to move constantly to improve. In Nakia's activity tonight, I drew a vine because a vine is strong and it is relentless if you've ever dealt with one that you're growing anywhere in your garden.

[01:42:22] But it also wraps around things and it also represents growth. And I think inclusion is a really great place where those qualities and priorities show for our students with disabilities here in Loudoun.

[01:42:39] it is an is absolute priority for us i wanted to give you a quick update on our external audit that was requested when dr spence came on board it is a two-year process we are in phase one year one and phase one we're expecting to get a report out from what they have found so far on january 31st of next year that is we're going to get information about what they found in the initial review of IEPs. Our LCPS document review, which included internal documents, policies, OSE documents,

[01:43:16] documents across DSS were contributed to the document review that they did. And they've also now completed school visits at 16 of the 18 sites that they were going to and had specific criteria.

[01:43:34] One thing about this company, the American Institutes for Research, is that their research practices are top-notch, and they are very serious about their consistency. Another thing that they have done is interviewed several different folks across the Office of Special Education and DSS in order to gain more information about the document review that they did and about the practices and how our folks, I know Tedra was one of the folks that spent a lot of time with the interviewees, and I think she had a good time being

[01:44:09] all the transparent about all the things we know, which we think is really important. This audit, of all the audits, I feel like in my time here in Loudoun, I have spent the most time with audits of anything else. I am the audit director, I think, but this audit, I think, will be the most meaningful one because it talks about services to our kids very specifically and how we are interacting with those who serve them and how we are supporting. It will look at our staffing standard. It will look at our budget. It will look at how we spend our money. It's very comprehensive.

[01:44:43] This is just phase one of year one. There'll be two phases in both years. The next phase will begin in the spring and they will bring together focus groups of teachers, TAs, BAs, administrators, parents. It will be quite extensive as well. And so that will be the second thing they take a look at. And then over the course of 18 months to two years, there will be a final report that is completed. And it will have a list of, I'm sure it will highlight some of the strengths, but it

[01:45:16] will also have a very clear list of recommendations in how to move from great to excellent or however you want to categorize that. But it is going to be a comprehensive bit of information that we're going to gain all along the way. We're excited about it. And as soon as I have that report, I will turn around and give you guys kind of an executive summary of what we found out at the

[01:45:44] February meeting. Okay, Ms. LaBelle. Good evening. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving break.

[01:46:04] I know that mine was very interesting. It was, surprise, it's your turn to do Thanksgiving. And that was only four days before Thanksgiving I found that out. So I hope yours was a little bit more regular. Having recovered from my extended trip to Williamsburg, we went to a conference there, and then my husband and I stayed on for a few days.

[01:46:29] And my Thanksgiving surprise. I had the pleasure this morning of working with TEDRA and the onboarding that was a lot of fun the new representatives are going to get the same treatment that I gave every other board member that they have to pay attention to special ed because special ed is invested in every single committee that we do in public schools you have to watch out for what special ed students need you can't just go making policies. And so we spent a lot of time talking about that. Big ones

[01:47:08] that we talked about today was, of course, the special permissions. That's coming up for a vote, I believe, the next board meeting on the 16th. And we're not changing anything particularly. We decided that with the redistricting and the rezoning, that there was just too much. We had to get this passed and ready to go because special permissions are going to be opening up in January. So we're going to be keeping that the same way we had it with very few minor

[01:47:41] differences. All our special ed students that are in the regular are in special programs. They're not being moved. They are where they need to be. And so that will not be impacted by the special permission. So that should be relief. We also talked about the phone cell, no, cell phone reversals, you can tell, cell phone policy that the phones are going to be from bell to bell

[01:48:14] turned off, period. Special ed students that have need of communication devices for glucose monitoring or other medical reasons will have them. They will be allowed to use them.

[01:48:30] They are a carve-out, so don't worry about that. That has been taken care of. All the students will be able to use their communication devices, computers, cell phones, whatever, before the bell and after the bell, at activities, at games.

[01:48:52] They just can't use it during the instructional day that starts with the first bell and ends with the last one. So that is something we are making very clear, and that has to get out because that starts in January, is it well? So there was a lot going on at the board meeting.

[01:49:08] There was a lot we talked about today in the onboarding. And I think that our three new board members were a little shell-shocked, didn't realize that, you know, all of this had to be considered. But we're getting along with that fairly quickly.

[01:49:26] So I just want to wish you all a very wonderful winter holiday. Rest, relax, enjoy your families. And we'll see you next year. Thank you, Carrie.

[01:49:46] Okay, next we have our Did You Know? And that would be Rosina. I don't think I've ever had Rosina come up. This is a treat. Yay!

[01:50:03] I know, right? Well, I just wanted to say, like Paige said, I did for my, my icon logo was like a roundabout, the arrows, and it represented communication, because that's what I think is key.

[01:50:20] And I wanted to tell Nikea it wasn't road roundabouts that we all see here in LCPS. Okay, she was right. Anyway, this one's, did you know? Did you know that students can and should help write their own IEP goals? Under IDEA, students are encouraged to participate in planning their education as early as possible.

[01:50:42] And by age 14 in Virginia, student involvement is required for transition planning. But meaningful participation can start much earlier. When students help shape their goals, something powerful happens. They begin to understand their strengths, their needs, their preferences, and what they want for their future.

[01:51:03] Instead of goals being written for them, goals are written with them, leading to stronger motivation, clearer purpose, and better outcomes. Research and practice show when students contribute to their IEP goals, engagement increases, students work harder when the goals matter to them, independence grows, they learn to express needs, preferences, and accommodations.

[01:51:28] Self-advocacy strengthens, a critical skill for employment, college, and adult life. Outcomes improve. Students take more ownership of their learning and progress. Student voice doesn't require a major overhaul. It can start simply by have the student describe what they want to get better at doing.

[01:51:47] Let them choose words or examples for their goal. Use visuals, sentence frames, or a quick reflection checklist. Include their own statements in the IEP, even if brief. By elevating student voice, we aren't just writing better goals, we are building confident, capable young adults who can advocate for themselves long after school ends.

[01:52:10] Student voice isn't extra, it's essential. This is one of the great resources through the I'm Determined Center in Harrisonburg. Excellent website. Thank you. Thanks, Rosina.

[01:52:26] Okay, I'm going to move into just giving a brief update on membership. Then we'll go into subcommittee reports and we'll start on our policies. So, Tom, do you want to give us an update on our membership?

[01:52:43] Sure. We're continuing to look for ensuring that we have full coverage of PTAs and PTOs throughout the county. We're still about 30 or so short of that. So if you know of a school that does not have representation currently, please reach out.

[01:53:03] And I've reached out to those principals as well to see if we can find some of those folks to participate. Also, we are going to schedule two different training sessions in addition to some of the materials that were sent out recently, some videos and so forth for PTO, PTA reps, one of which will be on the 17th of this month.

[01:53:25] the other one will be on the 21st of January both will be at 7 p.m. and be virtual so if you can attend either one of those please do we'll be sending out a sign-up form for people to register for that and if you're not able to attend either one we'll find a third date as an option as well

[01:53:46] I I can circulate that yeah yeah the 21st of January and actually I also went through there and I kind of left blank.

[01:54:10] There's some blanks in there, but I've been filling in people as I've been receiving. So the ones that are filled in are now filled in, but I think we can reach out too. Okay, moving right along. Our executive committee is going to be meeting right after this around hopefully 8.30, really, 8.30, at Clyde's, and it's open to the public.

[01:54:36] Anyone can join us, so please come on over If you want to hear how we are going to be planning our next few meetings, the policy and compliance subcommittee, um, the co-chairs are Melissa wall and Craig Metz. We will be meeting on Wednesday, January 7th at 6 30 PM virtually.

[01:54:54] And we'll have, um, I'll share the agenda with the virtual link closer to the time. Meaningful inclusion co-chairs, Tom and Kelly Ralston. Do we have an update? Yes. So, you can see our meeting schedule there, one of, the next of which will be the hour before the PTA PTO training session I mentioned.

[01:55:21] At our last meeting, among other topics that we discussed, we've come up with about 52 different short topics that we're putting together one to two minute videos on. So, sort of in the style of the do you know that we just heard about topics in special education.

[01:55:43] These are meant to educate and inform our community in the same kind of way. There will be also a list of those circulated for those that would like to participate. We have some guidelines for how those will be produced and then we'll review them of course before I think it's posted.

[01:56:00] But that's, we have a YouTube channel set up for that material now. So there'll be a whole library of different topics and we'll continue to add to those over time and update them as may be necessary. But if you'd like to participate in that, let us know or come to our next meeting.

[01:56:18] And as I say, we'll also be circulating a list of those topics for you to sign up as well. Thank you. Our specialized reading and math, co-chairs Aaron Rozelle Poe and Alicia McFadden. Here. Thanks, Shanaz.

[01:56:35] So we just had our first work session a couple weeks ago. Sorry, time's passing by really quickly. these days. Yeah, right after. And we kind of blended our subcommittee session with the work session, but the work session was really great. We started to really get into the conversation about the math curriculum, the interventions, and what that looks like for families across all grade levels. Coming up in our January work session, we're actually going to take that a step further and deep dive into all things math a little bit more in depth. Our

[01:57:11] Our next subcommittee meeting is actually next week. It is December the 11th at 10 a.m. It will be virtual. We're gonna be kind of going back into more of the discussion that we also had last month a little bit around the VAL screener, what that looks like at the secondary level, talk more about how we are providing specially designed instruction for our more challenged students who are in our program classes and what that's gonna be looking like for them.

[01:57:38] So we hope you can join us for both of them. - Thanks, Erin. Transition Subcommittee, our co-chairs Stephen Meyers and Rosina Kata. And I think, do you want me to move to the next slide for you?

[01:57:56] So that's a little, I'm sorry, try to move. - So that's our new Transition Center.

[01:58:14] We went, I mean, many of you have been advocating for this for years. I'm kind of new to this. But I went, numbers of us were able to go and actually walk through the building and take a look at what the hopes are that admin has been filling in all of the boxes for.

[01:58:42] And I think it's fabulous. If you take a look at all of the purple rooms, those are rooms for education in those specific areas. So you've got safety and security, health care, child care, entrepreneurship, greenhouse, landscaping, horticulture, supply chain, which I thought was very interesting, skilled trades,

[01:59:14] automotive services, cosmetology, culinary and food services, animal care, hospitality, makerspace and a digital lab. So this is fantastic. I think admin has done a fantastic job in trying to figure out what are the most appropriate areas that our students and children that we can get them excited about. And I think it's wonderful. I have a few notes that I took

[01:59:52] while we were walking around the building. By the way, the original building is the rectangle, and then the angle is the new building that they're adding on. So the purple off on an angle is the new building.

[02:00:11] So they're taking 34,000 square feet, which is the original building, and the future building is gonna be almost twice as big as that. It's going to be 65,000 square feet. There will be a construction web page that will post photos and design on.

[02:00:37] It was emphasized that the students are going to run the building with the staff so that students will be trained in all the things that the staff does. What else do I have here?

[02:01:00] Oh, there's going to be a retail area, cafeteria, hospitality, as you can look at. It was really wonderful. It's scheduled to open, and correct me on this, the school year 28-29.

[02:01:21] And so I just think it's wonderful. And I hope at some point some of you or all of you will get to take a look at this building as it's being built. One other thing I wanted to say is, so I'm our representative to Dr. Grubb's SeaTac meeting, and he invited special ed to give a presentation on transition and on other wants that we might have the beginning of next year.

[02:01:58] So everybody, that date I don't think has been determined, but I think that's really important that we're being included in this overall plan for pathways for our students who may not be going to college, and we have to get them ready for the workforce, so I think it's a great move. Okay? We are super excited, and I know Jenna and team will be presenting and giving us a bigger update sometime in the spring, so we're super excited.

[02:02:36] Our next meeting will be January 14, 2026. Catherine, would you like to talk about? We're going to be talking about grief and mental health and the intersection, bridging the gap between loss and learning.

[02:02:58] So what does it look like to sit in an IEP meeting when you have a family that is distracted or disinterested? I say that with very big quotations. Is it grief? is it something else and how we as practitioners can be aware we don't have to be professionals in any of that but where we can be aware and maybe have some strategies to meet families where they

[02:03:30] are and for families the same strategies for for being at the table being present and just what that look like so and now we will be moving into our policies okay guys um we have a bit to cover

[02:04:09] tonight so i'm going to try to zoom along as best i can um first of all we have three policies that the policy and compliance subcommittee reviewed and did not make any recommendations no concerns were raised these were for other post-employment benefit funding policy insurance management and purchasing authority so uh do i hear a motion to adopt um the position of the policy compliance subcommittee to make no recommendations on these policies second is there any discussion hearing or seeing none we will move to a vote all those in favor of adopting no recommendations to

[02:04:48] policy 4190 4170 and 4310 say aye aye those oh sorry um opposed oh okay opposed say no any abstentions all right for our virtual folks kelly ralston hi sharon trove hi okay that passes unanimously all right um then we have uh three more policies that we have some um concerns and or recommendations. The first one is policy 4350. This is vendor relations. This is a policy that

[02:05:26] addresses the relationship between particularly school staff and outside vendors who may come in to the school to demonstrate things or to try to sell something, if you will, to the staff. There was a concern, however, that we had in the way the policy was drafted that it could have a negative impact on communications between school staff and outside related service providers like physical therapists or occupational therapists or behavioralists that the school contracts with.

[02:05:56] So our concern is that there are times contracted service providers may need to set appointments with staff, for example, case managers or special education staff, for purposes of professional collaboration. We need to distinguish between a sales appointment and a support or services meeting. It appears the intent of this policy is to address sales conversations. We don't want the sales prohibition to preclude collaborative discussions regarding contracted services like speech therapy and OT. So that is the concern that was raised that we want to pass on to the school

[02:06:34] board to consider as they are looking at this policy so that is it for this policy do I hear a motion to adopt this concern put forth by the policy and compliance subcommittee yes a second okay is there any discussion about the vendor relations policy in our concern all right hearing none we'll move on to a vote all those in favor of adopting this concern for the school board uh say aye aye those opposed no any abstentions for our virtual attendees kelly ralston aye

[02:07:14] sharon trove aye okay so that passes unanimously next policy 4340 procurement procedure exemptions um the concern this actually we have a concern and a recommendation but the concern for this one is the deleted provisions at the end of this policy related to certification regarding sex offenses unauthorized aliens and discrimination is addressed in regulation 4340 but this should we feel should be left in the policy itself this is an ongoing concern that we have in the policy and compliance subcommittee that a lot of important things are being moved from a policy which has

[02:07:53] sunlight it's something that the board is reviewing on a regular basis it's a policies the community like SEAC has an opportunity for input these important provisions are being moved into regulations that the school staff can change at any time as they so choose, with no sunshine, no input from the community on those changes to regulations.

[02:08:15] So we felt like this portion regarding procurement that these outside providers certify regarding sex offenses, unauthorized aliens and discrimination in particular, we feel like that should be left in the policy itself.

[02:08:31] So our recommendation is do not remove the text at lines 88 to 138 of the proposed policy regarding required contract provisions for certification regarding sex offenses, unauthorized aliens, and discrimination. So that is what has come out of the Policy and Compliance Subcommittee.

[02:08:51] Do I hear a motion to adopt the concern and one recommendation related to policy 4340? Thank you. So is there any discussion related to this policy or this concern or recommendation?

[02:09:12] Okay, hearing none, we'll move to a vote. All those in favor of adopting this concern and recommendation say aye. Aye. Those opposed, no. Any abstentions? For our virtual folks, Kelly Ralston? Aye. Sharon Trofe?

[02:09:27] Aye. Okay, that one passes unanimously. All right, next we have policy 5140, advanced or accelerated mathematics. So our concern here is the notification that is in this policy should inform parents that all accommodations available in any class are available for these classes as well.

[02:09:50] This is a long-standing, ongoing concern that has been brought forward to SEAC over many, many years, that kids that are trying to take honors classes or advanced classes or AP, that they're being told that their student cannot receive their accommodations from their IEP or 504 plan.

[02:10:08] So, we want to make sure, as we're revising this policy, that the notification that is being provided to parents already per this policy include notification to the parents that students' accommodations will be available. And for the staff, so if the letter given to the parents says, in black and white, all of your IEP accommodations will be provided if you take this AP class or advanced math class, and the staff say, oh, no, no, no, the parents now have it in writing.

[02:10:38] they can say look you better talk to osc this has to be so we're hoping not only to inform the parents but to give the parents a little bit of standing to come back and say no you really do have to do this and so the recommendation then is to add it at sorry at line 19 a new section a 5 which makes a statement that clarifies that accommodations available in any lcps classes are also available in these classes.

[02:11:07] All right, so do I hear a motion to adopt the concern and recommendation to policy 5140 in a second? Thank you, Marcia. All right, is there any discussion about this?

[02:11:27] Okay, hearing none, then we'll move to a vote. All those in favor of adopting the concern and recommendation say aye. Aye. Those opposed, no. Any abstentions? Okay, we have two abstentions. Y'all can note that.

[02:11:44] All right, and then for our virtual folks, Kelly Ralston? Aye. Sharon Trove? Aye. Okay, so that passes with two abstentions. All right, so that gets us to the big kahuna tonight while I was trying to zoom through all of that.

[02:12:03] So there is a new policy that's been proposed, policy 5340, safe and supportive removal of students from the educational setting. I need to take a few minutes, so please indulge me if you can to explain the background of this new policy and how it came to be.

[02:12:21] Many of you will recall SEAC was very, very deeply and heavily involved in the discussions and the changes to our restraint and seclusion policy, which last year did result in the school board banning seclusion in Loudoun County Public Schools.

[02:12:37] Woot, woot. That's great. The problem, however, that came up in that whole process was our concern about how seclusion was being defined because only the seclusion as defined in the policy is being secluded and unfortunately in SEAC we have over the years heard about we have been given pictures we have had whistleblowers who have come and talked to our subcommittee about other kinds of seclusionary or isolating practices within Loudoun County Public Schools that have harmed children emotionally so

[02:13:17] So we were concerned that the way seclusion was being defined did not, in fact, cover these examples that were of concern to parents of students with disabilities. And so the definition in policy 5340 tracks very closely to the Virginia Department of Education regulations regarding restraint and seclusion.

[02:13:42] And in the Virginia regulations, seclusion means the involuntary confinement of a student alone in a room or area from which the student is physically prevented from leaving.

[02:13:58] And that exact language is in policy 5340 as well. Historically, the way that has been interpreted by staff is that as long as there is an adult present, then it's not seclusion.

[02:14:15] The problem with that is that also in the Virginia regulations under seclusion standards for use, the Virginia Department of Education has said school divisions electing to use seclusion as authorized by this chapter shall provide for the continuous visual monitoring of any seclusion, either by the presence of school personnel in the seclusion room or area or observation by school personnel through a window viewing panel or half door. So the regulations,

[02:14:51] I have empathy for this, they were not well drafted, but the regulations seem to be saying alone doesn't mean one staff person there takes it out of the realm of seclusion because the Department of Education has said, in order, if you're going to do seclusion, it's only okay as long as there's continuous visual monitoring by an adult in the room or looking through a window or whatever the case may be. So unfortunately, the regulations were fuzzy on this. We know how it was being interpreted. It was a concern we raised last year in the restraint and seclusion

[02:15:29] discussions and that we had. And so the compromise position that came out of all of this was that we would move forward in policy 5340 with essentially the exact language of the definition of seclusion, even though we were concerned that was not covering certain reported incidents of concern. And that, by agreeing to that, the school board said we will come up with another policy that will address those issues of concern.

[02:16:03] So let me give you a couple examples. And I brought pictures. I didn't get it in time to put up on the screen. I'm sorry, but if anyone wants to see pictures of Lownden County examples, I have them and I can show you after the meeting. But one of the examples was actually very similar to what happened, I think it was 2016, Gigi.

[02:16:21] You guys may have heard of Gigi's Law. Gigi was a student here in Lownden County Public Schools. There was a picture of her in her middle school in a corner with movable furniture around, and she's kind of standing and looking up over it. And apparently Gigi spent a lot of time in this little secluded pen area within her classroom.

[02:16:40] That picture was in the newspaper. It obviously got a lot of concern raised and led to the governor signing Gigi's law back in the day. Unfortunately, we had examples, pictures.

[02:16:56] We had two staff whistleblowers who came to SEAC, who came and talked to us. They had pictures of the same thing happening to a specific student in Loudoun County Public Schools. That child, the staff had gotten movable furniture, kind of made a pin in a corner of his special education classroom, covered it with a desk so the child was not able to leave freely.

[02:17:21] In fact, we were told if the child tried to climb over the desk, he was pushed back in to the pinned area. And that's where this child spent the majority of his school day, according to two staff that were in that classroom. So we feel pretty confident this is accurate reporting.

[02:17:38] And obviously, I think to everyone in this room, I don't think one person can hear that story, and certainly not when you see these pictures, and think, that's okay. That's not okay at all. And so another example was a parent talked about where her child was put in a room.

[02:17:55] We have pictures of it. There was nothing in the room but a desk. And when he would come in, she found out much later, when he would come into school, he would immediately be put in this room, often for many hours at a time. He would have to earn his way out of the room. I'm not even sure how that actually worked.

[02:18:12] But the point is the staff were saying because there was a staff member that was physically either in the room or at the door blocking him from coming out of the door, that was not seclusion. I think that's seclusion, and I think that clearly falls within the definition and the regulations under VDOE, but that was not seclusion.

[02:18:33] So there's no documentation that that was a seclusion. There was no notification of the parent that this was happening. The only way the parent, she said, found out, and she came and talked to our committee last year, the only way the parent found out is a friend of hers happened to be in the school and saw her child in this room.

[02:18:50] That's how she found out it was happening. These things are not acceptable. And so that's the reason why this new policy 5340 was brought forward was to address the concerns that SEAC members and staff and people who had come to us as SEAC and as the Policy and Compliance Committee and reported were happening in our schools.

[02:19:12] So that being said, this is the concern that we put forward that parents have reported to SEAC that their children are being isolated and in some cases traumatized by actions that may not fall squarely within the current definition of seclusion. For example, parents and whistleblowers have reported that students with disabilities are pinned into corners using movable furniture, ukiru pads, and or desks for significant portions of their school day. Another parent reported to SEAC that immediately upon coming to school, her child is regularly confined for long periods of time during the school day in a room by himself with one staff member.

[02:19:50] Because these practices are not considered by LCPS to be seclusion, there is no data being collected on how often these practices occur, their duration, or what, if any, supportive measures are being given to the student after this isolation. And currently, parents are not being notified of these practices being implemented with their children.

[02:20:10] So this policy, 5340, tries to address all of those concerns, notification, support care provided after the isolation, all of those things that we had concerns about. But it's not perfect. It needs some work.

[02:20:26] It's a first effort, right? And so nothing's perfect right out of the gate. So we have a few recommendations. The first is we'd like the school board to request a work session in the spring that includes school board members, staff, and SEAC representatives to further discuss and refine this proposed policy.

[02:20:45] We feel like it still needs significant input before it's ready for prime time. Recommendation two, at line 26, we'd like to delete the term disciplinary isolation and substitute that phrase for in-school suspension or detention because there was concern that maybe disciplinary isolation might actually open the door to even more seclusion.

[02:21:08] So we wanted just to call a spade a spade. Our understanding it's referring to is in-school suspension or detention, So we just want those words to be used. And recommendation three, at line 25, add the word also between the words not and be so that the text reads and shall not also be used for disciplinary isolation.

[02:21:28] This is regarding the designated area within the school building where students could go for calming or sensory intervention or whatever the case may be. But we wanted to ensure that it was super clear that whatever that designated space is it not also be a space used for disciplinary practices like in-school suspension because we certainly don't want our students who you know maybe are being escalated to go to a place that everyone in school knows that's where the bad kids go right so we don't want that to be a part of the mix and so we just want to be super clear that

[02:22:05] the place that this designated area is not also the place being used for disciplinary purposes so those are the recommendations we have at at this time again we feel like um there's still some more work and massaging that we can do um to make this you know from good to great uh but anyway so do i hear a motion to adopt the concern and three recommendations out of the policy and compliance subcommittee to policy 5340 motion to adopt the recommendations for policy 5340

[02:22:41] Is there a second? Okay. Any discussion? Yeah, I just wanted to clarify. So on recommendation three, if recommendation two was adopted, then that would actually read in school suspension or detention at the end of that sentence. Yes. And also under recommendation two, just to clarify, substitute that phrase with rather than for, because the way it reads, it's a little confusing.

[02:23:05] That's just wordsmithing. When we were discussing this, I think disciplinary isolation was a term that we hadn't found in any other anything, so it was just being created for this policy, and we see no reason to create more terms that are confusing when this is the terms that staff know and use.

[02:23:27] And also, let me just say, the general consensus of the policy in compliance with the committee is this is a fantastic first effort. I mean, we are so jazzed with this. I mean, I know Tedra, I think, spent a long time drafting it, and I just want to say kudos.

[02:23:43] I mean, I think you really were getting the feel of what our concerns were. So I know I want this to come across as, you know, we think this is horrible. We don't. We think it's fantastic, and it's really getting us where we want to be in addressing the concerns that our parents have expressed to us.

[02:23:59] Any other comments? Oh, do we need a mic? Oh, Margaret. If you can please elaborate on what you mean by disciplinary isolation, I mean in-school suspension or detention.

[02:24:18] What I have in mind is just like a child who is dysregulated. So how does that look like in-school suspension? I mean the setting, what is it? Well, in-school suspension, yeah, that's a disciplinary process that happens within the school building.

[02:24:37] Instead of sending the school home for a day or half a day, suspending them, in-school suspension means they stay in the school building and they're still working on school work. Yeah, just to clarify, because I think this is maybe the confusion, the recommendation is that in this portion of the policy, it's saying that they will not be put into a room that's being used for disciplinary isolation.

[02:25:01] And as we talked about that, well, what does that mean? So using those words, in-school suspension or detention, so that it will be, you can't isolate them in a room that's being used for those other two things. It's not addressing what in-school suspension or detention is.

[02:25:17] It's just referring to the rooms that are used for that. That's the only use of that term. Just like a general education student. Right. So you have a detention room in most schools. Okay. Don't isolate the child for dysregulation in a room that's being used for detention because that's sending a mixed message.

[02:25:34] Are they really being disciplined or are they being isolated? Okay, thank you. Yeah, we're in discussion. We're in discussion. I would just like if we could alter the concern a little bit because the way it's worded here where it sounds like, for example, parents and whistleblowers have reported that students with disabilities are pinned into corners.

[02:25:59] if we can we just clarify that there were isolated reports or something I you know otherwise it sounds like that's a common practice and LCPS which is not the case and I don't want anyone to misconstrue that so let's see parents and whistleblowers have reported that students in disability are pinned in a corners have have provided instances yeah have reported instances of students

[02:26:32] Okay. That's fine. Yeah. Thank you.

[02:27:21] Is there any more discussion? So we'll need a motion to amend. The concern? Yeah. So do I hear a motion to amend the concern to change that sentence to have reported instances of students with disabilities are pinned in the corners? Do I hear a motion to adopt? A motion to adopt the amended language. Okay. Is there a second? Okay. Any discussion on the amendment? Okay. Seeing none. All those in favor of adopting this amendment? Say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Any abstentions? For our virtual folks, Kelly Ralston? Aye. Sharon Trofe? Aye. Okay. So that amendment to the concern is adopted unanimously. Back to the base motion, is there any further discussion? Okay. Hearing none. All those in favor of adopting the concern and three recommendation, the concern as amended and the three recommendations to policy 5340, say aye. Aye. Those opposed?

[02:27:59] no. Any abstentions? Kelly Ralston? Aye. Sharon Trove? Aye. Okay, so that passes unanimously. All right, thanks guys. I wasn't too hideous. No, you guys did great. Before I let you guys go, we, I don't know if you all know, we do have a state SEAC, and we have one of our former SEAC

[02:28:31] members who applied to be a parent representative for Loudoun, for Region 4, really, to represent us on the state SEAC, Kelly Huff-Snyder. And she just got notification that she has been appointed.

[02:28:48] And so I wanted to send a shout out to her. And I think we will be working closely with the state SEAC on some of the issues that we've been talking about here on the local level. And any other questions or discussions? All right, well, have a happy holiday and a happy new year, and I will see you guys next year.

[02:29:15] That was me opening up the resolution thing.

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