Coraggio Consulting Loudoun County School Board, 2nd Tuesday School Board Meeting (Moved due to Winter Break), Tuesday, December 16, 2025 Date: Tuesday, December 16, 2025 Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV) Length: 5h 42m (video) Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1147068947?rel=0 BoardDocs (School Board): https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/loudoun/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=DNJGXE45EC88 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 2026-10-10. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [00:03:11] Good afternoon. I call to order this December 16th, 2025, Loudoun County School Board Meeting. I have been notified that Vice Chair Donahue would like to remotely participate in tonight's school board meeting. Vice Chair Donahue, please state your location and whether this is a medical or personal matter. [00:03:30] Thank you. Good evening, Madam Chair and fellow board members. I am in a room in my home. This is a personal matter request. the other members of my family are present in my home, but not in the room with me. I'll now entertain, okay, so you said, is anyone present with you at your location? [00:03:54] You said that as well. And is this a medical or personal? Sorry, you said personal? Okay. Personal, yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll now entertain a motion that Vice Chair Donahue participate remotely be granted, the request be granted. [00:04:11] Do I have a motion? I move. I have a motion by Dr. Deans. Do I have a second? Second. I have a second by Ms. Chandler. All right. And therefore, we will go ahead and, is there any discussion? [00:04:30] Nope. Okay. I'll go ahead and take a vote. Clerk, please open the vote. Board members, please record your vote. [00:04:59] Clerk, please close and display the vote. And that motion passes unanimously with Vice Chair Donahue absent for the vote. And so welcome to the meeting, Vice Chair Donahue. Thank you. [00:05:15] All right. We will go ahead and start with our disclosures. As a member, and I'll start, as a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and or health insurance and related benefits and any other discussion. [00:05:35] Sorry. Related any other. Okay, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and or health insurance and related benefits and any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS employees. [00:06:00] Specifically as a school board member, I am eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an LCPS employee. These benefits, however, affect thousands of employees while in the excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may also be affected, of which I am included. [00:06:15] I can and will participate fairly objectively and in the public interest This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years miss Chandler Thank you madam chair as a member of the Loudoun County School Board I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda Regarding the budget and or health insurance and related benefits and any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS employees. Specifically, as a school board member, I am eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an LCPS employee. These benefits, however, affect thousands of employees [00:06:54] well in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may also be affected, of which I am included. I can and will participate fairly, objectively, and in the public interest. This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Chandler. Vice Chair Donahue. Thank you, Madam Chair. As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding employee salaries, the budget, and or health insurance, and any other discussion that may include or affect salary and [00:07:29] benefits for LCPS employees. Specifically, my spouse, my minor children, and I are enrolled in LCPS health insurance that may be affected by any potential changes to employee salaries, the budget and or health insurance. Additionally, my sister-in-law is an LCPS employee who does not reside with me and is not dependent on me. These subjects include thousands of employees well in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may be affected, of which my spouse, my minor children, my sister-in-law, and I am included. I can and will participate fairly objectively and in the public interest. This disclosure will be reflected in the public [00:08:04] records of the clerk of the school board for five years. Thank you, Vice Chair Donahue. Ms. Griffiths. Thank you, Madam Chair. As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and our health insurance and related benefits and any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS employees. Specifically, as a school board member, I am eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an LCPS employee. [00:08:34] These benefits, however, affect thousands of employees in well in excess of statutory three employees whose interests may be affected, of which I am included. I can and will participate fairly objectively and in the public's interest. This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the school board for five years. Thank you. [00:08:54] Thank you, Ms. Griffiths. Mr. Straffi. Thank you, Madam Chair. As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and/or health insurance and related benefits in any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS employees. [00:09:10] Specifically, as a school board member, I'm eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an LCPS employee. These benefits, however, affect thousands of employees well in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may also be affected, of which I am included. I can and will participate fairly, objectively, and in the public interest. [00:09:27] This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years. Thank You mr. Struffy something just happened to my computer Miss Miss LaBelle. Thank You madam chair as a member of the Loudoun County School Board I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda Regarding the budget and or health insurance and related benefits and any other discussion that may affect or include benefits for LCPS employees [00:10:03] Specifically, as a school board member, I am eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an LCPS employee. In addition, as a former LCPS employee, I, as well as my spouse, receive Medicare Advantage Insurance benefits through LCPS. [00:10:21] These benefits, however, affect thousands of employees well in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may also be affected, of which my spouse and I are included. I can and will participate fairly, objectively, and in the public interest. [00:10:36] This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years. Thank you, Ms. LaBelle. Ms. Chernoff. Thank you, Madam Chair. As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and or health insurance and related benefits and any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS employees. [00:10:58] Specifically, as a school board member, I am eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an LCPS employee. These benefits, however, affect thousands of employees well in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may also be affected, of which I am included. I can and will participate fairly, objectively, and in the public interest. [00:11:15] This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years. Thank you, Ms. Chernoff. We'll move on to item three, approval of the consent agenda. board members are there any changes to be made to the consent agenda seeing none i will now entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved i have a motion by uh by ms chernoff do i have a second second i have a second by ms chandler um it's been properly moved and seconded uh at this time we'll go ahead and take a vote to approve the consent agenda clerk please open [00:11:53] the vote board members please record your vote um vice chair donahue will you please state your vote yes clerk please close and display the vote that motion passes unanimously and we will move on to item for a work session with Department of teaching and learning literacy update and supports presented by Jeff Brownsley director [00:12:27] teaching learning and director and I think there are many others and I will have mr. Slevin go ahead and introduce everybody thank you chair Mansfield members of the board and dr. Spence we are appreciative of the time this [00:13:02] afternoon to provide the school board a literacy update and information about the supports we are providing schools and as chair mansfield noted we do have a large group and that is because literacy is a large topic in our school system and there are many hands at the table trying to make sure that we have the best environment to support literacy across our schools in lcps so i'll just take a moment to give our team a chance to introduce themselves good afternoon jeff Brownsley, Director of Teaching and Learning K-12. [00:13:34] Good afternoon, Dr. Michelle Picard, Supervisor of Secondary, English and Reading. Hello, Catherine Neal, Supervisor of Elementary, Reading and Writing. Margaret Osbury, Specialized Instruction Supervisor in the Office of Special Education. [00:13:54] Good afternoon, Jaylon Tombala, GLEEL, Secondary Supervisor. Hello, Heather Crawford, Elementary English Learner Supervisor. So before we dive into the presentation, we would just like to make a connection to our strategic plan. [00:14:11] As you know, goal one around empowered students 1.1, enable core academic excellence by providing rigorous instruction for all students, and literacy is foundational to that goal. With that, I am going to turn it over to Mr. Roundsley, who will tell us a little bit about the agenda and get the presentation started. [00:14:32] So we have a couple of things we wanted to do tonight. First, to give you an update on some of our resources that are happening in our classrooms, some of our new resources that have recently been adopted, and some of the feedback we've heard thus far. We'll also take some time to dive into some data around literacy instruction in our schools, looking specifically at VALS data, and also our data thus far for Lexia Core 5 and Power Up, and also talking about some of our practices that happen in all of our classrooms. [00:15:02] So we're going to begin by taking a deeper look at our practices, our school supports, and our resources. And I believe Ms. Catherine Neal is going to give us a little bit of a vision for what literacy looks like in LCPS. So on this slide, we wanted to just share that these are the VDOE standards for K-12 literacy. [00:15:25] These are the strands that are addressed in literacy throughout kindergarten all the way through 12th grade. At the elementary level, we are fortunate to have at least one full-time reading specialist at every elementary school. [00:15:41] In total, we have 105 reading specialists across our 60 elementary schools. This number does not include our reading specialists that are funded by Title I or other funding sources. In addition to our reading specialists, I am fortunate to have a team of eight instructional facilitators that directly support elementary literacy. [00:15:59] These instructional facilitators that directly support literacy are highly skilled individuals who work across our highest-need schools. The work of our ELA facilitators is based on school priorities that are outlined in their school improvement plans. [00:16:17] We also have literacy tutors available to support our elementary students. This position was previously called a PASS tutor. We provide ongoing professional learning for a lot of our different groups throughout the division such as principals, reading specialists, reading contacts, and instructional coaches. [00:16:34] To the greatest extent possible, we try to provide the same learning to all groups on the same cadence to ensure consistency in messaging and expectation. Our hope is that this helps with implementation at the school level when all members of the team have received the same learning. [00:16:49] Our focus for this year with literacy professional learning has been centered on explicit instruction. We continue to partner with the Elementary Education Office to provide principals with in-depth ongoing monthly sessions around deepening explicit instruction. In addition, we continue to offer ongoing cohorts of both letters, Volume 1 and Volume 2. [00:17:10] We have nine ELA team members who are trained letters facilitators so that we can sustain this work moving forward. And I'm going to hand it over to Ms. Osbury. You can see here that we also in the Office of Special Education have 23 specialized instructional facilitators. [00:17:27] While we do have a variety of specialized instructional facilitators in our office, these 23 individuals primarily support specialized instruction in interventions in literacy and numeracy. But we're going to lift the literacy part this evening. So they do specifically provide ongoing professional learning for our special educators, as well as working with co-teaching teams of gen ed and special education teachers, as well as trios in supporting literacy for both students and elementary. [00:17:54] And you can see on the next slide that that team of facilitators also supports our secondary schools as well in that implementation with literacy across K-12. My comments would echo Ms. Neal's in terms of professional learning and the support for the office. [00:18:12] We're very grateful for the support that you provide. We have 32 reading specialists at the middle school level. That's one in every single school. And then, of course, additional positions at certain schools. and we have 25 at the high school level. For the last three to four years, we've met with the reading specialist four full days every single year and made sure that we were really on top of cutting-edge research and practice. [00:18:38] The office also has three instructional facilitators and a specialist, which has been instrumental in having a large footprint in the schools. I'll speak a little bit more about professional learning further on in the presentation, but just like elementary we make a really sincere effort to to touch all of the stakeholders that need to be engaged with literacy. So specifically with regard to special education our team of specialized instructional facilitators when they are working with their teams they're also really doing a lot of collaboration with the facilitators from both elementary literacy and secondary [00:19:14] literacy and providing learning and coaching for those teams of teachers across levels. Our SIFs as we call them, are in the middle of providing some ongoing coaching cycles for the special education teachers in our school. So they're really trying to get a touch point with every single CrossCAT special education teacher, as well as our program teachers across the schools. [00:19:37] Our professional learning this year has really been focused on that year two rollout of HMH, as well as VALS for K-8, as it applies to our students with disabilities. We're continuing our training for intervention, and this year we're really focusing on some communities of practice to refine those practices for instruction as it relates to intervention. [00:19:56] For some of our schools that we're really focusing in on supports as we are working on core skill acquisition and generalization, we're doing something called an instructional strategy review, and I believe Dr. Carter might share a little bit more about that in a little bit. [00:20:13] So from the English Learner Office, we meet consistently with our early literacy and secondary literacy team, and we really wanted to highlight three areas that we've been collaborating with recently. The first area is looking at curriculum, so I'll just speak to elementary. thing we really wanted to do is to embed some oral language opportunities within HMH so we had the chance to do that this summer. We've also been creating some exemplar HMH units with an ELD focus integrating both ELD standards and our reading SOLs. In terms of professional learning my team and Catherine's facilitators have opportunities to present together both at the school level and at the county-wide day sessions now that our EL teachers join [00:20:49] our general education teachers. Finally we've been working a lot on school support collaborating on school improvement goals doing walkthroughs together with our offices and presenting strategies that help students in literacy and who are also multilingual learners finally we have ongoing collaboration on guidance providing intervention for our English learners just like the elementary at the secondary level two we have QTEL strategies that are intentionally embedded within the English language arts curriculum that support language development academic discourse and rigorous text engagement professional learning offerings such as QTEL or [00:21:29] quality teaching for English learners in our high rigor high support professional learning they are intentionally designed to support English co-teaching pairs and focus on instructional strategies that promote student engagement intentional scaffolding and equitable student access to rigorous grade level English content lastly we partner with the secondary English office to align supports for school improvement plans to ensure coherence across curriculum instruction and interventions this year we are in year two of our HMH into reading [00:22:07] adoption you can see an overview of our supplemental and intervention resources on the screen just one to note the video e has recently approved additional materials and you fly is now approved kindergarten through fifth grade as an intervention first our students with disabilities we do continue to see spire which is an Orton-Gillingham based decoding intervention and visualizing and verbalizing which is a comprehension intervention are two of our most widely used interventions for students with disabilities and on the next slide you can see some good news Spire is also now approved by the VDOE for use in six [00:22:45] through eight to target phonics so we can see some consistency of implementation for our students with disabilities and intervention you're well aware that we We adopted a new curriculum for middle school in March of 2025. [00:23:01] We're referring to this year as our rough draft year. We're designing and implementing curriculum based both on the new standards and the new core program, which is SAVA's My Perspectives. We're very blessed in Loudoun County. [00:23:17] I always say that we have an embarrassment of riches, and that is both talent and it's also resources. In addition to the core program, we are also using and implementing supplementary and intervention resources including those on the slide, NuZella, No Red Ink, Lexia Power Up. [00:23:36] And as was suggested already, please note that all of the interventions and the core products are aligned with the science of reading and are approved by the state. So I wanted to give you a little bit more information because this is our rough draft year. [00:23:54] This is the first year of implementation. We're in unit two of four. This year we're implementing the middle school curriculum and we're working to engage all stakeholders in professional learning. Some key stakeholders are listed on this slide. We meet with our subject area lead teachers, which are middle school leads in the buildings, and they come once a quarter for a full day, and they're acquiring additional training during that time. [00:24:20] We've also had a co-session with the EL lead teachers. We've had training during the conference days and we have scheduled time with special instructional facilitators. We actually met today with SAVAS and we're putting together what we're going to call a planning think tank so that we can really get as much responsive professional learning as possible. [00:24:46] The other thing I wanted to thank you for and thank Neil Slevin and others for is we're facilitating -- there's a new standard operating procedure that when we have new standards or we have a new curriculum, we're bringing one lead teacher from every grade level at every school together for a half-day quarterly. [00:25:04] So imagine 18 sixth-grade teachers coming together and talking about pedagogy and resource and being responsive to their students. It's helping us to write a more robust curriculum. It's also helping us to align practices. And, again, the theme of this evening, I hope that you can hear, is that we collaborate on a daily basis, really, with special education at EEL. [00:25:32] In our next part, we're going to move on to talking a little bit about the data that we have around literacy and how this data helps us to drive instruction. But before we move on to that, I just wanted to talk a little bit about why we think this is important. and LCPS uses data from multiple sources to drive our literacy instruction, including the VAL screening results, implementation data from some of our intervention programs like Lexia, Core 5, and Power Up. [00:25:56] And when we combine those with classroom assessments and other school-based materials, we really do get an idea of where our students are and what kinds of goals we need to set. And we just wanted to talk a little bit about how that data informs goal setting across LCPS. So the first way that happens is in school improvement plans. [00:26:12] We partner with our district offices, all the people at this table here are highly involved in working with schools to help them set school improvement goals, including in elementary reading and writing and secondary English, and they design these goals and track really data-driven goals throughout the year. [00:26:28] So examples of this might be implementing differentiated small group instruction in a school or finding ways to integrate reading and writing throughout all of our content areas. Second, our data from VALS especially has really driven the creation of individualized student reading plans, and that's really the foundation when schools are creating these plans to help monitor student achievement and student growth. [00:26:51] They're developed collaboratively with families, and again, many of the people at this table have helped contribute to that and provide training in what those plans might look like and how that data might be monitored throughout the year. So that might include moving students from a high band of risk to a low band of risk by year's end, or seeing students score the 40th percentile in MAP, but that's another way that this data helps inform the goals we want for students' achievement. [00:27:14] And the third way is that this data helps drive program implementation and professional learning goals. So we work with many partners in supporting literacy efforts at our schools. And working with them, we do set goals for the implementation of new instructional resources and professional learning for teachers. [00:27:31] That might include tracking the number of lessons completed by students in a specific system, like Lexia Core 5 or Lexia Power Up. It might include professional development provided by vendors to help support the implementation of new resources. And while those goals are monitored and discussed, it's always important to note that our primary focus is always on making sure that we're providing students with the resources that they need to be successful, whatever that might look like, and that we're making sure schools feel empowered to achieve at the levels that they need and they have the resources that they need to do that. [00:28:01] So with that, I wanna talk a little bit about VALS and who is screened. As you know, VALS takes place multiple times in the course of the year. And in K2, all students are screened. It's important to note that this is the only time that all of our students are screened. So included with your packet tonight is a overview of some of the data related to VALS implementation. [00:28:23] You'll notice in that data a significant drop in the students who are, or a significant increase in students who are well below at a high level of risk band starting in third grade. And again, that's important to note that that is because not all students take the VALS test in third grade. [00:28:41] It was only students new to Virginia Public Schools who received summer intervention services. And then in four through eight, we have students who received either a failed basic or failed below basic on the SOL, or students who passed the SOL with an audio or read aloud accommodation. [00:28:57] In the mid-year, again in K-2, all students are screened. It is required for students in third grade that are high risk and optional for students that are moderate and low risk. And again, students who received either a fail basic or fail the low basic on the SOL in the previous year are screened, or students who pass the SOL with an audio read aloud accommodation, optional for students who pass the SOL and were screened in the fall. [00:29:20] So just a little context to the data that you see in the packet to note that when you see that decrease starting in third grade, it is because we're not screening all students with the VALS starting in third grade. [00:29:35] - We recently shared some VALS data updates with the Performance Monitoring Committee. During that presentation, I mentioned that part of the VALS assessment is that it provides us with an additional measure to identify contributing factors behind students' difficulties with literacy. [00:29:52] In other words, VALS provides us with a data point that can confirm and validate what we see in the classroom so we know how to adjust our instruction. It's imperative that we support teachers and leaders with understanding how to adjust their instruction based on the results of their VALS assessment. [00:30:08] From our fall data, we determined that it was critical that we ensured daily structured literacy and foundational skills were happening daily. We also have been working closely with our MTSS office and our reading specialist focus group to ensure alignment between core instruction, VALS screening data, and intervention. [00:30:31] Moving down the slide, we just wanted to highlight first our support for any assessment that is K-8. Having that continuous data is incredibly valuable. And as Kathryn said, the VALS data helps us to pinpoint where students are struggling. [00:30:50] We just wanted to highlight at the secondary level that it emphasizes the need for core and intervention programs to focus on spelling, decoding, morphology, oral reading fluency and comprehension. And I wanted to share that all of those aspects of learning to read are threaded through our curriculum our core resources as well as our intervention resources and so for the final three bullets on that list we want to enhance progress monitoring for students with reading plans as a result of that progress monitoring data we need [00:31:27] to emphasize a sense of urgency and addressing student literacy needs we already know these students have gaps in their literacy knowledge and skills so we need to these students we need to be moving as quickly as possible to close these gaps finally we have provided dedicated planning days for reading specialists to analyze data and adjust reading plans the creation of student reading plans is a monumental task it can be very tedious it is time-consuming and it is really important work we want to make sure our reading specialists have the time space and resources to focus on these plans and feel confident [00:32:02] in their creation and so we can move to the next slide we mentioned that part of our action item from our vows data was ensuring that structured literacy and foundational skills were taught daily in all classrooms. Structured literacy is for kindergarten through second grade classrooms and foundational skills is for our third grade through fifth grade classrooms. What you see on the screen and have in your appendix is a sample of a foundational skill lesson. You also have a sampled structured literacy lesson in your appendix. As you can see from the example the lessons are critical for teachers to implement daily for [00:32:40] students. They address explicit skills necessary for our upper grade students. This lesson happens to focus on decoding; however, they also work on spelling and fluency throughout the week. You can see that they begin the week with administering a quick pretest, then teachers spend time explicitly teaching the principal. [00:32:59] In this example, it's the long O spelling. All whole group lessons focus on grade level expectations, and then differentiation occurs in small groups. The remainder of the lesson, and for additional lessons later in the week, students have opportunities to apply the principle in various ways, such as identifying, comparing, and using the spelling pattern in context. [00:33:21] In addition to this, the teacher is reinforcing the principle during small group instruction. So this is completely aligned with what's happening in middle school. LCPS began implementing systematic spelling instruction in grade six after COVID, when we found that lots of kids had gaps in their learning. [00:33:44] At this time, 18 middle schools assess students on what's called the developmental spelling assessment in the sixth grade. This allows teachers to determine a student's stage of development, as well as to categorize the very specific spelling features, the phonemes and the graphemes, that students have mastered, such as blends, vowel patterns, Greek and Latin roots, and those that still need to be taught. [00:34:11] During this is a real celebration during the past several years we've seen tremendous growth in the sixth grade from sixth grade with both spelling and word recognition. This progress is reflected in the VALS data that is before you. If you look at the VALS subtest for spelling there is a dramatic increase in performance and a dramatic decrease in students that are at the well below level. [00:34:39] In the spelling subtest, for example, there's a 20-point decrease. From sixth grade, 53% of students were well below in spelling. But by eighth grade, that has dropped 20 points to 33%. [00:34:55] Similarly, we're also seeing gains in the word recognition reading subtest. Seventy-seven percent of sixth graders were tested on the VALS in the fall. And that drops to 44% in the eighth grade. [00:35:11] So when we look across the middle school grades, we're very proud of the gains that they are making. It's reflected in both the developmental spelling assessment data. It's also reflected in the VALS data. I did want to share with you or we want to share with you that we know that sometimes study instruction has a bad reputation both at elementary and at the secondary level and that is because many ineffective practices have been ascribed [00:35:42] to word study so for example some teachers to no fault of their own believe that building rainbow words or writing the word three times or pyramid words or crossword puzzles are word study that's in fact not true those are not research-based practices they're based on rote memory theory they have nothing to do with understanding the 44 phonemes the 250 graphemes the context it has nothing to do with active reflection on how words work in text so a lot of bad [00:36:18] practices over the years in Lownden County have been ascribed to word study what we want you to hear is that in the sixth grade the spelling program and in In HMH, which is the elementary program, we are subscribing to a research-based practice that is taught both at the graduate level and in Loudoun County, that we're promoting practices that help students to master the pieces that they need to master to be able to read, write, spell, and determine key vocabulary. [00:36:51] We're continuing to build this capacity across the sixth grade, both through core instruction and professional learning so we wanted to provide some additional information about Lexia since it came up during the last performance monitoring committee meeting our guidance to schools has been to prioritize face-to-face instruction for intervention the example on the screen shows an explicit lesson that a teacher and or reading specialist might use with a student core 5 provides teachers with lessons and resources to provide students with additional [00:37:29] teaching and practice opportunities. The digital piece of Core 5 is a tool that can be utilized outside of the intervention to practice skills independently. Within Core 5, students work to complete units, and each unit represents a mastery of a specific literacy skill across all five pillars. [00:37:48] As units are successfully mastered, they add up to levels as students advance through the platform. On the next slide, you'll see a high-level breakdown of our Core 5 data. This data represents the amount of students who have moved from working in below grade level content to work in on or above grade level content. [00:38:09] You can see the key on the right. This data is from July to November. As you can see, even in just the first quarter of the school year, we have seen significant growth in our students. Our percentage of students working in grade level material continues to grow, while our percentage of students in two grade levels below continues to shrink. [00:38:31] We expect continued growth moving into the second half of the school year. In the bottom left of the screen, you can see the amount of teachers who have logged into the Core 5 platform. The student success you see in the graphs is only possible with the support of our teachers and reading specialists. [00:38:48] This data indicates that teachers understand and see the value in providing students with direct instruction and resources that can support them as they work towards mastering their skills independently. Similarly, these vetted lessons are available in Lexia. [00:39:07] Lexia at the middle school is used both as a supplementary resource as well as an intervention resource. And I wanted to highlight several reasons that we find Lexia Power Up, again, approved by the state school board and also is aligned with the science of reading. [00:39:25] Some of the key reasons that we value this are that middle school teachers rarely have the training or the credentials or the understanding of fundamental literacy. You'll notice on the SOL slide, fundamental literacy stops at grade 5, but we know that many kids come to middle school and still need work to be done. [00:39:43] Lexia Power-Up, as Catherine described, provides step-by-step vetted lessons that provide teachers with the information as well as students. And then the data from Lexia Power-Up identifies specifically where kids need the support. [00:40:01] Is it the schwa? Is it a grammar concept? Is it a comprehension concept? And it's individualized and taught in small group or one-on-one. And then lastly, I just want to underscore, as did Catherine, that we're leaning very heavily into the teaching. [00:40:19] We are not abdicating teaching to a computer program. computer program does two really valuable things. One, it provides data on the gaps. This is exactly what Michelle needs at this time. And then two, it democratizes information about reading with all of these lesson plans and resources that are provided for our teachers. [00:40:44] And then the last slide regarding Lexia Power-Up, this is the middle school data. And you can see here we have three different zones they are identified as grade levels but we're we're we'd like you not to think about it as grade levels that's where a skill may or may not be introduced but the foundational level you can see word study and comprehension we have over 20,000 students using using the program and you can see that the advanced zones are increasing over time so that was a [00:41:22] lot of information that that we just shared and we have a couple of areas we welcome questions or feedback on any of what we just shared but a couple of things that stand out as being especially important are any thoughts you might have on the school supports and resources that we offer and the staffing available to our schools feedback you might have heard around our new English resources that we need to keep in mind as we plan to enhance that curriculum in our second year or continuing in our elementary curriculum and the progress monitoring and communication with families around student reading plans but [00:41:54] welcome any questions or feedback board members you have any yes dr. deans you have um it's a well all machine from inside are there any volunteers or is there a process to get volunteers to help with the students who are below grade level what about the parents is there a parent component is there something you can teach the parent to teach the child um i just know that in broad run [00:42:34] district there are three retirement communities and when I go there they're always saying they're looking for something to do and many of them are retired educators so I thought that that might be an additional resource for some schools depending on where those schools are. Thank you Dr. Deans for the question and we always are looking for opportunities for increased community engagement but I wonder if I could put Ms. Neal on the spot can you talk a little bit about the recent partnership between the EL phase team and Henrietta Lacks I believe there was a reading night or I don't know if someone from the EL team could share and I'm [00:43:13] sorry to put you on the spot that's okay that's all right yes so Henrietta Lacks that was an example they had a parent night where they brought parents in and then they specifically treated it like like a workshop where they talked about the best strategies and ways to help support and work with their students at home on literacy skills. And we were able to provide them with some resources. Students were able to take home books and to be able to have those opportunities to, and just to be able to have, for parents to have somebody to talk to in the school building on how can I best help support [00:43:53] my child at home. Henrietta Lacks is one example, and I know that these different workshops and parent nights do happen throughout the division throughout the school year any other questions yes dr. Rashid thank you chair and thank you for this comprehensive presentation it was a lot to take in and it sounds very promising I just wanted to ask however aside from the last two slides about Lexia power up for adolescent readers I was just I was just curious to say if there were [00:44:26] any intervention resources for grades 9 to 12 or maybe I missed it when you were doing the presentation. So if you go back in the presentation to when we were showing the literacy plan and things that are available there's actually a longer list on the secondary slide including SPIRE was mentioned, READ 180 is another intervention that we offer. The full, Margaret if You want to speak to the full matrix of things that are available for special education students. [00:44:58] All of those things are available at the high school. The biggest change at the high school is that you have one reading teacher for a great many more students. And, of course, you have special education and EL as well. So we do have a really robust continuum of different approaches to help students. [00:45:18] Thank you. I will just add, we have a whole secondary match guide for students with disabilities for high school that is specific to the list of interventions since we're not tied to some of the ones that are VDOE approved we're also using things like IMSE og those are available in high school where they're not available in elementary or middle school thank you so much is very helpful thank you I think that's the the differences that we're talking about video e and the Virginia Literacy Act it really only goes up to 8th grade so interventions that are approved by video e and curriculum is really only goes up to 8th grade anybody [00:45:56] else have any Ms. Chernoff thank you madam chair I had one quick question before I give some feedback on the things you asked for on slide 21 where we would it be a board meeting if I asked about Lexia I mean I feel like I have to stay on brand here so can you just clarify the thirteen thousand four hundred and twenty-six students are all of those tier three students veteran using Luxia core five yes you're talking about the core five slide right yes I don't have the no sorry I don't have it up that's all right um yes those [00:46:34] so those 13,000 students are all students that have a license in Lexia but that doesn't equate to students that are in need of a tier 3 intervention okay some of our schools about 20 of our schools have a universal site license which means that students all the students within those buildings can access core 5 because core 5 is also approved from the state as a supplemental resource so they can be using it from that perspective in other schools that don't have a universal site license they have individual student [00:47:12] licenses and those are used for intervention okay I guess I'd just be curious if there are I am specifically curious about how a productive it is for tier 3 students so if there are some on grade level kids or general education kids that are tier one that are using this program that are you know creating something I would just love to see the analysis on tier three and I know we've done some deep dives in PMC so maybe that can continue as part of the discussion and you guys have been great about breaking down the tier movement and all that but I just want to make sure that we're really looking at the highest leverage strategies for our tier three kiddos especially you guys [00:47:48] know as it relates to digital I just gonna be marching to that drum for a long time and it's just it's curious to me about you know if those students that are in tier three are now working on grade level I mean that that would be important to note but we might need to sort some of that out and then I think in terms I you know I hear a couple of really great things and you guys know my background is being part of this team so of course I support the work I love hearing about the collaboration I love seeing all of you here together so truly it takes a village and you know we've seen with our special education numbers and our English language learner numbers like we have a long way to go and we've [00:48:26] seen some growth but particularly in grades 4 through 8 like we need we need to keep growing so I think that having that collaboration is great I heard one of you mentioned coaching cycles I think we were seeing now that these whole school coaching cycles whole school PD we're starting to crack the code and see how we can move the needle for kids so I'm happy to hear that and I want to continue to find ways and we mentioned this in the last PMC meeting we want to continue to find ways as a school board that support the high leverage staffing to make sure that those lessons are happening face to face and those kids [00:49:04] are getting the learning that they need so we will continue to evaluate what things are moving the needle and how we can replicate that and and dig deeper on those things and I have heard positive results about the student reading plans I think we've made a conscious effort to lighten the load for our teachers, especially our reading specialists who were some of them We're doing all of the reading plans for their gen ed teachers. So I thank you for that And I want to continue that conversation of how we can help them You know, hopefully we'll have less plans as we go through this But I think that that's important and I would just encourage the public to really, you know, dial into this conversation It's an important one [00:49:43] Like I said, we have some work to do and we had the chance to dive in at PMC and look at some of this VALS data And some of it is, you know Alarming I think in terms of how many kids are struggling in some of these areas And while we are seeing the growth progressively move up and hopefully we will as we continue these practices I do think it's important to monitor where we are and where we're going always so thank you for being here any other discussion So I'm going to go back so everyone knows my history. [00:50:21] So I'm going to go back to let's look at the HMH best practices in spelling. And this to me is when you're looking at O, they're not even looking, they're looking at go, which is a one syllable word that has an open syllable. [00:50:42] And then they're also doing bold and cold. And so I'm wondering, are they even explaining to the kids OLD and OLT? And I know Ms. Osbury knows what I'm talking about. Also, if we're going to O and then O constant, and there's no O constant E here. [00:51:01] OE is rare. You have OA in the middle and OW at the end. So that is a lot of concepts for a kid at once. So how are you breaking that down? And this is my problem with words their way. because it was it's very the explanations weren't there, it was a lot at once, and it really focused on visual with the word sorts. I will admit it is all about how you're doing the word sorts, whether you're actively stating the word and putting it in, why you're understanding, and you're asking the kid why you're putting it in one list rather than the other. Otherwise it's a [00:51:41] visual exercise I would say when we're looking at word work here I see your research-based practices I don't see word sums or morphology kinds of things in here either which is something that VALS is picking up on so that's my first thing how are you breaking it down for core first of all because I think you're gonna be losing a lot of kids and then I have second so I couldn't agree with you [00:52:17] more like they're like these programs and the examples that we showed you I'll only go so far and as much as we work with our classroom teachers and our reading teachers we tell them all the time the programs don't teach the teachers do and so it's about taking the data looking at the data and then thinking about okay what scaffolds and supports do I need to put in place which may mean that we need to take a lesson like this and break it down into smaller parts because of what the students that I'm working with in front of me whether it's a small group whole group what they need at that time HMH does have some [00:52:54] other suggestions and resources they do suggest some different ways to scaffold but at the end of the day that's why we're still committed to letters because letters really helps to support teachers in making those instructional decisions and then provides them with some resources to be able to go back and adjust some of these lessons to then you know strengthen that lesson so that it meets the students needs I want to echo that and I want to echo what you said which is that it's all about implementation it's about deep knowledge of teachers and implementing what kids need and there is a phonetic continuum there are four stages of spelling development there are stages of [00:53:32] decoding and it's about arming teachers with that deep knowledge so that it is not a visual task that it is an active thinking task how does this let's use use long O. There are several ways to spell long O. Some of them are very uncommon, some of them are very common. Some of the features are in the middle of a word, some are always at the end, like O-W is always at the end of a syllable or a word. So, our efforts with spelling specifically are data-based. So, in the sixth grade, we've had tremendous success [00:54:07] because we've really been promoting what's the big idea, not what are these 25 words. So I want to make that point. I also want to talk about morphology. I know that you had comments at the last school board as well. The morphology data is a little, I thought it was surprising, in VALS. [00:54:27] But I want to share with you, if you don't already know, they call the morphology subtest a comprehension subtest. it really has very little to do with morphology. The way that subtest works is it will say, it's going to give you a sentence. So Mr. Roundsley was very blank to come to the school board meeting this evening. A, excite. B, excited. C, excitable. D, excitement. That's read to the [00:55:02] student and then the student has to select the correct form of the word. So in my experience with, and I did give this test to many, many kids, it's really about language. It's about hearing the language. I will tell you that we teach morphology every single week in every single middle school classroom across the system. But we teach prefixes, we teach suffixes, we teach the many different ways you can change the word courage to courageous and encourage, and we teach all of those things, [00:55:39] and I don't think that's what the morphology subtest is getting at. I think it's getting at kids that aren't understanding the English language and getting the appropriate piece, so I just wanted to share that with you for thought. So, but if they knew that EDU was past tense, and they knew that ABLE was able to, that kind of thing, then that would help them with that sentence. Absolutely true and this is where what Mr. Roundsley said is so important. The VALS data is not all Loudoun County Public Schools students. It's only the students that have failed [00:56:18] the standards of learning at least grades four through eight and it is something that we're addressing. It's also interesting to me that the kids who have to have audio and read alouds are supposed to take it every year okay so then I'm going to move on to middle and high school level you made a good point that English teachers do not normally learn foundational skills because they weren't necessarily taught but one thing I know for sure is that we must use interventions [00:56:51] with fidelity to see gains so how are we able to help those students who need foundational instruction and I know that there's a difference between special education and reading specialists but it's kind of weird at the secondary level because who does who does the reading strategies class who does those kinds of things so and then what is being provided in the reading strategies class as opposed to other English self-contained classes and program classes it all kind of gets [00:57:26] meshed together so how are you separating that out and what in the budget needs to be put in place to help you get the right people in on board who know how to do that foundational instruction? [00:57:42] Because sometimes it's a lot. Yeah, and I'm going to turn it. I think there's several people at the table who would want to respond to that question. I just want to say that we recognize, too, that at the secondary level, there is a pinch in the schedule to try and make sure we give that time for schools. [00:57:59] Our schools have been incredibly creative in thinking about how they might schedule differently to make sure that that time is built in and available for students, but that's an ongoing project that we're thinking about and how we can more fully integrate that intervention time that's so necessary into the daily schedule. [00:58:15] But our schools have done a phenomenal job of being creative in what they have and being able to do that. I'm gonna let Dr. Picard and Ms. Osbury, I'm sure, talk a little bit about what else we need and some of the work that's happening. - I mean, I will say that what's important is that consistency. [00:58:30] If you have SPIRE, you need to do it 45 minutes, four or five days a week. So first I will say that in the Office of Special Education, we offer a professional learning called Foundations of Specialized Reading that we do really target, especially towards secondary special education teachers to provide some of that foundational skill knowledge that is also provided in letters for our secondary teachers to build that knowledge base for some of our staff who are teaching that specialized reading instruction to students. [00:59:02] When we talk about intervention in secondary, where we're really looking for integrity of implementation comes from our SIFs who are out there really working with staff to make sure that they're seeing that value and continuing to provide intervention in a consistent way as well as monitoring our data to make sure that our students are making the kind of progress we want to see. Just last week I did a presentation with our special education designees around SPIRE pacing and ensuring that we're staying on pace with our intervention so that our students are acquiring skills at a rate that is going to enable them to continue to put these skills to work and read text and move on to those other skills like [00:59:38] morphology, like fluency, so we can keep moving and closing that gap for our students. The other piece I will say is when we talk about the difference between reading strategies versus English versus self-contained program classes, that's always going to come down to our instructional match and ensuring that the students in that class are getting the intervention that is going to meet their identified needs based on their disability and their areas of deficit. We We are working very closely with our schools, as Mr. Roundsley mentioned, to make sure that we're grouping students into classes so that we're not having to provide three or four interventions within the same block, because that gets very tricky. [01:00:14] We only have a finite amount of time during the day. Our CIFs do a lot of work working with teachers to make sure that we're keeping track of what interventions are being used, what skills students are on, so that schools can use that information when they're building class schedules as we move into the fall and winter. Nope, not fall. [01:00:30] We're in January. Winter? It's December. It's December. January is when they start doing schedules in secondary so they'll have that data for rising sixth and ninth graders to build schedules in the upcoming semester so anything you want to add budget and I will say how do EL come into this too because there's EL students who needs foundational instruction too so for our English learners we have sheltered classes [01:01:03] especially specific to students who are level ones through level 2.5 and we have created a structure where they're getting those interventions in those sheltered classes we use read 180 which is approved by the state and we try to make sure that students are receiving only one intervention at a time so it's only read 180 and they're not receiving Lexia if there are students in co-taught classes co-taught English classes then we do say that they can receive Lexia not read 180 so that's how we're providing interventions for English learners I [01:01:40] will just add one quick thing reading specialists are highly trained and they use a variety of different approaches Lexia is very helpful when English teachers are participating in some of the interventions as well but there is a real Margaret I think you said it really well there it's about a match for what kids need so i'll take the question about budget on behalf of the team first i would like to just acknowledge the tremendous support the school board has provided to our literacy ecosystem over the years whether it's through additional tools we had a healthy conversation i believe in [01:02:18] your first budget around lexia looking at our off cycle adoption of the middle school resources that was a significant investment in terms of what we were doing and since the beginning of the virginia literacy act working with budget and finance we've been very thoughtful about adding differentiated staffing around reading specialists and thinking about the people that we need in buildings I can tell you that one of the things that I look at as the assistant superintendent for teaching learning in particular is what are our schools using their differentiated and flexible staffing for and prior to adding some additional reading specialists into the budget that was one of the [01:02:57] first positions that like a school would create out of their flexible staffing or differentiated staffing and as we've added more they've moved on to positions such as coaches but they've also started looking for just like we have math resource teachers they're looking for interventionists people that can just work with students and we're still at the point where we're not necessarily recommending those in the budget but we're studying how schools are using them and we're thinking about ways that the offices up in teaching and learning can help those people that are in those positions. So I think, you know, continuing to stay focused on the resources that we have, making sure they're being used with fidelity, evaluating the instructional resources in case [01:03:37] we need to change, being willing to have conversations like this at the board level so that we can get feedback from the board. I know that's not budget related, but it does impact kind of the decision we make about spending and FTE allocation. So I don't have a specific budget recommendation that I'm making tonight, but those are the type of things I'm thinking about when it comes to budget so flexible staffing I mean you can even there's even things like um you know the tutoring and with specialized tutoring where it's all encompassed everybody is on the same page kind of tutoring so they don't have to pay for it outside um there are those [01:04:15] kinds of you know programs that you can do before school at schools and really actually during school would be best but okay um I'll shut up anybody else no okay thank you for your time um okay and then we're going to move on to um department of academics 2025 state and federal accountability results presented by dr ashley ellis chief academic officer and i don't know other people [01:04:48] coming up it looks like dr ryan tyler and and some friends and i'm sure um dr ellis will introduce everyone oh and dr carter all right good afternoon chair mansfield and members of [01:05:20] the board. This afternoon, we will be sharing a brief review of the state and federal accreditation and accountability framework and our accreditation results, state and federal accountability designations, and work underway and planned to support schools. There are really not enough chairs for all of the people in this team, in this building, who support this work. So I have asked Dr. Tyler to join us for questions around school improvement and the data, and Dr. Carter will share some information about specifically how we're supporting our students with disabilities. [01:06:01] So as I've shared with you in previous presentations, Virginia recently changed the accreditation system and now uses, for the first time this year, two ways to describe schools. Accountability is focused on student progress and outcomes, and it is the little flow chart in blue on the left-hand side of the screen, while accreditation is focused on whether schools provide an essential foundation of high-quality programs for all students in the green, and they serve different purposes but work together to show a picture of a school. [01:06:34] First, we'll talk about accreditation. Again, this system is focused on the elements listed in the standards of quality provided by the state including items related to safe and healthy learning environments teacher licensure etc accreditation is not tied to student outcomes i'm pleased to share that all lcps schools are fully accredited for the 2025 2024 2025 school year so now shifting to talking about accountability as i've shared in previous meetings vdoe has shifted to the school performance and support [01:07:14] framework model, or SPSF. This accountability system centers on student learning, progress, and outcomes calculated using mastery, growth, and readiness, and then graduation at the high school level. We've talked a little bit about this in the past, so I'm going to walk you through how schools have received in this past week both a state designation and are potentially federally identified for support. So bear with me, this is a little complicated. First, schools receive an [01:07:48] overall index score and scores for different student groups based on mastery, growth, and readiness. We've talked about this in detail in previous presentations, so I'll skip that part. Based on that index score that each school received, each school is then assigned a state SPSF performance category, distinguished, on-track, off-track, or needs intensive support. Next, using the information from the state SPFS scores, schools are potentially identified federal support, [01:08:25] either comprehensive support or targeted support, which the state calls CSI or TSI. The additional targeted support and improvement, we're going to set that aside this year. It's really about three-year trends of lack of improvement over three years. We don't have any schools in that category. So I'm going to talk a little bit about the federal identification process. They start by identifying the comprehensive support and improvement or CSI schools so to do that CSI schools are essentially at the elementary school and sorry elementary schools are the bottom five [01:09:02] percent of title one schools in the state by individual level elementary middle or high or a high school with a graduation rate of less than 67 percent which does not apply in LCPS to any of our schools and again we're going to set aside the orange category of ATSI so the lowest performing five percent of title one schools they separate all the schools in the commonwealth by elementary middle and high and they rank them by that index score that SPSF index score from highest performing [01:09:36] to lowest performing by level the bottom five percent are automatically identified for comprehensive support and improvement, CSI. So if you had 100 elementary schools in the Commonwealth, the lowest five performing schools would be CSI schools. Next, they identify targeted support and intervention. So for the bottom 5%, we'll stick with elementary, the bottom 5% of elementary schools, the top performing of the bottom 5% has an index score. And this year, [01:10:15] that index score is 71.8. The highest performing of the lowest 5% sets the threshold for targeted support. So we now have a threshold of 71.8. That's the threshold index score. They take that index score and then they use that against all student groups with an N size greater than 15 to compare to. And any school with any student group bigger than 15 that has a score lower than [01:10:47] the threshold of 71.8 is identified for targeted support in that area. Are you with me? Okay. So one, actually one important note that I want to go back to on this slide is that N size of 15, that is a significant change this year in the new support system. The N size used to be 30. [01:11:12] So any school with a student group that was smaller than 30, it essentially was not counted in their data, in their reporting. We obviously look at that locally, but determining state and federal designations, it had to be an N size of 30. [01:11:28] So several more student groups are identified when you lower that number to 15. I think that just is important when thinking about some of the changes from last year to this year. Okay, so trying to make this a little bit clearer, I've included a couple of flow charts to help you visualize what I just shared. [01:11:49] So, again, going through the process of determining state performance categories and federal identification. Starting at the top, a school is given a framework score based on growth, mastery, and readiness. And then it's given an initial performance category, distinguished, on-track, off-track, etc. [01:12:09] Then in the blue on the side, simultaneously, there's the federal identification of CSI schools and then potentially TSI schools. If a school is identified as CSI or TSI for federal identification, it automatically drops one state performance level. [01:12:30] So, using an example of one of our schools, one of our schools received an SPS framework score of 91.6. That's amazing. It's a really high score, and their original SPFS category was distinguished. [01:12:53] Then simultaneously, VDOE calculated CSI and TSI using that threshold of 71.8 against each individual student group bigger than 15. The overall threshold was 71.8. [01:13:08] This particular school, their performance score for students with disabilities was 71.2, which is below the threshold of 71.8. Therefore, they were identified for federal identification as TSI, targeted support for students with disabilities, and therefore their SPSF performance score was revised from distinguished to on track, drops one level. [01:13:36] So here's an example of a very high-performing school that can also be identified for targeted support. I think the challenge for that is that it's a little confusing to explain and understand for families and the community and teachers the benefit is that we are targeting support where it's needed most so in terms of some of our in terms of our local numbers for each of these categories the majority of our schools have no federal identification 11 of our schools have been identified for targeted support and improvement or TSI and two of our schools have been identified [01:14:12] for comprehensive support CSI I've linked a couple of helpful resources from BDOE as well as the Virginia school quality profiles that we'll talk about in a minute. Here's the breakdown of state SPSF performance levels in LCPS, and you can see that the majority of our schools are distinguished or on track. You'll also notice that this is very, very close. I'm extremely proud of the RASI team. This is very close to what we predicted to you all in September when we were [01:14:48] tracking this data. So then I asked the team to pull the data from our comparison divisions that we often show you in presentations around student achievement data. Typically, we compare ourselves to the other large divisions in the state, Fairfax, Prince William, Virginia Beach. And then this last column on the right, you'll see the state averages. So these are the percentages of SPSF performance levels i just want to point out that's a big 46.94 compared to everybody else i mean just saying [01:15:26] thank you chair mansfield yes so 82 of our schools are distinguished or on track and i do think that's a huge celebration and a testament to all of the work that our teams do both in our departments in central office and the hard work that teachers do every day so i know you all are curious about the individual schools. Slide 16 shows the schools that have been identified through the state SPSF system as off-track or needs intensive support. And then slide 17 shows the [01:16:06] schools that have been federally identified as targeted support or comprehensive support. A couple of things I want to point out on these two slides. As I mentioned, we had very few surprises when we received this data last week. All 11 TSI schools were identified for students with disabilities, with one of those schools also being identified for additional student groups. [01:16:30] But overall, our biggest area of concern that we need to support schools in is supporting our students with disabilities. The amazing RASI team and our incredible Office of Special Education an office of el the school improvement team and others in central office track this data regularly we've had the our finger on the pulse since well before this school year began and these schools were already locally identified as needing support this summer and have been receiving division [01:17:02] support along the way we've also met with a couple principals individually and held office hours for school leaders in the past couple of days since we received this data last week to help them go through their reports we have additional meetings set up this this week and after the break to support to give you an idea we typically get this information in september so this is extremely delayed we knew that because of the changes coming with this framework that we absolutely could not wait september is already too late to provide supports the school year has already started [01:17:40] routines are in place and we need to have all of those supports ready to go on the first day of school. So we worked really hard over the summer with school leadership teams, with the school improvement team to put those systems in place and now that we have this data we will not only continue that work but are doing a deep dive into these schools reports to provide additional support and pivot if and when needed. We are also supposed to be getting more information from VDOE on how they plan to support TSI and CSI schools across the Commonwealth. They have said that they will [01:18:20] be providing different levels of support and we are not sure what that looks like. We've reached out last week and as of today we don't have any specifics but that information is forthcoming and I'll be sure to share that when we have it. So as I mentioned all these schools on slide 16 and 17 were I already locally identified this proactive identification really ensures that the most significant needs receive focused assistance we call that locally enhanced or priority support as early as possible our top priority schools [01:18:56] participate in monthly meetings with division staff for ongoing problem solving and continuous data review we go through the plan do study act process through the school improvement process these collaborative meetings focused on data analysis providing content level expertise assisting with strategy and resources to support and pivoting when needed this slide gives you an idea of some of the ways school teams support students and what you might see in school improvement plans they use strategies to focus on closing [01:19:35] achievement gaps in math and reading specifically for for student groups identified at their school such as students with disabilities or English learners they utilize SOL data map data local formative and summative assessments the valve data that the team just spoke about they implement a variety of instructional strategies to meet needs of students and central office teams provide support through professional learning data analysis and planning so again as I mentioned once our team received the data last week we got together to review our [01:20:11] current supports and talk with the Office of Special Education specifically given the data that we received. And I did want Dr. Carter to speak a little bit about the work we're doing to support improving achievement for students with disabilities, both what we are currently doing and any pivots we might make. Thank you, Dr. Ellis. Good evening, everyone. I feel like I'm going to just give you a little bit of an extension of what Margaret has already talked about. [01:20:42] But we do have very specific and strategic coaching going on in all of our schools with our specialized instructional facilitators focusing on literacy and math and how those skills can be carried out in the other subjects. Our goal is to build capacity of our teachers. [01:21:00] We have customized professional learning around co-teaching practices, and we're really focusing on fine-tuning those practices to include specially designed instruction. We have spent time differentiating between the strategies that work for EL and the strategies that work for special education and what those two things have in common so that we can focus on our students who are dually identified as well. [01:21:24] We also, in our coaching, we talk about specially designed instruction and specifically at the interventions that we use, the data that we collect, and how we use that data to guide our decision-making, which leads to what goes in the student's individualized education plan and how we develop those plans and how they change over time. [01:21:49] The data dialogues that we have are really specific to strategy reviews, looking at student performance, especially those kids on the bubble of moving from almost passing to passing, those standardized tests, we're looking at both the acquisition and generalization of skills, specifically the skills that they learned during specially designed instruction, for example, during SPIRE, do we see those skills that they were learning across the school day? [01:22:23] This also gives us information about what strategies and accommodations are used across the division and how they're being successful from place to place. The only other thing I wanted to mention was that while the 11 schools are identified and, well, 13 schools that are identified, we also have deficits for our students with disabilities in reading and math across the division. So our CIFs are, while they are focused in these schools, they are actually visiting and [01:22:59] supporting and coaching on a cadence in all of our schools. And we have data to support a lot of the things that we're doing. So even Rolling Ridge, for example, while they were identified, we see a trend of growth. And the fact that Dr. Ellis was able to say, that doesn't apply to any of our high schools, I think really speaks to how the gaps close as students get older. And you may be several grade levels below, but through intervention, by the time you are in upper grades, those gaps tend to close. Though we do have work to do at the secondary level [01:23:35] as well, I do think that it's important to mention that we are seeing gaps begin to close. We are both wanting to stay the course and do what we are doing, but determine what we can add to support our students with disabilities as well. So our team is participating in all the school improvement meetings all of the school support meetings everything that we can to really focus on specific interventions for specific students thank you dr carter and really briefly before we wrap up and turn it over to you for feedback and questions i did want to [01:24:14] say to the board and the public that the school and division data are available in the video e school quality profiles linked on this slide this year new new this year you'll see a button on each school page that says school performance and support it's a little blue button at the top if you click on that it leads you to a very detailed SPSF report for each school and you'll notice that each level so if you look at an elementary school you'll see growth mastery readiness with the elementary calculations if you click on a high school report you'll see the graduation component added in there. You'll see information about chronic absenteeism. It's [01:24:52] broken down by student group. It's quite detailed. And so rather than asking the research office to regurgitate those reports, I really encourage you to go directly to the source for that information. It's quite comprehensive. And so I know that's a lot of information after a lot of information in the previous presentation. So we're happy to address any questions you have. [01:25:18] I have. So where could parents find the school plans, like what they need to, what the goals for the school is going to be, what they're working on, how they're doing it? Because I know for a while we had them on the school websites, and I don't know that that's being really kept up anymore. Are there plans to keep those up? [01:25:43] Yes, so they should be available on the school website. If they are not, I recommend contacting the school administrator to ask for that plan. Those plans are supposed to be available to the public. We try to check each year to make sure those summaries are updated. [01:26:05] Now, because the school improvement plan that the staff works on is very detailed and sometimes has very specific student information, we have an executive summary posted on the website. But again, those should be on the website. And Dr. Carter, I'm wondering, for a while we had CIFRs and we had CIFMs. [01:26:23] Why did we decide to put them together? And did we lose people in that process? No, we were being responsive. There were several reasons. But one of the reasons that really stuck out to me is that we were being responsive to the requests of principals and teachers. [01:26:45] When you have several people coming in and out of your building, it's more challenging. And many of our CIFs had also been, before that, they were called consulting teachers, and they really worked on all areas of academics. [01:27:01] So we wanted to consolidate and cross-train all those folks so that we could provide consistent support to schools without having so many people come in and out. Because, you know, I have four or five different kinds of CIFs already. And so that was one way that we could really consolidate and focus on school improvement was to be able to cross-train those folks that were centered around academics. [01:27:24] Are we having them go into IEP team meetings at all to help with strategies or any of that? I can't say that they never go to IEP meetings. Sometimes if there's a specific reason for them to be there, they do. I know often you might see Margaret Osbury at an IEP meeting and several of our other supervisors as well, and occasionally there will be a CIF who attends, but that's not routine because their focus is really staying with the cadence of support they're providing to teachers and being able to support from that strategy lens in the classroom. [01:27:59] And one last question. What's the difference between instructional facilitators and then you have your CIFs? One goes to special education and the other one doesn't? Well, Specialized Instructional Facilitators, CIFs, are those folks that used to be the M's and the R's, that team of 23 that works with Margaret Osbury. [01:28:18] And so it's only special education teachers that they work with? Or do they work with English teachers? Do they work with other people or reading specialists? I do believe they work with student teams. So the majority of the work they do is with special education teachers. [01:28:36] but I do know that they also support some students receive their specialized instruction in the general ed setting so there are there are times that they support there as well and I will defer to Margaret Osbury if she wants to answer more specifically who's also our dyslexia advisor she gave a thumbs up okay board members do you guys have any questions oh miss Chandler thank you madam chair and thank you for the presentation I'm going to say something flip, and I want to start out by saying that it is no way, shape, or form a reflection on the team currently sitting at the table. [01:29:12] But I find this about as clear as mud, and it's very, very challenging to really wrap my mind around this process. And like many of the people on this dais, spend a lot of my time working in this, in the weeds, and really trying to understand it. [01:29:37] And so I imagine if it's tough for me, it's going to be tough for parents. So I hope you can help me understand a little bit better. In going back to the information on page 12, the example of one of our high-performing schools, is it fair to say that if one or more student subgroups are not necessarily reaching mastery at an expected rate, that it's impacting the overall score of the school? [01:30:09] That's fair to say. Okay. So, and that's that state threshold. Yep. But if I were trying to look for the positive, perhaps the positive aspect of this is that we are able to identify students who need that targeted support, and we will then be better able to provide services? [01:30:38] Yes, I believe that is the intent. Okay. But because it's new, we don't necessarily know? Well, I think that it is helpful, and I think that I go back to our local identification of areas of need almost identical to what the state has given us this past week. [01:31:03] To me, I do think that is the intent of the framework, and it very much aligns with our local process, which I do think is a positive. Would you agree, Dr. Tyler? [01:31:20] I would agree, and also considering that the state is identifying schools that have the largest gaps or have the biggest gaps between an index score of, say, 91 and the actual threshold of 71. Our schools conducted needs assessments in the spring several months ago, so we have schools that are addressing achievement gaps of 5 or 10 or 15 points. [01:31:42] so it extends the concept of if you have a student group that is performing below this fifth percentile school and you have other students that are performing at a higher level you have the capacity to figure out ways to close that gap so it's something that our schools are already looking at they're high performing schools that were not identified and have significant gaps and they're still addressing them so the spirit of it is if you're succeeding with so many students and not with a particular group, there's some way you can close that gap because you're showing capacity with most of your students. [01:32:16] Thank you for that explanation. That resonates with me quite a lot. I think one of the things that I have hesitancy about, though, is that the ranking or the score, the qualification, will impact community perception, especially given that it is very targeted. [01:32:38] And then I guess in sort of looking at the schools that I know best in my division, it's clear to me that these are schools that have complex populations of students and really serve complex needs. [01:32:54] And I feel resistant to continuing to label these communities in this way. And with that, I will give someone else an opportunity. [01:33:10] So thank you for entertaining my questions. I look at it as if you're a high-performing school, you might be masking some things unintentionally. And this like drills down what, I mean, because everybody has weaknesses. So this could be the weakness. [01:33:26] Yes, Ms. LaBelle. I think that one of the advantages of the plan as it is presented is that if we have a high-performing school, we would tend to say that's great and, you know, there's just a few kids there. [01:33:45] but with the way they are using the different valuations and bringing it down a level draws attention to the fact that these kids really are a specific group. They are all performing kind of below expectation, and we need to target them. So I think it makes it a little bit more clear as to, well, you're not just a high-performing school. That's great, but we need to fix these other groups that otherwise we wouldn't have noticed so I think that that's one of the things [01:34:18] that it brings to light anyone else sure enough I'll be quick I actually tend to agree with Miss LaBelle and Miss Mansfield and we've talked offline about it but I agree I think you know it's very clear that we're doing well I think we should celebrate that especially in relation to our neighboring districts we're thriving in so many areas and and I do think it's time I I hear about the public perception but I want the public perception to be that every kid deserves that chance and so I think it's an opportunity for us to rally around those different groups and and put the right supports in place and I think we're already on our way and and thank you to the team for having us [01:34:57] prepared so but I do agree with you miss Chandler I think if we can't understand it and I worked in our schools and you know it was it took me a few rounds with dr. Ellis to get it under my belt and understand it we do need to work on our comms. I don't see Ms. Allen in her seat, but we'll probably have to do some work in communicating what that all means, and I think we have the ability to do so. So I look forward to the update as we travel along this new journey. Thank you. Any other questions? All right, seeing none, thank you very much for a very difficult topic. Thank you. Okay, the school [01:35:37] board will now recess for dinner and reconvene around 6 30. thank you. good [02:05:01] evening the board is coming out of recess at this time and we will continue with item 7 our Pledge of Allegiance and National Anthem. our Pledge of Allegiance and National Anthem will be performed by Gia Singh V a 13 year old soprano from virtual distance learning and one of Loudoun County's most accomplished young vocalists. her passion for music has led her to remarkable stages, including performances with the ACDA National Honor Choir, the All-Virginia State Choir, and multiple ACDA Quad State Honor Choirs. She currently serves as the Soprano One [02:05:41] Section Leader for the South Loudoun Youth Chorale. Gia has earned multiple solo roles in choral concerts and musical theater, and she also performed with the band Foreigner before an audience of more than 20,000 people at Jiffy Lube Live, along with a live radio performance promoting the event. She is already qualified for the District Honor Choir this year, will audition for the All-Virginia State Honor Choir next month, and will perform at the National Cathedral on the 21st of December. A dedicated student ambassador and proud representative for virtual distance learning, Gia is honored to perform the national anthem for this evening's [02:06:21] school board meeting. Would everybody please rise? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Oh say can you see [02:08:53] That was 13 years old, just saying, well done. We will continue with recognitions, the school board member recognition presented by Dr. Spence. [02:09:08] Thank you, and good evening. So before we get into the meat of tonight's agenda, I would just like to take a few moments to recognize and thank three remarkable public servants who have given so much to Loudoun County Public Schools. Chairman Linda Mansfield, Dr. Linda Deans, and Mr. Arvin Estreffi. [02:09:27] This board was formed in a moment of transition. All nine of these board members were new with new responsibilities, new challenges, and even a new superintendent. And from day one, you set the bar for what collaboration, professionalism, and shared purpose should look like. You've welcomed the opportunity to build something new together, and your steady guidance has helped shape the course of our division during a time when strong student-centered leadership has been needed most. [02:09:52] Your tenure has been marked by meaningful and lasting accomplishments, work that will serve students and families for years to come. Because of your vision and advocacy, LCPS has opened a transition center, providing students with disabilities a clear pathway into adulthood. [02:10:09] You have championed the creation of the recovery school, ensuring that students battling addiction have a safe and hopeful place to rebuild their lives and continue their education. And you've moved our division forward in so many other ways, with things like accessible playgrounds, making sure that every child, regardless of ability, has a place to play, grow, and belong. [02:10:28] You've helped launch the Global and Linguistic Studies Academy, expanding opportunities for students to thrive in an increasingly interconnected world, and your advocacy for free aftercare for families most in need has demonstrated your belief that students are not just places schools are not just places of learning but pillars of support for our community all of this has been accomplished during a time of tremendous change at both the state and federal levels but through it all you've not lost sight of our mission you've remained focused on what matters most our students and you've showed courage and calm and resolve and you've made decisions rooted in what would best serve the students and families of our county to chair [02:11:07] mansfield to dr deans and to mr astrafe especially thank you thank you for your partnership your leadership and your willingness to make hard decisions in the service of others thank you for modeling what it means to work as one lcps to listen deeply engage authentically and lead with purpose our students are better off because of you and your time on the board our staff is better supported because of you and your time on the board and our school division is stronger because you chose to devote your time your energy and your heart to this work so on behalf of the entire lcps community know that it has been an honor to serve alongside you we wish you all the very best in [02:11:46] whatever comes next and we do hope that you take with you a sense of pride in all that you have been able to accomplish for the children of loudon county thank you very much at this time if i could ask chair mansfield mr astraffi and dr deans if you could come down we do have a small gift for [02:12:09] you and we'd like to get a picture okay um now i have the rest of the school board meeting to get [02:14:31] through it's a real short agenda okay so um we will continue with item nine student school board representative comment tonight our school board representative is rj nosegbe rj nosegbe is a senior at heritage high school with a strong passion for science leadership and community involvement. He maintains a 4.37 GPA and is actively involved in multiple school organizations at the leadership level, including Student Council Association, National Honor Society, [02:15:08] and Black Student Union. RJ is interested in majoring in biomedical engineering and aspires to become an orthopedic surgeon, combining his love for science and helping others. Outside of academics, he enjoys traveling with family, staying active in sports, and participating in school events that support and connect the student body. Welcome, Mr. Nosegbe, and the floor is yours. Thank you for the kind introduction, Madam Chair. Good evening, members of the board and members of the community. I'm honored to be here tonight and serve the school board representative [02:15:45] as a senior at Heritage High School. This fall, Heritage football finished the season with a 7-4 record and advanced to the second round of the playoffs for the first time in school history. This achievement reflects the dedication, discipline, and persistence of our students. [02:16:02] Academically, Heritage is proud to be one of the only two schools in the county offering the IB program. Having experienced the program before and after expansion, I have first-handedly seen how it's increased enrollment and expanded course offerings and has strengthened student learning. [02:16:18] Ivy has helped students become strong, critical leaders and globally-minded individuals, skills that are increasingly important in the world shaped by rapid technology growth and artificial intelligence. Our school community continues to come together through athletic and school spirit. [02:16:39] Tomorrow night, our undefeated boys' basketball team will host McLean High School, during which we will honor our state champion boys' baseball team with a ring ceremony. Then, the following night, we will recognize our girls' basketball team, also state champions, during a gold out against dominion this event will commemorate rocky lardo a former heritage student and girls basketball player who passed away from cancer while also raising awareness student leadership and innovations remain central in heritage's culture the implementation of pride time has allowed students to create new clubs and pursue interests that expands their resume further [02:17:15] writing them for life after high school leadership forums such as the principal leadership council and committees held by Mr. Adam, our principal, ensures the students' voice are heard, valued, and respected. Even events like the Winter Forum, which we will be hosting with Riverside, create creative spirit events, continuing strength, our unity, and school pride. [02:17:37] I would like to sincerely thank Mr. Adam and the board for this opportunity. It is a privilege to represent the students of Heritage High School and share the impact of the school community and continue to grow, lead, and inspire. Thank you for your time and continue to support the students. [02:17:53] Thank you, Mr. Nosegbe, and we are thankful that you're here, and thank you for your comments. [02:18:12] We will now move on to the superintendent's report, presented by Dr. Aaron Spence, our superintendent. Dr. Spence? Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. It is, as always, my pleasure to share good news from around our school division, starting this evening with this year's holiday card project, which was a joyful celebration of our students' artistic talent. [02:18:33] For this project, art teachers from across the county submitted student artwork, and my team and I had the challenging but enjoyable task of selecting the designs used to create the holiday cards, which will be mailed to our government, business, and community partners to extend LCPS's holiday greetings. [02:18:49] Thank you to the students who participated and to our art teachers for their support. I'm inspired by their creativity in this project and by the dedication of our teachers who helped showcase student voice. I look forward to growing this activity in the years to come. [02:19:07] Through its annual holiday gift drive, the LCPS Head Start and Step Holiday Helpers helped make the holiday season brighter for 420 families, an expansion over the 100 families served last year. More than 34 organizations and countless individuals donated thousands of gifts, turning the multipurpose room at the historic Douglas High School into a festive holiday store where families were able to select toys, clothing, essentials, and gift certificates for the holiday. [02:19:37] With warmth and joy, our Head Start and Step teams, alongside our donors, created a meaningful experience for LCPS Head Start and Step families. So thank you so much to everyone who made the 2025 Holiday Helper event such a success. Next, we want to recognize talented LCPS thespians William Morford, Harrison Morford, Valentina Waller, and Alonzo Waller, who are all currently shining on stage in a Christmas carol at Ford's Theater. [02:20:04] Adding to the family spirit, Sutton Morford supports her brothers by serving as an usher during these performances. Willard Middle, Goshen Post Elementary, and Buffalo Trail Elementary are proud to celebrate the creativity and talent that these students bring to their schools and to our community. [02:20:19] Speaking of creativity, 42 LCPS students from 10 high schools were selected to perform in the prestigious 13th All-Virginia Guitar Ensemble this November. These students represented LCPS at the Virginia Music Educators Association Conference in Norfolk, where they rehearsed and performed alongside the most accomplished young musicians from across the Commonwealth. [02:20:42] Being chosen for this ensemble is a remarkable achievement, recognizing students who've dedicated countless hours to honing their craft, and we congratulate all of these students. During this year's Hour of Code, students participating in Propel and Level Up explored coding while discovering the fun and creativity of computer science. [02:21:03] Students from the Academies of Loudoun Computer Honor Society provided mentorship support, helping younger learners engage in hands-on challenges that strengthen critical thinking, collaboration, and problem solving. Events like Hour of Code help our students see what is possible in computer science, so thank you to everyone who contributed to this day of learning and discovery for our students. [02:21:23] The inaugural season of LCPS futsal, or indoor soccer, wrapped up on December 7th with the futsal final, capping a successful season for the free after-school club. Made possible through our community schools initiative and partnership with Club Deportivo Sterling, this collaboration brought the excitement of soccer to students at Sully, Guilford, Sterling, and Rolling Ridge Elementary Schools, many of whom might not otherwise have had the opportunity to participate in organized athletics. [02:21:55] After the final match, students were recognized with medals while families enjoyed pizza and refreshments. Congratulations to all the players on a fantastic season and a memorable finale. Recently, the LCPS Office of Special Education hosted a unique art exhibit titled The Power of Purpose, Place, and Human Connection, Our Stories Matter. [02:22:17] Held on Thursday, December 4th at a place to be in Leesburg, the event featured nearly 40 works of art created by four adult learners with disabilities who are incarcerated at the Loudoun County Adult Detention Center and who are pursuing their diplomas. While these student artists were unable to attend the event, their messages, their experiences, and their hopes shone through their art and the accompanying artist statements. [02:22:42] I'm pleased to announce that three LCPS educators were recently recognized at the National Council for the Social Studies Conference for their leadership in helping students understand the world around them. Jennifer Rogers of Dominion High School, Kent Bailey of Loudoun Valley High School and Matthew Talbu of Woodgrove High School received the NCSS Award for Global Understanding. [02:23:03] This award highlights their commitment to preparing students for thoughtful engagement in an interconnected world. Congratulations to these educators for their ongoing work to empower our students as they become informed and engaged contributors in their communities and beyond. And then finally this evening I'd like to share that the Division of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility recently participated in the community event at the Adams Center in the largest Muslim communities in the D.C. area. [02:23:30] With a focus on community and youth development, the DEIA team presented information on LCPS's commitment to providing a safe and nurturing environment for our students, and the event concluded with a question-and-answer session and discussion on how parents can sustain engagement in their children's education. [02:23:48] Madam Chair, that concludes my report. Thank you, Dr. Spence. And that brings us to item 11, public comment. Thank you for engaging with the school board through the public comment process the school board welcomes comments from Loudoun County residents and believes that strong community engagement and outreach are important components of a successful school system speakers must limit comments to the time allotted based on the number of speakers in the [02:24:25] agenda this evening all speakers have been allotted one minute each for public comment please be advised that speakers who miss their time slot will not be called at a later time decorum and civility all audience members shall maintain civility decorum and respect for the functioning and dignity of the school board at all times please remain seated unless arriving departing speaking at the podium or during a break violations of civility decorum and respect include shouting heckling jeering applause or other noise which disrupts or delays the meeting obstructing speakers from being able [02:24:59] to see the school board and vice versa interrupting speakers attempting to speak when not called to do so by the chair and approaching a speaker otherwise attempting to intimidate disparage or distract a speaker staff member or other meeting attendees speakers should refrain from vulgarity obscenities defamation profanity or other like breaches of respect nor may speakers target criticize or attack individual students and or individual division employees during public comment as a reminder school board policy 2520 state speakers may not target criticize or attack [02:25:36] individual students during public comment speakers should communicate those concerns to their school principal or an appropriate school official. The school board requests that comments on an individual student or employee-related matter not be shared at public meetings where the disclosure could violate applicable confidentiality requirements. I do want to take a moment to clarify a few things. As I have explained previously, speakers can personally identify a student or employee without stating a student's or employee's names. That is, personally identifiable information is any information that a reasonable person can link together to pinpoint [02:26:12] an individual student or employee and where that individual student or employee is known to others in their school and surrounding community based on the context that is shared. The school board welcomes you to share your concerns but asks that to the extent you have prepared remarks that target, criticize, or attack any individual students or employees, you generalize such remarks to ensure compliance with board policy. For example, comments that target, criticize, or attack a student or an employee or a student or an employee from a specific named school or a student or an employee [02:26:52] with any characteristics where the information would personally identify that student or employee to others in the school or broader LCPS community would violate school board policy. However, comments that discuss general concerns with students or employees at schools and do not target criticize or attack an individual identifiable student or employee are permissible under school board policy i as a school board chair am charged with the responsibility to maintain order during school board meetings accordingly when reasonable i will warn of [02:27:27] breaches of decorum civility and respect and ask speakers to redirect their comments prior to possibly discontinuing individual speaking privileges or taking other actions to preserve the civility decorum and orderly conduct of the meeting. Such action includes calling a recess in order to maintain and or restore order. If speakers fail to comply with board policy regarding public participation, you will receive a warning and request to redirect or generalize your comments. Should you fail to redirect or generalize your comments after that warning, [02:28:03] You may be asked to yield the microphone, at which time you should yield the microphone, as well as the floor, and take your seat, and I will then call the next speaker. To the extent necessary, I will also warn of breaches of decorum, civility, and respect from attendees prior to taking other actions to preserve the orderly conduct of the meeting. [02:28:24] Speakers should face the dais and direct their comments to the school board. Per school board policy 2520, members of the school board will not answer questions or respond directly to the public during the public comment period. Violations of decorum or servility by any meeting attendee may result in the chair directing staff to remove the attendee from the remainder of the meeting. [02:28:46] Repeated or persistent violations of decorum or servility by the audience may result in, on the decision of the chair, public comment being tabled until a later point in the meeting's agenda, limiting the number of attendees in the meeting room during public comment for safety reasons or the public comment period ending for the evening. [02:29:04] Copies of materials for board members should be given to the public information officer in the media box at the back of the boardroom before the start of the meeting. Please provide 12 copies of the materials. Under no circumstances may a speaker approach the dais. The public is reminded that access to school board meetings is available through LCPS-TV on Comcast Channel 18 and 1070 HD and Verizon Fios Channel 43. The live stream of the meeting may be viewed on the website. [02:29:34] We look forward to hearing your comments, and we will start with our virtual public comment with Sarah Winslow, followed by Chris Stevenson. We do not have a virtual public speaker by that name. [02:30:00] Chris Stevenson, followed by Elaine Hussain. [02:30:14] Chris Stevenson is unmuted, and we are hearing no audio. Mr. Stevenson, if you can hear us, we cannot hear you, even though you are unmuted. [02:30:47] Okay, Elaine Hussain, followed by Camden Alexander. Oh, wait, did we get it? i heard something no we still have no audio from chris stevenson okay elaine hussein followed by camden alexander dear board members i have two children at sanders corner elementary school one in fourth grade another in second who is also enrolled in the dual language program [02:31:22] and we live in zone dn 29 scheduled to be reassigned to cedar lane there are about 18 dli students in our zone who rely on the bus system not everyone will be able to provide their own transportation and it will force some students to leave the program. It's deeply unfair to those children who have already completed part of the program to have their immersion education discontinued after so much progress. Additionally, increasing the number of families required to use car drop-offs would put further strain on an already difficult car loop situation. The parking lot is congested, backing traffic up onto the main road, causing buses, students, and teachers to [02:31:59] arrive late to school. Over the next three years, approximately 75 additional cars will be added as the DLI program progresses through fifth grade. For these reasons, I respectfully request that Sanders Corner Elementary School should be removed from consideration in any of the proposed plans tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Camden Alexander, followed by Ronan Chari. Hi, my name is Camden Alexander, and I'm from Williswood Grant. I'm in second grade at Madison's Trust. I'm begging you [02:32:33] to please let me and all my friends in Williswood Grant stay at Madison's Trust. I know I'm just a kid, but I really hope you'll think hard about how this will change my life next time. I am very shy and I had a lot of trouble making friends in kindergarten and first grade, but now I finally have five best friends who I won't ever see again if you move me to Elaine Thompson. You will end up in different middle schools and that makes me so sad. I really don't want to move to a new school because everything in my life will be different. [02:33:07] I hope you vote to keep me in this one grant at Madison's Trust. It is our hope. Thank you very much for listening to me. Happy holidays. Ronan Chari, followed by Sarah Boyd. [02:33:25] Good evening. My name is Ronan Chari. I live in the grant. I am a first grader at Madison's Trust Elementary and a proud Macaw. I hear there is a plan to move us to another school, but I hope you vote to keep us at Madison Trust. [02:33:51] My teachers and friends are so awesome. I love learning, playing, and growing up here. My school is close by, so I don't have to wake up too early. I feel calm and also have time for my tennis and swimming. [02:34:10] Moving to a different school would change all of that. Please let us stay at Madison Trust. We feel happy and safe. Thank you and happy holidays. Sarah Boyd. [02:34:29] I'm the mother of a kindergartner at Hillside Elementary School and live in Planning District DN 30.2. I wanted to share my support for what the documents have called the Mansfield Amendment No. 1 to Plan 280, which would keep DN 30.2 zoned for Hillside. [02:34:50] For decades, Broadlands in its entirety has been served by two elementary schools, Hillside and Mill Run. Rezoning DN 30.2 out of Hillside to Waxpool is unnecessary. Simply by rebalancing Hillside and Mill Run, as proposed in the two staff plans and Plan 280 with the Mansfield Amendment, you can keep capacity under goal levels while not isolating these 32 students from the rest of the neighborhood. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. And we'll move to in person, Julia [02:35:26] Holcomb, followed by Carrie Kidwell. [02:35:44] To the newly elected school board, be smart. We're a group that provides gun safety legislation and we would like to thank the board for the unanimous vote which they took last fall to support the Secure Storage Notification Resolution. [02:36:06] The resolution makes sure that adults who care for children are reminded to act on safe firearm storage practices. Frequently and recently, as we know, heartbreaking unintentional shootings can feel like an insoluble problem, and Superintendent Spence's support and the support of the board with their vote make it clear that leaders with courage and confidence can make a difference in communities [02:36:38] that they serve like ours. Thank you so very much. Thank you. Carrie Kidwell followed by Lynn Alexander. I too am here to thank you on behalf of Loudon Be Smart team for your impactful vote last year passing the secure storage notification. Thank you for working together to prioritize the children and community. So far in 2025 there have been over 160 incidents of gunfire on school [02:37:14] grounds, over 220 unintentional shootings by children, and more than 3,400 young people continue to die by firearm suicide each year. As Be Smart volunteers, we've learned that many aren't aware of the Virginia Secure Storage Law or the importance of securing a firearm. [02:37:30] Along with education, we provide free gun locks at community events. We focus on adult responsibility. But recently, a 14-year-old whose father has four unlocked firearms happened by our table. He asked for locks to keep his family safe. That's not a weight he should carry. [02:37:47] Creating the conversation and educating the community is life-saving work. Thank you for using this platform to do so, so that our children don't have to. Thanks to every one of you for your vote, and many thanks to Dr. Spence and the LCBS staff. Thank you. Thank you. [02:38:04] Lynn Alexander, followed by Tara Greenwald. Hi, I'm Lynn Alexander, and I'm pleading you to keep Willisford Grant at Madison's Trust. Tonight, I'm worried our special education students are getting lost in the data. [02:38:19] I'm talking specifically about kids on IEPs and 504 plans, like three families on my one street alone. And don't forget kids with accommodations, like my seven-year-old son, Camden, who just spoke to you earlier. Moving DN 36.8 to Legacy is a logical fix. These kids stay within their cluster alignment and go to the same middle school together. [02:38:37] The disruption is minimized, and it brings Madison's trust capacity under 100%. Moving Willisford Grant to Elaine Thompson on top of that is an overcorrection that takes our special ed kids out of their cluster alignment and splits them to four different middle schools. this destroys the stability that they desperately need LCPS has also released data that shows that only 18% of walkers actually walk this means the walk zone doesn't function as a walk zone however the vast majority of grant kids actually take the bus I respectfully urge you to protect the stability of our special ed students please vote plans 533 or 280 with an amendment to keep Willis for Grant at Madison's Trust thank you for the time and care that you've devoted to this complex and very emotional issue happy holidays to you [02:39:14] you. Thank you. Tara Greenwald followed by Namesh Patel. Hi, I'm Tara and I live in Willowsford Grant and I have two children on IEPs at Madison's Trust. My son started Madison's Trust when he was two years old in the special educations preschool program. Why move special education students like mine if it's not necessary? We understand rezoning is needed for certain communities but moving our community, Elaine Thompson, does not make sense. It breaks cluster alignment, creates the only non-contiguous island in Ashburn and Dulles North, and risks another overcorrection like [02:39:52] Heartland, setting our kids up to be rezoned again. And it is heartbreaking that our youngest and most vulnerable students would carry the cost of that decision. VDOT identifies the left turn our bus would take on Route 50 as high risk, and bus pickup could be around 6.40 a.m., meaning a 5:45 wake up. For special education kids sleep and routine are everything. [02:40:15] Madison's can easily be kept under 100% without moving us. Our children's health stability and safety are in your hands. Please keep Wills for Grant and Madison Trust. Thank you. Nimesh Patel. Nimesh Patel followed by Sachin Kadam. Good evening LCPS board member. My name is Nimesh Patel. As a parent with one child i am a worker rn dn 36.8 we support r17 but like we request please allow current student [02:40:51] to the medicine trust that will be help after a couple of years it will leave the number is going down please apply to the rezoning to the only new student and that will be have the old friend as the one with the medicine trust so please help us to stay with the child will build being and they will stay with the on friends thank you thank you um session kadam followed by kristin [02:41:25] lloyd kristin lloyd followed by anirud ravikumar hi i'm christy lloyd mom of four three of whom attend elementary school at stewart weller i'm back again to discuss the weller bell schedule For four years, we have endured the earliest schedule. [02:42:01] This needs to stop. It's a big concern for a lot of people, and LCPS's response has seemed apathetic and half-hearted. I began a petition to demonstrate many families feel the same way. I'm the lone parent here, but speaking for hundreds of families at Weller. [02:42:18] We felt hopeless and discouraged that anything will change. This is an important issue that needs attention now, especially as you consider changing school boundaries, which means adjusting bus routes. The Transportation Division has been reluctant to change the bell schedules because of busing. [02:42:37] So let's consider this all together. Change the Weller Bell schedule, find solutions, share the burden. Thanks. Thank you. Anirud Ravikumar, followed by Zeal Somani. [02:42:55] Hi, board members and folks here. Thank you for having me. Third time, hopefully, third time's a charm. I'm going to keep it very simple. I implore you guys not to move anybody at this point. [02:43:12] It's very important for you to understand that the kids have created loving friendships and kinships across community lines. By moving them and doing this, it's going to hurt them in the long run. We adults, we're sitting here making decisions for our kids. [02:43:28] I know we're supposed to be doing that, but still. I'm asking you consciously to make the right decision here. None of the plans are helping any of the communities. R17 versus 533 versus 280, everybody gets moved. Even the principal at MTE has stated to me directly that the numbers he can keep up and they can accept the new students that are coming in. [02:43:51] So numbers speak a thousand words, but actions speak louder. So please make the right decision. Thank you. Thank you. Zeal Samani followed by Prateek Malang. No Zeal Samani. [02:44:15] Okay, Prateek Malang followed by Vijay Jaiswal. [02:44:30] No Bateek Malang Vijay Jaiswal. No Vijay Jaiswal, followed by Jane Kennedy, followed by Jory Gilnett. [02:44:59] Hi, I'm Jane Kennedy. I'm the family liaison at Dominion Trail, and I would like to read a statement from a parent, Lamy Tuzani Idrisi, who lives in DN 17.02. [02:45:21] They respectfully express our opposition to plans R11 and R17. These plans do not reflect our wishes or the wishes of our children, and we kindly ask you to reconsider with understanding and compassion. Our school is more than just a place of learning. It is a safe and stable environment where our children feel a strong sense of belonging and comfort. [02:45:40] We truly love our school and deeply appreciate the efforts of the school principal who consistently works hard to maintain a very high standard of education, organization, and student care. We also value the school's commitment to organizing recreational and enrichment activities and their constant attention to identifying what students need and working to provide it. [02:45:58] have a positive impact on the children's emotional well-being. We're concerned that transferring students to another school would have negative effects on the children, including increased anxiety, loss of stability, difficulty adjusting, and potential declines of both academic performance and emotional well-being, especially since many students have formed strong relationships. [02:46:14] Thank you for your consideration. Jori Gilnet, followed by Govetsing. Dr. Deans, we made it. Thank you for giving me a front row seat as your staff aide for the past two years. [02:46:32] I never thought I'd meet someone who had held more jobs than I did, but you win. Think of all the thousands of lives that you have touched over the years. And I for sure know that you have more clothes than anyone I know, as I never saw you wear the same outfit twice. You have a servant's heart, Dr. Deans. [02:46:47] A servant's heart is a selfless, humble attitude focused on meeting others' needs, prioritizing them over oneself, and serving with love. Compassion and generosity without expecting reward, often rooted in faith to serve God and community. Yes, that is you. You have faithfully served the Commonwealth of Virginia, Loudoun County, and the broad-run community. [02:47:07] When we would tour schools, one of the first things that we told the staff was that your happy place was with the children in the school and you loved ending your week visiting them. Dr. Deans, I know we have not seen the last of you in Loudoun County or the Commonwealth of Virginia, for that matter, as you are not ready to retire. [02:47:23] Your heart is still on fire to serve, and your favorite people, a.k.a. your grandchildren, are excited to see you more now that you'll have all this free time. Thank you, Dr. Deans. Thank you. Govind Singh followed by Karen Vaidya. Thank you. My name is Govind and I'm a parent of a child at Madison Trust and a resident of DN 36.8. Loudoun County policy recognizes that walk zones should be preserved and our community was built around that principle. [02:48:00] Our streets were not designed for school buses and forcing buses into them would create safety and traffic issues. Families here bought homes with the understanding that the school was part of our community and it makes no sense to rezone a walking neighborhood away from the school. If it has to be done, a school that is already using transportation, it makes more sense to add a few more minutes to their commute than forcing a walk zone to suddenly need buses. That change would waste taxpayer dollars by adding new buses and routes while disrupting the greatest number of children. I respectfully ask the board to keep our neighborhood [02:48:37] in its walk zone and protect the stability, safety, and efficiency of our children's education. Thank you. Thank you. Karen Vadia, followed by Hadi Warantono. Karen Vadia, Hadi Warantono, followed by Eric Showalter. [02:49:16] No, Hadi Warantono. Eric Showalter, followed by Srinath Bobby, Bobby Lee. To my good friend, Dr. Linda Deans, I want to thank you for your 50 years of public school education and especially for the past two years representing Broad Run District on the school board. As long as people like you run for public office, I know the best among us can offer leadership that brings professionalism and compassion to organizations that make a real difference in people's lives. I know why you do this because you've told me many times you do it [02:49:52] because you believe the path to a better future requires education. All paths to a better future require education and because you believe that if you that you can make a difference in the life of just one child, that it's worth the work. [02:50:08] I know you do the work and I know you've made a difference. I'm grateful for your service and for your friendship. - Thank you. Srinath Babi-Lee, followed by Neha Jain. [02:50:26] - Good evening, everyone. I'm here to support Plan R-17. And honestly, if someone asked me this question one year ago, I would have been fine being a walker or a bus rider. But over the last 10 to 12 months, I have noticed something special in our neighborhood, a pure organic walking community formed around by our children. [02:50:43] Parents from DN 36.8 can resonate to this. Let me give you an example. We are four families, all immediate neighbors, and without any formal coordination, our walk schedules have naturally aligned. We show up at nearly the same time every morning, just like clockwork and muzzle memory. [02:50:58] That's because for us, the walk isn't just about getting to school. It's about connection, independence, and starting the day together. Our kids talk, laugh, and look out for one another. And this kind of community cannot be manufactured. It grows from consistency, proximity, and walkability. Plan R-17 supports the same, a practical, safe, connected environment where children can thrive and communities can form naturally. [02:51:21] Thank you. Thank you. Neha Jain, followed by Melanie Ross. Good evening, everyone. My name is Neha Jain. I am a parent of a proud Mighty Macau and an auntie to many Mighty Macaus at Madison Trust and a resident of 36.8. [02:51:44] Every morning in our neighborhood, it feels a little small, like a family gathering many children from our neighborhood attend Madison Trust Elementary and you see them walking together, parents waving, and friendships forming along the way. Being able to simply walk to school is incredibly inconvenient for families. More than that, it creates a sense of community and camaraderie that is hard to replace. I don't want my child re-zoned away from their school and into a situation that requires driving every day. What seems like a small logistical change would remove that daily connection, add traffic, and turn something simple and positive into something [02:52:21] more stressful. Families chose this neighborhood because it was built as a walk zone and because it works. I respectfully ask that it remain that way. Thank you. Thank you. Melanie Ross, followed by Helena Wish. Good evening, board members. My name is Dr. Melanie Ross from DN05.3, and I have a second grader and fifth grader at Dominion Trail. Thank you to everyone who has met with or wrote to me. Knowing my voice was heard means a great deal. Dominion Trail has served this community for 28 years and its current enrollment is the lowest it's been in more than a decade [02:52:59] with an 18% decline over the last five years. Without Title I, it remains within the target utilization for the next six years. The data is clear. Moving Dominion Trail students away doesn't solve the problem. It creates new ones by pushing other schools above 92% utilization while leaving dominion trail underutilized please do not let these 25 year old neighborhoods dn 17.2 and 05.3 for the second time become the scapegoat scapegoat for relief efforts that haven't addressed the real needs in our schools true equity is investing in our existing schools not shuffling children as [02:53:36] if their place in their community is expendable keep our keep us together huskies forever thank you. Thank you. Helena Welch followed by Rocio Caballero-Gill. Hello. My name is Helena Welch and I'm a parent of a second grader student at Dominion Trail Elementary. I'm here today as we have been here at every meeting to advocate for keeping our Dominion Trail community together. [02:54:06] Our position is based on a clear evidence addressing both the human and the logistical cost of the proposed boundary change. The human cost. Moving these children will cause unnecessary emotional and social damage, disrupting the stability and established support systems networks essential for their growth, the logistical contradiction. Our data clearly shows that transferring students to Ashburn Elementary will cause that school a facility of comparable size to immediately exceed its capacity. This proposal simply shifts the burden. It does not resolve the district's capacities and issues. We urge you to consider the documented evidence and the strong [02:54:44] input from our community. Please choose to preserve the integrity of our school and our community. Keep Dominion Trail Elementary together. Keep us together, Huskies forever. Thank you. Rocio Caballero-Gill, followed by Chris Countryman. [02:55:15] Good evening. My name is Dr. Rocio Paola Caballero-Gill, so 19.6, mother of two LCPS students. In the blink of an eye, 76 days after the original email on October 1st, including today, including five today's six meetings and a 43-day government shutdown. Only two things to say thank you for your dedication and please vote from data to action. Moving students from the Minion Trail to another school regardless of plan pushes the receiving school above 92% utilization and leaves the Minion Trail underutilized within with about 52 to 75% utilization. From data to action means do not move students out of the Minion Trail. From [02:55:54] students working in the hallway at one school they know to working in the hallway at a new school only transfer the issue from one school to another. from data to action means do not move students out of the main trail we ask you do not single out zones do not make them a scapegoat break cluster alignment and violate rezoning policy we ask you to please vote from data to action keep us together huskies forever thank you chris countryman followed by kyle nathanson good evening in addition to the collective bargaining agreement [02:56:34] taking effect next school year lcps and lea have agreed to establish a labor management committee that will begin this school year. We expect the first meeting to take place in January, and I hope the school board will be able to tune in. I'm hopeful this committee will help us continue building a collaborative relationship with administration, one grounded in transparency, respect, and communication. [02:57:01] While LCPS has much to be proud of, we must enter the new year with open minds and a shared commitment to address and fix the issues that continue to have a negative impact. Words matter, but the actions taken through this committee will speak volumes. [02:57:17] As 2025 draws to a close, thank you once again for your service and commitment. Public education is sustained not by easy decisions, but by thoughtful ones. To those concluding your terms, I wish you the very best, and I wish everyone a happy holiday season. [02:57:33] Thank you. Kyle Nathanson, followed by Corey Brunet. Hello, I'm Kyle Nathanson. [02:57:49] I'm a teacher here in the county, and I want to give my thanks to this board and to this administration for all their work regarding the collective bargaining process. I'm proud to be working in a county that has shown care for my working conditions and those of my peers through this agreement and I encourage the board to continue working in good faith with LEA going forward especially through that library management committee. This is a really strong starting point but I think there's still work that needs to be done especially regarding equity with leave regarding equity with pay regarding equity with planning time. I'm very hopeful and I'm very [02:58:24] excited to see the next chapter of our cooperation with Loudoun County and as an employee once again I'm incredibly happy with the progress that's been made. Thank you all for your hard work. Happy holidays. Thank you. Corey Brunet followed by Art Chang. Good evening. I'm Corey Brunet and I'm an English learner teacher at Broadrun High School. Two people start work for LCPS on the same day and they both are 12-month employees. Each works equally hard. Each earns annual leave per year of [02:58:59] work completed. Yet after the first year, one employee has earned 12 days of annual leave, while the other has earned 20. Does that sound fair to you? Check out policy 7710. And speaking of leave, you may have heard of or seen some of the complaining on the LCPS employee Facebook page regarding Dr. Spence's gift of eight extra vacation days to 12-month employees. [02:59:24] Those of us 10-month employees are not upset about the days given to classified personnel. what annoys us is giving it to management and to himself the very people who have lots of leave as it is many in lcps management now have more paid leave than the french lcps will never outperform [02:59:43] its educators thank you art chang followed by sarah kabrisis no art chang sarah kabrisis followed by jamie wollart i am a mom of two girls at madison's trust i want to say thank you to the board, and I wish this wasn't something we all had to go through. The numbers show that the only way [03:00:20] to get Madison's trust below 100% is to move the densely populated walk zone DN 36.8. If you vote to keep the walk zone, you are voting to keep Madison's trust over capacity. Moving the Willowsford grant in addition to the walk zone is an overcorrection and disrupts young children unnecessarily. If you do this, you'd be swapping a capacity in the 70s at Elaine Thompson where there is predicted growth for capacity in the 70s at Madison's Trust, which is in an area that is mature. [03:00:48] This does not make sense. Leaving the grant at Madison's Trust keeps it within the 90% capacity threshold. Vote for Plan 533 or the amendment in 280 that states DS 08.1 to DS 08.3 should stay at Madison's Trust. [03:01:04] Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Jamie Woolert, followed by Raman Oberoi. Hi, I'm back. For the fourth time, I'm here pleading with you to please not move the Willowsford Grant out of Madison's Trust. [03:01:21] Once you accept the reality that to get Madison's Trust under 100% capacity, you have to move the walk zone, it is an unnecessary overcorrection to also move the grant. If you move both zones, Madison's Trust will have a one-year 40-point capacity swing from 113% to 73%. [03:01:44] Not only will this impact our children and families, but also the faculty. Conversely, moving only the walkers results in a 20-point capacity drop to 93% next year. This is reasonable relief. [03:02:00] And if you leave the grant at Madison's Trust, I think capacity will actually end up lower than currently forecasted. The grant is top-heavy with half in fourth and fifth grade. If you adjust the forecast to assume the grant holds steady, contributing 12 kids to kindergarten each year, Madison Trust will drop into the 80s in capacity in two years. [03:02:20] Thank you. Thank you for your time. Raman Oberoi, followed by Mark Tremakas. Good evening, LCPS board members and everyone. My name is Raman Oberoi. I'm a parent of third year, goes to Medicine Trust. I'm a resident of DN 36.8, which is a worker zone, and we would urge you to come to the keep the walker zone as walker zone only. [03:02:45] I know we all are proposing for R17, and in case that cannot happen, we would love to keep the current students where they are so that they have the least disruption in terms of their friendship and their education. [03:03:02] And with time, the capacity issue automatically gets corrected because the new students can go to the design school as well. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Mark Chamacus followed by Suzanne Satterfield. Good evening more members of the board. I live in DN 36.8 with two kids that attend Madison's Trust. Tonight I want to highlight the reasons why I think there should not be any changes made to the school. You have seen and heard from a large portion of the community and this is a tremendously emotional topic. However the important thing to [03:03:40] keep in mind are the kids. This will impact so many of them no matter which way you choose. These kids have been going to this school for most of their living memory and essentially another home for them. My question to the board is this. Is it worth ripping these kids away from their home everything they've known simply to meet some numbers on a page? This decision will have a lasting impact on these kids for the remainder of their lives. We've spoken to the principal and numerous teachers at the school. All have said the same thing. There is no issue with how many students are currently at the school. MTE has recently earned the distinguished school designation from the Virginia Department of Education. Does that sound like a school in distress to you? [03:04:14] With fifth and fourth grade cohorts making approximately half of the current school population and projected totals coming down doesn't make sense to make a massive change don't break up our madison's trust family we are strong go more calls thank you suzanne fatter satterfield followed by brian collarin two years have been wasted by the school board where nothing was done to control wasteful spending on pet projects building unneeded schools and continuing to create highly paid admin jobs while expecting parents to donate classroom supplies and raise [03:04:54] funds for playgrounds, sports, and the arts. You politicize the schools with your liberal agenda by misusing Title IX, signaling out Christian students for their beliefs, and doubling down on keeping harmful policy 8040. Parents have told me that locks are broken on bathroom stalls and their girls and boys refuse to use the bathroom at school because of this policy. That's too many hours without using the bathroom. Panic buttons are being considered only for staff. What about the students that feel unsafe in their bathrooms and locker rooms. You make it look like the students are the threat to the staff, but the reality, it's your policies that are a threat [03:05:33] to the students. Students will not forget how you've treated them. Do better. A new year's coming. Thank you. Brian Collarin followed by Hamad Kamal. I'm a parent of three students at Madison's Trust and we live in the grant. Under plan 280, moving both the walk zone and the grant away from Madison's Trust is an overcorrection. If the grant moves to Elaine Thompson, then Madison's Trust utilization will be in the 70s. If the grant stays at Madison's Trust, then Elaine Thompson will be in the 70s. Effectively, we are trading 70% capacity between the two schools. The question [03:06:12] is, where is it more beneficial to leave room for growth, in Brambleton or in Arcola? Two years ago, the prior board dealt with overcrowding at Elaine Thompson as a projection showed a significant increase in students in Arcola by 2026. Over the last two years, unfavorable economic conditions have slowed new construction everywhere. The projected growth of Lane Thompson simply has not happened yet, but it will likely come when more favorable market conditions return. I have twins that are kindergartens right now. I fear they are liable to be rezoned twice, both now and again in a few years when Lane Thompson is full. Please minimize their disruption. Amend 280 to keep the [03:06:49] Grant and Madison's Trust. Thank you. Hamad, Kamal. Good evening. I'm here to ask for your support for R17 that keeps the walk zone DN36 assigned to Madison's Trust. As a parent of a fourth grader, my family chose to purchase a house in Brambleton community because we valued the valuable design, tunnels, infrastructure that made it safe for my child to walk back from school. [03:07:15] I'm deeply distressed by the proposal to move the walk zone 36.8 from Madison's Trust to Legacy Elementary. My son has attended Madison's Trust since kindergarten and always been a walker. During the hearing it was really disheartening to hear some some broad comments suggesting students within the walk zone are not walking. This has not been our experience. I'm pleading to the board to support the staff proposal 17 that keeps the kids in the walk zone walking. This would also [03:07:50] help us save money that would otherwise be needed to be used for school buses. thank you very much thank you and with that ends public comment thank you all for coming out and for providing your public comment I would say I think the board could go into recess for like seven ten minutes and then come back before we start with the very large action items and agenda okay so the [03:08:23] board is going into recess and we'll be back at what 7:45 tree school [03:18:45] attendance zones presented by Mr. Kevin Lewis, Chief Operation Officers, and Ms. Bev Tate, Director of Planning and GIS Services. Before I ask for a motion and everything else, I'm going to take a sec, and I'd like to address the critical and often challenging work of school capacity planning and attendance zone adjustments. Our decisions should be driven by a data-driven review process, and it's established that a school's capacity is not simply the number of available general education classrooms but it also includes specialized essential [03:19:22] spaces. This means accounting for a dedicated program rooms for core programs like art and music and essentials to student support rooms necessary for our fastest-growing student populations which includes special education resource rooms, sensory rooms, rooms for occupational physical and speech therapy, dedicated spaces for our EL learners and rooms for our counselors. To capture this true capacity, staff executed walkthroughs of all 18 schools involved in this rezoning process and issued utilization surveys to principals to quantify [03:19:57] the exact impact of these ancillary spaces have on capacity. Thus, this rigorous data collection ensured our planning reflected the reality of today's learning environment. This is the time to acknowledge the need to right-size our older schools, which were built before the requirement for these extensive support spaces and delay the need to build any other schools. [03:20:21] To achieve this, a collaborative team, including staff from support services, school leadership, special education, and teaching and learning, met regularly to review and refine capacity methods and to address these structural limitations fairly. [03:20:36] I understand and I believe the rest of the school board agrees that rezoning is super not fun and profoundly difficult process. and re-recognize the strong, really strong, emotional connection families have to their schools. [03:20:52] However, I believe we have a fundamental obligation to all students to provide the room and resources necessary for optimal learning. Our staff has invested a significant amount of time in presenting several data-driven plans, utilizing information from our utilization reviews and capacity models. [03:21:13] And our focus now must be on making tough decisions based on this objective review and planning to ensure we provide all students with the best environment to succeed. And I want to thank you, Bev, Kevin, and your staff, and all of the staff over there as well who have gone and looked at these schools and reviewed them consistently to make sure before you made your plans and your models. [03:21:42] Okay. Do you want toโ€”normally I would take a motion, so you want to say anything before that? Thank you, Chair Mansfield. We really don't have any more information to present. We're here to have The conversation if we if you need any have any questions for us We're happy to answer them, but we'll turn it to the board at this point to have a motion mission off Thank you, madam chair. I move that the Loudoun County School Board adopts Plan 280 involving changes to existing Ashburn and Dulles North Elementary School attendance zones all [03:22:19] changes included with this action will be implemented in fall 2026 with the start of the 2026-2027 school year further Persuayant to policy 8160 exceptions to school assignment due to attendance zone change Families of zone rezoned elementary school students who will be entering grade 5 in fall 2026 will be surveyed to determine interest in having their child remain at and complete elementary school at their currently zoned elementary school the survey results are to be reported to the school board for subsequent consideration and action I have a motion by ms. Chernoff do I have [03:22:56] a second second it's been properly moved I have a second by vice chair Donohue it's from properly moved and seconded ms. Chernoff would you like to speak to your motion thank you madam chair I echo many of the sentiments that you had in your comments and I thank you for making them I think saying super not fun is exactly the right thing I am putting forward plan 280 I anticipate several amendments as people have seen on board docs but in an effort to sort of take the two staff plans and try to merge for maximum relief of schools this [03:23:34] seemed like an option that for me best met those those compromises and so that's why I'm putting this plan forward I have been to all the schools I have met with multiple groups and working towards the beginning of a very long road for us in terms of right-sizing our county and rezoning and hopefully making some fiscally responsible decisions in terms of delayed action or possible not action on building another elementary school as you said tough decisions have to be made sometimes and that's where I'm coming from okay is [03:24:12] there any discussion I'm mission off I know this is not usually customary but I i have an amendment so move right into it okay um i moved to amend the base motion by moving by taking dn 29 and moving it to sanders corner elementary school sorry i'm going to start over i moved to amend the base motion by taking dn 29 and moving it from sanders [03:24:45] corner es elementary school to cedar lane elementary school and also moving dn 16 from Cedar Lane Elementary School to Newton Lee Elementary School. I have an amendment to have a motion to amend the base motion that DN 29 move from Sanders Cordner Elementary School to Cedar Lane Elementary School and DN 16 move from Cedar Lane Elementary School to Newton Lee Elementary School. Do I have a second? Second. I have a second by Vice Chair Donahue. It's been properly moved [03:25:20] and seconded. Ms. Chernoff, do you want to speak to your amendment? Thank you, Madam Chair. This amendment has to do with giving relief to Sanders Corner Elementary School, fully realizing from the public comment tonight that this takes certain zoned kids to Sanders Corner Elementary School and provides relief for a dual language immersion program. However, we have made a commitment to that program and it is staying there. And so in order to avoid getting to 107% capacity in the out year i believe that this is the best path forward for us at this time thank you miss shirnoff um [03:25:59] is there any discussion and then actually i have a amend the amendment to plan 280 by removing dn 30.2 back to hillside do i have a second second i have a second by miss chandler i am my rationale to and i'll go ahead and speak to it um the move to amend plan 280 by removing dn 30.2 back to hillside is because um the broadlands community as we heard from special [03:26:38] from a public comment tonight is zoned for pretty much two uh schools hillside and mill run and we're already moving two zones from hillside to mill run which significantly helps their numbers so um that is the reason for my amendment is there any discussion yes vice chair donahue thank you madam chair um more of a point for clarification um is is the chair's proposal to replace [03:27:11] ms shirnoff's motion or another proposed amendment for consideration so we're amending the plan right so we amended it first with ms shirnoff well we haven't amended it yet we haven't voted yet So I'd make an amendment to the amendment for that. [03:27:27] And so then we would go and we would move back up out. Did you see my email? I did. So then we would move back up out of it. And then we could move to more amendments. Yes. [03:27:46] Okay, so let's, we're going to have to, since it's, there's already a move, the amendment first. Now we're going to vote on that, on mine first, right? and then if that passes or doesn't if it doesn't pass then we can make another amendment or i would suggest that we just go on and do the two up to the base motion and then start back over again okay so we're just voting on hillside at this moment the one that i just did so is there any [03:28:19] discussion about that no okay so um if there's no more discussion regarding uh the amendment amending the amendment which is to remove dn 30.2 from plan 2280 back to hillside we'll go ahead and take a vote clerk will you please open the vote board members please record [03:28:49] your vote clerk please close and display the vote and that motion passes seven to two with dr deans and mission off and ops in opposition to the vote now we will move to we will go ahead is there any discussion regarding the first amendment to the base motion which is mission off Santa Sanders yes mrs. Griffiths thank you madam chair as [03:29:23] far as moving Sanders to Cedar Lane I've pointed out before that not just the 18 students that are zoned for Cedar Lane would be moved but there may be other zoned families that would be moved to Cedar Lane so with that being said I was going to move that we keep the dual language program as is at Newton Lee and [03:29:56] phase it into I'm sorry at Sanders and phase it into Newton Lee for the upper grades I believe this program is popular enough and parents will drive their students to anywhere it is housed plus you would get new students into the program new students that did not have the opportunity to join previously I get complaints from many parents that would like the opportunity to have their students in the DLI program and if you're trying to relieve Sanders we can split the program or completely move it to Newton Lee I also want to point out [03:30:33] that the DLI program was put into place before this board this board did not put that program at Sanders corner so my concern is for the zoned residents to go Cedar Lane and I don't think we should ask zoned students to go to another school when they're already zoned for for Sanders Corner so I'm looking to and I guess this would be I guess we're gonna vote on her amendment first but my [03:31:07] thought was to move the DLI program whether it's split it up have some there and have some at Newton-Lee or just move it to Newton-Lee. So that's what I'm putting forward today. [03:31:22] Thank you, Mrs. Griffiths. So I hear two things. The first thing is to keep Sanders' corner as is would be the opposite of what was just proposed, so you could vote in opposition of that. Right. The second one, it would be another kind of amendment, but I don't know that that is particularly germane to a boundary amendment. [03:31:46] and um so so amendments that must be germane to it um involve the same question raised by the motion it amends so i'm wondering um mr lewis would you i just don't know that it's a proper if it's germane to this particular conversation this motion could you weigh in i may need to defer to mr allen but um this would not be something that we would normally do in that [03:32:23] And it's more of an instructional conversation that would be more in Dr. Ellis' area than it would be for ours in support services to talk about the establishment, the changes, and adjustments to an instructional program. Okay, so in that aspect, I'm wondering, Mrs. Griffiths, if you could consider that for new business because you're discussing an instructional thing, or you could get three friends for discussion and an information item at a future board meeting. [03:32:53] Mr. Allen, would you kind of weigh in on this? Thank you, Chair Mansfield. Yes, whether it's germane or not, I would defer to the subject matter experts, which are Mr. Lewis and Ms. Tate. And it sounds like it's an instructional matter that would not be germane, is what I heard Mr. Lewis indicate. [03:33:14] And so, yes, as you stated, that would be the procedural mechanism, either a new business or putting it on as an informational item as policy permits. Yes ma'am. Thank you madam chair, and I I just want to mention I did go back and forth with Miss Ellis about this as far as numbers and So I just want to be clear today that we're going to vote on Miss Chernoff's Amendment and then come back later on because this would take place probably this would take place in the fall of next year and maybe do an instructional change [03:33:53] so we would have it as new business and And we would work with Ms. Ellis' department, Dr. Ellis' department, to maybe do this instructional change. But what I'm proposing, and I just want to mention it before we go ahead and vote, is Sanders' Corner is under capacity right now with the program as is. [03:34:20] And what I'm proposing as the grades move up, phase it into Newton-Lee and then maybe phase the whole program into Newton-Lee. So that's what I'm proposing at this time. And it's just something to think about because I don't think my zoned residents for Sanders are going to be happy about moving to Cedar Lane. [03:34:43] And I didn't think it was fair over a special program to move zone residents to Newton Lee. And that's it. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mrs. Griffiths. Okay, so just to be clear, we are now voting on the amendment, the initial amendment to the base motion of Ms. Chernoff to move, now I get back to it, to move DN29 from Sanders corner elementary school to Cedar Lane Elementary School and DN 16 moved from Cedar Lane Elementary School to Newton Lee Elementary School is that correct [03:35:21] Mr. Chernoff that is correct okay any other discussion seeing none we'll go ahead and vote clerk please open the vote board members please record your vote clerk please close and display the vote and that motion passes seven to two with mrs. Griffiths and dr. Rashid in opposition of the vote okay now we will go ahead and vote those into the base motion is there any discussion before we [03:36:01] go ahead and vote this into the base motion and remember after this then we will go back and have more amendments if you guys do choose okay this is just to kind of close it out to cut square corners as mr. Allen would say all right so we will now vote on the base motion as amended I didn't see any discussion clerk please open the vote board members please record your vote clerk [03:36:39] please close and display the vote that motion passes with mrs. Griffiths and dr. Rashid in opposition of the vote now board members is there are there any yes oh okay it's true Donahue I saw it first sorry dr. Rashid thank you madam chair I move to amend plan 280 by removing dn 36.8 from the plans such that dn 36.8 would remain at Madison's trust I have a motion by [03:37:11] vice-chair Donahue to remove 36.8 from the plan second and I have a second by miss Chandler yes okay um vice-chair dot I have a motion and it's been seconded vice-chair Donahue do you want to speak to your motion yes thank you madam chair as has already been noted these are incredibly difficult decisions we've heard from a number of members of the community who are proposed to be [03:37:49] impacted by rezoning related to Madison's Trust. I am making this proposed change to Plan 280 for a couple of reasons. One, to be consistent with LCPS policy to preserve lock zones. Also in the interest of disrupting the smallest number of students possible while still providing some relief to Madison's Trust. And our [03:38:18] Our projections do show that if the walk zone remains at Madison's Trust, that would still get Madison's Trust under 100% capacity next year, which is still above where overall LCPS is aiming to have its schools, but is a significant improvement over its current numbers. [03:38:41] And also because that will allow Madison's trust to minimize the number of staff positions that it may lose Yes, is there any more discussion? I do have a discussion. Thank you chair and I wrote mine down The majority of bus riders are on the bus and the majority of walkers do not walk According to the data that we saw there is an overwhelming amount of bus riders on the bus and there were only 59 out of 319 walkers who walked so this kind of leans toward proving the point [03:39:18] that the walkers are really not actually walking and there there might be a little bit of contribution toward the car line congestion so I just wanted to point this out to you guys as colleagues I hear you Dr. Rasheed it was also done like in a super cold day sorry but I would have liked to see more more data on that. Yes, Mr. Donohue. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for making that point, Dr. Rasheed, which is well taken, although on the other side of that, these these students in the walk zone in DN 36 right now are not provided bus [03:39:57] transportation, and if they are rezoned to legacy they will have to be provided with bus transportation, and that is an additional cost and potential cost and logistical challenge for LCPS any other discussion it was my under it was my understanding that Madison's trust will be above a hundred percent for five to six years so there are 240 students in the walk zone versus 189 in the grant for example I just thought that this contributed a little bit toward the [03:40:31] discussion of having a congested car line thank you any other discussion no yes mr. no thank you madam chair really probably this is one of the areas I've gone back and forth with but I really I happen to agree with dr. Rasheed on this I think that the density issues just because Madison's trust is such a walk dense school I just don't see how we can get relief any other way and so I [03:41:07] heed the concerns about transportation and normally I'm on that train too but I feel like this is a unique situation so I will not be supporting the motion thank Commissioner enough this one was a hard one for me too because I promote walking and healthy living and I would love for people to continue to walk but I really just didn't see it giving much relief if you didn't you know move that one [03:41:40] position I it's not my favorite but I don't think I can support the motion either any other discussion any other amendments or anything else yes dr. [03:41:57] Yes, I do have another amendment to 280 if I may I move and again Please stop me if this isn't suitable, but I move to amend plan 280 by keeping DS 0.8 Zero DS 0 8.1 DS 0 8.2 and DS 0 8.3 at Madison's Trust Elementary School I have a motion by dr. Rasheed. I have a motion to amend the amendment Which is to keep DS and DS 0 8.1 DS 0 8.2 and DS 0 8.3 at Madison's Trust Elementary School. Do I have a second? Second. I have a second by [03:42:36] Mrs. Griffiths. It's more properly moved and seconded. Dr. Rasheed, do you want to speak to your motion? I mean it kind of it kind of speaks for itself. We would like to keep the we would like to keep Willisford there at Madison's Trust and I think by doing that we don't impact the percentage of Madison's trust by keeping by keeping Willisford at bay in the community. Thank you. [03:43:03] Thank you, Dr. Rashid. Any other? Yes, Mrs. Griffiths. This is not an amendment, but I just wanted to point out for myself, can I mention something, even though it's not an amendment? This is to discuss what Dr. Rashid's amendment is. Okay, yeah, I'll mention it after. [03:43:19] Thank you. Okay, alright. Any discussion about, yes, Mr. Streffy. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think it relates to Dr. Rashid's motion. First of all, I want to thank all the families for all of the advocacy and the outreach and for reaching out. [03:43:37] And I know how difficult it is. I think all the board members who spoke already addressed it, that this is a very difficult circumstance. And it's trying to be fiscally responsible by preventing opening another elementary school, by starting the right sizing and the rezoning that will not just-- this will not be the only rezoning. [03:43:56] We have more that have to happen. And so I wanted to offer a perspective to my fellow board members. I've shared this with you already. I think where I'm coming from with 533 and the amendments that Dr. Rasheed has made specifically are around the conflict between the special permissions process that we have in the 90% floor and what we're trying to accomplish with the rezoning by reducing capacity. [03:44:32] I also acknowledge all of the points that were made around some of the older schools in these zones that they don't have, as you referred to once, Mr. Lewis, the same chassis as other schools and the same spaces. And we do have a responsibility to open up those spaces and to be forward-thinking. [03:44:53] But I just really struggled with us making a concerted effort to solve the problem when we still have an issue with special permissions being allowed at these schools up to a 90% capacity. And so we could be doing as much as possible knowing we're going to impact so many families, yet these schools could be at a 90% capacity regardless of what we do and how we impact these families. [03:45:19] And so I am torn, but I just wanted to make that statement on the record as to what, you know, that was a big consideration for me. And, you know, I will be supporting Dr. Rasheed's motion for that reason. [03:45:37] And, yeah, those are my comments. Thank you, Mr. Strafi. Yes, Mrs. Griffiths. I would like to also go on the record for the Seldon's Landing crowd. Permistate, if any of the four, I want the people of Loudoun County to know, especially the Seldon's group. [03:45:56] Permistate, if any of the four active plans move forward with motions or amendments whether it's r11 r17 plan 280 plan 533 this change the change is already reflected for selden's landing if amendments are also offered to modify any of the plans but don't involve any of the three lands down planning zones dn01 d dn01.2 and dn01.6 then the community would still uh be included uh in the rezoning action so selden's landing is as of right now [03:46:36] with all our amendments and everything going on and all the plans they are set to go back to their zone school thank you okay thank you um mrs griffiths um okay is there any other discussion for dr rasheed's amendment to amend the amend amend the amendment for plan 280 by keeping DS-08.1, DS-08.2, and DS-08.3 at Madison's Trust. Any other discussion? You want more discussion? [03:47:06] Just to point out to you guys, if I could, that if the walk zone stays, guys, I just want to let you know that we didn't solve the overcrowding issue that's happening at Madison's Trust. I mean, we have to also consider Elaine Thompson. We're not going to solve the issue of Elaine Thompson having issues down the line if we go the opposite of my amendment. Thank you. [03:47:28] I don't think your amendment gets rid of the increases the walk zones I mean I think that's that would be vice chair Donahue's putting him back in right but would you okay I think that's what you yes vice chair Donahue thank you madam chair I just did the quick math that the according to the numbers that we have on the charts in front of us the total number of students in DN 8.1 8.2 and 8.3 [03:48:06] adds up to 203 compared to the walk zone which is 240. It's not such a huge difference. Thank you Vice Chair Donahue. Okay any other discussion on Dr. Rasheed's amendment to the amendment? [03:48:23] Okay all right so we will now discuss we will now seeing no more discussion we'll vote on amending the amendment which is dr. Rashid's to keep dso 8.1 dso 8.2 and dso 8.3 at madison's trust elementary school that's dr. Rashid's yes okay and she's already started before i even said anything clerk please open the vote board members please record your vote clerk please close and [03:49:03] display the vote that motion uh does not pass four to five with um miss chandler dr dean's chair mansfield vice chair donahue and ms chernoff in opposition um so we will go now to the amendment we'll now reopen the discussion on the uh on the uh amendment to the base motion [03:49:33] Yes, which would be a move to amend Plan 280 by removing DS 36.8 from the plan so that it remains at Madison's Trust. [03:49:51] Okay, any more discussion on that? Okay, so I see no more discussion on that, so we will go ahead and vote on that. Board clerk, please open the vote. [03:50:10] Board members, please record your vote. Clerk, please close and display the vote. And that motion does not pass with Mrs. Griffiths, Ms. Chandler, Chair Mansfield, Mr. Streffi, Ms. Chernoff, Dr. Rasheed, and Ms. LaBelle in opposition of the vote. [03:50:35] Okay, so now we take all of this and we do the final vote. We will reopen discussion on the newly amended base motion. Is there any discussion regarding this main motion as amended? Seeing none. Oh, yes. Miss LaBelle. Oh boy Okay, so to get it. I didn't have my microphone on could you repeat the base motion? Oh, I heard you Okay, here we go. We go [03:51:12] So it's gonna be the base motion is 280 right and it was amended twice already with Miss Chernoff who took it who? where is it uh to adopt we've we started with adopting 280 the amendment hold on i had these all in uh the amended base motion to take 20 dn 29 and move it from sanders corner elementary [03:51:48] school to cedar lane and moving dn 16 from cedar lane to newton lee elementary school and then the amendment to the amendment which was mine was removing dn 30.2 back to hillside and then um i guess the other two didn't pass okay did i clear that up for you miss labelle okay thank you dr deans you want no okay um clerk please any more discussion no okay clerk please [03:52:22] open the vote board members please record your vote the clerk please close and display the vote and that overall um i mean that overall motion passes five to three with mrs griffiths dr deans and dr. Rashid absent I mean in opposition of the vote and vice chair [03:52:56] Donna Hugh abstaining from the vote thank you for all of your patience with that we will now continue on with 12.02 department of support services superintendent recommended fiscal year 2027 fiscal year 2032 capital budget presented by mr. Lewis actually do I have a motion or I can make the motion [03:53:38] Okay, Ms. Chernoff. I move, we're on capital budget, right? Yes, ma'am. Okay, I move that the Loudoun County School Board adopt the FY27 through FY20 through 32 capital budget, including the capital facility planning guidelines as amended through December 1st, 2025, and submit the same to the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors for their action. [03:54:05] I have a base motion by Ms. Chernoff. Do I have a second? I have a second by Ms. LaBelle. Second. it's been probably moved and seconded um one second yes ma'am there's two motions in here and i think i may have misspoke okay well then mr lewis do you want to explain the different motions yes ma'am so the first first motion is to adopt what has been amended up until the last work session was december 1th of december 1st of 2025. the second motion is if you were to make some some [03:54:45] Changes to that as of tonight, then it would be as of tonight's date December 16th So if you don't have any other motions to make or changes, then it would be the first motion for December 1 and we're solid on my end Okay. All right. Is there any other discussion? No. Okay. It's been properly moved and seconded Seeing no more discussion. I will move forward with the vote clerk. Please open the vote board members [03:55:13] Please record your vote clerk. Please close and display the vote that motion Passes eight to one with mrs. Griffiths and opposition to the vote. We'll continue with Finance and Operations Committee RFP number are two five two seven one enterprise resource planning software and implementation Services, mr. Streffy, do you have a motion? Yes, thank you madam chair [03:55:49] I move that loud and county school board approve the award for RFP are two five two seven one enterprise resource planning ERP software and implementation services to international business systems IBM Oracle and time clocks plus for $22,464,093 effective from January 2nd 2026 through June 30th 2029 and authorizes the chair to sign the final documents upon presentation further that the Loudoun County School Board request the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors transfer four million four hundred sixty four sixty four thousand ninety three dollars from county held [03:56:25] LCPS CIP contingency funding to the capital improvement program for the enterprise resource planning upgrade project. I have a motion by Mr. Streffi do you have a second? Second. I have a second by Vice Chair Donohue. It's been properly moved and seconded. I guess Mr. Streffi do you want to speak to your motion or you want to serve it on? Okay. Yes Madam Chair thank you. I will speak to it briefly and pass it to Mr. Lewis or Mr. Smith to add anything that I might have missed. This is for our ERP system which we have we currently share with the [03:57:01] county and the county government is migrating to a new platform and informed us in 2024 that we would need to migrate to a new platform by 2028 when they will stop supporting their shared environment we have been operating through that joint system we are very limited in what we can accomplish and what we can automate we're not able to capture certain efficiencies through our existing system by running it through the county because they have customized it to their needs [03:57:35] and so this solves multiple issues. The county provided funds at the time via CIP for the project around 2024 I believe and our estimate was 18 million at the time. The 22 million dollar award includes a three million dollar contingency which is about 15 percent of the project and inflation rates for the SAS portion of the subscription software model since the funds were awarded at awarded about eight to ten percent I don't know if Mr. Lewis or Mr. Smith would want [03:58:09] to add anything else they are giving the thumbs up I think you did a good job okay any other discussion seeing no discussion clerk please open the vote board members please record your vote clerk please close and display the vote that motion passes unanimously we will continue with [03:58:39] 12.04 lanp uh 2026 legislative program present uh miss chandler do you have a motion yes thank you madam chair i move that the loudon county school board adopt the 2025-2026 legislative program i have a motion by um miss chandler do i have a second second i have a second but i'm going to give it to Dr. Deans. It's been properly moved and seconded. Ms. Chandler, would you like to speak to your motion? Yes, thank you. This year's proposed program identifies five key priorities, each highlighting a central area of emphasis with the board's proposed legislative agenda. [03:59:18] It includes continued support for the joint subcommittee to study elementary and secondary education funding, advocacy for federal hold harmless and block grants, full and transparent funding of re-benchmarking, standards of learning, development, and funding of a comprehensive student mental health policy. The proposed 2025-2026 legislative priorities focus on advancing critical issues that shape public education across Virginia, particularly in the areas of equitable funding, teacher recruitment and retention, and enhanced student support. [03:59:52] This issue-driven plan reflects LCPS's advocacy with these statewide efforts, and I'm sorry, reflects recommendations from active state commissions and committees committed to improving educational outcomes for all students by aligning LCPS's advocacy with these statewide efforts. [04:00:13] The legislative program strengthens the division's capacity to influence policy, foster innovation, and ensure that student-centered leadership remains at the core of our mission. Through this strategic approach, LCPS will continue to advance policies that sustain excellence and equity in education for all Loudoun County students. Thank you Ms. Chandler. Is there any discussion? Yes, Ms. Griffiths. Just one question, what is the estimated cost with funding the proposed 2025-2026 legislative [04:00:48] priorities? Do we have an estimated cost on that? Is anybody available to answer? I'm perplexed. What do you mean? Is there an estimate, is there a cost involved? [04:01:07] Yes, Dr. Spence. I can speak briefly to that. The continued support for the joint subcommittee to study elementary and secondary education funding, that's the JLARC recommendations. [04:01:23] Those costs would be state revenues. It would be essentially seeking additional state revenues to bring the funding model in the Commonwealth into alignment with the JLARC recommendations. And a couple other things specifically referenced in there would be full funding the cost of competing adjustment for Northern Virginia districts, for example. [04:01:46] So that would increase funding. The request to push for hold harmless on the block grants, that's about federal funding and how it may come to the states. We anticipate, based on some of the federal moves from the Department of Education for interagency agreements, we anticipate that grant funding, which has traditionally been given to the state for specific purposes, may come in a block grant, and then the states will be asked to determine how they'll distribute those funds. [04:02:25] So there's not an anticipated funding cost for LCPS. It's really a question of how we'll receive federal funds. When you look at the piece on full and transparent funding and re-benchmarking, That is another state revenue issue that is just trying to ensure that the state goes through a transparent re-benchmarking process, which is where every two years they take a look at the actual cost of education in the Commonwealth and then try to re-benchmark what the standards of quality funding should look like as a result of that re-benchmarking. [04:02:56] They also look at the LCI in that, and as we'll talk about as we get into the budget discussions starting in january the lc the lci that's the essentially the local composite index it's the locality's ability to pay that will have a significant impact on our state revenues and so we'll want transparency around those costs and how that will impact state revenue i think obviously workforce housing i think this is more of a community state [04:03:34] and school division issue no into no costs associated with that at the moment however as as those conversations continue certainly something we would want to bring back and talk with the school board about and standards of learning reform we don't anticipate any additional costs associated with that comprehensive student mental health policy and funding again would be a request for state funding to support those areas and and will be notified as a board how much the estimated costs are so again not really associated with estimated costs is more so [04:04:11] associated with um anticipated and hoped for revenues to support different programs and really it's about taking our conversation to the state to see if we can't garner additional revenue support um i wouldn't say really any anticipated costs associated with it um but certainly as we engage in the budget conversation beginning in january with the presentation of the estimate of needs We'll be sharing what we believe the state revenue picture will be shaping up to be any other discussion seeing none [04:04:47] We'll go ahead and move forward with the vote clerk. Please open the vote board members. Please record your vote Clerk, please close and display the vote that motion passes eight to one with mrs. Griffiths and opposition to the vote We'll move on to 12.05 loves LANP revisions to 2140 orientation and professional development for board members Ms. Chandler, do you have a motion? Thank you madam chair I move that the Loudoun County School Board approve the proposed revisions to policy 2140 [04:05:26] Orientation and professional development for board members. I have a motion by Ms. Chandler. Do I have a second? Second. I have a second by Vice-Chair Donahue. It's been properly moved and seconded. Ms. Chandler, would you like to speak to your motion? Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. This policy was brought forward for its five-year review, being as it was last reviewed in November of 2021. The proposed changes align with current practice and provide additional clarity around our process for onboarding new school board members. [04:05:56] The revised language includes updates on the planning and timing of the orientation process and removes the requirements professional development from this policy with the expectation that that language will be moved into the other most appropriate relevant policies that will be addressed and updated to capture the language around professional development requirements. [04:06:21] thank you miss chandler i mean i guess i was the one who was like and there but then after doing some further thinking on it it's in code anyway virginia code that board members must do professional development so covered until you get it into your next policy any other discussion no okay uh seeing more discussion no more discussion clerk please open the vote board members please record your vote clerk please close and display the vote and that motion passes unanimously and [04:07:01] we'll continue with LANP revisions to 3120 powers and duties of the division superintendent uh miss Chandler do you have a motion yes I move that the Loudoun County School Board approve the revisions to policy 3120 powers and duties of the division superintendent I have a motion by miss Chandler do I have a second I have a second by mr. oh I have a second by mr. Struffy it's been properly moved and seconded uh miss Chandler do you want to speak to your motion yes speaking of aligning those policies in a more appropriate [04:07:38] place this policy was also brought forth in results of the revisions to policy 2140 which was just mentioned the primary changes capture the current practice and expectations for the superintendent around professional development this update strengthens and our policy alignment by moving the professional development language to the policy that is most applicable to the division superintendent. Thank you, Ms. Chandler. Is there any other discussion? Yes, Ms. Chandler. I'd also [04:08:17] like to officially move to add the language that I proposed at the previous meeting. So I've moved to add at line 20, the division superintendent shall have the authority to delegate to other school personnel the exercise of any powers and the discharge of any duties imposed on the superintendent consistent with applicable law policy by law regulation and other governing documents of the school board this addition is meant to strengthen the policy by making it giving more clarity and bringing it into more can be more consistent with our current practice and i'll say in plain language the amendment aims to capture truly our current practice [04:08:56] which allows the superintendent to delegate some duties to other staff members when it is lawful appropriate and permissible to do so. Okay but the amendment was just the first like four. It was just it was the amendment was the division superintendent shall have the authority to delegate to other school personnel the exercise of any powers and the discharge of any duties imposed on the superintendent consistent with applicable law policy bylaw regulation and or other governing documents of the school board. That was your amendment to the base motion. Yes and [04:09:28] do I have a second clarification I did go too fast zoom do I have a second second okay well can I give it dr. Dean dr. Dean's has gave it a second it's been properly moved and seconded and we just already heard her reasoning is for the function is there any discussion to the amendment to the base motion yes vice-chair Donahue thank you madam chair I apologize but miss Chandler could you say where in the policy that amendment is going yes earlier so it would come on line 20 [04:10:06] after the language is there already okay any other discussion thank you for that clarification of vice chair donahue okay so i am seeing no more discussion we will move forward with the vote to amend the base motion uh clerk please open the vote board members please record your vote [04:10:34] clerk doctor clerk please close and display the vote and that motion uh passes eight to one with mrs griffiths in opposition to the vote um okay and now we will move for the base motion as amended is there any discussion i'll open it up nope clerk please open the vote board members please record [04:11:09] your vote clerk please close and display the vote and that motion passes we'll continue with LENP. Once again, Ms. Chandler, do you have a motion? Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I move that the Loudoun County School Board approve the revisions to Policy 3410, Office of the Auditor General. I have a motion by Ms. Chandler. Do I have a second? Second. I have a second by Ms. [04:11:38] Chernoff. It's been properly moved and seconded. Ms. Chandler, would you like to speak to your motion? Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. As I mentioned at our last meeting, this conversation really began around a discussion of who in our organizational structure is best positioned to provide the Auditor General with a performance evaluation. In the process that took place after we did a deep dive on the norms and protocols that exist on boards that also have Auditor Generals recognizing that it's not a universal practice in the Commonwealth of Virginia, but there are certainly other boards, including Virginia Beach [04:12:17] and Fairfax, that use similar structures. So looking at those best practices, the committee weighed placing the auditor under the direction of the school board chair, but eventually opted for leaving a supervision in the committee, which works most directly with the auditor. [04:12:34] This alignment works well for direct oversight of the actual work. And I also believe it sets us up if, in the future, we were to have a discussion about moving the audit portion out of the legislative audit and policy committee because then the committee that works most directly with the auditor general would have the position of maintaining oversight um i have a so but if it's if you're saying that it's [04:13:10] reporting directly to le and p committee i know what could you repeat what you just said because if we put it in policy then you can't really get rid of it can you? Well you have to go back and pull a different policy to change the committees of the school board and of course I would defer to Mr. Allen to clarify that we had that policy in front of the school board within the last year but the alignment in terms of not placing the supervision with the school board chair but keeping it in the committee that works directly with the auditor general and oversees [04:13:44] the work seems to be the best alignment from i'll only speak for myself but from my perspective and i'm not necessarily advocating at this time for taking a mo to any further action but i believe this alignment would make the next step easier and makes the most logical sense if that is what the future board chose to do okay um boardman or any other discussion no seeing none okay um clerk [04:14:19] please open the vote. Board members, please record your vote. Clerk, please close and display the vote. That motion passes 7-2 with Mrs. Griffiths and Ms. LaBelle in opposition of the vote. Okay, we're moving to 12.08, Student Behavior and Accountability Committee, revisions to Policy 86-55, Student Personal Device Use. Ms. LaBelle, do you have a motion? Yes, Madam Chair. I recommend [04:14:57] that the Loudoun County School Board adopt the Student Behavior and Accountability Committee's approved revisions of Policy 8655, Student Personal Device Use. I have a motion by Ms. LaBelle. Do I have a second? Second. [04:15:13] I have a second by Ms. Chernoff. It's been properly moved and seconded. Ms. LaBelle, do you want to speak to your motion? Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. A little over a year ago, we wrote probably the very first policy regarding the use of personal devices in classrooms. [04:15:30] There were a lot of restrictions, but there was also some free use. Since then, in April of 2025, the Virginia Assembly passed a state law restricting the use of personal technology devices from bell to bell during the school day. [04:15:52] So just to be clear, when students come into the school in the morning and the morning bell rings, those devices have to be already put away, out of reach, out of sight, and must stay that way for the remainder of the day until the closing bell rings. [04:16:16] Then after the closing bell, they are free to use them. They are free to use them on the bus in the morning, on the buses in the afternoon, at activities games clubs that are not during the instructional portion of the day but during the instructional portion of the day it is now state law that they are restricted from using them so we had to revise our policy to accommodate that state policy thank you any other discussion yes RJ thank you [04:16:55] madam chair um the only thing I would like to talk about is the safety concern as you've seen recently in the news at Brown University there was an incident the only fear is I understand we say we have security officers and the front office can obviously talk for us but let's say you're separated from a large population of the group of the student body I fear that is a issue to the safety of our kids and LCPS as well I would like to mention the advocacy for our personal devices as laptops not as the cell phone aspect i feel like chromebooks itself may [04:17:35] need to like be used as the the ones that we equipped in the academies for like aet to better equip our students because i fear when i use my actual chromebook that i there's a lot of like issues where it crashes sometimes because due to the wi-fi and it moves a lot slower me personally i take some computer science courses and that's an issue when we can't even access that that means we do nothing for the rest of the day. Well said, Mr. Nosegbe. I will have to say I'm not a huge fan [04:18:10] of this policy. I think restrict means something different than what it is being interpreted at this particular point in time. And I agree with you as far as personal devices. So any other discussion yes mr. Struffy thank you madam chair I was going to take that question maybe ask mr. Smith if you could comment on some of the on that [04:18:45] scenario let's say for a student at that may have other requirements if we're aware of any what the protocols might be now sure so devices provided to students are in alignment with what curriculum design and appropriate uses for classes. So majority of students receive Chromebooks, but there are also labs in schools, virtual environments, different ways to facilitate and access that content and curriculum if it is needed and a Chromebook won't suffice. And then there are also targeted programs that are provided higher level devices, such as Academy of Science and Academies of Engineering and [04:19:23] Technology. So DDI works with the curriculum development teams and the owners of those programs to ensure that the technology that is deployed supports what the students will be doing in those classes. Any other discussion? Yes, Ms. Chandler. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm definitely struggling with this change. I have to say the entire time I've been proud of the policy that we put in place and pleased with how it was working out. I definitely worry that several [04:19:57] things haven't been contemplated, and I understand that it's outside of our control, but I've had many students reach out to me to try to better understand the changes that are coming, and some teachers too, and again, I know we are in the business of teaching, and we are going to lead our students through this change, and although I do worry about the bump in discipline that's going to occur at the beginning of the year, but that said, I would ask if it has been contemplated how programs like journalism and broadcasting are going to be impacted by this, because [04:20:35] a lot of the work that they actually do with their personal devices achieve the work of the program, and I'm not sure that we've contemplated this device is not going to be able to do fully functioning what students are doing in journalism with their personal devices and what workarounds are we going to quickly put in place so that students can continue in these courses when we return in two weeks not to mention the other issues of outing special education students and students [04:21:13] with disabilities yes thank you madam chair kind of along similar lines I've also I think all of us are struggling because we really liked our policy which we thought we did a good job and was affirmed by the community last meeting I had talked a little bit about the operational side and I wanted to thank Dr. Spence for kind of walking me through what the plan is moving forward it sounds like there's a comprehensive plan I'll let him speak to that if he wants to elaborate in a minute but a lot of the confusion that I was trying to convey came from the striking out of lines 47 through 57 where it talked about designated spaces to put the cell phones and to keep the air but you know [04:21:53] your pod air pods and all that away that was so specific in the policy and so many high school teachers felt like by striking that out we were taking that fully away which I think makes sense that they would feel that way but there is a difference between policy and operationalizing something and it is my understanding and dr. Spence correct me if I'm wrong but it is my understanding that if practices are working for teachers that keep the phones away during instructional time that those things can continue we're not trying to limit that it's just the extension now goes into the hallways and the libraries and the lunches which means that they that wouldn't necessarily apply so it [04:22:32] wouldn't make sense to have that portion is that a correct analysis correct yes ma'am okay thank you so I just wanted to clarify that for the teachers that had reached out to me that were concerned that something was being taken a practice that works for them was being taken away so I'll be supporting this But I also am conflicted. Thank you, Mr. Noff. Ms. LaBelle. I wanted to speak to your concern about special education There is a carve-out in the policy saying that any of the devices needed for personal health and approved in IEP or 504 plan or a mental health plan are still allowable, but they need to be [04:23:12] Discussed and there needs to be in the IEP itself or the plan itself. I should say yes, ma'am i think my my point and and thank goodness for that right um and el students and everything else there's there needs to be a plan my point is somebody will say oh you have a tablet you must be special education oh you have earbuds you must be special education oh you must you know that's my that was my concern but it's not like i can really do anything about it uh vice chair Donahue, did you want to say anything? [04:23:48] Thank you, Madam Chair. I was going to echo the point that you just made about potentially outing special education students. And I will echo some of the comments that were already made. [04:24:07] I am not in support of this amendment because I think that our policy in its prior incarnation was better than what the interpretation is that the state is forcing on us. [04:24:28] And I agree with what you said earlier, Chair, that the code that was passed says restrict. It does not say prohibit. And we already have a policy in place that restricts use of personal devices. [04:24:44] Thank you. Any other discussion? OK, let's go ahead and vote. Clerk, please open the vote. Board members, please record your vote. Clerk, please close and display the vote. [04:25:03] That motion passes 6-1 with Ms. Chandler and Ms. Mansfield, and Chair Mansfield abstaining, Vice Chair Donahue in opposition to the vote, and Ms. Chandler and Chair Mansfield abstaining from the vote. [04:25:23] Okay, move on to Student Services Committee, revisions of policy 8155. school assignment, Vice Chair Donahue, do you have a motion? Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. [04:25:40] I move that the school board adopt the proposed red lines to revise policy 8155 on school assignment. And just to be clear, does the red line include what was voted on at the previous board meeting? [04:26:11] I'm not exactly sure how to answer that question. Madam Chair it is staff did incorporate a number of changes that were discussed and I believe agreed upon on the dais by the board members who are here there however there are a handful of proposed amendments that have been posted on board docs including one that I intend to put forward so while I am making this motion to approve the amendments. I'm doing so as the starting point of a conversation and not [04:26:49] necessarily advocating that the board adopt the red line as it currently is. Ms. Richardson, are the amendments and everything incorporated in this particular red line? Thank you, Chair Mansfield, for that question. So all of the proposed revisions made from the dais at the December 2nd meeting were incorporated with the exception of the one that Mrs. Donahue had made [04:27:23] at line 174. We did miss that and so she has an amendment to include that language now this evening at line 194. But all of the information that was discussed particularly about moving the instructional suitability information from section lines 227 to 242 or so are now contained in lines 50 through 90. So we separated those sections. So it clearly puts the IS process at [04:27:58] the front of the policy and special permission later in the policy. The board had asked us to separate those those two um processes still same language yes because what we just moved was to lift it up and move it to the to line 50 to 82 yes that is correct same language okay so basically the dates and then moving the language has happened and that is in this red line right here yes that is correct all right i have a motion by vice chair donahue do i have a second Second I have a second by Miss Chernoff [04:28:38] Vice Chair Donahue. Do you want to speak to your motion? Where do you have more discussion? Yes, and yes, thank you madam chair See this was on for information before so it's it's not coming as a surprise to To any of my fellow members here on the dais But special that this I keep referring to it as the special permission policy It is not the special permission policy It is the school assignment policy, and it covers other areas in addition to special permission I first became interested in amending this policy because of concerns that I had over the special permission process [04:29:17] But so this we are not doing this as part of fiber review We chose into the Student Services Committee to to take a look at this policy and propose additional revisions to address some changes to special permission in the hope of improving that process and also to address some other concerns that had developed Related to school assignment issues such as for example instructional suitability, which has been significantly edited that section and also And a whole new section has been added related to rezoning and students placed through special permission [04:29:57] to address those concerns So, I am in support of this, I'm in support of the changes that we're making here, but I do also have an amendment to propose. And I move to amend the redline version of Policy 8155 by adding at line 194 after the date, which in this redline, I believe, still says April 30th, although I think we had previously discussed changing it to March 31st. [04:30:36] We moved it further to April. We moved it back last time. That was the amendment last time was to move it because it was. We stopped it in March. Okay, so that's my question. April 30th yes yes ma'am okay all right thank you thank you for that clarification madam chair okay so on line 194 of the red line after where it says April 30th I proposed add the following language applicants may but are not required to identify the reason for the special permission request applicants are encouraged but not required to provide documentation [04:31:15] Supporting the request and reason for it. Um, I have a motion by Vice Chair Donahue. Do I have a second? So I have a second by dr. Miss Chandler. Okay, so we probably moved and seconded is there any discussion? Yes, dr. Dean's based on the Special permission Panels that I have served on if no reason is given the answer is no [04:31:46] so to put that in the policy would lead some parents to think that they would not or do not have have to give a reason for the special permission and would negatively influence their ability to attain their goal. [04:32:13] Yes, Vice-Chair Donahue. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Dr. Deans, for raising that concern. So the special permission process, and I will ask Ms. Richardson to correct me if I speak incorrectly here, but as Loudoun County has always done the special permission process, Families applicants are not required to identify a reason or provide documentation for a request in support of a request for special permission that is not required has not ever been required if the if the request is made for a school [04:32:49] that is under capacity currently 90% capacity it is granted there is no at the initial threshold level there is no consideration of what reason may be behind the request. It has occurred in some appeals panels that families have provided some description of why they are requesting the special permission assignment for their student. In in some of those circumstances, I'll speak only [04:33:22] for myself, I have felt that it would have been helpful for me in evaluating whether or not to uphold the prior denial of special permission assignment if I had more information available to me. But by that juncture, when we were sitting on those appeals panels, we've missed the opportunity to reach out and ask for additional information. So my goal in making this change is to make it clear to families that they can include the reason for their request. [04:34:01] They can include documentation. They do not have to do either of those things. But my long-term goal, as I've mentioned previously, is I would like for LCPS to change, if we keep special permission, I would like for us to completely change our system so that we in the future would say you have to have a reason. [04:34:26] There has to be some specific reason why you're seeking this assignment and provide documentation for it. I mentioned that as a possibility previously, and my sense of my colleagues at this juncture was that that might be too much change at once in this current moment that we're in, which is why I have put forward this proposal as a stepping stone to try and get further along later. [04:34:57] Yes, Mrs. Griffiths. Per Ann's amendment, I also had two amendments that may be able to go along with what Ms. Donahue put forward today. So I don't know. They're kind of long, but I don't know if you wanted me to go through them. [04:35:14] Sure. Yeah, so you would have the amendments. Well, if you don't mind, can I, please, can I go ahead? Okay. I moved to amend lines on the red line, 183 to 187 that currently reads special permission is a privilege for LCPS students. [04:35:32] Special permission is not automatically approved, granted, or guaranteed year after year. A parent or legal guardian may request their student to attend a school of their choice by special permission if the school is not projected to be over-enrolled and under the following conditions. [04:35:48] So my proposed amendment is, and forgive me, it's a little long, special permission offers a choice to LCPS students, their parents, and or legal guardians. Starting in 2026, applications will be presumptively approved. [04:36:04] The burden of proof to deny any application is the responsibility of student services under the supervision of the board, and in consultation with directly relevant school principles. In cases where student services denies an application, they will outline specific reasons for denial based on the core principles of a student's best interests rather than operational or administrative. And denials will automatically go in front of the Special Permissions Appeals Board where the parent, legal guardian, and or student will be allowed to address specific [04:36:40] reasons denials must be justified by student services on a point by point basis and not communicated as determinations or referred to as a superseded by lcps policies including 2350 um now i don't know if you want me to get into the second amendment yeah that's only we can only do an amendment and amend the amendment then we have to go back up and then you can okay do your other amendments so i have an amendment and uh mrs griffiths just read it out um an amendment to [04:37:11] the amendment do i have a second second i have a second by miss shirnoff um it and so mrs griffiths would you like to speak to your motion well did i i i think i did no you just read it out but do you do you have any thoughts about it well um reason why well we're going through we're talking about denial but also appeals process and documentation so as far as documentation goes [04:37:44] when a parent wants permission for their student to go to a specific school yes they may not show up with the documentation the first time and because of enrollment they may or may not be denied but if there is a special reason where they can come back and appeal they should be able to do that and then maybe bring the documentation. So I'm curious to know what my colleagues' thoughts are on that. Thank you. Is there any discussion? Yes, Dr. Deans. My thoughts are public schools are [04:38:21] not schools of choice. We've just voted earlier tonight on boundaries. So why would we then go into the weeds of making public schools schools of choice. [04:38:39] And as a result, I think that by Chair Donahue was saying incrementally, I think the system should get away from special permission because we're not schools of choice. [04:38:56] We have boundaries. Thank you, Dr. Danes. Any other discussion on Mrs. Griffith's amendment? Seeing none, we'll go ahead and... [04:39:14] vote on the amending the amendment. Clerk please open the vote. Board members please record your vote. Clerk please close and display the vote. That motion does not pass 1 to 8 with Ms. Chandler, Dr. Deans, Ms. Mansfield, Vice Chair Donohue, Mr. Struffy, Ms. Chernoff, Dr. Rasheed, and Ms. [04:39:44] LaBelle in opposition of the vote. Now we will go back to the amending of the base motion which is vice chair donahue's um i'll open up the discussion any more discussion on that okay yes ma'am for mrs donahue's um amendment putting it in writing in the policy would lead some parents who are not [04:40:16] um strong advocates for their children not to give a reason for their request to go to a different school. And therefore, it would allow or give those parents a disadvantage to getting their special permission passed. So there again, I think it's an equity issue in terms of advocacy versus passivity. Thank you, Dr. Deans. Ms. Richardson, could you help me with my recollection [04:40:55] of what we what we ask on the website for special permission because I think we do ask that if they have something to to send it in so chair mansfield we don't ask so it's not mandatory they we have drop downs within the portal and so parents can select choices the top choice is typically child care the second usually pertains to mental health and then the third top category is other the portal does already have the capacity for parents to upload information but it is not currently [04:41:35] required right so it's not required but it's not encouraged either right okay it's just there it is there here is information here is the drop down if you would like to how is it worded um reason for request and they usually can pick a specific choice or the other category and in in if you pick the other category you don't necessarily have to provide an X and an explanation but there's also a something that says you can add attachment add [04:42:07] attachments yes okay okay any other discussion no okay we will now vote on the base motion as an amendment to the base motion which is vice turn Donahue's clerk please open vote board members please record your vote clerk please close and display the vote that motion passes five to four with dr. Deans mr. [04:42:42] Struffy dr. Rashid and Miss LaBelle opposed to the vote okay and then we will go ahead and do the final vote to base motion as amended and then I believe that mrs. Griffiths has another motion so let's go ahead and vote on the base motion as amended I'll open it up for any discussion no discussion as the base [04:43:11] motion yeah to put it in there dr. Spence is giving me a funky look clerk please open the vote board members please record your vote clerk please close and display the vote that motion passes 63 with dr. Deans dr. Rasheed and miss LaBelle in opposition to the vote okay now I'm gonna open it up for any other motions yes mrs. Griffiths thank you madam chair now I do have another [04:43:49] amendment but also language to fix some language so I'll do the amendment first online 456 on red line the school board committee's decision on finals so this is also applicable to our discussion but I didn't get a chance to mention it While the School Board Committee's decision intends to be final, LCPS acknowledges errors can be made in the process. To that end, a student whose special permission denial is upheld by the Special Permissions Appeal Board has [04:44:27] further recourse to make an application under instructional suitability, where the emphasis is on a more appropriate instructional program that meets the student's academic, social, and emotional needs and this may be addressed anytime during the year in this instance applications will be directed to lcps elected uh at large board member and the application would be reviewed by a panel of three board members different to those who sat down the original for the original um special permissions appeal meeting um so i wanted to go ahead that that's your motion right yeah [04:45:05] okay i have a motion by mrs griffiths do i have a second i have a second by mr straffi it's been properly moved and seconded now would you like to speak to that motion mrs griffiths well it all sort of obviously goes together as far as um you know when we have parents that are seeking special permission for their student um this is more to the appeals um as to what that they can appeal the decision and come back and have more of a chance to present their case and that also went [04:45:40] along with uh documentation as well thank you okay thank you mrs griffiths any other discussion seeing none do you have another amendment it was just uh language if we can fix some language uh did you want me to go ahead fix language or if you feel like it needs to be fixed um you i think mr allen would you correct me if i'm wrong it would not be an amend the amendment thank you i think i would need to hear more before i could weigh in on that okay mrs griff says why don't you [04:46:17] go ahead um just fixing language um lines on the red line 221 to 222 it reads an appropriate instructional program is available at requested school to adequate adequately meet the student's educational needs the correction would be um this is a direct reference to special ed ed the lines 101 to 102 on the red line amendment reads specialized academic programs and specialized special education programs have separate procedures for the placement of these students so it's contradicting itself so i don't know i'm thinking we would remove one of them one of the [04:46:55] lines so i just wanted to put that out there um that it contradicts what's special it okay mr allen do you want to weigh in now thank you chairman so that that does seem to be an another amendment so if the board wants to treat that as an amendment to an amendment that's on the floor it can mrs. Griffiths that's a has a motion on the floor do I have a second I have a second by mr. Strafi it's been properly moved [04:47:31] and seconded we will now any further discussion yes vice-chair Donahue thank you madam chair lines 101 to 102 of the red line that mrs. Griffiths just mentioned that reads specialized academic programs and specialized education programs have separate procedures for the placement of students that is just making a statement of that there are special [04:48:03] processes for those things and that is that appears under the umbrella of the instructional suitability section i don't i have not interpreted those two lines as being contradictory thank you thank you vice chair donahue any other discussion okay uh we will now vote on the amend the amendment [04:48:37] there's no more discussion clerk please open the vote board members please record your vote clerk please close and display the vote that motion does not pass one to eight with um ms chandler dr deans uh vice chair chair mansfield vice chair donahue mr estruffy ms shurnoff dr rasheed and miss labelle in opposition to the vote um we'll now move on [04:49:09] to the amendment to a base motion as amended um is there any discussion yes vice chair donahue thank you madam chair just could you clarify which proposal we are now considering it is the move to amend in line 456 that reads the school board's committee decision is final and her the proposed amendment is while the school board committee decision intends to be final lcps acknowledges errors can be made in the process to that end a student whose special permission [04:49:48] denial is upheld by the special permission appeals board has further recourse to make an application under instructional suitability where the emphasis is on a more appropriate instructional program that meets the student's academic social or emotional needs and this may be addressed any time during the school year in this instance applications will be directed to the lcps elected at-large board member and the application will be reviewed by a panel of three board members different to those who sat on the original special permission appeals meeting that [04:50:23] would be her that's the okay any other discussion no all right uh we'll go ahead and vote clerk please open the vote board members please record your vote clerk please close and display the vote and that motion does not pass one to eight with miss chandler dr dean's chair mansfield vice Chair Donohue, Mr. Struffy, Ms. Chernoff, Dr. Rasheed, and Ms. LaBelle in opposition of the vote. [04:51:03] Mr. Allen, since neither one of those voted and we already kind of put a pin on the other ones that did pass, do we need to make that final vote again? I would, for clarity of record, open the floor for discussion to see if there's any other amendments. [04:51:21] Okay. I will open the floor for discussion. Is there any other thing? Yes, Mr. Struffy. I have an amendment, Madam Chair. oh okay I move that the special permission requests under policy 8155 school assignment may be approved only when the receiving schools projected enrollment including the requesting student does not exceed 85% of the school's base capacity this change needs to be reflected in all aspects of the policy where the 90% capacity is referenced that is to say reminds 19 22 [04:51:53] 27 90% should be amended to 80% 80 or 85 I'm sorry 85% I have a motion by mr. Struffy do I have a second second I have a second by vice-chair Donahue we're probably moved and seconded mr. Struffy would you like to speak to your motion to amend at the base motion as amended yes madam chair Thank you. [04:52:22] As I talked about in our discussion of rezoning, if, as a board and as a division, we've taken on the difficult challenge of right-sizing and rezoning, tonight's vote being only one of those initiatives, then the timing to reduce incrementally or progressively our reliance on special permissions to try to be out of conflict with that initiative. [04:52:56] I think now the timing is perfect for that. I understand that this is not easy as well, but I think it sets up the future board to be able to continue to work on this. I am very proud of the work of the committee over the last year or more in all of the changes that we've made to special permissions. [04:53:17] I just think that this is the right time to decrease it from 90% to 85% so that the work that we've done in rezoning so far and that we'll do in the future isn't erased to some extent by this free-for-all special permissions policy that is still at 90%. [04:53:42] We know that it creates some of the inequities, and by allowing this to go to 85% floor, we'll be able to balance enrollment and bring a little bit more predictability and sustainability of our services across all schools. And we have amazing schools all over the county. Just wanted to say that on the record. Thank you, Mr. Streffi. I will say that when we started this, it was like base capacity was 100%. And so then we moved it to, then we had these discussions, should we do it [04:54:17] 80, 85, 90? And we're like, we're already blowing their minds by going already. And so we'll start with 90 but now that we're trying to keep schools between 80 and 90 percent base capacity it kind of makes sense to give that five percent uh you know leeway there from 85 to 90 so that they can go up to 90 um for special permission so that's kind of that was kind of my thought yes mr straffi and again i'll go back to the point where we we have asked families to take on the impact [04:54:53] of rezoning it would not be fair then for the opportunity from even outside schools to potentially request special permissions to a school that a family who was previously in that zone can no longer attend and I understand they could also apply to that school but I think that it just this idea that we're doing rezoning and we still have the floor at 90 percent is such increase exacerbates that potential inequity any other discussion yes um mrs griffiths um thank you [04:55:30] madam chair i think lowering um lowering to 85 percent is not a good idea because we're already struggling with all as been mentioned um with 90 percent um if it were up to me we'd go a little higher so um i will not be voting for this amendment thank you thank you mrs griffiths Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to amend the amendment with the what I believe to be last amendment of the evening. Here's hoping I would like to move that the school board adopt the current redline version policy [04:56:08] 8155 school assignment as amended tonight But direct staff to present the student services committee a new policy in the next year that outlines Instructional suitability for school reassignment that is for the next year policy 8155 as amended will guide the process for special permissions But the forthcoming policy will ensure instructional suitability is the avenue for school assignments or transfers moving forward I have a Motion to amend the amendment by miss Chernoff. Do I have a second second? Who was that? Oh, okay, mrs. Griffiths [04:56:47] I have a second by mrs. Griffiths Okay, Ms. Chernoff, would you like to speak to your motion? Thank you. I've alluded to this in the past, but I wanted to solidify the reasoning. This motion would allow us to sort of start fresh and redefine the acceptable pathways for student transfers. [04:57:05] I feel confident that with staff expertise, valuable stakeholder feedback, and a commitment to a process that better reflects our values, we can reach a better outcome with clearly defined and transparent processes for our families to navigate and for our staff to have appropriate input. [04:57:20] I look forward to this process going forward and feel it is essential that we redefine special permission at this time in light of rezoning, as Mr. Estreffi said, as well as the CTE expansion efforts. Thank you. Ms. Chernoff, any discussion? Yes. [04:57:36] Vice Chair Donahue. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate Ms. Chernoff's zeal for tackling this issue, which I do share. But that being said, I will not be supporting this proposed amendment because I don't think it's appropriate to obligate the future board to go down a certain path. [04:58:03] If the Student Services Committee or any other group of board members next year wants to tackle this process again, they will have the opportunity to do so. I am reluctant to vote for the nine of us who are sitting here right now to vote and say this is what the board has to do in January when we will have new members and new committee memberships and who knows what other changes are coming. Thank you. Yes, Mr. Streffi. I just want to get a little bit of clarity. The amendment referenced the current red line version. What does [04:58:39] that mean for my amendment? So based on the, can I answer? So based on the way my understanding is of the process in order to not get completely boxed out and put a bow on this, we would, I'm basically, my amendment is as amended. So if your amendment goes through then that would be covered by my amendment got it thank you just to cut square corners mr. Allen is that interpretation correct thank you chair Mansfield uh that's how I understood the interpretation but um technically amendments to amendments have to be germane so [04:59:15] it's on this is on the more outside bounds of what's germane but um I just wanted to point that out okay well i i hear you that it's uh probably not germane to fixing because it's not policy language so um miss shurnoff you can ask two people like you can ask two people to bring it up at another board meeting at another time for information if you wanted to bring it up to the [04:59:50] board or oh just to clarify uh if I might chairman yes please um that's not if you said it wasn't germane then to the actual amendment she for when it goes I think we need to vote on Mr. Struff or the board needs to vote on Mr. Struffy's vote to clear that out and then and then she can come back with it all right great okay let's just wait put a pause on yours uh Ms. Chernoff okie dokie uh mr and so the board will vote uh on mr astrophies amending the policy [05:00:26] amending the base motion as amended um and basically to 85 percent i'm assuming there's no more discussion okay clerk please open the vote board members please record your vote clerk please close and display the vote that motion passes eight to one with mrs griffiths [05:00:59] in opposition to the vote now ms shurnoff should can we go ahead and do it now mr allen thank you or do you want me to close it out first and then do it no this is fine yes okay go ms shurnoff can you just make the motion again and then we'll second someone else and second it okay no i'm sorry i move that the loudon county school board adopt the current red line version of policy 8155 school assignment as amended but direct staff to present to the Student Services Committee a new policy in the next year that allows instructional suitability for that outlines instructional suitability for school [05:01:36] reassignment that is for the next year policy 8155 will guide the process for special permissions but the forthcoming policy will ensure instructional suitability is the avenue for school assignments or transfers moving forward I have a motion by mr. knock to have a second second I have a second by vice chair donahue it's been properly moved and seconded she's already kind of discussed it unless you want to discuss it again ms shirnoff anybody else have any discussion no okay we will [05:02:08] move to vote on this clerk please open the vote board members please record your vote um clerk please close and display the vote that motion passes six to three with mrs griffiths ms chandler Mr. Streffi wait which one was it this one oh yeah Ms. Chernoff Dr. Rashid and Ms. LaBelle [05:02:42] I'm sorry I'm it's been a long night already with Dr. Deans Chair Mansfield and Vice Chair Donahue in opposition of the vote but it's 6-2-3-6-4-3 no okay now let's go ahead and put a bow on it I'll reopen the discussion on the newly amended base motion is there any discussion regarding the main motion as we have amended it a lot no okay clerk please open the vote [05:03:14] board members please record your vote clerk please close and display the vote that motion passes unanimously yay okay it is 9 30 i am wondering if we want to move all of these information items to the next board i think that's unanimous happy holidays but you're not [05:03:50] we're not through oh wait we have a timeout oh we can't we can't do that as i'm seeing okay which information items do we need to go through the budget item the budget item yes please okay we'll go through that budget item and then we will put all the rest to bed okay all right so we will move to item 13.02 is that the budget item that we're talking about okay f uh 13.02 department of Business and Financial Services FY27 Preliminary Fiscal Forecast presented by Ms. Sharon Willoughby. [05:04:29] Ms. Willoughby. So I have one last update related to the budget process before Dr. Spence would present his superintendents' estimate of needs next month. [05:04:56] Typically, the fiscal forecast is produced to provide the school board with insight into the budget development and to share similar information with the county to support their planning. This evening, I'm going to quickly walk you through the updates on our revenue projections and discuss how the current lack of state guidance is influencing the FY27 fiscal forecast. [05:05:15] I think this is the latest that we've ever done the fiscal forecast for those reasons exactly. I'd like to begin with a high-level update on our projected revenues for next year. Our funding comes from three main sources that are outlined on this slide. The first category on the left is other revenues and federal funding. [05:05:34] This category includes our various other revenue streams, along with a small amount of federal funding. We anticipate increases in several accounts, such as facility use charges and tuition for online courses. On the federal side, our revenues are limited mostly to Medicaid reimbursements for special education services and program funding for JROTC. [05:05:56] Our federal grants are not in our operating fund and are budgeted in the grant fund separately. In previous years, we did receive federal impact aid, which helps offset the loss of local revenue due to federally owned non-taxable property. [05:06:12] However, for the last three years, we have not met the eligibility requirements. And so as a result, we are going to discontinue efforts to budget for this or pursue this small revenue source. It's about $100,000 in the past. If program rules change in the future, we will revisit whether it is worthwhile to apply again. [05:06:32] The second category was related to state funding. The state funding typically provides about 30% of our operating revenue. Next year is the first year of the state's biennium budget, which means the Virginia Department of Education is conducting re-benchmarking, a process that updates the data and formulas used to calculate state aid. [05:06:51] This year to date, the state has released very limited information, making revenue projections especially challenging. One key piece we do know is our updated local composite index, also known as our LCI, the state's measure of how cost for public education should be shared between the state and localities. [05:07:13] Our LCI for the next biennium has increased from 0.5518 to 0.5728. This means the state now expects Loudoun County to cover 57.28% of education costs. [05:07:29] It is important to highlight that Loudoun, like most Virginia localities, already contributes far more than the LCI requires, demonstrating that the state formula significantly underestimates the true cost of public education. This 2.1% LCI increase is unusually large. [05:07:49] In most years, the changes are only fractions of a percent. Our rough estimate is that this shift results in a loss of nearly $20 million in state revenue that offsets other projected increases we were anticipating from the state. We are now waiting for two major updates. [05:08:09] The governor's proposed budget, which we found out today, will be released tomorrow, so we will be very in tune to what is included in that budget, as well as VDOE's detailed funding templates, which calculate our exact state allocations. [05:08:26] Once all that information is released, we will be able to update our revenue projections. The last category is our county funding, which typically funds about 70% of our operating budget. County revenue comes primarily from property tax and real property taxes. [05:08:43] Each year, the county estimates its total tax collections, and after accounting for capital project needs, debt service, and contributions to the Affordable Housing Fund, historically allocates around 60% of remaining revenues to LCPS. In recent years, growth in the data center tax base has significantly increased total county revenue. [05:09:02] However, county staff has raised concerns that Loudoun is becoming over-reliant on data center revenues. Their long-range projections show that by around 2030, which is only five short years away, data center tax revenue is likely to decline as the industry is expected to be fully built out by then. [05:09:24] To prepare for that decline, the county is now implementing budgetary constraints. The large pot of tax revenue still exists, but the county is capping how much of it flows to LCPS and general county operations. Excess revenues are being directed primarily to capital projects with a portion allocated to the Affordable Housing Fund. [05:09:45] This approach reflects the budget guidance recommended by county staff and that was acted on by the County Finance Committee on December 9th. While there was some committee discussion about whether this was the right financial approach, the final county budget guidance was supportive of the approach and maintained all current tax rates as displayed on this slide. [05:10:07] This results in about $105 million in new funding for LCPS. So in summary, we are expecting minimal increases in our other revenue category. The state revenues are flat at this time until we see what the governor proposes in his budget tomorrow. [05:10:27] And the county guidance provides $105 million in additional funding. So all combined, we could say roughly $105 million. And just to put in context, our budget increase last year was $137 million. Because of the significant uncertainty around state funding and other variables, we have developed a budget sliding scale to guide the development of the superintendent's estimate of needs. [05:10:54] As a reminder, as I've stated, the governor will release his budget tomorrow, And we expect, hopefully, that the detailed state funding templates are not too long after that. This places the release of critical information right in the middle of the holidays and very close to the January 15th SION presentation. [05:11:14] To prepare for a range of possible revenue outcomes, the sliding scale includes various scenarios. Starting with Plan A, which is the second box shaded light green, that is our balanced scenario. Plan A is depicting the revenues equaling projected expenditures. [05:11:32] It assumes that the governor's proposed budget does not significantly change our current state revenue projections. It also assumes that the governor's budget will adopt or include the VRS board's recommended rate reduction, which would generate approximately $27 million in savings for LCPS that we could then reallocate. [05:11:53] While the VRS board has recommended the reduction, the state is not required to accept it and there has been precedent in the past for the state choosing not to follow VRS recommendations. Under Plan A, we assume these savings combined with projected funding would be reallocated to cover the highest priority needs identified by departments so far. [05:12:13] Although we do not yet have a final detailed list, we can assure you that these priorities reflect continued strategic investments and also reflect the board feedback from the budget work sessions we have held to date. Compensation is also aligned with the collective bargaining agreement, is also included in this plan even though it's not depicted on the slide. [05:12:33] If funding was to be higher than Plan A and we moved one box to the left, so if the governor's budget provided additional funding, we would be able to add back items that have been removed to maintain a balanced budget as depicted in Plan A and could fund additional priorities previously identified by departments. [05:12:52] Plan C would slide us all the way to the far right in the red section and would represent the most challenging scenario. It assumes all Plan A conditions except that the state does not accept the VRS rate reduction. Without that reduction, we would lose approximately $27.3 million in assumed savings that had been reallocated to fund other investments. [05:13:14] To remain balanced, the superintendent and cabinet would need to identify $27.3 million in reductions, determining which priorities must remain in the budget and which would need to be deferred or removed. Plan B, which is in the middle, shaded yellow, is a moderate reduction scenario. [05:13:34] Maybe the state includes the VRS rate reduction but provides less state funding than what we assumed in Plan A. Similarly, we would again prioritize items to match available funding and maintain a balanced budget. Key principles across all scenarios, though, is that compensation would remain fully included and we do not anticipate changes to obligations under the collective bargaining agreement. [05:14:00] Also, as Dr. Spence has emphasized in prior years, it remains his intent to present a C-ON that fits within the county's funding guidance regardless of which funding scenario materializes. to say that the budget team departments and cabinet have been busy would be an understatement and there is still a great deal of work ahead we are actively finalizing numbers preparing the budget book and developing present presentations in anticipation of the school board's budget review process that begins next month that process will officially begin on january 15th when dr spence presents his superintendent's estimate of needs we will then move into a series [05:14:39] of budget work sessions and hold two public hearings as outlined in the budget calendar and then this cycle concludes with the school board's budget adoption on February 3rd despite the many challenges and unknowns our team remains committed to developing a budget that reflects our values supports our staff and meets the needs of all students the board's input has been essential as we never navigate this complex process and we look forward to continuing this work in the coming weeks and are confident that we will deliver a budget that balances fiscal responsibility with the educational priorities of our community and with that I am happy to take any questions if you have any thank you miss [05:15:18] Willoughby board members you got any questions no thank you okay so per a temperature check of the board they have agreed to move all of the other items to the next board meeting all of the information items yes sir can can I um suggest we put the first quarter forecast into a board update and remove that from information for the next meeting i'm sorry you want to put it where in an update because it'll begin it's going [05:15:55] to cover the first january meeting yes i think we could do that well the temperature of the board is that fine first quarter forecast in a board update yes okay that's fine thank you okay so we'll move on to item 14 board members comment and committee reports um as a point of privilege While we usually have three minutes, I'd like to extend the outgoing members more time to speak for final remarks And I would like to go last please. So [05:16:33] Ms. LaBelle, would you like do you have anything you'd like to share? Yes. Thank you, madam chair. We've had a very successful Year in SBAC. We have gotten a lot of policies straightened out put forward I feel we've done the same thing in the other committees that I participate in, and also in SEAC. We have an upcoming program called When the Bus Stops Coming that's going to be put on by SEAC. It's very, very informative, and I encourage [05:17:07] anyone with special students with disabilities to attend so that they can start to plan for what happens when the bus stops coming. I have the opportunity this final week to celebrate the holidays. I'm going to be attending a musical program put on by both Woodgrove and Mountain View Elementary School together. They've worked out that program together. That's going to be Wednesday morning. And then I'm going to be going to a sing-along with the students and families at [05:17:47] Luckett's. So that should be an interesting thing to see, you know, because we're having an indoor picnic i understand but um so things are going along swimmingly i think and i hope everybody has a wonderful and happy winter break thank you thank you miss labelle dr rasheed thank you chair at the december specialized programs and centers committee meeting we looked at the results from the recent special programs and academies interest survey data while there were thousands of responses Only 4% of families participated. [05:18:25] Both students and parents expressed the most interest in STEM programs and college and career readiness, which was not surprising. However, that doesn't mean that there is no interest at all in other pathways, so I would like to see a new program in an area such as law and public safety so that we can provide diverse pathways in other in-demand career fields. [05:18:46] I included links to the full presentation on my social media and in my newsletter if you'd like to look further into the survey results. The 2026 SPCC meeting calendar will be set during the upcoming school board organizational meeting. I'd like to recognize Mr. Streffi's commitment and dedication during his time on the SPC committee. Overall I am grateful to all of those school board members who have given their time and effort over these past two years and to those who will not be returning to the dais in 2026. I thank you and I wish you the best in [05:19:19] whatever comes next for you. Thank you. Ms. Chernoff. Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to give a quick shout out to Loudoun County High School football team who made it to the state final for the first time ever in school history. They were sadly the runner up, but it was a great season. And so hats off to them. Congrats. At our December CNI meeting, we discussed the Welcome Center East update that in the development and the construction that's going on there and is projected to open in early spring 2026. [05:19:40] So I know a lot of us are excited to see that. We also had an update from Head Start and STEP preschool, an update on federal and state funding which where they shared some very excellent news that they just underwent an audit that is unofficially went very well and that they have received their federal funding for the next year and so that is exciting but we also discussed future steps for possible alignment of the programs and how that might work with the funding and then we [05:20:19] had an instructional technology update. The instructional technology office provided work and data related to one device usage in LCPS classrooms as well as an update on instructional guidance for teachers and school data. We talked about a proposal of moving first graders away from one-to-one devices and using classroom carts. I asked if we could explore moving that to K3 and stay tuned for more on that, possibly in the budget season. As the terms of our three colleagues come to a close, I wanted to take a moment to thank Chair Mansfield, Mr. Streffy, and Dr. Deans for their service to this board and to our district. [05:20:58] Serving on a school board requires a significant commitment of time, energy, and care for our students, staff, and community. Because we began our service together, we share a unique bond rooted in learning the work side by side and navigating the challenges and responsibilities of governance as a team. I am grateful for their dedication and for each of you that have shown your willingness to engage thoughtfully in this work every day. I wish you the very best in your next chapter and thank you for the important role that you have played in shaping our district. We will miss you. Thank you, Ms. Chernoff. I'm [05:21:33] going to skip Mr. Streffy, Vice Chair Donohue. Thank you, Madam Chair. The Student Services Committee has not met yet for December our last meeting of the year will be in fact on Thursday the 18th at 4:30 where we will be discussing proposed new policy 5340 safe and supportive removal of students from the educational setting that's all I have as far as board updates I also want to to extend my [05:22:09] gratitude to Mr. Streffy to Dr. Deans and to Chair Mansfield for as as a parent with students in the in the schools here in the county and as a colleague I want to extend my gratitude to the three of you for having taken on this incredible responsibility we all came in together brand new and not I think most of us not really having much of an idea of what we were getting into except knowing that it was going to be a lot of work and a lot of people being mad at us all the time. [05:22:47] But we've been, as a parent and as a colleague, I have been lucky to have the three of you on the board for the last two years. I am grateful for your commitment to our students in our community, to our community and to our schools. [05:23:04] I have had wonderful opportunities to learn from each of the three of you. I'm grateful for everything that you've given to this board. I will miss you. Keep in touch. [05:23:20] And come back to heckle us at Public Comment. Thank you, Vice Chair Donoghue. I'm going to go to Ms. Chandler. Thank you, Madam Chair. It's been an incredibly busy period. [05:23:35] I feel like we hit the ground as soon as the election was over. We really had a very heavy lift with capital budget meetings and the boundary change process. And of course, everybody has shown up and put in the effort to do the work. [05:23:55] In this incredibly busy period-- again, I feel like I gave you my LAMP updates tonight. But I have also been spending time recently with many students from Dominion High School who participate in a C-SPAN competition through a dual enrollment course. [05:24:15] And it is so delightful to be able to speak directly to students and through their questions to learn more about what their concerns are, especially at the high school level. I also want to thank Mr. Lewis and his team for spending some time observing traffic with me last week. [05:24:33] It was fascinating to see how your processes work and to learn more about how we really do try to efficiently manage the resources that we have and to my outgoing colleagues I hope I have shown you how much respect I have for you throughout the time that we've spent together it has been a joy to work with each one of you and I feel like I have learned so much from each one of you through your service to the school board thank you for the work that you've done in the capacity of supporting not only our division but our 80,000 students we [05:25:08] are better for your being here and thank you try not to cry now mrs griffiths thank you madam chair um as far as it as an update i plan to go to more schools next year that are outside my district i'm hoping to do more events as far as plays shows um i do want to put it out there to our schools that they can invite me anytime and I'll most likely accept the invitation. I'm very short here but I look forward to working with our new school board starting in January and I do want to wish [05:25:47] the best to our outgoing members and wish everyone a happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas and a happy new year. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Streffi. For the last time. Thank you Madam Chair. I'm waiting to see if that clock starts ticking. I have a little bit of PTSD. No, that's not going to work. [05:26:09] I told you. So yeah, first off, I want to thank everyone. As I come to the end of my two-year term representing the Sterling District, I want to begin with what matters most, I think, is gratitude. To the families and my community members, thank you for placing your trust in me. [05:26:28] Thank you for your advocacy, for sharing your concerns and your hopes, and for your belief that public education is a shared responsibility that we carry together. To the educators and staff across Loudoun County Public Schools, I'll try to name as many categories as I can. Teachers, principals, counselors, bus drivers, custodians, support teams. Whether I've seen you in school or I knocked on your door, those are the stories that I'll remember the most. I've knocked on doors of bus drivers who were on the job only because they got to take their grandchild to school every day and like stories like that that that that were quite amazing that I have the gift of you know [05:27:08] holding after my my time is over here and you know I just want to thank you for the work that happens whether that's before the bell rings every day or you know after the buildings are empty to my fellow board members it's been an honor to serve alongside you I learned so much from all of you we haven't always agreed but that is both inevitable and necessary in this role we've pushed each other and the school division. But every success that we achieved, I believe, is because we chose to work together. When it mattered most, we chose purpose over posture and what was best for kids. Chair Mansfield, thank you for your steady leadership and for your friendship over [05:27:47] the last two years. I can't speak to all of you, but Dr. Deans, Dr. Deans, you are an inspiration, let me tell you. Dr. Spence, thank you for your leadership when this community needed it most. [05:28:04] And to you and to the entire leadership team in the cabinet, thank you for carrying the weight of this work with integrity, clarity, and care. And maybe most importantly, thank you all for choosing LCPS to do your life's work. [05:28:19] The community is better for it. My parting advice to the incoming board is really just protect the why. The work will pull you toward urgency, noise, politicking, and short-term wins. But your responsibility is to remain anchored to what matters most and to keep the real work front and center. Student learning, belonging, opportunity, and the outcomes that reflect the whole child. And remember this, our children are watching. They may not remember every policy that we pass, but they will remember what leadership looked like. They will model what they see. And in a time of alarming rhetoric and poor examples in the public arena, of a time of certainty over [05:28:59] curiosity or ideology over ideas, our school division must continue to model a different kind of leadership, and that's the leadership of an educator. Leadership that can ultimately teach students how to engage in the world that they are inheriting. And none of this work is possible, obviously, without our educators. We'll never be better than the teachers in our classrooms and the educators and leaders in our buildings. Our role as a board is to give them the resources, the space, and trust to make the right decisions for kids, invest in them, and to govern the system in a way that pushes the boundaries and grounds us in our mission. And so before I close, I want to share a quick moment that captures for [05:29:36] me the heart of this division. One evening, we had a school board meeting, and while my wife was traveling for work, our child care fell through. I don't know if any of you know the full details of this, but luckily, at the last minute, someone was able to come to the admin building and watch my son while I was here, and he was upstairs in the school board suite, probably wreaking havoc up there. And as, of course, as a four-year-old or five-year-old at the time are prone to do, he got started getting restless and we were about to go into a closed session and the the audience [05:30:12] had emptied and so I got a little frantic so I called them down here I said okay just move him to the main room not a lot of people here and I went into closed session with no phone and I had no idea what he was going to do in this main room and I was so worried because he was tired and when we came out after more than an hour later I walked into the main room again no updates [05:30:43] and I saw him sitting in the front row right there and you all I think remember this he the room had empty I noticed the staff they were around him and they had put a Disney movie on this screen behind me in like surround sound and he was sitting calm relaxed completely at ease he felt as if he was home and he just didn't want to be bothered and he was a little upset that we had to close the movie but he was surrounded by mr. [05:31:20] Jackson my miss Byrne and some of the best educators that I've ever met right on that side and I should have known better to than to think I had anything to worry about because he was in the hands of our teachers and LCPS and in that moment I was reminded of something very powerful even on the longest nights even in the most procedural moments or in the most difficult circumstances, the leaders and educators in this division never forget who this work is for. It's for these kids. It's all 80,000 plus of them. And please don't [05:31:54] ever forget that, as hard as this work is sometimes. It was also a bonus that every day for two weeks he told his mom how my job was so much better than hers. And as I step away from this role, my hope is that you all continue to lead with purpose, humility, and courage, and protect the why, and that we keep our focus where it belongs on the students who walk through the doors every day, and as Dr. Spence says, on the kids who depend on us to get this right. Thank you for the honor of serving, and thank you for continuing the work each and every day when the doors open and our students arrive. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. [05:32:32] Scruffy. Dr. Deans. I was not aware that we were going to have this extended time, but I do want to share that years ago um in hampton virginia um i was in the best high school in the city the high school where my children attended i was in heaven and the superintendent came to me and [05:33:10] said i need you to become principal i was an assistant principal at my children's school he said i need you to become principal of the alternative school and i said where and it was in a building where half the building had been rejected by the city inspectors. And so I went [05:33:46] home crying. And Ray said, I'm going to go talk to that Billy Kennedy and see what he got to say. And Billy Kennedy said to Ray, there's no one I know who has a passion as strong as your wife for kids. And so it is that I have had that passion throughout my 55 years of education, and it won't stop. My 15-year-old granddaughter says that you all need to call me back for some [05:34:20] meetings so I don't be on her so heavy and tracking her. So it is that I have enjoyed my time on the board here in Loudoun County. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would ever be a school board member. When I was working in Hampton, I often had to answer to the school board with some of my decisions. And as a result, I thought, I can't be a school board member. [05:34:55] But when the community called me to run, I actually had a vision that told me that I was to run. And I ran and I won, even in a county where I was unknown. So this has been the pinnacle of 55 years of education, and my love for education has not been dampened because of this experience. It has only been strengthened. So, Dr. Spence and staff, fellow school board [05:35:35] members, and families, and I say families because some families bring me soup when I'm home sick. I say to all of you that you have given me the pinnacle of an education career, And for that, I am thankful. I am thankful to God, and I'm thankful to you. Thank you. [05:36:08] Well, hard to be the last one, but it's with mixed emotions and yet a very full heart that I have chaired this final meeting before stepping down from the school board. I'm not going to get through it. While the time has flown by far faster than I could have imagined, it's been an extraordinary honor to serve this community alongside my fellow board members, Carrie, Samara, Lauren, Arvin, [05:36:40] Anne, Linda Vey, April, and Dina, our dedicated staff, Dr. Spence, and I don't know, do you guys want, I can name all your cabinet and all of the team, and everyone back there, and our dedicated staff in our administration. I'm profoundly thankful to the parents, educators, students, and community members who showed up, spoke up, partnered with us every single step of the way. [05:37:14] This work is the strongest when it's shared, and together we sincerely challenged each other. We listened with intention and kept our focus where it belongs on ensuring LCPS is a place where every child can thrive and every family feels supported, valued, and heard. [05:37:34] As a board, I am incredibly proud of the culture we all worked hard to build, one rooted in collaboration, respect, and shared responsibility, even in moments of national pressure and during some of our most difficult decisions. [05:37:52] We came together as a governing body and as partners with our administration, choosing cooperation over division and doing what was right for our students, even when it was not easy and politically convenient. By listening to our community and our educators, we built bridges and advanced meaningful policies, including cell phone policies and the diabetes policy. [05:38:20] We strengthened special education practices by eliminating the use of restraint and seclusion and committed to students' futures through the creation of a transition center. We partnered closely with families to improve playground policies, expand inclusive playgrounds, and accelerated timelines within the CIP budget. [05:38:41] We expanded CTE opportunities. We invested in our educators through pay raises and retention bonuses, and we established a new performance monitoring committee to closely examine student achievement and outcomes. And all of these examples, just all that in just two years is just a fraction of what we've accomplished, this board has accomplished in partnership with staff, families, and community. [05:39:08] OK, I would be remiss if I didn't mention literacy, because this is my last time. My hope is that the next board takes a deeper look into the practices of literacy instruction in secondary schools, including CORE, MTSS, EL, and special education. [05:39:26] At present, we do have state-approved curriculum, which at its foundation is still grounded in Lucy Calkins and Words Their Way, neither of which is evidence-based literary instruction grounded in science-based reading and research. And please note that you can't intervene your way out of poor core instruction. [05:39:43] That said, we do have some very effective intervention programs, but for whatever reason, they're not being implemented with fidelity, and I know we're working on that. So please keep it on your radar. It's also essential to recognize that higher education institutions are unlikely to alter teacher preparation. [05:40:01] So the district must consistently retrain its teachers on effective methods for teaching, reading, writing, and spelling. But to achieve this, resources must be allocated and science of reading experts must be brought in for consultation, ongoing coaching. [05:40:18] Achieving gains requires a significant amount of time as well as substantial financial and emotional commitment. But as Dr. Pam Kastner said, a member who's been on higher education task force and president of the Pennsylvania Reading League, said every teacher deserves to know the science of reading and every child deserves a teacher who knows it okay that part's over serving as board chair i have to say has taught me the enduring value of humility of listening first leading with integrity [05:40:54] and doing the right thing even when the pressure to do so is super loud and most importantly and reinforce that students must always come first i will forever and ever value the relationship i've built over these past two years. And I remain confident that the momentum we have created will continue with the incoming members. I am looking very forward to watching this board continue to move LCPS forward. And last, I'll leave you with a quote by Marian Wright Edelman, who's the founder [05:41:31] and president emerita of the Children's Defense Fund. And this resonates with me to my very soul. Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it thank you for your service thank you for your support partnership your commitment to our schools and to loudon it's been a privilege to serve alongside you happy holidays [05:42:01] to each and every one of you and that's all i gotta say so without board members do we have any more new business a new business nope seeing as there is no more business to discuss The December 16, 2025 Loudoun County School Board meeting is now adjourned. [05:42:33] Please have a wonderful winter break and drive home safely. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Coraggio Consulting ยท aguyonx.com