Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, 2nd Tuesday School Board Meeting (Rescheduled from 1/27/26), Wednesday, January 28, 2026

Date: Wednesday, January 28, 2026
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 5h 46m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1159386579?rel=0
BoardDocs (School Board): https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/loudoun/Board.nsf/Public

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.

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[00:02:36] Good afternoon, I call to order this January 28th, 2026 Loudoun County School Board meeting. We'll start this evening with remote participation. I have been notified that Dr. Sumera Rashid would like to remotely participate in tonight's school board meeting.

[00:02:52] Dr. Rashid, please state your location and whether this is a medical or personal matter. Is anyone present with you at this location? - Thank you, Chair Chandler. No one is present with me at my home. I'm currently at my home. I have my family, but they're on the other end of my house, and this is a personal matter.

[00:03:11] Thank you. Dr. Rasheed, this will be the first remote participation for this calendar year in a school board meeting using a personal exemption. Therefore, I will entertain a motion that Dr. Rasheed's request to participate remotely be granted.

[00:03:29] So moved. Thank you. Second. Thank you. All right. Thank you. has all right everybody we've been locked at home for a long time let's get going all right i have a motion that dr rasheed participate remotely um it was moved by ms shirnoff and seconded by mr pepper um all those in favor please record our clerk um please open the vote

[00:04:06] school board members please record your vote there we go all right um clerk please close and and display the vote. That motion passes unanimously with six school board members present.

[00:04:37] Dr. Rasheed, welcome to the meeting. I have also been notified that Ms. Carrie LaBelle would like to remotely participate in tonight's school board meeting. Ms. LaBelle, please state your location and whether this is a medical or personal matter. And is there anyone present with you at this location? Oh, Ms. LaBelle, we can't hear you. Please unmute. Okay. Can you hear me now? We can.

[00:05:04] thank you so much all right i am at home my husband is in the building with me but he's at the far end in the back room and this is a personal reason for asking for remote given that this is a personal exemption this will be miss labelle's first remote participation for this calendar year in a school board meeting using a personal exemption therefore i will entertain a motion that Ms. LaBelle's request to participate remotely be granted.

[00:05:37] So moved. Thank you. Second. Thank you. The motion has been properly made by Mr. Pepper and seconded by Ms. Chernoff. Clerk, please open the vote. School board members, please record your vote.

[00:05:59] Dr. Rasheed, please say your vote. Yes. All right. Clerk, please close and display the vote. That motion passes unanimously with all eight school board members present.

[00:06:14] Ms. LaBelle, welcome to the meeting. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. Now we will move on to our disclosures and I will 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 that may include or affect benefits for LCPS employees.

[00:06:39] 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.

[00:06:56] 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. Vice Chair Donohue. 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 benefits for LCPS employees.

[00:07:25] 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 interest may be affected, of which my spouse, my minor children, my sister-in-law, and I am included.

[00:07:50] 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. Mrs. 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.

[00:08:10] indoor 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 well in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may be affected of which I am included I can and will participate fairly objectively in the public's interest this disclosure will be reflected in the public records of

[00:08:39] the clerk of the school board for five years. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. LaBelle. Ms. LaBelle,

[00:08:51] please unmute. Thanks. Ms.

[00:09:23] LaBelle, we'll come right back to you as soon as we figure out this technical issue. We'll move on now to 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. 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 the 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.

[00:10:00] This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years. Thank you. Ms. LaBelle. Thank you, Madam Chair. Can you hear me yet? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm reading what Sherry sent me, but it doesn't sound familiar. In addition to the disclosure I previously read this evening, 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

[00:10:36] and to any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS employees. Specifically, as a former LCPS employee, I, as well as my spouse, receive Medicare Advantage insurance benefits through LCPS. 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. This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years.

[00:11:12] Thank you, Ms. LaBelle. With that, we'll now move on to item number three, approval of the consent agenda board members are there any changes to be made to the consent agenda seeing none before we vote on the consent agenda we have three proclamations to read the first proclamation recognizes february 2nd through 6th 2026 as national school counseling week in loudon county public schools and will be read by mr pepper thank you madam chair whereas over 80 000 students from kindergarten through 12th grade are served by 365 school counselors and directors of high school

[00:11:51] counseling in 100 schools and educational centers, whereas school counselors are employed in schools to help students reach their full potential, and whereas school counselors are actively committed to helping students explore their abilities, strengths, interests, and talents as these traits relate to career awareness and development, and whereas school counselors help parents focus on ways to further the educational personal and social growth of their children and whereas school counselors work with teachers and other educators to help students explore their potential and set realistic goals for themselves and

[00:12:29] whereas school counselors seek to identify and utilize community resources that can enhance and complement comprehensive school counseling programs and help students become productive members of society and whereas comprehensive developmental school counseling programs are considered an integral part of the educational process that enables all students to achieve success in school and whereas the American School Counseling Association recognizes National School Counseling Week 2026 as February 2 through 6 2026 to focus public attention on the unique contributions of school counselors

[00:13:08] within US school systems now therefore be it resolved that the the Loudoun County School Board formally recognizes February 2-6, 2026, as National School Counseling Week. Thank you, Mr. Pepper.

[00:13:23] We will now move on to the second proclamation, which recognizes February 2026 as the Teen Dating Violence Prevention and Awareness Month in Loudoun County Public Schools. This proclamation will be read by Vice Chair Donohue. Thank you, Madam Chair. Whereas the Centers for Disease Control Youth Risk Behavior Survey in 2021 indicated that among U.S. high school students who reported dating during the 12 months before the survey, about one in 12 experienced physical dating violence and one in 10 experienced sexual dating violence. And whereas intimate partner violence often begins in adolescence with 11 million males

[00:14:02] and 16 million females identifying their first experiences of intimate partner violence as occurring during teen relationships, and whereas working with youth to help them build social emotional skills such as empathy, respect, healthy communication, autonomy and rejection literacy, and conflict resolution skills promotes the development and expectation of mutually respectful, caring, and non-violent relationships, and whereas engaging teens and adults to promote social norms that support healthy relationships has great potential to transform our communities so that teen dating violence is not acceptable

[00:14:38] and everyone has access to the tools to intervene when they witness teen dating violence. And whereas we must work together to create a world where every teen can live free of dating and sexual violence in their homes, schools, colleges, universities, and communities.

[00:14:54] And whereas Loudoun County Public Schools collaborates with laws, domestic violence, and sexual assault services to provide prevention and outreach programming to bring awareness to teen dating violence and educate on the signs of healthy and unhealthy relationships to youth. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Loudoun County School Board formally recognizes February 2026 as Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month in Loudoun County Public Schools.

[00:15:19] Thank you, Vice Chair Donohue. We will now move on to the final proclamation tonight, recognizing February 2026 as Career and Technical Education Month in Loudoun County Public Schools. This proclamation will be read by Ms. Riccardi. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[00:15:35] Whereas economic and technological changes in society are rapidly reflected in the nature of today's workplace and placing new responsibilities on Virginia's education system, and whereas career and technical education provides the Commonwealth students with a career pathway for post-secondary education and workplace readiness in a global economy, And whereas career and technical education gives students experience in practical, meaningful applications of basic skills such as reading, writing, and mathematics, which promote deeper learning and improves the quality of their education.

[00:16:10] And whereas career and technical education is the foundation of a strong, well-educated workforce, which fosters productivity in industry and contributes to Virginia's leadership in the international marketplace.

[00:16:22] And whereas career and technical education offers lifelong learning opportunities that provide individuals with more career choices, expanded earning potential, and greater job satisfaction, and whereas the cooperative and ever-increasing efforts between career and technical educators, administrators, and representatives of business and industry stimulate the growth of the Commonwealth's economy by preparing students for careers in high demand, high wage, and highly technological skilled areas. And whereas to help students identify their interests, connect with relevant

[00:17:00] CTE pathways, and see themselves reflected in future career fields, Loudoun County Public Schools fosters a strong sense of belonging by leveraging the realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, conventional framework. And whereas school counseling and CTE pathways work to integrate and elevate RIA SEC to inform human-centered conversations, empowering students to make informed decisions for their career development and choose CTE programs aligned with their personal aptitudes and passions, leading to greater engagement, persistence, and success. Now therefore,

[00:17:37] be it resolved that the Loudoun County School Board formally recognizes February 2026 as Career and Technical Education Month. Thank you, Ms. Riccardi. I'll now entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. I move to approve the consent agenda. Second. We have a motion by Ms. Chernoff to approve the consent agenda and a second by Vice Chair Donahue. It has been properly moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda. At this time, we will take a vote. Clerk, please open the

[00:18:13] vote. Board members, please record your vote. Dr. Rasheed, please state your vote. Yes. Ms. LaBelle, please state your vote. Yes. Thank you. Clerk, please close and display the vote. The motion passes with eight members present. Voting yes, Ms. Riccardi, Mr. Svensson, Ms. Chernoff,

[00:18:53] myself, Vice Chair Donahue, Mr. Pepper, Dr. Rasheed, and Ms. LaBelle, and abstaining, Mrs. Griffiths. We'll now move on to item number four, our work session. This is the fiscal year 27 superintendent's estimate of needs, our other funds work session. Tonight, the presentation will be offered by Ms. Sharon Willoughby, our chief financial officer.

[00:19:32] afternoon I am presenting the last formal presentation on all the items included in the FY 27 superintendents estimate of needs I'm also joined bar by our school nutrition director miss Erica Sampson to help address I'm sure many questions you may have when we get to the school nutrition fund when the school board adopts its budget each year it adopts the budget of several funds we spend a lot of time talking about the school operating funds and that's where

[00:20:08] the bulk of the activities of the school division are budgeted but there are also several other funds that are being adopted when the school board adopts on February 3rd and so this presentation this evening is to address some of those additional funds that were that are included in our budget book so today we will go over the grant fund our lease purchase fund and our school nutrition fund starting with the grants fund in the teal font on the slide above the budget is driven entirely off

[00:20:42] of anticipated awards, and as such, we see a 5% increase supporting 192.6 FTEs. The reduction of FTEs is primarily associated with the movement of 30 positions out of the grants into the school operating fund that was presented during the base budget presentation.

[00:21:02] The other FTE changes are due to grants ending, with one FTE moving to the school operating fund to continue supporting community schools, and another vacant FTE being removed due to the grant no longer being utilized. This is a breakdown of our grants and you can see more details starting on page 219 in our budget book. 75% of the grant fund is comprised of federal grants holding $25.9 million. The largest of the federal grants is the IDEA grant that funds over 100 positions for special education. Other federal grants like Title I provide additional support

[00:21:41] for our students. We continue to budget our grants with no expectation of disruption in funding. At the state level, we project $7.5 million in awards, supporting 26 positions for programs such as the STEP preschool program and for the detention center.

[00:21:58] Additionally, LCPS receives state grant funding that supports technology, CTE, and reading intervention. The last and smallest grouping is our local grants, which includes the longstanding $1 million that we receive from the Howard Hughes Foundation.

[00:22:15] And the more recent GMU Access Academy grant that is a little over $110,000. These grants are valuable to providing additional resources to supplement the work to support students, school, and staff.

[00:22:33] Next is the lease purchase fund that is flat and is always at the $10 million amount with an additional $2,000 for associated fees. This fund is established to carry the budget authority to spend the lease funds that are provided from the debt issuance.

[00:22:50] Since LCPS cannot carry debt, the county funds this through its annual appropriation. The lease is capped at $10 million per IRS requirements, and we are able to pay for needed capital purchases as outlined on the slide. $7.2 million is allocated for computer replacements and infrastructure, and $2.8 million is directed towards new and replacement vehicles.

[00:23:14] Next is our school nutrition fund, and you can see we actually reduced expenditures from last year's budget by 0.54% while supporting 420 team members across our schools. Loudoun County Public Schools operates, as you've heard me say many times, the largest restaurant chain in the county.

[00:23:36] We serve tens of thousands of meals each day across our schools. This operation functions under very stringent USDA guidelines, ensuring that all meals meet federal nutrition, safety, and reporting standards. In addition, the program is responsible for administering multiple federal and state-mandated initiatives, including free and reduced-price meals, summer feeding programs, community eligibility program, and other required nutrition assistance programs.

[00:24:06] Financially, School Nutrition Services operates as a self-supporting enterprise. annual net profit is capped at no more than three months of operating expenditures as required by federal regulations. The program is supposed to be self-sufficient and receives no local tax subsidy, relying solely on meal revenue and reimbursements. Together, these factors highlight the complexity, scale, and fiscal responsibility of the school nutrition program while underscoring its critical role in supporting student health and academic success. This slide provides a snapshot

[00:24:44] of revenues and expenditures of the school nutrition fund and can also be found in the budget book. For returning school board members, you have heard me previously discuss the ongoing financial challenges associated with covering rising operating costs. For our new board members, this slide illustrates those challenges by showing a net operational loss of about $5 million occurring year over year when you look at the total expenditures compared to the total revenue.

[00:25:10] To date, school nutrition operations have been supported by the fund balance, shown in blue. This fund balance was generated from the COVID era where federal reimbursement rates were significantly higher associated with their universal free meal program.

[00:25:27] Additionally, during this time, we received one-time federal grants to support supply chain and procurement challenges that were occurring. This fund balance, currently exceeding the federal limit of three months of operating expenditures, has provided critical time to implement operational changes aimed at increasing revenues and reducing expenditures.

[00:25:53] Personnel costs account for more than 56% of total expenditures in the school nutrition fund, significantly limiting budget flexibility. As a result, it is increasingly difficult to generate sufficient year-over-year revenue growth to sustain essential pay and benefit increases for our staff.

[00:26:14] When coupled with declining enrollment, these pressures further strain the fund and underscore the growing possibility of needing additional operating fund or county support in the absence of meaningful changes to federal or state programs. As noted on the slide, any new expenses must be accompanied by a funding source, typically new revenue.

[00:26:33] In the following slides, you will see our plan to address these new costs while also working to narrow the gap between revenues and expenditures. However, long-term sustainability may require operating fund and or county support. So here on the slide, you can see that just to provide the annual step increase, the 5% COLA, and the employer's share of the 20% health premium increase costs $2 million for our school nutrition program.

[00:27:03] Starting with efforts to improve revenues. Beginning in FY25, we implemented a 20 cent increase in meal prices, which has helped generate additional revenue to partially offset rising costs. In addition, we make annual adjustments to a la carte pricing to account for inflation and to align with best practices related to profit margins.

[00:27:25] The 20 cent meal price increase is projected to generate about $700,000 of new revenue. You can quickly do the math from the previous slide to see that this does not cover our additional compensation costs for next year. That is why this is just one of several strategies being used to move the school nutrition operation toward long-term financial sustainability.

[00:27:50] This slide highlights four other strategies to increase revenues. These targeted strategies are aligned with USDA regulations and school nutrition best practices. First is strategic pricing is a priority to ensure our meals are appropriately priced in compliance with USDA while ensuring affordability for our families.

[00:28:10] The USDA pricing tool suggests we should price our meals at $4, but rather than do a substantial increase all at once, we have been incrementally increasing the price of meals each year. Second, Eligible Community Eligibility Provision, or our CEP, and our Child and Adult Care Food Program schools will be strategically grouped to maximize federal reimbursement in full compliance with USDA requirements. Where feasible eligible CACFP snack programs will be converted to supper dinner meal programs, increasing federal reimbursement while leveraging existing staff

[00:28:48] and infrastructure. This approach increases revenue without reducing service quality and ensures continued compliance with federal meal pattern and eligibility requirements. Third, enhancing the menu to streamline offerings that promote variety while maintaining high-quality student preferred meals is another strategy to increase sales.

[00:29:11] Additionally, all LCPS schools offer breakfast and we want to expand alternative breakfast service models. Current models include breakfast in the classroom, a grab-and-go breakfast, second-chance breakfast, but we are looking at other models to maximize reimbursement through the USDA school breakfast program.

[00:29:32] Together, these strategies also support financial sustainability and the program's mission to provide nutritious meals to support student success. However, there is also a factor that negatively impacts our revenue stream, and that is our unpaid meal debt.

[00:29:51] All students are provided a meal. No student is denied a meal due to inability to pay or because of unpaid debt. However, students may not incur debt for a la carte items. To manage balances and support families, we provide weekly notifications to families with negative balances of $5 or more.

[00:30:13] Parents or guardians also received direct notification regarding unpaid meal debt. Further, in accordance with federal regulations, federal school nutrition program funds may not be utilized to subsidize uncollectible meal debt. Students with unpaid meal debt also may not be identified or stigmatized in any way, meaning we cannot communicate, nor should we, with the student.

[00:30:36] All communication is with the families. These requirements ensure student dignity and access to meals while presenting ongoing financial challenges for the school nutrition program. This bar chart illustrates our historical unpaid meal debt alongside the donations received to offset that debt.

[00:30:57] Prior to the pandemic, our unpaid meal debt remained relatively low enough that generous community members and partners were able to cover it in its entirety each year. Following the pandemic, LCPS, like school divisions across the country, experienced a significant increase in unpaid meal debt.

[00:31:18] From FY23 to FY24, you can see where our meal debt alone has increased by 7.2%, and that from FY24 to FY25, that increase grew by 20%. Unfortunately, we anticipate this upward trend continuing into FY26 and FY27.

[00:31:37] We are currently about halfway through the school year, and when we compare year-to-date FY26 data to the same data point last year, we see a 31.4% increase in unpaid meal debt.

[00:31:53] At the same time, we are seeing increased need. Applications for free and reduced-priced meals rose from $4,902 in December of 2024 to $5,284 in December of 2025.

[00:32:08] That represents an increase of 382 applications or a 7.8% increase in free and reduced meal applications. Our efforts to reduce unpaid meal debt focus heavily on consistent and proactive communication with families.

[00:32:28] Each month, principals also receive a list of families and students at their school who have outstanding meal debt, allowing for local awareness and support. On a weekly basis, families with meal debt receive a text alert, and families who use Link Connect receive weekly email notifications when their account balance reaches $5 or less.

[00:32:50] In addition to these notifications, families may apply for free or reduced price meals at any time during the school year, either online or in person, and we always encourage that. Together, these communication efforts are designed to keep families informed, encourage timely action, and reduce the accumulation of unpaid meal debt while maintaining student dignity.

[00:33:15] Challenges to school nutrition programs and unpaid meal debt are not unique to LCPS, as I stated earlier. A School Nutrition Association study found the following key findings across the nation. Nationally, many families earn just above the income eligibility thresholds, which limits access to assistance despite experiencing financial need.

[00:33:36] At the same time, inflation has driven up both food and labor costs, while federal reimbursement rates have not kept pace with these increases. The application process itself can also be a barrier for families, reducing participation. Finally, the expiration of pandemic-era universal free mail programs has contributed to a significant rise in unpaid mail debt across the country.

[00:34:04] LCPS continues to support legislative action that would ensure free meals for all students, and especially beginning with breakfast. Specifically, we are monitoring a House bill and Senate bill that is at the state level, which would establish universal free breakfast in Virginia public schools.

[00:34:22] These bills would mandate that all public schools offer breakfast at no cost to students and require the use of multiple service models to increase student participation. Under this legislation, the Virginia Department of Education would reimburse school divisions for meals served using a set reimbursement formula, although we don't have more specific information of what that reimbursement would look like.

[00:34:45] However, we do view this legislation as an important step toward improving student access to meals while supporting the long-term financial sustainability of our school nutrition program. Moving now to the expenditure side of our nutrition program, I highlighted our efforts related to improved revenues, and now we're moving to our efforts to reduce expenditures because there's not going to be one simple solution to support stabilizing the school nutrition fund.

[00:35:17] It's going to be a lot of measures. So on the expenditure side, our goal is to reduce costs while maintaining high-quality, student-preferred meals. We want to strategically manage resources to ensure both efficiency and sustainability. First, we will optimize staffing schedules in line with established staffing standards to control labor costs.

[00:35:40] We monitor meals per labor hour monthly to ensure staff are working efficiently. These steps will maximize productivity while maintaining excellent service for our students. Second, strategic use of entitlement dollars and commodity optimization.

[00:35:57] For context, commodity entitlements are funds provided by the USDA to schools that allow us to purchase certain foods like meats, dairy, and fruits and vegetables at little or no cost, so it's almost like free items. Essentially, these are federal resources that help us serve nutritious meals while keeping costs down.

[00:36:20] Specifically, we will prioritize our entitlement dollars for higher-cost center-of-the-plate entree items, like proteins, to reduce overall food costs. At the same time, we will decrease spending on the Department of Defense's fresh fruit and vegetable program since we currently provide more fruits and vegetables than USDA standards require.

[00:36:42] We will ensure, though, that our fruit and vegetable offerings meet USDA-recommended amounts, which will also help reduce menu costs and prevent overproduction and food waste. Students will continue to receive healthy, balanced meals that align with federal guidelines.

[00:36:58] Third, you may recall seeing menu streamlining enhancement in our increasing revenue section. This item has a double impact and could yield cost savings as well. We will streamline the menu to improve kitchen efficiency and enhance offerings to ensure meals remain high quality and student preferred.

[00:37:17] These updates will help reduce both food and labor costs without compromising taste or nutrition. And last, administrative cost savings. LCPS has paid credit card transaction fees for meal payments. Moving forward, these fees would be transferred to the payer, further reducing district expenditures.

[00:37:38] In summary, these changes will make our nutrition program more efficient, cost-conscious, and sustainable, while still offering high-quality, nutritious meals that our students enjoy. This slide highlights some of the more common questions we've been asked that I thought would be helpful to provide additional context for the school board and public related to the credit card fees.

[00:38:04] There's a question on here about why do we have multiple payment platforms that was presented in a previous presentation. And each point-of-sale platform meets a specific set of requirements and is usually dictated by the larger system that we are using.

[00:38:23] So, for example, in School Nutrition, LINC happens to be our enterprise school nutrition system, and they are also our point-of-sale system. So they manage what the payment fees look like. In terms of who sets the fees, those are also set by the vendor during the procurement process in that these fees can change at contract renewal time.

[00:38:53] I will highlight, though, that while fees are set by the vendor during the procurement process, payment processors must pay a fee to access the credit card network, such as Visa or MasterCard, and this is embedded as part of their fee structures. So elimination of district paid credit card fees.

[00:39:14] You've seen this format as we highlight new investments. Again, this is more of a change to generate savings. And the outcome that we hope to achieve is a reduction in operating costs in the school nutrition fund to the tune of about $1.5 million.

[00:39:31] We also hope that this helps avoid more drastic meal price increases or other operational changes by making this change. So more information related to this, and a lot of this is coming from the questions that school board members had asked initially, which was very helpful to make sure we were addressing those questions today.

[00:39:58] As I mentioned, LCPS uses Sling as our point-of-sale system for the school nutrition program. Families can pay for cafeteria purchases using cash, check, or by loading funds into a student's Sling account. Students receiving free or reduced meals are not charged for meals, and so this would not apply to them unless a family was loading funds into their student's account to make a la carte purchases.

[00:40:26] Currently, LINC charges $2.60 per transaction each time a family adds funds to a student's account. Historically, LCPS has paid those fees on behalf of families. However, again, moving forward, we are wanting to make that switch to be at the payer level versus at the district level.

[00:40:48] LINC does offer, as we have continued conversations with them, does offer an ACH transaction, which would only incur a $0.99 transaction fee. That is not currently active. We had not activated it related to some timing concerns.

[00:41:09] However, we have cleared that information that we had. We were concerned that with the credit card fees, once a family uses a credit card to load funds to their student account, that those funds are available instantaneously. And we have also recently learned, actually, as early as late yesterday, that a family can also load funds via ACH, and those funds would be available instantaneously.

[00:41:34] However, there is a risk on the district side because on the credit card, you're charging your credit card, and then the family, of course, is responsible for paying their credit card bill. An ACH is a bank-to-bank transfer. An ACH stands for automated clearinghouse, where that bank request from one bank requesting funds from another bank goes through a clearinghouse.

[00:41:57] So while LINC would go ahead as the PLS process and allow those funds, that request to be applied to that student's account, it actually takes one to four days to work that request through the ACH process, meaning by the time, let's say it takes four days, it may take four days for a validation of funds, that those funds are available in the parent's bank account to pay, you know, to make the payment.

[00:42:27] If the funds are not available, then we run into, like, as if you, you know, bounce the chuck. So that would be one risk associated. However, I think it's a low risk, and I think with a lot of communication, we can just ensure that parents understand that, you know, that they need to make sure that they have funds available to support any transaction that they make if they were to use the ACH process.

[00:42:53] We also explored security protocols and after having lengthy discussions with LINC also felt that their security protocols and ensuring, you know, maintaining confidential information relating to bank accounts would also meet our requirements similar to the credit cards.

[00:43:13] So again, this is something that we think we could also add in our discussions for July 1 implementation is allowing the ACH as another payment method. So they would have either the $2.60 transaction fee method, which would be by loading funds using their credit card. We could offer a ACH bank transfer, which would only generate a $0.99 transaction fee. And then lastly,

[00:43:44] of course the free options of cash or check. I'll also highlight that we wanted to make sure because recognizing that families could have multiple students that there is a way that it's already set up and we could make sure through communication efforts that when a family is loading funds into their student accounts they can load funds one time and then direct those funds into their student accounts and then only be charged one transaction fee. If they were to do that, let's say in the morning and then go back in in the afternoon and

[00:44:23] try to load funds again, then that would be two separate transactions. So again, we would really work on communications to ensure that people understand the implications of what type of transaction that they are selecting, as well as LINC also has communication efforts on their front and where they can have like alerts or notices pop up to also give additional information about what the fee is and, you know, what is happening with that transaction.

[00:44:59] If a family was to use an ACH and did have delinquent funds, then again, just like a bounce check, they would incur, you know, return check fees or insufficient fund fees on from their bank as well as per LCPS policy, we would also be assessing them a $35 insufficient funds fee on our end as well. So again, I do think this is a low risk, but just wanted to be fully transparent

[00:45:30] of what that all incurs. So as I had shared earlier, our school nutrition fund has been operating at a net loss since the end of COVID. And at the same time, costs for salaries, benefits, food and supplies continue to rise faster than revenues meal prices remain below the usda recommended level per their pricing tool even after having successive years of 20 cent meal price increases and no longer subsidizing transaction fees would improve the fund helping

[00:46:05] to avoid more drastic meal price increases and other operational changes additionally unlike a meal price increase which applies to all paying students with no alternative, this approach allows families to decide whether or not they incurred the feed based on their chosen payment method.

[00:46:29] So additionally, here are just a few examples of impact. We really looked at this from a variety of angles. So again, families retain full choice in how they pay for meals, you know, paying by cash or check remains completely fee-free, and they only would assess the fee if they're using their credit card or the ACH should we turn that on, which, again, I believe that is where we're heading.

[00:46:55] So as an example, and this is maybe some of the information we could really highlight in communication efforts, if there were 12 deposits made during the year, which would be more than once a month because school is not year-round, a family would pay $31.20 cents in transaction fees for the whole year. In the box next to that, again, free and reduced meals, students, they don't incur any charge, but they would incur a charge if the family was loading fees so that they could make a la carte purchases, which are those discretionary additional purchases.

[00:47:32] But they are insured a free and no additional fee meal through the free and reduced meal program. If funds were added bi-weekly, that would be about 21 transactions during the year. Families would pay $54.60 in transactions during that year.

[00:47:51] And then lastly, adding funds on a monthly basis, so it would be 11 transactions, and that would incur $28.60 in transaction fees for the entire year. The last item that we have is related to our staffing standard enhancement, which was adjusting the specialist staffing standard and reallocating one of our school nutrition coordinators down to reclassifying it down to another specialist.

[00:48:29] The intent here, obviously, we would also incur some savings because the specialist is a lower position, but that we also found that we expect outcomes of having more efficient use of personnel resources that would provide more direct support to school kitchens.

[00:48:45] our specialists are out in the field every day they are assigned a certain number of schools and this would just more directly provide that school based support better supporting those operations so that concludes this presentation again I have Miss Sampson with me to help answer any questions on school nutrition but I'll just you know reiterate this is the the last formal presentation um tomorrow when we meet for that work session i have one short presentation which

[00:49:21] will really be walking the school board through our budget adoption steps and what to look for there as we are six days away from budget adoption on tuesday and with that i'll have to be happy to take any questions thank you miss willoughby um board members before i open the floor to questions i'm going to ask miss labelle to please read her corrected disclosure miss labelle please unmute

[00:49:51] sorry now let me go back and find the disclosure again there it is as a member of the loudon 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 the benefits or affect lcps employees Specifically, as a school board member, I am eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an LCPS employee.

[00:50:29] In addition, as a former LCPS employee, I, as well as my spouse, receive Medicare Advantage insurance benefits through LCPS. 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.

[00:50:51] 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, Ms. LaBelle. And school board members, do you have any questions? Oh, Dr. Rasheed.

[00:51:10] Thank you, Chair Chandler, and thank you, Ms. Willoughby, for this great presentation. I think you answered it before, but just for the folks at home, I was just wondering, and maybe you mentioned this before, that if there was funding for, I guess, certain items on the menus for those that are having dietary needs, it could be something like halal food, for example, if you could just provide some information on that as well. Good evening. We do have halal menus available. We do a weekly menu

[00:51:46] that's available to all students needing halal meals currently. Thank you. And Chair Chandler, i had another question if that's allowed yes ma'am thank you um so the credit card fee is i believe it's now if i'm not mistaken is it two dollars and sixty cents per per transaction is that what that is miss willoughby okay is there any way to i guess to avoid that it sounds it sounds like a lot especially like for example i don't want to put like for my kids i don't want to put big

[00:52:23] payments or a lot of money on their card because i'm always worried they're just going to spend away um i that's the only thing is i i really worry about that and i don't want to send them with cash because i feel i mean i just i don't feel like that's kind of um conducive no that's a great question and um we could share stories of all kinds of examples of generous students buying you know a la carte ice cream for for their classmates so we understand that and that was one of the conversations we had as a team and to mitigate that, we are able to put notices

[00:52:59] and controls on student accounts. We just need communication from parents. It could be something as simple as don't sell my child any ice cream this week or limit their a la carte to certain amounts. Like all we need is some level of communication. I will highlight it's a manual process but we still think that approach um we could manage that and still if we can incur that 1.5 million dollars worth of savings and credit card fees that that would be a fair trade-off of you know putting those notes on student accounts which happens today but this would be another way

[00:53:39] to help manage that so that if you wanted to load once a month or a larger amount that that is how we can manage that. I had one more, uh, one more follow-up question to that. Um, how, how do you check, uh, you had mentioned something about if you don't have, or if you're in the negative, you had mentioned, so how do you check if you're in the negative and do you like, do you, if you can enlighten me and letting me know, like, how do you, do you send a check every day or can you send like a, like a large amount that sits on the account, just like link? Good evening. You can check your link account at any time. Uh, parents normally go in and they can sit, they can even

[00:54:18] set alerts to see when my child's account gets to five dollars when it gets to ten they can set it before it goes into the negative amount so those alerts and those they're the alerts are there to set in place for parents as they need to so you can go in and you can put a thousand on your child's account you can put ten dollars is the minimum that link will accept for online payments or you can set a set amount so you can have a recurrent payment set up every month for your child's account or your student's account can i send a check though like i mean um like like is that how that

[00:54:56] would like is that something is that a choice can you send a check yes check and cash payments are free of charge there's no fee associated with check and cash payments okay all right thank you so much thank you mr pepper thank you madam chair um i have several questions um related to kind of this whole presentation the first is i noticed that um cafeteria sales the revenue on slide eight increased from basically FY23 all the way through the FY26 budget, and now there is a decrease, about a million-dollar decrease or so in the FY27.

[00:55:35] Is there a reason behind the sales decrease? Is it just an enrollment-related thing, or is it just a projection? So what's behind cafeteria sales is really two drivers. We have the actual meal payments and also our a la carte.

[00:55:52] And for Loudoun County, we reap the benefit of high a la carte sales, but that can also fluctuate. So what we're also seeing in the changes and some of the adjustments is you see the shift from actual and then the budget.

[00:56:13] And so, one, the budget is always an estimate, and it's based on a projection. It's our educated guess on historical trends and a variety of factors. And when we're developing the budget, some of the assumptions we make may not come to fruition, such as enrollment.

[00:56:32] So if we are 1,000 students less, then obviously that's going to also show up in the school nutrition fund because that's 1,000 students less that potentially are buying meals. So I think that's part of what you're seeing of the difference between the actual and the budget of why there's a flip and making some adjustments.

[00:56:49] Moving from the FY25 actual to the FY27 budget, the team has done an assessment, and actually on February 10th, this board will hear the second quarter financial review on the school nutrition fund, and we can talk about what our actual projected revenue is for the school nutrition fund.

[00:57:08] that can help shed some light related to that budget number and so when you see the 23 24 25 actual and then you see the 26 projected actual of where we think will end and then the 27 budget i think you'll see a line that's a little more um more level versus the the little peaks and valleys that you see there thank you for that couple other questions uh first um on link i'm assuming that we have a contract with link is their payment entirely based on that two dollars

[00:57:47] and sixty cents service fee or is there just a separate contract related to there are multiple components to the link contract since they are our enterprise system they're also our point of sale system and then even with our enterprise system we have multiple modules so the point of sale system pricing is solely driven I shouldn't say solely let me back off that to make sure but But I think the major component is the $2.60 transaction fee.

[00:58:17] I'm not aware off the top of my head if there's any additional administrative fees related to that. And then we also pay for the operating system, which is like the inventory, the menu design, procurement, the applications, like all the stuff it takes behind the scenes to run the school nutrition program as well.

[00:58:36] A couple other really quick questions. One on Link. I think you may have mentioned this. Is it possible for Link to be set up? So right now, I have both my children and Link. And, you know, one kid runs low, so I drop $20 in their account. The other kid runs low, I drop $20 in their account and play the game.

[00:58:52] Is there a way to kind of have a master account where I drop a bunch of money in and then I can dole it out to my children as needed? Yes, we discussed that with Link on the meeting yesterday. And you can actually place money on an account because I had that same issue when my children were in school.

[00:59:11] So I had one that was using the funds up and one who didn't, and we did discuss that with Link. We need to get more communication for parents like yourself out there on how to set that up. We can do that clearer, or more clearly. Okay, and then the other two are pretty quick questions that I think you guys both have an easy answer to.

[00:59:28] You had mentioned that we're under the USDA guideline for meal price. What is that guideline? We are supposed to be technically, when I looked at our paid lunch equity tool, I just started in September, but I looked at it for last year. We should probably be at about $4 for lunch.

[00:59:47] And then the very last thing is the difference in the role of a nutrition coordinator versus a nutrition specialist. Just kind of a quick overview on the difference. Our specialists are, if you think of a restaurant, they're like district managers because they're divided out by cluster.

[01:00:04] And so they ensure that the food is the quality. They're our feet on the ground, eyes on the plate, as I like to say, that they're seeing what our children are eating, what's going in the trash. They're to provide training and establish those standards for consistency and quality across the district.

[01:00:21] And our coordinators actually supervise the specialist and make sure and provide that guidance to our specialist for operations. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[01:00:40] Thank you very much for the presentation. I have a couple of questions. My first question is, is it possible to set up Link to receive payments from transfer apps like Venmo, Zelle, PayPal, those kind of sources?

[01:01:01] Not at this time. They accept credit card payments, and we can also set up, as Sharon mentioned, the ACH payments, but they do not take PayPal or Venmo. The platform does not. no ma'am thank you uh and if there is if families are seeking to make payments in cash functionally how do we envision that working like parent gives money to their child to take to school and then the child gives it to teacher cafeteria person currently normally the students bring the

[01:01:38] money to the cafeteria the parent can give it to the child or the parent normally gives it to the child or they come in person and pay at lunchtime or at breakfast time we've seen so it's either the student bringing it to the cafeteria they give it directly to the cafeteria workers the cashiers and they place it on the account are there any families who have raised concerns particularly with regard to special needs students or extremely young students about the student's ability to figure out like who is the appropriate person to get the money to without losing it i have not heard

[01:02:16] those concerns but as a parent when my children were that age i did not like to send money with them i normally send a check or i paid online and i paid i paid the fees associated because it was more convenient for me um so i chose to pay the fees online at the time and i'm sure that is a concern of our parents um i don't like giving young children money or checks because they get lost or as my granddaughter she spent her mother sent twenty dollars and she spent it on some she spent it at the bookstore instead of putting it on her lunch account of course she did so i applaud

[01:02:52] the dedication to books thank you all right mr spenson thank you madam chair and thank you for the presentation um i know that the formula is not set uh for the school breakfast legislation in Richmond so we wouldn't know necessarily how much we would save but of the our current expenditures how much does breakfast account for just trying to get a ballpark of how much money LCPS could save I'm going to take that down as a written question so that way we can make sure we're also for what it's worth trying to pull some additional information related to what the

[01:03:27] financial impact could be with this bill should it be you know supported and to also just to provide the school board as well as our lobbyists with some facts of how this could be very beneficial from financial perspective but also for our students as well. And on the on slide 18 we were talking about reducing expenditures you mentioned something about fruits and vegetables and the standard could you elaborate a little bit about any changes that we'd be making? Yes we currently exceed the amount of fruit that we're required to serve and I think some of the fruits that we serve are repetitive. So I want to offer more of a variety of the fruits

[01:04:07] that are available to us on the fresh fruit and vegetable program, but still meet what we're supposed to serve. Meet the standard instead of exceeding the standard, but give students that variety. That will save us funds on our menu because we do, we offer more fruit than we need to. And sometimes when I've observed it, I see some of the students, maybe they take it just because, and they're not eating it. So we want to offer more variety of fruit, but meet the meal pattern standard for school nutrition programs. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Riccardi. Thank you,

[01:04:45] Madam Chair. Thank you for the presentation. So school nutrition is a big one for me. I'm really excited about what I see across the country, especially in our Title I schools and food nutrition programs and options available to them. So I've been studying this for quite some time.

[01:05:00] And I really, I guess one of my questions to you is, when was the last time we've actually done kind of a holistic review of the school nutrition program, just generally top to bottom? And that's everything from how we're staffing and structuring our food services all the way through the kinds of foods that we're offering.

[01:05:22] we have such a huge agricultural county i would hope that we're leveraging some you know if we can like farm to school programs i know i've seen in some of our schools hydroponics i'm a big hydroponics person and personally i have a whole garden in my kitchen which is pretty awesome but i mean i think there's some really cool educational opportunities there too so when was the last time we've actually done a kind of a whole a holistic view of the whole program i have a couple other questions as well. I'm going to toot Ms. Sampson's horn for a moment. As she mentioned, she joined us

[01:05:56] as recently as September. And a lot of the, well, not a lot, all the initiatives that you are hearing and, you know, seeing shared on the slides is really from the expertise that she has brought in with a fresh perspective. So I would say that that kind of holistic high-level overview of looking at everything kind of, you know, top to bottom is happening right now. As she has come in, She has been going to almost all of our schools.

[01:06:23] I think she's at a little over 50 schools since September, really observing and looking and seeing how are we staffed, what are we serving, all those things. And even with the personnel changes we talked about of shifting from identifying that we really don't need this additional coordinator and benefiting from a retirement to be able to repurpose that to a specialist, which we think we get more bang for the buck and having that more direct support for the schools.

[01:06:56] So to answer your question, I would say that that is happening right now, and I think you're just getting a glimpse of what she's uncovering and bringing forward and working with an amazing school nutrition team to enact those changes across 100 schools in a consistent manner.

[01:07:14] Thank you. You're giving Ms. Chernoff a run for your money. You might actually beat her timeline here. It's great. So kind of switching gears a little bit too, I was noticing on page 78 which is talking about the state revenue and the federal revenue sources. Are we at risk of losing any of those pots of money this year, especially the federal revenue pieces? I know there's Title I stuff in here too, and I know we've heard from the federal government about that. So are we at a potential at risk for losing any of those federal sources?

[01:07:46] You're talking about just with grants in general, since you said Title I? Well, yeah, it could be grants, yeah. Okay, I just want to make sure. So, yeah, this is the grant section, yeah. Yes, okay, I just want to make sure. Thank you. But let me broaden that out. If there's outside grant, outside of the grant program, if there's federal funds, can we talk about that a little bit?

[01:08:02] Sure. At this point, I would say, I guess in the fall time frame, there was communication about, you know, and concern about having disruption to our reimbursements for our federal grants.

[01:08:19] And at this point, we have seen no disruption. We continue to submit our reimbursements, we receive them in a timely manner, and other than if there was a funding, you know, a funding level change at the federal or state level, we aren't anticipating any substantial changes at this point.

[01:08:39] And so that's why we continue to budget, you know, in the grant fund. In the fall, we had, you know, some conversations and even, and we were in FY25 of being a lot more cautious and mindful in terms of quantifying with that potential impact could be if there was a disruption but again I think enough time has passed at this point that we're feeling a little more confident and in our federal and state revenue streams thank you so much this is great fifths thank you madam chair in my experience with link well actually there was another and you're

[01:09:15] fairly new there was another service we were using right before that where you paid fees and then all of a sudden link came and I don't think I was paying fees but now you're saying we're going to be paying fees my experience with link was okay I didn't have an issue with it I was even able to combine my children's balance so I wanted to put that out there to the Loudon parents and let them know they can't combine if one kid goes to another school or whatever and decides they're not going to do a link anymore you could take the balance and and you can move it there.

[01:09:53] But this is something my son never mentioned, was the meals. Like, was a lot of it, does a lot of it end up in the trash? Because they have to take certain items with the meal. Yes, in order to receive a reimbursable meal, you have to take at least one fruit or vegetable and two other components of the meal.

[01:10:18] Okay. so the components are milk grains fruit vegetable and milk yeah um i i think that's what was he never really told me but i think that's what was going into uh the trash um just so you know um i think that's what was happening if he didn't do a la carte um but also i did want to mention um and you can verify this for me for the people of laden county that um to get a refund it took a while but they told me it was coming so I did get apply for a refund when I had access there

[01:10:53] I also want to mention that I never told my kids what the balance was they didn't know I don't know if somebody in the cafeteria would tell them oh you're low or whatever but they really didn't know because so I can monitor I did catch my son buying extra ice cream and because it listed it listed everything they were buying so we talked to him about that and he stopped doing it but for the most part he didn't know what his balance was they they really didn't know so if I put a hundred dollars on there to avoid I don't even think there was fees at that

[01:11:33] time anyway but if I let's say I put a high balance on there because I didn't want to have to keep refilling it uh to avoid those fees if parents do that um are they telling the kids in the cafeteria what the balance is or just alerting the parents because i thought i was just being alerted um i'm just curious we alert the parents just the parents correct okay i just i just wanted to verify that because i again i never told my kids what the balance was because i would monitor everything. So thank you so much. And Mrs. Griffiths, if I can, I just want to piggyback

[01:12:10] on one of your comments because I think we want to highlight how we have really worked with our schools to have like food recovery. And so recognizing that we are required to make sure that they have that apple or that milk on their tray so that we meet the requirements. And especially like during an audit, we don't want to get caught not meeting the requirements and jeopardizing our federal reimbursements at the federal level we have recovery tables and refrigerators that we have purchased from you know via grants so that kids can okay I don't want the milk let's not put it in the trash you put it on the recovery table or the fruit and so that we can

[01:12:48] redirect those items so we really try to avoid having items go into the trash which I also know like hurts the hearts of our school nutrition workers as well so and if I may say one more thing. Um, I think my daughter had mentioned she was not allowed to take food out of the cafeteria.

[01:13:06] So whatever she didn't finish was wasted, uh, at the time. So I just want you to keep that in mind. I don't know. She might have, uh, done what you just mentioned and, and gave it as a donation or whatever. But, um, those were the issues that I encountered. Um, you know, not necessarily with link itself but uh the extra food uh going in the trash um that sort of thing where they had to take those those extras but um I did want the people of Loudoun County to know that they can combine

[01:13:42] their parents their parents sorry their kids uh accounts and um they will get a refund but it looks like now you're starting to charge if it's um if there's not as much money in the account Thank you. Dr. Rasheed? Thank you, Chair. I know you answered a lot of questions, but just two more I had. I just wanted to know, who do you send the checks to and how often can you send them?

[01:14:17] Is that for parents making a payment? Yes, correct. The parents send the checks to the cafeteria. And how often can you do that? They can send it as often as they need to. okay okay and if the I think it was mentioned that students don't get identified when you know but they but they also can't incur like some sort of a la carte debt when that happens how is the situation managed we will tell them they have we we never turn down a child for a meal but they just

[01:14:51] they let them know that they don't have that they may not have the funds available for a la carte items and and who do they make the one more who do they make the checkout to uh lcps school nutrition and we'll make sure with i said you know we're so used to thinking about um at least with the fee component and knowing that there may be more interest in cash and check payments now of really making sure that we're addressing some of the questions that you're bringing up here um through that parent perspective so that they have all the all the information that that they need um to make

[01:15:28] the payment or if I have a young child and all the things there. Thank you. This was so helpful. Thank you so much, Chair. Ms. Chernoff. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you so much. Welcome to LCPS. We appreciate the work that you're doing, and it sounds like you're hitting the ground running, which is really exciting. There's no surprise, but I really struggle in this area in terms of just the perception and whose backs we're putting these costs on.

[01:16:02] I think it's difficult in LCPS where we feel like the land of the plenty with data center money and aspirational staffing standards that we've been talking about and all the things that we can push beyond the limit of what the state requires versus what we have here, and we are so incredibly blessed.

[01:16:21] And I think that that sometimes sends a mixed message when we see these kinds of things happening and we see the nutrition fund. And so for me, over the next year, you know, and I would love to learn more. I think that that's the first step for me as a board member is to learn more about what is actually happening and where those cost savings might lie.

[01:16:40] And at some level, I know we need to trust that you're doing that work and that this is a solution in the interim that is necessary. I don't like it that our kids are paying more money for lunches. And I don't love the credit card fees, but I know we're all kind of trying to do our part and it's a big county, so I'm trying to reconcile that.

[01:17:00] But I'm also wondering if some of these trends that we're tracking with raising the lunch prices, we've seen increased meal debt. So maybe people can't pay for the meals as much. And then we're also seeing that less people are buying meals. So maybe now we've priced kids out of buying meals at school.

[01:17:16] So these are different you know trends that may be connected may not so I'm hopeful that over the next you know year We can kind of try to work on this I mentioned last year about the staffing at some of our smaller schools. You saw the question in the board packet again They they remain a challenging position for one person. I know it's you know a staffing standard situation But the workload is crippling and so I wonder if we're losing people that way too

[01:17:43] So these are just some of the ongoing things that I'm, you know, kind of wondering about and thinking through and maybe would would love as we are doing sort of a high level, maybe some more updates because I would really like to move us out of this place, out of a place where we feel like we have to put this on the backs of our families, especially families who are in that sort of bubble range.

[01:18:03] Maybe they don't qualify for free and reduced lunch, but that's at the people that are struggling the most right now. I do some nonprofit work in food distribution, and that's the group that is really being hit hard. They don't quite qualify, but they don't have the excessive means to put in a lot of money into accounts, so they have to make $10 increment.

[01:18:24] Well, that's going to kill them every time they, you know, need to pay this $2.60. So for me, it's how can we work on this over the next year so that we're not in this place? And if we need to transfer operating funds, do we need to think about that at a higher level in terms of alleviating this stress?

[01:18:43] And is that a priority that we have? So I know a lot of those are hypothetical, but I really do appreciate the work. I know that it's extensive, and I think some of these initiatives are going to help us, but I'm looking for long-term solutions that are going to help us get out of this what feels like a little bit of a rut.

[01:19:00] And if I could just a few points. One, I'm hearing an opportunity for us when we bring forward our quarterly financial reviews of expanding the discussion on all of our funds. And we've already, actually today we met reviewing our funds and that was one of the topics was just like adding more and more.

[01:19:19] You know, we continue to add more and more to our report so that, you know, the school board is aware of all the efforts that are happening behind the scenes. definitely the initiatives with school nutrition um i'm just as anxious to to start seeing the impacts um from these i think already we're seeing some you know some some initial positive you know um trends happening and really you know i'll keep kind of you know soft softly mentioning that down the road you know there is it is very likely that we may be needing to subsidize from

[01:19:55] our operating fund and or you know requesting from the county if there isn't something else you know happening right now we're still sitting on enough of a fund balance that like i said we're really just kind of buying time at this point i would say this time next year if we're not seeing like a meaningful you know impact to um our operations and you know at some point like that that fund balance is going to to dwindle down then i think at this point next year is when we would probably need to really start having more serious conversations of what that looks like but in meantime you know we're also going to you know keep our fingers crossed perhaps at the state level

[01:20:30] or at the federal level because when universal free meals were offered we saw our highest participation all right um i just want to take a moment um to thank you both and uh welcome miss sampson it's nice to have you here and i i it really resonates with me um how this conversation has gone this evening right that all of the board members are really engaged in in digging into this particular topic and looking out for the families in our community. I wanted to take a second to ask

[01:21:07] how, I think we've talked in the past about inflation and whether or not inflation plays a role in any of the price pressures. And is that something that happens as we renegotiate our contract? Could you go through that with me again, please? It absolutely does. I will also share with the county our size and one of the things that especially for our new members on our F&O committee when we bring our grocery contracts at the end of the end of the school

[01:21:45] year for the upcoming school year I'm anticipating the question that comes up every year is the low response that we get to our our solicitations and it's because of the size of our county and having vendors that have the logistics and the ability to deliver milk, for example, to 100 schools on a daily basis at a certain prescribed time, it's very challenging.

[01:22:12] And so milk, I use that example for a reason, because we have had, if I remember correctly, maybe just one responsive bidder, which also then makes it a lot more difficult for us in terms of having competitive pricing. So, you know, we talk with our neighbors.

[01:22:27] There's a lot of discussions that happen in our challenges that we have because of accounting our size. But to answer your question, yes, we absolutely do feel the impacts of inflation as well as having limited responses to our solicitations.

[01:22:48] Can I add to that about the inflation? Please. USDA uses the Consumer Price Index with the reimbursement rates, which also affects that PLE tool. And so that plays into the pricing and what we should be increasing every year.

[01:23:07] Could you dig into that for me for just a little bit more? I want to make sure I understand. Yes, the reimbursement rate that takes into consideration the cost of eating out away from home in the Consumer Pricing Index, and I can send you the latest information on it.

[01:23:25] I can provide it to Sharon. And that takes into inflation, the price of eating out, the price of groceries. That affects the reimbursement rate every year. There's normally like a 3% to 5% increase on reimbursement rate, and that's not keeping up with the rising cost of food prices, but it does take it into consideration.

[01:23:47] Well, that certainly resonates with me. Thank you for clarifying. You're welcome. I mean, I think that's something that we're all experiencing just in the present economy. I do appreciate that you're working on finding efficiencies. That's definitely something that I've seen in schools myself, that like kids will choose multiple fruits.

[01:24:09] And I was really glad that we had the opportunity to reflect on the food recovery program, which has been in place for a long time. And I know it went away during COVID, but is now like fully back and functioning. we're doing a lot of good, I think, in the community with that process. So thank you very much. School board members, are there any other questions? Chair Chandler, I have a question.

[01:24:32] Yes, Dr. Rasheed. Thank you so much. I just had to ask, when does the link contract end? And are we venturing into other contracts with other vendors just to, I don't know, just to explore to see if we could just like lower the fee by any chance or for other options? I will take that down as a written question um so i can make sure we have our renewal information technically our contracts are one year at a time and so at any time you know we have the opportunity um as our procurement director has has worked with link and been having discussions as i had shared earlier

[01:25:08] you know they're really trying to negotiate and see what flexibility that they can provide as well um because the pos is a component it doesn't necessarily mean that is the only option and So I'll just share that information.

[01:25:24] - Thank you, that's great. - School board members, are there any other questions on this topic or any other budget-related questions? There are a few more minutes before we move into recess. Dr. Spence, would you like to do your superintendent's report?

[01:25:43] - I certainly can, I'm happy to do that. Just get that slide up, there it is, great. Well, thank you, Madam Chair and members of the board. It's always my pleasure to share good news from around our school division.

[01:25:59] like to just start this evening afternoon by extending a heartfelt thank you to the LCPS staff who work behind the scenes and around the clock to keep our schools and buildings safe during weather events like this week's storm from monitoring the weather conditions and checking on road safety to cleaning off our buses our schools and our sidewalks and coordinating next steps these teams these members of our snow teams have been working tirelessly so that our students staff and families can stay safe and informed we're grateful for your dedication your professionalism your care for our community in every forecast and every snowflake. I'd also like to recognize William

[01:26:35] Obadiah Roby High School for its January student recognition celebration honoring 20 students who completed the coursework and testing required to earn their high school diploma. This event reflects Roby's commitment to meeting students where they are and providing the personalized supports needed to help them succeed. Many of these students balance school with work, family responsibilities, and other commitments in the non-school environment.

[01:26:59] And this celebration honored both their perseverance and their achievement. So I commend the Robey staff for creating a supportive and respectful environment that helps our students build confidence, stay engaged, and move forward towards meaningful futures. Last week, LCPS hosted its largest wild conference to date, with more than 400 students registered and 96 students serving as presenters.

[01:27:25] This conference, which was held on Friday, January 23rd, featured three rounds of student-led breakout sessions focused on topics such as leadership, creativity, wellness, advocacy, and school culture. Students also participated in idea exchange sessions where they collaborated with peers from different schools to share ideas and explore student-driven initiatives.

[01:27:47] The day began with a keynote address by Dr. Julia Garcia, author of The Five Habits of Hope, centered on hope, resilience, and purpose. The WILD Conference, which stands for We're Intentional About Leadership Development, is developed by students, and I'd like to extend my sincere appreciation to those students whose leadership shaped the conference, and of course to our staff who supported this student-centered learning experience, which continues to elevate student voice across the division.

[01:28:17] Next, more than 100 students from Trailside Farmwell Station and Eagle Ridge Middle Schools participated in Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day at Trailside Middle School. These students engaged in hands-on activities that connected classroom learning to real-world engineering and technology careers.

[01:28:34] Through a partnership with Microsoft and support from the Loudon Education Foundation, students involved in Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, explore circuits, simulations, and the infrastructure that powers everyday technology. This experience is a part of a broader effort across our LCPS middle schools to provide meaningful exposure to engineering pathways for girls and for all students throughout their middle years.

[01:29:01] Waterford Elementary celebrated its 60th anniversary last week. Principal Andrew Hieronymus and Dr. Ashley Ellis, our chief academic officer, shared remarks honoring the school's legacy and its impact on the community. Adding to the fun, students performed dances representing each of the six decades of the school's history.

[01:29:19] Former staff members were also welcomed back, adding to the sense of nostalgia and pride that filled the celebration. And then finally this evening, I'd just like to share some cool news about an LCPS alum. Football fans may have seen this 2020 Stonebridge grad in action during the Indiana Hoosiers win over Miami in the College Football National Playoff Championship earlier this month.

[01:29:41] With just seconds left on the clock, Mikhail Kamara blocked a Miami punt, which was then picked up by a Hoosier teammate for the winning touchdown. And for this play, he was named as the defensive MVP of the national championship game. At Stonebridge, we know he also shone on the field as a defensive lineman and in the classroom and in the school community as an outstanding student.

[01:30:05] Congratulations to Mr. Kamara. Madam Chair, that concludes my report. Thank you, Dr. Spence. And with that, we have come to the end of our work session. we will recess this meeting for dinner and reconvene at 6 30. the board is now in recess

[02:02:37] good evening the board is coming out of recess at this time we will continue with item number seven which is the pledge of allegiance and national anthem given the weather conditions today we will not have any student pledge leaders leading us off tonight we will all say the pledge together and following the pledge of allegiance we are fortunate to have a recording of the national

[02:03:13] anthem performed by the rock ridge high school chamber choir that will be played so please

[02:03:18] remain standing at this time please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance thank you for

[02:05:27] making the effort to find the recording even though we didn't have students in person it was still lovely with that we will move on to item number eight our student school board representative comments. We'll start with our virtual school board member tonight. Shrehitha Akula is a proud senior at Rockridge High School. She currently serves as the student council's executive vice president, but has previously served as the executive secretary and a class officer. Shrehitha

[02:06:04] is the president of NHS and director of the school store and finds a passion for marketing and graphic design. She is excited to represent Rockridge this school year and hopes to uplift the voices of her student body. Welcome, Sharitha. The floor is yours. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Sharitha Akula, and before I begin, I'd like to thank the members of the school board for giving me the opportunity to speak here tonight. I'd also like to thank my SCA advisors, Ms. Prince and Mr. Wallen, and our principal, Mr. Duhlman, for allowing me to represent Rockridge and for their continued support. Rockridge is off to a strong start this year with foundations put in

[02:06:44] place for the Phoenix to enjoy the next decade of success. Over a thousand students attended our outdoor food-themed homecoming, one of our few outdoor homecomings in the county this year. The SCA has spearheaded numerous other events such as the clash of classes between the juniors and seniors, the hallway decorating competition resulting in a junior win, the students versus staff volleyball game, BrosFest, and the upcoming Phoenix Feud as well. Our students continue to excel both academically and in extracurricular activities. Within academics, our NHS chapter grew to a record high of 234 members with 180 new members inducted in November. Additionally,

[02:07:20] seven students were nominated for the 2025 National Merit Honor Semifinalists. Our sports teams have garnered the excitement of many fans as the men's and women's basketball teams continue their record-breaking seasons. The Rockridge swim team is heading to states currently as the reigning district champs with a record of 6-2. Overall, our fall and winter sports teams have continued to improve and break school records, and we're looking forward to the beginning of spring sports with triads taking place in the next few weeks. In our fine arts department, Rockridge Theatre Arts recently closed the Footloose this fall. This week and next week, they'll be performing their second production of the year, Hadestown. Additionally, after our

[02:07:58] choral director, Mr. Jordan Markwood, was promoted to a countywide leadership position, One of our alum, Mr. Kevin Lacey, class of 2017, has stepped up to lead the choral program, maintaining its excellence. Our alumni network is strong, with many graduates returning to educate our students as substitutes or full-time teachers.

[02:08:16] Yearbook has also had some big wins this year, winning best in show or first place at the NSPA convention in November, becoming an NSPA Pacemaker finalist and CSPA Crown finalist, making the yearbook one of the top 30 high school yearbooks in the country. Newspaper was recognized as a VHSL trophy class winner for our online website and first class for our news class magazine.

[02:08:37] Rockridge Debate is the largest team in Virginia with over 15 qualifiers for the WASDL Metro Finals Region Championship. It is our fourth year continuing to integrate clubs and activities into the school day once a week, giving students the opportunity to participate in an activity without the after school time constraints.

[02:08:54] Our students, faculty, and staff are all working diligently to continue to succeed and are thriving and thriving in the supportive and inclusive environment we've worked so hard to cultivate. Once again I'd like to thank the school board for their continued support and service toward Loudoun County students and families and thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak in front of you all tonight. Thank you Sharitha for being here tonight with us and with that we'll move on to our in-person school board representative Labiba Babu is a senior at Freedom High School and a current student council president.

[02:09:31] She has been part of the student council since her freshman year, serving as a class representative, historian, and secretary before being elected president her senior year. Labiba holds leadership positions, is also a three-year member of the Virginia Student Council Association's advisory committee, where she has worked with student leaders from across the state to plan the annual VSCA state convention.

[02:09:58] Alongside Student Council, she holds leadership positions in the Muslim Student Association and is an active member of Freedom's National Honor Society and DECA chapter. She also served on the Superintendent Student Advisory Committee during the 23-24 school year and continues to serve this year.

[02:10:18] Outside of school, Labiba cares deeply about giving back to her community and supporting younger students. She tutors children at Liberty Elementary School and is passionate about making sure every student feels included and heard. She's excited to continue that work this year and is honored to represent Freedom High School on the Loudoun County School Board.

[02:10:38] Welcome, Labiba. The floor is yours. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. My name is Labiba Baba, and I am the Student Council President and School Board Representative for Freedom High School. I would like to begin by thanking my principal, Ms. Tania Brown, and my student council advisors, Mrs. Grace DeLeo and Mr. Chad Barker, for their constant support and leadership, as well as our teachers and staff who work tirelessly to create an environment where students are supported and encouraged to grow. Freedom High School continues to be a place defined by diversity, leadership, engagement, and opportunity. That diversity is something

[02:11:15] our students actively celebrate and build together. Since Freedom's last school board speech, we have celebrated many milestones and honors. Our Muslim Student Association and Black Student Association partnered with all of Freedom's affinity groups to host the second annual Friendsgiving. Our Black Student Association also led a meaningful Black History Month celebration, and our students and staff showcased 18 cultures through performances at our 14th annual international night. Freedom also proudly served as the Virginia Student Councils Association President's School last year, reflecting our students' strong commitment to leadership through

[02:11:48] organizing a statewide event for student leaders across Virginia. Serving 1,888 students, I'm sorry, 1,788 students, Freedom's community reflects a wide range of interests, talents, and aspirations. Extracurricular involvement continues to be a pillar of student life at Freedom, and this year alone, our students participated in over 100 clubs and activities.

[02:12:12] With over 42% of students participating in athletics, Freedom's students consistently demonstrate dedication, discipline, and teamwork. This past year, our cross-country team earned both district and regional titles, while boys football had the most successful season in school history. Additionally, our girls soccer and tennis teams were district and regional champions last spring, with many student-athletes earning all district, all region, and all state honors.

[02:12:37] Beyond athletics, Freedom's Fine Arts and Activities programs continue to thrive. Our band, chorus, guitar, and orchestra all earned superior ratings at the respective state assessments, contributing to Freedom's continued recognition as a Blue Ribbon School. Last January, our marching band even represented us by performing at Disney World's Magic Kingdom Parade, and our theater program showcased outstanding student talent, most recently through its production of Macbeth. One area where student achievement has been especially evident is in its business and career-focused organizations. Freedom's DECA and FBLA chapters involve over

[02:13:12] 340 students, many of whom compete at the regional, state, and national levels. This past year, 28 Freedom DECA students qualified at the state level, 25 advanced to nationals, and several earned scholarships and top-level chapter involvement awards. What is especially important to note is that much of this success is happening outside of the classroom. Students are dedicating significant time beyond the school day to competitions and conferences because they are genuinely invested in business-related fields. Despite this interest, many students do not have access to rigorous in-school business pathways compared to those offered in STEM and technology and healthcare. While Loudoun

[02:13:50] County offers strong programs overall, advanced business course options remain limited at many base high schools. Expanding access to courses like entrepreneurship, finance, or business management would allow students to explore these interests during the school day. With hundreds of students involved in business organizations at Freedom Alone, the demand is already clear. Freedom has given me, and so many others, the opportunity to lead, to grow, and to discover our passions.

[02:14:15] I'm incredibly proud to represent a school where students consistently rise to challenges and take initiative in shaping their futures. Thank you to the school board for allowing me to share all the great things happening at Freedom High School today, and I'm excited for what's ahead for our school and our county. Thank you. Thank you.

[02:14:31] All right, we'll now move on to item number 10, public comment. The procedures for public comment. Thank you for engaging with the school board through the public comment process.

[02:14:48] 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 and the agenda this evening, all speakers will 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.

[02:15:21] 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 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 or otherwise attempting to intimidate, disparage, distract a speaker staff member or other meeting attendees speakers should refrain from vulgarity obscenities defamation profanity and other like breaches of respect nor may speakers target

[02:15:59] 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 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

[02:16:34] clarify a few things. As has been explained previously, speakers can personally identify a student or employee without stating a student's or an employee's names. That is personally identifiable information is any information that a reasonable person can link together to pinpoint an individual student or employee and where that individual student or employees known to others in their school or surrounding community based on the context that is shared the school board welcomes you to share your concerns but ask that to the extent you have prepared remarks that target criticize or attack any individual students or employees you

[02:17:13] 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 with any characteristics where the information would personally identify the 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

[02:17:48] individual identifiable student or employee are permissible under school board policy I as school board chair am charged with the responsibility to main order during school board meetings accordingly when reasonable I will warn of 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 or orderly conduct of the meeting such action includes calling a recess in order to maintain and or restore order if speakers

[02:18:24] fail to comply with board policy regarding public participation you will receive a warning and a request to redirect or generalize your comments should you fail to redirect or generalize your comments after that warning you may be asked to yield the microphone at which time you should 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 speakers should face the dais and direct their comments to the school board per school board policy 2520 members of the

[02:19:02] school board will not answer questions or respond directly to the public during the public comment period. Violations of decorum or civility by any meeting attendee may result in the chair directing staff to remove the attendee from the remainder of the meeting. Repeated or persistent violations of decorum or civility 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 distribution of materials to school board members copies of

[02:19:41] 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 circumstance 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. We look forward to hearing your comments. We will now start with our virtual public comment. Our first speaker is Jenna Hardison

[02:20:19] followed by Raj Parudakar. Hi, I'm Jenna Hardison and I'm a mother to two children that will be at Stuart Weller next year, Stuart Weller Elementary School in Ashburn. I'm here to ask for the board to hopefully revisit the bell schedule for our school. We are one of the elementary schools that has a 7.30 a.m. start time, and through surveys done by the school district that I've seen and

[02:20:55] through a petition amongst parents at our school, I think it's clear that families at those elementary schools with a 7 30 start time are less satisfied overall with the bell schedule and i understand in the past that this has been sort of due to bus driver shortages and budget constraints but with the redistricting and knowing that the bus routes are going to have to be revisited anyway and also knowing that stewart weller's student population and the geographical area that their buses are going to have to reach are actually both shrinking. I'm hoping that their 7.30 a.m. start time can be

[02:21:34] revisited. Thank you. Raj Parudkar, followed by Arun Sabramani.

[02:21:56] Honorable school board members, thank you for taking the time to listen to the school community's concerns regarding Golden to Mars high voltage transmission line project. As a parent of two children that are attending Rosalie Carter Elementary School and Rockridge High School, I am concerned about county witnesses' sworn test statement to the SCC commissioners that the county will not stand in the way of Route 3 or its derivations, 3A or 3B.

[02:22:26] Also, during the evidentiary hearing in Richmond, the county presented a plan involving open space easement manuring that would give them considerable land use authority. In light of this comment and action, I'm urging that the school board use their position to protect all the school property and its surrounding to the greatest extent possible.

[02:22:48] Another less impactful route, that is Route 1F, should be selected as the superior choice, both educationally and environmentally. Thank you very much. Thank you. Arun Sabramani, followed by Raj Katipali.

[02:23:08] Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Good evening. Honorable school board members, and thank you for your opportunity to speak. Regarding the Golden to Mars transmission line case, my family and I respectfully ask that you uphold your original decision to reject all overhead transmission line easements that cross school board property, including Routes 2, 3, 3B, and 4.

[02:23:35] As a parent of children who will matriculate through our county schools, I am deeply concerned by testimony to the SEC indicating that the county would not oppose Route 3, or its variations, and by land use strategies discussed during the Richmond Evidentary Hearing that could impact school property and surrounding space. I urge you and humbly request you to support the newly proposed Route 1F, which better balances community, educational, and environmental needs. Thank you so much for your leadership and consideration.

[02:24:09] Thank you. Raj Katipali, followed by Hassani Kasuganti. Good evening board members. I'm here today to talk about Golden to Mars project and I urge you to stand by your original vote that you did last year. Please continue to reject all overhead transmission lines on LCPS property. Our schools should be centers for learning, not industrial hubs. If allowed, these high voltage towers would transform Rosalie Carter and Rock Ridge into harsh industrial complex looming over our students' playgrounds and athletic fields. It is important

[02:24:47] to recognize that while the Route 3A and staff alternate do not technically cross the LCPs property, they pose the same negative impacts as Route 3. In your upcoming brief, closing brief to SEC, I urge you to rank any routes affecting these schools at the very bottom. Instead, please advocate for Route 1F. It utilizes LCP median, a far more appropriate industrial corridor that protects our students' well-being. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Hassani Kasuganti,

[02:25:20] followed by Lakshmin Arian Chandra Muli. We do not have a virtual speaker by that name. Lakshmin Arian Chandra Muli, followed by Arian Kasuganti. Good evening, members of the school board. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'd like to briefly put forth a few points that

[02:25:56] I believe are unique to Golden to Mars transmission project. 11 different routes have been debated during proceedings and close to six routes are either on or run very close to LCPA school boundaries. That level of route churn is highly unusual and frankly tells us something important that most of the proposed routes place undue pressure on public institutions, neighborhoods and children. In that context, Route 1F stands apart. Though introduced as a fail-safe. It's actually the best solution. There is a meaningful difference between infrastructure that is part of a roadway system and infrastructure that becomes part of school

[02:26:35] and community environment. Route 1F respects that boundary. I respectfully urge both to support Route 1F as the only viable route consistent with student safety. Thank you. Thank you.

[02:26:49] Arian Khasun-Gunty, followed by Dia Arun.

[02:27:26] There appears to be a technical challenge on their side. We are unmuting them, but no audio is coming through. Thank you. Dia Arun, followed by Leah Arun.

[02:27:44] Can you hear me? Oh, yes. Thank you. Could you please identify me? My name is Arjun. Members of the school board, thank you for your original decision to reject overhead transmission lines on school property.

[02:28:03] That decision mattered. It shows families that when it comes to our children, there are lines you will not cross. This issue is not really about power lines. It's about priorities. Nearly 3,000 students and staff spend their days in Rosalie Carter Elementary in Rockwich High School. These are not abstract locations on a map.

[02:28:20] They are places where children learn, where students practice after school, and where families gather long after the final bell rings. Placing massive overhead transmission lines on or near these campuses sends a message that those places are expendable.

[02:28:36] that playgrounds, walk zones, and athletic fields can be traded away for infrastructure problems our students did not create. And this will not be a one-time impact. Once the route is approved, more infrastructure will follow. If school property is acceptable now, it will be acceptable again and again. I'm urging you to please reject the power lines over Rockbridge High School.

[02:28:55] Thank you. Dia Arun followed by Lee Arun. Good evening, honorable school board members. My name is Dia and I'm a senior at Rockbridge High School. I am speaking tonight because decisions about transmission line roads directly affect students like me and the learning environment we experience every day. Our school property and the surrounding areas are an important part of student life, including walking to and from school, outdoor learning, athletics, and other school activities.

[02:29:23] These spaces contribute to our safety, focus, and overall well-being, and they should be protected. With respect to the Golden to Mars case, my family and I strongly support the school board's original decision to reject all overhead transmission line easements that would cross school board property, including routes 2, 3, 3B, and 4. Finally, I respectfully ask that route 1F be considered the best option to balance broader community needs while protecting students in

[02:29:51] school. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Leah Arun. Honorable school board members, my name is Leah Arun and I'm a senior at Rockridge High School. Thank you for taking the time to listen to the students and family concerns regarding the Golden Tomorrow's high voltage transmission line project. I'm concerned by county witness Lior Rogers' sworn statement to the SEC commissioners that the county will not stand in the way of Route 3 or its variations Route 3A and

[02:30:27] 3B. I am also concerned that during the evidentiary hearing in Richmond, the county presented a plan involving open space easements that would give it significant land use authority. Taken together, these actions raise serious questions about how school property and surrounding areas will be protected. School should be places where students can learn safely and without unnecessary disruption.

[02:30:48] I urge the school board to use its position to protect all school property and nearby land to the greatest extent possible. Dominion has presented a less harmful alternative. Please consider Route 1F as the better choice for students, schools, and the environment. Thank you for listening and for continuing to advocate for the students you serve. Thank you. Felipe Domingue. Good evening, Honorable School Board members. With respect to the Golden to Mars case, my family and I hope that you will uphold your original decision to reject all overhead transmission line easements that would cross school board property. My wife is an employee

[02:31:26] at one of the schools impacted, and I represent community members and businesses that will also be impacted by the same impacts as having lines impact their properties. In addition, I urge the school board to use the upcoming submission of their closing brief to voice their opposition to any route that runs adjacent to school property. Routes 3A and the staff alternative route should also be placed near the bottom of your ranking list because they impact educational setting, walking zone, and student well-being in similar manners. Although you cannot reject these routes outright, you can send a clear message to the SCC that no route on or near school property is

[02:32:04] acceptable. Please consider the safety of the staff and the students and support the newly proposed Route 1F as the best alignment to balance community needs. Thank you. Thank you. We will continue with our in-person public comment. Our first speaker is Lauren Lila Stolen followed by Ramchandra Reddy. I'm sorry it's Ruby Reddy. I have documents. I didn't realize I was supposed

[02:32:38] to give them in earlier so I hope it's okay if I give them after. All right. Honorable school board members. Thank you for taking the time to listen to the school community's concerns regarding the Golden to Mars high voltage transmission line project. As a parent of two children that will matriculate through Rosalie Carter Elementary and Rockridge High Schools, I'm concerned about county witness Leo Rogers' sworn statement to the SCC commissioners that the county will not stand in the way of Route 3 or its derivations, Route 3A or 3B. Also during

[02:33:14] During the evidentiary hearing in Richmond, the county presented a plan involving open space easement maneuvering that would give them considerable land use authority. In light of this comment and these actions respectively, it's extremely important to me and my family and others in the community that the school board use their position to protect all school board property and its surroundings to the greatest extent possible.

[02:33:37] Another less impactful route was recently presented by Dominion. consider Route 1F as the superior choice, educationally, environmentally. Thank you. Ramchandra Ruperidi, followed by Yashanvi Ruperidi. Good evening, school board, honorable school board members. I'm a parent of children who attend and matriculate through Rosalie Carter Elementary and Rockridge High School. You know, county, during the SEC hearing, they said that they will not stand in the way of Route 3 or its derivatives, including Routes 3A and 3B. The testimony makes

[02:34:16] makes it this clear. The county will not protect the school property, so that responsibility rests with you. These roads would place massive 500-kilometer transmission line next to our schools, cut directly through walk zones, and permanently industrialized places meant for learning. They would also require clear-cutting the broad-run stream valley, an already impaired watershed, increasing erosion, pollution, and the loss of wildlife and outdoor learning spaces. This is permanent. I request you to reject Roots 3, 3A, 3B, and 4 and recommend

[02:34:46] Route 1F. Thank you. Thank you. Ishanvi Ruberidi followed by Ridhinav R.

[02:35:10] Good evening school board members. My name is Ishanvi and I'm a sixth grade student. I am here today to ask you to please stand by your decision to block Roots 3 and 4 for the Dominion Powerline Project. My school and the surrounding areas are places where we learn, play sports, and enjoy the outdoors with our friends. The large power lines Dominion is planning to build on routes three and four for the Dominion power line project would be very close to Rosalie Elementary and Rockridge High School and in areas where we walk and bike every day. This makes me worried about our safety and how our school environment could change. School is also a place where we learn and enjoy the outdoors

[02:35:50] with our friends. Huge power towers would take away green spaces and make our school environment less safe and less welcoming. I kindly ask you to continue protecting students by rejecting routes 3, 4, route 3A and the staff alternative route and any similar routes near schools.

[02:36:08] Thank you for caring about our future and listening to students. Good evening, Honorable School Board members. My name is Ridenov and I'm a high school student at Rockridge High school and I'm here to urge you to stand by your original vote and the problem with routes 2, 3, 3b and 4 is that these routes don't only affect the land they affect our schools our communities and our recreation centers. 500 kilovolt transmission towers have no place in our

[02:36:46] schools and recreation centers and instead we should choose route 1f because route 1f protects schools, preserves the environment and it better serves the community and county testimony has made it clear that the county will not protect school board property or oppose route three or its variations this reality makes your role even more critical if you do not if you do not take a firm stand now the burden will fall on students thousands of students year after year generation after generation so your decision right now can make a enormous impact for our communities

[02:37:21] Thank you for your time. Thank you. Banu Amadi, followed by Chaitan Doma. Good evening, school board members. My name is Banu Amadi, and I'm a resident of Loudoun Valley 2 community.

[02:37:39] First, let me start with congratulating the newly elected school board members. And I appreciate the board's decisive action on 25th March to reject any overhead transmission lines crossing the school board property and also to press the dominion to pursue underground alternatives.

[02:37:56] Thank you for standing up for the schools and our community. I echo the statements made by the community members who spoke just before me. And I urge, I mean, after reviewing the transcript of the recent evidentiary hearing, I noted the county witness did mention that the underground option is, if SEC thinks underground option is not feasible, the county will not stand in the way of Route 3 and any derivations of Route 3.

[02:38:22] This is deeply concerning. The school board has already rejected the routes 2, 3, 4 and 8 to 1. It is unacceptable by the county to seek the approval of any route that would run near the schools. I'm enclosing the highlighted transcripts here with you. Thank you. I urge the school board. Thank you. Thank you. Chetan Doma, followed by Nandini Dugarajhu.

[02:38:51] Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Good evening, school board members. I'm Chetan Doma, a 7th grader who attends Stonehill Middle School. and I have an older sister who attends a school in the direct area of effect.

[02:39:07] My family and many others hope you can retain your decision to deny dominion of all high-voltage power line routes on school board property, such as routes 2, 3, 3B, and 4. These routes should not be even considered, as they affect grounds where we learn.

[02:39:24] Many of these routes also affect students who walk to schools, and the routes being placed there would not allow them to walk in the peace they enjoy routes that run near schools should be an immediate concern after all student safety is the top priority we think we hope that you can choose route 1f as the best route as it stays off school grounds thank you for your time thank you nandini du gara who

[02:39:57] followed by gwen morgan good evening and thank you to the school board for the opportunity to speak about the Golden to Mars Power Lines Project. My name is Nandini. I'm a former student of Rosalie Elementary and the sibling of a Rockridge attendee. I grew up spending time in these open spaces around these schools as they offered a way to decompress and clear our heads after long school days. That's why I'm concerned about the proposed high voltage power lines being placed so close to the schools and neighborhoods. Furthermore, as we are seeing now, during snow

[02:40:34] storms, the news warns us about trees and power lines falling. Before, I only had to worry about the former, and I hope I don't have to add the latter. Rue 1F is a less disruptive alternative that better protects these areas. I urge you to support this option and prioritize our community's future. Thank you. Thank you. Gwen Morgan, followed by Gujing Liu. Good evening, honorable school

[02:41:07] board members. With respect to the Golden to Mars high-voltage transmission case, my family and I hope that you will uphold your original decision to reject all overhead transmission line easements that would cross school board property, including routes 2, 3, 3B, and 4. As a parent of a child who attended Rosalie Carter Elementary and who currently attends Rockridge High School, I urge the school board to use the upcoming submission of your closing brief to voice your opposition to any route that runs adjacent over or adjacent to school

[02:41:44] property routes 3a and the staff alternative route would also impact the educational setting walk zones and student well-being in similar ways to the routes proposed on school property although I understand that you cannot reject these routes outright I urge you to send a clear message the SEC that no route on or near school property is accepted. Thank you. Thank you. Kujing Liu followed by Galen Liu. Good evening chair and members of school board. My name is KJ Liu and I'm a Laudan

[02:42:21] county parent. I'm deeply concerned by the sworn testimony given by county witness Neil Rogers during the SCC evidentiary hearings where he stated that the county will not stand in the way of route 3 or its derivatives including route 3a and 3b. In addition during those same hearings the county presented a plan involving open space easement maneuvering that would give the county significant future land use authority along those corridors. Given this testimony and these actions

[02:42:57] it's essential that the school board use its independent authority to protect all school property and the surrounding areas to the greatest extent possible. Route 3, 4, and their derivatives place high voltage transmission infrastructure are acceptably close to the schools including Rosalie Carter Elementary. Thank you. Galen Liu followed by Srinivas Doma.

[02:43:23] Hello, my name is Galen Liu. I am seven years old and I go to Rosalie Carter Elementary School. my school is a place where i learn play and feel safe with my friends and teachers i am worried about big power lines being built near schools schools should be safe and quiet places for kids please say no to power lines near schools please protect students in our schools thank you for listening thank you oh please don't clap i'm sorry okay um we're going to move on now with

[02:43:55] Srinivas Doma, followed by Shravan Duguraju. Good evening, school board members. My name is Srinivas Doma. I'm a resident of LV2. I have two kids who is attending high school and middle school.

[02:44:15] I am here today to express my concern about high voltage power lines with respect to Golden Moss case. My family and I hope you will uphold your original decision to reject all overhead transmission lines that would cross school board property including route 2, 3, 3B and 4. I urge school board use upcoming submission of their closing brief vice their opposition to any roads that runs along the school property. Please consider newly proposed route 1F as the best

[02:44:54] alignment. Thank you for your turn. Thank you. Shrivan Gojun Raju followed by JJ Totaro. - Good evening chair and members of the school board.

[02:45:17] I want to begin by thanking you. You earned the respect of students and parents across Loudoun County when you voted 821 to reject Dominion's proposed power lines in and around school property, despite intense pressure from county board of supervisors.

[02:45:34] That courage matters. Nothing has changed since then, except that Dominion and the county are now doubling down. They are trying to shift the line just outside school property and in some cases directly onto the land.

[02:45:49] Dominion is also pursuing similar projects in Prince Williams County. This pattern sends a troubling message that schools are becoming soft targets. In September 2024, the school board voted eight to one to ban the construction of new cell towers on school property driven by parental concerns about potential health risks.

[02:46:12] I respectfully ask you to adopt a similar policy. - Thank you, thank you. J.J. Totaru, followed by Pusat Dujuraju. - How are you?

[02:46:30] I'm J.J. Totaru, I'm the athletic director at Heritage High School, and I'm gonna break off of the topic here for a second. I apologize. I'm here to try to give some support to our assistant athletic directors and moving them from the license scale to the universal scale.

[02:46:47] Right now, I don't think many people know that our assistant ADs are licensed employees or on the teacher scale because of how much work they do and where you see them at games and things like that. We will be adding three more sports. We have hundreds of athletes every year, but our assistant ADs are with us in the mornings and in the evenings, covering games and even over the summer where they're not on contract.

[02:47:09] With collective bargaining coming for teachers, we're really concerned that those hours could be limited, making everyone's jobs much harder, taking away from the students. And again, we already have them in a lot of administrative roles. We would love to see them be able to be rewarded on that universal scale for the work that they do.

[02:47:26] Thank you so much. - Thank you. And our last speaker tonight is Husset Duguraju. - Good evening. To start off, I would like to thank the school board for giving me this opportunity to speak.

[02:47:43] My name is Husset Duguraju, and I'm currently a freshman at Rockridge High School. I grew up with walks around the community and going on hikes throughout the Broad Run Trail which is right behind my backyard. However, this might change soon because of the proposed high voltage power line routes two, three, three, B and four.

[02:48:01] These routes cross school property, including the roads and paths that elementary and high schoolers cross every day, impacting their everyday lives. I understand that the school board cannot reject these routes outright, but it is necessary to send a clear message to the SEC that no route on or near school property is acceptable.

[02:48:19] Please also consider the newly proposed Route 1F as that's the route that best aligns with the community's needs. Thank you. - Thank you. Board members, is there a need for a short recess at this time? - Okay, all right.

[02:48:35] Seeing none, we will move on to our action items. We'll start tonight with action item number 1101, our Finance and Operations Committee New Policy 4190, Other Post-Employment Benefits Funding.

[02:48:52] Tonight, this item will be presented by Mrs. Griffiths, our Finance and Operations Committee Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. Although we did make amendments or offer amendments to be discussed tonight, I would like to make a motion to send this policy back to Finance and Operations.

[02:49:11] As Chair of the Finance and Operations Committee, there are still questions on this policy. And for clarity and transparency to the people of Loudoun County, I think we should just send this back and have further discussion. on this policy, policy 4190. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Griffiths. Mrs. Griffiths has made a motion that the Loudoun County School Board send the new policy 4190 back to the Finance and Operations Committee. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you. It has been properly moved and seconded by Mrs.

[02:49:49] Riccardi. Is there any further discussion? Mr. Pepper. So just for clarity, I was one of the amendments on here that wanted to clarify kind of the makeup of the board which was the main amendment but after reading it further there's a couple other things I think would be really well discussed in F&O and I'm actually on board with bringing it back to F&O okay thank you thank you very much madam chair I was curious what my fellow board members what additional issues you were interested in following up on in committee and I was also curious if dr.

[02:50:27] Spence or staff have views on the urgency of push the urgency or lack thereof of putting this policy through I will certainly defer to miss Willoughby in terms of the urgency I think it's just an effort to clarify practice that's already existing so I'm not sure it's completely urgent but Miss Willoughby feel free to push back on that sorry this was a brand new policy so there's not an urgency I would just welcome the opportunity to hear if there were any additional concerns we did propose language addressing school board members

[02:51:06] concerns at the last meeting and so just would appreciate understanding what other questions or concerns there would be if this was to go back to make committee so we could also be prepared mrs. Griffiths because this policy concerns retiree benefits and so on and it is a new policy we haven't really officially talked about it in finance and operations and rather than do the amendments today I felt that maybe we should discuss our amendments and anything else regarding this policy as far as what exactly we're required to do

[02:51:43] for OP EB so if everybody's on board I'd love to send it back to finance and operations thank you school board members is there any further discussion all right I'm seeing none it has been properly moved by mrs. Griffiths and seconded by Miss Riccardi that the Loudoun County School Board send the new policy 4190 other post-employment benefits back to F&O with that we will move forward with a vote clerk please open the vote board members please record

[02:52:22] your vote clerk please close and display the vote oh I'm sorry I'm pardon me to our online school board members participating virtually dr. Rasheed could you please state your vote yes thank you miss LaBelle could you please state your vote. Yes. Thank you. With that, clerk, please close and display the vote. That motion passes with seven members voting yes, including Ms. Riccardi, Mr. Svensson, Chair Chandler,

[02:53:00] Mrs. Griffiths, Mr. Pepper, Dr. Rashid, and Ms. LaBelle, and Ms. Chernoff and Vice Chair Donohue voting no. Thank you so much. We will continue with item 11.02, Finance and Operations Committee revision of policy 4340 procurement procedures this item will be presented by mrs. Griffiths again our finance and operations chair mrs. Griffiths do you have a motion yes madam chair I move to adopt the revision of policy 4340

[02:53:35] procurement procedures this was discussed at our last meeting and was an information item for the board the policy was revised to procurement procedure exceptions to identify items exempt from the Virginia Public Procurement Act, VPPA. Budget impact, this policy revision does not have a budgetary impact. If there are any questions, I believe we could ask Ms.

[02:53:59] Willoughby about this policy. As far as discussion, I believe Ms. Riccardi may have an amendment to this policy. Thank you. Thank you. It has been, Mrs. Griffiths has made a motion. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. The motion has been made by Mrs.

[02:54:21] Griffiths and seconded by John Pepper that the Laudan County School Board adopt the Finance and Operations Committee's approved revisions to policy 4340. With that, school board members, I open the floor to discussion. Ms. Riccardi. Thank you, Madam Chair. I actually have an amendment that I want to make. I thought initially to this policy, we're in the middle in F&O of looking at a lot of procurement policies right now, some of which have already come, are coming to the board now, and some are still in committee.

[02:54:55] And again, I apologize for the late submission of the amendment, but there's one that I think is going to be really, that's going to be really important, but I believe it probably will fit best under policy 4310, but I would like to make a motion that we send this also back to F&O so that we can look at the procurement policies in totality together, including my amendment that I've put in here as well. Okay, Mrs. Riccardi

[02:55:30] has made a motion to move policy 4340 procurement procedures back to F&O for further consideration. That's the amendment, right, so that's the amendment.

[02:55:45] no it's not okay so we actually i will ask our parliamentarian to rule so we vote from the bottom up and consider one amendment at the time could you please clarify that for us we thank you chair chandler uh yes that's my understanding of robert's rules you would have a base motion and then to open after a second have discussion if there's an amendment and there's a second to the amendment then there's discussion on that and then there can be a second amendment and then that's the cap if

[02:56:23] there's a second amendment then you have to work your way back. Okay but given that this is an amendment to I just want to make sure I'm understanding given that this is an amendment to send it back to committee would that end the discussion so should we have discussion on the proposed changes? So I think there's been an amendment to the base motion so the base motion was to approve the policy as presented there was an amendment during discussion

[02:57:00] to move the policy back to committee so if that has a second within it here it hasn't second yet but if it does then there would be discussion there on thank you so much for that clarification so is there a second for mr. Riccardi's amendment second thank you all right let's open discussion school board members would anyone like to speak further all right um mrs griffiths um i just thank you madam chair and i'm sorry for any confusion um we're we're brand new um as far as the finance and

[02:57:38] operations myself as chair and um we're still in working with new policies and we're still in discussion on several things and um i apologize that this has come to the board but I am in agreement with Ms. Riccardi to send it back to FNO.

[02:57:56] Thank you. Would this be viewed as a friendly amendment? Thank you, Chair Chandler. I don't think it would because it's adverse technically to the base motion, which is approval of the policy as presented.

[02:58:17] Thank you. Vice Chair Donahue? Thank you, Madam Chair. I had originally wanted to ask why the proposed red line includes the deletion of lines 87 to 141, which has to do with vendors making guarantees that they're not relying on employees or providers who have histories of sexual assault and some other issues.

[02:58:51] As to the question of sending this back to committee, I not necessarily feel like I'm the most appropriate person to have an opinion because I was not previously and do not expect to be part of F&O anytime soon.

[02:59:08] But that being said, my understanding is that this policy and the previous policy, I thought, did go through F&O committee before coming before us on the board. And while, yes, we have new board members and we have new committee makeup, I have some reluctance to start sending policies back to committees where they were already discussed in committee.

[02:59:38] So thank you. Thank you. School board members, any further discussion? Ms. Riccardi. I appreciate, thank you, I appreciate Ms. Donahue's concerns and I share those, so I'll fall on the sword on this one too, because I think we were just trying to continue the work of the committee previously and didn't have a chance, total honesty, to go through some of these other red lines.

[03:00:00] I share your same concerns about this issue and a few others and so I think I'd like to for us to have another crack at it and we'll do a more diligent job in our review and F&O moving forward so if you'll give us that grace I'd appreciate it but I'd like to see this again in the committee as well. Thank you. Any further discussion? Vice Chair Donahue. Thank you Madam Chair. I appreciate mrs. Riccardi's comments and I I don't I don't I may be over reading Ms. Riccardi's comments but

[03:00:39] I I believe I heard you say something about going through it more carefully in committee and I wanted to I wanted to address that since I I don't think we have any reason to believe that these weren't looked at thoroughly and adequately in committee by the previous committee members but understanding that we have new board members and new members of that committee i understand where where people are coming from thank you thank you okay it has been properly moved and seconded

[03:01:18] i was moved by um miss ricardi and seconded by mrs griffiths that the loudon county school board return policy 4340 procurement procedures to the fno committee um seeing no further discussion let's move on to the vote clerk please open the vote dr rasheed please state your vote yes thank

[03:01:56] you miss labelle please state your vote yes clerk please close and display the vote the amendment to the base motion passes eight to one with miss ricardi mr svensson mrs chernoff chair chandler mrs griffiths mr pepper dr rasheed and miss labelle voting in favor and vice chair donahue opposed. With that, we will cut our square corners and take another vote on the base motion. So the

[03:02:32] base motion has been amended so that instead of accepting the proposed changes, the policy 4340 procurement procedures will return to the F&O committee. Is there any discussion? Seeing no further discussion we will move forward with the vote clerk please open the vote board members please record your vote Dr. Rasheed please state your vote yes thank you Ms. LaBelle please state

[03:03:09] your vote yes thank you clerk please close and display the vote the motion passes eight to one with Ms. Riccardi Mr. Svensson Ms. Chernoff Chair Chandler Mrs. Griffiths Mr. Pepper Dr. Rasheed and Ms. LaBelle in favor, and Vice Chair Donahue opposed.

[03:03:31] With that, we will move on to our next item, which is item 11.03, Finance and Operations Committee, revision to policy 4350, vendor relations. This policy will be presented by Mrs. Griffiths. Mrs. Griffiths, do you have a motion?

[03:03:49] Yes, Madam Chair. I move to adopt the Finance and Operations Committee revision to policy 4350, vendor relations, updated to align with Virginia Public Procurement Act, VPPA, and at Ethics in Public Contracting. This policy revision will have no budgetary impact.

[03:04:07] Thank you. Thank you. Mrs. Griffiths, it seems like you spoke to your motion. Would you like to say anything further? I do not, unless Ms. Willoughby wants to add to this particular policy. All right. Thank you so much, school board members.

[03:04:22] Is there any discussion? Second. Oh, thank you. All right. The motion has been properly moved by Mrs. Griffiths and seconded by John Pepper that the Loudoun County School Board adopt the Finance and Operation Committee's approved revisions to policy 4350 vendor relations.

[03:04:46] Now, school board members, is there any discussion? Seeing no discussion? We'll move forward with the vote. Clerk, please open the vote. School board members, please record your vote.

[03:05:08] Dr. Rasheed, please say your vote. Yes. Thank you. Ms. LaBelle, please state your vote. Yes. Thank you. Clerk, please close and display the vote. That motion passes unanimously with all nine school board members present. And with that, we will move on to item 11.04, Specialized Programs and Centers Committee, Middleburg Community Charter School Amendment to Charter Agreement.

[03:05:35] This will be presented by Dr. Sumair Rasheed, who previously chaired the Specialized Programs and Centers Committee. Dr. Rasheed, do you have a motion? Yes. Thank you, Chair. I'd like to make a motion. I'd like to make a motion that the Loudoun County School Board approve the amendment to the renewal charter school agreement between the Loudoun County School Board and the Middleburg Community Charter School.

[03:06:01] Thank you. It has been properly moved by Dr. Rasheed. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Mrs. Griffiths, it has been properly moved by Dr. Rasheed and seconded by Mrs. Griffiths that the Loudoun County School Board approve the amendment to the renewal charter school agreement between the Loudoun County School Board and Middleburg Community Charter School.

[03:06:21] Dr. Rasheed, would you like to speak to your motion? Sure. This just goes back to what I had mentioned before in a sense of keeping consistency. And I believe if Dr. Ashley would like to jump in, in addition to what I said, or if I said something incorrectly, but the Hillsborough Charter Academy agreement, there was language that was adopted for students regarding disciplinary action.

[03:06:46] And MCCS would like to add the same language to their agreement. Thank you. School board members, is there any discussion? Mr. Pepper just have a question. I know that this is the same language as Hillsborough, but I know in the Addition says the charter school reserves the right to consult with LCPS at the end of the day who gets the final decision as to Whether the student stays in the charter school or returns to their homeschool is at LCPS or is it the charter school?

[03:07:21] Thank you for that question. Mr. Pepper. So it would be we would work with MCSS when I spoke with that Principal they wanted to rely more so on What we would decide in terms of like if it's a discipline issue with student safety if it's attendance We would collaborate with DSS on that decision so it would more or less be in collaboration with Middleburg and Our LCPS team vice chair Donahue. Thank you madam chair. I

[03:07:59] noticed that the last time we renewed Middleburg's charter was in 2023 and So, their current contract is valid until June 30th, 2027. So, I'm understanding that there may be a desire to reconcile their language with the Hillsborough language.

[03:08:23] If we were to approve this now, would the end date still be June 30th, 2027, or would we now be looking at five more years from now? The end date would stay the same. We would look at this as an amendment to that. So we would not push it out an additional five years.

[03:08:44] Thank you. School Board members, any further discussion? Seeing none, let's move forward with the vote. It has been properly moved by Dr. Rasheed and seconded by Mrs. Griffiths that the Loudoun County School Board approve the amendment to the renewal charter school agreement between Loudoun County School Board and the Middleburg Charter School.

[03:09:12] Clerk, please open the vote. School Board members, please record your vote. Dr. Rasheed, please state your vote. Yes. Ms. LaBelle, please state your vote. yes thank you clerk please close and display the vote the motion passes 7 to 2 with the following members in favor ms riccardi mr svenson ms shiranoff chair chandler mrs griffiths dr rasheed

[03:09:47] and miss labelle and opposed the school board members are vice chair donahue and mr pepper thank you with that we will move on to item 11.05 student behavior and accountability committee revisions to policy 8205 disciplinary authority. Tonight this item will be presented by Ms. LaBelle.

[03:10:08] Ms. LaBelle, do you have a motion? I move that we accept policy 8205 as written. Thank you. It has been properly moved by Ms. LaBelle. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. And seconded by Vice Chair Donahue that the Loudoun County School Board approve the revisions to policy 8205.

[03:10:41] Ms. LaBelle, would you like to speak further to your motion? I think I'd like to turn this over to Ms. Scanlon, who is here tonight. If that's okay with you, Ms. Scanlon. Oops, wait a minute. Gotta unmute. Oh, we heard you. Thank you, Ms. LaBelle. Oh, okay, good. Yes, thank you, and good evening as I set forth when we met two weeks ago and this policy was a an information item I do think that this policy contains some important

[03:11:17] clarifications that will serve not only our school-based administrators well but also our families and our students including defining very clearly what school property is when we say that students can be held accountable for their misconduct that occurs on school property it it sets forth exactly all the very various settings that would be considered school property likewise it defines what a school activity is and importantly it sets forth the

[03:11:51] relatively rare and very well-defined circumstances under which a student can be disciplined for misconduct that did not occur on school property and did not occur at a school-based activity or an LCPS based activity so I think in the interest of transparency and clarity this policy makes some very important improvements thank you school board members is there any discussion thank you madam chair I had two issues with the policy and maybe miss

[03:12:30] Scanlon or Ms. Labelle could speak to it. It appears that we're removing families as a subject in the policy and making it engaged community. So I'm not sure why we're doing that, but also why are we revising this policy less than two years after its last revision? So it's those two questions, why we're removing families, but also the word families, but why also So two years instead of, I believe, policies go for five, if I'm correct.

[03:13:07] I would be very happy to answer that second question in particular. I came on board two years ago, and part of my review in coming to Loudoun County and taking on this role as the director of the Office of School Administration was to take a close look at our policies and regulations, determine which ones could be improved, and while keeping up to date on the policies that required review, also taking a hard look at the policies that were not yet up for review,

[03:13:46] but certainly could be improved, both from a clarity perspective, and in some cases in order to bring our policies into alignment with the Code of Virginia, or better into alignment, I should say so this was a policy that I identified as one that could benefit from some improvement in particular as I mentioned ensuring that there is clarity pertaining to all of the different areas that are considered

[03:14:16] school school property excuse me and also clarifying the circumstances under which a student can be held accountable for their behavior that occurs off of school property including as students are walking to and from school or our staff members are traveling to and from their work location the question that you had about removing families are you able to give me a line so that i can see which sentence you know i took this earlier but let me see i think

[03:14:54] I think I do have a line, lines 16, let's see, I guess it's around 25, 26, 36, red line.

[03:15:19] Yeah, it's replaced with engaged communities. Let me see, red line, line 36, engaged community. So on line 36, I see the school board holds all students responsible for, lots of red, conducting themselves in a manner consistent with LCPS policies and regulations.

[03:15:49] I'm not seeing, I don't think, the revision you're referencing. It might be on the clean. I'm just looking. I looked at this a while ago, so, and I typed it up.

[03:16:04] Well, I'm trying to get to the clean. I'm having a little trouble.

[03:16:20] But I do recall seeing we removed families on the document and replaced it with engaged community. So that doesn't sound familiar to you? I'm sorry, it does not. Okay, so it could be my error there.

[03:16:36] I can do a word search to see if I can find that. Let me see. So I'm going to the clean version. I'm engaged. I'm not finding communities.

[03:16:55] i'm also not finding that's okay it could have been my error i'll go back and and look um i don't want to take too much time today but um i believe that is what i saw when i was going through but um that's that's fine we can continue discussing the policy thank you thank you thank you mr enough thank you madam chair i actually have an amendment and so i'm going to move that

[03:17:30] the loudon county school board as it as it applies to policy 8205 discipline authority that on the In the red line version, I move that the phrase each student has a responsibility to ensure that their behavior does not deny that right to others, which is on lines five and six, which is struck out to remain in the policy.

[03:17:51] Second. Thank you. Ms. Chernoff has made a motion that the phrase each student has the responsibility to ensure that their behavior does not deny that right to others on lines five and six, which is struck out to remain in the policy.

[03:18:11] This motion has been seconded by Vice Chair Donahue. School board members, is there any discussion? Oh, yes. Ms. Chernoff, would you like to speak to your motion? Thank you, Chair Chandler. Just as we discussed last time, I said I would probably be bringing this forward, and I think Ms. Scanlon can confirm that doesn't give her too much heartburn.

[03:18:32] But just as an introductory paragraph to this, I believe that this is a value statement that we hold. I believe that that is reinforced by the parameters that are more strictly defined and offer more clarity later in the policy so just the sort of five paragraph essay person in me feels like keeping that statement really states where we are especially if you're a community member reading that opening paragraph I just think it's an important thing to have there particularly in my experience working with teachers and in classrooms when students behavior starts to infringe on the right of other students that's when things you know become

[03:19:08] really tricky to discern so I'm very grateful for all the work that you have done on this policy to bring it clarity just feel that that statement should remain thank you mr. pepper I just thank you madam chair I just want to echo what mission off has to say I cannot tell you the number of times when I was you know doing discipline as either a dean or an assistant principal that I would literally say to a student my concern is that you're infringing upon others right to learn right now and I just think it's just one of the most valuable

[03:19:47] tools that we have in our toolbox to talk about why you know student discipline matters even reach the level of visiting an administrator so I am all for this thank you thank you very much madam chair I so I will be supporting Ms. Chernoff's amendment and I am proposing a friendly amendment to her amendment so I am proposing looking at the red line version of 8205 I am

[03:20:21] proposing that on at line 9 we take out the words to achieve self-discipline and and then on line 11 restore the phrase welfare of the students and staff so the resulting sentence would read accordingly the school board adopts policies designed to promote such learning environments by a current encouraging students to become responsible citizens while discouraging student conduct that adversely affects the health, safety, and welfare of the students and staff.

[03:20:58] Thank you. Second. And Ms. Chernoff, would that be viewed as a friendly amendment? Absolutely. I think without it, it reads awkwardly, and I think achieving self-discipline is hard to define, and I think the rest of it covers it, so I support this.

[03:21:18] Thank you. Vice Chair Donohue, could I please ask you to reread your friendly amendment? Of course. Thank you, Madam Chair. my friendly amendment would be on line nine remove the words to achieve self-discipline and mr pepper i'm old and deaf and i can't hear you you need to keep the word to this chair donahue because otherwise it's encouraging students to become responsible citizens you're

[03:21:52] right thank you mr pepper uh okay so my amendment my friendly amendment is at line nine to delete the words achieve self-discipline and achieve self-discipline and to remove those four words and on line 11 to restore or keep in place the phrase welfare of the students and staff.

[03:22:21] All right. It has been properly moved by Vice Chair Donahue and seconded by Ms. Riccardi and has been accepted as a friendly amendment by Ms. Chernoff. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, let's move forward with the vote on the amendment. Clerk, please open the vote.

[03:22:39] School board members, please record your vote. Dr. Rasheed, please state your vote. yes uh miss labelle please state your vote yes thank you clerk please close and display the vote that amendment passes with all school all nine school board members present all right with that

[03:23:13] we will move back up to the base motion so that the friendly amendment reads at line nine remove the words achieve self-discipline and on line 11 restore welfare of the students and staff While also replacing the phrase, each student has the responsibility to ensure that their behavior does not deny that right to others, on lines five and six, which is struck out, will remain in the policy.

[03:23:51] So, is there any further discussion on the base motion? Ms. Riccardi. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just had a couple questions, again, because I wasn't privy to the conversations as it got here beforehand or from the committee. It sounds to me like we were making these changes because we've, from a staff directive perspective, because we're evaluating the policy, was that, were all the other processes, though, for this, as far as public comment go, were all of those, do we, we've had plenty of public comment, and it's, okay, I just wanted to double check on that, too, and that feedback's been incorporated.

[03:24:26] Okay, thank you. Thanks. All right. Seeing no further discussion, we will now vote on the base motion. Please, clerk, open the vote. School board members, please record your vote.

[03:24:42] dr rasheed please state your vote yes miss labelle please state your vote yes okay um the motion passes with eight school board members voting yes including miss ricardi mr svensson mishernoff chair chandler miss donahue and mr pepper dr rasheed and miss labelle and mrs griffiths voting

[03:25:15] no the motion passes as amended with that we will move on to our last action item tonight 11.06 student behavior and accountability committee revisions to policy 8220 student disciplinary consequences Tonight this item will be presented by Miss LaBelle our chair of student behavior and accountability committee Miss LaBelle. Do you have a motion? Sorry. Yes, madam chair. I move that we

[03:25:53] accept this motion, but I need to make a Minor adjustment to the wording so I'll do that as a an amendment to this motion Um, if there are questions about it, we can talk about it. Thank you Miss LaBelle has moved that the Loudoun County School Board approved the proposed changes to policy 8220 student disciplinary consequences. Is there a second second? Thank you I'm gonna go with mr. Svensson As the second it has been privately moved by

[03:26:33] Miss LaBelle and seconded by mr svensson that the loudon county school board approved the proposed changes to policy 8220 student disciplinary consequences um miss labelle would you like to speak further to your motion well i would like to make an amendment to my motion um on line 151 of the clean copy of policy 8220 there's a phrase that says uh functional behavior assessment slash behavior intervention plan. The words functional behavior assessment need to be removed. That's not

[03:27:11] something you would look at when you're considering the behavior of the child. You would look at the behavior plan, not the assessment that they gave to describe his problems earlier in his educational career. So you would only be looking at the behavior intervention plan. So I'd like to remove functional behavior assessment. Ms. LaBelle has made a motion that on line 151 of the clean copy of policy 8220 the phrase functional behavior assessment be removed leaving only the language

[03:27:49] behavioral intervention plan. I'd be happy to second that. Thank you. Okay with that it has been properly moved and seconded that the Loudoun County School Board approve the revisions to policy 8205 while making an amendment I'm sorry it's 8220 thank you while this amendment would change on line 151 of the clean copy striking the phrase functional behavior assessment and leaving the

[03:28:26] phrase behavioral behavior intervention plan is there any discussion on the amendment Mr. Pepper Is there ever, and this may be for staff, is there ever a situation where we get into where perhaps an assessment has been done, but the plan hasn't been introduced yet?

[03:28:43] So you're kind of in that limbo period for students' behavior. May I answer that? Ms. LaBelle, we'll have Dr. Spence first, and then, sorry.

[03:29:05] Yeah, actually, I was going to ask Mrs. Richardson, who I think is available, to respond to that. Yes, Mrs. Richardson? Good evening, and thank you for that question. Mr. Pepper, yes, we do have some situations where we could be in the process of collecting the data needed to complete an SBA, and then there's a time period where we're analyzing that data, working to draft the behavior intervention plan, and then working to also schedule that meeting.

[03:29:36] So there could be some time between the FBA and VIP. It doesn't happen often. Usually teams talk at the onset of proposing an FBA. They discuss the timeline, the number of observations, who is going to be collecting that data, if there's any checklist that will be completed either by classroom staff or parents.

[03:30:02] And we usually have already scheduled that VIP date, but it certainly can happen. Thank you. Ms. LaBelle? I'd like to add that when we have sat on several of our SBAC appeals, there has been a gap not only between the functional behavior plan, the assessment, and then the creation of the plan, but also between the time when the child was diagnosed, had an educational diagnosis, but no IEP was yet written.

[03:30:32] So, yes, this does happen and occasionally. And so that's something that if you're going to be on the committee, you need to be aware of that this can happen. And then we check back. Dr. Rasheed. Thank you, Chair. I feel like I need a lot more. I feel like I need a lot more information about this. Is there a chance this can go back to committee with the amendment? Because I feel like it's like more of a question of process between the two as to what comes first, what comes later.

[03:31:07] and then can they be in concert what are what are the detriments of them both of them being in concert together i feel like i need more information can this go back to committee um well first we would need to technically make a motion but i see dr spence has um something he'd like to say um i guess i i think we could probably if if we just have a few minutes to answer that process question related to the fba to to the fba and the bip it's a fairly straightforward

[03:31:42] structural process and I think given the question raised by Mr. Pepper and the response that there could sometimes be a gap between there but unusual I don't think leaving the language in speaking directly to the proposed amendment significantly alters this policy leaving it in just allows for that one unique case where you would only have the FBA to look at and not the BIP and its implementation but but to Dr. Rashid's question I think if if you want to give one more second I can probably just clarify that Dr. Rasheed for the for the

[03:32:18] structural process when you have a behavioral issue you're going to conduct a functional behavioral assessment to determine the relationship between the students behavior and the classroom environment the school environment a variety of other factors associated with their disability and then the behavioral intervention plan is what is developed as a result of that assessment and that intervention plan then attempts to address what was found during the assessment to provide a more structured and appropriate environment for the student learner so that they can be successful and I think specific to

[03:32:56] the conversation here it was just and it was an accurate amendment and as much as if you have the the behavioral intervention plan in place you would be looking at the fidelity of implementation of that plan during this conversation about discipline for a student with disabilities because you She would say, well, if we didn't properly implement the plan, then it's really not appropriate to pursue discipline at a certain level, given a variety of other things that have to be looked at that are contemplated in the policy.

[03:33:26] But in the instance that was suggested where there may be a gap, you could certainly look at the assessment to help the team make a decision about discipline. I don't know if that helps. If I could add one thing that I think may resolve some of the concerns, in particular the question raised by Dr. Rasheed.

[03:33:50] There is a regulation that is a companion to this policy. It is Regulation 8220.3, Disciplinary Procedures for Students with Disabilities. It is six pages, and it goes into great detail about a variety of processes and procedures that apply when disciplining a student who has an IEP, has a 504 plan, is in the process of being evaluated or re-evaluated for those kinds of plans, et cetera.

[03:34:25] And you will notice in the special education section on page 5 of the clean copy, the policy does say that the imposition of any discipline sanction upon a student with an IEP or section 504 plan shall be done in accordance with regulation 82 20.3 disciplinary procedures for students with disabilities so not only is it this one paragraph that sets forth these various rights and processes and procedures but there is an underpinning six page regulation

[03:35:03] that also sets forth those procedures. Thank you Ms. Scanlon. Vice Chair Donahue. Thank you, Madam Chair. I am in support of Ms. LeBell's proposed amendment and will note, as I'm sure my colleagues saw, one of CX recommendations was to remove the language functional behavior assessment because in lines 199 to 201 of the red line version, that language there references a number of different documents related to special needs students such as IEPs, 504

[03:35:41] plans and functional behavior assessments and then goes on to say reviewing to ensure all accommodations and necessary support services are in place and being implemented with fidelity and CX concern was that a functional behavior assessment they stated is not something that is implemented and they had concern about the interpretation of all of that language together.

[03:36:08] Thank you. Mr. Pepper. So based on kind of the question I asked and what Vice Chair Donahue just said, my opinion now, perhaps it behooves us to send this back to the SBAC committee to do a little revision, because both those two things are kind of conflicting with each other.

[03:36:27] I want this idea that I don't need there to be like a gray area, right? That weird circumstance that comes up, leaving those words in protects us from that weird circumstance. But also, Vice Chair Donahue is right, you can't implement an FBA. So perhaps SBAC needs to take another look at this.

[03:36:43] Thank you. I see Ms. LaBelle. Thank you, Madam Chair. That is precisely why we wanted to remove the term functional behavior assessment. You can't implement a functional behavior assessment.

[03:36:59] If you go back and you look at, let me pull this up so I can see it again. If you look at the sentence in which this falls, it wants to know that, where does it start?

[03:37:12] Students, procedures for students with disabilities. Further, when a suspension and or expulsion is being contemplated, a student's IEP plan, a Section 504 plan, and or, and it should just say, a behavior intervention plan shall be reviewed to ensure that all accommodations and necessary support services are in place and are being implemented with fidelity.

[03:37:40] that's 151 through 153 on the clean copy so you can't implement a functional behavior assessment and it doesn't have any accommodations in it so that is something totally separate and doesn't belong with this so that was something that SEAC caught believe me they went over it with a fine tooth comb and that we agree that that the functional assessment is is a test is an assessment technically. And that would not impact the decision or the, you might look at it for

[03:38:17] discussion, but it shouldn't be part of it because who knows how long ago it was done. Maybe a new behavior implementation plan needs to be written. All of that would be part of the discussion, but not the assessment itself. Does that clarify anything? Dr. Rasheed?

[03:38:39] Thank you, Chair. And, you know, I'm not saying I have any issues. I just feel like I need more information especially with something with the amendment that is especially with something so important like this i feel a little rushed that's why i say i'd like to send this back to committee i'm not saying that i'm not in support or i'm not in support i just need i just need to take a little time with this especially with something so specific like this thank you thank you um miss ricardi thank you madam chair i'm um i want to give great um deference and and just full admission I am not familiar with these and I'm not a k-12 teacher

[03:39:17] So I'm not familiar with the policies and the processes for all of this, but I am very much in support of SEAC and its comments and I had a chance to read through it and one of the things I'm a little concerned with and one of the reasons why I Would support this going back to the committee is because I really do want CX in-depth feedback on this and it says in their notes that While they received this on December 5th the day after the SEAC monthly business meeting They were there was a request of them to give them turn around within five days by December 5th

[03:39:53] And giving that timing the SEAC policy and compliance subcommittee did not have an adequate opportunity to fully review the draft policy Develop recommendations and bring those recommendations back to the full SEAC membership for discussion for their meeting on January 14th that Statement right there is a great concern to me because they are in my opinion kind of the real subject matter experts on this entire issue and process so that alone Would is enough for me to want to move this back to the committee and make sure that CEC has a full

[03:40:29] Breath of time to really provide their feedback in depth. Thank you. Miss Scanlon. Would you like to? weigh in here Yes, I would be happy to, and I'll weigh in on a couple of things together. First, I would like to acknowledge that it is very regrettable that the time frame for SEAC to initially to provide their feedback was compressed.

[03:40:57] That was a snafu that occurred as a result of the SBAC meeting occurring right before Thanksgiving. Me not understanding that things are posted for public comment only on a particular day of the week, and Thanksgiving being Thursday and Friday precluded it from being posted.

[03:41:19] By the time I realized that there had been a delay of more than a week in posting it because of the Thanksgiving holiday, we had already published the SBAC agenda. So I reached out to Ms. LaBelle.

[03:41:35] I explained what had happened with the condensed time frame and said we may want to or SBAC may wish to delay that action vote in December and just punt the whole thing until January because of the condensed time frame.

[03:41:54] Ms. LaBelle agreed. She said it's very important that they feel that they had enough time. So we met as a committee just a few days after that. I think everybody came to the committee thinking that they were gonna delay the action vote. But in the meantime, Ms. LaBelle had spoken to the chair of SEAC.

[03:42:13] As I understood the discussion, I'm sure Ms. LaBelle will clarify. The concern was that I had taken out this section, the same section you're talking about amending tonight. I took it out because I too recognized that the wording was a bit awkward.

[03:42:31] It was written, I thought, more robustly. and more succinctly within the regulation, 8220.3, which is why I referenced the regulation to sweep in the language. You will see in that regulation in the first paragraph, there is almost identical but clearer language. So Ms. LaBelle had spoken to the chair of SEAC. The chair of SEAC said they really felt strongly that the language I had taken out be put back in and that if that was put in

[03:43:07] that would resolve CX concerns. So Ms. LaBelle shared that at our meeting and it was determined that the language would go back in as it was written in the currently published regulation and then they decided to move forward as an action item believing that they had laid CX concerns.

[03:43:28] So I mention all of that just for you all to know that it's very important to me personally, but certainly to the SBAC committee members, that there is a fair opportunity for everybody to provide feedback.

[03:43:43] So I was quite surprised this weekend to see the memo that was sent from SEAC, although I welcome their feedback. I will share my opinion regarding whether sending the policy back to SBAC is going to resolve this issue of process specific to special education students.

[03:44:11] Certainly, we could discuss it more, but the process and any nitty-gritty procedural issues or concerns you have related to those various assessments for students with disabilities is fleshed out and needs to be fleshed out in regulation 82 20.3. The policy that's before you does have a section referencing the rights of students with disabilities, referencing the applicable regulation so that we can be sure that people understand there is an entire regulation

[03:44:44] that addresses those concerns but the policy itself isn't a special education regulation which is why it has that one paragraph referencing the applicable regulation. Thank you. Vice Chair Donohue. Thank you very much Madam Chair. I wanted to make a couple of points in response to some of the things that have been said and I also have a question about proposed amendments regarding the concern that Mr. Pepper raised and I think Ms. Scanlon alluded to this. I personally, my view is

[03:45:23] that getting into that, once you get into that area of gray, I think those are operational decisions that are appropriately addressed in regulation, not in policy. And as to the proposals to send this back to committee, I will restate my previous comments that, you know, these policies have gone through the committee process, which is the process that we rely on here to get our business done. It was on for information. It was on for action. It went out for feedback.

[03:45:58] We received feedback. Feedback was incorporated into these drafts. As the chair of the student services committee for two years, which has oversight of a number of areas, including special Education Services. I have spent a lot of time over the last two years in discussions with the chair of SEAC and other members of that committee and it unfortunately sometimes the timing works out in such a way that they have been rushed to get their feedback to us or perhaps not been able to get their officially SEAC sanctioned feedback to us at all before we voted something out of

[03:46:37] committee. And while I always, as I echo what Ms. Scanlon said, of course we always want to hear the input, but we also can't schedule our meetings specifically around their availability, or we would grind to a halt. And finally, I would also, I also wanted to say that While, yes, SEAC are experts in our special education processes, we also have our staff experts, such as Mrs. Richardson.

[03:47:12] And if Mrs. Richardson and other members of staff believe that there's not a particular need to send this back to committee, I would not be in support of that. Those are my comments. If I may ask a question, also, Madam Chair.

[03:47:29] Yes, ma'am. Thank you. um there is a online 100 of the red line um there is language that says uh has been found guilty or not innocent of an offense relating to the commonwealth's laws on blah blah blah blah blah um as a former prosecutor i'm not sure what that means here uh so i was hoping to ask possibly miss scanlon um what this means here if someone to be found guilty or not innocent of an offense? I will do my best. So this is language that does come from the code. My understanding

[03:48:08] is it's based on a difference between how the adult court works and the juvenile court works. And these particular code sections are specific to juveniles, and that is the juvenile and domestic relations district court that is in a position and has the authority to forward both charges and dispositions to the superintendent my understanding is that in an adult court an adult is found guilty or not guilty but in a juvenile court students juveniles excuse me

[03:48:45] are adjudicated delinquent or not that's my workman's understanding of the difference but again that language is coming directly from the court or excuse me from the code thank you miss Thank you, Chair. I'd like to make a motion to send this back to committee to SBAC. Thank you. Second. Dr. Rasheed has made a motion to send Student Behavior and Accountability Committee revisions to Policy 8220, Student Disciplinary Consequences, back

[03:49:23] to the Student Behavior and Accountability Committee. And I heard a second by Ms. Riccardi. Is there any further? Dr. Rasheed, would you like to speak further to your motion? Sure. Thank you. Um, you know, just in response to what Ms. Vice Chair Donahue had said, um, you know, I understand it goes through committees and, and, and I respect that. And I just want to point out that it just, I just feel like just because it came out of committee doesn't mean that I'm just going to say, yes, I'm going to vote yes, because it came out of committee. I, especially when there's such an important detail that's being added. I really

[03:49:57] feel that I feel like I got to look at this more. This has to be weighed in a little bit more. And again, I'm not saying like no to it. I just need more information on such an important detail on this. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. School board members, any further discussion? Mrs. Griffiths.

[03:50:18] I do want to point out as well, just again, per what Dr. Rishi had mentioned, just because it goes through committee doesn't mean there aren't hesitations where things come up. You may look at a policy again and realize, oh, maybe I should question that or maybe it should go back. I think that it's our due diligence to put that out there, that maybe we question passing something without really scrutinizing it. So I just wanted to add that last piece to that. Thank you. Thank you.

[03:50:53] Mr. Svensson. I just wanted to note, I think that what Ms. Ganlin said is that the primary concern that SEAC had expressed was addressed by adding it back that section that had been deleted back into what is presented to us tonight. So I think any concerns I would have have been allayed by that inclusion there. Thank you. I have something to say. Thank you. I'll point out that yes, we were delinquent by one week in getting this to SEAC. That meant that instead of getting

[03:51:29] it November 26th. They got it the following week because November 26th was Thanksgiving and it wasn't published by then. So the following week was December and now we are at January 28th and we have had the input of SEAC. We've looked at it. We've discussed it several times. As recently as this afternoon, the chairperson of SEAC and I talked about it and everybody agreed at that point in time, their request was to remove the phrase functional behavior assessment. And that

[03:52:06] is precisely what we've put into this policy. So personally, I don't see what's going to change about sending it back. And I'd like to point out that this is not just for special ed students. It's an entire policy for all of our students and all of their behavior. And we're just functioning on focusing on just one small phrase so i don't see that this is really going to alter a whole lot that's just my personal opinion ms ricardi i appreciate that and um you know i think

[03:52:45] that thing that um and especially i guess because of ms labelle's comments i mean this was done basically over the holidays um between thanksgiving and the new year um i'm i don't know i'm i'm very reluctant to move forward with this just yet because I feel like we we haven't had I don't think anybody come that I can recall to speak about this issue in the last two meetings from a public comment perspective and I would assume that we would have that if people felt like they actually had the information that this is actually being considered so I if we don't go back to

[03:53:23] committee I at least like maybe like to give everybody another two weeks so they could know that this is an issue and come back for public comment I don't know I feel like this just was kind of done very quickly. And I don't know, this was just published, the SEAC report was just published on January 14th. So I'm not sure, I'm assuming that now that it's gone through its whole process. I'm kind of asking this question too, again, because I realize I'm coming into this after the majority of the work has been done. But something at my gut level tells me I feel like we need to hear from the public a little bit more on this and or SEAC. Thank you. Would anyone on

[03:54:02] staff like to speak to the process any further I will speak quickly to at least the last part of that it's not necessarily common once some of the different advisory groups have provided feedback and once the public comment process has taken place during the committee process for folks to come here for public comment usually that that's where you'll hear most of it really on these on these policy revisions will be in committee and then relative to the

[03:54:38] structure I guess I think and I'll just represent myself and if anybody from the team wants to add any anything different I think what Miss LaBelle was communicating was that the committee has spent considerable time on this conversation the committee spent considerable time getting feedback and then Miss LaBelle went above and beyond given some of the timing issues that Ms. Scanlon talked about to get additional feedback from the SEAC folks, all of which appears to be incorporated into this, if you include her amendment in particular.

[03:55:15] And, you know, just to point out that the process of going through committee, then coming back, then going back to committee is an irregular process. It's not a normal occurrence, and that's intentional because, and I certainly understand board members have, that's their prerogative to do that at any time.

[03:55:34] but you know the committee work has to continue there are a cyclical series of policies that need to be reviewed in committee and other items that come onto the agendas as you all know as you're developing your agendas and so we don't I would say staff would be concerned about the risk of becoming bogged down in committee if we get through committee work and then it gets sent back on a regular basis not suggesting that's what's going to occur but obviously tonight we've already sent a couple of policies back and now we're talking about sending another one back so we just I just have a little concern okay any further discussion all right seeing

[03:56:14] no further discussion we have a substitute motion made by dr. Rasheed and seconded by Miss Riccardi to send revisions to policy 8220 student disciplinary consequences back to the Student Behavior and Accountability Committee less with that let's move forward with the vote on the substitute motion clerk please open the vote school board members please record your vote Dr. Rashid please state your vote yes Ms. LaBelle please state your vote no

[03:56:50] clerk please close and display the vote the motion fails with six school board members voting no including Mr. Svensson, Ms. Chernoff, myself, Vice Chair Donahue, Mr. Pepper and Ms. LaBelle and three school board members voting yes including Ms. Riccardi, Mrs. Griffiths and Dr. Rashid. With that we will move back to the base motion. I'm sorry we'll move up to Ms. LaBelle's amendment to the

[03:57:26] base motion. Ms. LaBelle's amendment to the base motion on line 151 of the clean copy of policy 8220 remove the words functional behavior assessment. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none let's move forward with the vote. Clerk please open the vote. School board members please just please make your vote. Dr.

[03:58:03] Rashid, please state your vote. No. Ms. LaBelle, please state your vote. Yes. Clerk, please close and display the vote. The motion passes with six school board members voting yes and three voting no. The yes votes are Mr. Svensson, myself, Vice Chair Donahue, Mrs. Griffiths, Mr. Pepper, and Ms. LaBelle. And the no votes are Ms. Riccardi, Ms. Chernoff, and Dr. Rashid. Okay.

[03:58:36] Oh, Dr. Rasheed? Yes, Chair. I'd like to make an amendment if that's possible. Dr. Rasheed, could you please state your amendment? Sure. Give me a second.

[03:58:53] This is a little fast. I'd like to make an amendment if I could find it. I'd like to make an amendment for the second recommendation of SEAC. I believe they had two recommendations, And I think that Ms. LaBelle included the first, but I want to make sure that the second amendment, it's at line 122, after behavior intervention plan, and I'll tell you that in a second too, after the behavior intervention plan, if you can add any other pertinent documents, and that is the SEAC recommendation too.

[03:59:35] Ms. LaBelle, oh, Ms. LaBelle, please unmute. I can't hear you. Ms. LaBelle, I'm sorry, we can't hear you. I'm sorry, I went to the document, and then I couldn't find the right screen to get back to unmute, so I apologize.

[03:59:56] That is something that we discussed, and the part about any other pertinent groups, I don't remember what it said. That's what I was trying to look at. But that becomes a legal issue.

[04:00:15] We don't know that's a legal danger. We did discuss it with, Ms. Scanlon discussed it with Mr. Allen. And it becomes a problem because we don't clarify what the other documents might be, who gets to decide what they are, who are the people that are included in the decision, and that just opens up a whole legal rabbit hole.

[04:00:39] And then I talked about that with, again, the chair of SEAC, and she agreed with me. But if you want, maybe Ms. Scanlon can tell you a little bit more about that. And then we also looked at their other recommendations. And those are things that belong in regulation, not policy. So those were some of the that's why we only went as far as we went.

[04:01:01] Thank you. Dr. Rasheed? Just a quick question. So I feel like we're contradicting ourselves. We're saying that we need to listen to SEAC, but then when it comes to their other recommendations, we're not listening to SEAC.

[04:01:20] So we just listened to SEAC the first time, but now we're not listening to SEAC for their second recommendation the second time. I'm a little, I'm sorry, I'm a little lost because I thought, I think Ms. Riccardi was just saying that, you know, SEAC is held very highly because, you know, they're considered the experts, but I'm confused about the second recommendation though.

[04:01:41] Thank you. Ms. Scanlon, would you like to address Ms. LaBelle's recollection? Yes, I would be happy to. So when you look at this paragraph or section in its entirety, it begins when a suspension and or expulsion is being contemplated.

[04:02:01] There are certain documents that must be reviewed, namely the IEP and or the 504 plan and or the behavior intervention plan. That contemplates that the person who is reviewing these or who is tasked with reviewing these items is the person who is contemplating the sanction.

[04:02:22] By inserting and any other pertinent documents, I think that easily brings forward argument as to who deems those documents pertinent.

[04:02:36] My concern would be that any suspension, any recommendation for expulsion, any expulsion could be vulnerable to an argument that a document deemed pertinent by someone other than the administrator who is contemplating the sanction wasn't considered, should have been considered, it would have been pertinent, and that leads to argument there.

[04:03:03] I think if you want to keep the spirit of what I believe SEAC was intending, which is there may be pertinent documents outside of the three documents that are cited, that it could be improved upon by inserting the language and or any other document deemed pertinent by the administrator contemplating such action.

[04:03:28] I think that is perhaps a middle ground. Thank you. Dr. Rasheed? I think the key word that when I picked up on their second recommendation is the word pertinent. So when I saw pertinent, I didn't think it was up to LCPS to decide what's pertinent or not when it comes to special ed kids.

[04:03:49] I thought it was the parents and it's the doctors that decide what is pertinent or not. And that's what really grappled me at that. So that's why I felt that's important to bring that line item forward. Thank you. Dr. Rasheed has made a motion at line 152 on the clean copy version after the statement behavior intervention plan to insert the language, any pertinent documents.

[04:04:20] Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Mrs. Griffiths, the motion has been seconded by Mrs. Griffiths. Is there any further discussion? Okay.

[04:04:36] Seeing no further discussion. Oh, I'm sorry, Ms. LaBelle. Ms. LaBelle, I see you. I would like to bring forth another amendment. I'd like to accept the suggestion made by Ms. Scanlon, because this is the administrator who is supposed to be reviewing the documents.

[04:04:59] And if he needs to know more about it, then he can look further. I like her middle ground that she was speaking of. And I would like to suggest that that be put in there in place of the word any other pertinent documents. All right. There's been an amendment to Dr. Rasheed's amendment.

[04:05:22] Ms. LaBelle, could I ask you to please restate your amendment? Could we ask Ms. Scanlon to restate it? She wrote it down. Ms. Scanlon, please. Yes, it would be on line 152 of the clean version after behavior intervention plan insert quote and or any other document deemed pertinent

[04:05:47] by the administrator contemplating such action end quote all right thank you so much the amendment to dr rasheed's amendment will read on line 152 of the clean version after the behavioral intervention plan insert and or any document deemed pertinent by the administrator contemplating

[04:06:19] such action. Ms. LaBelle. I'd like to speak to my amendment. As any principal that is contemplating or any administrator that is contemplating a consequence will be reviewing documents.

[04:06:39] If the parents disagree with his decision, they can always appeal. And it's the same for this. If they think that he didn't look at something that he should have looked at, they can bring it to an appeal. So we're not precluding parent participation in this decision.

[04:06:59] Usually he meets with parents before he makes or as he makes a decision. So at that point in time, it could come back to SBAC as an appeal if this is something that is really serious to the parents, but not considered so by the administrator. So this is something that has a fail safe to it.

[04:07:21] Thank you. Ms. LaBelle has made an amendment to Dr. Rasheed's amendment. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Vice Chair Donahue. Is there any further discussion? Ms. Riccardi.

[04:07:46] This might just be a point of information. I don't even know where to go with this. We're notorious to create process after process after process after process.

[04:08:07] And we've heard, I've heard for three years sitting back here, sitting at SEAC meetings, parents concerned about appeals processes over and over and over again. I'm real nervous about punting anything to an appeals process to get remedied.

[04:08:26] Not saying that this group or any group isn't doing a good job of it. it's just it's more burdensome on the families who really should you know many cases have kind of ownership of this process and helping guide it i don't know i'm this my gut my gut is telling me that this entire process really does need a lot of cleanup and a lot more transparency i think and i'm just gonna i'll just leave it at that but it's just it's not feeling right that we're having to go through this and i feel like we really do need to get some more input thank you uh miss

[04:09:00] LaBelle? We, if you look and read the whole thing, you will see that we revised the time frames for everyone concerned to register an appeal. We changed it to five days. It used to be that parents had to do it in two days, but the administrator had to do it in five days. And so we went back and we gave everybody the same amount of time, extended the time for putting in appeals. That is also in this document. I know that Ms. Scanlon spent a lot of time on it.

[04:09:37] She even went to other places where we had a situation where we were given timelines to parents and made them all the same for the administrators and the parents so that everybody would have a fair opportunity to address these issues. That said, you know, I agree with what Mrs. Riccardi said about there seems to be a lot of problem with it. And that's exactly why we are doing this, going back over these kinds of regulations to make sure that that opportunity is fair and

[04:10:09] available to everyone. Thank you. All right. Ms. Chernoff. Thank you, Chair Chandler. I've just been kind of sitting back and observing and, you know, there's a couple of things that I want to address just from my perspective and my opinion. The first is like, I think this board, especially the board, former for the last two years, really worked hard to work with our advisory councils.

[04:10:37] That is something that we have prioritized. Feedback is a priority. Process is a priority. Governance is a priority. All of those things said, there are some times when these groups bring feedback that doesn't align with the code. It might pose a legal risk for us. There might be other things, nuances and context on the other side of the LCPS staff that may need to be considered in light of that feedback. It is my understanding that these policies have been information items in committee. Then they have been either prolonged as information items or

[04:11:12] then moved to action. Then they are information items for us. We had this on our agenda a couple weeks ago and here we are again now ready to vote on it with lots of amendments coming to the table in the 11th hour, which is anyone's prerogative to do so. However, it makes it difficult to process.

[04:11:29] So I'm wondering if that might be why the gut feel is a little bit, feels that way. Sometimes that's how it is for me. What I think is really important is that, to speak to Ms. Riccardi's point about tightening things up, I worry about the subjectivity of any document that may be pertinent and what that may entail.

[04:11:51] I know the regulation is pretty detailed in the processes and how people are involved and how all of that rolls out. So I feel confident that on the operational side that would be considered. these are pretty binding standard documents in the special education world and so these feel like the right things to have in this policy and I am trusting that Ms. Richardson has had a say as she has mentioned and that you know the committee has done its due diligence and so I am not going to be supporting the amendment to the amendment and so on so I just wanted to make

[04:12:24] sure I said that. Is there any further discussion on the amendment to the amendment? Seeing none I will restate dr. Rasheed's amendments online 152 of the clean version after behavior intervention plan insert the phrase and/or any other document deemed pertinent by the administrator contemplating such action oh yes point of inquiry is that that was mr. Bell's amendment this is the Bell's amendment

[04:13:03] to dr. Rashid's amendment the amendment to the amendment thank you for that clarification. Madam Chair, point of information, does no matter how we vote on Ms. LaBelle's amendment, do we then have to take a second vote on Dr. Rasheed's amendment? Yes, okay. Going down to Ms. LaBelle's amendment on Dr. Rasheed's amendment, on line 152 of the clean version

[04:13:39] after behavior intervention plan, insert the phrase and or any other document deemed pertinent to the administrator contemplating such action all right that's all we're voting on right now that's the labelle amendment to the rasheed amendment okay okay clerk please open the vote

[04:14:05] school board members please make your vote um dr rasheed please state your vote no miss labelle please state your vote yes clerk please close and display the vote all right that motion fails with five school board members voting no and four school board members voting yes the no votes

[04:14:36] include miss chernoff vice chair donahue mrs griffiths mr pepper and dr rasheed and the yes votes are miss ricardi miss fenson myself and miss labelle all right so the amendment to the amendment failed so we will go back to dr rasheed's amendment to the base motion as previously amended. So, Dr. Rasheed, could you please restate your amendment? Oh, dear. Let me

[04:15:15] find it. Give me a second. Okay. Thank you, Chair. I'd like to make an amendment and so that at line 122, after behavior intervention plan, add any other pertinent documents.

[04:15:32] - Thank you. Dr. Rasheed, I believe the line on the clean copy is 152. So I'll restate Dr. Rasheed's amendment. At line 152. - Thank you. - On the clean copy version, after the phrase behavior intervention plan, insert the language, any pertinent documents.

[04:15:52] Is there any further discussion? All right, seeing no further discussion, we will now vote on Dr. Rasheed's amendment. Clerk, please open the vote. School board members, please record your vote. Dr. Rasheed, please state your vote.

[04:16:09] Yes. Ms. LaBelle, please state your vote. No. Clerk, please close and display the vote. All right, that motion fails with six school board members voting no, including Mr. Svensson, Ms. Chernoff, myself, Vice Chair Donahue, Mr. Pepper, and Ms. LaBelle, and three school board members voting yes, including Ms. Riccardi, Mrs. Griffiths, and Dr. Rasheed.

[04:16:37] Okay. I do not believe there are any further relevant amendments on the floor. All right. With that, we will return to the base motion, which we have to go.

[04:16:59] Mr. Allen, if you could help me through this. I think we actually have to go up to Ms. LaBelle's amendment and then the base amendment to discuss line 151.

[04:17:18] Thank you, Chair Chandler. The board could take that. approach to be super cautious just to close out the amendment to the amendment and then you would need if that's what the bill on the board would prefer to do and then you would close out if there's no further amendments to the base motion as previously amended you'd close that out all right so two more votes we got this right okay yeah let's go um all right so going back to the

[04:17:48] LaBelle amendment, which was Ms. LaBelle made a motion that on line 151 of the clean copy of policy 8220, the phrase functional behavior assessment be removed, leaving only the phrase behavior intervention plan. I believe that motion was seconded by Mr. Spenson. So is there any further discussion? Clerk, please open the vote. School board members, please encourage your vote.

[04:18:25] dr rasheed please state your vote yes thank you miss labelle please state your vote yes all right clerk please close and display the vote all right that motion passes seven to two the seven school board members voting yes include mr svensson myself vice chair donahue mrs griffiths mr pepper dr rasheed and miss labelle and two school board members voting no including miss ricardi and Ms. Chernoff with that we will return to the base motion as amended so the base

[04:19:03] motion made by Miss LaBelle was that the Loudoun County School Board proposed the approved or approve the proposed changes to policy 8220 student disciplinary consequences as amended to as we just voted remove the phrase functional behavior assessment and leave only the phrase behavior intervention plan at line 151 any further discussion all right seeing no further discussion clerk please open the vote school board members

[04:19:38] please record your vote um dr rasheed please state your vote yes thank you miss labelle please state your vote yes thank you clerk please close and display the vote all right that motion passes with eight school board members voting yes, including Ms. Riccardi, Mr. Svensson, Ms. Chernoff, myself, Vice Chair Donahue, Mr. Pepper, Dr. Rasheed, and Ms. LaBelle,

[04:20:07] and one school member voting no, Mrs. Griffiths. With that, we have completed our action items this evening, and we will move on to our closed session. Vice Chair Donahue, do you have a motion? Yes, thank you, Madam Chair.

[04:20:23] I move that the London County School Board recess this public meeting and enter into a closed meeting pursuant to Section 2.2-3712 of the Code of Virginia for the following. Discussion or consideration of the acquisition of real property for a public purpose or of the disposition of publicly held real property where discussion in an open meeting would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the public body as authorized by Section 2.2-3711 sub-A sub-3 of the Code of Virginia.

[04:21:09] Thank you. Vice Chair Donahue has made a motion. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you. Mr. Svensson has second. It is. Thank you. I have a second by Mr. Svensson. It has been properly moved and seconded that the Loudoun County School Board go into closed session. Is there any discussion? Seeing none. Clerk, please open the vote. Board members, please record your vote. Dr. Rasheed, please state your vote. Yes. Ms. LaBelle, please state your vote. Yes. Thank you. Clerk, please close and display the vote.

[04:21:30] The motion passes with all nine school board members present. The board is now in closed session.

[05:40:20] Vice Chair Donohue, do you have a motion? Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I move that the closed meeting be adjourned, that the Loudoun County School Board reconvene its public meeting, and that the minutes of the public meeting reflect that no formal action was taken in the closed meeting. Vice Chair Donohue has made a motion. Do I have a second?

[05:40:36] Second. Thank you. I have a second by Ms. Chernoff. It has been properly moved and seconded that the Loudoun County School Board adjourn the closed session. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, clerk, please open the vote.

[05:40:51] Board members, please record your vote.

[05:41:02] Dr. Rasheed, please state your vote. Yes. Thank you. Ms. LaBelle, please state your vote. Yes. Thank you. Clerk, please close and display the vote. The motion passes unanimously with all nine school board members present. Vice Chair Donahue, do you have another motion?

[05:41:20] Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I move that the following resolution certifying the closed meeting be adopted and reflected in the minutes of this public meeting resolution number two three dash two five slash two six whereas the Loudoun County School Board has convened a closed meeting on this date pursuant to an affirmative recorded vote and in accordance with the provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and whereas section two point two dash three seven one two sub d of the Code of Virginia requires a certification by the school board that such closed meeting was conducted in conformity with Virginia law now therefore be a result that the loudon county school board hereby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge one only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting

[05:42:00] requirements by virginia law were discussed in the closed meeting to which this certification applies and two only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the loudon county school board vice chair donahue has made a motion do i have a second second thank you the motion is seconded by miss Chernoff. It has been properly moved and seconded that the Loudoun County School Board certify the closed meeting. Is there any discussion? Clerk, please open the vote. Board members, please record

[05:42:31] your vote. Dr. Rasheed, please state your vote. Yes. Ms. LaBelle, please state your vote. Yes. Clerk, please open and display the vote. The motion passes with all school board members present.

[05:42:53] Vice Chair, it's been such a long day, right? Vice Chair Donohue, do you have another motion? Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I move that the Loudoun County School Board reaffirm its March 25th, 2025 action. Quote, that the Loudoun County School Board supports the continued exploration of an underground solution and opposes all above transmission line options on school board property, including Route 2, yellow line, Route 3, green line, and Route 4, blue line of the Golden to Mars line alignment.

[05:43:24] Further, that the school board directs staff to communicate this action to the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, unquote. To the extent the school board must adopt a ranking of underground and overhead route options, such ranking is as follows. Number one, Route 1F.

[05:43:41] Number two, Route Underground C. Number three, Route 1. Number four, Route Underground A. Number five, Route Underground B. The school board does not support the following routes as currently presented by Dominion Energy, Virginia.

[05:44:01] Routes 3, 3B, 4, 2, 3A, and 5. Vice Chair Donahue has made a motion. Do I have a second? Second. Second. I have a second by Ms. Chernoff.

[05:44:17] The motion has been properly moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Clerk, please. I just had a quick question. I know we had some public documents that were submitted for public comment. Will we get those? Okay.

[05:44:34] Okay, great. Thank you. Sure. Okay. Clerk, please open the vote. Board members, please record your vote. Dr. Rasheed, please state your vote. Yes. Ms. LaBelle, please state your vote. Yes.

[05:44:52] Clerk, please close and display the vote. I didn't see that one before. That's a new one. All right.

[05:45:17] Thank you so much. That motion passes. With all school board members voting yes. All right. The next item on our agenda is board member comments and committee reports. Given the weather and the late hour, it's 10-15. Could you please express your temperature check for doing board member comments?

[05:45:36] All right. Don't worry, Sumera. All right. Thank you. Put it up, Sumera. Is there any new business? Seeing none, we will move on to adjournment. The January 28, 2026 school board meeting is adjourned. Drive safe.

[05:45:53] Just a reminder that we will be back here tomorrow, Thursday, January 29th at 430 for the school board fiscal year 27 operating budget school board work session and public hearing. Thank you and drive home safely.

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