Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Student Services Committee Meeting, Thursday, August 20, 2026

Date: Thursday, August 20, 2026
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 1h 4m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1220068447?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 2026-10-11. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:04] - Good afternoon, everybody. It is slightly after 4:30. I apologize for the delay, but at this time, I call to order the August 20, 2026 meeting of the Student Services Committee.

[00:00:21] We will begin, I'm sorry, let me introduce myself. My name is John Pepper of the Dulles District. I am the chair of the Student Services Committee, and joining me is a school board chair and member from the Algonquian District, Mrs. April Chandler, the third member of our committee, Ms. Carrie LaBelle is absent, but we do have quorum.

[00:00:41] So I will begin the meeting. And we will start with item number two, which is public comment. In total, public comment will be limited to 10 minutes. Right now, we have one speaker for public comment, so I will give that speaker three minutes.

[00:01:01] Before we begin, I will say thank you for engaging with the Student Services Committee and School Board through the public comment process. The school board welcomes comments from Loudoun County residents and believes a strong community engagement and outreach are important components of a successful school system.

[00:01:17] Speakers must limit comments to the three minutes allotted. And all audience members shall maintain civility, decorum, and respect for the functioning and dignity of this committee at all times. And with that, I'm going to just skip ahead and go right to public comment.

[00:01:33] And our first speaker is Victoria Rashid. - Good afternoon. I'm asking this committee not to phase out special permission.

[00:01:52] My own family does use special permission, so I understand both its value and the frustrations of the current process. That's why I believe we should fix it, not eliminate it. I keep hearing equity used to justify this change.

[00:02:09] Equity does matter. Virginia's history of segregation and white flight is very real and Loudoun has its own history that we should never ignore. But history is not evidence that special permission is creating inequity in Loudoun today.

[00:02:26] So show us the data. In February, LCPS reported that 2,738 special permission applications were submitted. More than one in five were from LCPS employees and nearly two thirds were not applications to overcapacity schools.

[00:02:45] If you look at the total amount requested, it's two to 3% on average of the total student population that LCPS serves. If special permission is increasing segregation, show us. If it's harming Title I schools, show us.

[00:03:01] If it disproportionately benefits affluent families, show us. Show us which schools students are leaving, where they are going, and the demographic and socioeconomic impact. And LCPS already collects the reasons that families request special permission.

[00:03:19] So please analyze them. Because if families are disproportionately leaving particular schools, perhaps the transfer isn't the problem. Perhaps we should be asking why they want to leave. Taking away the exit does not fix what drove the family toward it.

[00:03:34] And here's the thing, this proposal creates its own equity problem. As a SEAC representative, I hear from families already struggling to navigate special education, IEPs, 504s, and administrative processes. Now we want to add another discretionary system where parents may have to document hardship, exhaust resources, and prove their circumstances warrant an exception with no ability to appeal.

[00:04:02] I know how to navigate systems like this. I know how to find the policy, fill out the paperwork, advocate, and appeal. Not every family does in our very diverse county. The families best equipped to navigate another layer of bureaucracy will still navigate it.

[00:04:19] How is that more equitable? And let's talk about continuity. Once LCPS approves a placement, that child builds friendships, relationships with teachers, and a community. Yet elementary families reapply every year with no guarantee that children can continue with their peers into the corresponding middle school and then high school, the feeder system.

[00:04:40] fix that approve the student through the feeder pattern subject to legitimate capacity constraints that's time thank you moving on we will move to the approval of the June 18 2026 draft minutes do I have a motion miss Chandler thank you chair pepper I move that we approve the draft minutes for the June 18th 2026 committee meeting I'm going to second it but I do have a

[00:05:15] small clerical error if we could fix that. It's the spelling of my name. It is not J-O-H-N. It is just J-O-N. So I don't know if I believe because it's clerical we do not need to approve that amendment. All those in favor of approving the draft minutes or removing the minutes from the June 18th, 2026 meeting with a small change, say aye. Aye. Aye. That motion passes unanimously two to zero with Ms. LaBelle absent. With that, as I've mentioned previously, we have agenda item number four, which is just a placeholder for this evening, this afternoon's presentation.

[00:05:55] But we are going to actually move ahead to item number five. This is a discussion item, which is work time. And I specifically requested that we put this work time in place for 8155

[00:06:13] Knowing that item number six on our agenda is the action item to approve and send 8155 to the school board and that likely will involve several amendments to the current version of 8155 that we're working on to help expedite the process and be able to facilitate a conversation outside of a series of amendments which may get entangled with one another.

[00:06:40] I thought that we could work through this current draft section by section with the assistance of our wonderful team from student services here and therefore do that. So I'm going to let Ms. Richardson or Mr. Dolson, whichever one of you would like to, lead us off in our work session and let you take it away.

[00:07:05] Chair Pepper may I ask permission for us just to go quickly through the PowerPoint presentation so we can get it does go over some of the amendments and some of the considerations that we we that staff would like the committee to consider and then we can certainly do the work session piece.

[00:07:32] Absolutely Mr. Nelson. Okay. The floor is yours. Fantastic. Okay so as we begin this presentation I just wanted to give the committee the most up-to-date special permission numbers by grade level. I'm not going to read them to you. there up on the screen for you and are before you in your copy of the presentation you can see that currently in Loudoun County Public Schools for the 26-27 school year we have a total of 2,811 students that are on special permission in all of our schools and the chart here designates by grade level the

[00:08:08] next slide shows just the work that I will say that the committee has done over the past four years you can see that there is there was a pretty sharp decline between 2025 26 and the school year 26 27 so the the goal of reducing the number of special permission applications I do think that is definitely very clearly represented by the drastic change from 90 percent to

[00:08:42] 85% threshold for school capacity that is definitely something that my office can certainly point to when we look at the reasons for that data being shifted down. So just to our amendments that we went ahead and put in the red line policy for this evening's meeting the amendments that we discussed at our June 2026 meeting were in line one to to change the word actual to primary.

[00:09:12] We changed the section definitions to over capacity school buildings in item A. We combined A.1 and A.1A for succinctness. We inserted a definition of school reassignment into section B.

[00:09:31] And then we also combined E1A and E1B for succinctness. And those were all amendments that were brought forward by the committee back in June. Some of the considerations that we would like the committee to think about this evening as we go into our work session is removing the appeals process that is captured in policy 2350 and designating an internal Loudoun County Public Schools Administrative Committee to hear those appeals.

[00:10:01] These decisions would be final and not appealable. Some of the options that we would like to set forward for the committee to consider are option one, having the student services director, that would be me, a level director, so your elementary, your middle, or your high school level director, and then a level executive principal sitting on that committee.

[00:10:22] Option two would be the student services director, obviously me, a level executive principal, and then a level principal. And again, those executive principles would be based on elementary, middle, or high, and then the level principle also would be based on elementary or high.

[00:10:40] We would also like you to consider removing the word medical from C.3B, which is the section for reasons for out-of-zone school transfers. The other consideration, one of the other considerations is to add rising juniors to C.3D for the reasons for out-of-zone school transfers.

[00:11:06] Remove F.1 and move that to the 8155 regulation. We discussed this at the end of the June 2026 meeting. And then regional support information sessions to support families.

[00:11:22] We would like to have you consider that. My office would be supplying those meetings and do in-person information sessions to families. We could certainly do it by region. We could look at where the most families that are on special permission currently attend and we could go to those schools and answer any questions face-to-face offering just that personable interaction with those families and try to get them to understand what the process looks like now

[00:11:57] and then what will be changing over this next school year. We talked about 8155 and renewals, moving that to regulation, and then we discussed back in June some of the language that we might want to consider.

[00:12:16] So instead of using the term renewals, considering things like exception, prior approval, or continuation, we also suggest that placing provisions to renew special permissions for approved grade levels in Regulation 8155, And those approved grade levels and that phased-in approach, which you'll see again that we looked over last June, will also be outlined in the regulation.

[00:12:43] And then the renewal scenarios, I will just remind you, we discussed these in detail back in June. There's Scenario 1, Scenario 2, and Scenario 3.

[00:13:02] Do you have any questions regarding these scenarios and you need to review them? Okay. Yes, please quickly review these scenarios. So in scenario one for the 26-27 school year, kindergarten, first, second, sixth, and ninth grade students who are currently on special permission at their school would not be able to renew.

[00:13:28] If they would like to remain at that school, they would need to use the out-of-zone school transfer process or return to their zone schools of attendance. Students who were not approved to remain via the new out-of-zone school transfer process would then return to their zone schools of attendance.

[00:13:47] 3rd, 4th, 7th, 10th, and 11th graders that are currently on special permission will be able to remain at their special permission approved school if and only if they renewed, and remember, we might use a different term for that based on the regulation, during the appropriate window.

[00:14:06] Recall that 5th graders moving to middle school and 8th graders moving to high school are not guaranteed space availability as many of our secondary schools are already over capacity. In this scenario, each subsequent year has an additional grade level in which renewals are no longer an option and the out-of-zone transfer becomes required to remain at a school other than their zone school of attendance.

[00:14:31] In this scenario, the out-of-zone school transfer process becomes fully implemented by school year 30-31. And I'll just for time's sake say that Scenario 2 and Scenario 3 are very similar. It's just a different approach based on the number of grade levels.

[00:14:49] If memory serves me correct, you, the committee was looking at Scenario 1 and Scenario 3 back in June as options. And with that, that is the end of my presentation.

[00:15:07] Thank you, Mr. Dolson. I think what I would like to do, and I hope that my fellow committee member who is here would agree with me is realistically take this policy section by section starting with section A and going all the way through section I believe it is at the very end which is relatively short. Quickly reviewing those sections and having a very brief discussion about any changes that we wish to make and Mr. Nelson if you can indulge me I know you went through a whole list of the recommendations. If there's a recommendation that fits within a section

[00:15:42] If you could remind us as committee members what you're all recommendation is it would be very helpful as well. So I'll start with section a which is really the definition of overcapacity school buildings. I Don't have anything and I know it's been changed a little bit already. I don't have anything else for for section a This Chandler do you have anything in section a at all? So we're gonna leave section a as we're gonna go relatively quickly here if both of us think that is.

[00:16:15] The next one is Section B, which is on relieving overcrowding. This one, for those of you who have not gone in depth with the policy, this is about schools that are already overcrowded and perhaps a student moves in and they need to attend a different school and kind of the process for getting them back to where they're supposed to be.

[00:16:37] also do not have any changes I would like to make with section B I don't have any changes that I'd like to propose I'm just curious at this stage if there are any schools currently in a position this school year who might could you tell me a little bit more about that I don't have actual school names I know there are certain schools that have no space in kindergarten there are certain schools

[00:17:11] that have no space in second grade they're all over the county I would say that this year I so what I will say is this year I have not heard as many schools as last year but I do know that we have had some regional assignments that have already occurred thank you for that information it does strike me as I mean we can all acknowledge that there have been some demographic changes in

[00:17:45] in terms of what used to happen all the time with so much population change in the county from 2000 really until just recently but given that we're seeing declines i guess the only hesitancy here that i have i acknowledge that it's still a problem and that there are certainly some schools that are impacted is that it is a hardship for children who are moving into a community to not have access to their home school because the home school is over full.

[00:18:23] So that's a point well taken. If you consider some of our and we do have elementary schools I will just say that have upwards of 70 students that are currently on special permission at one elementary school. So if you subtract those 70 then you are not having to regionally assign kindergarten through fifth grade who move into that neighborhood.

[00:18:44] So that's a very good point and that is a reality for some of our schools. Some of our school there's a school in the Sterling area and there is a school in this Ashburn area that has a very high number of students that are on special permission.

[00:19:01] And again it is not to say that those students aren't welcomed and loved by all of the teachers and the administrative staff at those schools but it does create the hardship for those families that are moving in the week before school starts to find out that they are going to be attending a school other than their their neighborhood school thank you so the big one for this is section C and mr. Dolson I know you had a couple that are that are in here

[00:19:35] as well so we can talk about those first or we can wait and take this I'm sort of in pieces this is a this is the largest section of the policy and so I have a I have a few things in here that I'd kind of love to discuss.

[00:19:57] And the first is in the middle of Section C. The first paragraph really is the definition of out-of-zone school transfers. And that parents on line 47 may not apply for an out-of-zone school transfer for students who have not yet attended their future assigned school.

[00:20:23] I'm going to ask a question on this as well. Does this currently occur because I know that we have kindergartners who are applying for auto zone transfer. So can you explain this addition to the policy and how that changes things. So typically this really mainly applies to rising sixth graders and rising ninth graders.

[00:20:46] Kindergarteners I will just say in my experience parents are applying because they have a sibling that already attends. and there could have been an attendance zone boundary change or there could be a hardship in child care. So typically, that's why we delay the kindergarten special permission, well, currently the special permission process so we can really get elementary schools set first and then we start considering the kindergarten applications later on in the school year.

[00:21:17] Regarding this specifically, we have a lot of people that are trying to apply to get to a different middle school other than their zoned school of attendance and or a different high school other than their zoned school of attendance. And that is many of our high schools and many of our middle schools are at capacity.

[00:21:38] And so they do not have access to that school because of the capacity, number one. And number two, we really should not be allowing students because we're talking about students that should be going to a different middle school.

[00:21:53] And so you start to see then the differentiation between numbers of just, well, capacity, but also how we're using our buildings and how we are, it's also a scheduling issue when you start looking at, especially for middle school and high schools.

[00:22:15] The resources that are being used by some schools and that are being asked to be used and they're not being used by others That's I think the big the biggest discrepancy that this provides Would it be beneficial and I'm asking your opinion on this if after the word parents on line 47 We added the phrase of middle and high school students Just for clarifying purposes since we kind of have a little more leeway kindergarten And I will agree with you that it seems that the kindergarten ones, at least I have seen, are all because they have an older sibling at that school.

[00:22:54] So I would say parents of middle and high school students, is that amenable? Is that something that would make sense in the context of this policy?

[00:23:17] I think the only scenarios that that might not cover is sometimes we have families that are just completely brand new to Loudoun, and they're asking for special permission, yet they've never set foot in one of our schools and then we also have some scenarios for homeschooled students who choose to either return to LCPS or enter public school for the first time and again they also would have never set foot in our schools or their schools of residence so while the majority

[00:23:53] that we come across it's middle and high school like that sixth grade ninth grade there are some outlying scenarios that we would want to also be thoughtful about. Would this be better served with a cutout for kindergarten then in another direction? So something along the lines of with the exception of kindergarten siblings, parents may not apply. I'm trying to think of a

[00:24:25] way. I'd really, I like policies that are a little more black and white. Candler. Okay. So my wonder would be if there could be something in the policy regarding parents of kindergartners to be directed to the regulation the only reason I say that is because we can't predict the number well we can't predict the number of kindergartners that are going to be enrolling in any school and then we obviously can't predict the number of parents of kindergartners who are going to then possibly want to apply for an out-of-zone school transfer we could we could create language that would

[00:25:03] allow us some some leeway and explain how the process works to include reasons why kindergarten parents can apply for an out of zone school transfer that's going to mirror very similarly to the reasons why any parent should be applying for out of zone school transfers I do agree with what Ms. Richardson said you know what we tend to see in some cases that would be the outlier is parents that are moving from out of state that move into Loudoun and they want their

[00:25:38] kid to go to said school and they've really had no experience in Loudoun County whatsoever so I'd love it if we could start with having you um reflect on your proposal again could i hear your proposal so my initial proposal was on line 47 after the word parents add the phrase of middle and high school students um so the the line 47 would now read parents may not apply parents of middle and high school students may not apply for an out-of-zone school transfer for students who have not yet attended their future assigned school okay so you're in the clean copy i'm in the clean

[00:26:17] copy i'm sorry that's okay it's it was easier for the clean copy of this okay i i would express some hesitancy about creating different rules like for different levels i don't know i i feel like it might be helpful for me to understand the types of scenarios and i say that as someone who sat on the appeals committee now for three sessions right we've we've done it three years um at high school for example you might see someone apply for special permission because they

[00:26:55] want to play on a particular team with a particular coach there might be a perception about the type of community or the neighborhood could you speak to some of the other just general types of reasons that we see why people in high school are applying for a special permission So I think the most typical we get is that the student has attended the feeder middle school and they want to remain with their friends.

[00:27:29] Okay, so from that's an interesting point because what is missing and what I'm trying to consider is what would motivate someone to choose a particular middle school. I mean, high school, you could see tracking towards college applications, a perception that some are going to give you a better position.

[00:27:47] But with middle school, really, what you're seeing is that students have maybe started in a feeder school that goes into that. And so it is families trying to stay within the feeder. That is the most typical application that we get, yes.

[00:28:03] We do not, we should not be getting parents asking to be on a specific team because that really comes into VHSL violations. So that would be something that we would not consider at all.

[00:28:19] We don't, we don't have, I'm sorry, go ahead. They may enter into the special permission system at a different level with that intent, though. I mean, to be perfectly fair, in our community, people start playing on certain teams because they want to play ball in high school when they're in elementary school.

[00:28:40] I mean, that's just part of being in loudness. That's true. That is very true. Yes. But, okay, so what we're seeing really is that families get accustomed to being in a place and want to stay in a place regardless of whether or not their house is connected to that place.

[00:28:56] Yes, I would say that is the most typical application that we get and reason for requesting special permission, yes. So maybe I'll ask you all this, kind of piggybacking up what we were just talking about.

[00:29:12] Is there a sentence we could add that could direct parents to a regulation that we could put in about kindergarten? So what I'm reading when I read this, what I think our conversation is, We need to keep the sentence as is but there needs to be some sort of caveat for kindergarten students.

[00:29:31] Like you said I believe the vast vast vast majority of them are students with siblings already in the school. Do you have a suggestion for us.

[00:29:53] Something along the lines of like parenthetical C regulation 8155. Yeah okay I feel like that would be the most it would be the easiest and most transparent way And then we would just create something very specific in the regulation for parents of kindergartners.

[00:30:18] Perfect. I think that's the way to go. So we can add a parenthetical after, I guess, it would be like at the end, in the middle of line 49 on the non-redline version or on line 63 of the redline version.

[00:30:41] Okay. Appreciate that. So the other piece I want to talk about is what we kind of were just discussing. One of the things that I would love to see, I would love your opinion on why this is becoming such an issue, is when we apply for out-of-zone school transfers, I love, and this kind of backs on to reason three, there's a list of reasons.

[00:31:07] I am a big believer in continuity. I think continuity is best for our children, K-12, and I would like to see a situation in place where once a student is accepted into a school within a pyramid, that they're able to kind of continue within that pyramid.

[00:31:30] And I know that there's some kind of weird factors in there. We have a lot of split feeder elementaries and capacity levels change. But on lines 54 through 59, it talks about the non-continuation and the reapplication for special permissions.

[00:31:50] I really, really struggle with that because as someone who sat in the appeal hearings, that's a lot of the appeals that we see is students who want to continue high school with their peer groups that they made in middle school, particularly those students who had a difficult time at whatever school they were starting at and for social or emotional reasons went to a new middle school had a great experience and then wish to continue is there something I think I'd just love to hear people's thoughts on that so I mean this has been

[00:32:27] a journey and I will say as a candidate I struggled with the whole idea of this And it's really just based on what I witnessed as a parent in the particular feeder where I live, right?

[00:32:44] Having sat through three years of appeals, I do feel that I saw some scenarios where it felt fair and appropriate to make some assignments. but when i reflect on those scenarios i think the policy captures a lot maybe all of the times where that would be most appropriate we've talked a great deal about this policy as a school board and in particular to this committee and there have been some things that have been revealed

[00:33:23] throughout that process that i don't think that the wider community understands so even though we may have talked about it before i would like to review some key components right how did this policy come to exist thank you for your question mrs chandler the policy um was initially created in 1970 um the basis of this policy um was segregation um loudon county was integrating

[00:33:55] by law right um we had sections of the county that did not fully integrate um until about 1976 and so the basis the foundation for this policy was for there to be the choice for families not to go with other families to school that they did not feel comfortable with and and so now this policy has been in place since 1970 since 1970 56 years and it's 2026 yes and in loudon

[00:34:33] County we just we serve one of the most diverse student populations in the country yes we do and so in looking at the numbers one of the first calculations that I made you pulled up our new dashboards which I'm so excited about and confirmed that as of right now understanding that the data lags by about a day there's currently seventy seven thousand five hundred and fourteen students and then given the the current LCPS special permissions that were

[00:35:08] approved for 26 27 with a total number of 2,811 students that's 3.6% of our student population that's participating in special permission could you categorize for us how much time and effort your department spends on this process for three point six percent of the population I would say it's probably 80 to 85 percent of a team of three of us well not for my part the team of two

[00:35:47] it's a hundred percent of what they do so team of two a hundred percent of what they do my part is probably about 85 percent and so in my journey as a school board member when I was doing all the school visits especially in my own community one of the questions that I asked was is there what makes parents make this choice and repeatedly I heard that it's a choice of privilege that parents who have the capacity

[00:36:22] time space to build in the opportunity to drive their children to school who don't depend on transportation may be shopping for schools that are perceived to be better than others in the 100 schools that we serve here in and lcps um and and we've had throughout this process principals who've come and who've shared with us some of the problems that happen when

[00:36:57] you're a school that's perceived to be less than could we review that absolutely um i can speak from experience and having served in a school that felt less than as a principal. Losing students, losing families to this policy.

[00:37:17] Not a good feeling. We had, I believe Mr. Frew, who was here from Sterling Middle School, he shared. Dr. Brewer last year, the last committee, he came to speak to this. Dr. Hitchman, who was receiving a lot of people.

[00:37:35] I believe Mr. Blue Ball from Algonquian Elementary School early on in the process spoke as well and I think more so than so I'm going to speak from the school based administrative side it is also the the difficulty in planning for these families these students when you get your numbers and again we try to go through all of the applications as quickly as we can but that process does take time and we have to then provide appeals and we have to then provide in some cases additional

[00:38:14] staffing at the last minute because we have gone over a you know classroom size or we've gone over the special education capacity for that school building. So it's additional even though the policy says we meaning myself and Miss Richardson and Miss Carpenter cannot do that if the school board chooses we have to then figure out a way to make sure that the students needs are met. So what I will say is having prepared for you know students you get your number and then you also then get the number of the number the number of students that are leaving your school building

[00:38:52] having to look at a teacher who started her first or second week of school and say you're being transferred to another school because my student enrollment has dipped 150 and I get a call from human resources saying we have to transfer her because there's a higher need.

[00:39:09] That's a difficult conversation to have as well. It's also difficult for that receiving principal to then build a schedule that meets the students needs. So there are a lot of moving parts to this that again and I think you said it very well Miss Chandler aren't necessarily out there for the public's eye.

[00:39:26] We just make it happen because that's what we do. We're here to serve kids. But I do think we if memory serves me correct we have provided the committee a lot of perspectives from the school based perspective in what this policy and i'm not saying this policy has malintent all over it i do think it just does create a lot of difficulties and we have good schools in louden county that's all i'm gonna

[00:39:58] say we have great schools in louden county okay so my the next question that i have is are we aware of any other school divisions in the region or in the commonwealth that have a similar practice that still exists today yes we have uh neighboring counties fairfax prince william i'm just going to name uh arlington i believe they have special permission as it exists today not in the same not in the same spirit as we it is more of a transfer process where they can apply

[00:40:35] to transfer schools for specific reasons very similar to what we have outlined in our out of zone school transfer process not necessarily for I just want to go to this school because I want to go to the school thank you that's what I was getting at so like what we're doing in creating this policy change is bringing Loudoun County into alignment with what the evidence-based best practices are that are existing across the region and across the Commonwealth and that there will still be opportunities for families to apply but the situations are appropriate and and the

[00:41:13] decisions will be made by experts who are educators with a professional background that have the best capability to make the decision as opposed to elected school board members on whether or not that process and that request is appropriate.

[00:41:33] And so there will be there will still be the ability to change schools but it's based on situations mental health whether or not there is a work related component.

[00:41:52] Maybe we could talk a little bit about those. So specifically the the reasons that we were talking about. So we have child care that is a reason that is something that we would reserve for elementary the emotional or social adjustment reason within that would be the ability for or the requirement I should say for parents to complete a form that shows and I say at that hardship it showed that need we

[00:42:28] have obviously an employee who is working for the school system as a perk again is a consideration we have added the idea of including juniors and seniors into this a majority of the applications that we saw or the renewals and I will say some of the hardships that we had this year were because of the attendance the attendance boundary changes that occurred juniors were not included in some of that and that as a former high school English teacher as an

[00:43:05] I love teaching 11th grade that was something that really brought open my eyes to that so we are you putting bringing that forward as a consideration and then obviously the family relocation and the family move in and the family relocation moving out so those are our reasons we would also then just going back to the first reason for child care we would research that we would and I will say previously that has been something that prior to

[00:43:38] me coming in this this role I would say maybe 10 to 15 years ago when it was really only an office of one person and it was actually the person Miss Richardson's administrative assistant who was doing all this she was doing a lot of the research for who was receiving the childcare where was it what was the closest elementary school so we would like to resurrect that process so we are we are sure that the person who is truly getting childcare is asking for

[00:44:14] the right school thank you and and I mean truly thank you for your patience with me as we've gone through this I like to sort of play the setting right and I mean I think it's important that we capture this on the record for the community to understand because it is a big change and the more clear we are are about the reasons why i think it's easier to understand um that said in the past i have also reflected on the fact that this system has existed and i do want us to take a cautious approach to

[00:44:54] how we unravel it so i'm gonna first of all miss chandler thank you so much for your comments um i actually believe at a core level almost identical to what you just stated and i also want to thank Ms. Richardson, Mr. Dolson, your entire team for these six reasons as to why someone should request an out-of-his-own school transfer. What it's doing is it appears to be eliminating just the willy-nilly idea of choice. I just want to leave because of choice. That being

[00:45:30] said, I think because of this, it kind of goes back to my initial question. The vast majority of what we're going to see based on this policy, you're going to have your move-ins and your move-outs and your rising juniors and seniors, which will actually wash away if we look at the charts that you were, the step-down charts. The vast majority of what we're going to see for out-of-zone school transfer is going to be because of reason B and possibly reason C. Reason C is the employee perk. I don't ever want to touch that. I think it's a great perk to offer for our students, particularly if you want your students to attend the school that you're working at. I think it's

[00:46:09] wonderful to see that. So I will say the vast majority of our community outside of LCPS employees are going to be on special admission for reason B, which is emotional or social adjustment. Removing the word medical, I'm actually in favor of removing the word medical because I think it applies here, I don't think.

[00:46:28] If a student, and then this is kind of where my thought is, if a student has been granted an out-of-zone school transfer at the middle school, for example, at the middle school level because of an emotional or social adjustment, in my mind and in my experience working with adolescents and from what I've seen, I really believe it's probably in the best interest of that student just to be able to continue if it has been a successful situation at the middle school, knowing that our middle and high schools are really one-to-one pairs at this point, particularly as we build Thornton

[00:47:04] Summit HS14, which is why I would be willing to go back to kind of lines 54 through 59 of the clean copy, which are the same as lines 68 through 73 of the red line, remove those two sentences. Because what I think it is affording us, knowing that we're no longer having these kind

[00:47:41] of out-of-zone school transfers for the sake of just going to whatever school I feel like I think I should go to, whether it's privilege or for whatever reason, once a student has been granted space in that pyramid, if it's really just reason B, I, this is my personal thought, I think that it's in their best interest as a student to remain in said pyramid. And it also is going to save us time, right? It's going to cut dramatically the numbers of special permission, the number of

[00:48:19] students that apply every year for special permission, particularly that sixth and ninth grade level. Please tell me, knowing everything that we've talked about from what we heard from, you know, Principal Fru and all the other principal groups, everything that we've talked about, with the history of this policy please tell me why if you feel that that's a mistake there are

[00:48:44] some pitfalls to it so if we just go based off of this school year um you had asked i believe mrs chandler you had asked the question about where are we sort of sitting now um we have 10 elementary schools that are at or above the 85 threshold six middle schools that are at or above and then nine high schools that are at or above and so I think in order for us to really be able to accurately

[00:49:21] answer that question for you what is the impact if we've already approved an out of zone transfer for you in middle school that you just stay within that that feeder pattern even though it's an out of zone transfer for you I think we would have to look at the number of students I think we need to capture right now this school year a snapshot and we could go back to that first slide and look at how many sixth seventh eighth graders right and then sort of project what that impact might be now it would be some additional work on the team to really drill down to schools so then you would

[00:50:00] have a more realistic picture of what which of our high schools would be most impacted if we change the language to reflect that you can stay within your feeder pattern in in your out of zone school transfer process so I think you might want some more information some more data to be able to truly understand the impact of that now on one hand it might lessen our angst over staffing changes and reductions that way but then I think we also have to be mindful of how does it impact

[00:50:36] those high schools that will never receive their students back. What does that do to the number of courses and the types of courses and the special programs that we offer? I think we really have to look at all of that in order to truly say that we're comfortable as a division, as an entire division, saying that once you are approved in sixth grade, you just stay in that pattern until 12th. I just want to add to what she said. I want you to think consider dual enrollment could have a

[00:51:13] huge impact on the ability to offer dual enrollment right now when you look at our course offerings in dual enrollment there's a discrepancy across this division on what high schools can offer and that is based on student population and what students are able to take and the number of teachers that are at those schools that have that certification to teach those dual enrollment classes so it does create a discrepancy. Secondly you also and I'm going to echo what Ms. Richardson said need to also understand the implications for Virginia High School League because it will have

[00:51:50] a implication for if students can or cannot participate in sports based on when they are considered eligible. So I know that with the recent changes in VHSL in order to play next I believe it's next year as a freshman you have to have attended the feeder middle school in the eighth grade pattern. So in some ways I think this would actually help that because if you're able to continue on you would have attended said feeder middle school and then gone into that same high

[00:52:24] school now the other thing to consider is parents will get that option when their kid leaves a middle school to either continue in the pyramid or attend the school they're initially zoned or well it wouldn't be at the middle school elementary level it could be the same school but at that it could parents would probably get that option that's the I think that's the data that's hard to track how many are going to choose to go back to their high school or how many are going to continue in feeder pattern so I think we need some more information but I do think and this is this is in my mind the reasoning for why they attended a different middle

[00:53:01] school or a different elementary school if it's you know the vast majority of this and I think I probably leave off the middle school level because I think we get that childcare piece and there's other pieces but I think that the reason because we know that middle school is the tough social emotional time anyway I think that the reason for attending a different middle school that we're going to see is going to be the same reason those students would want to attend that same high school and that particularly if they were successful mrs chandler do you have anything

[00:53:33] thoughts on this or tricky one the struggle um i mean i i in reflecting on what you said mr dolson it does really resonate with me and that it was not something that i was aware of until it happened um and i don't think the entire community understands that when a high school is at over capacity or at close to over capacity you really lose opportunities around electives and

[00:54:08] things that students may have been planning for their entire career um in lcps and then they're not available at the last minute because of course space always has to be made to hit those core subjects and to make sure that everybody gets the basics that they need um i i hear what you're saying Chair Pepper and I do the the rationale and the logic makes sense to me what concerns me is I mean in reflecting on this I would I would be

[00:54:44] that people would maybe attempt to enter at a certain time or in the early grades because they hope to play on a certain team or be in a certain school for their college applications that that's the hesitancy I feel I don't I think it's probably important for us to reflect on our intentions for passing this policy out of committee today Yes, and I might be willing to accept an amendment

[00:55:18] To get it to the point where it can move forward to the school board for a more fulsome conversation If that's our intention So I think that my intent actually would be to leave it as is right now not put the amendment committee so we can get it out of committee and bring it to the entire school board and then have that discussion when we have some more data because I think the data and just so you guys are aware that we're gonna have this discussion I think one of the things that I would love to know is how many students on special mission at the middle school reapplied for that special mission for the same high school and how many went to a different high school and if you also have that from the elementary to middle transition that

[00:55:55] would be helpful as well it might be tricky to pull but as best you can give some idea of where that jump is happening um I don't have anything else in section C I actually really like section C as far as section D goes um was there anything in section D Mr. Dulce and I don't think there was anything in there I think that's just how the review process is going to happen um section E is on rezoning and what happens in the as a rezoning process um I actually don't

[00:56:32] have anything in section E on rezoning as well um the removal from Mr. Chandler I'm sorry did you you have anything you're shaking your head so I'm gonna assume you don't have anything as well F1 the removal to regulation I struggle with that a little bit because I don't know how many parents are going to read the regulation unless the regulation talks about sending an you know an email to the parent do you wish to continue and then I think it makes it very easy on our parents what I don't want to see let me just say what I don't want to see with

[00:57:11] F1 I don't want to see a situation where a parent has or a student has been approve for an out-of-zone school transfer and then because of a paperwork mishap they lose that school transfer. So we coach all of our schools to have their own way of communicating. I will say principals put messaging in all of their newsletters and all just you know to as a reminder.

[00:57:37] So I do feel like that there is a safety net in there. I do hear what you're saying in regards to that so you know I think just just so you know that we do remind school administration to please reach out to your families that are on special permission to make sure that they hit the deadline and they know which families are on special permission yeah we read a report and we send that report through our registrars and our registrars share it so that they're able to do that appreciate that do you have any thoughts on removing f1 and putting in regulation mr. Chandler it's in the red line copying okay and then mr.

[00:58:17] So if you could go on to your additional considerations, I know if I think it's the second page on what the committee would look Oh, no, it's right there. Sorry. I apologize. I thought it was after Where would you consider putting this first bullet point in this policy or it'd be something?

[00:58:36] We'd have to go back and look at 2350 so the way this actually this would be in the regulation It would not be in the policy. So I think I would prefer option one as opposed to option two unless there is a way to guarantee an option to the principals would be it would be principals of the school they're leaving in the school they're

[00:59:14] going to because school principals know their principals know their buildings they know what the impact is going to be on staffing and course offerings and whatnot I think that option one is probably also an easier get for me I just don't see a building prints a random building principal at that level really having much of a stance either way on things unless they were directly involved in that students transfer it's Chandler I'm gonna I think ultimately the logistical

[00:59:49] problem will be in scheduling absolutely right so I would go I would probably prefer option one I think the option one is the way that we'll do that we'll do that in regulation so we don't have to we don't have to go any further okay is there anything else that we want to talk about this works chair pepper can I just ask what clarifying so we are leaving f1 out of the policy currently okay just wanted to clarify I put that in regulation thank you with the caveat under understanding that we want to make sure we don't have a clerical error here because I don't want to have kids lose this because of a clerical error

[01:00:29] okay is there any further discussion in this work session that is the case none we will now move to item 6.01 which is the action on revised policy 8155 how does going school transfers is there a motion sure miss Chandler I move that the Student Services Committee consider revised policy 8155 out of zone school

[01:01:06] transfers and it's in the policy to the full school board as an information item him second that this Richardson I'm going to ask you a very brief question before we vote the only change I believe that we have determined is needed is the parenthetical reference to regulation would it behoove us to make an amendment on that yes please that is the case I'm gonna use the red line

[01:01:38] version if you could remind me what line that is on 63 yep okay one in what was language again you have the language in front of you I apologize I can make this correctly was C policy C regulation okay it was just going to be parenthetical C regulation 8155 and it would be hyperlinked there so if they clicked on it it would take them right to that regulation okay so I move that I move to

[01:02:17] amend policy 8155 by adding on line 63 of the red line version a set of the words C regulation 8155 in parentheses including a hyperlink to regulation 8155 second is there any discussion seeing none all in favor please say aye aye that motion has passed we will now return to the base motion is there any further discussion of policy 8155 seeing none I will take a vote all in favor of

[01:02:55] moving revised policy 8155 to the full school board please say aye aye that motion passes unanimously policy 8155 has been moved to the full school board next on our agenda is item 7 new business I do have one very brief item of new business our next meeting is scheduled for Thursday September 17th I propose that we move the meeting time up ever so slightly to 4:00 p.m. that day

[01:03:26] instead of 4:30 there any discussion so mr. Dolson okay it's just good and we're just gonna move the meeting to four o'clock on the 17th and with that is Is there any other new business?

[01:03:56] All right, so with that, the August 20, 2026 meeting of the Student Services Committee is adjourned. We will see you in September.

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