Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, 2nd Tuesday School Board Meeting, Tuesday, September 8, 2026

Date: Tuesday, September 8, 2026
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 6h 21m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1225039248?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 2026-10-09. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:03:14] Good afternoon. I call to order the September 8th, 2026 Loudoun County School Board meeting. This evening, we'll start with our disclosures. I will be going first. As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public.

[00:03:31] What's going on? So sorry for the feedback. I'm going to keep going, though. To the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and or health insurance and related benefits.

[00:03:51] 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 also be affected, of which I am included.

[00:04:12] 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. Next up, 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 and our health insurance and related benefits and any other discussion that might include or affect benefits for LCPS employees.

[00:04:42] Specifically, as a school board member, I am eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an LCPS employee. These benefits, however, affect thousands of employees while in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may also be affected, of which I am included.

[00:04:58] I can and will participate fairly objectively in the public's interest. This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. LaBelle. Thank you, Madam Chair. As a member of Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and or health insurance and related benefits and any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS employees. Specifically, as a school board member, I am eligible to receive health insurance and

[00:05:37] related benefits as an LCPS employee. In addition, as a former LCPS employee, I, as well as my spouse, receive Medicare Advantage insurance benefits through LCPS. 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.

[00:06:02] 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. Riccardi. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[00:06:18] 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.

[00:06:34] 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.

[00:06:50] 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. Ms. Chernoff? Thank you, Madam Chair. As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and or health insurance and related benefits and any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS employees.

[00:07:16] Specifically, as a school board member, I am eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an LCPS employee. These benefits, however, affect thousands of employees while in the excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may also be affected, of which I am included. 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 we'll move on now to agenda item number three approval of the consent agenda before we vote on the consent agenda we have a number of proclamations to read the first proclamation

[00:07:49] formally recognizes september 13 through 19 2026 as national arts and education week in laden county public schools i'll start by reading this proclamation madam chair uh yet uh yes mr carty thank you madam chair i would actually like to pull um item 3.09 through 3.15 the proclamations into an action item all of the seven proclamations yes just into one action item please um uh at this time uh we will take a temperature check um from the board nope that's right it

[00:08:25] it goes right to action okay that's fine so clerk please move this to our action items and we will take this up at the proclamations later this evening with that are there any further changes to be made to the consent agenda yes thank you madam chair i just wanted to make a statement about the proclamations i just wanted to add that we keep adding mrs griffiths given that this is now on the agenda as an action item could you hold your statement and sure that time sure but can i

[00:09:03] also make one more change um i would like to ask that 3.13 be pulled out as a standalone and not lumped in with all of them unless they're all standalones can you are they all standalones where we vote on them separately ms ricardi to your point you asked for them to be as one item yes madam chair so yeah i'm asking for them all to be one item it'll be an action item and then if you want to divide and conquer at that point when we get to action you can do that okay well I mean I guess technically the consent agenda can be amended by any school board member so if you would like that one to be a standalone I would like that one to be a standalone we will do

[00:09:42] that as well thank you we will see um Ms. Byrne please make those adjustments to the agenda okay so um with the proclamations now taken off the consent agenda Ms. LaBelle Correct. Okay.

[00:09:55] So as of right now, there's one item that will include all of the five proclamations. And then there will be a standalone item for 313 LGBTQ plus History Month and for item 3.

[00:10:26] 11 Constitution Week. Mr. Pepper. Thank you, Madam Chair. If 3.11 and 3.13 are the two that we wish to have on standalone, is it possible to leave the others on the consent agenda so that we can move through them expediently? That's my question. I believe Ms. Riccardi, since you wanted to pull them, would that be amenable to you? I actually want to bring them all so we can have a conversation about how we're going to deal with proclamations moving forward. So I want them all in the action item as for that topic. Okay, so be it. Thank you. We are planning on speaking about proclamations

[00:11:04] at our board retreat next week. But we can certainly do it this way since board members have the right to change the consent agenda and then have a conversation next week as well. So we have one item with five proclamations and two items that will be standalone.

[00:11:26] Are there any further changes to be made to the consent agenda? All right, seeing none. Let's move forward with the vote. I will, oh no, excuse me. I will now entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda.

[00:11:41] So moved. Thank you, Ms. Chernoff. Second. Thank you, Mr. Pepper. With that, we have a motion by Ms. Chernoff to approve the consent agenda and a second by Mr. Pepper. It has been properly moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda. At this time, we'll take a vote to approve the consent agenda. Clerk, please open the vote. Board members, please record your vote. Clerk, please close and display the vote.

[00:12:14] The consent agenda passes with seven members voting yes, including Ms. Riccardi, Mr. Svensson, Ms. Chernoff, myself, Mrs. Griffiths, Mr. Pepper, Dr. Rasheed, and Ms. LaBelle abstaining from the vote, and Vice Chair Donohue absent from the vote.

[00:12:31] With that, we will move on to item number four, our work session. Our work session tonight will feature an update from the Department of Support Services on the status of existing fiscal year 2027 to fiscal year 2032 projects and share considerations in the development of the fiscal year 2028 to fiscal year 2033 capital budget.

[00:12:53] This update will be presented by our new chief operations officer, Mr. Adnan Mamoun.

[00:13:38] Thank you, Chair Chandler. Good afternoon, board members and Dr. Spence. We are here, and with me is our support services team, Mr. Treanor, Mrs. Tate, and Mr. Pascarelli here to help with this presentation tonight.

[00:13:56] We will be providing an update on our, this is our second work session, we'll be providing an update and going over our capital projects, reviewing our budget calendar, an update on the VUAC transition academy funding.

[00:14:15] update on the privacy restrooms athletic turf and lighting projects re-sequencing and roby high school support service spaces update and an update on the renovation replacement program middle school classroom additions and some brief update on the request that we have received from charter schools as well as you know we will be happy to have a session with the board about any questions or follow up that we need to provide.

[00:14:45] So before we jumped into tonight's presentation, we wanted to provide a very quick unofficial update on our enrollment numbers, and this is as of September 3rd, 2026. This data is available in our Data Hub dashboards on our LCPS website.

[00:15:02] As of September 3rd, and these are unofficial numbers, our total enrollment is a little over 78,000 students as you and you can see the breakdown between elementary middle and high school students on the screen we are going to continue to monitor our enrollment and our official enrollment is you know is not counted till September 30th date we will be reviewing the data as well as any you know patterns and trends that we're seeing with the enrollment and you know comparison to previous years and we'll be providing an update to the board

[00:15:38] after we get our official enrollment on September 30th and a very quick reminder before I pass it on to mr. Pasquarelli about our budget calendar and where we stand we're at our second work session and this according to the budget calendar that was approved by the board in May of this year the superintendent's recommended capital budget is due on October 27th and then we will have two sessions in November public hearing and work sessions in November and the

[00:16:12] scheduled date for boards adoption of the FY 28 to 33 budget is on December 15th and with that I'm going to pass it on to mr. Pascarelli to take us through the update on construction projects thank you so this is the list of the FY 28 funded projects this is the same list we shared with you back in June as well as a list that was published in the FY27 capital budget plan so no changes to this at this point

[00:16:49] so we just want to start off with with this list and from here I'm going to talk a little bit about some project updates so the transition academy so we heard from you on the importance of this project as a priority and all LCPS teams involved work quickly to expedite this new initiative the planning work began in spring of 25 when the building was identified and purchased by the county for this use at that time programming began to determine what would be needed to support this new type of facility for lcps in the fall of last year design work began as we were finalizing the

[00:17:23] fy 27 capital budget design work is now nearing completion and project requirements have evolved at this point the selections for the specialized equipment is wrapping up along with the final details to support the identified and structural pathways the lease with the county was just signed last week providing LCPS with use of the building so we are moving forward now that we're near completion of the designing equipment selection we can now more accurately estimate the total project needs in order to meet the identified need of approximately 24 million we are proposing to use a combination of unused balances from completed capital projects as well as

[00:18:03] utilize the county held LCPS capital contingency fund to fully fund the project. We're currently working on refining these numbers and we'll bring an item to F&O shortly with more detail. So as we discussed in the last work session we've received a lot of positive feedback regarding our privacy restroom project. So as you know we've executed these programs a couple years back at Dominion Heritage and Woodgrove. Currently we have Stonebridge scheduled for construction for next summer and then the following summer after that three other high

[00:18:42] schools while we're on this slide I'll just mention if you haven't already done so I'd highly recommend taking a look at those schools those restaurant projects in seeing what all the positive feedback was as well as the link here in this slide is what a different school district did to execute a very similar program in their school and I found it to be a really helpful visual representation of what we plan on doing here so I welcome you to take a look at that. So we've heard you and we're responding to several requests we received to look at

[00:19:17] expediting these projects. In order to achieve this, we are recommending a proposal to seek $14.6 million from the county year-end fund. And what this would do if we receive this fund, it would allow us to shorten the length of time for this multi-year project. So we would be able to take the four years that we would normally do the high schools with current funding levels and it would become two years so the total project would go from the seven-year project to a five-year per project so it would expedite quite a bit if we were able to see that funding and do that work more quickly athletic turf and lighting so this is an update on this project as a

[00:19:57] result of some changes recent changes the county zoning ordinances as relates to lighting we're we're adjusting the sequence of projects in order to keep a total initiative moving forward on its current timeline so essentially the length of time for approval process for the county has has increased so the proposed solution is we're going to combine the tennis court projects with the athletic the turf field lighting to consolidate that effort through the approval process for lighting and we're going to resequence some of these projects in order to start on the projects that we have approval to start on while we seek approval for the remainder of the project so this way we

[00:20:36] We re-sequence the projects and we still end up completing the initiative at the same time. So this will show up in the updated budget book so we just wanted to provide the background for you today of why this would change would happen.

[00:20:54] So just a quick update on Robey, we're -- sorry -- a new space for this program has not yet been identified. Once that occurs, we have approximately two years of legislative process, design and construction.

[00:21:12] So the ideal opening of 28-29 is starting to become a bit challenging. But we will continue to look for space and keep you updated on progress for that initiative.

[00:21:34] Support space needs. So last work session we talked about we're going to provide a little more detail on support space needs and funding. So just an update on where we are with funding. So we have $7 million from prior year of balance that has not been spent for support services work.

[00:21:50] We're anticipating $850,000 in FY28 which is in that list of projects that we started with. So here's a list of the various projects that we were considering for use of this funding. So we have Round Hill Center improvements, the safety and security space including the SOC, the Valley Service Center site and fuel station out west, the Western Support Center annex building out in Percival our very own admin building here the fourth and fifth floor is something that was being considered as well as warehouse space that we have over on sickland

[00:22:27] road so our thoughts now at the point of with the funding that we currently have we did some studies on what it would take to do a full renovation of four and five what it would take to do a refresh of those floors we're recommending doing is a refresh of four and five which would bring it to the same level of finishes what we have in floors one two and three that would include carpet lighting paint and new furniture as needed and we estimate that at 3.6 million dollars and the thoughts we have about the remaining balance would be to prioritize additional

[00:23:06] space needs that we may have for the admin building as well as safety and Security of the SOC is a priority and I mentioned Roundhill and the FACE Resource Hub is something that is currently in pending identification of space that would become a priority for us as well to do that project.

[00:23:32] So the Renovation Replacement Program, an update for this as we enter into FY28. We now open up the six-year window to include FY23. we've gone through our facility condition assessment we've updated it based on work that's been done for the last year and we're able to add Seneca Ridge Middle School and Broadburn High School into the renovation placement program so we're pretty happy about being able to do that and with that I

[00:24:04] will hand it off to miss Tate good afternoon so in your FY 27 capital budget adopted last December we had two classroom additions for Eagle Ridge middle school and farm wall station included in that budget cycle the design funding for eagle ridge was has been completed it was funded back in 2022 and construction funding is scheduled to come our way on july 1 in the amount of 13.9 million this would construct nine classrooms at

[00:24:41] eagle ridge middle school likewise at farm wall station with fy28 we would receive design funding in the amount of 900,000 and then construction funding would follow in FY 29 to also construct a nine classroom addition at Farmwell Station.

[00:24:59] As we've been preparing for your FY 28 through FY 33 budget cycle, we are coming to you with a potential pivot. The capacity at both Eagle Ridge and Farmwell Station should be able to sustain their current enrollment, sustaining their current enrollment and their forecasted enrollment for the next six years. So we are exploring the option of potentially repurposing this money for a couple ideas that we're going to float here tonight, reallocating the monies for the Eagle Ridge

[00:25:34] and Farm Well Station nine classroom additions to potentially expedite some classroom additions at elementary schools. So the first option that I will outline for you here is to expedite three classroom additions at five elementary schools, including Sully, Meadowland, Guilford, Sterling, and Leesburg. These schools have some space constraints, even though when you look at their base capacity, we have available seats. We do not have resource space for them to have one-on-one

[00:26:09] and small group instruction. We have, of those five schools, four of them have modular classrooms that we would like to see replaced with brick-and-mortar classrooms. Facilities Operations has done a fabulous job maintaining and caring for them, but some of these units are 30 years old.

[00:26:29] And so we need to recognize that they aren't temporary and that they are there to stay. Doing so would also provide an opportunity, as you, the board, have voiced interest in expanding our preschool program options, particularly in these five schools, which are all also Title I.

[00:26:49] This would help some of our more vulnerable students meet with success as they start elementary school. So that is one option that would take the $27.5 million to expedite the construction of these. You will note, and it's not a footnote here on our reference capital budget pages, but we do have in the adopted budget from last fall, we have elementary school classroom additions, which total 20.5 million coming over the FY29 in 30 years.

[00:27:20] This would advance those projects to this coming year, get them built faster and in place for our students. The second option that we are exploring would be to expedite the classroom additions at only three schools, Guilford, Sterling, and Leesburg.

[00:27:40] As Mr. Pascarelli just mentioned on the slide preceding here, we are scheduled to fund renovations at both Sully and Guilford or Sully and Meadowland sorry and so the additions that we would propose there would be included in those projects rather than the three classroom additions here the addition with option two is we would also be able to provide some division-wide safety and security improvements that could also be addressed should we go down the path of delaying deferring the Eagle Ridge and Farmwell station classroom additions and

[00:28:18] instead focus that money on the elementary schools and potentially safety security again we're exploring we would welcome any thoughts as we go through this process from you collectively or individually but we just wanted to highlight two of the thoughts that we've had as we've started to repair for this law and thank you and I will add to that in your executive content we listed the security items that would make up the second part of that project we didn't to discuss those in the open board so next up is the charter school and so just as a reminder of

[00:28:57] the board approximately 12 years ago the school board voted to close both middleburg elementary school and hillsborough elementary school following the closure of those two schools we had two separate charter school boards formed and requested the use of those facilities at no cost and as is condition uh each year our facilities team does a facility condition assessment updates on those buildings and we send a list of recommended improvements to both charter schools for them to consider in return the charter schools according to policy 5410 the charter schools

[00:29:35] have the ability to request the school board to consider capital projects on their behalf and so what you've got on this on the screen there are the list of projects that both charter schools have requested the school board to consider their the full letters from the two charter schools as well as the letters that we sent the charters identifying what recommended improvements should be done are both also attached in board docs executive content because of the security enhancements that were addressed and then also just as a reminder that as per policy

[00:30:10] 5410 we're sharing this information with the school board but at this but unless directed otherwise we will not be incorporating these any of these projects into the superintendent's recommended capital budget okay and so you saw this slide earlier this evening as a reminder this is the 20 FY 28 project list that that you approved last year as part of the capital budget we're highlighting the two projects that mistake just talked about with the two middle school projects we would be staff is recommending that those projects be deferred we would push

[00:30:48] them out slightly and then pull forward from 29 and 30 the uh three classroom additions at five elementary schools or the three elementary schools and two and security projects i will also add that our staff has met with the county budget staff and we've confirmed that county budget staff is not anticipating any additional capital funding for 28 or 29 at this point and so any changes to this list would require us to identify something on the list that would need to be reduced because the bottom line funding is the same and other than the suggested year-end

[00:31:24] funding that you heard about to accelerate the restrooms and the request for our contingency funds for the ongoing project with the view transition academy there's no other changes other than what we've just identified on this list for you and then so finally again wrapping up with the calendar of events the next time you'll see us back will be on october 27th to present the superintendent's recommended capital budget we greatly appreciate your feedback any comments concerns if we're able to address them this evening or if you've got some after this evening

[00:32:03] please send them to mr mamoon and we're happy to take a look at that and and respond back and we look forward to hearing any questions or concerns you've got well thank you team so much for the presentation. And with that, I will ask the board members, do you have any questions? Mr. Svensson? Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the presentation. I'm very excited in particular about the View Transition Academy and for all the work that you all are doing on that. I had a few questions about the Eagle Ridge and Palmwell Station changes, just for my understanding, and I'm happy to discuss

[00:32:38] this further after tonight's meeting, but I was curious in what changes there been in forecasted enrollment between when we started the project and today and are those forecasts similar as it changed noticeably and I had a few other questions but maybe I'll start there thank you mr. Simpson so the enrollments at both Eagle Ridge and farm well have remained steady we have obviously we're all aware that our enrollment is declining and kind of flattening out to

[00:33:14] an extent they are both steady we had when we initially brought this both projects forward it was to like size the middle schools to their feeder high schools that was a big driver for us we were anticipating additional growth from the area but we were trying to like size the middle school so that when we do secondary boundaries we would have that opportunity to have students that attend Eagle Ridge advance to Briar Woods and better utilize both facilities. Briar

[00:33:52] Woods and Broad Run both have had additions over the years that have upped their capacity and so for lack of a better example I will say let's say Eagle Ridge has a 300 student capacity which we know it does not but it's easy math and so if we have a hundred students in each grade when we get to high school we would think we would need a 400 people high school because we then have four grades of the same so we were trying to like size that but as we've looked at both schools and the kind of flattening sustaining of their enrollments we believe that it's a better

[00:34:29] use of funds now to address some capacity concerns in the eastern loud and elementary schools as well as leesburg we're beginning that boundary process we know those schools are older they are mostly in in the 1960s they're wonderful schools they aren't built like our schools they don't have the capacity to address all of their needs they weren't designed for all of the wonderful supports and the staff that are in those schools daily and so we felt that we could provide them more permanent classrooms getting

[00:35:05] rid of the modulars we could give them additional space for instruction and we could help the board meet that success marker with preschool if we moved those forward and just deferred the middle schools a few years. Thank you that's helpful. I agree yeah I think the the proposed improvements to the Eastern Loudoun elementary schools and Leesburg elementary school are great ideas. I think on Eagle Ridge and Farmwell it sounds like the it's been steady enrollment since we decided to embark on the project I'm curious given that we

[00:35:44] are going to be doing the secondary school zoning next year how you think not going forward with this at this time could affect that process as we have expanded offerings for students such as offering him site Briarwoods those students coming to the program are utilizing some of that additional capacity so as an example we could still offer we could still maintain in Eagle Ridge Briarwood feed providing some additional capacity at Briarwood's again

[00:36:23] as an example for the ham side for the students who are coming into that school from outside of its attendance zone so that situates us well and then potentially you know pasty could be addressed with this deferred projects as additional programs are brought out or as potentially ham size offered more globally in our division instead of just in a couple schools so that would be one aspect I would thank you and I guess one other question I had was for the nine classroom additions if those were general plan for general education classrooms or if similar to what we've been discussing with the elementary

[00:37:02] schools if they are force additional support spaces or sort of specialized programs and that's why we would be expanding the the number of classrooms at those middle schools. I in part want to punt to my friend to my right but I believe they they're intended as general education classrooms there may be live lab spaces there too as our sciences but I will okay he's just saying correct.

[00:37:28] Thank you I'm sure I'll have more questions about about both these oh the one other thing I just wanted to ask now though is You know, these are not as old as some of our other schools in the county, but they are, you know, older middle schools.

[00:37:45] But I understand that we would still be having, you know, renovations, refurbishments planned for those middle schools down the line. I'm curious what those plans might be. So what would still be going forward, even if we are deferring the classroom additions?

[00:38:04] Yeah, so we would continue doing renovation work, upkeep work, as we would for any other school with those projects. Even if we have a project that's planned, you know, renovation replacement program, maybe planned five years, we continue to make sure that the school is taken care of and we do the work we need to, and we plan carefully to make sure that we're not redoing work we've already done.

[00:38:24] So that's a constant communication that we have within our teams to make sure that happens. And so that's kind of like the routine upkeep maintenance, not any particular project geared towards those schools. Correct. Thank you.

[00:38:41] I would love to chat with you all further about this, but I've been taking up a lot of time, so I'll defer to my colleagues. Right. So just to add, though, with FarmWell, it is one of our top priorities for a critical system. So we had delayed that project by a couple of years to roll it into the overall renovation.

[00:38:58] We're going to pull it, keep it back, keep it on schedule, and so the building will be getting a new HVAC system. And we can do that without having to duplicate any work that we would then come back to do during the renovation. But it is getting very near the top of the list for that. Thank you.

[00:39:14] I appreciate that clarification. Thank you. Mrs. Griffiths. Thank you, Madam Chair. Can you tell me, what is the enrollment for Roby? And I'll be requesting enrollments on all schools throughout Loudoun County.

[00:39:34] So the dashboard, we can provide that link, does give you a snapshot of unofficial enrollment. And so unofficial enrollment last week was 63 students at Roby High School.

[00:39:50] unofficial so I'm just confused 63 students and you're building a new space I'm just trying to understand so part of the driver for the Roby program is that is anticipated to continue to grow and offer more opportunities for students but it is currently utilizing 12 to 14 classrooms at Dominion High School that if Roby had a its own home so to speak then we would be able to utilize those classrooms for Dominion High School again tied to the secondary attendance

[00:40:25] own process this coming spring which an ideal world which again ideal we would have that capacity as we plan and propose plans to you all as you finally adopt attendance own changes at the secondary level so that was part of the drive and when mr. Pascarelli said we're kind of getting down to the wire of finding space for that exercise that was what he was referring to thank you I I also broad run you know I have to advocate for broad run I'm a little disappointed that I'm seeing

[00:41:01] 2031 we just had people there doing an assessment on what they can do as far as not just the theater but the school has had renovations that were not complete so if you can give me a rundown on that one as well because I I feel like 2031 is too far away so thank you for that question so so a couple things I'll new so as of last year we started to add all projects that are associated with with every school into our capital budget

[00:41:38] book so broad run is on page 1 158 which has all the projects that are listed so what you're probably referring to with regards to the surveying is broad runs the top priority for the vision forming arts project as well as we have an independent living lab that's being done there so the renovation replacement program would be looking at all the other things in this school but these are discrete projects that we have funding for this particular initiatives and we're going to continue doing those things while we wait for that to happen but that doesn't mean that any other work stops at the schools things that would

[00:42:15] normally happen whether it be replacement of furniture those kinds of things those are on schedules that would not be changed um uh you know during this period of time while we wait because it is a long time i agree yes they've been looking for renovations for a while but i'll get back to you with that so thank you so much mr pepper thank you madam chair thank you guys for the presentation and welcome i'm glad to have you here new face but it's good to hear good to have you here um i actually want to go back and uh piggyback off my colleague mr svensson and talk a little bit more about the eagle ridge farm well station situation from my understanding

[00:42:51] we've already done the design on eagle ridge how much did we spend on the design for eagle ridge

[00:43:06] it's okay appreciate you taking the time to look it up 674 000 if we postpone this project to a future date because my guess is at some point we will need to do some some work on these buildings would we still be able to use those plans um and so it's kind of a sunk cost uh no we would be able to although we would have to what I'd say refresh the plans because codes have changed requirements with county has changed but for the most part that work would would would still be usable with some modifications to the plans and

[00:43:43] we'd have to go through we've already been through a permitting process and we'd have to go through that process again as well so there'd be some additional costs associated with that work so I'm all for you know utilizing space the way spaces need it just it's sad that we spent you know a large number of a large amount of funds on this and now we're not going to use it so i'm going to say that um as far as the kind of five elementary school situation i know it's five versus three if we were to wait on sully

[00:44:13] and meadowland when would the full renovation be planned you got it well and so sully and meadowland were both scheduled for construction starting in FY 2031.

[00:44:32] So the designs would start in 2029. Construction would start in 2031. So that would be basically summer of 2030. And so with a three-classroom addition, usually it's one year of construction. Would there be, I guess you would know this better, enrollment-wise, significant strain on those two buildings in terms of classroom capacity if we postpone the three-classroom addition to 2031?

[00:45:01] And if so, knowing that we're doing, really very soon, starting to look at the Sterling and Algonquian districts for enrollment, is that something that we would want to consider when we think about possibly drawing the boundaries for those buildings if we go one way and not the other for that three-classroom addition?

[00:45:18] All excellent questions that we have asked ourselves. Yes, and so I would not be honest if I didn't say that part of what's driving this conversation is as we're looking at what we may be bringing to you in a month with the attendance zone process.

[00:45:42] We have recognized that while we reflect base capacity at all of our schools, and when one looks at the capital budget and the projections that we prepared last fall, that there appears to be available capacity at all of those schools.

[00:46:01] But I can honestly say after visiting them and walking with them and seeing, again, all of the wonderful supports that you, the board, have put in there in this place of personnel and programs, that these schools that were built in the mid-1960s do not have the spaces that our current schools do.

[00:46:24] They're doing wonderful things, but we should help them more. We should be able to provide them spaces to do that. We should be able to give them brick-and-mortar classrooms rather than using modular classrooms.

[00:46:41] We should be providing resource spaces instead of them having to do small group out in the hall. It's just, it's, um, so your question was, could they survive? I certainly said, but we don't.

[00:46:58] It's not, it's not really, could they survive, right? So you're asking us in a month, right, to start looking at these schools. And so the question really is, if we go this route, which might be the better route because you get the security renovations, you get the true renovation that Sully and Meadowland really desperately need.

[00:47:14] If we go that route, is one of the considerations when we kind of draw the lines to consider probably diminishing capacity a little bit at those two schools and pushing it to the other three until that renovation comes through and then possibly reconfigure the lines again now that they all have the proper capacity?

[00:47:36] I think that's a conversation that needs to be had. And I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be... It's just, yes, they're both going down the same direction. They just haven't met up yet. But more conversation needs to be had.

[00:47:53] Perfect. And I think I'll pick your brain offline kind of one way or the other, which way you are kind of leaning on this project. But I do think it's a good idea, and I appreciate you taking the time to hash that out. Thank you. Ms. Chernoff? Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you all, and welcome.

[00:48:10] we're so glad to have you. We're throwing you right in the mix. So we're grateful. Just a couple of quick comments of approval from me. The bathroom expedited projects couldn't be more behind that. I hear very positive things, especially from Heritage High School. That's my daughter's school and also in my cluster. So it really has been a game changer there. So I'm very excited to see that that's being expedited and fully support that shift. Hope we can snag those funds for sure and then I am pretty concerned about the Robey project in terms of the timeline

[00:48:45] and that we're crunching down now and I would hate to see that we would have to have a conversation about potentially limiting those students or god forbid not being able to support that program so I am very supportive of whatever we need to do if we need to go back to the drawing board on some earlier conversations about options, I'm very open to that. I know the value. I've spoken to those students. I've been there. It's a powerful program that meets a very unique need and we are very lucky to have it. And so I am fully supportive of trying to be creative and figure out a way

[00:49:24] because it sounds like we're kind of closing in on that timeline. Additionally, I know my friends here's districts are being impacted by the middle school project but i have to say as someone who did my reading groups on the hallway at guilford and gave one-on-one assessments and math closets we are way overdue for this and i am grateful for the pivot um i was wondering of the 27.5 million in option two do we know how much of that is broken out between the school projects and the safety and security improvements if we were looking for funds the total security projects

[00:50:04] and once again the list is in executive content is 9.2 million okay thank you i appreciate that um yeah i i think i would probably be supportive of option two just given that sully and meadowland would get a full refresh down the line but i'm definitely open to what my colleagues would think but i'm i'm fully supportive i'm definitely a thousand percent behind the preschool project i think all of this is really responsive and timely as we head into the rezone conversation so i'm really appreciative of the forward thinking and sort of casting a vision here for where we want to go and being supportive of what the board has discussed

[00:50:40] i did want to ask one question about a potential something i'm thinking about last year at the end of the school year we had some conversations around transportation for summer school do you know if that would come out of capital budget or if that would be operational that would need to come out of the operating budget okay and transportation um heard you and heard more than more than you but heard heard from the board last year that that's a desire and they're they're looking to um identify what that cost would be okay i appreciate that thank you all so much mr carney thank you madam chair well you guys thank you so much for all of your work on this

[00:51:20] you know i'm going to be super supportive of all the things that we can do for our sterling schools I think for my colleagues, one of the things, there's a couple things I think that are really important to understand here. So I've been doing a really huge deep dive since we met a couple weeks ago about the schools and our enrollment numbers and things like that.

[00:51:38] So I think the thing that's different about what you guys experienced earlier this year in the rezoning process and what we're experiencing on the Eastern Loudoun side is that we don't have capacity or room for new neighborhoods. So we're not talking really about new neighborhoods coming in and then needing to move different neighborhoods into the schools.

[00:51:59] It's just not that that's not the context of really what as much what the Eastern Loudon piece is really going to be about. I think the thing that people need to understand is that, again, that these are small, older schools that were built for much smaller populations at the time, number one. but number two we have a huge percentage of students that are in tier three supports at these schools way beyond the staffing models that we've got and so when you go into any one of these elementary schools on any given day you'll have a hallway and you'll have at least two or three or

[00:52:35] maybe even four tables out there with teachers working with one two three or four students out in the hallway, in every hallway, in every one of these five schools. So kids that are moving from their classroom to the gym or the classroom to the library or the classroom to lunch are walking amongst kids who are there for remediation and learning and working on whatever they're working on that day, right, in the hallways. Whereas when I go to the western side of my district to elementary school, there's no one in the hallways except for teachers and administrators and people

[00:53:13] walking and doing their business it's not there are no there's no remediation tables out in the hallways it's a stark stark difference between what's happening on the eastern side of my district and the western side of the district and I think it's also between what's happening in the eastern part of Loudoun and the rest of the county and I think I think the public needs to be really aware of that so when we're saying we need more more buildings and more facilities and more space it's not just a matter of the head count it's a matter of the fact that we have such a larger percentage of students that need the bigger support, the more one-on-one, the more small group work, and there's no physical space to put them except for in hallways.

[00:53:54] And as you can imagine, I don't know about anybody else, I'd be enormously distracted when my friends are walking down the hallway while I'm supposed to be sitting there trying to figure out my math or my reading, et cetera. So I think that understanding that, and I would really, by the way, encourage anyone who wants to go visit any of the schools to do that, because I think you really have to see it to understand it.

[00:54:12] And so I'm just, I'm very excited about this. I think we're definitely on the right track and I appreciate all that we're doing to really change this. I guess I had a couple questions about, you know, the FACE Resource Hub. I saw that in the list of projects and things too. And I would love to understand at one point in time, do we have a budget set aside for that? I didn't grab the actual number and the timeline for that and if there's any thoughts about where that might go in order to help kind of support our students. And then I've got a couple other questions i'll ask you guys offline that just have to do with utilization

[00:54:47] and enrollment miss allen would you like to speak sure um the face resource hub you'll get a presentation on at the next board meeting but timeline would be 20 27 27 okay great thank you for that yes um and just so we i understand too for enrollment projections we're going to work off the september 30th number that comes out when we get there right okay great thank you so much thank you all right well I'd like to go and then I'll come back to you all right thanks again for

[00:55:24] the presentation this is really very engaging and I'm glad that we have the opportunity to really dig in and hear everybody's unique perspectives in much the same way I would like to call out the things that I truly appreciate of course Roby it's just such a special program doing really meaningful work to make sure that we don't leave any of our students without the opportunity to be literate, fully functional adults in our community, and doing it in a way that is respectful of the challenges that these students face, incredibly important. I appreciate

[00:56:00] that prioritization. I would also like to throw my support behind the private restroom acceleration. I think one of the things that stood out to me since we came onto the school board, those of us that did come in 24, when we started having this conversation, it's really a discipline issue. And I know at that time, we had heard from the school that was out, the school district that was out west that said, hey, you know, this is a really great project to do because it improves discipline outcomes. I hadn't really thought of it in those terms before, but when you really look

[00:56:38] at, I mean, I know we have them at Dominion, and I would love to hear if our data supports that, But I always hear positive things in the community, and I think it's beneficial to all different types of students. Not that I need to call out my own children in this scenario, but privacy is great to have a choice.

[00:56:57] The other restrooms are never going to go away. But I can think of some discipline issues that the board is surely aware of that you can see how having restrooms like this would alleviate some of those scenarios. And I just think it's really important to look at it from that lens as well.

[00:57:15] The larger restrooms are not going to go away, but it is truly easier to monitor these spaces because students have better eyesight. I'm sorry, teachers have better eyelines on who's coming and going in those spaces. So then I really also want to say I'm very excited about the FACE Resource Hub.

[00:57:39] I think that's going to be great for improving services to our students who are facing challenges. especially financial challenges one of the things that's so great about our parent liaison program is that we're able to actually leverage the community resources through our school business partnerships and other relationships that we have in the interfaith community to meet the needs of our students and having that hub is going to make everything that distribution of resources so much more efficient I think that I'm really excited to continue to talk about that and I think I really

[00:58:16] appreciate Ms. Riccardi's comments as well. The eastern part of Loudoun is different. And although there are two areas that are currently experiencing new construction, I don't imagine that we'll see a great number of students come out of those developments. All of the buildings on that side of Loudoun County are significantly older. And starting to have this conversation as we prepare with my community in Algonquian District, I've tried to point out the fact that we have to make sure that we're utilizing our resources appropriately.

[00:58:51] And some of those schools in my district are full to capacity, over capacity, and some of them are in danger of being closed. And so what I'd really like to do is make sure that we take a really good look at where we have students and make sure that we keep just even out enrollment so that we're using all of our buildings at capacity because although some of our buildings are older, we know that schools are built to last a long time, but we want to get the most out of them. And so I'll just say

[00:59:26] thank you for that. And then Ms. Chernoff, you're good? Okay. Oh, Ms. LaBelle, you're up next. Thank you. I wanted to jump on comments made by Ms. Riccardi about having to have small group in the halls. As a special ed teacher and a transition teacher, I frequently had to go out and meet with students in the hallways. That's a violation of privacy and IDEA. And if you had to, if an assistant or anyone had to take the students out into the hallways because they had the

[01:00:01] accommodation of small group testing, it's not just distracting. For them, it's embarrassing with every student walking past because all of a sudden those students know that those are special ed students and it's just critical for these students to be able to have a private space, a small conference room, whatever for these types of meetings and activities. I know that sometimes they were taken into the library but again you might have other students in the library so that's not a solution so I really would appreciate having the

[01:00:38] money go to building extra space for these students. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Riccarni. I think I just had one more question for you guys. So when we were, I know that you said that we had a couple of schools that were ready for renovate, or they were in the process or in the queue for renovation, and that's why they were picked. But as I go through and I look at the utilization numbers, you know, Forest Grove and Rolling Ridge and Guilford are the three, have a three are the three schools have the highest utilization at this point

[01:01:15] have we looked at Forest Grove and Rolling Ridge in the process as well yes we have Rolling Ridge and Sugar Land have both had classroom additions I say recent I use that word very loosely in the 2000s that we've added Forest Grove is newly opened I believe in part sometimes it's the programs that are being offered but as part of this conversation that's bringing this idea that we're floating out to you again would be remiss if I didn't say that

[01:01:55] we're looking at how we calculate base capacity in some of these older schools and so it is very deceiving it's when one looks at the again the capital budget document and then when you walk in the schools and so we're trying to address that the base capacity not saying that it's wrong it is not program capacity base capacity is kind of we look at a school that has 34 rooms is the same school that has 34 rooms whether it's an Eastern Loudon or

[01:02:28] Western Loudon or Central Loudon so it is our intent to speak to that as well as we begin this capital budget yeah I appreciate that because I mean it's it is rooms and that head count but then at the same time it's the third leg of that stool really is where they sit in the support system process and how much space we need for that.

[01:02:52] And all of the five schools in the Sterling Park area have a pretty large number of students in that third tier. And I'm sure Ms. Chandler, probably in Algonquian too, haven't had a chance to dive into those numbers at this point in time yet, but I think that's all part of it too.

[01:03:10] So looking at the space and the rooms and the availability for that too is also a good thing. So that'd be great. We're also, I should say, we're also looking, base capacity, again, is based upon if you have 34 classrooms that we would say we would be pulling five classrooms out for special education services.

[01:03:26] And that's just like a standard based on the number of rooms in the building. And we will all acknowledge that a lot of our schools in Eastern Loudoun have more special education programs in those buildings than their base capacity would say they should have in an ideal world.

[01:03:48] Again, more to come. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. It's a very complicated algorithm of things that have to be kind of calculated in, and it's different for different parts of the county, I've figured. So I appreciate all the work you all are doing on this. Thank you. Board members, any further comments or questions on this item?

[01:04:10] Okay. For the audience online and in person, I just wanted to let you know we are experiencing some difficulty with our microphones. I understand that mine is one of the worst. None of them necessarily sound great. We are planning to work on that during the dinner recess.

[01:04:27] Ms. LaBelle? Oh, okay, thank you for letting us know. Nice, okay. We are gonna, thank you so much for the presentation. We appreciate your time and the conversation.

[01:04:43] And with that, we're gonna move into an information item before we go into dinner. So we will move on to item number 1301, Department of Business and Financial Services, fiscal year 26, budget supplemental workers compensation fund presented tonight by Ms. Willoughby so I have the first information item which is a final year-end accounting cleanup request that

[01:05:21] we are bringing to the board and it's related to a FY 26 budget supplemental for our workers compensation self-insurance fund following each fiscal year and we receive our annual workers compensation actuarial reserve valuation that is performed by an independent actuarial consulting firm.

[01:05:42] This valuation is performed each year to estimate the total amount LCPS will ultimately need to pay for workers compensation claims that have already occurred but we have not yet received any expenses for. These estimates are used to establish what the liabilities are and to report them appropriately in our financial year-end statements based on this actuarial valuation we are recognizing an additional 1.8 million in expenses and so the request before the board is a budget supplemental of 1.8 million to be funded from a transfer

[01:06:22] from the school operating fund this will ensure that we have sufficient cash on hand to be able to pay for these claims when they come through as well as make sure that we are in accordance to our fund balance regulation in meeting our two-month minimum reserve and with that be happy to take any questions and if there are no questions this would come back as action to the school board at your next meeting thank you board members any questions or comments I'm Miss Riccardi thank you madam chair so Miss Woolley did did we just ask or did

[01:06:55] we just get a $200,000 supplemental for this fund back in June yes as we referenced in the background of the board docs item there was a budget supplemental request of two hundred thousand that we brought to the board and at that time that was based on actual claims expenses that we were seeing occur and that we had internally projected the actuarial is a it's a completely different process and which is why we also engage with a consultant to help

[01:07:30] determine what that estimate would be this is also performed just for reference the actuarial is not just for workers comp we also look at our other self-insurance funds to include health to again look at what what those claims we call it the ibnp or ibnr which are incurred but not reported or incurred but not paid so there is a process and then again just based on that reserve analysis for this fund we needed the additional 1.8 and are we is is the reason why we're asking for all these supplementals kind of as we get into the summer or in this case we're at the

[01:08:09] beginning of the year um are we not forecasting accurately is something in the situation changing that we're not able to budget for it properly i know that this happens periodically and i've obviously over the years but i guess what i'm trying to say is as we're getting to a point we're going to have to start getting really um more uh tight on our budget are there are there is there anything we can do to get ahead of um the estimates that we're using so they're more accurately reflecting what we're actually going to wind up spending because i'm concerned that we're wanting to take you know 1.8 million out of the operating fund for this and i guess

[01:08:49] my question my second question to that is where is that coming from so i would start i believe by answering a question that budget at the end of the day is an estimate and so we are always preparing the budget based on the best available information that we have I will use our health self-insurance as an area during the year when we back up when we're preparing the budget we're looking at historical information to include information that we present to the board on a quarterly basis which are those financial projections so we watch very closely and so while we may bring that

[01:09:26] information to the board on a quarterly basis I can assure you that we have monthly regular meetings as well as even at additional levels there's probably daily meetings that are occurring related to looking at the financial the financials of the division with that though with health insurance there can sometimes be changes there can be changes that are out of our control perhaps there are federal regulations that change how prescriptions are administered that are out of our control that we didn't have that information in front of us and so then we're having to react and make adjustments during the year on our

[01:10:03] operating fund side we could see changes impacted as I think was referenced during our last F&O meeting related to tariffs potentially having impacts on our our paper supplies so while we prepare a budget it is always an estimate during the year we are we are looking at actual expenses and projecting accordingly we always strive to do the best and so that we can be as close to as target on possible as possible but again because it is an estimate and sometimes we may what whereas we may be under

[01:10:40] and have surpluses conversely we may have shortages and then we are as required and also to support transparency bring those actions before the board i guess so my question is um what were the extenuating circumstances this time that we're asking for 1.8 million because it's not a small number uh and i mean i guess that'd be one and were there any extenuating circumstances that we hadn't factored in that were now at 1.8 million and 1.8 million dollar

[01:11:11] request our actuarial consulting firm has access to additional information than that necessarily our internal team would have so again they're looking at claims that may have been reported And then they are looking, based on their expertise, which I couldn't even maybe fully adequately describe kind of on the spot, but they are looking through their expertise of what those claims typically may cost an organization.

[01:11:42] We, again, internally are looking more directly at the actuals. We do take into account at year end what we think the actuarial consulting firm may come back with in terms of that IBNP and IBNR. this did take us by surprise it was a more substantial swing than we had adjusted because even when we bring the supplemental increase the 200,000 that you referenced at the same time we had also some additional self-insurance budget supplementals we had did our best effort of

[01:12:15] estimating what we thought the actuarial reports would come in at this one was just outside of what we anticipated and then in board docs it outlined um just basically information that was shared with us from from the firm that just there are just several larger dollar claims that have begun to you know come our way is there any way that we can get ahead of this for the next year and create models that are going to get us a more accurate picture i mean because i just don't think that we're going to always be in a situation in the in the next several years we're just going

[01:12:53] to have money to move from operating into these things. So I guess my question is, we need to do a really good job of forecasting and estimating what these things look like. I get that there might be some extenuating circumstances here and there, but I feel like we're asking, we're constantly being asked for these supplementals to help close gaps in varying funds. And I just want to see if we can start really tightening this up and figure out if there's a way for us to more accurately estimate what these costs are going to be so that we're not having to get to

[01:13:27] i mean one point again 1.8 million dollars is a lot of money for us just to move and and again i guess where is it coming from in operating budget it's coming from the projected surplus that had been that i've been sharing during the quarterly financial reviews of our of our appropriated but unencumbered unspent fund balance projection and what is that total balance right now do you know i think we're looking at around a little over 20 million and then again just as a reminder during those quarterly reviews that have been shared with the school board i had shared that the plan

[01:14:04] was that any available fund balance would be transferred to our health self-insurance fund to help cover the gap that we have there so we have a fund with five million that we're able to draw from and we're going to pull 1.8 out plus the 200 that we did for the summer for just this and then what else is expected to come out of that?

[01:14:23] - What this board has already taken action on. - Okay, all right, thank you. - Okay, thank you so much. I just wanted to say workers' compensation is certainly not something that I'm an expert on and I certainly have a lot of questions.

[01:14:44] It is interesting that it's a different allocation this year, but given that it's workers' compensation, could you give us a couple of just, I mean obviously we can't violate anyone's privacy, but typical scenarios and why one year might be a larger demand than a typical?

[01:15:06] Yes, and I appreciate the question. One of the things that, in terms of behind-the-scenes process, that's not just necessarily financial. The financial analytics team in the business and financial service department works very closely with the leave and benefits team in HRTD, where they are looking at the actual claims activity.

[01:15:31] So for an example, I'll pull some examples in my head from prior, prior years. There was a year where we were seeing an uptick in the number of claims because bus drivers were slipping on ice. So that translated into a budget line item for safety shoes that were specific to, you know, to walk on ice, thinking if we are able to invest a little dollar, some smaller dollars here, we'll reap the rewards by not having the claims, as well as protecting employees, of course.

[01:16:04] Another example would be looking at trends in the claims themselves to try to identify what can we do to help mitigate what is happening. There were our special education teachers and teacher assistants were having a lot of injuries related from students and so we were able to identify additional personal protective equipment gear that then we distributed to the schools again and then we saw the impacts from that what I'm what we have seen though unfortunately in these last couple of years

[01:16:41] with our workers comp claim is not just something kind of simple and categorized like that they're a little kind of all over the place and so we haven't been able to more directly try to target some interventions but that is an activity that does occur and that we continue to do thank you board members are there any other questions or comments on this item mr pepper thank you madam chair the only question i had is i know we're asking for a transfer of 1.8 million from the school operating fund how does that impact the school operating fund or is it just from kind of

[01:17:16] the reserves that we had built in? So while I don't have the numbers in front of me, the third quarter financial review, if I remember correctly, it's probably written down where I'm sitting back there, is I believe we were projecting around a $13 million fund balance at that time. Since then, we had some additional revenues come in, other changes in this last quarter, and that has ticked up to about the approximate $20 million figure that I just referenced. So whereas we were originally anticipating again I'm using very round numbers maybe around 20 million to

[01:17:53] transfer to the health self-insurance fund now we would be transferring 1.8 million less of that to the health self-insurance fund our health self insurance fund is still looking tremendously better than this time last year we've almost I think our projections for a year-end is that we have almost come out of the negative and that we're definitely projected to come out of the negative and FY 27 but this last or I shouldn't say the last this transfer out of FY 26 school operating fund into the health self-insurance fund hopefully gets us over that hump and if we continue the claims activity trends

[01:18:29] that we have seen as long along with the premium increases that we have programmed in this year hopefully all those things continue to get us to a point to where we can return back to the process of of those year-end funds bringing recommended uses to the school board that we could have like internal spending plans on some one-time items and then our internal practice had also been to return no less I mean no more excuse me no more than one percent to the county at the end of each

[01:19:01] fiscal year thank you all right normally I would like to push through and do one more item but given the challenge that we're having with the microphones I think we would be well advised to go into recess now to give the tech team an opportunity to address that so with that we

[01:19:20] will recess this meeting for dinner and reconvene at 6 30 the board is now in recess test one two

[01:57:29] three four test one two new with item seven which is the pledge of allegiance and national anthem

[02:03:06] tonight the national anthem will be performed by the parkview high school marching patriots the marching patriots are a 10 time all virginia honor band under the direction of claude legrand They have performed for many events, including football games, band competitions, Sterling community events, the Loudoun United soccer team, and have just recently been invited back for a fifth time to perform the national anthem for the NBA team, the Washington Wizards.

[02:03:35] Welcome, everyone, and thank you all for being here tonight. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[02:06:08] Thank you so much, y'all. That was absolutely a joy. Thank you. I felt that in my heart. I love the drum line. Y'all, that was awesome.

[02:06:23] Thank you so much. All right. With that, we will move on to our recognitions. The one LCPS spotlight, this is item number eight, LCPS Capital Improvement. and a sense of belonging, Independent Living Labs, which will be presented by Mr. Mike Fitzgerald, the assistant principal at Rockridge High School. And Mr. Fitzgerald, I'll ask you to please introduce the rest of the team. Oh, no. We have our introductions in our presentation.

[02:06:59] Oh, awesome. All the better. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you for having us. It's my pleasure to introduce the One LCPS Spotlight for this evening. I'm Melissa Tello. I'm the Assistant Director for Design in the Division of Construction Services, and with me is Ms. Jenna Arndt. She is the Supervisor for Transition Services and Special Education, and Mr. Mike Fitzgerald, Assistant Principal at Rockridge, which is our spotlight school in the spotlight.

[02:07:36] This spotlight aligns with the one LCPS strategic plan, specifically goal number one for empowered students, and we'd like to highlight goal, sub-goal 1.2, expanding opportunities for multiple accessible pathways to success through diverse programming.

[02:07:56] Next slide. Earlier this evening, you all were involved in a discussion of the capital budget process through the work session, and that is a critical process where we look forward to hearing the school board guidance and input as an initiating part of the process each year. We look to the school board for your priorities. These are key in the overall process, and we're very thankful

[02:08:30] that you have prioritized the independent living lab projects in recent years. We in support services then carry the baton and try to align the various school board priorities with school modernization strategies as well as other strategies overall in the capital budget to maximize the capital dollars and we do this by in part also collecting input from students staff in the community and ultimately that gets us to the superintendent's recommended capital budget and then your approval of a capital budget in December.

[02:09:10] But the very best part of the process are the students and the input that we received. And we've had a lot of great success in the recent year, year and a half, regarding student input. And you can see some of those photos with transition services students in particular.

[02:09:30] We have had invaluable input and information shared with us during the time we've spent with students this year. Details that are so granular that are things we wouldn't even see on how they use and experience the spaces we create are so important.

[02:09:50] But they've also been incredibly insightful and compassionate, sharing input on the desire to feel safe in spaces, to have spaces be welcoming, and to think of things like connection to nature and other aspects in our design. They've gone on to express how they want to learn in an inclusive and an accessible and collaborative manner, which directly ties to this particular goal. They've also shared with us how important it is to have social time and lunch and one lunch

[02:10:27] is always a popular comment. Next slide, please. So introducing the Independent Living Lab Project, this is a project that creates essentially a one-room kind of efficiency apartment that has all facets of daily life included. This is a multi-year project in the capital budget for all middle schools and high schools. We're beginning with high schools, and in 26, we funded design, you funded design for the first eight high schools we've completed construction of the first four of

[02:11:03] those high schools this past summer with the next four planned for summer 2027 and rockridge being one of those that will spotlight at this point i'll hand things over to jenna next slide please so as you know everything we do every day for students is preparing them for life after high school who they're going to become what they're going to do where they're going to go but a part of it that we don't often think about is how they're going to live and do it independently, especially if they rely on additional supports or need extra time to learn skills. So these

[02:11:40] independent living labs have such a big impact on our students with disabilities because it allows them a safe space to practice skills that they might not otherwise get to practice. Cooking and kitchen safety, hygiene, money skills and budgeting, housekeeping and laundry. I had to learn how to do laundry when I went to college so I imagine many of our children probably leave the nest and aren't quite sure. So these are things that we get to work on with our students in their day-to-day so that when they are ready to leave home or be as independent as possible these are skills that they

[02:12:17] have in their back pocket. Next slide please. These uniform labs across the division are providing students with equitable opportunities. Historically, we have created independent living labs across our buildings, and we've done so in a space that might be available with donated items in some cases, with bought items in other cases. And so what these labs are really doing is providing everyone the same opportunity in no matter what high school and eventually what middle school they attend.

[02:12:49] And everyone will have the same equipment and the same materials and learn the same way. in functioning spaces with water and working stoves and microwaves so they can really learn the skills and the safety needed. And now I'm going to hand it over to Mr. Fitzgerald.

[02:13:09] Next slide, please. The apartment at Rockridge is going to be so much more than a classroom. This creates a safe and practical environment for our students where they can learn the skills we talked about, cooking and cleaning, laundry, personal organization, budgeting, shopping.

[02:13:28] You can go on and on, all kinds of practical skills. But just importantly, this space can also promote true inclusion. Our students with special needs will be working with our peer students, and they will go through peer training so that they can learn alongside one another.

[02:13:44] Our school apartment can become a shared learning environment, which we're very excited about. So we have our students with special needs that are going to be working on practical social skills, solving problems, preparing meals, participating in meaningful activities, And ultimately, this can build friendships, understanding, empathy, respect, and a sense of belonging for our students.

[02:14:05] Next slide, please. For students in special education, learning these skills in a real-life setting can increase their confidence and independence. Instead of simply talking about how to prepare a meal or manage a household in a classroom, they can actually practice these real-world skills in the apartment setting.

[02:14:22] And they will gain a true sense of belonging by personalizing the apartment areas, doing things like decorating it. They can hang their own clothes in the closets. They could bring in a family picture or a stuffed animal to put on the bed if they want to make it a truly authentic experience. And the benefits extend beyond our special education students.

[02:14:39] The inclusive apartment will provide opportunities for our general education students as well to develop leadership skills, responsibility, and a deeper understanding and empathy for others. Ultimately, we're preparing our students not just to graduate, but to live and to work and to participate and belong in their communities.

[02:14:58] And this apartment is certainly going to help our students in their future. Can advance the slide? So thank you for your time and your support of the apartment independent living lab. And let us know if you have any questions. Thank you so much for the presentation.

[02:15:17] School board members, do you have any questions? Ms. Riccardi? Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you all so much for coming tonight and sharing this with us. I've been curious about what this is all about. So I'm so glad that we got to actually see it. So I guess my question to you is, what can we do to help support you?

[02:15:34] Is there, are there more resources that you need to continue to expand this out? What are you hearing from the other schools that have these and your peers and colleagues on that topic? We're just launching it here. So I think if you come back in a month or two, we'll probably have a few things that maybe you can help support us with.

[02:15:51] But, you know, you're invited to come in anytime and see what's going on. I would love to. Thank you, guys. And we are still outfitting the labs. We went and put together a list and ordered all the things we thought we needed. And then when we were unpacking, we were like, and we forgot. pans for baking and we forgot bath towels for hanging in the bathroom so we're still working on outfitting the lab so when you do visit hopefully the shelves won't look as empty as they did in the pictures i feel like that's more in that college room prep season it's kind of i feel like maybe

[02:16:22] that's where we're at this too i'm miss labelle i want to thank everybody for starting this and for the board for providing money to do this i know that in my years of teaching special ed We fought to get into a home ec room to teach them how to cook or measure or whatever.

[02:16:45] We were like, well, they can use this one, but not that one. So I am so glad to see that we have our own space for our SPED students to learn. Thank you so much. Thank you. Mrs. Griffiths. I just had a question.

[02:17:02] Donations. You said you were shopping for items. How can somebody donate to the labs? Is there, like, a website or -- because I'm just thinking to myself, I have some items maybe I might be able to donate.

[02:17:18] Sure. So at this time, as we are rolling them out, we're trying to keep everything in them uniform so that everybody's starting with the same thing. Now, certainly, if someone wants to donate an extra set of bedding or, you know, things like that, I think that eventually we'll be willing to take in some of those items.

[02:17:34] But right now, we're just trying to start everybody baseline with all of the same things and then kind of go from there. but it would be you. I can reach out to you. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you so much for this amazing presentation. We really appreciate the update. All right. And seeing no further questions or comments, we'll continue on with item number nine, student school board representatives comments. Tonight, our student school board representative is John C. Chalukapati, a senior

[02:18:09] at Rockridge High School who is passionate about leadership, community involvement, and creating positive experiences for her peers. She is actively involved in Rock Ridge Sings, where she serves on the board as social media director, as well as Model UN and DECA. She previously served as secretary and communications officer for the class of 2027, and now serves as executive president of student council. Through her various leadership roles, John C. has been actively involved in supporting school events, student activities, and initiatives that bring the

[02:18:46] school community together. She is especially passionate about using the communication and creativity to connect people, encourage student involvement, and make her school community more welcoming and inclusive. Welcome, Johncee. The floor is yours. Good evening. My name is Johncee Chilkapardi, 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. Wong, and our principal, Mr. Duhlman, for allowing me to represent Rockridge and for their continued support.

[02:19:20] Rockridge is off to a strong start this school year with an overwhelming display of student engagement and community involvement. Our fall spirit week had an incredible amount of enthusiasm with over half of the students participating each day and teachers competing for the most spirited department as well. That momentum continued to our tropical out-themed home football game where we had a huge turnout for the first tailgate of the year.

[02:19:42] We are working hard to support our athletic programs with new promotion, new leadership in the student section, and promoting the all-season pass. SCA is also busy preparing for our upcoming Halloween-inspired Haunted Homecoming in October, as well as annual favorites like the Staff vs. Students volleyball game and the Family Feud-inspired Phoenix Feud.

[02:20:01] Our students are continuing to excel academically. Rockridge has maintained top-tier state academic standings with a 99% graduation rate and leading SOL proficiency scores across the county. We are also continuing to expand our dual enrollment offerings, as this year we are offering AP Seminar, and we are looking forward to graduate our first class of AP Capstone students next year.

[02:20:23] Our students and teachers remain committed to creating a collaborative and rigorous academic environment for all of our students. Our student-athletes are also excelling. In May, our boys' tennis team won the state championship in both doubles and singles. Additionally, our fall sports teams have had a very strong start to their season, with field hockey winning two of their opening games.

[02:20:44] Our new women's flag football team recently had a commanding victory against Parkview, leading 26-0, and our men's volleyball team had over 40 students try out for the team. They recently won against Loudoun Valley and are looking to continue their successes throughout the season, led by their head coach, Coach Veer Patel, and their new assistant coach, Rockridge alumni, Coach Taylor Joyner.

[02:21:04] In our fine arts department, Rockridge Theatre is looking to continue to build on their successful season last year after winning multiple Glammys, including Outstanding Musical for Hadestown and Outstanding Lead. They are hosting auditions for Rockridge's Got Talent this week, an event allowing students to showcase their talent to a panel of live judges who work in the theatre industry professionally.

[02:21:25] They have also officially announced the production of their new musical for Season 2 of Rockridge Theatre Arts 6, Teen Edition. This year, the Rockridge Sings Choir Program was ecstatic to introduce a new teacher to lead the program. Mr. Brian Kelly, who has previously worked in the choir field for over 27 years, is now serving as the choral director.

[02:21:45] Our journalism programs continue to be a huge success. Our newspaper program, The Blaze, brought home top honors this year, with The Blaze earning first place in the podcast category in the Loud and Now Awards and maintaining its national status as an SNO distinguished site. This yearbook also had some major wins this year, winning best in show or first place at the NSPA convention in November and earning its first gold crown from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association in March and winning a coveted pacemaker from the National Scholastic Press Association in April.

[02:22:17] The Rockridge Yearbook was one of only seven schools nationwide to earn both top honors of gold crown and pacemaker, making it one of the top ten best programs in the country. It is our fifth year of integrating clubs and activities into the school day once a week, giving students an opportunity to participate in an activity without after-school time constraints.

[02:22:36] We are holding our annual club fair this Friday to give students an opportunity to find a club or organization that interests them from our 128 club offerings. Our students, faculty, and staff are working diligently to build upon our successes and continue to thrive in support and inclusive environment we worked so hard to cultivate.

[02:22:56] Once again, I would like to thank the school board for their continued support and service towards Loudoun County students and families. And thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak in front of all of you tonight. Thank you for being here, Jauncey. It's so nice to hear your update, and we appreciate all that you've shared with us tonight.

[02:23:21] With that, we will move on to item number 10, our superintendent's report, which will be presented, of course, by Dr. Aaron Spence. Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the board. As always, my pleasure to share some good news from around our school division. I'll start with recognizing that reports released by the Virginia Department of Education on August 25th show continued improvement by our LCPS students as measured by the 2026 standards of learning tests.

[02:23:49] The results indicate that proficiency rates, love this, increased or remain steady across most subject areas and gains reflect the positive impact of targeted school support systems, division-wide initiatives, and of course the dedication of our educators and strong partnerships with families as we work to support our students in the classroom.

[02:24:09] I'm also pleased to note that LCPS schools recently received strong recognition in Nisha's 2026 Best Public Schools in Virginia rankings. Eight LCPS high schools were ranked amongst the top 25 in our state. And amongst these eight schools, three schools, including Independence High School, Light Ridge High School, and Rockridge High School, ranked in the top four, with John Champ ranked at number seven. LCPS Elementary and Middle Schools also secured places among Virginia's top 25 schools in their respective categories. Particularly noteworthy is Waxpool Elementary ranked number two amongst Virginia's 1,170 public elementary schools

[02:24:45] and Brambleton Middle, which ranked number nine amongst Virginia's 413 public middle schools. So in total, 15 LCPS schools received top 25 recognition. Congratulations to all of those schools for their outstanding achievements. And the congratulations continue as Belmont Ridge, Blue Ridge, Eagle Ridge, Riverbend, Smarts Mill, and Watson Mountain Middle Schools have all been named schools of distinction by the Association for Middle Level Education.

[02:25:11] This marks the second time that Belmont Ridge, Riverbend and Smarts Mill have earned this recognition. This designation honors schools that demonstrate a strong commitment to meeting the unique needs of young adolescents and to continuous improvement in middle grades education. Since AMLE launched the Schools of Distinction program in 2023-22, 13 LCPS middle schools have received this recognition, which is awarded on a four-year cycle.

[02:25:35] Next, LCPS and HealthWorks for Northern Virginia are partnering to bring medical, dental, and behavioral health care services directly to students, families, and staff through two new mobile health care clinics. The organization celebrated the arrival of the mobile clinics on August the 27th, marking an important step towards expanding access to care across the community.

[02:25:58] By delivering health care where it's needed most, this partnership will help address challenges that can make it difficult for individuals and families to access these essential services. As we know, access to health care plays a critical role in overall well-being and can directly impact a student's ability to attend school consistently and succeed in the classroom.

[02:26:18] To celebrate the launch of the mobile clinics and this innovative partnership, LCPS and HealthWorks will be hosting a ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house later this fall. As the nation reflects this week on the 21st-25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, cadets from the Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps at Loudoun County High School led an effort to install nearly 3,000 American flags on the school's front lawn honoring each victim who lost their life that day.

[02:26:47] In addition, students created an active service board displayed in the main hallway. Every Loudoun County High School student has been challenged to complete an active service in their community before 8.46 a.m. this Friday, the exact time the first plane struck the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

[02:27:05] The school community will also observe a moment of silence on Friday to remember the victims, honor the heroes who responded, and reflect on the lasting impact of the attacks. As we heard a little bit about tonight, LCPS students have more opportunities to compete this school year with the addition of three new athletic programs girls flag football boys volleyball and girls wrestling girls flag football and boys volleyball are already underway this fall with all lcps high schools participating more than 500 students are competing in these two new programs including more than 300 students in girls flag football and nearly 200 in boys

[02:27:43] volleyball and then finally this evening congratulations to trailside middle school history and government teacher Dr. Marcus White, who has been awarded a Fulbright Specialist Program Award from the United States Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. As part of the award, Dr. White will travel to Uruguay in October, where he will conduct educational and training activities, exploring the connections between youth, mental, and physical development, and the psychology of exercise and athletics. Dr. White's one of more than 400 U.S. citizens who share their expertise with institutions abroad through the Fulbright

[02:28:21] program each year. Again, congratulations to Dr. White on this achievement. And Madam Chair, that concludes my report. Well, thank you, Dr. Spence. With that, that brings us to item number 11, public comment. Here are our procedures for public comment. Thank you for engaging with the school board through the public comment process. The school board welcomes comments from Loudoun County residents and believes that strong community engagement and outreach are important components of a successful school system speakers must limit comments to the time allotted based on the number of speakers and the agenda this evening all speakers have been allotted two minutes each

[02:28:57] for public comment please be advised that speakers who miss their time slot will not be called at a later time decorum and civility all audience members shall maintain civility decorum and respect for the functioning and dignity of the school board at all times please remain seated unless arriving departing speaking at the podium or during a break violations of civility decorum and respect include shouting heckling jeering applause and 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

[02:29:35] a speaker or otherwise attempting to intimidate disparage or 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 criticize or attack individual students or and or individual division employees during public comment 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 speakers should communicate those concerns to their school principal or an appropriate school official.

[02:30:13] Speakers should face the dais and direct their comments to the school board. Per school board policy 2520, members of the school board will not answer questions or respond directly to the public during the public comment period. 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. 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

[02:30:51] 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 public comment period ending for the evening. Distribution of materials to school board members. Copies of materials for board members should be given to the public information officer in the media box at the back of the boardroom before the start of the meeting. Please provide 12 copies of the materials. Under no circumstances may a speaker approach the dais. The public is reminded that access to school board meetings is available through LCPS-TV on 1070 HD and Verizon Fios

[02:31:27] 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 Kristen Lloyd. Hi, I'm Kristen Lloyd and I'm here tonight regarding the calendar. First, thank you to the school board, particularly Ms. Griffiths, Ms. Chernoff, and Ms. Rashid for listening to parent feedback and working to find a calendar that best reflects family input. I submitted

[02:32:05] feedback via the original survey and also via email on the new calendar proposals. Bottom line, starting in late August, ending in early June, and trying to stay close to a federal holiday calendar is strongly preferred. The new options proposed by Ms. Griffiths, Ms. Chernoff, and Ms. Rashid are great alternatives to the original options. I read through the analysis of the open-ended survey question. The majority of parents opposed year-round schooling and stressed the importance of a traditional summer break there was a common preference for starting after labor day and ending

[02:32:39] by memorial day many parents advocate for less non-federal holidays and less breaks overall why did lcps not include these themes in the original proposal how can the options presented be so far off base from what people want i'm also concerned with lcps surveys in general calendars the bell schedule budget etc only one to two percent of families from any given school completed the calendar survey. So from Stuart Weller, that would be about seven responses.

[02:33:11] My husband and I each took the survey. So we made up 30% of our school. Is the goal to actually have families take a survey? The response rate is consistently very low. I urge LCPS to find creative ways to engage families and solicit feedback. It is our children who attend these schools, our families who are impacted by bells, calendars, etc. Work with principals, incentivize schools and classes to participate. The decisions made based on these surveys represent such a small portion of students and families. Please look for new ways to capture our true

[02:33:48] feelings for such important decisions. Thank you. Thank you. We will continue with our in-person public comment. Our first speaker tonight is Melissa Larson, followed by Anaga Bat. Good evening. My name is Melissa Larson. This year, I am representing Loudoun School Librarians as the president of the Loudoun Association of School Librarians.

[02:34:22] A couple of years ago, a concern about library staffing at the elementary level was brought to LASL. To better understand the issue, we conducted a survey asking elementary school librarians about population size, the frequency of classes, responsibilities outside of teaching K-5 classes, and the effects that this combination of factors had on their library programs.

[02:34:49] The data revealed that in over a third of our schools, current staffing constraints directly restrict student access to library services. Furthermore, more than 60% of respondents reported that limited staffing prevents meaningful collaboration with classroom teachers, a critical partnership that supports student literacy and learning.

[02:35:16] Over the next few months, Loudoun School librarians will be sharing our stories with the school board in hopes that when it comes time to decide next year's budget, the school board and the administration will seriously consider increasing the staffing at our county's largest and smallest schools, the schools for which staffing is a concern.

[02:35:40] Thank you for your attention. Thank you. Our next speaker is Anagabat, followed by Caitlin Hartle. Good afternoon, members of the school board. My name is Anaga, and I'm joined by Caitlin and Evie.

[02:35:59] We are from Troops 70117, and we are all students in three different Loudoun County schools. We're here to talk about something that affects or will affect 50% of students in Loudoun County, access to pads and tampons in school bathrooms.

[02:36:14] We were tasked with identifying an issue in our community, and all of the girls in our troupe agreed. There are often no feminine products available at our schools. When they are available, they're often not stocked in the bathrooms, where we need them most.

[02:36:32] Getting your period can happen unexpectedly. Sometimes you might get it at school without being prepared. This can happen, and often does frequently, especially to teenage girls who have irregular periods. When an incident happens, it can be embarrassing and stressful, especially when it's in the middle of the day.

[02:36:51] Having pads and tampons regularly available in bathrooms is a great way to ensure girls can focus on their schoolwork rather than their period. Students should be able to get through the school day without having to worry. Therefore, having accessible products close by would be a great way to take care of the situation quickly.

[02:37:12] Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Kaitlyn Hartle, followed by Evie Anglin. Hi, my name is Kaitlyn Hartle. I go to Independence High School. We used to think providing pads and tampons was up to each school, but Virginia law says something different.

[02:37:31] It says schools must have menstrual products for free at all times, in every middle school and high school bathroom. This is the school board's job, not just the schools. We checked three middle schools, Trailside, Bramilton, and Belmont Station.

[02:37:50] None of them had products in the bathrooms. Things only changed when we spoke up. Bramilton's suspensors were broken, Belmont stopped restocking after vandalism, and Trailside only kept products in the house office. That does not help if students get the periods in the middle of class.

[02:38:06] That is three out of three middle schools. My high school, Independence, does not have pads either. Loudoun County is a big school system. There are probably many other schools that have the same problem. This law exists for a reason. It gives students a quick and private way to handle their periods. It helps students stay in class instead of missing school.

[02:38:24] Peers are normal. No student should have to ask for a pad, and no student should feel embarrassed in having to need one. Thank you. Our last speaker tonight is Evie Anglin. As you've just heard, my name is Evie.

[02:38:45] So what's the fix for this problem? We looked for an LCPS policy on stocking these products, but we could not find one. So we're asking you to create one. Last week, we sent an email to the board. We heard back from Assistant Superintendent Richardson. We want to thank her for her response, as it means a lot to us.

[02:39:02] Now we're asking the school board to turn that conversation into action. We're asking for a clear written policy, one that requires pads and tampons in every middle school and high school bathroom, and one that assigns a staff member to check supplies regularly in Restock Wind Lowe.

[02:39:17] Thank you for listening. Thank you very much. That now concludes our public comment for the evening. Thank you so much for coming out today and for providing your public comment. With that, we are going to move on to our action items.

[02:39:33] But first up, I'm going to ask Vice Chair Donahue for her disclosure. 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.

[02:39:53] 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.

[02:40:19] 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, Vice Chair Donohue. Our first action item is going to be item 12.01, proclamations.

[02:40:36] This action item was pulled from the consent agenda and consists of five proclamations. Consistent with our practice with proclamations, we will read all of those at this time. Then we will entertain a motion to adopt these specific five proclamations and entertain any discussion before we move on to the two that were pulled separately since they'll be handled as their own item.

[02:41:00] With that, we will start with our National Arts and Education Week proclamation, which will be read by Vice Chair Donohue. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[02:41:16] National Arts and Education Week, September 13th to September 19th, 2026. Whereas the arts are an essential and integral part of a complete and balanced education for all students encompassing dance, media arts, music, theater, and visual arts. And whereas, designated by the United States Congress through House Resolution No. 275 in 2010, National Arts and Education Week brings public attention, civic focus, and legislative awareness to the transformative power of the arts in every child's life.

[02:41:44] And whereas, participation in quality arts education fosters critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, communication, and creative confidence, skills vital for academic achievement and modern workforce readiness. And whereas the creative disciplines provide a supportive space for student wellness, emotional growth, and cultural connection, helping young people feel seen, valued, and understood within their school communities.

[02:42:08] And whereas our community is committed to ensuring equitable access to arts education for students of all backgrounds, abilities, and economic levels. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Loudoun County School Board formally recognizes September 13th to 19th, 2026, as National Arts in Education Week.

[02:42:23] Thank you. The second proclamation is High School Voter Registration Week in Loudoun County Public Schools, and this proclamation will also be read by Vice Chair Donahue.

[02:42:34] Thank you, Madam Chair. Whereas High School Voter Registration Week directly advances one LCPS 2027 Strategic Plan for Excellence, supporting Goal 1, Empowered Students, by preparing students to make meaningful contributions to the world through the real-world civic knowledge, agency, and student voice that come from participating in the democratic process, and supporting Goal 4, Engaged Community, by building meaningful partnerships between schools, families, and the broader Loudoun community around a shared responsibility for students' growth as informed, engaged citizens.

[02:43:06] and whereas a healthy democracy depends on the active and informed participation of all eligible citizens and high schools are one of the most effective and equitable places to build the lifelong habit of civic participation, particularly for the students who will not go on to attend college, and whereas barriers to registration remain the leading obstacle to young adult voter turnout nationwide, making structured school-based support essential to closing that gap, and whereas the Code of the Commonwealth of Virginia affirmatively supports youth civic participation, permitting any person who is 16 years of age or older to pre-register to vote under section 24.2-403.1.

[02:43:46] While pre-registration does not allow anyone under the age of 18 to vote in an election, it does facilitate young adult voting by providing access to voter registration. Now therefore be it resolved that the Loudoun County School Board formally recognizes September 13-19, 2026 as High School Voter Registration Week.

[02:44:04] Thank you. Our next proclamation recognizes National Hispanic Heritage Month. This proclamation will be read by Dr. Rasheed. Thank you, Chair Chandler. And as always, it's an honor to read this proclamation. Whereas National Hispanic Heritage Month was established in 1988 after originating in 1968 as National Hispanic Heritage Week, and whereas there are 20 sovereign Hispanic countries all over the world identifying history, culture, language, and contributions that help shape the fabric of America.

[02:44:39] And whereas Hispanic Americans have played a vital role in the moments and movements that have shaped our country, enriching our culture, enhancing the economic infrastructure, bringing creativity and innovation to education, the sciences, the arts, and sports, as well as other roles that have benefited our society.

[02:44:58] And whereas National Hispanic Heritage Month is an opportunity to shine a spotlight on the unique voices and experiences of Hispanic Americans and recognize their history and achievements, inspiring younger generations of all ethnicities, and bringing communities together.

[02:45:15] And whereas within Loudoun County Public Schools, Hispanic Americans comprise 19.5% of our student population and 14.4% of our employees and are valued and respected members of our community, contributing to the rich diversity of the school division.

[02:45:34] And whereas Loudoun County Public Schools is stronger when we reflect and respect the full diversity of our school community, which enabled 97% of our students to graduate in 2026, and whereas Loudoun County Public Schools is committed to creating a welcoming, inclusive, and affirming environment in which all students, staff, and families' identities and cultures are affirmed, valued, celebrated, and used as assets in teaching and learning.

[02:46:04] And now, therefore, be it resolved, the Loudoun County School Board proclaims September 15th to October 15th, 2026, National Hispanic Heritage Month in Loudoun County Public Schools. Be it further resolved that the Loudoun County School Board encourages our staff and community to observe, recognize, and celebrate the culture, heritage, and contributions of Hispanic Americans to our country, the Commonwealth of Virginia, our beautifully diverse county, and our schools during National Hispanic Heritage Month and throughout the school year. Thank you, Chair.

[02:46:42] Thank you. Moving on to our next proclamation, Mr. Pepper will read a proclamation recognizing October as Dyslexia Awareness Month. The floor is yours Mr. Pepper. Thank you Madam Chair. Whereas dyslexia is a specific learning disability related to a deficit in the phonological component of language, is neurobiological in origin, and is characterized by challenges with word recognition, writing, spelling, and processing of written language that may result in deficits in reading comprehension and vocabulary, and whereas dyslexia is the most common learning

[02:47:18] disability in children and persist throughout life affecting one of every five people regardless of ability race gender age or socioeconomic status and whereas early screening for and early identification of dyslexia is critical to ensure that individuals with dyslexia receive focused evidence-based intervention grounded in science-based research that leads to fluent reading the promotion of self-awareness and self-advocacy, and the provision of necessary accommodations to build success in school and life. And whereas many successful people, notably in business,

[02:47:55] government, sports, and entertainment, have overcome difficulties related to dyslexia, and whereas raising awareness about dyslexia and promoting a greater understanding of the strengths and challenges associated with this learning difference can help create a more inclusive and supportive environment for individuals with dyslexia, and whereas the Commonwealth of Virginia, through the Virginia Literacy Act, has regulations and programs in place to help improve the lives of individuals with dyslexia, including intervention, screening, and service requirements, and whereas Dyslexia Awareness Month is an opportunity to acknowledge

[02:48:30] educators specializing in effective teaching strategies and to celebrate the many achievements of adolescents, students, and adults with dyslexia, and whereas Loudoun County Public Schools recognizes that reading is a gateway to other skills by creating opportunities for individuals to pursue higher education, get good jobs, and become full participants of our community, now be it resolved that the Loudoun County School Board formally recognizes October 2026 as Dyslexia Awareness Month and commends this observance to all our students, staff, and families to promote greater awareness,

[02:49:05] Use effective strategies to address this learning disability and recognize the unique strengths and abilities of individuals with dyslexia. Thank you. That brings us to our last proclamation in this grouping, which recognizes October 26 as Bullying Prevention Month.

[02:49:23] This proclamation will be read by Ms. Chernoff. Thank you, Madam Chair. Whereas school bullying has become an increasingly significant problem in the United States and the Commonwealth of Virginia, with one out of every five students, 19.2% in the United States estimated to be involved in bullying each year, either as a bully or as a victim.

[02:49:41] And whereas students who experience bullying are at increased risk of depression, anxiety, sleep difficulties, lower academic achievement, and dropping out of school. And whereas bullying can take many forms, including verbal, physical, and online, and can happen in many places on and off school grounds.

[02:49:59] And whereas it is important for parents, student, teachers, and school administrators to be aware of bullying and to encourage discussion of the problem as a school community. And whereas the Loudoun County School Board is committed to providing for an equitable, safe, and inclusive learning and working environment that affirms a commitment to this principle for all persons, regardless of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, disability, age, genetic information, or veteran status. And whereas LCPS has adopted policy on bullying prevention and education to encourage positive behaviors and

[02:50:35] maintain a safe and affirming school environment where every student feels safe, affirmed, and cared for and to eliminate bullying behaviors, now be it resolved that the Loudoun County School Board formally recognizes October 2026 as Bullying Prevention Month with the intention that the issue of bullying and its prevention be discussed in all Loudoun County public schools and classrooms to help ensure that all students have a trusted adult they can turn to to foster sense of belonging for all students. Thank you. With that, Vice Chair Donohue, do you have a motion?

[02:51:07] Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I move that the Loudoun County School Board adopt the following proclamations. National Arts and Education Week, High School Voter Registration Week, National Hispanic Heritage Month, Dyslexia Awareness Month, and Bullying Prevention Month. Thank you. Dr. Rasheed has, thank you. Vice Chair Donohue has made a motion and it's seconded by Dr. Rasheed. Now, Vice Chair Donahue, would you like to speak to your motion?

[02:51:38] Thank you, Madam Chair. I will just briefly state I support the proclamations that I put forward and those put forward and read by my colleagues for all the reasons stated within the proclamations themselves. Thank you. And with that, school board members, we'll open the floor to discussion.

[02:51:54] Ms. Riccote. Thank you, Madam Chair. So I think the first thing I want to say is that I'm not necessarily opposed to a number of the proclamations that we do. So this isn't a, I've moved this off of consent because I've seen a growing number of proclamations creep onto the agenda week after week after week. Over the last three years, we've had 91 proclamations and only 11 of them have directly dealt with academics. And the rest have just been a pot of additional topics that we've

[02:52:31] covered. One of the things I've also noted is that until and through 2023, this body before, and the members before us, before our group came on, actually had the proclamations go to an information item and then came back as action the next time. So there was a review process before they came to action.

[02:52:56] That in 2024, January 2024, completely changed and they went on the consent agenda without any previous review by a committee or by the board itself and were read out loud and we don't read the rest of the consent agenda out loud.

[02:53:13] So I want us to see if we can figure out a way to reconcile these things. If we want to read the proclamations, then I think we should put them into information and then do action like we do with every other item. Every other item, for the most part, except for personnel issues, which is a whole other topic for another day, if we're going to read them, I don't mind that we're going to read them, but I think we need to put them in information and then move them through our normal process.

[02:53:41] There's nothing in any of our policies that changed during that time. It was just done, and I'm not sure that the board actually approved it or not. I couldn't find any record that it had. I think that it's just a really important process for us to do.

[02:53:57] It's also, by the way, has taken up this year alone two and a half hours of our school board meeting time. And I think that that, you know, as we're looking at trying to find ways to make this more efficient and more effective, I think we need to really think about, number one, are the proclamations, are all of the proclamations that we're meeting completely academic focused?

[02:54:18] And number two, do we need to read them? Or if we do, is there another path for us to be looking at to do this? So I'm gonna just leave my comments that I've got more I could say but I think I'm just gonna leave it there for now Thank you. Mr. Pepper. Thank you madam chair a couple things first I want to kind of rebut what my colleague has to say and that we are not just in the business of academics Yes, we are the business of educating children, but we are in a people business We have students if you just look at the proclamations tonight. We have students with dyslexia. We have Hispanic students We have students who are turning 16 and can pre-register to vote. These proclamations are not just about

[02:54:57] academia. They're about making sure all of our students are welcome. And you know what? If it takes just a few minutes, honestly, to read, what, seven proclamations, maybe takes 10 minutes at the beginning of a meeting when it usually sits in that 430 hour, goes pretty quick with the consent agenda. I think that it's a welcome and beneficial piece to our meetings. And if we want to move it to the action item, that's fine because we can vote on each one individually so we can share our own beliefs about who deserves to be recognized and who doesn't. But truthfully, just being part of the consent agenda just shows what a welcoming school community we are for everyone. Thank you,

[02:55:36] Madam Chair. I do agree with Ms. Riccardi that, yes, my understanding is we keep reusing old proclamations from previous boards that have been, and more that have been added over the years since 2024. I have personally established a consistent practice of not supporting proclamations, and I have previously expressed my disagreement with reading all proclamations before board meetings and not just having them listed. In my view, proclamations consume a significant amount of time and they are not necessary to demonstrate support for particular causes. Thank you.

[02:56:13] Thank you. Dr. Rasheed. Thank you, Chair. You know, I'd like to piggyback off what Mr. Pepper had said. I just believe that it's not just about academics. I do believe in celebrating all students, all educators, all staff, LCPS is so diverse, and I don't even mean that about race. I mean that about religions and what we identify with, and if not, even more. I do think there, if I'm not mistaken, there is a process currently in place to bring about a proclamation. I believe it's, you have to have two board members or something of the sort, and the legal department can also

[02:56:51] correct me if I'm wrong, but that's from what I remember. And also, if we want to talk about the time with the school board meetings, I mean, we can also limit how we speak, you know, because we speak a lot of, and I'm all for, you know, expressing ourselves and saying our opinions on everything. But remember, even when we're speaking, we're also using up time of the school board meetings. I mean, we have our aides back there and love you all to death. You guys do amazing work, but you can, I'm not sure if you're getting paid overtime or not because the meetings get longer and longer. I'm not sure of that, but I'm just saying if we can keep going on and on is

[02:57:28] what I'm saying. I understand the points, but I still feel that we should celebrate the diversity, celebrate what LCPS is about. And I think proclamations kind of go a little bit more in depth than what we're saying. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Chernoff. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[02:57:45] I appreciate the conversation. I was actually anticipating this at board retreat was what I thought was the plan was. But so I'm going to pivot a little bit to just sort of give a nutshell here. I don't disagree that it is a platform to proclaim the things that we believe in.

[02:58:01] And a lot of those things are really, really wonderful. Most of them are. I also don't think it should be an opportunity to say what we do and don't support. I think that that is divisive. So to that comment, I would say that's where I would have hesitation about proclamations is where, is it a bottomless pit?

[02:58:19] How do we make sure that we honor everyone? Are we making sure that these statements, you know, overlap in a way that is productive? I will also hearken back to an old board member, Mr. Hoyler, wherever he may be, and he struggled with what was the action behind it. You know, we do charge schools with go out and celebrate and do, but it can be vague at times. And I have heard from schools that sometimes they don't really know what to do with that and that there are so many that there's just not enough time to honor all of those things without feeling like you're leaving someone out. So I was looking forward to the conversation because I am struggling with our process. I do struggle with the purpose. What are we making

[02:58:56] sure we're getting, what good are we getting out of it? Not just word, but deed. And also the parameters and sort of more clearly defining, we really haven't had that conversation as this school board. So for now, I am going to abstain from proclamations until we get more clarity on those things. And I'm hoping we will still have a place for that conversation. Thank you. I'm going to take a turn and then we'll go. And well, I'll get Mr. Svensson too. So ultimately, I think this is a great jumping off point for next week's discussion. I really can't say that I had thought

[02:59:32] about it, Ms. Recurdy, from your perspective. It is an interesting point. And I don't, I mean, And you might be surprised to know, I'm open to change here. I think they're probably one of the most important things for me personally, even though it is truly very important for me to celebrate all of our students and to make sure that we're calling out our values.

[02:59:55] I want our meetings to be efficient. So I think we could have a conversation about how this process could change. I do think it's important to reflect on the fact that we are a body of nine. And each member comes with their own priorities.

[03:00:14] And I find that there are members who really value these proclamations and you do see members who bring forward new proclamations from time to time. And I also think it would be important in this conversation for us to make sure that we're respecting that aspect of it.

[03:00:32] There are proclamations that might not have been on the schedule, but they were brought forward and those members who brought them forward sought support in exactly the same way that we seek support to bring any item to the agenda. So it'll be an interesting conversation nonetheless.

[03:00:51] And then Mr. Svensson, Vice Chair Donahue. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll speak briefly to a couple of questions that have been raised by some of my colleagues because I did put forward two new proclamations tonight that were not previously on our list, and I did that because individuals in the community brought them to me and said this is an issue I care about and I would like to know that the school cares about it as well so because it was brought to me and there are also issues that I support and I think are important and I hope I hoped and do hope that my

[03:01:30] colleagues will support emphasizing their importance to us as a school district as well I worked with my aid to draft language because we had not done these proclamations before I reached out to certain of our colleagues and asked support in accordance with our with our current policy that requires a board member to get the support of two other board members to add something to the agenda and then once I have the support of the members of the necessary number of members I bring it to madam chair to potentially add to a meeting agenda as

[03:02:06] she has discretion to do under our current policy and practice she sets the meeting agendas thank you thank you miss Riccardi thank you so much so I want you guys to understand, this isn't for me an issue about not honoring the diversity of our division and our students and our staff and our families and everybody that works here. So this for me isn't that. What this is for me is a process. While our school board chair has the right to set the agenda, one of the things that is important to note is that it also requires, the language is

[03:02:43] pretty clear about this, and at some point in time, before any of our time, I think, there was a shift in putting these on the consent agenda without any review, whereas every other object and item that's on the consent agenda has had some review, again, except for personnel actions, which, like I said, is a whole other issue. So this isn't an issue for me about, is not for me about what is the messages of what's in the proclamations in any way.

[03:03:14] It's about the process. And I have, again, I have no problem if anybody wants to bring them forth, but what we really should be doing is putting them on the information and then action item path or work them through a committee or whatever we need to do so that there's some sort of review before we're just putting them on consent as we move forward.

[03:03:31] So that's simply my point. Thank you. And by the way, I didn't know this was going on the agenda for the work session. Oh, yeah, thanks. So if I had known that, maybe I would have taken a different path this week, but nonetheless here we are. Here we go. Good jumping point. We'll start there. Anyone who hasn't made a comment yet? Vice Chair Donahue. Thank you Madam Chair. I just wanted to point out that the proclamations are posted with the rest of the board agenda so I would suggest it's not quite accurate to say there is no opportunity for review. There is opportunity for anyone to

[03:04:08] review them once they're posted on board docs all right um i would like to request um from staff if we could at least look into how that change was made i don't have a clear memory of that from the school board before or um from 24 necessarily um that that's something if we could have that before we go into the retreat it might be helpful for the conversation um with that i don't see any further comments is there any further discussion nope all right then um this has been properly moved by vice chair donohue and seconded by dr rasheed clerk please open the vote board members

[03:04:47] please record your vote clerk please close and display the vote all right that motion passes with six school board members voting yes including mr svensson myself vice chair donohue mr pepper dr rasheed and miss labelle and three board members abstaining miss ricardi mishernoff and mrs griffiths all right um we will move on to item number 12.02 um this is the constitution

[03:05:20] week proclamation and um i will ask miss labell please to read the proclamation thank you madam chair whereas september 17th 2026 marks the 239th anniversary of the signing of the constitution of the American United States by the Constitutional Convention, and whereas the Constitution establishes the framework of our constitutional republic, individual rights, freedoms, and

[03:05:56] continues to inspire civic responsibility, public service, and the rule of law, and whereas Congress has designated September 17th through September 23rd as Constitution Week to encourage all Americans to learn about the Constitution, its history, and its enduring significance, and whereas Loudoun County Public Schools is committed to preparing students to become informed, engaged, and responsible citizens who understand the rights, responsibilities,

[03:06:28] and opportunities of participation in a democratic society, and whereas the rich history and diverse cultures represented throughout our school community provide meaningful opportunities for students to explore the principles of liberty, justice, equality, and civic engagement through respectful dialogue and learning together, whereas learning about the Constitution helps students develop critical thinking, appreciate multiple perspectives, strengthens their understanding

[03:07:02] of civic institutions and recognize that every student has a voice and a valued place in our schools and communities, and whereas Constitution Week provides an opportunity for our school community to celebrate our nation's founding principles while fostering a culture of belonging in which every student is welcomed, respected, and empowered to contribute to the future of our country.

[03:07:27] Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Loudoun County School Board proclaim September 17th through 23rd, 2026 as Constitution Week in Loudoun County Public Schools and encourages students, staff, families, and the community to commemorate this observance through age-appropriate educational activities that promote civic knowledge, constitutional literacy, respectful discourse, and active

[03:08:00] citizenship. Be it further resolved that the Loudoun County School Board encourages all members of the school community to reflect on the enduring principles of the Constitution and celebrate the diversity of perspectives that strengthen our democracy and reaffirm our shared commitment to ensuring every student feels a sense of belonging, purpose, and opportunity to succeed.

[03:08:27] Thank you, Ms. LaBelle. And Ms. LaBelle, could I ask you to please make the motion? Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to move that our school board approve the proclamation for Constitution Week.

[03:08:46] Thank you. Mrs. Griffiths, did I hear your second? Thank you. Thank you for making that motion, Ms. LaBelle, and for the second, Mrs. Griffiths. It has been properly moved by and seconded, and now, board members, is there any discussion?

[03:09:08] Yes, Ms. Ricordi. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll make this really quick. So this is actually one of the 11 education-focused proclamations that we've had for the year, so I will definitely be supporting that, and I think moving forward, that's really how I'm going to work my votes on the proclamations is really just focusing on the ones that are education focused. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Seeing no further discussion, let's move forward with the vote. Clerk, please open the vote. Board members, please record your vote. Clerk, please

[03:09:47] close and display the vote. That motion passes with seven board members voting yes, including Ms. Riccardi, Mr. Spenson, myself, Vice Chair Donahue, Mr. Pepper, Dr. Rasheed, and Ms. LaBelle, and two board members abstaining, Ms. Chernoff and Mrs. Griffiths. And with that, we will move on to our final proclamation for this evening. This is item 12.03, LGBTQ Plus History Month proclamation. And I will ask Mr. Svensson, please, to read that. Thank you, Madam Chair. It is my privilege to read this proclamation. Whereas LGBTQ Plus History Month, founded in 1994 by

[03:10:25] educator Rodney Wilson, honors the history, achievements, and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people. And whereas this observance provides an opportunity to celebrate the strength, resilience, and impact of the LGBTQ plus community whose contributions have enriched the cultural, educational, and civic life of Virginia and the world.

[03:10:46] And whereas during LGBTQ plus history month, including national coming out day on October 11th, we celebrate key figures and milestones knowing that education is the most powerful tool to promote understanding and disrupt discrimination. And whereas Loudoun County Public Schools is committed to fostering equity and belonging, ensuring students and staff members are welcomed into a safe, supportive, inclusive, and affirming environment, and whereas we reject discrimination based on gender identity, sexual orientation, or gender expression, and instead affirm kindness, acceptance, and respect as the foundation of our learning community,

[03:11:24] and whereas our school division is stronger when students and staff members can live authentically and feel a true sense of belonging, and when we embrace the full diversity of our community, which empowered 97% of all students in Loudoun County Public Schools to graduate in 2026, and whereas Loudoun County Public Schools continues to build strong partnerships with individuals and organizations to promote understanding, celebrate diversity, and cultivate inclusive practices that support all students and families. Now, be it resolved that the Loudoun County School Board recognizes October 2026 as LGBTQ Plus History Month in Loudoun County Public Schools

[03:12:02] and encourages staff, students, and the community to honor and celebrate the rich history and contributions of the LGBTQ Plus community to the Commonwealth of Virginia, our beautifully diverse county, and our schools during LGBTQ Plus History Month and throughout the school year.

[03:12:18] Thank you, Mr. Spinson. Could I ask you to please make the motion? Yes, Madam Chair. I move that the Loudoun County School Board approve the proclamation recognizing October 2026 as LGBTQ plus History Month. Second. Thank you.

[03:12:34] Mr. Svensson has made a motion and Vice Chair Donahue has seconded. School board members is there any discussion? Yes, Mrs. Griffiths. Thank you Madam Chair. I just wanted to say I will be voting no today on this proclamation. The parents of Loudoun County should question what we are teaching our students with this particular history proclamation. Thank you. Thank you. Any further discussion? Yes, Madam Chair. Yes, Mr. Svensson. Thank you, Madam Chair. I understand that the previous conversation was focused on process, but I don't think it's a coincidence that we are having a discussion about the proclamation process the month that we're introducing the

[03:13:14] LGBTQ plus history month proclamation. The fact that it was singled out and separated out speaks to the importance of these proclamations for ensuring that LCPS is that the elected representatives for our county and for our students, staff, and family members, that we are here to ensure that our schools are affirming inclusive spaces. It is an educational issue because students are only able to learn when the environment that they're in respects them as who they are and is supportive, and I think

[03:13:48] this is a great example of why we need to have proclamations like this. Thank you. Ms. Lavelle. I have a question. I know that every year we have Gay Pride Month, or now LBGTQ Pride Month.

[03:14:07] How is that different than this? Because we have two whole months, June, and now we have October. Can you explain the difference, why there are two? Thank you, Madam Chair. I see Mr. Pepper also would like to offer something.

[03:14:24] So I will start, and Mr. Pepper can elaborate. So my understanding is that this Missouri social studies teacher, Rodney Wilson, who I mentioned at the top of the proclamation, he introduced this concept and chose October because it coincides with National Coming Out Day and coincides with two marches on Washington by the LGBTQ plus community.

[03:14:48] So this is really focused on history, similar to the idea of Black History Month or Women's History Month. So a little bit of a different concept than Pride Month. Thank you. Mr. Pepper. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Mr. Svensson. I would like to begin by saying that learning about the history of a marginalized community in the United States of America and simply recognizing them with a proclamation is very different than celebrating who it is to be you. And Pride Month is really all about a celebration, not just of the LGBTQ plus community, although it is focused on them, but it's really

[03:15:27] about celebrating every individual for who they are, whereas this month, October, is specific to the history of the LGBTQ plus movement, and they're different things. Now, to piggyback off of the question that Mrs. Griffith said, and going further in our discussion of proclamations, this is a proclamation that October is LGBTQ plus history month. It is not saying this is included in our curriculum. It is not saying, you know, as Ms. Chernoff said, about deeds and words. These are words. We are recognizing that it is a month. We are recognizing that LGBTQ plus individuals exist

[03:16:04] in Loudoun County. They exist in our schools and our students and our staff. And recognizing that they have a deep and complicated and often troubled history is the minimum that we can do to ensure that every single person in LCPS feels safe.

[03:16:24] So it's not about teaching. It's not about what you might even call indoctrinating. It's simply about recognizing a group exists and that they have a history. Thank you. Dr. Rishi. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to remind parents at home and educators and staff and students that we accept you.

[03:16:46] LCPS will always, always accept you. We celebrate you. And I think this proclamation is part of that. Thank you. Thank you. Any further discussion? I'm seeing no further discussion. Let's move forward with the vote. Clerk, please open the vote.

[03:17:02] Board members, please record your vote. Clerk, please close and display the vote. All right, that motion passes with five school board members voting yes, including Mr. Svensson, myself, Vice Chair Donohue, Mr. Pepper, and Dr. Rasheed, three school board members abstaining, Ms. Riccardi, Ms. Chernoff, and Ms. LaBelle, and one school board member voting no.

[03:17:26] mrs griffiths and with that we will move on to item 12.04 the department of business and financial services fiscal year 27 budget final alignment presented by miss willoughby our chief financial officer thank you i just have one piece of information as an update since this last was brought forward as information item to the full school board since that time school has started and we have our actual enrollment numbers, as you heard during the work session, of where we are looking at in terms of our actual enrollment. When compared to our budget enrollment, we are

[03:18:05] about a couple thousand under enrollment, and why that is important from a financial perspective is that there are several state revenue lines that are enrollment driven, and that equates to about a $13.5 million potential revenue shortfall. Coincidentally, that $13.5 million is very close to the 14 million dollars of additional state funding that is before the board this evening for the budget supplemental. I share this as additional information that I will also be sharing with the county whenever you know based on the action taken tonight by the school board

[03:18:42] when this gets transmitted to to them for their awareness as well. I think it further highlights the the need for the board to recognize and approve this supplemental and also for the county to appropriate the additional funding to the school division versus doing the other scenario that I had shared at the last meeting of a potential swap of funding. If the county appropriates this additional $14 million to LCPS, this gives us additional, just some additional

[03:19:15] flexibility and cushion to the budget. Would not recommend that we need to adjust the proposed spending plan that is in the board docs and as part of the action item this evening rather the 14 million from from the county would basically give us the flexibility as well as the time to gather more information to see exactly where our enrollment is landing as you heard earlier september 30th is the actual enrollment account that be that is very important it also allows us time to prepare our first quarter financial projection for fy 27 that would be presented

[03:19:52] to the school board in october if based on that projection in october it highlighted that perhaps we needed to make some adjustments to that spending plan then we could absolutely bring that forward to the board and perhaps move some items off of the spending plan to the county year and funds list as an example so again just more information for the board's awareness before you take action this evening i will also share that as i had mentioned before we have the budget team here to also project a a small tote board for the 14 million anticipating if there are any motions this

[03:20:30] evening there we go there's the there's a tote board and with that i turn it back over to you chair thank you miss willoughby and before we start the discussion board members i'd like to ask Vice Chair Donahue to read the base motion. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that the Loudoun County School Board align the fiscal year 27 adopted budget with the state's final FY26-28 biennium budget, recognizing an additional $14 million of state revenue in the school operating fund and a corresponding $14 million of expenses as outlined in the staff plan. Further, that the

[03:21:09] School Board request the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors appropriate and increase the FY27 school operating fund, recognizing the additional $14 million of state revenue and associated expenses. Vice Chair Donohue has made a motion. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Svensson.

[03:21:31] It has been properly moved by Vice Chair Donohue. Oh, wait, I'm sorry. Who was it, Mr. Pepper? i'm so sorry i apologize so that motion was made by vice chair donahue and seconded by mr pepper thank you for helping me um with that clarification and um with that uh we will open the floor to discussion uh miss ricardi i'm sure i'd like to make an amendment to the motion would you like to state your amendment i would thank you i moved to amend the recommended action to strike from the

[03:22:08] staff plan, the $1,880,000 for delayed procurement of panic buttons and the $120,000 for unanticipated budget needs or overages, and to reallocate that $2 million to the Title I and English Learner purposes set forth in the schedule below, the total appropriation of $14 million is still unchanged.

[03:22:33] Thank you. Ms. Riccardi has made an amendment. Is there a second? Second. Ms. Chernoff, thank you for seconding. With that, let's open the discussion to this specific amendment. Mr. Pepper. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'm going to begin by saying that I really like what my colleague Mr. Carty has to offer.

[03:22:52] I think that the change that she is proposing to move the money for the delayed procurement of panic buttons and unanticipated budget needs or overages to reallocate to this bunch of lineups, I think is very useful and particularly helps some of our schools that need it the most.

[03:23:09] That being said, in light of the information that we have just received from Ms. Willoughby about the $13.5 million reduction in funding based on enrollment numbers, I cannot be supporting this tonight because I think it takes away some of the flexibility that we might need going forward in our budget.

[03:23:33] Ms. Riccardi? Actually, I want to speak to the motion if I could as well. And I hear what you're saying. And let me ask you a question. Let me ask a question first, and then I'll read my statement. So, Ms. Willoughby, can you, because it's getting late, I just need the plain language on this.

[03:23:51] So, we have $14 million that we're getting from the state. We have $13.5 million, or am I getting this backwards? Yeah, $13.5 million that we have to account for. So, we're looking at now a $500,000 play, or do we need to go ahead and propose the $14 million to the county and how we want to spend it?

[03:24:13] then i need the strategy on this so i can figure this out thanks sure um and it can get confusing because the numbers are similar so the original ask so let me back up before the new information i presented so when the state adopted its budget finally it allocated an additional 14 million dollars to lcps and so we are wanting to increase our budget by 14 million dollars and ask the county to appropriate that those dollars to us if they do so then staff's recommended usage was

[03:24:48] is the plan that was in in board docs the new information of the the potential of a 13 and a half million revenue shortfall is if that comes to fruition let's say by september 30th we don't gather you know very many additional students then we will obviously need to account for that One way to account for that would be to basically negate the entire list of spends, those $14 million of identified, you know, spending uses.

[03:25:24] However, my recommendation would be, because it is still early in the year, and we do typically have funds available at year end, as we were discussing, you know, during, you know, earlier, that to still go ahead and proceed the recommendation is to still go ahead and proceed with requesting the you know increasing the budget here is the planned usage but it allows us time for that first quarter projection in october of the items that are on the staff's recommended list waiting um some additional i mean we already knew we had to wait already because

[03:26:00] we're waiting to see what the county's going to do so there's already some built-in time there for us to also do our first quarter projections to see what our ability is in terms of being able to manage that 13 and a half million dollar revenue shortfall do we think we're going to have sufficient lapse and turnover do we think our fuel accounts we're going to have some fallout like that basically our normal process for that first quarter financial projection how much are how much are we going to be able to cover that shortfall and if not then we will want to go to

[03:26:35] this 14 million dollar list and say okay we're not gonna be able to afford certain items we need to adjust because we're going to need to tap into that 14 million dollars to help cover the shortfall got it okay so we're going to go forward with the well here's my strategy i'd like to go forward with the amendment um we'll build the 14 million dollar strategy and then we're going to wait and see how the numbers fall and then we're probably gonna have to come back and have a revamp of this anyway regardless it sounds like or we may use the whole 14 million and this whole plan goes it is

[03:27:11] my intention that unless something bizarre happens with the first quarter financial projection to have a level of confidence to report to the board in october whether or not we can begin to actually spend the items that are on the list that the board approved okay so i'm going to go ahead and just read this really quickly you good yeah i'll go ahead and read this and then yeah so here we go. So this amendment is really focused on a couple things. Number one, it does not reduce the

[03:27:45] appropriation. The total stays at $14 million and we move $2 million inside the staff plan. So two lines, the two lines it moves are the panic button procurement and the line labeled unanticipated needs. Nothing is canceled. The staff plan itself marks panic buttons as an item that would otherwise have gone to the county year-end fund request for this fall. This amendment returns the procurement to the path the staff chose for it, and I would note that the new state law permitting wearable panic alarms is permissive. It's not a mandate, and it came with no state funding, and I'll also add, too, I haven't found any teachers yet that are super excited about the panic, needing the

[03:28:24] panic buttons, so I'd be interested in having those conversations if anybody is, but I think we've done an amazing job with our security so far. I've spent a great deal of time in classrooms in my district over the last six months asking teachers what they really need, and here's what this money would do instead. At most schools in this division, when a classroom went short, and we talked about this a little bit earlier, and we'll talk about it again in the PTO-PTA conversation, oftentimes the parent-teacher organization or the booster club fills the gap.

[03:28:54] They buy supplies, books, snacks, field trip money, team meals, all the things. And that's how it works, and it works in most of Loudoun that way. However, in our Title I schools, those organizations cannot raise comparable amounts. So the gap gets closed by maybe a teacher paying for it or an outside grant somebody happened to ask for, or the gap doesn't get closed at all. That is not a difference in student need. It's a difference in fundraising capacity, and it's very measurable.

[03:29:25] This amendment puts $100,000 into each Title I school for supplies, teacher supplies, resources, family liaison support, and perhaps even food if it's needed. It funds English learner professional learning and instructional material using the department of instruction's own figures it is the one it is one-time money it's restricted to non-personnel expenditures obligated by june 30th and reported to the finance and operations committee it also creates no obligation in fy28 and it reduces nothing it takes two million dollars the ask is for the two million dollars

[03:30:02] going towards the things that our students and our most vulnerable schools need and it's the gap that the school board can actually close immediately thank you thank you and i apologize for not asking you to speak to your motion right off the bat um we got it right um so i um just a second please um want to ask um just for the sake of i know we've discussed this before but it feels like a very important part of the conversation to me so miss willoughby and you know i see it in the

[03:30:35] notes. The county has told us that they're changing the metric by which they're going to do the allocation for the next budget season. And according to how the allocation was made for this budget, at what percentage are we currently sitting without the $14 million? Sorry to put you on the spot. I had looked through all my notes and just couldn't readily get to it.

[03:31:17] So when the county changed their methodology, and then before acknowledging that they needed to make a further correction, we were receiving 7. 6% of local tax funding, whereas the target was 9.

[03:31:34] If the county was to swap the revenue versus increasing our budget, that would decrease to 6.6%. Thank you. That was what I was looking for. I appreciate that very much. I am actually very supportive of Ms. Riccardi's amendment.

[03:31:51] I think it helps in trying to put forward our case to offer concrete evidence as to what we are asking to use the money for, although I certainly can go on the record as saying we understand that this is a proposal, and depending on how the full sum situation fleshes out over time, we may not actually be able to do any of the items that are on the list,

[03:32:16] And we may have to have some further hard conversations down the road, but I think it strengthens our ask of the county to include Ms. Riccardi's suggested amendment and to put forward the entire package of what we intend to pursue.

[03:32:34] So, any further conversation? Okay, Mrs. Griffiths? I believe we're going to vote on Ms. Riccardi's amendment, but I did want to, I don't know if I should wait, Ms. Chandler, I did want to mention some other, I had some other questions on where the $14 million is going.

[03:32:55] Thank you for asking that question. I will ask that you wait, because at this time, discussion is only related to Ms. Riccardi's amendment. No? Okay. Ms. Cheroff. Thank you, Madam Chair. I will also be supporting Ms. Riccardi's amendment.

[03:33:11] I think, especially given the recent media release, and we saw it tonight in the superintendent's report about our SOL scores, I think this directly speaks to the data that we're seeing. We are seeing significant gains across many groups in this county, but we continue to see gaps with our most marginalized students.

[03:33:29] And so I think I agree with you. It gives us a really strong case to say this money is going to go directly to meeting those student needs, which could be food. It's not always academic needs. It could be QTEL training so that they have the strategies that they need to overcome their learning gaps.

[03:33:45] Whatever it may be, I am about that, and I think that our county supervisors should be about that, too. And so I'm really hoping that they will hear our hearts in this and that we are really looking to close down that gap and support our students. All right, any further discussion?

[03:34:07] All right, Ms. Riccardi has moved to amend the recommended action to strike from the staff plan the 1,800,000 for delayed procurement of panic buttons and the 120,000 for unanticipated budget needs and overages and to reallocate the 2 million to the Title I and English learner purposes set forth in the schedule below, the total appropriation of 14 million is unchanged.

[03:34:37] Seeing no further discussion, let's move forward with the vote. Board members, please record your vote. Clerk, please close and display the vote.

[03:34:53] That motion passes with eight board members voting yes, including Ms. Riccardi, Mr. Svensson, Ms. Chernoff, myself, Mrs. Griffiths, Mr. Pepper, Dr. Rasheed, and Ms. LaBelle, and Vice Chair Donahue abstaining. With that, we will return to the base motion.

[03:35:09] Is there any further discussion on the base motion? Ms. LaBelle. I'm sorry, Mrs. Griffiths. - Thank you, Madam Chair. Per Ms. Willoughby, I did reach out. That $14 million, we did have $7 million set aside for stipends.

[03:35:27] I had reached out to you just to get a breakdown on who would be getting the stipends. You had referred me to another spot where per Ms. Bolin, and correct me if I'm looking in the wrong spot, we have, she mentioned we have 158 unique stipend titles representing approximately 2,700 individual stipend allocations which puts us over 15.4 million.

[03:35:59] But the reason why I bring this up is because stipends are very important for our clubs. you know, for the PTSAs, the PTAs, all the work that they do. So I'm just trying to, with this particular, with this $14 million, I'm trying to get a breakdown of who will get these stipends.

[03:36:22] I believe Ms. Bolin mentioned it would go to co-curricular athletics, it would be athletic stipend rolls so i'm just trying to uh uh get that out as to what exactly those stipends are because it did say stipends and and i thank you for referring me to that other information but i think people um that have a lot involvement a lot of involvement in doing extra work for our schools and get stipends you know of course we wanted to go to athletics but it's seven million

[03:36:56] but are we giving it to other other people that are dedicating their time to our schools if you could just give me some more information on that and for the public I'd really appreciate it thank you sure so as part of the budget process in the budget book in the appendix in the appendix excuse me we publish all the stipends and so we are very transparent in terms of listing all the stipend, the stipends, and their dollar amounts. And so that is what we are referencing when we are talking about reviewing the stipends. With that, I'll turn it over to Ms. Boland to give

[03:37:35] additional detail regarding the $7 million. Thank you, Ms. Willoughby. So you may recall that during the fiscal year 27 budget process, HRTD shared with the board that preliminary estimates for a review and movement to a tiered structure for stipends that would consistently review and place both co-curricular and athletic stipends in sort of the same playing field

[03:38:07] was going to be approximately $7 million. At that time, we didn't have $7 million. So the goal was to implement a phased approach and start to begin the review of that stipend process. This $7 million wouldn't be for new stipends.

[03:38:25] This would be a review of all current co-curricular and athletic stipends that would be reviewed based on the same criteria and then placed on a tiered stipend amount. So it would have equitability, transparency, and clarity around which stipends get which amounts and why.

[03:38:50] Thank you very much. Yeah, that was a concern for me. I feel like a lot of people that are doing a lot of work in our schools that are looking for extra stipends were curious to know what that meant. And, of course, we don't know for sure if we're going to get the $14 million. But I'm hoping we can, regarding this, work together and go through the 158 I saw, which I did not know there were that many, and see if we can, you know, up some of the stipends to some people that feel like they're very low.

[03:39:23] I'm hoping we can discuss that maybe in finance and operations, because I sort of feel like this $14 million skipped over us. i know you had mentioned it at the last school board meeting but it didn't really come to to finance and operations so uh would that be something we'll discuss in finance and operations miss willoughby i'd like to i'd like to do that historically all items related to the budget since it's um the responsibility of the full board has come directly to the full board okay um i'm not sure i'm happy with that but um if we can have uh further conversations about it i i'd appreciate

[03:40:02] it. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Pepper? Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is actually really just about process, right? So we're kind of at an impasse here. And I ended up, of course, voting for the amendment because I agreed with all the things in the amendment and it kind of gives us a nice launching off point. But my question really, maybe this is for Ms. Wilber, it's for my colleagues on the board, is are we premature in approving this action item with this 13.5

[03:40:34] million in limbo so my question really kind of goes if we approve this tonight and then we somehow come up 13.5 million short because enrollments don't turn out the way they are how do we then go about prioritizing the extra you know the $500,000 extra that we have which of these get lopped off which of these go forward um so I personally and I know it's I'm posing it as a question but i feel that a lot of our discussion is a bit premature because we're stuck in this

[03:41:08] limbo so miss willoughby one way to look at this is looking at this 14 million as maybe a a small mini budget and so the board adopts this mini budget and then it's going and now but we're also waiting to see what the county is the county going to fully fund this mini budget let's say and if they don't fully fund it it's because they're swapping they're not going to give us the money for it and if they do give us the money for it then we're able to proceed if there was an

[03:41:43] odd scenario that I would not anticipate but just for for this example if they were to only say okay we're going to swap maybe half we'll give you seven but we're going to also swap seven million then we would be coming back to the board to reconcile the difference and that would be a process that in the prior years if we had not received two fully funded budgets in a row that we would be doing reconciliation and then it is the process where staff would be bringing staff's recommendation to the board in terms of these are the priorities staff recommends but just like with

[03:42:18] with this whole process the board would then have the ability to make adjustments to reconcile down to the available funding ask a really quick follow-up what if we end up in the worst case scenario where we end up 13.5 million dollars short and then the board says you know what you're allocated the sector 40 billion but we're going to keep it then what happens so based on our historical projections um if we were if we had historically not had a certain amount fall out

[03:42:54] and just to put perspective on a two billion dollar budget one one percent would be um you know 20 million so and again with the budget being an estimate and the fact that it's against virginia code to go over budget we will always have a budget surplus so knowing that our historically our budget surplus has been more than 13 and a half is why i have a level of confidence of recommending that we don't need to completely take off the list all this recommended usage and

[03:43:25] instead use it to fill the gap and rather the recommendation is to proceed as is with um mrs ricardi's amendment now being incorporated and by the time we come back at the second meeting in october with the first quarter financial projection having that level of confidence of whether or not we need to make any additional adjustments thank you so much i appreciate your recommendation i think that's what i was looking for at the end of the day

[03:43:54] Thank you. Any further discussion? All right, seeing none. Vice Chair Donahue has properly made a motion, and it was seconded by Mr. Pepper and amended by Ms. Riccardi, including Ms. Riccardi's amendment.

[03:44:13] So let's move forward with the vote. Clerk, please open the vote. the base um please record your vote base motion as amended all right clerk please close and display the vote that motion passes unanimously with all nine school board members voting yes who are present um with that we will move on to item 12.05 legislative and policy committee revised policy

[03:44:48] 2420 meeting procedures which will be presented tonight by mr svensson mr svensson do you have a motion. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, I move that the Loudoun County School Board approve the proposed changes to policy 2420, and I will have an amendment to raise. All right, thank you. Mr. Svensson has made a motion. Is there a second? Second.

[03:45:12] Thank you, Vice Chair Donohue. Mr. Svensson, would you like to speak to your motion? Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. So this policy was revised to align with VSBA policy requirements and ensure consistency with the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. Our understanding when we were speaking last time was that the policy kind of just enshrined what we already do in practice, but Vice Chair Donoghue raised a good question about some of the language in there that indicated maybe we wouldn't need to take an affirmative vote when someone was

[03:45:45] joining remotely. So to the extent that we want to keep it consistent with current practice, I was going to raise the following amendment. I move to amend the proposed redline version of policy 2420 meeting procedures, specifically to replace the word shawl on line 72 with the word may, and to strike the sentence on line 73 through 75 that reads, quote, if a member's remote participation is challenged, the school board shall vote on whether to allow such

[03:46:18] participation. Second. Thank you. It has been properly moved by Mr. Svensson and seconded by Ms. Chernoff. Mr. Svensson, would you like to speak further to your amendment? Yes, Madam Chair. So I think that the prior language was a little confusing because it used the word shawl in terms of granting the remote participation, but then discussed how a member's remote participation could be challenged so in the way if it was automatic that someone could

[03:46:57] remotely participate that would not be how we currently do things which is take a vote which is usually granted so this amendment just aligns with our current practices and also aligns with and also ensures consistency with the Virginia FOIA which doesn't seem to contemplate the automatic remote participation and I know I would welcome any additional thoughts from Vice Chair Donohue since she's the one who originally raised the the point. Thank you. Vice Chair Donohue.

[03:47:28] Thank you Madam Chair and thank you Mr. Svensson. I would be fine with leaving the language shall be approved intact but if it is the will of but I also understand the rationale to be consistent with our current and heretofore practice. I would propose a friendly amendment to Mr. Svensson's amendment where he has proposed changing shall to may at line 72 of the red line so it would read from a remote location may be approved i would propose adding after approved upon a majority vote so

[03:48:04] that the amendment would then read from a remote location may be approved upon a majority vote um i would accept that friendly amendment so efficient all right any further discussion all right then i am going to ask vice chair donahue to please read her friendly amendment again for clarity's sake? Certainly. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Svensson's proposed amendment was at line 72 of the red line to change the word shall to the word may and then delete the sentence

[03:48:44] if a member's remote participation is challenged, the school board shall vote on whether to allow such participation. My proposed friendly amendment would be, as he suggested, change shall to may and then after be approved add upon a majority vote thank you is there any further discussion regarding the amendment all right seeing none let's move forward with the vote clerk please

[03:49:14] open the vote board members please record your vote you're not the only one all right thank you clerk please close and display the vote and that motion the amendment passes unanimously with all nine school board members present voting yes with that we'll return to the base motion is there any further discussion? All right. Seeing no discussion, let's move forward with the voting on the motion

[03:49:49] as amended. Clerk, please open the vote. Board members, please record your vote. Clerk, please close and display the vote. That motion passes unanimously with all nine school board members present voting yes. And with that, we will move on to our next item, which is, I think, our final action item from student services committee uh new policy 54 or 5340 pardon me safe and supportive removal of students in an educational setting um tonight this will be presented by mr

[03:50:27] pepper mr pepper do you have a motion yes madam chair i move that the loudon county school board adopt new policy 5340 safe and supportive removal of students in the educational setting Thank you. Mr. Pepper has made a motion, and I hear a second by Vice Chair Donoghue. Mr. Pepper, would you like to speak to your motion?

[03:50:47] Yes, Madam Chair. 5340 is a new policy that comes out of the Student Services Committee. It was up for information in our August school board meeting. This policy outlines the recommendations and procedures for the safe and support removal of students in the educational setting.

[03:51:08] It was developed in an unusual working group situation where members of several of our outside advisory groups, MSAC, SEAC, GEAC, came together and really helped draft out this policy line by line. And it is now up for us to debate and discuss.

[03:51:28] Thank you, Mr. Pepper. And with that, board members, is there any discussion? Yes, Ms. Chernoff. Thank you, Madam Chair. For the last meeting, I had thought about proposing an amendment to address the unique situation where it's not an individual student being removed, but rather the entire class being removed due to an individual, whether that be disruptive behavior or the safety of others.

[03:51:55] that situation does arise and felt that it wasn't accurately covered in our current policies and regulations, although upon further discussion with Dr. Spence and several other colleagues, and especially with SEAC raising some concerns about privacy, it feels like it might actually be considered in policy 3070, as Ms. Donahue had pointed out last meeting. However, for me, the regulation reads evacuate and relocate students to an alternative venue in that regulation in

[03:52:32] policy 3070 so i know that's a different policy to me reading that as a lay person i would think that that means like if they're moved to a different school because there's a threat of safety or things like that so i would just ask for consideration on policy 3070s regulation that might say alternative venue or educational setting, and that would then signal that the PIO would send a classroom message to just that classroom. I think that that's a reasonable middle ground. It helps give our administrators teeth, and it would provide a little bit more clarity on the back end of policy

[03:53:07] 3070, and so I'm appreciative of the conversation that happened over the last week, and if we are amenable to that, regulations are not under our purview. It's more just something that staff would operationalized. So that's just sort of my request is to add a little bit of clarity there to cover our bases. We're happy to take a look at that regulation. Thank you, Dr. Spence. Yes, ma'am.

[03:53:31] All right, Ms. Riccardi. Yeah, right. I just, I want to just ask another thing too, because this kind of, this came up before. It's just, I also, from a PMC perspective, I just would like us to track instances. I don't, obviously there's no FERPA piece of that. I just want to track instances of when we're actually removing a whole classroom of students to another location internally or externally, whatever that looks like, just so we can keep track of how often this is happening.

[03:53:56] I think it's an interesting piece. Obviously, I think we also, correct me if I'm wrong, do we track the individual instances too just in aggregate as well? I think we do, right? How many times the instance is that students are removed? Yeah, so I would just ask that in regulation if we consider also taking a look at how many times separately from the individual that the whole classroom is having to move It'd be an interesting piece of information for us just to have. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Svensson. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[03:54:26] Based on this, the conversation related to clarity, I just have an amendment to the policy. I move that the Loudoun County School Board amend proposed policy 5340, Section B1, by inserting the following language after, quote, designated supportive area, end quote, on line 17 of the clean version.

[03:54:46] inserted language would read, quote, comma, or the removal of other students from the instructional setting to allow a student to remain in the instructional setting for the purpose of de-escalation or regulation of a student or students. And I can speak to that motion, I guess, if there's a second. Second. Thank you. Mr. Svinson has made a motion that has been seconded by Ms.

[03:55:10] Chernoff. And Mr. Svinson, I'll ask you to speak to your motion. Thank you, Madam Chair. This was a recommendation by SEAC that I can read what they what they wrote. The policy does not clearly address situations where a dysregulated student remains in the instructional setting for the purpose of de-escalation or regulation while other students are removed. These situations should be included in the definition so they are properly documented, monitored, and implemented in a way that protects student dignity and safety. And I don't think there were any objections from folks to I've spoken with to inserting this just for clarity in definition. So I thought that would make the most sense in terms of what happens in practice on

[03:55:49] occasion. Thank you. Any further discussion? No? All right. Seeing no further discussion, Mr. Svensson has presented an amendment that has been properly seconded by Ms. Chernoff. Let's move forward with the vote. Clerk, please close and display the vote. That motion passes unanimously with all nine school board members present. And with that, we return to discussion of the base

[03:56:21] motion as amended. Any further discussion? No? All right. Let's move forward on the base motion as amended. Please record your vote. Clerk, please close and display the vote. All right. That motion passes unanimously with all nine school board members present. With that, we completed our information item 13.01, the Department of Business and Financial Services Fiscal Year 26 Supplemental

[03:56:56] Budget for Workers' Compensation Fund. I am going to ask, is there a will to put that on consent? I didn't ask at the end of the information item that we did before recess if anybody would like to send this to consent.

[03:57:22] We'll leave it on the regular, although it's close. So this will come back as action at the next school board meeting, and we will pick up our information items with item 13.02 department of oh wait did we do that no okay right let's do this now department of business and financial services school board calendar for the development of the fiscal year

[03:57:58] 2028 budget i did really just want to do that before recess so um this will again be presented by miss willoughby so this item is related to the development of the fly 28 budget this is one of the first actions that the school board takes which is to approve the budget development calendar for that budget. Included in board docs was a table of dates. The table of dates mirror the past couple years of how we have produced and prepared the budget. I will share some of the

[03:58:34] highlights one of which is the school board budget retreat that is going to be held next week on Tuesday. Listed next is a fall work session on the FY28 budget priorities and direction. It's listed as October 13th however that does need to change to the 27th of October. There are already a number of work session topics on the 13th and so we're just going to bump that to the 27th and that would be one change that staff is recommending. On December 8th is the planned date of bringing the preliminary fiscal guidance from the county. This is where we have updated numbers on what they're

[03:59:13] looking at for FY28. Then in January we kick off the official review of the superintendent's estimate of needs by the school board followed by adoption on February 2nd. Last year we had a calendar that had five program dates with one as needed and we ended up using all six and so this calendar has programmed all or has programmed for six full meetings along with two public hearings as always the calendar is subject to change and that typically goes through the school board chair

[03:59:49] and if there are any questions of course i'd be happy to answer them and this would also come back as action at your next meeting um thank you miss willoughby um board members is there are there any questions um yes miss ricardi thank you madam chair i think one of the things i want to make sure that we take a look at is the is the timeline for review it just seems to get shorter and shorter I think right now in this in this model you all have 37 days to prep the budget and we have 19 to review and approve it and that includes weekends and all the other things that are going

[04:00:25] on so I'm talking days not working days just physical days to do this I'm really concerned about that I was concerned about it last January I'm concerned about it now we need to expand the timeline for review and I don't know how that happens um I don't know all the ins and outs of how we get all this stuff I have a general idea but we need to work with the county and figure out how you all can have enough time to accurately prepare a budget and we can have a the right amount of time to accurately review a two billion dollar budget 19 calendar days with five hearings

[04:01:02] in the middle of those 19 days or whatever it is is that's not um that's not going to work for me And honestly, I don't think it's good best practice from a business perspective either. We really need a lot more time to get in here and dive into this, especially because I feel like there are going to be a lot of trade-offs that we're going to have to consider this time around, and it's a posture that we haven't had to have in the past.

[04:01:26] So, yeah, 19 days, we need more than that. And I think you guys might need more than 37 to build, but either one way or the other, we've got to get some more time here on this timeline to get this expanded out a bit. Thank you. Any further discussion? All right. Thank you, Ms. Willoughby. This will come back for action next month, or next school board meeting. And we will move on to item 13.03,

[04:02:00] Student Services Committee Revised Policy 8155, Out-of-Zone School Transfers. This will be presented tonight by Mr. Pepper, who is the chair of the Student Services Committee, and Mrs. Richardson, Ms. Richardson, the Assistant Superintendent of Student Services. Mr. Pepper?

[04:02:17] Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to wait just a second for Ms. Richardson and Mr. Dolson to take their seats. So I'm going to lead off, but I'm really going to turn it over to our experts on the issue. This is revised policy 8155, which I think has changed its name now to out-of-zone school transfer as it was originally titled special permissions. This policy has gone through extensive revision at the student services committee level and there are significant changes

[04:02:57] afoot to this policy. The biggest change that I think we were trying to work through was this willy-nilly idea of I live in LCPS I can go to any school I want so long as there's capacity and that was negatively impacting many of our schools both those that were over capacity and then some that we're constantly losing students who were zoned there.

[04:03:20] And so this policy has gone through some significant changes. The, you know, it was, yeah, thank you, Vice Chair Donahue. It was titled School Assignment Areas. But we colloquially noted it as a special provisions policy. The biggest change is really in Section C3, which are the new reasons for out-of-zone school transfers.

[04:03:44] And then the other thing that we're going to talk about is kind of the step down process to get us out of the old policy and into the new policy and with that i will turn it over to ms richardson and mr dolson good evening chair chandler vice chair donahue members of the school board and dr spence before you tonight for your consideration and information is a new draft policy 8155 school assignment next slide please historically speaking and according to loudonhistory.org, despite numerous court orders, LCPS did not fully

[04:04:22] desegregate schools and bus routes until the 1968-69 school year. This policy, policy 8155 school assignment, was first adopted August 11th, 1970. The new draft policy of 8155 before you tonight with a suggested title of out-of-zone school transfer focuses on building up a sense of belonging in all schools while increasing school community connections that are so important.

[04:04:52] Quite simply, this draft policy sends a division message that all LCPS schools are great schools. The discrete reasons and guidelines outline what will be considered as plausible reasons for an out-of-zone school transfer. The new draft policy will also assist staff in improving staffing models a new appeals process relies on collaboration between the department of student services and the department of school leadership next slide please at the december 16th 2025 school

[04:05:26] board meeting the full board voted to reduce the over capacity threshold to 85 percent and the full board directed staff to present the student services committee with the new policy outlining instructional suitability as the avenue for out-of-zone school transfers. This new draft policy was presented to the committee during its April meeting, followed by a discussion during the May meeting. The new policy went before the committee as information in June and then action in August. It now comes to the full board as an information item this evening. Next slide,

[04:06:02] please. This slide provides special permission approvals only and does not include approvals through appeals to the department of student services or school board appeals committee next slide please this slide includes both approvals and appeals hence the slightly larger numbers each year next slide please this slide provides the number of students currently on special permission by grade level just as an information item there are there are schools elementary schools currently

[04:06:42] at 19% and 15% of their student bodies on special permission. In middle school and high school we have schools at seven and nine percent. Please remember that whenever you add students to one building you take away from another building. This also creates a need for increases and reductions in staffing. Next slide please. For the 26-27 school year there were 252 sixth grade requests

[04:07:15] for special permission and 158 were approved. There were 327 9th grade requests and 93 were improved. Next slide, please. This chart represents the number of special permission requests that were denied by the Department of Student Services and then appealed to the Special Permission Appeals Hearing Committee. Please note that until the 25-26 school year, Policy 8155 mandated that all appeals for overcapacity schools go directly to the appeals hearing committee, hence the gap in

[04:07:52] the number of student service denials and school board approvals and denials. After school year 24-25, applications to overcapacity schools were voided and not appealable. For this current school year, not every denial from the student services from student services was appealed to the full board. Next slide, please. One more. The chart here represents how neighboring school divisions approach this process. Currently, only Loudoun County Public Schools and Arlington provide the

[04:08:30] school board with final authority. Next slide, please. Within the new draft policy, it removes the appeals process captured in policy 2350 and designates an internal administrative team to hear appeals. Applications will be considered by a collaborative team of the Department of Student services and the department of school leadership members should appeals need to occur those appeals will also be considered by a collaborative team of the department of student the department of

[04:09:04] student services and the department of school leadership next slide please regulation 8155 will clearly define how the new policy will be implemented specifically we suggest using alternate language for renewing and using continuation as the new term the phased implementation will also be outlined in the new regulation. Next slide, please. This additional consideration is an oversight on staff's part. This additional language would be added to the child care

[04:09:39] reasons section, providing opportunities for parents and guardians to demonstrate the need for before and after school care for older age students due to developmental, medical, or other circumstances. Next slide, please. Now I will give you an outline of renewal scenarios for the full board to consider. For the 26-27 school year, kindergarten, first, second, sixth, and ninth grade students in scenario one who are on special permission at their school would not be able to

[04:10:15] renew. If they want to remain, they will need to use the out-of-zone school transfer process or return to their zoned school of attendance. Students not approved to remain via the new out-of-zone school transfer process will be returned to their zoned school of attendance.

[04:10:35] Third, fourth, seventh, tenth, and eleventh grade students will be able to remain at their current special permission approved school if and only if they request to do so during the appropriate window. Recall that fifth graders moving to middle school and eighth graders moving to high school are not guaranteed space availability as many of our secondary schools are over capacity.

[04:10:59] In this scenario, each subsequent year adds an additional grade level in which renewals are no longer an option and out-of-zone school transfers become required to remain at a school other than the zone school of attendance. In this scenario, out-of-zone school transfer becomes fully implemented by school year 30-31.

[04:11:22] For scenario two, kindergarten first, sixth, and ninth grade students who are on special permission at their school would not be able to renew. If they want to remain, they will need to use the out-of-zone school transfer process or return to their zoned school of attendance.

[04:11:39] Students not approved to remain via the new out-of-zone school transfer process will return to their zoned school of attendance. Second, third, fourth, seventh, tenth, and eleventh grade students will be able to remain at their current special permission approved school if and only if they request during the appropriate window.

[04:11:58] And again, recall that fifth graders and eighth graders moving to the next level are not guaranteed because of space availability and many of our secondary schools are over capacity. In scenario two, the out of zone school transfer process becomes fully implemented by school year 31-32.

[04:12:19] In scenario three, finally, basically the same information, kindergarten, sixth and ninth grade students who are on special permission at their schools would not be able to renew.

[04:12:29] If they want to remain they would have to apply for the through the out of zone school transfer process or return to their zone school of attendance in this scenario first second third fourth seventh tenth and eleventh grade students would be able to remain and again recalling that fifth and eighth grade students it's all based on space availability in this scenario scenario three out of zone school transfer becomes fully implemented by school year 32 33 and with that Ms. Richardson and I are happy to answer any questions that you may have.

[04:13:07] Thank you for your time and attention. Thank you, Mr. Dolson. Board members, any questions? Mr. Svensson. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you both for working through this revision.

[04:13:22] I appreciate how big a task that is, so thank you. I had a question about the language referencing that a student needs to have stepped into their their home their assigned school before applying for special permission and I was wondering how that interacts in instances where someone is is seeking out-of-zone transfer based on child care reasons so if they you know based on their older children who have been attending this other school that their younger children are going to be in the same situation is there an accommodation for that or is that a potential revision to the language just because if we know

[04:14:02] there's going to be an issue maybe it doesn't make sense to require them to go into that school building so just for clarity purposes specific to the language that's in the new policy is there a question about the language under online 77 through 82 we tend to take those cases on a case-by-case basis so if a family does present a need based on child care those those cases are

[04:14:34] taken case by case um so just looking for some clarity i think um the red line version it says at line so it's section c um line 61 on it says parents may not apply for an out-of-zone school transfer for students who have not yet attended set foot inside their future assigned school um and then then later on you'll see like subsection c3 has the reasons for out-of-zone school transfers so the way i read it is that that that language would apply to all the cases

[04:15:09] including child care cases so i think what we really are trying to um focus on is that all of our schools in loud and our great schools we do get requests for parents that have never where students have never attended in a lot of those cases they are for kindergarten students and many of the reasons why is because there is an older sibling at that school and for that case those considerations would be something that we would look into specific to child care we are planning on having a document where parents would through through the regulation they would be

[04:15:46] filling out information so we would be able to then assess whether or not that that child care provision is something that we can consider for the students to attend a different school other than their zone school of attendance thank you and then relatedly I know we had previously discussed. I know some of the appeals we've gotten are instances where one of the siblings in a family is assigned to a school because it has a special education program that they attend, and then the parents request to have the sibling who's not in that specialized program also attend that school. So for child care reasons, logistical reasons, family reasons, that

[04:16:24] they're all at one location. Is that something that would be covered, that you contemplate being covered by the child care provision or somewhere else yes sir we work very closely with the office of special education for those purposes and we work in collaboration with them to ensure that those considerations are highly considered when we're making that decision thank you mr. Cardi thank you madam chair and thank you all for this presentation so I just had a couple of questions so I'm looking at the slides on about the don't

[04:17:00] the denials and approvals by the school board and I just I guess my first question kind of stands out is how did we jump from 21 to 66 denials from last year to this year the previous year to this one I noticed that I think we've seen we saw 50 about 55 cases in the school board then approved almost half of those 27 so I'm just trying to understand a little bit about kind of we were like 19 28 21 and now we jumped up to 66 so what happened what changed in the last year to this year that we've got jumped up to 66 so last year was the first year that we um voided um all of our

[04:17:39] so uh people that were applying our students families that were applying to schools that were over capacity was that was the last year that we voided um those all of those applications I really can't speak to the reason why with the exception of the increase in our our numbers but what I can speak to is that 12 plus 9 is 21 so that data is that does mesh and then like I said we did not get every denial that came from my office not every family then appealed to the

[04:18:16] full board so that is the reason for the gap between the 66 and I believe the 55 that you all actually heard yeah and I understand that gap part I guess my question is how did the question was really how did we jump from 21 to 66 so I I am going to surmise that a part of that is because of the attendance zone process that occurred in in Dulles South there was a lot of questions there was a lot of inquiries about that Miss Tate and I worked very closely we aligned 8160 and 8155 together so your your questions a good one Mr. Carty I'm

[04:18:53] giving you the my best estimate of a reason why I think that does lend itself to we had we had a lot of both middle school and high school requests for that that particular reason yeah as well as elementary but I I would bet that's probably one of the main reasons that you see that jump from 21 to 66 and I understand that yeah and I think that was a really good case and I think just in general I I like the work you all have done on this policy I am not comfortable with the board giving over its ability to hear those those cases I

[04:19:32] feel like the public needs to have an arbiter that isn't from the school administration to give them a last shot if they want to go through that process and I think that when we look at it with a fresh set of eyes sometimes we can kind of see things differently and you know in half the time we did this year and half the time we didn't so I but I feel like we need to be able to give the public that option and to be honest with you I don't feel like it's a huge time burden on us and I think it's a good service that we provide to our communities and so

[04:20:10] So I feel in all of this, I feel like we really should retain that. I get that Arlington is the only other division that does this, but I feel pretty strongly that we need to be good arbiters in the cases where our families want the school board members to hear their case and hear their plea.

[04:20:28] So thank you. Thank you. Ms. Chernoff. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you so much, Mr. Dolson and Ms. Richardson, for the patience that you have shown in a very, very long journey, at least since I got here.

[04:20:44] Um, I wholeheartedly support this transition. I am so grateful for the work that you have done. I feel like you've listened, you've heard us along the way. Um, I felt like making the transition with increasing the capacity was an interesting filler.

[04:21:03] I mean, it kind of deterred some of it, but it really didn't have the effect. And I actually think what's been interesting is hearing from the community is that sort of that arbitrary line, some people that actually had some of these legit concerns that I feel are now outlined here very clearly and could have applied for and been approved for got lost because they were automatically denied based off of capacity. So I actually think the policy itself was working against the actual purpose of what some people were trying to access. And for me, that was really what I was seeing was that we did not have clarity. We did not, it was, it felt

[04:21:42] very arbitrary because we drew a line in the sand and we didn't really listen unless the parents went through and did the appeal process. I have to respectfully disagree with my colleague, Ms. Riccardi. I agree that the schools know their situations and I trust that our staff have the best interests of our students at heart and they know the individual situations and I think they can make sound decisions and I think LCPS can as well, especially as these are outlined. So I just wanted to thank you. I think it is a sad history where this policy began. And I am proud that we are moving away from that narrative because I have been to all 100 schools

[04:22:21] and they are great. May I have a minute to explain my amendments? Okay. I also did my homework and listened to every meeting and every comment. And something that I've been noodling on is something that Mr. Pepper was talking about throughout several different meetings, and that was that sort of idea of continuity. And I won't speak for you, Mr. Pepper, but my understanding was that you were looking more for cluster continuity. I'm not willing to go that far, but I am willing to consider an alternative. So one of my amendments is to tackle on the clean version on line 101,

[04:23:00] the section D, which applies, this section does not apply to the rollout and the scenarios of phasing out is separate from what I would be addressing here. This is specific to people who have already been approved through this new policy and this process. And so basically it's offering out-of-zone school transfers may be approved for rising 11th and 12th graders who have previously attended the requested school as a sophomore or a junior. And what I would like to offer as a middle ground is that fourth to fifth would also be considered and that seventh to eighth would also be considered so that fourth graders could

[04:23:38] finish their fifth grade year in their school if they've already been approved and that seventh graders could finish their eighth grade year in the school that they're in. And I would rename this section then educational continuity because it would no longer just apply to rising juniors and seniors so that's the first amendment is just just sort of offer that continuity at each level not transferring between levels but at each level before they're moved to their zoned school and then my other request is sort of just in conversations with various members of SEAC and the community I've gotten several questions about what happened to that nice instructional suitability clause

[04:24:16] and basically it's scattered throughout and re-envisioned through a whole new policy So I'm really, just to not mislead the public that we dropped that, would love to rename this instructional suitability for out-of-zone transfers. Just to offer that clarity that we really are looking to find that best fit for very unique, difficult situations through this process.

[04:24:39] So well done. I look forward to supporting this policy moving forward. I'm not in charge. He's in charge. Thank you. Any further? Yes, Vice Chair Donahue. Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Richardson and Mr. Dolson, thank you for your hard work on this.

[04:24:59] As you know, and as many of my colleagues know, I was the chair of the Student Services Committee for my first two years on the board. I did not grow up in Northern Virginia, and when I first heard about the special permission process, I thought, this is stupid. At one of my very first meetings with Ms. Richardson, I said, we need to fix this.

[04:25:20] thankfully I appreciate that you agreed that there could be some improvements and it's it's been an ongoing process that we have been working on for the last three years I'm I'm really excited to see where the policy is now and I I think it's I think it's in a much better place than when I first started on the board so I'm very appreciative to the two of you to your team to mr. pepper and the new incarnation of the Student Services Committee who did so much work this year. I was going to ask about instructional suitability but Ms.

[04:26:00] Chernoff raised my points in her comments. I have had a number of people reach out with expressing significant concerns because they think special permission is going away and it is but i think it's important to be clear that does not mean that your child is stuck in the school that they're zoned for with no exceptions right there we are still carving out except exceptional circumstances when needed and appropriate

[04:26:37] that where we can reassign a student to a zone to a school that they're not zoned for under appropriate circumstances so I want I just wanted to emphasize that for purposes of anyone who is listening at home that this does not mean that out of zone transfers are completely gone even after we make a transition over away from special permission and to out-of-zone transfer all of that being

[04:27:10] said I had I had one question about the language for the appeal I'm looking at the red line on lines 158 to 159 and I saw that the phrase captured in policy 2350 has has been struck since now the proposal is that it will be administrative and not through the school board and the addition of the sentence decisions are final and cannot be appealed further. My question though is is there can you direct me to the place in the proposed policy chain in the change in the red

[04:27:50] line that defines what the appeals process is now if it's not through 2350 okay but is there some is there a section that we would outline that in the regulation the process would be outlined in the regulation okay thank you. Mr. Pepper? Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you all for your comments and your support, and I will echo everyone. I know how hard both of you have worked on this policy, and we've, you know, dug in pretty deeply in student services on it. I kind of want to follow up on what Ms.

[04:28:29] Chernoff said about continuity, and I'd love further clarification on the fourth and fifth and seventh, and then we can get into that when we talk about amendments to the policy. My concern, I want to, I kind of want to put this out there, is, and if you listen to any of the student Services Committee meetings, you know, this was kind of my take on this. I think there's a big difference between the fifth to sixth grade continuity and the eighth to ninth grade continuity. And the reason I'm going to say that is once Thornton Summit comes online, we're really in a one-to-one scenario with our middle and high schools. And if we go into this policy, and I know

[04:29:05] we're trying to phase out those students who are currently on the original special missions, but once we get into this policy, any student who is approved for an out-of-zone school transfer, particularly at the secondary level in middle school, has really going to be approved for social or emotional reasons, or are the child of a staff member, or some moving scenarios here and forth. And if we're approving a student, and my take is, a student who gets approved based on social emotional reasons has legitimate reasons to go to a different school and maybe they are

[04:29:42] successful at that new school and maybe it's a middle school and to uproot the new social network that student has had at a very difficult time in their life and send them back to the original school where they have no connections worries me and so in committee and I said I would bring this to the full works I didn't want to put this in the policy I wanted to get the policy in front of all of y'all but the line on the red line versions that starts at line 74 and goes to line um kind of

[04:30:16] 77 i'm sorry it starts at line 72 and goes to line 74 and out of zone school transfer approved for middle grade levels no bearing on the high school level that's the one line that i think i would like to remove because if you're here on our if you're on special version our current policy there could be a multitude of reasons if you're here on this policy as it's now rewritten there are very specific reasons that you have been transferred to your to your school and a lot of it is that mental health that we're really worried about so it's just something to consider as we

[04:30:54] move forward i may bring an amendment to our next meeting on removing that line just so that we can have that kind of a bit a lot of the appeals that you know i've sat in this year have been students who were at a middle school and then they got rejected going to the high school because our high schools are mostly over 85% and a lot of our middle schools aren't for whatever reasons there are.

[04:31:17] And so these students who have built these networks suddenly are facing this massive social trauma to go to a new place. And that's something I'd really like to avoid. And that's where I was leading with the continuity. And with the elementary students, there's some child care things there, so I don't think about as much, but that's what I wanted to say. Mrs. Griffiths?

[04:31:34] Thank you, Madam Chair. I would be good with that amendment. I get a lot of cases like that where they have to return to, they had permission to a school and they have to return and it's really messy. And I know I've been emailing you guys a lot.

[04:31:54] I've been a little testy with some of it. Please understand that a lot of it is that sort of uh, issue. Um, so I just want to be clear, um, case by case basis and appeals. Um, I've talked to many that they're just rejected outright. They can't even appeal it. Um, if they do have a reason to appeal, I think that should be looked at further. And that's where I go to, uh, what,

[04:32:29] with what Ms. Riccardi said, where the school board should be part of that. Um, they should be able to appeal and we should have our committees where we should be able to make those decisions did you did you want to say something mr. Dolson so I did want to just mention in board docs there are sample forms and specifically kind of what mr. pepper was speaking about and some what some of you have have raised as concern about students who are experiencing emotional and social adjustment concerns we are presenting as draft items for you all to

[04:33:04] look at um ways that parents could use that as a um a point of of reason as to why you would be applying um to a school um for any reason now um miss griffiths in some of the the situations that you've um brought to my attention it is because of the requests are to schools that were already over capacity so those applications were not denied they were they were just voided because again per the policy right now um if the school was over 85 those applications could not be

[04:33:40] considered because the school was already at capacity so i just want to be clear with that however given what this new policy would bring forward it would allow a family to bring to the department of student services data or in this case it would be the ability to look at some of the mental health providers outside of lcps that they have been meeting with and certain reasons as to why that provider might think that there needed to be a change of of school

[04:34:18] but that's just an example that i'm bringing forward that again we're looking for input much like what mr spenson brought up in regards to child care we realize those are real and accurate reasons why students might need to attend different school and we are certainly not suggesting that we close the the door on any of those those conversations so that's why I say it's would be on a case-by-case basis I like the case-by-case basis also you've heard me say this a lot waitlist because we had a drop in enrollment that's what I hope well I hope they can get in if they're on the

[04:34:54] waitlist so again more communication as far as what the enrollment is for the particular school because we get numbers but it changes all the time but I do want to apologize I do get a little testy when we when we have our conversations about it but yes I'm about a case by case basis and wait list and viewing the enrollment every day to see what's going on so just so you know where I stand with you know with the policy thank you so much. Ms. Riccardi

[04:35:31] I just had a quick question have we heard do we have any feedback yet from SEAC or any of the other advisory committees on any of this mara okay good because i think um what i'm being told is that you know having some third party arbitration option at the end of this process is something that we're going to probably see from some of those groups too so i want to dive into this more and i think i'm going to definitely set up a time for us to chat about this because i really i don't have the historical background on it so and i know there's a lot that goes in here so before i say much more about my opinions on things i feel like i need to get more information

[04:36:10] for sure. So I'll definitely reach out to you guys. We'll set up some time to chat. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have to agree with Mrs. Riccardi about the community needing to feel like they have an arbitrator. They need to feel like we, who they elected, will listen to what their problem is and then try to come up with a solution for them. So I think that's very, very important. Also, I apologize for shouting out, but tomorrow is our SEAC meeting, and I am

[04:36:45] sure we will be hearing a lot about that tomorrow. Thank you. Vice Chair Donahue. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to note that there is feedback from MSAC posted on BoardDocs for 8155. Awesome. Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is actually for Mr. Pepper, if he doesn't mind.

[04:37:11] So when you're looking at that language for striking it, are you looking to change that to it would be guaranteed if they wanted it? Or are you looking to just soften the language to say there'll be a consideration? Because you can still apply at the high school, at the transitional levels through this policy if the same documentation remains.

[04:37:33] I would imagine that that would probably bode well for the student. But I could understand the harshness of has no bearing on. right so i guess i'm just looking for your goal here my goal is really to make it as easy as possible for a student who has you know gone to a middle school because they qualified for this social emotional exception to continue with the new friends the new relationships the the new safety net that they've built at the high school level without particularly having to go through the burden and the stress of reapplying so you want it to be guaranteed if they want i really

[04:38:12] do want it to be guaranteed yes and i know that that sets us up and mr dolce and i've kind of talked about this in committee i know it sets us up for some staffing questions but if we know that you know every student with these people who move in and move out every student from x middle school is going to y high school we should have a pretty good estimate on class size this is the transition and what that's going to do for our staffing and you're particularly looking at middle school to middle school high school elementary's got some weird quirks in there because you have the child care issue that kind of goes it doesn't go fully away but it mitigates itself significantly with

[04:38:50] students reach middle school age um and then i appreciate the clarity i just want to know what i'm walking into next time thank you for asking miss labelle i have a question for mr pepper all right you've got a student who's in the sixth um eighth grade let's say he is going to high school so is every other child in his school therefore he's not going to be losing connections unless he wanted to go to a completely different high school out of his cluster the same thing

[04:39:29] happens at middle school level you've got a child going into who's in fifth grade in a particular school he's going to go to the sixth sixth grade middle school for the cluster so he will have connections when he gets there yes and i understand that miss labelle i'm talking about students who um are zoned for a middle school who are no longer attending that they have successfully been approved for an out-of-zone school transfer at the middle school level and want to continue with the high school that that middle school they are now attending will go to

[04:40:04] because we're we're having like you know several different schools that are elementary schools going to all one middle and then several different it it you have to be careful with saying that everyone can so we're going to be right back to the place we were where every child wants to go where they want to go no no i think that you misunderstand me here when thornton summit comes online in two years as this policy takes effect we are one-to-one every middle school and high school have it has a direct feeder and mistaken correct me if i'm wrong she's still here and we

[04:40:41] do have to do the map so let's be very clear but we're at the point where every school has a direct feeder so if a student who's supposed to go to middle school a that then feeds into high school a is struggling at middle school a and they are approved for an out-of-zone school transfer to go to middle school b which then feeds into high school b i would like them to be able to continue at high school b without having to redo the application process and add an additional stress on a student who may be fragile in some way. So we're talking only about the students that absolutely need to because they've been approved for a very specific reason.

[04:41:21] Yes, and that's what this policy is doing, is it's limiting those transfers for those who absolutely need to. Okay. Now, do you agree that over time a student may have less problems? I know in special ed a lot of things developmentally um seem to pattern out so you don't think that they should have to reapply and we should should be able to see because this is one of the things we look at in special ed you know has their

[04:41:55] disability changed their designation changed um how are they doing can they handle this in another place now and we look at all that kind of information before we make a decision about what classes and accommodations they're going to get. It's sort of like the same thing here.

[04:42:11] Okay, we put him over here because he was having issues, and this has been very good for him. Let's take a look at it. Let's see how he's improved, if he's improved. Does he still need the accommodation of going to a different school, or should we continue this way? I think that by having the reapplication, we're actually looking at all those things instead of just like saying, okay, pass them on up, because that's what's been happening in special ed, and we've been trying to adjust that. This passing up without looking where the child is and what the child

[04:42:48] needs needs to be addressed. Would you have a student have to go through the child find process all over again at eighth grade? Would you have to have them re-qualify? I'm sorry. I know we're having a side debate. This is getting a little too conversational, and we certainly are going to have lots of opportunity to consider specific amendments and how the policy will be changed and can have these conversations off the dais one-on-one. And I appreciate you, Ms. Lell, because I've had the, I understand special education and growth and the whole idea of an IEP plan. I think this is slightly different, but we'll talk about this next week. We make

[04:43:21] amendments. Thanks. To be continued. All right. Anybody else? Any comments on this policy? All All right. Thank you so much for the lively conversation. It's sure to be an interesting one when it comes back for action next time. Our last information item is 13.04, Human Resources and Talent Development School Calendar Options for 2028-2029 school year. This item this evening

[04:43:50] will be presented by Ms. Boland, our Chief Human Resources Officer. I know this is your favorite conversation okay good evening as you may recall one of hrtd's goals is to provide our staff and families with multi-year school calendars to support long-term planning we initially brought

[04:44:27] forward five draft calendar options for the 28-29 school year in april followed by a community survey in may and a school board work session on june 23rd tonight we are bringing those calendar options back as an information item for the board's consideration with action scheduled for the next school board meeting. I'll briefly review the process, the guiding principles used in developing the calendars, the five staff developed options, and the survey results before discussing

[04:44:59] next steps. Next slide. I don't have a remote. Sorry, Sherry. As we discussed throughout this process, the school calendar is an important operational foundation for the division and supports our broader mission of ensuring every student is able to reach their full potential.

[04:45:23] The student calendar also serves as the foundation for the teacher work calendar and together those calendars guide the development of our other staff calendars which are upwards of 30. Providing these calendars well in advance supports not only our instructional and operational planning but also gives our staff and families greater predictability as they make their own plans.

[04:45:52] Next slide. As a reminder, HRTD developed five calendar options for the 28-29 school year. Those options were informed by prior school board decisions, stakeholder feedback, and the guiding principles we have used throughout the calendar development process.

[04:46:09] The options provide the board with several variations for consideration while also maintaining many of the elements our staff and families have consistently told us are important. Before reviewing the five options, I do want to spend a moment reminding everyone of the framework staff uses when developing school board options or school calendar options. Staff does not begin this process with a blank slate. Calendar development is guided first by applicable laws and school board policies, as well as by previous direction and decisions provided by the school

[04:46:46] board. Within that framework, we also use a set of established guiding principles. These principles have developed over multiple calendar cycles and reflect extensive feedback received through staff and family surveys, advisory committees, public comments, school board discussions, and let's talk submissions. Those guiding principles include a school year that begins before Labor Day and ends no later than the second week of June, a two-week winter break and a full week for spring break,

[04:47:20] a target of approximately 180 instructional days and 194 scheduled teacher work days, and recognition of one holiday for significant religious observances from major world religions.

[04:47:37] We have also consistently heard concerns regarding gap days, school days that fall between an existing holiday and a weekend or an extended break. In response to that feedback, staff works to reduce or eliminate those days whenever the calendar allows.

[04:47:56] These laws, policies, and board decisions, guiding principles, and stakeholder feedback collectively form the framework staff then uses when developing the calendar options we bring before the school board. Of course, the ultimate authority to adopt the school calendar rests with the school board.

[04:48:13] Our responsibility as staff is to develop and present the options that are responsive to the direction and parameters that have been established, while also identifying the considerations and trade-offs associated with those options. With that framework in mind, I will briefly review the five staff-developed options before you this evening.

[04:48:37] I'll begin with options one and two. Options one through four are traditional calendar models for 28-29 school year and include both student and teacher calendars. Options one and two are very similar. Both include 180 instructional days with students beginning on Thursday, August 24th, and ending on Friday, June 22nd. Both options also include a two-week winter break, a full-week spring break, and fairly balanced quarters.

[04:49:10] The primary difference between these two options is the placement of spring break. In option one, spring break is aligned with Easter, consistent with our current calendar structure, and in option two, spring break is aligned with the third quarter rather than with Easter.

[04:49:29] We included both approaches in response to previous school board and community discussions regarding whether spring break should continue to be tied with Easter or instead align with the academic calendar. The teacher calendars for options one and two are the same with teachers beginning on August 16th and ending on June 26th. The important distinction again between these two options is really the placement of spring break. Options three and four also follow the traditional

[04:50:04] calendar model but move the start of school up one week earlier than option one and two. Both options would have students begin on Thursday, August 17th, and the last day of school would fall on Friday, June 15th. Both include 179 instructional days, a two-week winter break, a full week for spring break, and fairly balanced quarters. Again, the primary difference between option three and option four is the placement of spring break. Option three aligns spring break

[04:50:40] with Easter, and option four aligns spring break with the end of the third quarter. For teachers, both options begin on August 9th and end on June 20th. So when comparing options one and two with options three and four, the primary trade-off is an earlier start in August in exchange for an earlier end to the school year. And just as with options one and two, the distinction between three and four again is primarily the placement of spring break. Option five represents a significantly

[04:51:19] different approach from the first four options. As we discussed during the work session, we have heard interest over several years in exploring what a more balanced or year-round school calendar could look like. Rather than moving immediately from our current calendar to a traditional year-round model. Option five was designed as a phased approach. For that reason, this option includes calendars for both the 2028-29 and 2029-2030 school years. The 28-29 calendar would serve as

[04:51:54] the transition year with students beginning on August 10th and ending on June 13th. This would include 180 instructional days. The most significant difference is how breaks are distributed throughout the school year. Rather than maintaining a long summer with shorter breaks throughout the school year, this model begins shifting some of that time into longer breaks during the school year. The 28-29 calendar includes two-week breaks in the fall, winter, and spring and observes

[04:52:30] federal holidays only, with other holidays incorporated into instructional days to help create those extended breaks. The second year, 2930, moves further toward a traditional year-round model. Students will begin on July 23rd and end on June 14th with 180 instructional days and three three-week breaks during the fall, winter, and spring. The intent of presenting two years together

[04:53:05] is to demonstrate that the transition would actually look like over time, and if adopted, it would provide staff and families significant advance notice to prepare for that change. As we discussed at the work session, there are a number of operational considerations that would also be associated with a transition of this magnitude including impacts to staffing, facilities, instructional planning, summer programming, and employee work calendars. Because of those considerations if the board were to pursue this model additional work would of course need to be

[04:53:40] required across multiple departments to develop the corresponding teacher and staff calendars and support implementation, which is why a staff calendar is not presented with these calendars. So unlike options one through four, which provide variations within the more traditional calendar structure, option five represents a broader change in how instructional and break time would be distributed throughout the year. Following the board's initial review of the five draft calendar options in April, we distributed a survey to staff and families

[04:54:18] from may 7th through may 21st and asked respondents to rank their top three options we received 12 859 family responses representing a response rate of approximately 15 percent and 7053 staff responses representing a response rate of approximately 34 percent as you can see From the results, option three emerged as the most preferred calendar overall with option

[04:54:53] four ranking second. Similar to prior calendar surveys, we used a weighted ranking methodology. A first place ranking received three points, a second place ranking received two points, and a third place ranking received one point. This allowed us to not only consider which calendar respondents selected as their first choice, but also the relative level of support for each option across respondents' top three choices. The detailed results and methodology are included in your materials in board docs, but the primary takeaway is that options three and four receive

[04:55:30] the strongest overall support with option three ranking first. So what's next? Tonight, the uh five staff developed calendar options are before the school board as an information item board members will have the opportunity to of course bring forth amendments that have been discussed and are attached in board docs for boards consideration as part of this process and then following tonight's discussion the school calendar will return at the next school board meeting as an action item at which time the board will be asked to adopt a calendar for the 28-29

[04:56:08] school year. Once a calendar is adopted, HRTD would work with the Office of Communications and Community Engagement to publish the adopted calendar and communicate it to our staff, families, and community. And that concludes my presentation, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

[04:56:27] Thank you, Ms. Boland. As a point of personal privilege, I just want to take a second to wish Mr. Dolson a happy birthday. I'm sorry I missed that during your item, but thank you for being with us tonight with that but before we get into questions i would also like to offer the board members who have submitted amendments amended calendar options an opportunity to speak to their um their amendments their options um i'd like to start with mrs griffiths thank you madam chair um i just want to say while i appreciate your survey um and all the work

[04:57:05] that you've done, Ms. Bolin. No one really wants those calendars. Parents want consistency every year. Calendar option seven is similar to Ms. Chernoff's calendar with the federal holidays listed. I personally prefer starting after Labor Day to make the summers longer.

[04:57:26] I believe the federal calendar offers the strongest balance between maximizing instructional time and maintaining reasonable start and end dates for students and staff. Frequent, isolated holidays throughout the school year can disrupt the continuity of instruction. At the elementary level, in particular, students benefit from consistent routines and scattered days off often result in a loss of focus and momentum in the classroom. Limiting those disruptions help support student learning and academic achievement. Now, given Loudoun County's

[04:58:03] proximity to the federal government and the number of families whose schedules are connected to the federal workforce, I believe the federal calendar framework remains worthy of implementation. In response to constituent feedback, I developed a sample through Option 7 several months ago.

[04:58:22] At that time, I received, and still receiving, significant positive feedback and very little opposition. However, I would also support Ms. Chernoff's federal calendar as well with cultural holidays as excused absences. Only positive feedback is received for both these calendars.

[04:58:44] The federal calendar is what most of our constituents want with excused absences for the cultural holidays. If we go against what the county wants, we will have to answer to the parents of Loudoun County. And that's what I wanted to say about my calendar. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Rasheed. Thank you, Chair Chandler. And thank you, HRTD, for putting all the calendars together.

[04:59:11] I don't know how you guys do it. It's a lot of information, especially the fact that you have to be looking at school logistics. And it's just hard to see that not everyone is satisfied. So it's pretty tough to bring that forward. I listed some of the points about the calendar that presented. So I tried my best to incorporate much of the feedback that was presented after LCPS presented their options. And this calendar starts the school year in around mid to late, mid to late

[04:59:45] August. And I think that there's many AP teachers that have requested to give some adequate prep time for their AP exam. So we would also begin on a Thursday with this option. So that way, Beginning on a Thursday kind of gives you a little bit of a smoother introduction to the year.

[05:00:02] And also, which is a good highlight, a really good highlight, we would end the school year on June 1st. And that's quite early compared to previous calendars. This makes the summer break the same length, or if not even longer, as in some of the other options that were already presented.

[05:00:21] and definitely the big major difference is that this calendar includes major holidays that we've come to observe over time. It also provides more appropriate observances. So, for example, if there is a holiday that begins sunset on a certain day, you know, LCPS would, with this calendar, take the following day off ahead of that sunset. So, and in addition, the breaks tend to definitely align with the end of the quarters, and that tends to help with the decrease of

[05:00:55] disruption. So for example, quarter two ends at winter break, so that gives a little bit of educators, students, and staff more of a sense of a true break. And if this trend does continue in the future calendars, I just want to make sure that everyone notes that spring break may or may not line up with Easter as we attempt to align it with the end of quarter three. That's if the trend continues with, you know, in future calendars. Overall, though, there's a total of 170 instructional days. And with the daily hours, we would still meet and actually exceed instructional time

[05:01:34] requirements. So if you keep this in mind, you'll notice that quarter three is longer than other grading periods and traditionally this time of the year it's a it's very appropriate because you can think about whether delays and school closures especially the fact that we dealt with such a long closure with the snowstorm that we had earlier this year so this would help with that finally this calendar also aims to provide as many as as many as we can five day school weeks as possible even with the holiday observances, the end of the grading periods, and the teacher work days

[05:02:11] to kind of help with the structure and the routine. Overall, instructional time, inclusiveness, family scheduling, they are very difficult to line up perfectly, but I hope that this calendar does, you know, give that balance while doing what's best for LCPS students. Thank you, Chair.

[05:02:31] Thank you. And Ms. Chernoff? Thank you, Madam Chair. Obviously, this conversation is very timely, and I'm grateful that we actually pushed back until the school year started. I think this may have been the shortest summer in LCPS history. I sure have been hearing about it.

[05:02:48] My calendar is really a response to, again, much like Dr. Rasheed said, is a response to a lot of feedback. Feedback not only really leaned heavily into the Let's Talk open-ended feedback and the analysis there, as well as extensive feedback that I receive on my Facebook page. This calendar originally started out as a collaboration between Mr. Pepper and I. I will let him speak to why he is no longer a collaborator. But with me being on my own, I went ahead and took the liberty of

[05:03:22] trying to actually accommodate Ms. Riccardi's request, which was to sit down with the team and figure out what is the shortest, what is the most compact calendar that we can have within legal parameters and within our contractual restraints for teachers to honor all of that.

[05:03:43] that is where this calendar was born. So there are a lot of similarities between Dr. Rasheed's calendar and mine, including the start date and the end date. The first change that I made to the iteration I had before was adding more work days to the front of the school year. This was a big request that came through some of the LEA comments, as well as once this year, there was only five work days at the beginning of the year, and some of that was designated for professional learning. So teachers did reach out and say that five days was not enough. So mine would have eight days at the beginning of the year for teachers and the first day of school is on a Thursday. Also

[05:04:22] unanimously pretty much heard that Monday start is not preferred. So that is a shift as well. Additionally, mine is a federal holiday only calendar with one exception. I am keeping Veterans Day as a school day after getting much feedback from our music teachers and from our veterans that they very much enjoy the programming that goes on that day at school.

[05:04:47] So when that was left, originally I had had a fall break, but that now does not need to happen. So we were able to catch up some days there as well. So you'll see holidays and workdays are, the workdays are aligned with the end of the quarter, as requested also by LEA, and tried to limit them to one where we could, except for November, where we typically have a conference day and a professional learning day on or around the election. Additionally, we have a traditional Thanksgiving break, a traditional two-week

[05:05:21] Christmas break. This calendar year that we're looking at had a very late break, so I did consider tinkering with it, but unanimously, I mean, I feel like nobody agrees on anything, but in the survey data, 82% and going years back, seems to be the only thing that people agree on is a two-week winter break. So I left that be. That's probably one of the major differences between Dr. Rasheed's calendar and mine is that I maintained that two-week winter break.

[05:05:53] And then as the year goes out, I also moved spring break to align with third quarter ending, not with Easter. In this calendar year, it is coincidentally aligned, but in other years, I would not intend for that to go forward. School also ends on June 1st with only two teacher workdays at the end of the year.

[05:06:13] I will note I also have 178 school days. A major difference, though, and this is a question I have for Ms. Boland, is how many scheduled workdays my calendar has is 194 versus Dr. Rasheed's calendar has 192.

[05:06:33] So I was wondering if you could answer a question for me, which is, I want to make sure I get it right, can you explain the importance of hitting a 195 mark for teacher scheduled work days and the ripple effect that it has on non-exempt employees if we don't and how does that relate to maintaining the 197 day teacher contract so i'll do my best okay um the teacher

[05:07:05] contract is currently for 200 days those two of those 200 days we have 194 scheduled work days There is three unscheduled workdays that we have over the past several years communicated, should be utilized as part of the days for required trainings and that type of thing.

[05:07:35] And then as part of the collective bargaining agreement from the 197 to 300, those employees, teachers on that contract were given three, paid holidays, which brought us to 200. Now, if we reduce the number of teacher work days, scheduled teacher work days, we also have to look at what that does to bus drivers, teacher assistants, school nutrition workers, because those individuals would also have a

[05:08:13] reduction in scheduled work days and that would impact their pay because they are paid hourly. They are non-exempt. They are paid for the days that they work and not exempt and paid for the days they are contracted. Does that make sense? It certainly does. That's a big concern of mine in considering a calendar that doesn't hit those marks because I don't want to poke a bear of decreasing employees pay. I'm just, I'm not going to go there. So that's going to be really hard for

[05:08:50] me to support, um, something like that. Um, additionally, I am concerned about the reintroduction of gap days in Dr. Rashid's calendar. Um, particularly in the winter months, I feel like it hits as a double whammy because we often do have weather. Um, and there is a Tuesday, Wednesday off and some other gap days, another one in November that are reintroduced. We have been speaking just last week at PMC about the importance of reducing chronic absenteeism. It has been a full

[05:09:26] court press in this county to get our numbers back to a decent place. So I would also like to ask you, is there an impact on sub days when we have those gap days as well, filling those positions? Is that a hardship potentially um when there are gap days and there are student absentees there are also staff absentees and so um the greater the number of teachers that take off the harder it is to fill

[05:10:02] the positions with subs i appreciate that i um tried to minimize the gap days and also i believe my calendar has five more five-day consistent work weeks, which I have spoken about in the past.

[05:10:18] This is an instructional calendar to me, and so it's really important that we are supporting instruction. I've been there. Again, I'll speak to the data that just came out. Our most vulnerable learners are in need of consistent five-day weeks to be in school, whether that's special education, English language learners. Additionally, I sit on the Head Start Policy Council, and a lot of those families have shared in their end of year reflection that those days off in the middle of the week are extremely difficult for them to find child care. It is a hardship on them. And so I do

[05:10:54] think that that's something to consider. And I know that this board and my colleagues have shared about, you know, we need to make sure that our neighbors are, that we're remembering our neighbors when it comes to the religious and cultural holidays.

[05:11:10] And I believe that we should be culturally responsive and respectful of diversity. But I also think we need to recognize at LCPS, we are an extraordinarily diverse county. I don't think any calendar could recognize every cultural and religious observant with a day off. I just don't think that we can accomplish that knowing that other groups are also asking for holidays.

[05:11:30] And I just want us to remember that our neighbors also include those families who don't have the access to childcare. who depend on school for meals and structure and support, and for our most vulnerable populations. I think that they're our neighbors too. And so I'm asking for that to be a consideration in this process.

[05:11:49] And I think we have an opportunity here to sort of change the narrative and the way we do this going forward. And I'm just going to say one last thing, and then I'll relinquish my time. I really want to speak to the public about, I hear a lot of harsh things about LCPS this, LCPS that.

[05:12:10] I want to remind the public that HRTD and their staff are taking our restraints as a board and all that feedback and trying to put both of those into a calendar. This is an unsolvable equation, and that's why our summers are getting shorter and shorter and shorter.

[05:12:30] When you have that many things that have to be accounted for, you end up with what we've had. And so something's got to give here. I've said it before, and I just, I wanted to say that because I heard it again tonight. I think that the options are not great, and I think that that's on us because we're not willing to give on some of our principles.

[05:12:50] And so I'm hopeful that maybe getting to a federal holiday calendar with a focus on five-day weeks for instruction, getting out earlier, could be our solution. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Riccardi. Thank you, Madam Chair. First, I'm going to say, as I've said every single time, I'm developing these calendars is never something you're going to see me do in four years.

[05:13:11] I'm just going to piggyback on what everybody else is doing and be really good with that. So bless you all day long for creating these calendars. And you guys that have up here that have put out your options, honestly, it's not in my wheelhouse. And I appreciate the fact that both all three of our options from the amendments side of things, I have great appreciation for each one of them.

[05:13:35] Mrs. Griffiths, because yours is on the top, I really appreciate the fact that your quarters are almost the exact same number of days across the board. As an instructor at George Mason, I have gone from having to teach a shorter class to a longer class, and I don't know for those teachers that have to bounce how you move and expand and contract courses easily.

[05:13:56] It's not an easy thing to do. So I appreciate the fact that that's consistent. Dr. Rasheed, I really, and Ms. Chernoff, both of you, I like the fact that we're starting June 1st, August 17th and ending June 1st. One of the things I'm definitely taking a good look at is the consistent days.

[05:14:16] I mean, I think that's going to be really important, the five-day weeks. In my community, I will tell you, surprisingly and I guess not surprisingly, the overwhelming majority of the feedback that I've been getting is that people want to stick to a federal calendar because that's what they work.

[05:14:32] And finding child care is really challenging, and many of the holidays are celebrated starting in the evenings or there's not days people will necessarily take off, but they honor them. I think one of the things we could do as well is really make sure that we're, and I know we're already doing this in many ways, really celebrating those various holidays in our schools by educating our students about them and with curriculum.

[05:15:01] So I know that we've got that going on and I think we should definitely continue to do that. I think the other thing is, you know, I definitely want to take a better look and I need to do a little bit deeper dive into the teacher days and the work schedule and how we're allocating that.

[05:15:18] I like the idea of ending, especially in December, ending at the winter break. I know that that's a hard thing to do, but I like that. And I like the fact that we're ending before the spring break. I think lingering days over the holiday is going to lead to some learning loss if there's final exams or tests or whatever after somebody comes back from a break so I'm concerned about that so I think I think we're there or get really close to there I think there's just kind of some fine tuning that I'd like to see but I again these aren't my calendars I'm just going to piggyback on what you guys have got but it's just some feedback that I've gotten I really do appreciate the fact that you all have put these together so you've given us some really good good concepts I

[05:15:57] know that the other thing I really appreciate too is that you all have based these on a lot of the public feedback because these calendars really do reflect what I'm hearing from at least my Sterling community. So I'm hoping that we can kind of take bits and pieces from all of these and come up with one that really does meet the mark. But thank you guys for your work on this and HRTD. It's just given us lots of feedback and lots of food for thought as we move through this process. So thank you. Thank you. Vice Chair Donahue. Thank you, Madam Chair. I obviously did not create any of these calendar options,

[05:16:34] but I wanted to share some of my thoughts about them. And I appreciate Ms. Boland and your team, all the efforts that you went to and that my colleagues went to in putting forward calendar options. For my own personal views, I am not going to be supporting any calendar options that remove our religious and culturally diverse inclusive holidays.

[05:16:58] I don't want to tie spring break to Easter. That's been something that I've said up here every year. I am aware, though, with Dr. Rasheed's calendar, it coincides with the end of the third quarter.

[05:17:17] So I'm okay supporting it because it coincides with the end of the third quarter and is not intentionally tied to Easter. But I'm really looking forward to approving a calendar. Spring break does not coincide with the week leading up to Easter.

[05:17:36] Some of the things that I really like about Dr. Rasheed's calendar option is that I see there are the days that I actually think of as gap days that are not showing up as holidays. So the Friday before Labor Day weekend is not showing up as a holiday on here.

[05:17:54] The Monday right before Election Day is not showing up as a holiday on here. So that is where I think we get some days back and have students spending more time in school. I know Ms. Chernoff said something about gap days in the winter, but I'm looking at this calendar and I'm not seeing them.

[05:18:15] What I'm seeing is with Dr. Rasheed's option in November, student holidays on Election Day and the Wednesday, Thursday, Friday for Thanksgiving. In December, winter break beginning on December 22nd, going through the end of the month. In January, 1st and 2nd, being part of winter break.

[05:18:33] Then the 15th being off for Martin Luther King Day. In February, the 13th and 14th are off, are listed as holidays, I believe because the 13th is Lunar New Year and the 14th is Eid al-Fitr. Then the 20, or excuse me, the 19th is off as President's Day.

[05:18:52] the last week in March as spring break, and that, I mean, that really gets through the winter. So I appreciate that I'm not seeing any extra days around here. I will say the idea of a two-and-a-half-month summer break in some ways is very appealing, and in other ways, because I have children on the younger side, I'm not super excited about trying to figure out what to do with them for two-and-a-half months.

[05:19:22] know to to the point that some of my other colleagues have raised like this this could it could prove challenging for some of our less privileged families in our community and I do think that that is something that we need to think about and look into is what what options do we have or are there supports that we can offer to our to our less privileged students and families to help them get through an extended summer break but but overall I I really like this calendar um and i'm certainly leaning towards supporting that thank you thank you um mr pepper thank you

[05:20:00] madam chair um to begin with yes mission off i did originally work with you on the calendar um but after meeting after presenting the calendar and meeting with religious groups and also hearing feedback from my community which is one of the more diverse communities in louton county um the use of the holidays as a way to tighten our calendar was not worth the trade-off as to what those holidays meant to people in the community. And I originally presented because I worked in a school system that does a federal in the calendar. In fact, we even get Veterans Day off. But that

[05:20:39] community is not as diverse as Loudoun County. It's much smaller and still has a lot of pushback about observing those federal holidays. So when I look at the options, I want to first of all thank all of you for creating options. I will tell you that as someone who partially went through this process, it is no joke. You have to count days. You have to make sure that teacher contracts, making sure that they get 10 months in 10 months, and making sure that there's an appropriate number of work days so that we don't reduce pay for our education support professionals.

[05:21:15] There's a lot of factors that go into this. And I love that we're starting on a Thursday. I think that probably, if you were asked in the community right now, this entire board loves the idea we're starting on a Thursday. We saw the pushback of starting out on Monday this year, and it was not pleasant. So I think that probably August 17th, if you're looking at the community, I would say the entire board is probably going to agree with that.

[05:21:35] I know, based on the day count, that we can't do a calendar that many of the community have supported that goes between Labor Day and Memorial Day. We just need those extra days somewhere, and as educators, we know those days are much more valuable on the front side than on the back side because of testing, because you want to get as much content in as testing. When I look at all these options, because of the holidays, I'm going to lean towards Dr. Rashid's option, but I do have some caveats, and I also want to give this board some food for thought. The one thing that I really have a minor issue with in Dr. Rashid's calendar is that Friday

[05:22:10] off on December 22nd, I would love to actually see that be a school day and to put that day kind of on the back side of break, because if that's the end of the first semester, then we really start the second semester the same way we started the school year with kind of that two-day transition into the year. It also gives us another full week of school. And as we know, five-day weeks work better than chopped up weeks. The other piece of food for thought that I would love us to start considering, and I hear it because I think almost every one of us has mentioned this, is the quarter duration and the equivalency of quarters. So I'm going to plant a seed. I may have planted the seed

[05:22:49] already, but the overarching question is, what if we don't have quarters? What if quarters don't matter? What if we go, and this is probably something for the Curriculum Instruction Committee to consider, but what if we go to a year-long grading system? I know that we have to have semester classes because there's some things in the semester piece, but if we go to a year-long grading system in our year-long classes or a semester-long grading system, then these work days that we have scattered throughout the year because they're at the end of the quarter can be at more arbitrary points and can help balance some of our chopped up weeks. For example, I look at

[05:23:27] February and I look at February 13th and 14th because we have New Year, we have Eid, and I'm thinking, man, wouldn't it be great if that day that we have on April 3rd was actually on February 12th? Wouldn't it be great if that, you know, other day we have on April 2nd might sit, I mean, the rest of it's actually pretty nice, but might sit somewhere else to balance out a holiday, perhaps September 22nd. Wouldn't it be nice to put those days kind of piggybacking into a little bit longer break so they're not a day off here and a day off there? The other thing I would love to

[05:24:04] consider, and I think Ms. Chernoff actually kind of spoke to my heart of even considering a federal calendar, was the child care issue, right? If you have young students and you have people that are working and we have days off that are not federal holidays, what do we do about child care? I wish lcps could consider not as a school day but some sort of child care option for parents i know that's probably extra money and a lot of things in the budget that that we don't have but we need to do something to meet the needs of our families um and so i'm just going to put that out there but like i said i i like this calendar with the exception of that day at the end of december flipping over and i'd love to consider a system where we don't have to worry about quarters and

[05:24:43] don't worry about them being equivalent because truthfully 39 days and dr asheed's calendar 39 nine days in the first quarter where the first two weeks are spent playing getting to know you should not be the same equivalent percentage of your grade as 54 days in the third quarter where the meat of curriculum instruction is. I'm just going to leave it at that. Thank you. Dr. Rasheed.

[05:25:03] Thank you, Chair Chandler. Appreciate the feedback from everyone. I just wanted to piggyback off of what Ms. Chernoff had said and knowing our neighbors. I just wanted to point out that I do think that it's really important for everyone to understand the gap days. So Ms. Boland, if you can clarify the gap days or the terminology of gap days, because I was under the assumption that they're often culturally significant days, but I want to verify that with you. So when we refer

[05:25:35] to gap days, we refer to the days between a midweek holiday and a weekend. Not necessarily cultural holidays it could be any day or it could be any any day in which we've designated where students are not in school or teachers are not in school if it's in the middle of the week and it causes like a monday or uh one year i think the year where this became extremely problematic was when unfortunately the cultural holidays fell where it was a tuesday thursday and so we had

[05:26:15] kids and and staff in in school monday wednesday friday and not tuesday thursday that type of situation okay i appreciate that and i think that in my calendar there's only three um i just wanted to really stress on um that my that the rasheed calendar really has a lot of or rather really includes the major holidays and for me that's really important um diversity is key that's what LCPS is about. We've come to really observe those holidays. We've come a long way. That's really

[05:26:51] what makes LCPS so great. So I just want to really make sure that everybody understands that. And just in general, my calendar has 192 scheduled workdays. I wrote it down. Five unscheduled workdays and three paid holidays, all together being a total of 200. Yeah, so I'm really hoping that this really goes through. I really think this is really celebrating the students and everywhere and from where everyone comes from. So it's really helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Okay.

[05:27:22] So from my perspective, I want to start off by saying I have heard all the feedback and yet I have to say this. I know that this is not a popular idea, but I struggle to understand why we're still planning the school calendar around an agrarian society when we do not have that anymore. And so that has always been part of the reason why I was interested in exploring the year-round school because perhaps there is some evidence-based best practice that could be explored I'm not sure

[05:27:57] ultimately I certainly know the feedback does not align with that but I just think it's a fair point right that like we have a system that's set up on based on something that isn't necessarily what our society is anymore. And so, although this may not be the argument for this calendar, please consider that. I really, I heard again what the community members said during public feedback.

[05:28:26] I also struggle with the fact that the surveys are not returning a clear indicator of what the community feels about the calendar. I will note, I did get 251 emails supporting keeping the inclusive holidays. And I support the idea of starting earlier in August. I think it's more meaningful, to Mr. Pepper's point, for classroom learning opportunities. And one of the issues that I had heard for years in terms of talking to principals and school leadership is that that

[05:29:05] time that we spend in June often feels like a filler. So it would be meaningful for me, especially given the fact that we're expecting the SOL testing rules to change, to maybe utilize that time at the beginning of the summer as opposed to late in the summer so that we maximize what we're doing in class.

[05:29:28] Another one that I'm sure will not, this will not be a popular idea, but in looking at getting more five-day weeks, the federal holiday that I would go to school on is President's Day. Just an idea.

[05:29:45] And I feel deeply that recognizing inclusive holidays is responsive to the population that we serve. Are there any other comments on this information item? All right, Ms. Bolin, thank you so much. I am sure this will be a lively discussion as we continue moving forward, and hopefully we can continue to work on some of these options.

[05:30:08] With that, we will move on to our discussion item number 14 tonight, School Support Organizations Memorandum of agreement feedback. This item is brought forward by and will be presented by Mrs. Griffiths. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to say I brought this item to the Finance and Operations meeting as a discussion on September 1st. The division desires to strengthen accountability and ensure consistency in fundraising practices per the August 13th meeting with school support organizations. However, it warrants further clarification and additional stakeholder

[05:30:46] engagement. Concerns have arisen. If we proceed with the proposed memorandum of agreement, MOA, in its current form, we do risk discouraging the very volunteers who contribute so much to our schools. This is a 501c3 made up of volunteers, parents that want to see their students enjoy their activities and their respective schools. So with that, there was a proposed agreement developed by Riverside High School that has been circulated to the school board and the staff

[05:31:20] that can be used division-wide, but used in discussions for our school support organizations. The agreement was written on behalf of Riverside High School PTOs, Athletic Booster Club, Theater Booster Club and Band Booster Club.

[05:31:37] Now as far as background goes, booster clubs, PTSOs, PTAs, and school support organizations across Loudoun County work extremely hard to raise money for their respective schools. These groups exhibit extraordinary dedication and hard work.

[05:31:52] These parents are LCPS employee volunteers, they're parents. They provide countless opportunities, programs, and resources to our students that would otherwise not be available through LCPS funding alone. In summary, the school support organizations are looking for a better division-wide agreement through this circulated proposal. School support organizations division-wide ask that the LCPS administration review the recent proposal carefully and engage in discussions. The current circulated proposal recently created could serve

[05:32:29] as a model for a new and improved vision-wide agreement. So with that, I had attached the MOA policy 8020 and Riverside High School's agreement. And if I may, Madam Chair, can I say more?

[05:32:48] Oh, well, thank you, thank you. Okay, so one of the reasons why I brought this information for discussion is on the agenda today is for clarification public clarification um thank you for your assistance and your email to the board uh miss willoughby with um some clarifications um take note that i appreciate potentially meeting about this one-on-one however i believe transparency is needed i didn't want my constituents to get secondhand information i'd rather be uh spoken in the public um we will call

[05:33:28] it a back and forth exchange instead of negotiations. Staff has conducted a stakeholder feedback meeting, as I mentioned. That meeting was in August. So, I'd like to start the discussion from there and make it a public discussion that we did have this meeting on August 13th and go from there and let our PTSD, let them all know, our boosters, our PTSD, what's expected, what are the changes. Let's clarify it all if possible. And if we have to have more meetings with the

[05:33:59] stakeholders, we can do that as well. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Chernoff. I'm going to ask Ms. Willoughby some questions if that's all right. I, like Ms. Griffiths, have gotten lots of feedback and she and I did have a chance to sit down and sort of talk through it. And I know it's a late hour, but I think it's important for us to sort of clear the record, if you will, and sort of

[05:34:32] have a chance to understand where this originated from, the timeline of the policy to the promised MOA and then the development of the MOA and then really what the direct changes are. I will very much sympathize with these organizations. I took a look at it. It is hard to understand. It is a lot of legalese. They're feeling defensive, I think, because they don't understand the implications and no one wants to sign something that they don't understand. And so I think we need to provide

[05:35:07] clarity specifically around what is being, what is a change as far as, I know there's some changes in terms of reporting who the officers are and things like that, as well as financial report requirements, liability insurance, donations, specifically also principal approval. Those are sort of the the key areas that i'm hearing about so i know i'm asking a lot at a late hour but i would ask that if you could just kind of walk us through the timeline and then what the specific

[05:35:41] asks really are and the meaning behind them absolutely so um as you referenced this really originated back in 2022 when at that time we created a brand new policy 80 20 relations with school support organizations. I will share at that time, because it was a new policy, we heard a lot of the similar concerns that are being generated today related to the MOA about potential overreach

[05:36:14] and the impact on their organizations. However, we were able to address those concerns through stakeholder engagement at the time, and ultimately the school board adopted this policy in March of 2022 fast forward a couple years to 2024 because it was it was a brand new policy rather than waiting for five years as you know the typical review cycle we early on identified some areas that needed some clarification and so in the fall of 2024 we brought forward to the committee and

[05:36:48] school board some revisions to the policy it was during that time that specifically in october 2024 that staff presented the revisions to the fno committee and also indicated that the next step of this process was to create a memorandum of agreement the moa it has taken time obviously it's now 2026 to draft the moa because of what had occurred in 2022 we were very intentional of

[05:37:23] working with different organizations to ensure that they were aware of what was happening let me back up a moment on terms of the purpose of the MOA and why we thought it was important at that time to develop the MOA it was to really have clear consistent expectations of how the SSOs the school support organizations and LCPS would work together while everyone has best intentions mishaps can occur and unfortunately our SSOs have not been immune to embezzlement unfortunately over

[05:37:58] the years along with other issues and so we thought that having a clear agreement would help ensure that roles and responsibilities are understood and that we would have appropriate safeguards in place. It also would provide important clarity around liability and accountability. While SSOs are independent organizations their close association with a school can provide the perception that the division is responsible when something goes wrong even when it may not be. So we thought that a clear MOA would help protect both the organization

[05:38:33] and the division while supporting a strong productive partnership that would be focused on our students. The goal of all this was not to create additional barriers but to provide a clear framework for our partnership. To that end we held our first formal feedback meeting with booster clubs on August 13th and are in the process of scheduling meetings with the PTOs and then another meeting with the PTAs. Currently, we are gathering comments and questions via emails along with a QR code that was shared during that August meeting. We have also developed the webpage

[05:39:12] on the LCPS website to share the feedback received and answer questions similar to the budget Q&A publishing process and all of that. So while we have like the structure of a webpage, we're still working on creating the documents to go out there. One of the documents that we are working on is a document to help translate the MOA, for lack of a better way of describing it. There is a lot of legal language in there, and one of the documents that we're looking to create is, for example, Section 4. It says this. This is what this means. Section 5. This is what this means in more layman's

[05:39:50] language to help the SSOs in terms of what we are asking of them and what the impact is. Throughout this process, we have identified areas that may need clarification, which was the whole part of obtaining feedback, and are already working on revisions in the MOA. We want to give this feedback process the time that it needs to work and that we will continue reviewing the feedback, answering questions, and making any needed revisions to the MOA before moving forward.

[05:40:21] And it is our intent of keeping the SSOs informed along the way. In terms of some of the information that we are asking for in the MOA that is new, is a lot of information that is duplicative of what they must report to the IRS via their 990 forms.

[05:40:43] Unless their SSO generates funds that are below a certain threshold, and I believe that threshold is $50,000, Any funds that are over $50,000 during the year requires a more thorough 990 filing.

[05:41:00] That 990 filing includes the same information that we are asking for and that would be publicly available. But we are looking for a more efficient way of obtaining that information versus having to go to the IRS and ask for this. That includes the names of their officials or their board members, reporting if their board members or officials are receiving any type of compensation, more transparency in terms of their donations.

[05:41:29] They have to report their revenues, their expenses, their balance sheet. Again, information that is already reported to the IRS and is publicly available, we have just pulled that into the MOA is one example. Another example that I know is causing a lot of concern, and again, because it's something new, for some of our organizations, many of our organizations already had this, is liability insurance.

[05:41:57] Again, these are separate independent organizations, and should a mishap occur or an accident occur impacting a volunteer or a student, that is their liability.

[05:42:14] And so we want to help make sure that they are properly covered by maintaining a certain level of liability insurance. One of the other things that we are working on in terms of that I'm kind of referring as our SSO packet would be this MOA.

[05:42:31] Here's information about the policy. Here's this document to help translate what the MOA means. Another category is what we like to call in our business and finance department our one-pagers. We put out a lot of one-pager guidance to principals, to account managers,

[05:42:49] And we're looking to develop a one-pager on a variety of topics to include, here's a one-pager about the liability insurance, why it's important, here's ways to obtain it, just anything that we can do to, again, help the SSOs through this process while still meeting our objective and goal of having a document that helps protect both the division and them as well.

[05:43:15] I think I covered everything. If I missed something, please remind me or if you have any follow-up questions. Thank you. Ms. Chernoff? Thank you so much for that. I appreciate it. Just two quick questions to clarify for the record. One, is LCPS through the new MOA taking 20% of every organization's funds and depositing it into LCPS's bank account? That is false. Thank you. Also,

[05:43:49] are we pooling revenues from SSOs and then equally dividing them amongst our schools? That is also false. Thank you. I appreciate it. Where should we send, have people send those questions then for the packet? To us as board members? To Let's Talk? Let's Talk. Thank you.

[05:44:10] Thank you. Mrs. Griffiths? I just had one question that I don't think I got answered. LCPS employees that belong to the PTA or PTSO, are they able to continue to do that?

[05:44:25] There was some talk that they might not be able to continue working with the PTSOs if they were employees, but they might have children in the school. That is an area that we are working on to clarify, and I don't have a clear answer at this point.

[05:44:43] That was huge. So I just wanted to put that out there as well. And, you know, and also ask, where do we go from here now? There was a proposal submitted, and I assume, you know, you're taking a look at it.

[05:45:00] Where do we go from here? Can we get some feedback on your thoughts? It doesn't have to be today. On the proposal, if we can use some of the ideas from it. So I've heard you reference a proposal and a proposal being circulated.

[05:45:22] we have not received a proposal we have received feedback and that is the document that I believe is also attached in board docs and that is specific feedback it was not a draft of an alternative MOA that could serve as a model for the division but their feedback some of which we have we plan on addressing as part of our Q&A regarding you know the fundraising and approvals and donations for for reference for donations donations must be in compliance with our policy

[05:45:59] related to donations a donation from a school support organization falls under the same requirements as a donation from any other individual organization coming into lcps there they had on their feedback that also asked for some clarification and we would work to provide you know that clarification so that those are areas that we are actively working on through this feedback process in terms of where we go from here again we are still in the feedback process we are working to schedule two more meetings and with the goal of having the final

[05:46:38] moa in place by the second semester so that we can work during the second semester with the school support organizations and having them signed the next step after that is that then we have all of our sso's in alignment with these agreements and that we can publish on our website for the start of the next school year these are all of the lcps endorsed school support organizations to transparently highlight these are the organizations that have signed the moa you

[05:47:13] are correct it's more of an exchange uh and feedback but i really like how it was written And there were a lot of very good questions in there and possible solutions. If you could, any meetings that are set with the PTSOs regarding the MOA, I think myself and Ms. Chernoff and maybe other school board members would like to know.

[05:47:38] So if you could keep us up to date when those meetings might take place here in the admin building, we can attend. Thank you. Thank you. Any further discussion? Ms. Riccardi? Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I just have a couple of questions and a couple of observations.

[05:47:57] As I go through and read this document, it's very reminiscent of my contractor agreements with, you know, requiring insurance, reporting, all the things I would have with a contractor and a contractor relationship.

[05:48:15] And I guess with policy 8020, which kind of suggests that the PTOs and PTAs are completely opposite of that. I'm trying to just wrap my head around, it sounds to me that we're changing the nature of the relationship between LCPS and our PTA-PTOs.

[05:48:37] And if that's the case, I mean, I think that would be helpful. If we're pivoting and that's the direction we're going, that's great. Because, and I'll just tell you, I mean, when I'm looking at things like insurance requirements and background checks and non-discrimination party relationship, anti-publicity force majeure like all the things I mean these are the same things I give my contractors when they have to work with me so I guess what I would and so there's that issue in the relationship between LCPS and the PTOs and PTAs that's number one and I think the second

[05:49:15] part of this is if that's changed how are we going to limit the burden on our schools that don't have PTAs or PTOs or if they do and they're struggling to do any kind of fundraising which is a concern that we have you know we have that kind of concern with several of my schools like they don't even have a PTA or PTO or if they do it's like a few people and they don't do significant fundraising in any way there are some burdens in here on the insurance policies that I

[05:49:48] mean that could run some of these PTOs in you know pretty significant money so I think there's just I just have a lot of questions about just the business setup and arrangement and then I guess the underlying concept of why are we doing this if they are a separate 501 where are they C3s if so if they're a C3 and they're independent why are we now trying to create that kind of relationship I'm super concerned as well that we're going to have a lot of volunteers that are going to walk away and not even want to engage in this because we're it's it's really a cumbersome

[05:50:27] exercise and as Ms. Chernoff suggested there's a lot of legal language and these people are volunteers and parents they just want to come and do some fundraising for their kids and generate some money for the school maybe sell some stuff to help them raise money they're not looking for you know to run something like this in this formal way so I don't know I just have a lot of questions about um what's the driver behind this if we've had one bad apple and now we're trying to create this whole structure that raises some questions for me too and i don't know what the circumstances have been so i'm not suggesting i have answers to any of these questions maybe you

[05:51:06] guys do but it just raises a whole laundry list of those questions for me about why are we doing this um okay does anybody want to speak to that i wouldn't say that we're changing the relationship um with the sso's i have already i think i spelled out the purpose earlier um in terms of having more structure and i think that is the goal and again of ensuring that we're protecting the division as

[05:51:43] well as the sso's one of the the feedback that we received during the first booster club meeting in august were many organizations were surprised um and not necessarily in a negative way related to insurance it just was not even on their radar that they would be liable if something were to occur and that's why this you know this was important and so by having this structure it's really again really not just protecting the division but also helping the SSOs protect themselves at the end of

[05:52:22] the day they they exist because they are working in partnership with you know with for for the schools we're all have the same end goal of supporting the students in the schools they would not exist if lcps was not was not in existence i mean so there is some liability there is a lot of perception of what what fundraising activities and such are happening in the community i'm sure many families aren't aware that the the loudon county public school

[05:52:58] booster club or PTO is independent and that those funds don't come directly to the to that individual school so it's just to highlight that level of transparency as well for the community and for the families in terms of the relationship and the structure and I'll just add for awareness to the extent Mr. Carty mentioned community partners and status of the 501c3 many of

[05:53:35] LCPS's community partners are 501c3s and they enter into agreements similar with the same legalese and provisions. Yeah and I can appreciate that right because we have the foundation and a lot of other organizations that support I mean in for 30 years most of my clients are 501c3s so I totally get the structure. I just don't know I don't I guess one of the questions I have and I'll go do my own research on this too is that if they are a PTA or PTO and they have a state or national organization, do they get insurance through those organizations? I just don't see

[05:54:11] any of my Title I school PTAs going and paying thousands of dollars potentially for this level of insurance that we're probably looking at. I mean, just the general liabilities, like between $350 and $850, depending on what you're asking for. So some schools struggle just to raise that.

[05:54:31] So I guess what I'm trying to figure out is, yeah, what's the cost? How can we package this up? How can we make this easier? And I'm going to be honest with you, I'm kind of questioning why we're dipping into this.

[05:54:48] If they are separate organizations, LCPS technically wouldn't have, I mean, well, I have to think about the liability piece a bit because you're a separate organization. So, yes, they're touching, they have touch points with our schools, but, yeah, I don't know.

[05:55:07] I've got to really kind of wrap my head around this too. I mean, I'm worried that it's going to be a barrier for some of our groups that are looking to maybe get started and they read this and they look at this stuff like, oh, this is too complex. I can't figure this out. We're not going to do it. And then what you're going to wind up getting are a whole bunch of unofficial circles doing the same kind of thing in a more unofficial way.

[05:55:29] And I just, I don't know, I need a lot more information to make this make sense for me because I'm just, I'm really struggling with the concept of it and how we can make this easier because obviously there's a lot of concern. I think the other part of this too is I'm a little miffed by the fact that we didn't know about this happening before we started getting bombarded with emails about this stuff happening.

[05:55:51] So that's a whole other thing. But anyway, thanks. Thank you. Dr. Spence, did you want to say something? Yeah, just briefly. In my experience in Virginia, which is substantive, this is not unusual practice.

[05:56:09] It's actually quite normal to ask for booster organizations and PTAs to get insurance, for example, because of the liability concerns that Ms. Willoughby was talking about. So normal, in fact, that the Virginia PTA actually has group programs through an insurance agency and specializes in insurance for PTAs and offers event general liability coverage.

[05:56:37] And that same organization, although they don't work through the Virginia PTA for this part of it, they also offer coverage for booster clubs and other school parent groups as well. So there's an existing process for this, and it's a recognized need, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

[05:56:54] So I don't want this to feel like or seem like LCPS has just gone out on some strange limb and we're somehow in conflict with our school support organizations. What we're trying to do is make sure that they have the appropriate relationship with our schools, that there's transparency in terms of what's going on with their record keeping, and that they have the appropriate liability coverage when our students are participating with them in events and activities, because that's kind of the critical piece of this, right?

[05:57:25] We've heard, too, about concerns about principal authority and decision making. That authority is limited to how the donations, they have a say in how the donations are used. they should have a say in how the donations are used. It's their school.

[05:57:41] That organization exists to support that school. The principal needs to be able to have a say in how those donations get used. They also have authority in what fundraisers can occur on school property. That also has to be within their purview. They have to be able to say that seems safe, that seems appropriate, that seems like something that would comply with our general policies.

[05:58:01] And so for our support organizations, in my experience as a principal And in my experience, talking with our principals, they already have these relationships with their PTAs. They're already having those conversations on an ongoing basis. This is just codifying that. And as far as the language of things like force majeure and governing law and interpretation, to Wes's point, that is legalese.

[05:58:23] That is standard contract language. So yes, you would have that in contracts with your contractors. We have that. And as you read through what those things are saying, I mean, they're not creating anything other than a contractual agreement and it's just how do you resolve differences if there's a violation of the contract and that's what all of that language really gets at so it isn't that we're viewing them as contractors it's that we're saying we're entering into a contract with you and we want to make sure we have a way to solve any disputes that arise as a result of that contract so I just want to at least offer that clarity and and again I will go back to in terms of

[05:59:01] the conversation that you heard from Ms. Willoughby that this is not a new conversation This is a conversation that's been ongoing now for several years that the support organizations have been engaged in. Most recently, the one in August, and then we're working to get the other ones established with the PTOs just to get feedback on this document.

[05:59:21] Now that we've gotten to the point where this document has been developed, because prior to getting to this point, we were engaged in those same conversations about the fact we were developing this document. So I understand that. I appreciate the comments this evening. But I do want to make sure, I mean, it sounds like we're sort of being, you know, I just want to make sure that LCPS is not being accused of somehow not being supportive of its SSOs or wanting to be engaged in a reasonable relationship with those groups.

[05:59:52] Because we're very appreciative of everything that they do. We're obviously incredibly appreciative of our parents and our PTAs and our PTOs and our booster organizations. we know for sure we can't do all the things that we do without them we also know there are some inequities that that come up as a result of that because some can do much more for schools than others which is why you had some amendments to the to the budget tonight and those are all great things for us to consider and talk about how do we build those types of supports for our schools thank you um i will say what stands out to me in this conversation more than anything is the fact that booster clubs were acknowledging

[06:00:30] that they didn't know that insurance was available to them. And as someone who came out of student support organizations and found my way here, truly, I have to say that as a PTO, PTA leader, I was always grateful for the insurance that we had because otherwise the liability for whatever happened would have fallen on me.

[06:00:58] And I know I talk a lot here about consistency and what I like about the process of putting this together in one place is that we will be applying a consistent set of expectations across the county.

[06:01:14] And I think, I mean, it definitely resonates with me. I've had lots of conversations with my PTOs, PTAs and booster clubs. I mean, I would certainly like to come and advocate for a different level of funding for my band's boosters, right?

[06:01:30] Like, there are a lot of expenses and a lot of expectations, but I hope people understand that the amount of money in many cases that we're talking about is a significant amount of money. My tiny little elementary school PTA 13 years ago probably had $32,000 for their budget, and that's not uncommon for Loudoun County.

[06:01:55] I would imagine that some of the athletic boosters probably have bigger budgets. I'm just not as tied in there. There's a lot of responsibility, and I think the more that we can inform this conversation and put a structure in place that makes it work better, although it may be an uncomfortable conversation from the start, I really see a value in it.

[06:02:20] I will say when we had a conversation about the paid positions, I had a very visceral response that staff got to witness and Vice Chair Donahue. And in having some follow-up conversations this week, I think I understand a little bit better that this is not necessarily a way that people are enriching themselves with having paid positions in these organizations.

[06:02:50] I think it's a way to motivate people to do things that are almost impossible to do. But I do believe that, especially as all of this has to be reported to the IRS, that there is benefit to having this type of information be transparent in the community.

[06:03:10] And the more that we can acknowledge and talk about all of these things, I think it will make our relationships with the community stronger. So are there any other comments on this discussion item? All right.

[06:03:25] Thank you so much for the conversation. We'll move on to item 15, our board member comments and committee reports. And given that we did not have it last time, I believe we're starting with Ms. McCarty tonight. All right.

[06:03:42] Thank you, Madam Chair. Over the last two weeks, since the start of the school year, my team and I have visited all 10 schools across the Sterling District, with several schools welcoming us more than once. It's been a wonderful way to start the school year and see such strong parents, student, and staff engagement as we begin what promises to be another successful school year.

[06:04:02] In our performance monitoring committee meeting, principals from Sterling Elementary School and Heritage High School shared the intentional strategies they used to foster a strong sense of belonging for all students. They highlighted efforts to ensure every student feels connected, valued, supported, and included with their school community.

[06:04:20] The discussion also focused on the direct connection with regular attendance. When students feel welcomed and have meaningful relationships at school, they're more likely to attend consistently and actively participate in their learning. The committee emphasized the importance of attendance as a key factor in student success and explored how creating positive school environments can help remove barriers to attendance and support better outcomes.

[06:04:45] In addition, I had the chance this summer to continue to work on some efforts regarding our transmission line issue and got to participate in a town hall alongside our congressmen, state senators, house delegates, and board chair Chandler to discuss a proposed transmission line near our schools and neighborhoods.

[06:05:05] I think the conversation has been really great over the summer. We've had a lot of engagement. I also want to say a huge thank you. This summer, I had the opportunity to hire Parkview High School's previous and now graduated and now a BYU student, Nadia Echevarria, who was our summer intern, and her brilliance created a fantastic leadership day at Parkview High School, which I hope is going to be the first of many summers that we do this, which included both our Rockridge High School and Parkview students. It was a really great day. It was completely student-led, and I was really excited

[06:05:41] to be able to support that over the summer. So that happened in early August, and I believe that is going to be the end of my report. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Svensson. Thank you, Madam Chair. We have two new principals in the Broad Run District, so I was really happy to visit with Principal Hakes at Broad Run in August and then Principal Culligan at Stuart Weller this month and see them in action at their new schools and talk to them about their hopes for the new school year and their priorities as they get started and particularly talk a little bit about the upcoming FY 28 budget and what would be most meaningful to them and their school

[06:06:20] communities and it's always fun to visit the schools and see the students in the classroom. From the committee side we had a busy August meeting for a legislative and policy committee and then we'll be voting tomorrow as action items on four policies we discussed for information in August. So those are the school division legal status policy, school board norms protocols and violations policy and the sick leave and bereavement leave policies.

[06:06:49] Those sick leave and bereavement leave policies apply to staff that are in the non-bargaining unit and this tomorrow we're going to be talking about the policy 3130 superintendent evaluation and getting a legislative update. I know that Mr. Sutton along with LCPS staff and community members had a great legislative roundtable earlier this month to take in feedback about what our priorities should be as LCPS in Richmond for the legislative session down there. And we're also looking forward to the Ombuds annual report at tomorrow's committee meeting. So it's been a busy August-September.

[06:07:29] I will pass it on. Thank you. Ms. Chernoff. Thank you, Madam Chair. It has been an incredible start to the school year with many events and school visits like my colleagues. This morning, I was honored to be invited to Loudoun County High School and help place the flags in their front lawn in honor of 9-11. Each flag placed represents a life lost on that day. We were joined by the cadets from the NJROTC program. This is something that they put on. This is the 25th anniversary year, which made it extra meaningful, and I'm looking forward to attending several other school-related events to honor our great nation and the lives lost through that unspeakable tragedy. Some other back-to-school

[06:08:06] highlights were the back-to-school bash at Leesburg Elementary, the inclusive playground ribbon-cutting at Tolbert, the ribbon-cutting of the newly renovated school store Captain's Corner at County, and the very historic first-ever LCPS girls' flag football game, which was also hosted in Leesburg. Every year, I make it a priority to visit all the Leesburg district schools in the first month back. These visits give me an opportunity to sit down with school leaders, listen to their goals, learn how I can support them and celebrate the incredible work they are doing each and every day. Kicked off my visits this month with Heritage High School, Loudoun County High School, Frederick Douglass Elementary, Harper Park Middle School, Tolbert Elementary,

[06:08:46] Evergreen Mill Elementary, and Simpson Middle School. And I will complete the rest throughout the rest of the month. Lastly, I wanted to draw attention to the Loudoun Education Foundation board retreat that I had a privilege of attending. You know that I am honored to serve as a school board representative for LEF and their non-profit work is supporting our students, teachers, and so much more. And I was just such a wonderful morning of partnership and thinking big about what is next for some of their grants as well as community outreach and also reflecting on the accomplishments

[06:09:23] of the past year. Some really incredible people that are a part of that board. It's fun to sit amongst leaders like that. I wanted to update everyone. We usually have our special programs and centers committee meeting the first week of each month, but due to scheduling conflict, that meeting has been moved to September 15th at 5 30 p.m., and we look forward to seeing you there.

[06:09:45] Thank you. Thank you. All right. I have to say, welcoming our staff back during the back-to-school period may be one of the best roles that the chair gets to participate in. I just want to thank everyone for that opportunity. It is so energizing to be in community with all of the different educators who make LCPS such a wonderful place to go to school, and I just really found that to be a wonderful experience. I want to thank Supervisor Brisbane for inviting me to visit the

[06:10:21] George Mason SciTech campus with her in August. I also want to thank Mr. Allen who had to listen to me geek out over the whole experience. It is incredible to see what our partners are doing at the higher education level and having the opportunity to visit some of those really innovative spaces was incredible.

[06:10:47] I spoke a little bit about it online but they have a forensic a forensics park that is changing the way that we understand how the environment impacts evidence collection and crimes, and it was just incredible to have the opportunity to learn about that. And I love the fact that I know some LCPS staff members have had the opportunity to do that visit as well, because it's great to have that resource nearby to be able to explore opportunities for our students. I was excited to do some new school visits, including Mountain View and Wood

[06:11:23] Grove on the first day of school and loved seeing a new playground and seeing Dr. Spence engage with the new playground. That was great. And it was also lovely to get to meet some of the new students at the new AGLS at Dominion that first week of school. Back to school nights, football games, meeting with the PTO and PTSO presidents have been keeping me busy lately, but it's been just really invigorating and wonderful to get back into community.

[06:11:55] And I will echo what Mr. Riccardi said about our community conversation. It was really great to be able to have that opportunity to join with other elected officials to share an update on all the different ways that we're working together in service of our community. So with that, I'll pass it to Vice Chair Donahue.

[06:12:13] Thank you, Madam Chair. It's been busy, as with everyone, but only things I wanted to highlight were how much fun I had at the orientation that we did for the representatives here on the dais.

[06:12:33] Chair Chandler and I got to participate in welcoming the seniors who will be joining us on the dais throughout this upcoming school year, and that is always a lot of fun. one of the perks of being vice chair to be included in that the audit the next audit committee meeting will be this Thursday at 5:00 p.m. we will be further discussing and debriefing our audit plan for the coming year and our process of the process of mr. Woods putting that plan together and the only other thing I wanted to say was to give a shout out to Jay Lepton Simpson middle school which

[06:13:10] yesterday was the 50th anniversary of their opening. So 50 years of middle school in Loudoun County. Go Mustangs. Thank you. Mrs. Griffiths. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to say I did visit several schools for back to school nights and it was just outstanding. But I'd like to have a serious note here. We all know where we were on September 11th. I was on my way into New York City that day when I saw smoke from the towers. I stopped in Weehawken, the last exit before the Lincoln Tunnel to observe firsthand the horrors of that day.

[06:13:45] So it is the 25th anniversary. I join our community in grieving with all the families who continue to feel the loss of loved ones on this 25th anniversary of September 11th. I hope our schools will take the time to commemorate this tragic terrorist attack and engage students in meaningful discussions about what happened that day, its impact on our nation, and the importance of service and resilience and unity.

[06:14:10] Newton Lee Elementary School in Ashburn holds a special connection as it is named after two individuals who lost their lives at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Remembering their sacrifice helps to ensure future generations understand both the tragedy and the strength that emerge in its aftermath. Newton Lee Elementary School was named in honor of Christopher Newton and Dong Chul Lee, two Loudoun County residents who were killed in the Pentagon, as I mentioned.

[06:14:38] Christopher Newton was president and CEO of Work Life Benefits and had recently moved with his family to Northern Virginia. He was known for leadership and community involvement and devotion to his family. Dong Chua Lee was a program manager with Boeing, a former Air Force employee, and a computer scientist who had worked for the National Security Agency.

[06:14:59] He was remembered as a loving husband, father, and respected community member. The school opened in August 2005 and serves the Ashburn community. Its name was chosen specifically to honor the memory and contributions of these two local residents who lost their lives at the Pentagon on 9-11, and I will be attending their annual Remembrance Day on Friday.

[06:15:22] Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Pepper. Thank you, Madam Chair, and it's great to get off to another school year. It's always hectic. I see it from both sides, both with my own students in the schools in the Dallas District as well as my own start to the school year where you get to meet new families and get to know new kids.

[06:15:41] It's definitely an adventure. I am very excited that we have added both girls' flag football and boys' volleyball and really looking forward to seeing some of those matches in the near future in our district.

[06:15:59] Those are definitely something that is needed and going to be a lot of fun to see. As far as committees go, we had our August student services committee meeting where the only thing we really discussed was policy 8155, which was out of zone school transfers, which we had a lot of discussion about tonight.

[06:16:21] I'm looking forward to more discussion on that in the future. I also would be remiss if I didn't recognize that Friday is the 25th anniversary of September 11th, and we'll definitely look forward to a lot of the kind of different programs our schools are putting on to remember that day that are appropriate for each grade level.

[06:16:46] So with that, it's late, so I'm going to pass it to Dr. Rasheed. Dr. Rasheed? Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Pepper. At the September Curriculum and Instruction Committee meeting, we learned about ways that LCPS is responding to some ongoing concerns about Policy 50-30, which is grading and assessment.

[06:17:07] The division has updated the Assessment and Grading Handbook, and it provides additional clarity to the teachers. It's also planned a thought exchange for teachers and family input for later this fall. and the open-ended nature of thought exchange will give us more of a nuance for high interest topics like retake like the retake ceiling and extra credit so should the school board wish we can use this information to consider any type of revision before its regular five-year review cycle and in an update from the office of health and physical education we learned about ongoing state level review of health and family life education sol standards we should have more information about

[06:17:45] the next steps of this process near the beginning of 2027. I can't believe I'm saying that year. We also learned about the ways that health and PE teachers can weave e-bike safety into existing lessons on injury prevention, bicycle safety, and road safety. I'm really big on e-bikes. We also receive an update from gifted education staff. We'll be considering revised staffing standards during budget process as staff hopes to expand and refine gifted education program. We're going to cover a lot in September, so I'm sure we'll stay busy at our next CNI meeting, which is October

[06:18:18] 7th. And recently, I also visited Watson Mountain Middle School and Guilford Elementary School. I got to talk to students, to teachers. I got to hear about the principal's goals, and I got to see science experiments in action. And thank you to the students, teachers, and principals for sharing this time with me. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. And Ms. LaBelle? Thank you, Madam Chair. I hope all our students and staff had a great start to this school year, and I'm looking forward to all my school visits this year and meeting more of our young learners. As for the summer, I'm the only

[06:18:54] one, I think, that didn't leave the country. Yeah, oh, Ann, okay. The rest of us, you know, had vacations, but I did go to a conference, and it was wonderful. It was with Pete Wright, who is a powerhouse in the world of special education law and it was held on a riverboat outside of Cincinnati so that was a lot of fun. We had then to kick off the year our first SBAC meeting

[06:19:26] on August 24th. Yesterday I sat down with Aaron Poe who is our new SEAC chair and we spent two and a half hours discussing all sorts of special ed things. And we have a lot of things that we need to work on and people we need to hear from in the coming year. And bringing up what I said before, our next SEAC meeting is tomorrow, six o'clock in this room. So we'll be joined there by Dr. Spence,

[06:19:58] Mrs. Richardson, Ms. Purnell, and Ms. Mitchell to kick off the season with us. My second family and community roundtable will be held Wednesday, September 23rd, and I hope to share things there.

[06:20:13] To all our teachers and staff, I had sent out and posted on my Facebook page a wonderful welcome back end of first week of school video, so make sure you take the opportunity to check it out. That's about all for now. Oh, wait a minute. I just got a letter today inviting to be a judge at Woodgrove's We the People competition. So that's coming up, and I'm happy to go there and work with all the students there. That's it. All right. Thank you, board members. I will ask,

[06:20:53] we'll move on to item number 16, new business. Is there any new business? Ah, seeing none. - We will move on to adjournment. The September 8th, 2026 school board meeting is adjourned.

[06:21:08] Thank you and drive home safely.

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