Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County Public Schools, Curriculum & Instruction Committee Meeting, Wednesday, October 7, 2026

Date: Wednesday, October 7, 2026
Place: LCPS Administration Building / School Board Room, Ashburn, Virginia
Length: 54m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1234406833?rel=0

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-13. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:00] All right, good afternoon everyone. I call this October 7th, yeah, October 7th, meeting of the Curriculum and Instruction Committee to order. I'm Dr. Rashida, I'm the chair. I appreciate everyone's presence here today and what a beautiful day it is.

[00:00:16] The purpose of the meeting is to discuss a couple of things. First, we have to approve our previous meeting's minutes and then we have some information items which is updating the policy of 5430, use of generative AI, and regulation 5430.2, privacy and data protection when using AI.

[00:00:34] The other one is middle school schedule proposals and feedback and program of studies changes for 2027-2028. I understand we do not have public comment, so I will move on. All right. We need to approve the minutes from September 2nd. I can't believe we are almost halfway through October.

[00:00:53] Has everyone had a chance to review the minutes? And if so, are there any changes? All right, no. All right. I entertain a motion to approve the minutes from September 2nd. So moved second. Awesome Thank you. That was moved by mr Svensson and seconded by the Chernoff all those in favor say I I all those in say nay whoever's opposed which is not all right Let's go ahead and move on to Information item 4.01. I will turn it over to mr. Slevin to present who is assistant superintendent for teaching learning. Thanks

[00:01:30] Thank you, Dr. Rashid and committee members. I'm here tonight on behalf of Mr. Aaron Smith, our chief information officer in partnership with proposed updates to LCPS policy 5430 use of generative artificial intelligence.

[00:01:46] As you all know, LCPS has an existing policy on the use of generative artificial intelligence. And as our system has matured and learned over the past couple years, we're coming to the committee and then eventually the full board with a proposed update related to this tool.

[00:02:04] So this update modernizes and updates our guidance regarding the use of personally identifiable information with generative AI tools by recognizing the safeguards that now are available on LCPS-approved enterprise-managed AI platforms. Since the original policy language was drafted, LCPS has expanded its use of enterprise AI solutions that include contractual, technical, and privacy protections designed specifically for educational and business environments, so speaking specifically about tools such as Gemini and Copilot.

[00:02:35] The previous approach emphasized avoiding the use of PII with AI tools because many of our consumer AI applications use submitted data to train public models and may not adequately protect students or staff information. Today, LCPS-approved enterprise AI applications operate under strict contractual agreements that restrict how data is used, prohibit the use of customer data from model training, and provide privacy and security controls consistent with LCPS requirements.

[00:03:05] As a result, there is now a significant distinction between approved enterprise platforms and consumer AI applications, and the policy that we have should clearly reflect that difference, as well as the accompanying regulation. What is changing? PII may be used within LCPS enterprise-managed and approved generative AI applications when there is legitimate educational or business purposes and when employees follow applicable privacy and security requirements.

[00:03:31] The prohibition remains in place for non-LCPS-managed consumer or unauthorized AI applications for which data protections cannot be verified or enforced by LCPS. So why do we want to do this? How do we think this is going to benefit staff and students? This will enable staff to use AI-approved tools more effectively for instructional planning, administrative tasks, data analysis, communication support, and operational efficiency.

[00:03:56] It will reduce confusion by providing clear guidance on when this information may be used and when it may not be used. It aligns policy with the current practices for all our enterprise technology environments. As you are aware, for example, Google Drive and Google Apps for Education are widely used within LCPS.

[00:04:14] It aligns policy with the current practices for our enterprise technology environment, encourages responsible innovation while maintaining strong protections for student, staff, and family information. We do want to note that privacy and security protections remain in place.

[00:04:31] Approved LCPS AI applications undergo review to ensure compliance with federal and state student privacy requirements and division policies. And our enterprise-managed tools include protections intended to prevent customer data from being used to train public AI models and to limit data sharing with third parties.

[00:04:49] DDI and teaching and learning maintain oversight of approved AI tools and conduct ongoing review of these technologies together. So in terms of FERPA and compliance considerations, this update does not relax student privacy obligations. Sharing information in unauthorized or non-LCPS managed AI applications remains prohibited.

[00:05:08] Unauthorized disclosure of student information through non-approved AI tools may constitute a FERPA-related incident and could require notification to effective students and families. This change establishes a clear approved versus unapproved framework rather than a blanket restriction of use of AI when it comes to PII.

[00:05:27] So today, I'm happy to answer any specific questions or feedback, or between now and the next time we bring this back. But we do, we would like to send this out to the public for feedback and be able to address any issues that may be raised when we do that.

[00:05:43] - Thank you, Mr. Sullivan. I have no questions or comments, but I'll turn it over to my colleagues. Any questions or comments? Yes, Ms. Sherwin. - Thank you, Chair Rasheed. I am on board with all of these changes. I think we had a really nice, fulsome conversation at the full board level to kind of cue this up.

[00:06:00] So I'm grateful that we had that context and background knowledge. I do think we are waiting in murkier waters as it applies to AI with PII. So I'm comfortable with it personally, but I know we are hearing from families that have reservations about it.

[00:06:19] So I'm wondering if now that we are switching from approved, if there is an opportunity for adding to the regulation a section on how families will be notified and if there's any opt-out availability. The people that seem against it seem really fearful and against it.

[00:06:39] So just something for the committee to think about in terms of how we're going to notify families. Before it was, you know, we weren't going to do it, so it didn't really matter. But now that their information might be shared, some families may not be comfortable. Can you clarify in terms of notification?

[00:06:56] Are you talking about notifications of the specific policy changes? Well, that would happen through the public feedback process. So not necessarily, but if they're, like, are we doing this for all students or would this really just apply at first to the pilot, correct? So this is not, we're not talking about student use of generative AI tools.

[00:07:17] Okay. We're talking about basically information that right now may be sitting in a Google Drive, for example. You know, our enterprise resource such as Google Drive for education has certain privacy restrictions and understanding of it's kind of in a walled garden, so to speak.

[00:07:43] So we are expanding the inclusion of Gemini, for example, within that walled garden. Okay, that makes me a little less nervous about it, but I guess I would defer to you guys on, I just feel like this, it feels like a shift, so how do we address that shift with families, I guess, is the bigger picture for me.

[00:08:08] We could take that and talk through some options and bring that back when we bring the policy back. Okay, thank you. I would anticipate we may get questions like that. Okay, thank you. Yes, Mr. Spenson. Thank you, Dr. Rashid.

[00:08:22] Yeah, I think maybe it's an education piece because just for so folks are aware of the difference between like a AI platform that's available out publicly available versus, you know, our proprietary like AI platform that we're managed that is our walled garden, which would be, you know, just as if we're communicating over email or using our word applications or whatever.

[00:08:49] this would be an extension of that but I think because of the newness of the technology I agree that education piece might be um important to do um but also understand um that there could be a lot of burden if if it's um if there is some kind of opt-out um procedure or something like that so maybe maybe it can be solved with with the education around it um and this is very nitpicky I was looking at the regulation, and I think just because there's an added sentence in the PII section,

[00:09:24] that third sentence that says this includes, I think the this is a bit vague now because that new sentence is in there, so I just was thinking about how to make this refer to the PII.

[00:09:42] Can you tell me the line? Yes, it's 26. Yes, thank you. Yes, 26 of the red line version of the regulation. We can take that and update that.

[00:10:04] Part of the intent of this is recognizing as these tools are becoming more available and people are learning the value that they bring, we want to make sure that our teachers and staff are using the tools that are going to protect our student and staff data, as opposed to, you know, there's a lot of outreach and desire to market tools.

[00:10:28] We want to constantly guide our internal LCPS folks to our vetted tools that we have a contract with in terms of making sure our data is being protected. Okay, any other questions, comments? All right, that's great.

[00:10:44] Thank you, Mr. Slevin. All right, we will now go through, let me just go through, okay, let me go to 4.02 for our information item, and I will turn it over for middle school schedule proposals and feedback. I'll turn it over to Mr. Slevin again.

[00:11:01] Thank you. I can I can start while our team comes on it so happy to be joined by the joint leadership from the Department of School Leadership in teaching and learning that has been working closely with our middle school principals on some potential shifts and supports at the middle school level we have been talking about this for a number of months so we are here for an update to share a little bit about the feedback we received and some of the considerations everything in the fall is a

[00:11:36] consideration for the future some potential ideas that may come forward in different avenues so i believe mr roundsley are you starting let's start agreeing thank you you could move to the next slide please uh good evening and thank you for the opportunity to provide an update on our exploration of the middle school schedule i'm joined by my colleagues from teaching and learning as well as the department of school leadership as well as one of our middle school principals who has taken time to join us and we certainly appreciate her being here. We wanted to share a little bit about this collaborative effort. So what you see on this slide is that as part of this

[00:12:13] work we've identified metrics that can be used to evaluate the impact of any potential changes to the middle school schedule. These include how staffing is utilized to support elective access and intervention structures, principal perceptions of schedule flexibility and alignment to school priorities implementation of dedicated time for advisory intervention and enrichment student access to a broader range of elective opportunities and indicators related to student experience such as a sense of belonging we believe these metrics will lead to gains in student achievement including performance on standardized assessments such as the SOLs as well as decreasing

[00:12:51] trends and the number of students needing intervention and so what this slide shows it really depicts all of the touch points we've had to discuss this as you can see our conversation began in March and the conversations included many different groups lots of conversation with our middle school principals including members of a steering committee a small mighty group that helped guide us through this process as well as meeting with members of curriculum and instruction I'm sorry teaching and learning including content supervisors who were able to provide some very critical feedback on some of

[00:13:27] things that we were considering we were here with you in May and we are here again today following a number of conversations with instructional cabinet superintendent and others and so ongoing conversations but I think what's clearly demonstrated is that it has been collaborative and a joint effort across many different offices and so this slide takes us back a bit and indicates the ongoing and inclusive nature of this conversation one of the things that we did was we reached out to our principals in March

[00:14:00] And we asked them to complete a survey examining key aspects of our current schedule, including the structure, service delivery for special programs, as well as elective offerings. Several key themes emerged. A majority of the principals, 56%, viewed the current A-B schedule as workable but in need of refinement.

[00:14:22] Additionally, there was no single preferred schedule or model. principals were split between maintaining the a b schedule and moving to a daily schedule with others suggesting additional options most importantly principals identified areas where the current schedule does not provide enough time particularly for student intervention and for flexible creative scheduling to meet student needs and so it was important for us to share what principals said because that was one of the drivers of why we did this work and it's important context to understand the discussions that were held next slide please and this slide really underscores that any discussion of a school schedule we are mindful and aware

[00:15:01] and certainly want to acknowledge that there are staffing implications and so any fulsome discussion about changes to the middle schools on schedule has to happen alongside conversations about staffing and so we wanted to just acknowledge that and so at this time I'll turn it over to my colleagues Robinson thank you for having us back this slide is a great graphic which really shows our principals three priority areas through the survey and what they have been asking with the instructional schedule so first up and Dr. Grubbs is going to be going further in depth about this topic our

[00:15:37] principals really have asked for an increase in creative elective offerings for their students and the current offerings they feel are more rigid in the instructional schedule so he will be talking about that and then a really huge priority that has come up over the last few years from our middle school leaders is the need for increased and flexibility with the intervention structures overwhelmingly they have found in the last few years that the instructional schedule the traditional middle school instructional schedule

[00:16:13] does not have the time where they could be creative with their own buildings to have intervention time for their students and some even said the older structures like study hall just don't work in the instructional schedule so this was a really large priority for our leaders and also flexible schedule options they would like to know what the flexibility they may have for the needs of their buildings but also knowing what consistent structures must be in place

[00:16:48] for all of our middle schools next slide so this slide might be confusing and the left side shows parameters that our middle school leaders have that can be loose or flexible and then the right side shows what has to be tight or absolutely fixed within division expectations.

[00:17:14] So if you ever hear us say what's loose tight or what's flexible or adaptive versus something that's fixed that's what we refer to. So I'd like to first touch upon advisory. We have shared with our leaders and given the direction that advisory if you look on the right hand side absolutely is a middle school structure that is in place across all 18 middle schools and at a minimum two times a week all students have advisory.

[00:17:43] But then if you look on the left side what would the flexibility be because each school is very diverse and very different schools can determine the duration that they may need for that advisory lesson. they can also assign the advisory lessons they use the curriculum that is provided by LCPS but also have advisory committees that help them come up with lessons and then the next bullet down on the left side interdisciplinary teams if you ever hear us say IT teams those are teams of teachers that meet to talk

[00:18:18] about students and do a lot of the MTSS work so those have to be flexible because not all of those teachers are off teaching at the same time. So schools can schedule those team meetings before school after school or during school but they're flexible in when they may do that.

[00:18:38] And then if you look three bullets down on the right something that is absolutely a middle school staple are CLTs and they meet weekly. So a collaborative learning team and the planning time together is something that is a shared division expectation and absolutely tight with all of our schools.

[00:19:00] Something that I talked about earlier the intervention time on the right hand side is we do have division wide expectations about students getting interventions. But on the left side you'll see flexible scheduling models and parameters schools have flexibility on where and when they may schedule those intervention times.

[00:19:21] So the support blocks intervention structures those are flexible based on the needs of the instructional schedule within the building and then something else I really would like to highlight on this and I know you can all read it is something that Mildred talked about with schedule alignment we have encouraged our schools to be flexible where they can be with their schedules without blowing up the entire instructional schedule but the schedule alignment they can't impact the staffing needs of another building when schools may share staff.

[00:20:01] So we do in this school division have a lot of itinerant staff and what we've learned from schedule models at Trailside and Watson Mountain with their schedule pilots is that when you have a different schedule model you may impact the instructional schedules of other schools.

[00:20:18] So that's why schedule alignment is on the tight the fixed side of the um of the screen and then also gifted we do have gifted services that we absolutely are tight on because they are a division-wide expectation and also have parameters within videoe so i hope this is a good graphic to explain what might be loose and flexible for our leaders but also what is fixed or what is fixed and tight so before we get into some of the proposals that we

[00:20:58] are making we wanted to address an idea that floated around a lot at the beginning of this process and that based on feedback we received from principals and others was one that we ultimately didn't really pursue which is the idea of an elective wheel or an exploratory exploratory wheel that's a great way to meet that need of expanding elective choices but something that our principals told us a lot was that that really creates just another structure in the schedule and when trying to think about how we can have more flexibility how we can increase more access to interventions that really creates just another structure for schools to have to

[00:21:34] navigate to be able to do that so really where we landed was in a more consistent structure currently let's take sixth grade for example a student would have a half block resource and a half block music class they would also have a semester of art and a semester of introduction to computer applications as well and so you have like these 45 minute structures and you have semester structures and those things can't be mixed and matched so it really does kind of lock the school into certain ways of doing things what we are proposing is moving all of those to say a 45

[00:22:08] minute block and what that allows the school to do is to maybe pair resource and arts together or ICA and band and to use their staffing for interventions more efficiently and effectively to place those blocks where they need them and to also make sure that we don't remove a student's access to electives so that one of those 45-minute blocks might be pulled out to create an intervention block for a student, but that doesn't mean that they lose an entire elective block, that they still would have access to some of those blocks as well.

[00:22:41] So we really feel that this structure does a lot of the things that we wanna do. It preserves access to electives while also giving schools more flexibility to implement interventions which are kind of the two big priorities that we saw so far the next slide shares as Mr. Slevin said some considerations we would like to make for how we might address some other needs that schools identified as part of this process and on the left are some ideas for how we might enhance our elective offerings and and as Ms. Charlie Green showed in one of our slides really staffing is one of the key factors that we need to address if we want to expand a

[00:23:20] elective offerings for students so this proposal would over a period of years this shows three years it could be faster than three years or less than three years takes the middle school class size from 23.7 down to 23.1 and so a phased approach over the next three years is on the screen there that in FY 28 the target class size and middle school would be 23.5 and FY 29 23.3 and and an FY30 23.1 at the conclusion of that we would generate about 26 new FTEs in our middle

[00:23:55] schools it would it would reduce the average middle school teacher load from 142 students to 138 so a small reduction in that still a little bit different than high school and for a total cost that would be about 3.4 million dollars 3.495 3.5 million dollars at full implementation Again, that's the full plan over those three years.

[00:24:21] So it's about $1.165 million per year over three years. On the right-hand side is how we might address intervention. So by far the biggest requests that we have is for the addition of a math resource teacher at the middle school level.

[00:24:42] Currently six of our middle schools have a full-time math resource teacher and this proposal would add a math resource teacher at all middle schools. So this is 12 new math resource teacher positions to give each school one of these positions. And those positions spend about 50% of their time providing direct intervention to students and 50% of their time working with CLTs and coaching teachers in effective math instruction.

[00:25:07] So that would add 12 new FTEs and that would be about $1.68 million at full implementation. So if we take year one of the staffing of lowering the class size and this proposal, that would be in FY28, $2.845 million to achieve those two goals.

[00:25:29] We wanted to on the next slide show you what the impact of this would be over time at three of our middle schools. So this is showing the class size reduction. First is a small middle school in LCPS. School two is kind of an average size middle school in LCPS and school three is a large middle school in LCPS.

[00:25:51] And so by reducing the class size, we do open up the possibility for schools to add some additional elective opportunities for students. You can see in year one, that is a very modest change. So at a small school, you would move from 39 FTEs generated through the staffing standard to 39.4.

[00:26:10] So that's not a huge increase in staffing, but it does provide a little bit of flexibility to perhaps offer a new elective, maybe an exploratory dramatics program or something along those lines, maybe a new CTE offering to students. We would need to have, I think, some flexibility over the years that we would see these things increase.

[00:26:29] But with a small change at a large school, it's a 0.8 in additional staffing and so this would allow those schools to start the process of adding different electives but I think schools would be going at kind of different rates and at different speeds but always with it with a movement towards offering more courses and more choice and opportunities for students. Thank you Jeff. As my colleagues have shared after meeting with our steering committee there was significant feedback for more options and flexibility among schools. What we are proposing here is a guiding framework for reviewing and creating elective

[00:27:07] offerings moving forward again this is a framework and the offerings can be adaptable based on changing needs students interest community needs staffing limitations and even offerings the principals once specific to their school what we were looking at with this framework is ensuring that grade 6 students have the opportunity to explore pathways while grade 7 students are engaging or deepening what they explored in grade 6 and then in grade 7 they can really extend their passions in alignment with their imagined future and building on their skills their values and their interests what I want to call out is the format all three of these

[00:27:43] grade levels have opportunities for support at the sixth grade level is support plus three half block offerings so that's what Jeff was talking about earlier on those 45 minute offerings that we can use grade seven is support through a whole or half block elective option and then grade eight is support through whole semester or half block options I want to call out grade seven because we've already started moving a little bit in this direction with our TechEd and our CTE courses for example we've traditionally offered TechEd seven which is a semester based course but for some of our principals in our schools and communities they might not be able to

[00:28:21] find a TechEd teacher to teach TechEd seven so they've gone with two nine-week project lead the way courses and so we've already started heading in this direction to be flexible on the needs of our schools and our communities. A few other examples are at the grade six level we are already looking at changing our computer intro to computer applications course to be a little bit more computer science focused and incorporate things like RISAC and career investigations into that course. That was an area of specific feedback from our principals on just making sure that we're meeting the needs of our students at the grade six level. I think this also opens the opportunity for our principals for example

[00:28:59] western loudon we are looking at ag at the high school with this plug and play modular option maybe there's opportunities to um to offer an ag program at that specific middle school maybe there's opportunities for middle schools that feed into ham side to offer some health and medical sciences i think what this model allows for that plug and play based on your community and more of a modular format for us moving forward on the next slide we've been planning for implementation these are four just big buckets that we've been considering so as we look for moving forward across these four areas not only efficiently

[00:29:36] but purposefully we are continuing to look at staffing and licensure so obviously continuing to meet with HRTD and staffing and what the impact that this has thinking about our student and family communication how are we bringing students and families along how are we looking at students student interests I I think that aligns really well with the work that Katie Clark is doing with our future ready lesson and thinking about our grades six, seven, and eight students and thinking about programs and elective offerings based on their interests.

[00:30:05] Ensuring, again, we have two middle school principals here. How are we making sure that they are ready for these timelines and moving forward? But I think where we are immediately, where we can move the needle is around that course development and review process that I just spoke about. What are those small wins that we can do now for existing courses and future courses?

[00:30:22] And so on the next slide, I think that opens us up for questions, discussion, and feedback. What feedback do you have on these proposals and what next steps would you recommend for us? Thank you. All right, thank you. Wow, that's a boatload of information that just came right at us, which is expected because it's well-deserving for this topic.

[00:30:44] I had a couple of questions, but I didn't want to hog up the time on, I think it's slide 8, with the schedule model selection. I know that there are some students that have, you know, some struggles with math, some struggles with reading.

[00:31:01] And I know that I think part of it was already answered. But how does this model make sure that students who need those interventions, like intensive math or reading interventions, they don't have to sacrifice taking their electives like bands, strings or CT? Again, I saw the recommendation to advance the whole block, half block structure over the exploratory wheel.

[00:31:24] and I'm not sure who else. - I'd actually point to this slide. And one way that we're defining these courses is a support plus electives. So that support could be for some students intervention, it could be for some students resource, and it could be for some students gifted, and services.

[00:31:42] So what we would say here is, in say sixth grade, if you are in need of math support, you would be in intervention and then still have three electives. If you needed math and English, that would take maybe one of those half block electives, but you would still have two more.

[00:31:57] In many ways, I think that this ensures that students would still have access to their electives rather than being pulled from band, for example. That 45-minute structure is kind of a sweet spot for students to receive intervention. 90 minutes is very long.

[00:32:12] It's hard to do that in a semester. Student likely will need that support throughout the year. So this really allows schools to give students some choice and flexibility over which electives they wanna remain in and where we can target support both in math and English.

[00:32:28] And if a student is only in need of one intervention block, that would leave them with a full slate of electives still. - Appreciate it, one more question. Four, and I think it's slide 11 and 12, at least it was here. For the elective pathways and staffing feasibility, what's the timeline and the strategy with HRTD to secure necessary teaching certifications, if any, across like all middle schools in order to have a proper rollout.

[00:32:56] I did notice that we're expanding on sixth through eighth grade elective pathways into robotics and computer science. So I think you answered it, but I just wanted you guys to reiterate. Thanks. - So I think this slide is a great, I think what we're trying to say in this slide is we want to take our time and make sure we're doing it right.

[00:33:22] There, we are constantly working with HR, whether it's by the middle school schedule about high need high need low availability when it comes to teachers like cohorts tuition for example there was a time that we really struggled with reading specialists when we added a lot of reading specialists as a result of Virginia Literacy Act so we invested in cohorts and partnered with universities just get reading specialists endorsements for our teachers so this is going to happen over time we also need to look at it in context of our current reality when it comes to enrollment and staffing and the impact that's going to have.

[00:34:00] And so we are aware HR is also aware that we need to be cautious in our approach with this and move and make decisions based on that. So I don't know that really answers your question besides we're thinking about it. It's going to be a challenge but we're just going to have to navigate it.

[00:34:21] I'd also add on this slide the course development and review and a few minutes we're going to talk about the changes we made to the high school program of studies. There's no changes to the middle school program of studies included yet because we want to take the information from tonight and just as we do with the high schools put some of this in the hands of our principals and our directors of school or our lead school counselors at schools to let us know what's feasible and what's not so we rely on those people who are most impacted by the changes we make to let us know if this change is supported and feasible and possible and so we want to run kind of another mini process here with our middle schools to let them share some

[00:34:59] um courses that they would like to see and some courses we would like to see and make sure they have a lot of voice in letting us know what is feasible for us to move forward with and what might need to wait and what might not be supported in their school communities all right i'll turn it over my colleagues questions comments anything all right mr spencer thank you thank you so much for the presentation all the work that's gone into thinking through this and i appreciate the prioritization and i'm really excited about the math resource teachers um that's something i hear a lot about and how impactful they are and it's i think the elective offerings are really exciting

[00:35:36] and class size as well when we were having our budget discussion at the leaf meeting last month the thing that parents mentioned the most was was class size and obviously that's intensive in terms of budget but it makes a difference and even if we're talking about you know going up one fte to make some of these electives possible so appreciate all the thinking that's gone into it um i just wanted to make sure i'm visualizing the whole block half block um correctly um and maybe it's just a comparison to direct comparison to what it is now to what it

[00:36:13] will be in the future so my understanding is like the two halves kind of had had to stay together in one block currently and now we're saying you know you can move multiple half blocks around is is that right yes that's right so um you know we had a structure of semester courses and we had a structure of half block courses and then we have like whole block courses too so all of those things um make it difficult to mix and match in ways that really make sense so if you have one math resource teacher and you have one reading specialist and you need those people to provide

[00:36:50] intervention um i think we can be more efficient if we allow some mixing and matching of where these classes happen to make sure that we also have some greater flexibility in putting the right students together to get the right supports at the same time so i think it ultimately will lead to a more efficient use of the intervention resources that we have thank you um that's helpful um and maybe as the group kind of goes back to the middle school um and we have another presentation like a sample schedule it'd be really helpful i think to like see what that would look like on a what at a particular middle school also I'm curious and this maybe

[00:37:29] relates to the earlier slides about like what's consistent across middle schools versus what this middle schools have flexibility for for the for the whole block half block I think this is slide it was but yes that slide is this going to be consistent across all middle schools this is the approach that everyone's taking so the approach absolutely um you know we and one of the things i want to point out is we look at the sixth grade year as exploratory year and so um we're thinking that

[00:38:05] as a seventh grader developmentally appropriately they get a chance to engage at a deeper level and then eighth grade is the extension and so what might look different are the actual offerings but the idea is consistent across all schools absolutely and i do also want to just point out the the whole idea about support and how we're defining support and coupling that with electives as well so that will remain consistent thank you very much thank you um wow here we are in like three years in the making so this is exciting I hope that our principals and our middle schools feel supported I know this has

[00:38:44] been an ongoing long conversation I'm not one to argue with principal feedback I think if this is what where we're headed I support that I think that's you know I think the work that you've put in is really obvious and and shows so i think it's nice that you're asking for our feedback but for me this is about them and what they need and the fact that you've engaged them at every step of the way tells me that this is what they need um i'm very excited to see the adaptation of the electives i you know obviously we've talked a lot about the wheel because it's like a throwback to what a lot of us had i'm

[00:39:20] not sad that it wasn't popular i feel like we're going to be creating individual wheels for every kid and that feels daunting but also very exciting and i think doable within the structures that you've laid out and and could possibly evolve i think as we move through it and figure that out i will be honest um we had some conversations last night at pmc about staffing standards in terms of el and just i think staffing standards is going to be the theme this year of our budget conversations It feels like as a school board, we're going to have to really make some intentional decisions about where we're establishing some baseline staffing standards.

[00:39:59] And so while I appreciate and see what the FTEs are in terms of class size, I'm also thinking about, as you mentioned, Mr. Slevin, the enrollment decline and what that's going to do to our staffing and then how we then further adjust to a model like this.

[00:40:16] So it feels like a difficult time to have that conversation. But I think there are some intentional decisions that we can make as we look at staffing standards as a whole. And I think that's going to take a lot of work and time.

[00:40:34] I'm obviously full. I've said last year, I think middle school is one of the areas that's a non-negotiable for me in terms of my budget priorities this year, just because I think it's taken a lot to get to this point. And I do think we've sort of just done things the way we do it to do it that way.

[00:40:49] And it isn't meeting the student need that is in front of us and the rapid growth of interest that we're seeing in our CTE and career development program. So I'm here for all of this as fast as we can do it. I just think it's a hard time to be having the conversation. But I am hoping that we can get creative and be assertive in terms of where we want that bottom line to be for us as Loudoun County Public Schools in terms of the staffing standards that support our schools even though we're gonna take a hit from the state budget in terms of enrollment I think we have a unique

[00:41:26] opportunity to really flex in that space and I'm hoping we can I echo my colleague I think the math is got to be first it feels like the right priority in terms of where we've seen the intervention needs but I would really really like to see us moving towards this full implementation just because even when you look at the high school comparison and it's hard to sell that I think to our middle school teachers who make the same amount of money and who are really stretched thin so I am excited tentatively because

[00:42:03] I really want to be able to offer this to everyone of course but I also know that there are some tough conversations coming in terms of where we are with our enrollment so I am very grateful for the work and thank you for explaining what support plus the half blocks was because I wasn't sure if that did include resource and all those things will there still I guess my other question is will there still be an opportunity for resource to be extended for kids in eighth grade if they need it or are we trying to get away from that so I think that's feedback that we've heard too from principals

[00:42:39] that there are students who need you know if you think about a student who's involved in a very competitive um athletic program or involved in or something fine arts like that something like that that there are students who need that full block of um a resource so again i think that's the kind of conversations we want to have with principals to make sure that we are supporting the the needs that they're seeing at their school okay perfect well thank you for your work um thank you principals for being here. Thank you for your voices at the table. And hopefully we can, you know, get there sooner rather than later. Dr. Rasheed, speaking of voices at the table, appreciate Ms. Johnson

[00:43:17] coming out tonight. And I offered if she had anything she wanted to say. You want to come into the mic? What's that? Oh, I'm sorry, Dr. G. Nicole, I didn't see you come in. So Katie Johnson is going to speak on behalf of the principals, Principal of the Year, Katie Johnson.

[00:43:33] Well, thank you guys. This is really exciting for us just because so many things have already been shared but sometimes we feel like as middle school principals just the inflexibility and limited options we have closed doors for kids and that's just a terrible thing to have to have that conversation what if you need this intervention you can't have this opportunity so this just creates those different pathways I can say we've started this on a really small level the seventh grade year by offering our introduction to world languages so that's been great we had two classes fill up immediately kids were very excited about that and then our project lead the way courses offering three so

[00:44:10] we had kids could take whichever of their nine weeks so they could pick two and take fax and so we've had some of these options already and they've been very popular but our middle school kids need these experiences because there are so many amazing options at the high school where they can go to hampshire they can go to our you know global linguistics school but they're asking they're being asked to make that decision in eighth grade and we do a great job of marketing and sharing but they need earlier exposure because they're still figuring it all out at that age so i think anything that we can do to create that and then also provide those interventions because with

[00:44:49] the virginia literacy act we've seen a greater need for intervention so this is really exciting anything that we can do to get more options and things in kids hands is kind of a no-brainer for me do you want to jump in yeah thank you thank you so much um our next item is 4.03 um that is program of studies changes for 27 28 and i will turn it over to mr moundsley so as i just mentioned

[00:45:26] in the previous presentation um we engage in a process every year to make changes to our program of studies oftentimes these are based on either content offices or schools making these recommendations and so we want to go through and share some highlights i'm not going to go through all of the changes but happy to answer any questions that you might have um so on the what we're going to do tonight is i just want to explain the the process that we follow to make these changes three themes that emerge and some courses that kind of fit into those categories and then in as an appendix we have all of the changes which i am not going to go through all of those changes

[00:46:01] but happy to answer any questions that you might have about those courses so to talk about our course review process on the next slide we have kind of a timeline of how this works so all of these have been initiated by a content supervisor in conjunction with a school or based on feedback that they've heard from schools our content supervisors when they make these changes are asked to consider budget staffing resource material allocations and also to consider what's the best way to roll this out should it be a pilot at a few schools does it require specialized space what's the impact on other programs we don't want to harm other programs

[00:46:39] by increasing our offerings in another area all of those are done by august our proposals are done by august and then we meet with a committee made up typically of school leaders and directors of school counseling at the high school level in mid-september to review these proposals each supervisor meets with them and shares the rationale for why they make these changes and then we either we approve these courses and send them to DDI and DDI then takes them and creates them in the student information system so that they are available for students to sign up for courses in January when they make their course selections in school links these are some questions that we ask our

[00:47:18] committee to consider when they hear proposals from our content supervisors so what's the need does it align to other priorities and other pathways that we have is there a budget impact what's it due to our school level staffing what kind of resources and facilities are required what kind of professional learning will our teachers need to be able to implement this and how does it impact our existing student pathways and so then every member of the committee either votes to approve that recommendation to request more information or request revisions to the recommendation or to deny the recommendation we maintain maintain that in a spreadsheet and then move all approved courses over to

[00:47:56] DDI to create them. So this year our committee was made up of five high school administrators, that's assistant principals and principals who heard all of these three directors of school counseling and we also for the first time had a teacher leader join us, a department chair in science also participated this year and for each of these this code that you'll see throughout the appendix, the N means it's a new course that was approved, the M means it's a modification of an existing course and R is a course that we are retiring. So on slide seven you see three big themes that emerged and I'm just going to highlight a few changes that you'll see in the appendix for

[00:48:32] each of these. For authenticity, I think you see especially in our CTE offerings a real connection to emerging and high demand fields, courses in AI, courses in mechatronics, robotics, programming, respiratory therapy, lots of courses that connect to students' career pathways and to really authentic and relevant topics. For alignment, these are where we're strengthening our connections across courses and future opportunities so new opportunities for in de math were some of the courses that were approved science two courses which are anatomy and oceanography these are new courses that have just been approved by the vdoe and these are courses that we have heard requests

[00:49:12] for for a very long time so these would be new electives available for students and again that supports students who may want to go to ham sci but are not able to those anatomy courses would now be available at all schools that are offering it and then also expanding our IB offerings to strengthen some of those pathways as well for students and then the last one is accessibility expanding choices and opportunities for more students so you'll see in there for example criminal justice has moved from a course at MATA into criminal justice one is available at all our schools criminal justice two is available at independence which was our pilot school this year

[00:49:49] specialized MATA courses I already mentioned anatomy and physiology as options for students who may not be able to go to HAMSci and then two that I want to highlight in particular we are piloting English 10 AP seminar at several schools that's also a frequent request many of our neighboring school divisions do that as well students would still have the opportunity to take just AP seminar that doesn't count for English 10 they're two separate courses so some students may not be ready for that course in 10th grade but they could take it in 11th or 12th grade without the English focus that this particular course would have I think that's

[00:50:26] another great example of really authentic work where students are investigating a problem presenting it working on skills that they would use throughout any content area that they go to and there is a course a separate course created for AP comparative government we have traditionally taught AP US and comparative government as one course we're kind of we're uncoupling that and a of that has to do with the availability of de government at some schools and not at other schools so this would give schools a lot more flexibility in terms of what they offer and would make that de course much more feasible in in many of our schools so that's kind of a very broad highlight of some of the the big changes that are contained in there but i'm happy to answer

[00:51:06] any other questions that you might have about the changes for 2728 well thank you mr roundsey i really appreciate that I have questions but I will not ask for I will turn it over to my colleagues but because of because of time I'm not silencing you guys but just if you could just ask your questions instead of just the cocky just keep the comments Kurt but if it does anybody have any questions okay all right okay all right then so then I'll ask my question since we have five

[00:51:39] minutes all right all right I only had one you mentioned you mentioned HAMSI and I know that matter was was talked about very I think it was mentioned so how will counseling teams how will counseling teams guide rising 10th graders who are interested in health care so they remain on track for advanced dual enrollment for in terms of medical courses if any so I think that's a great feature of school links that we use for our course planning so every

[00:52:16] Every student will have an opportunity to meet with their counselor and look at their course plan. Schoolings also contains lots of career information and lots of student goals for a career and career exploration as well. So that's all in one place. And those counselors will sit down with students and look at the available pathways and help map that out.

[00:52:35] So students, when they are going into eighth grade, map out their full course choices through 12th grade. And then every year we make tweaks and additions to those with counselors and make sure that students are remaining on track for the goals that they've set.

[00:52:52] And then as you mentioned tweaks, like since we're kind of rolling out of specific courses and we're going into more advanced stuff, like I think we're, like app development is getting more retired and we're going more into AI. Is there a plan to make sure that high schools have the necessary hardware?

[00:53:10] I know Mr. Smith is not here and to make sure there's certified teachers in place. And I know that enrollment is kind of going up and down. I'm going to turn that one over to Dr. Gropes to come up and share. So I will answer that question from two different perspectives.

[00:53:32] One is I think the question was also around certifications. So all those changes affect nothing on the teacher certification side. They're all lateral changes. So whether it's a computer science or it's a construction change, the certification remains the same for those courses. And then any sort of equipment or instructional purchases will come out of Perkins funds or existing base budgets.

[00:53:53] no impact at the school level and some of those are also built into our five-year expansion plan fundings that we've either secured or that we're pursuing so no impact on the school I think I thought the question that sounds very promising all right any other questions comments okay so our next meeting is November 4th and if is there any new business all right all right so we'll go ahead and adjourn and then I'll see everyone on November 4th all right Thanks for coming out, guys.

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