Coraggio Consulting
Prince William County School Board Meeting, Wednesday, January 4, 2023

Date: Wednesday, January 4, 2023
Place: Prince William County School Board, Virginia
Length: 2h 24m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN2pwbI1uJ4
Official School Board page (PWCS): https://www.pwcs.edu/about/school_board/

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 2026-11-04. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:01] - Okay, I think we have five, right? So we can go ahead and get started. So I'd like to call the meeting of the Prince William County School Board to order. Pursuant to school board policy 139, school board member participation in meetings by electronic communications, school board member Diane Ralston will participate in this meeting through electronic means from her home due to a medical condition that prevents her physical attendance.

[00:00:20] The clerk will so note in the minutes of the meeting. A motion is in order for the approval of the meeting agenda. Ms. Wall, Ms. Jackson. - Thank you, Dr. Lateef. I move that the Prince William County School Board approve the meeting agenda as recommended. - Do I have a second?

[00:00:36] - I second. - Second, Ms. Zargarpur, any discussion? Please vote. I don't see her on the screen, is she there?

[00:00:52] Ms. Raulston, how do you vote? - Yes. - Ms. Raulston votes yes. - The vote is seven yes, one not present at vote.

[00:01:09] Mrs. Jessie, motion passed. - Moving on to motion to enter closed session. A motion's in order. Ms. Jackson. - Thank you, Dr. Lateef. I move that we move to closed session to one, discuss with staff the appointment, transfer, release, assignment, and promotion of specific officers and employees under Virginia Code section 2.2-3711A1.

[00:01:29] Two, to discuss with legal counsel and take action on the placement appeal of a specific student under Virginia Code section 2.2-3711A2 and eight. Three, to discuss with division counsel and staff actual or probable litigation in specific legal matters involving specific staff and students under Virginia Code section 2.2-3711A seven and eight.

[00:01:54] Four, to consult with legal counsel regarding policies and regulations pertaining to employee conduct and specific legal matters involving specific employees under Virginia Code section 2.2-3711A seven and eight. And five, to consult with staff and legal counsel regarding the legal requirements and procedures for collective bargaining by school board employees, which requires legal advice and guidance as provided by Virginia code section 2.2-3711A8.

[00:02:23] - Do I have a second? - Mr. Chairman. - Ms. Zargarpur. - I second. - Any discussion? Please vote. Ms. Raulston, how do you vote? - Yes. - Ms. Raulston votes yes. - The vote is seven yes, one not present at vote.

[00:02:38] Jesse, motion passed. - At this point, the Prince William County School Board will now enter closed session

[00:02:45] and return open session in approximately one hour.

[00:03:31] Okay, good evening, everyone. The Prince William County School Board will be returning now from closed session to open session. and we will get started with closed session certification. Action item, Ms. Jackson.

[00:03:49] - Thank you, Dr. Lateef. I move that the Prince William County School Board approve the appointments and releases of specific employees as presented in closed session. - Do I have a second? - Dr. Lateef? - Ms. Zargarpur? - I second. - Any discussion? Please vote. Ms. Raulston, how do you vote?

[00:04:05] - Yes. - Ms. Raulston votes yes. - The vote is eight yes, motion passed. Okay, moving on to the closed session action items for 8.01, we have the approval of appointments and releases, Vice Chair Jackson.

[00:04:28] No, 8.02. I thought we were doing that after. I'm doing 8.01 first as appointments and releases. Didn't I just read the? No, we did the certification. Oh, I think I read the wrong. What did we just vote on?

[00:04:45] Did you not do certification? I just read the wrong, yeah. All right. Actually, we're going backwards. Go to closed session certification, Ms. Jackson. I'm sorry. I move that pursuant, it was on the wrong page, I'm sorry. I move that pursuant Virginia code section 2.2-3712, the closed session of Prince William County School Board meeting of January 4th, 2023 be certified by adopting the following resolution.

[00:05:04] Now therefore be it resolved that Prince William County School Board hereby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge, one, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements were discussed in closed meeting to which the certification resolution applies, and two, only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening closed meeting will hold and discuss and consider by the school board do I have a second mr. chairman I'm in a second any discussion okay please vote this is on closed session certification miss Raulston how do you vote yes mr.

[00:05:35] Raulston votes yes yep and then we already did the approval appointments and releases so we're gonna move to eight point zero two next the vote is eight yes motion passed okay eight point zero two emotions in order for the student appeal got it I move that the Prince William County School Board deny the parent appeal and certification the placement of student essay to okay I move I move that the Prince William County School Board yeah that's what I was saying wasn't oh deny the parent appeal and confirm the placement of

[00:06:14] students essay 20 23 - is there a one-four do I have a second second miss Jessie seconds motion any discussion please vote miss Raulston how do you - Any vote?

[00:06:32] - Yes. - Ms. Rawson votes yes. - I'm ready. - I think that completes all closed session action items. - The vote is eight yes, motion passed. - Okay. Next we will move to the Pledge of Allegiance. Mr. Chance Williams, our student representative this evening from Forest Park High School will lead us in the pledge.

[00:06:57] - To the republic which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. - Okay, fabulous. Well, everyone welcome back.

[00:07:14] Happy New Year. This is our first school board meeting in the new year, obviously, and we're excited to be back. And we will start first with our Thriving Futures focus. And so let me get to that up here.

[00:07:31] This is our portion. So good evening again. During tonight's launching Thriving Futures, we will recognize the accomplishments of our students from two schools. We begin with the recognition of the state champions, the state champions from Freedom High School, Mrs. Lori Williams, school board representative from the Woodbridge Magisterial District will share the good news.

[00:07:56] Miss Williams, take it away. - Thank you, Chairman. Congratulations. I'll wait till they all get in. - Yes. - 'Cause they should all be here.

[00:08:12] All in? All right, good evening, gentlemen. Congratulations to the Freedom High School football program on their first VHSL class six state championship.

[00:08:33] Coach Daryl Overton and his outstanding staff led Freedom to historic 15-0 undefeated season. The Eagles soared in the state championship game with a 48-14 win over James Madison High School from Fairfax County Public Schools.

[00:08:50] Freedom High School is the first state football champion from Prince William County since Battlefield High School won Group AA Division VI state title in 2010. we are so proud of the dedication commitment and perseverance of these student-athletes from Freedom High School unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances coach Overton and principal Smith could not attend this evening however I am pleased very much so to invite Freedom High School's student director of activities mr. Thomas and and and and see what and I

[00:09:30] think I butchered it appropriately which is why we all call you Mr. Z or Mr. A excuse me assistant coaches and players to be recognized for their contribution to Prince William County's athletic legacy chairman Lateef vice chairwoman Miss Jackson Prince William County school board members dr. McDade and community members on behalf of freedom high school I sincerely thank you for this public recognition we're very proud of these outstanding student athletes and how they have positively impacted our school and our community With their undefeated record, this team has truly made history.

[00:10:04] Additionally, these players serve as role models on the field, in the classroom, and in our community. It is genuinely difficult to put into words how proud we are of this team. At this time, I'd like to ask Coach Jeff Overton to come forward and then we'll follow him.

[00:10:24] How y'all doing? I'm Coach Jeff Overton. First and foremost, thank you to my guys for a great season. Thank you to their parents for all their support, the community for their support. Thank you guys for your support over the past season. We look to bring more state championships to Freedom High School and to this area, and other than that, we want to invite Tristan Evans, our quarterback up here, Max Prep.

[00:10:47] First and foremost, on behalf of my brothers, we thank you for inviting us here tonight to recognize our accomplishments and the history we made this season.

[00:11:05] We broke county, state, and national records. We were able to do this because of what's been instilled in us by our head coach and assistants. Coach O stresses the importance of academics to put ourselves in the best position to obtain scholarships, and we must depend on each other to accomplish our goals.

[00:11:27] We are not like affluent schools that have lots of community and school backing, but because of the love we have for each other, discipline, and tough love from coaches, parents, and loyal supporters, we all have developed tremendous and embody an OTF mentality.

[00:11:47] For those of you who don't know what OTF means, it means only the family, and that's what we are, a family. We also want to thank our parents for all their sacrifices they made to support us as we worked towards becoming VA class six state champions.

[00:12:04] We hope in the future our program and school can gain more positive support from the community and division leaders. Thank you. - Tristan, Tristan, come back up to the mic.

[00:12:20] Introduce each of the players, if you remember their names. I'm sure you do. - No pressure. - So we have number seven, Kai Hughes. - Woo! - We have number 18, Caleb Tucker.

[00:12:40] - You can say their positions too for us. - Oh. - Start with one again. - Okay, so we have-- - Or seven, or whoever. - No, okay, okay. - You don't have to tell us the number. Their name and position would be great. - So Kendall Bannister, cornerback.

[00:12:58] Ohio commit. - Wow. - Ja'Kai Hughes, cornerback. Caleb Tucker, quarterback.

[00:13:13] Prattson Hunt, linebacker. Devin Reeves, linebacker.

[00:13:29] Justin Robertson, O-line. DJ Moore, corner and wide receiver.

[00:13:45] Names. Jamal Gibbs, lineman. Walter Hughes, center. Jeffrey Overton, running back.

[00:14:05] Isaiah Harper, linebacker. Jonah Fuga, lineman.

[00:14:20] Darryl, running back. And Keith, O-lineman. - Sorry for putting you on the spot, but I thank you. you know I along with everyone here in this room on this board you know watched with wonder read the articles and each week of this tremendous success your team has had in breaking records here in the county your school records region

[00:14:54] records and state records and I think some national records and so mr. chairman - Yep. - They are truly history makers. - Yes, a hundred percent. And so we truly thank you all, all the coaches, the staff over at Freedom High School, the teachers, all the folks that have worked so hard to make this happen.

[00:15:17] We can't thank you enough. We've been very proud of all of your efforts and the way you guys have held yourselves up so well this year. So we truly thank you and before we go forward, I'll ask that if you guys come up to the front, we'd like to take a picture with you.

[00:15:35] It would be our honor to take a picture with the Freedom High School football team state champions for 2022.

[00:17:35] - All right, y'all got some funny pics in there. - Now you guys stay there because us parents walk in there, so we're gonna come up and get on. - Oh, are we all?

[00:17:50] Oh, oh. - Excuse me, we probably could get in there. - Oh wait, are we gonna jump in? - No, that's right, we're gonna get it again.

[00:18:10] - Thank you.

[00:18:14] - Yeah, woo, freedom, woo!

[00:20:58] - Okay, thank you very much. All right, our next group will be the Hilton High School Automotive Program. And it is my privilege to introduce Mrs. Lisa Zargarpur, the Coles Magisterial District School Board Representative to share the great news about Hilton High School.

[00:21:17] Mrs. Zargarpur. I am so excited about this. It is my privilege, my honor to recognize the Hilton High School Automotive Program engine building team. Hilton High School recently sent an engine building team to the Specialty Equipment Marketing Association annual convention in Las Vegas to compete in the national engine building competition.

[00:21:41] The competition includes disassembling a small block Chevy engine down to the crankshaft and then reassembling it in the fastest time with the least number of penalties. By the way, I got to watch some practices. It is amazing. The Hilton team won the event with four perfect builds, which is something that has never been done by any team in the history of the competition.

[00:22:02] Yes, absolutely. This is a major accomplishment for these students. Congratulations. The team is here this evening with their principal, Ms. Cassandra Crawford, and automotive instructor, Mr. Ed Stevens. Would you care to come up and speak?

[00:22:19] - No problem. - I know you got no problem. - I don't know about that. - You got no problem talking. Thank you guys for honoring us and honoring the students in particular for all their hard work. These guys, to get to that point, worked for over a year. To get to that every week, sometimes twice a week, a lot of events around the country, a lot of car shows and events that these guys go out and promote, not just what we do, but promoting Hilton, promoting Prince William County, and making us all look good.

[00:22:46] And they do a fantastic job with that. I want to also thank Ms. Crawford and the administration at Hilton because being, you know, when someone says that I'm taking a team of students to Las Vegas from Virginia, that's a pretty difficult thing to pull off and for people to even agree.

[00:23:03] And she just, Ms. Crawford just signs it away. And principals in the past have done that as well. So without that support and with the administration and the people that support us at Hilton, as well as the school board and everyone else, we wouldn't be able to do that. And it's an important thing for the students to know that you guys support them and that the administration supports them so that it makes them feel like what they're doing has more value or has a lot of value.

[00:23:27] Also, I want to at least mention the sponsors. The shirts that these students are wearing are from local communities, businesses, some even out of Maryland, the national ones. Actually, we're getting a couple of national sponsors for the 2023 season.

[00:23:42] These guys give us money to have their names and logos put on our shirts, and that money is how these guys get to Las Vegas, get to Indianapolis and Ohio and the places that we go so that the parents don't have to pay the money. So I want to thank all the sponsors that are on these shirts for the 2022 season, and all of these guys and any new ones that want to come on board with us.

[00:24:04] And anyone that's listening and watching this, if you want to be a part of the 2023 season, let me know. Email me, and we will get you a form, and you can write a check, and we will be all smiles about it and put your logos right on our shirts. So, again, thank you guys very much. Mr. Stevens, can you introduce each of the students?

[00:24:20] I'm sorry? Oh, absolutely. Oh, and I need to say this. I'm sorry. Team Captain Noemi Lira. And one thing I want to say about, Noemi had graduated last year. What's important to know about these competitions is that they don't run the school calendar year, they run the actual calendar year.

[00:24:37] So she had graduated last June, but she was allowed to continue to compete to nationals because it was part of that. She had already qualified. I'm really going to miss this young lady. She was a great captain for the team, and she leaves Sunday to go to North Carolina for boot camp.

[00:24:52] She's going to the Marines to be a helicopter mechanic. Next is Elma... I'm sorry, Elma. I'm sorry, Elma. Elma Quinteres. She was the anchor person, basically, the bench person for the team, the one that helps keep the pace and set the pace. I'm sorry to say that she is one of three of the students that are not going to be returning next year for the teams, but she did an incredible job for us, as did her brother last year, who was on a team that finished third nationally and did a fantastic job.

[00:25:28] So definitely going to miss her. She's still working in the dealer, right? She's still working in the field, and she will graduate this June. And then next we have Josh Blanco, who is one of the people on the engine as well. Josh is also a senior. All the rest of these guys are seniors.

[00:25:44] And he will not be returning this year to the team, but was definitely, as all of them, I had to say the same thing about all of them. They were all incredible and fantastic members of the team and one of the best that we've had. And I'm hoping that maybe these guys, even though they're not returning, might be willing to come in and offer some guidance and assistance to some of the newer people if they have the time.

[00:26:05] But all these guys are working after school, so it's difficult. They have to budget their time as well. Next is JC, or Gene Rodriguez. He was also, again, I have to say that about each one of them. They're a very important person, a key part of the team.

[00:26:22] And he is currently still in a dealership as well, right? Okay, he's still, he is working in a dealership. And I think these guys, most of them, and if they want to say something, I guess they can, but they're gonna continue working in the dealership through graduation and have kind of found their niche. And, you know, we're supporting the community and giving back to the community and all the different things that you could say about that.

[00:26:40] And then Harvin Guerrero, he is the only team member returning, at least as of today. Okay, he is still returning. There's going to be a lot of, I don't want to bore you with it, but there's a lot of stuff we have to work on to develop these new teams.

[00:26:59] And Harvin's definitely going to be instrumental in that because he's been doing this for a very long time. So hopefully he won't get frustrated working with some of the newer people. He'll be helping to educate those guys and bring them up to speed as well. Because when I asked Harvin, I said, okay, why do you want to return?

[00:27:14] Because he is going to graduate in June. And he said, because I'm not done and I think we can win it, you know, the entire thing. And I said, okay, that's a good reason. So again, Harvin's going to be instrumental in that. And Ms. Carver, do you want to say anything or you just want me to shut up so you can leave? One last thing real quick to Dr. McDade.

[00:27:33] May 25th, yes. You have it in your calendar. Very good. The only thing I would like to add is that Mr. Stevens is amazing what he does with our students. The patience, the hours that he spends, he's just amazing. And so if we can just give him another round of applause for what he does.

[00:27:52] our program is phenomenal because of him and the work that he does with our students and congratulations again to the number one engine team I just want to can I just add real quick um last year we I got to go to the the award ceremony that the the school had the mr. Stevens did and at one point he lined up his students who came back to partake in this and they went from the earliest years all the way around the room and stretched across to the latest years of the most recently graduated and that says something about you as an instructor as a human being your

[00:28:32] legacy you teach the people who come to you you teach them a habit of mind to be successful you teach them leadership skills i know that many of them go into the automotive industry but some of them also go into other industries and are wildly successful and uh it was just such a credit and a and just a a chilling moment in the best way possible seeing so many of your students lining up and just such a tribute to you so you if you don't know he's he's the legacy so thank you so much for everything you do and congratulations to the students too you uh i know you're going to

[00:29:09] take that mantle and run with it principal crawford i'd like to welcome you back to prince william county we're thrilled that you're our principal at cd hilton high school mr stevens uh you have created a destination program a first in class effort at one of our historically great high schools in Prince William County and we can't thank you enough and for you students you're leaving a legacy that will be difficult to replicate so best wishes congratulations and thank you all for the great work you do dr. McDade oh

[00:29:40] miss Jessie you invited me to your ceremony I think and then you did a presentation at one of our major events I've forgotten what that's called where we had all these people in the room and you the kids put together this motor and And I was just awestruck by that because you have changed how I view success for kids.

[00:30:09] You and Mr. Wright, because I am a kid who was the only one to go to college, so I thought everybody should go to college. And then I saw the amazing talents that you displayed through Mr. Wright. And I just want to thank you. And when I saw you, I remembered that you would not have a problem talking.

[00:30:28] So please invite me back, went to your school. really enjoyed being there. May 25th. May 25th? I put it on my calendar. Okay. Thank you. Ms. McDade and then we'll have you join us up here for some photos. Dr. McDade. Well first I do want to congratulate the Freedom High School football program for their first VHSL class six state championship. We're really proud of our student athletes and the positive representatives that they have been throughout the season both for Freedom and Prince William County at the state level. Also extremely proud of Hilton High School's Automotive Program engine building you definitely are not

[00:31:07] just a destination but you are an exemplary career and technical education program in Prince William County and so I was truly impressed and amazed at everything that I saw at the banquet watching the videos and the students at work I remembered Noemi I knew she was graduating so I was excited to see her come back so congratulations for taking home the win before you go to boot camp but honestly to all of the students and even for Mr. Stevenson I think that you already know this that all of the skills that our students are learning in the CTE program are transferable skills and applicable in life so

[00:31:45] congratulations again job well done and we are just so proud in Prince William

[00:31:49] County to have you representing us okay all right well thank you very much

[00:34:12] another round of applause for those fantastic students thank you again that was just, best part of this gig is just being surrounded by our amazing students and talent that exists all across the county. We're now moving on to the approval of, so this is our annual meeting.

[00:34:29] Since this is the first of the calendar year, we do an organizational meeting for the school boards. We're gonna run through a series of votes that are primarily organizational. 11.01, a motion's in order, Ms. Jackson. - Thank you, Dr. Lateef. I move that the Prince William County School Board approve the annual organization meeting as recommended.

[00:34:48] nomination for vice chair, clerk appointment, deputy clerk appointment, corporate, SOTI bond for the clerk and deputy clerk, times, dates and locations of school board meetings for 2023. Superintendents doesn't need to attend school board meetings, membership and professional organizations and appointment of representation.

[00:35:05] - Do I have a second? - Mr. Chairman. - Ms. Zargarpur. - I second. - Any discussion? Okay, please vote. Ms. Raulston, how do you vote? - Yes. - Ms. Raulston votes yes.

[00:35:28] - The vote is seven yes, one no. - Jesse, motion passed. - Moving on to nomination for vice chair. Nominations are now in order for the vice chair for the Prince William County School Board for 2023. I will actually make a motion that the Prince William County School Board elect Jennifer Wall, member of the Gainesville Magisterial District as vice chair for 2023.

[00:35:49] Can I have a second? - Dr. Ortiz. - Ms. Jackson seconds. - A second. - Any discussion? Please vote. - I have a discussion. - Oh, Ms. Jesse. - Hi, Jennifer, I have always admired you because you vote for, there's always seven sometimes, and you're the only person that votes no, because you believe in certain things.

[00:36:13] And I strongly believe that this, your vote on collective bargaining and some other issues, so I will not be voting, and I want you to know why. Thank you. - Any further discussion?

[00:36:29] Okay, please vote. Ms. Raulston, how do you vote? - Yes. - Ms. Raulston votes yes.

[00:36:49] - Just want to make sure. The vote is six yes, two no. Jesse and Wilk, motion passed. - Okay, fantastic. Well, congratulations, Ms. Wall. We look forward to working with you this year and I'll take a minute to just thank Ms. Jackson.

[00:37:09] Ms. Jackson, who served as vice chair for this last year during a tremendously difficult year. I don't know if there's a school board year since the pandemic that won't be difficult, but thank you, Ms. Jackson, from I think all of us for being a tremendous vice chair, someone that I've been able to work with someone who's helped carry a 7% raise for teachers this year, someone who's helped guide some of the most difficult work we've had to do as far as recovery and re-engagement with the pandemic and all of the work you do for your district and you continue to do for your district, we will continue to support you in those efforts.

[00:37:44] So thank you and I'd like to have a round of applause for Vice Chair, Ms. Jackson. Okay, at this point, I will ask for a motion from Ms. Jennifer Wall of Gainesville District Vice Chair on the clerk appointment, Ms. Wall.

[00:38:00] - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that the Prince William County School Board appoint B. Simpson as clerk of the Prince William County School Board for 2023. The salary for the clerk shall be as currently budgeted. - Mr. Chairman. - Ms. Williams. - I'd like to second that motion.

[00:38:16] - Ms. Williams seconds that motion, any discussion? Okay, Ms. Jessie and then Ms. Williams. - I just wanna say she's great. - She's great, outstanding. Ms. Williams. - I would like to concur on Ms. Jessie.

[00:38:32] opinion and and miss Simpson thank you for all that you do for this board your service to us has been exceptional as I say annually you do an excellent job at herding us cats around and getting us to comply I appreciate everything that you do and your service tests I think I most of the board would echo that miss Simpson and so thank you very much so miss Raulston how do you vote on the reappointment of deputy clerk B Simpson or clerk deputy B Simpson how do you

[00:39:04] Ms. Raulston absolutely yes outstanding yes Ms. Raulston all right we're moving on now did you count them well the vote is it yes okay outstanding thank you unanimous very good moving on to 11.04 Ms. Wall Mr. Chairman I move that the Prince William County School Board appoint Anna Udayete as Deputy Clerk of the Prince William County School Board for 2023 the salary for the Deputy Clerk shall be us currently budgeted do i have a second miss jesse miss jesse seconds a motion

[00:39:41] any discussion miss jesse this girl is amazing that's all i can say when she came she takes care of the calendar she takes care of you and she's so pleasant and i just love working with her thank you ditto on that miss jesse miss ralston how do you vote yes mrs ralston votes yes - The vote is eight yes, motion passed.

[00:40:14] - Outstanding, moving on to 11.05, Ms. Wall. - Mr. Chairman, I move that the Prince William County School Board require a corporate surety bond of $10,000 for the clerk and deputy clerk to the school board, conditioned upon the faithful performance and discharge of their duties, with the premium for such bonds to be paid for by the school board.

[00:40:33] - Do I have a second? - Mr. Chairman. - Ms. Zargarpur. - I second. - Any discussion? Please vote. Ms. Raulston, how do you vote? - Yes. - Ms. Raulston votes yes.

[00:40:52] - The vote is eight yes, motion passed. - Next motion, 11.06. Motion's in order, Ms. Wall. - Mr. Chairman, I move that the Prince William County School Board establish the location of its regular school board meetings at 14715 Bristow Road, Manassas, Virginia, on the first and third Wednesdays of the month, January through June and September through December.

[00:41:14] Meeting shall convene at 6:00 p.m. and immediately following the approval of the agenda, the school board will enter closed session until 7:00 p.m., at which time the public meeting will resume. Adjustments to the meeting calendar will be made to accommodate spring break and the annual Virginia School Boards Association Conference.

[00:41:30] - Do I have a second? - Mr. Chairman. - Ms. Zargarpur. - I second. - Any discussion? Please vote. Ms. Raulston, how do you vote? - Yes. - Ms. Raulston votes yes.

[00:41:48] - The vote is eight yes. Motion passed. - Moving on to 11.08. A motion is in order and it's a long one, folks. Ms. Wall. - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that the Prince William County School Board approve the appointments for the organization's committees as follows.

[00:42:03] One, continue membership on 11:07. - 11:07. - That's the superintendent. Oh, sorry. - Did we miss that? Is that on my script? All right, 11, sorry, 11:07. - Okay, I will do this. I move that the Dr. Carol Finard, deputy superintendent, be appointed as the designee of the division superintendent to attend meetings of the school board in the absence or inability of the superintendent to attend through December 31st, 2023.

[00:42:36] - Second. - Mr. Chairman. - Ms. Williams. - Second. - Any discussion? Please vote. Ms. Raulston, how do you vote? - Yes. - Ms. Raulston votes yes.

[00:42:59] Really learn how to use a computer. - I think my vote is eight yes, motion passed. - Okay, 1108, this is the long one folks. Ms. Wall. - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that the Prince William County School Board approve the appointments for the organizations and committees as follows.

[00:43:19] One, continue membership in the Virginia School Boards Association for 2023. Two, elect Lisa Zargarpur to serve as delegate to the Virginia School Boards Association Annual Convention in Williamsburg, Virginia on November, 2023.

[00:43:35] Three, elect Lori Williams to serve as alternate to the Virginia School Boards Association Annual Convention in Williamsburg, Virginia in November, 2023. Four, appoint Justin Wilk to serve as representative to the Northern Virginia Special Education Regional Board for 2023.

[00:43:52] Five, appoint Lily Jessie to serve as alternate to the Northern Virginia Special Education Regional Board for 2023. Six, appoint Lori Williams to serve as representative to the National Alliance of Black School Educators for 2023. Seven, appoint Diane Ralston to serve as alternate to the National Alliance of Black School Educators for 2023.

[00:44:15] Eight, appoint Babur Lateef to serve as representative to the Prince William County School County and schools joint audit committee for 2023. Nine, appoint Adele Jackson to serve as alternate to the Prince William County and schools joint audit committee for 2023.

[00:44:33] 10, appoint Lori Williams to serve as representative to the Washington area boards of education for 2023. 11, appoint Lisa Zagraper to serve as alternate to the Washington area boards of education for 2023. 12, appoint Lily Jessie to serve as the representative on the Head Start Advisory Board.

[00:44:53] 13, appoint Adele Jackson and Jennifer Wall to serve as representatives on the Student School Health Advisory Board. 14, appoint Jennifer Wall and Lisa Zargarpur to serve as representatives on the Safe Schools Advisory Council.

[00:45:08] 15, appoint Adele Jackson and Jennifer Wall to serve as representatives to the PWCS Internal Audit Committee. 16, appoint Babur Latif to serve as alternate to the PWCS internal audit committee for 2023.

[00:45:24] 17, appoint Adele Jackson, Justin Wilk, and Lori Williams to serve on the school board disciplinary committee for 2023. 18, appoint Lily Jessie, Jennifer Wall, and Lisa Zagarpur to serve as the alternates on the school board disciplinary committee for 2023.

[00:45:42] - Do I have a second? - Mr. Chairman. - Ms. Zagarpur. - I second. - Any discussion, please vote. Ms. Raulston, how do you vote? - Yes. - Ms. Raulston votes yes.

[00:46:01] - The vote is eight yes. Motion passed. - That wraps up our annual organizational meeting. Moving on to 12.01 adoption of consent agenda. Ms. Wall, the motion's in order. - Mr. Chairman, I move that the Prince William County School Board approve the public meeting consent agenda as recommended.

[00:46:19] - Do you have a second? - Mr. Chairman? - Ms. Williams, any discussion? Please vote. Oh, yep, Ms. Williams. I just wanted to congratulate since we had our example of a career and technical educational program, students here this evening from the automotive program.

[00:46:38] I just want to continue to congratulate and praise Doug Wright for all the work that he's put in on the program, as well as everyone in his office and staff that work with career and technical education students. I look forward to our annual signing day. I just want to throw that out there now in advance because this will be the third year that we're doing it, so it's still very new.

[00:46:55] but I think just as we celebrate our student athletes, our career and technical education students also deserve the same recognition. And of course, I'm always excited for African-American History Month, so thank you. - Miss Jessie. - Hi, I wanted to go back to the African-American History Month and to recognize that we will be celebrating that.

[00:47:17] But I also want to use this time to remind everyone that the MLK program will happen the 3rd on, it's January 17th, 15th? 15th, I'm not sure the day, but anyway, to attend that.

[00:47:33] And I also wanted to comment on principles week and to principles, God bless you. I know how difficult it is, but it's just good work. Thank you. - Mr. Wilk. - Thank you, Dr. Lateef.

[00:47:49] I'll be succinct. I also agree with Ms. Jessie, recognizing our principles for the hard work they continually do with our launching, thriving future strategic plan. They are the boots on the ground with the staff. So I do wanna thank my 15 principals in the Potomac District and throughout the county.

[00:48:09] And I also do wanna recognize Career Tech Education Month. That's been a project I've been very passionate about since I came on the board and brought the partnership with the IBEW. And I still would love to see continual expansion of CTE programs, especially in our middle schools.

[00:48:26] And I know it's definitely something you are working on. So thank you. - Okay, Ms. Zargarpur. yeah just very quickly um school principals week uh i had not realized even though i am a teacher and i work in schools i had not realized quite the the um things that principals are constantly having to do so um just recognizing the hard work that they do thank you so much for that look at my list here and also the school counseling week our school counselors also have a separately challenging job i i'm proud of the fact that we have been able to budget more

[00:49:03] counseling positions so that we can work on the ratios and I know we need we have more work to do in that way but thank you so much for the work that you guys do and for career and technical I'm really proud that Hilton was able to come in and represent and I also some of the trades have helped some of my students who have been looking for internships and apprenticeships and things like that so thank you for those things Miss Williams I just wanted to I gave Miss Jessie the wrong date for MLK it's the 16th instead of 15th so I I want to correct my error.

[00:49:36] - Okay, please vote. Ms. Raulston, how do you vote? - Yes. - I would just echo everything the entire board said about all those agenda items and I would emphasize the appreciation we all have for our principals and our counselors.

[00:49:54] Our counselors do some tremendous work here and as Ms. Zargarpur points out, we've really tried to beef up our counseling and we're continuing every year to improve the ratio and we wanna continue to work on that, so thank you.

[00:50:10] Okay, so motion, did it pass? - The vote is eight yes, motion passed. - Thank you. Now we're moving on to citizen comment time. Those citizens who've signed up in advance with the clerk may address the school board this evening when they're called to the podium. The citizen comment period for regular school board meetings is one hour and citizens may speak on agenda items or other topics germane to the operations and policies of PWCS.

[00:50:29] Please use proper decorum manners while at the podium or you'll be asked to step aside. We ask that the audience please be respectful to each speaker and refrain from any clapping, cheering or jeering to avoid disruption of the meeting. If you do not do so, the board will recess and I'll ask the room to be cleared and restored to public order.

[00:50:45] When I call your name, please come up to the podium and state your name and address for the record. And where's my list? Do we have a list? Where's my list? Okay, our first person will be Mr. Jalen Custis and then after him will be Jennifer Roberts.

[00:51:02] Mr. Custis. - Hello, good evening. first would like to say uh thank you guys for happy new years actually uh and also the previous meeting a few meetings back where you guys actually brought in uh chief newsome to discuss that that was very helpful and very uh useful for the public um i would like to bring attention as some of you may not came here multiple times uh discussing the possibility of adding metal detectors as we saw in manassas recently they just added some new metal detectors i strongly believe

[00:51:40] that the board should continue these measures such as bringing back Chief Newsome and giving us more details in what are the plans and the steps to improve the safety at our schools because as a former student myself there were days where we were scared that there was possibly going to be a school shooting and that is not a safe learning environment and that is nothing a child or a student should have to think about while going to school so I highly encourage the board to continue looking to those matters and to make it more public about that so we can know what steps are being taken to keep our

[00:52:14] schools and our students safe. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Ms. Jennifer Roberts. Good evening Dr. McDade, Chairman Lateef, school board members and other school leaders. My name is Jennifer Roberts of the Gainesville District. My address is on file. Next month the nation as well as Prince William County schools will observe African-American History Month. I want every black Prince William County student to have the ability to reach his or her fullest potential

[00:52:50] instead of being emotionally damaged by racist behavior that is being perpetuated and in many experiences tolerated in our district no student should ever be subjected subjected to learning in an environment in which they are not emotionally safe unfortunately there are black students in our district who are the targets of racist behaviors including but not limited to being called a monkey, being publicly jeered with racist taunts, having monkey sounds and gestures made to them and being the target of the use of the N-word or the word slave.

[00:53:25] Some black students, especially black girls, are being rendered invisible or accused of being sassy instead of confident and secure. While no one educator or community member can prevent these despicable behaviors from occurring we can collaborate as a school community to not just say and write but enforce zero tolerance policies by the perpetrators which sadly includes some educators we can choose to be more intentional about building leaders making routine observations to more closely examine the classroom environments cafeterias and school buses we can proactively provide specific

[00:54:03] measures for the safe reporting of racist experiences. We can also retain, recruit, hire, and retain and support more black teachers and administrators. We can ask our students about their specific experiences at school as they relate to racism.

[00:54:20] No Prince William County school parent or guardian should have to transfer their student from one school to another to minimize the likelihood that they will be racially violated. Additionally, staff members who hear or observe these horrible racial violations have an obligation to swiftly address and report them.

[00:54:39] Some staff members are observing these behaviors and doing absolutely nothing to protect black students from them, and worse yet, are the staff members who engage in racist practices while hiding behind deceptive smiles, district-issued laptops, and ID badges.

[00:54:56] This is educational malpractice at its worst, and it is criminal. So this February, while we are celebrating Ruby Bridges, Mae Jemison, Amanda Gorman, and our very own Dr. LaTanya McDade, let's invest in looking at whether our educational leaders are helping to propel another generation of black leaders forward.

[00:55:16] Thank you. - Okay, thank you. That will complete citizen comment time, correct? Okay, we're moving on next to the office of the chief operating officer for 14.01.

[00:55:31] This will be student housing, elementary school attendance area recommendations for the 23-24 Rosemont-Lewis Elementary School. Vernon Bach. - Good evening. - Or Dr. McDade, sorry. - As you're aware, the division will open our newest elementary school, Rosemont-Lewis Elementary School, a placeholder name in recognition of the nearby park.

[00:55:51] At the beginning of the 23-24 school year, Principal Kelly Shroud has the honor of leading this new school to present an update on the elementary school attendance areas, adjustment and proposed boundaries plans at this time, I would like to invite Mr. Vernon Bach, our chief operating officer, to share a little bit more about the proposed boundary plans for Rosemont-Lewis.

[00:56:15] - Thank you, Dr. McDade. Good evening, Chairman Dr. Lateef, Vice Chairman Ms. Wall, board members, and Dr. McDade. It's truly my pleasure to open up the Rosemont-Lewis Elementary School attendance recommendations tonight. Coincidentally, I attended a planning meeting today with Kelly Strout, principal of Rosemount-Lewis, and there's some real excitement to the start of this new school year in this amazing new building.

[00:56:41] First, I'd like to thank Dr. Matt Cartlidge and his team, Scott Halsey and Chris Papp, for engaging the community in a process that has been highly engaging, transparent, and informative. This work began weeks ago by Dr. Cartlidge and his team when forming a volunteer committee of parents to begin this work.

[00:57:03] The volunteer committee has met five times to review attendance zones and to form recommendations for the board. I'd like to thank the members of the committee, the volunteer members, for their time and effort spent in this important work. Town hall meetings, two town hall meetings, were held to provide the community with opportunities to give feedback on the developed boundary plan options.

[00:57:25] During these town hall meetings, Dr. Cartlidge and his team arranged for interpreters for parents who required interpretation. During the entire boundary adjustment planning process, an online forum was opened and remained open for the community to provide feedback on these boundary options.

[00:57:44] And there are a lot of folks involved in this process, and I'd like to publicly thank them as well. If I mentioned each one by name, I'd run the risk of forgetting somebody, but you know who you are. At this time, I'd like to introduce Dr. Matt Cartlidge, who will present to you in much more detail the options, first the process, and then the boundary planning options.

[00:58:04] So Matt. Good evening, Chairman Lateef, members of the school board, and Dr. McDade.

[00:58:23] Welcome back, Dr. Cartlidge. Thank you, sir. This evening we will discuss the proposed plans that are being presented to the board for its consideration related to the Rosemont-Lewis Elementary School attendance area and the effort to reduce overcrowding in the greater Sudley area.

[00:58:45] On the screen right now is our agenda. We'll discuss kind of what is the current pain point in this area. We'll talk about the solution, and that's the form of a brand new beautiful elementary school that is scheduled to open next school year. We'll provide a brief overview of the legal framework that allows Prince William County schools to utilize pupil assignments before we then move into the proposed plans.

[00:59:07] Lastly, we'll discuss each of the features of the preliminary plan as well as plan two. So we're here this evening because there is significant overcrowding in the Greater Sudley area.

[00:59:27] Among these seven existing elementary schools whose attendance areas are drawn on this map, there are 24 portable classrooms, learning cottages, trailers, whatever you'd like to call them. There are 24 of them there.

[00:59:44] If we look at the school's projected capacity utilizations or how utilized these schools are being you'll notice that next school year all of these schools the blue bars they are overcrowded and if we look just three years after that 25 26 school year the growth continues so we do have a solution to the overcrowding in the form of the rosemont lewis elementary school the school is one of our newer three-story prototypes it will have wonderful amenities including resource rooms

[01:00:22] Fine Arts, Science Lab, Media Center. That would be a nice administration area and nurses clinic. The school is located near the intersection of Sudley Manor Drive and Ashton Avenue. If you can kind of picture the Costco in that general area of the greater Sudley area, it is just south of that intersection.

[01:00:44] The bus loop will be accessed via Crestwood Drive, while most of the other traffic will be going through the access off of Ashton Avenue to the parking lot and Kissin' Right area.

[01:01:00] As we describe the redistricting process used in Prince William County Schools, it's relevant to discuss how it fits into the legal framework. In close consultation with Division Council, we have provided these slides as an informational piece to be thorough.

[01:01:19] It's important to note that school boards have the authority to establish pupil assignments in Virginia, and it's up to the board to develop the procedures and policies implemented by by staff and the organization for all reassignments.

[01:01:40] Some of the key takeaways, I don't expect everyone to read the small print on this particular slide, but some of the key takeaways is to note that the neighborhood is the appropriate basis for determining pupil assignments. Not individual students, but the neighborhood is the appropriate level.

[01:01:56] Plans may bring awareness to the ways in which demographics are impacted by redistricting. And the third key takeaway is that neighborhoods cannot be assigned to a school on the sole purpose of ethnic origin or race.

[01:02:19] This short list summarizes the pupil assignment policy used here in PWCS. We'll dive more deeply into the first element, talking about the factors here in just a couple of slides. We've addressed the importance of the neighborhood being the appropriate basis for redistricting.

[01:02:35] And then lastly, the process is to have a public input process. One of the ways in which public input is incorporated into our boundary planning process is by the formation of a boundary planning committee.

[01:02:52] It's comprised of volunteers from the region most likely to be affected by reassignments. Our committee, as Mr. Bach indicated, met five times with staff this year and then attended two additional town hall style meetings. These were open to the general public during which the attendees could voice their feedback and any concerns that they might have with the proposed plans.

[01:03:15] The committee's work concluded with providing the school board the recommended plans this evening. I just want to reiterate that it's ultimately the school board's authority to establish the pupil assignments in the way that it sees most fit in an effort to ensure instructional effectiveness and promote the health, safety, and general welfare of all of our students.

[01:03:43] We'll wrap up the discussion of the Boundary Planning Committee by briefly mentioning its selection process that is outlined in Regulation 264-1 From the pool of applicants, the members were selected based on where they resided in areas most likely to be affected by reassignment.

[01:04:01] In the situation where there was kind of a tie or multiple applicants, preference was given to those who showed community or school engagement. All seven of the schools involved in this redistricting initiative had a member serve on the Boundary Planning Committee.

[01:04:28] The next slide will begin our review of the two proposed plans. What we have on our screen now is showing you how each plan is evaluated or what each plan attempts to do. The plans developed were done so in embracement as much as possible of these six criteria.

[01:04:48] Among some of the most relevant ones for this project was the balancing of student enrollment, facilitating efficient transport of students, avoiding the splitting of small neighborhoods, improving the geographic progression from elementary to middle to high school.

[01:05:04] And lastly, being mindful of the impacts to the demographic composition of the schools. At this time, we'll begin discussing the features of the two plans being presented to you this evening.

[01:05:21] Before going into too great of detail, I just want to remind everyone at home who's watching this that the best way to identify how your residents might be impacted by redistricting is to visit this website. The top link is provided in English, the second link, the entire website is in Spanish, and on tab five, you may enter your address and then a small little pop-up box will show you what your current school assignment is, as well as what your proposed assignment would be per the preliminary plan or plan two.

[01:05:59] Speaking of the preliminary plan, my team and I developed this at the onset of the planning initiative. We commonly refer to it as the preliminary plan or the proposed preliminary plan. On the next slides, we'll be identifying its key features and which neighborhoods are proposed for reassignment.

[01:06:22] The communities listed on this slide are being proposed for reassignment to Ellis Elementary per the preliminary plan. I'll briefly and quickly read through these neighborhoods to Ellis from Loch Lomond, Fairmont, Heritage Crossing Condos, Highland Park, Stonewall Acres, and Sunnybrook, from Westgate to Ellis Elementary, Manaport, and Westgate Plaza.

[01:06:49] Further preliminary plan proposed for reassignment to Loch Lomond from Yorkshire Bull Run Mobile Home Community to Mullen Elementary from Ellis Coverstone Four.

[01:07:08] To the new elementary school Rosemont-Lewis from Ellis Elementary, Crestwood or Terrorwood, Marywood Apartments, Rosemary Ridge, Subley Crossing Apartments, The Knolls at Bull Run. From Mullen to Rosemont-Lewis, Ravencrest Apartments, Stonebridge, The Knolls at Bull Run and Winchester at Bull Run.

[01:07:30] From Sinclair to Rosemont, Coverstone and Orchard Glen. To Sinclair Elementary from Sudley, Sudley Place, Sudley Section 4 and 5, Sudley Village, Sudley along Quail Court and Carrington Place and Anderson Court, portions of Brandon Way, Bland Drive, Copeland Drive and Greenview Lane.

[01:07:54] To Sinclair Elementary from Sinclair, Battlefield Overlook, Balls Ford, Prince William Gateway Park, and Sunset Strip. Provided to the board for its review is the data set related to the preliminary plan to kind of walk through the features on this particular table.

[01:08:18] Let's see if we, I'll have to verbally describe what you're looking at. At the left-hand side of the table, you'll notice that there's two gray columns related to facility data. The first column is the program capacity of the elementary schools.

[01:08:34] So just to be clear, this is the capacity the building based on which educational programs are housed there and it excludes the capacity that any portable classrooms would offer so this is just the permanent structure based on the educational programs housed there as we go over a couple columns you'll see that the next subset of data are related to the students who are residing within these attendance areas per the preliminary plan so these students may or may not attend the school but they reside within the school's attendance area. This gives us an idea of the total

[01:09:10] number of students involved before student transfers are factored in. For example, if we were to look at Rosemont-Lewis, there are 588 students residing within the school's attendance area per the preliminary plan. The percent of the school's capacity this equates to is roughly 90 percent. So roughly 90 percent of the school's capacity could be filled up if all the students who lived within its attendance area per the preliminary plan in fact attended the school if we continue to move right across the columns you'll see

[01:09:48] that we have information related to the demographics for the preliminary plan the first column is the percentage of English language learners Rosemont-Lewis is at 62 percent if we look at the total at the bottom overall for these affected schools the percent of English language learners is roughly 65%. Our next column to the right is the percent of minority students. These are students during the registration process who self-identify as non-white. Again these

[01:10:25] are based on the attendance area or the students who are residing within the Rosemont-Lewis for example. Percent minority is 89.1%. If we jump down to the bottom where it says total you'll see that the overall percentage of minority students among these seven existing schools is roughly 89.6 percent. All of those figures are not projected. Those are figures related to the students who were enrolled in the school district on September 30th of this year. If we move

[01:10:59] over to the next section where we have the school years 23-24, 24-25, and 25-26, this is the portion of the table where we begin discussing projections. The The projection for Rosemont Lewis for the preliminary plan is to open at roughly 92.9% of capacity.

[01:11:22] If we fast forward three years, you'll see that the school is expected to increase some and be just under 100% of capacity in the third year. It's important to note that among this area being impacted by redistricting, if all the schools were perfectly balanced in the third year in terms of enrollment, each school would be at 97.6% of capacity. Tables are not all that much fun to look at, so we have tried

[01:11:57] to use some data visualizations to offer up a little bit of a more digestible format. So in terms of capacity utilization, what we have on the screen is the preliminary plan for the first year that the school opens next year, and that's in the bluish purple columns, and then the yellow columns represent three years later. The reason we provide those two benchmark points is because the regulation says that we are to attempt to balance enrollment within 15 percent of that average 97.6 percent for the first

[01:12:32] three years the school is open so you'll see that among these schools that we are able to bring all of these schools under a hundred percent of capacity next school year or near a hundred percent of capacity our schools are expected to grow over the course of the next three years and that's why you see the yellow bars typically are taller or larger than the blue bars so just want to reiterate the preliminary

[01:13:06] plan is the plan that staff created it was the starting point that we provided to the committee and they then deviated from that and made a series of subsequent plans those plans all incorporate public input whereas the preliminary plan is just staff members looking at the analytics trying to present a plan that makes the most sense provided on the screen now is the outline of the committee's plan 2 or i'll probably just shorten it to plan 2 as i chat with you this evening this map is

[01:13:42] available on tab 4 of the rosemont lewis boundary portal both the english and spanish version we're going to run through the differences from the preliminary plan so a moment ago i was doing differences from current assignments we're just going to highlight now the differences of plan to from the preliminary plan. So to Rosemont Lewis from Mullen, Bull Run Swim and Racquet Club, Coverstone Four, Hillard Drive, and Carraway Circle. To Mullen from Rosemont Lewis Elementary,

[01:14:18] the community at Monitor Court, Ravenscrest Apartments, Paradise at Winfield Loop, and part of the Knolls at Bull Run. To Sinclair Elementary from Rosemont Lewis Elementary, Orchard Glen. From Sudley Elementary to Sinclair, Battlefield Overlook, Balls Ford, the neighborhoods

[01:14:43] off of Portisi Place and Jamaica Lane, Prince William Gateway Park, and Sunset Strip. To Ellis Elementary from Westgate, part of the Hallmark Manor, Henrico Street, and part of Clifton Street.

[01:15:06] To Westgate Elementary from Ellis, Manaport, and Westgate Plaza. To Sudley Elementary from Sinclair, Colton Lane, Henry Court, Saban Drive, Tasker Drive, and Yuma Court. Sudley, Quail Court, Carrington Place, and Anderson Court.

[01:15:25] Then portions of Brandon Way, Bland Drive, Copeland Drive, and Greenview Lane. Sudley Section 4 and 5, Sudley Place, and Sudley Village. Formatted in the same fashion as the preliminary plan, these are all the relevant figures for Plan 2.

[01:15:45] As I mentioned, we do try to augment these with data visualization, so we can skip forward to looking at the graphs, but like I said, it is formatted the same way. At your leisure, please dive into these. Looking at the capacity utilizations for all the schools in Plan 2, I think one of the nice things is you can see that the overcrowding in the greater Sudley area is greatly reduced.

[01:16:14] All seven of these schools are projected to be under capacity for the first year that the new school opens. Growth is anticipated to occur in this area. However, all schools except Fort Ellis and Sudley Elementary schools are forecasted to be under capacity even through the 25-26 school year per the Plan 2.

[01:16:42] We'll wrap up the presentation with a few more comparisons and data visualizations of the current boundaries and the proposed plans. The chart shown now helps you visualize the extent of projected overcrowding within the schools.

[01:17:01] You'll notice that we have the current boundaries on there, so the projected capacity utilization based on the current boundaries. So if we did nothing, we would expect the tall blue bars to come to fruition. The yellow bars are represented by the preliminary plan in the third year that the Rosemont School is open.

[01:17:21] Plan two is the far right column. That is kind of a grayish hue as we're seeing on these TVs. I'm not sure if that's absolutely true. Again, the key takeaway from this is that with either the preliminary plan or plan two, the new school is well utilized and is leveraged to reduce the overcrowding in this area.

[01:17:44] You'll notice some of the schools like Yorkshire and Loch Lomond, the capacity utilizations, the bars are the exact same height among the plans and that's simply because there were no deviations for those two schools between the preliminary plan and plan two.

[01:18:07] The two charts here provide us an insight into how the demographics might be impacted by the reassignments being proposed. The percentage of English language learners is provided to you based on the current attendance areas with the blue lines, the preliminary plan is yellow, and then plan two is kind of the grayish hue.

[01:18:31] You'll note that Rosemont Lewis does not have a third bar and that's simply because right now it does not have an attendance area. That's why we're here this evening. so among these two plans you'll notice that the demographic changes by school is not significantly different from what we are observing in the current attendance areas so at this time we'd like to provide you the recommendations the facilities department recommends to the school

[01:19:08] board that it receives the report and approves one of the presented boundary plan proposals that being either the preliminary plan or plan two it also asks you to permit rising fifth graders at these affected schools to remain at their presently assigned school if they choose for the 23-24 school year as a transfer student with the caveat that they provide their own transportation in closing i just have a long list of people to thank it's been a very collaborative process i'm the face here presenting this to you this evening but there have been so many staff

[01:19:46] members who have helped along the way so i definitely want to thank the superintendent staff dr hart our friends in transportation media translations communications the list goes on i'm sorry if i missed you but we really could not have brought this recommendation to you this evening without all of their help so thank you so much and thank you to my team who helped help this all happen thank you dr. cartilage great presentation just just for sort of housekeeping for the next presentation if you can have a slide with the list of

[01:20:23] the committee members who served and did the hard work we'd like to thank them and make sure they're recognized and public knows and then anyone else you want to add to the list if we can just put that on there is it in the it's in the report got it's in the report okay fine I'm sorry maybe put it up on the slide though just for sounds good make me happy okay any questions for dr.

[01:20:44] cartilage miss jesse you have to be familiarizing me with the process the preliminary plan is the plan that you guys put together in your office am i right that is correct the plan two is the committee bring to your office and they develop a plan is that correct yes through the course of five meetings with committee and to town hall style meetings we have helped them draft plan two and it deviates from plan from the preliminary plan because of the public input would you present to the committee

[01:21:22] to the community is there input from the community that changes the the aspects of the plan it is yes so after the first town hall community meeting we had the preliminary plan plan one and plan 1a presented to the public through the feedback and input we received the committee came back and developed a plan 2 that was then presented at the second town hall meeting where more feedback was provided what i will say is that after plan 2 was released a lot of the

[01:21:58] concerns vocalized were reduced it does a lot of things that public community members wanted to see it seems that all those schools all the schools seem to be title one type schools am i correct on that there's such a high minority high esol population in these schools there is there's a high concentration in this greater area yes i just want to thank you for excuse me

[01:22:28] the plan uh the plan two seems to uh have reduced the number the capacity situation and the percentages dramatically it seemed there was a slide where lock lowman was at 100 capacity and then it went down or something the next year i'm not sure which slide it was what how do you what do you attribute that to yeah you're recalling that correctly so if we were to do nothing with lock lowman's attendance area it would be over capacity and either the preliminary plan or plan

[01:23:06] to there is a community reassigned out of lock lomond that reduces its overcrowding well i want to welcome you back to the board uh it's been pleasant hasn't it it's always a pleasure i'm sure it was thank you miss wood thank you i just um you don't have to enter this now if you want to follow up later i'm looking at the um report that's here in number three of the report on page it talks about the amount of votes most committee members preferred.

[01:23:46] But it's worded a little funny to me. - Okay. - 'Cause it makes it look like only four committee members voted on plan two and nobody wanted the preliminary plan. So I think, I'm hoping that more than four people voted for this.

[01:24:02] - Yes, so-- - I'm not sure from the way it's written if you could just give me a little more information 'cause that's very confusing. I wouldn't wanna vote on something only four people voted on. yes that's completely understandable and please let me try to explain that and apologies for the vagueness on that so the report was drafted the morning after our final committee meeting and at our final committee meeting we did have a lower attendance from committee members so we sent we sent out the email to the whole committee saying those who were in attendance have voted this way please let us know if you object to presenting to the school board the

[01:24:40] preliminary plan and plan to the responses we've received back from the other committee members had that same sentiment they wanted those two plans to come to the board the rationale being the preliminary plan allows you to see where the process started and then plan to is the last plan they developed so it lets you see where it wrapped up after the public input process in order to be pure we only cited the votes in the report who were present at the last committee meeting and was everyone at the committee reached out to and and they were yes the whole committee the whole committee was reached out to via email

[01:25:18] our primary means of communication and then they responded back to us so it was the majority that did respond back correct I'm just concerned because I live in a title one area with a high English as a second language population and I know that communication is vital with a lot of these families they tend to work multiple jobs and language can be a barrier as well as Context and understanding the significance of the decision that you're making when you're not familiar with boundaries It's hard for us and I can speak for myself It's this is probably one of the most challenging things we do as board members because there's always so many things that you Don't realize until you go into a neighborhood or someone brings to your attention

[01:25:57] And so I just want to make sure that we're doing our our best to not have people here As we have in the past on the night of the vote who are like, hey By the way, this one-mile stretch is really like an hour, even though it looks like five minutes on the map. So I know that seems a little silly and simplified, but these are life-changing decisions for a lot of our families on whether or not they're able to participate in their students' activities in a building or get there and things of that nature.

[01:26:24] So I just wanted to make sure that we, A, publicly say that we've reached out to everyone, and B, also that we just have, because it's really important. Thank you. yeah I just want to follow up that every redistricting initiative has its challenges the ones that you just cited we've I've lived those the challenge of this particular redistricting initiative was the communication elements and I just want to offer appreciation again to the communication team and for translation team members who have throughout the whole process every slide deck that we presented at community meetings was translated into eight

[01:27:00] different languages and provided to everyone who wanted to tune in and additionally we had interpreters at our first committee meeting too even though none were requested just to ensure like you were identifying that language was not a barrier to being influential to this process thank you I appreciate that I know the challenges I've had in my district and getting members of the community come so I appreciate all your hard work thank you Mr. Agaport and then

[01:27:27] wall uh thank you dr latif um so i got a chance to listen to some of the community at um westgate this school has they're all walkers all of them and i've shared some of the concerns i heard can you talk about um i know there was a decision about having the iron gate community stay with well at one point at the first version they were supposed to go to

[01:28:01] ellis um and then in the in the last version it's this other little section um can you explain how is that a similar amount of children like is it like i'm gonna make up a number 50 for 50 or um that that's one question and then the other was sort of how is that was the decision to keep Iron Gate together more important than the other one I know Miss Wall and Miss Jackson and I have we all have schools in that area we've looked at these maps and talked about different things and it sounds like West Gates the

[01:28:38] the community that's more at least in from what I've heard more concerned about their walkers and and the transition of moving a whole section no matter which one it is to a school that they must be taking a bus for so I wonder is there something you could share with us especially after the second the the the plan that has been sort of decided on by the committee if there's some rationale or something you can some insight you could share on that yeah absolutely and Westgate's a challenge you know we built classroom addition on

[01:29:15] the school i believe it opened in 2012 or 2013 so the school itself has already been expanded despite its capacity being about 550 so it's a little bit smaller elementary school compared to some of the newer elementary schools being built in our county and it also is located in an incredibly densely populated area and i think that's what i want to jump off with on first of of your question if we assigned all of the walkers to Westgate the school would be at 124 percent of capacity so there's the decision there of do we want a

[01:29:52] school that overcrowded or do we you know maybe not what we want to do do we bus students who could be walkers to another school and so the idea of opening new elementary school was to reduce overcrowding in the greater Sudley area In the preliminary plan, and I'll admit it was really tough for the planning team and I to identify which neighborhood do we reassign away from Westgate, and despite one of the criteria being splitting, refraining from splitting small neighborhoods, we elected to split the Iron Gate community because it was most proximate to Ellis Elementary.

[01:30:30] That was the justification of the preliminary plan, and that is presented tonight to the board for its consideration. Westgate representative and some of the other community members you know they recognize that that's a violation of splitting neighborhoods so they elected to provide another option which is where you saw the additional neighborhood outside of the Iron Gate community proposed for reassignment to Ellis transportation wise you know it's it's doable we had transportation representatives at each of our committee meetings they've looked at that proposal they support it so either way though if we're going to reduce

[01:31:09] overcrowding at Westgate some walkers are going to have to be reassigned to another school yeah thank you for for framing it that way I did I did say in one of the community meetings that I know my Yorkshire families love their school I know my Westgate families love theirs everyone loves their school that's that's fantastic so I know no matter what they're going our kids are going to get a great education they're going to have teachers who love them and care very much about their education and their well-being so and I know as a parent I'd be nervous about a new community and I know that our

[01:31:46] principals and our teachers work very hard to build a welcoming environment so I know that's one set of worries that people have and the other was the you know the proximity to the school that they can walk to versus it's now a little bit more of an effort to get to a school that your children are bused to so thank you for for framing that I also want to thank Ms. Jackson and Ms. Wall because we worked over the break together and Ms. Jackson and I drove around some neighborhoods just to get an idea of the lay of the land and you know it is it Manassas is really it is dense it's like I know Westgate's dense but other part they're all dense and you've got lots of traffic and and things to

[01:32:24] consider so I know this was uh it was not easy and I am very appreciative of the committee members who put in this time and effort to do this work miss wall thank you mr chairman um my first comments are just nice it's a nice school it's really exciting i know um i'm really happy to see it come on board to relieve some of the crowding in the gainesville district um in at mullen and sudley and sinclair elementary schools so while rosemount lewis isn't actually in my district it does directly affect a lot of the families that i represent so i am very excited to see

[01:33:01] it come on board i also want to thank the volunteer committee members for your service to your community and to the board your work is very essential to our process and your voice is important and you do a lot of ground work for us and deliver these good you know good plans for us to consider so i want to thank you um i had um one question um regarding the two well i actually have two questions the first question is regarding the two community meetings that we that were were conducted I was wondering I know the intent of the community meetings is that we gather input that we otherwise might not know from the drawing of the

[01:33:39] preliminary plan and so my question is is there any is there something that you could share with us that you learned from the community meetings that was beyond the ability of planning staff to foresee that is would be insightful for us to understand the benefit of this plan a plan to where the committee ended yeah I just want to reiterate that the town hall meetings are one of the multiple ways that we do garner public input into this planning process so simply because they couldn't attend or had a conflict didn't mean that those voices weren't heard and incorporated from the public input process I think

[01:34:18] one of the ways that my mind was kind of changed and it's thinking was the importance of keeping the Iron Gate community together in Westgate it seemed like a rather large densely populated townhome style community and my initial thinking was well if we just take this piece over here it's closest to Ellis that makes the most logical sense so that was a surprise for me as a planner who's been doing this for quite a while to see in plan two how that was a feature changed from the preliminary plan and it reminds me of why we do it this way just because it looks good at the first glance and the numbers work

[01:34:56] well and the algorithms put this out so nicely at the end of the day these are families these are communities who have interests and that's why we do this process thank you that was actually very helpful and thank you for reminding me that there is also the online forum and where people can email in comments and you probably got a lot of comments through that we did we did yeah so thank you for that reminder I'm looking at that the slide about to 264 - one I was curious and i haven't been around long enough i mean i have been around a long time but not long

[01:35:33] enough paying attention to this issue um to know when the last reassignment was in this area in this area that it's probably been a while um it was around 2013 when westgate received its addition okay 2013 so we're looking at about a decade correct that things have been static kids and neighborhoods have been kind of familiar with their neighborhoods and where they've been assigned expectations and all of that right so the fear of reassigning a particular neighborhood multiple times at the elementary level it might affect one family somewhere but you would assume that an elementary student would

[01:36:10] matriculate through in six years so we're outside of that window okay that's that's really great actually to know and my I guess I have one more question but the last question is I know we are anticipating a lot of growth from those slides in the Ellis and Mullen I think in Rosemount Louis primarily Ellis attendance primarily Ellis and so I'm assuming my uncomfortability is when we open a new school oh this isn't the new school but you know Rosemount is that we don't overcrowd the new school within a very short amount of time right and I know right now Ellis is overcrowded and it's going to be overcrowded again and I guess we just have to anticipate that we're going to have a new school coming

[01:36:50] on board somewhere that will relieve that within four or five years well there are there are multiple tools we have at our discretion for overcrowding relief if it's a short-term thing we could bring trailers in for a short term as a large cohort progresses through alternatively we could build additions new schools but we also can look at other neighboring schools to Ellis and see whether that could be a place where a neighborhood or a new residential development were reassigned and you could adjust the overcrowding through that means too okay so it's something that we want to monitor where we are monitoring it and we know that further action will be needed in the future okay

[01:37:30] thank you thank you very much Dr. Carledge real quick on that note before you go off that down in maybe mr. Bach or dr. McDade the just remind me in the CIP do we have plans for an elementary school out in that area western part nothing in the plan or any additions put in the CIP at all right now right there is one elementary school I can't recall the particular year it's well out there related to the proposed residential community along Prince William Parkway Klein Klein property yes that's one potential okay all right and then Miss

[01:38:08] Jackson so my question also has to piggyback off of that I just really want to make an informed decision so I'm really thankful for the presentation tonight and then the community meetings and then separately the drives that I I had with Ms. Wall and Ms. Zagervo at separate times with weeks in between just driving around the neighborhoods.

[01:38:30] I am very concerned about the enrollment number of projections at Ellis Elementary within a short few years. While I recognize that I asked a bunch of questions and thank you for your time in answering that prior to this meeting, I did have a number of constituents reach out to me and also express concern at the fact that there's a new school and that's being built to relieve overcrowding and it does but Ellis will be according to plan to at 102 capacity

[01:38:59] by year 2025 it will be at 123 percent capacity by 2029 2030 so as because my members of my community touched on this and I'm sure if you could touch it on it a little further have expressed concern could you speak to some of the reasons for why um there is the potential of overcrowding in just a few short years yeah so what the projections are reflecting is the innovation south residential community being constructed in the future and as it is

[01:39:36] constructed we assume it to generate students at similar rates to other similar kinds of residences in that general area and that's why you see ellis increase as it goes up and right on the chart as miss wall indicated you know there are opportunities there to reduce the overcrowding further in the future we're going to monitor that and evaluate other projections of other schools and consider redistricting that school in the future all right thank you so that in summary is but it's developments that haven't come yet that's correct okay so if Ellis

[01:40:13] elementary right now is at eight around 89% and it has one trailer I am concerned about how many trailers it will have at a hundred and twenty six percent a hundred and twenty three percent overcrowding is a problem for many reasons including that you know it's not instructional best practice but I'm also concerned that we will have to interrupt the community again in order to address overcrowding which is why I've been asking so many questions so thank you for your time and I will have more questions and so I know we have to follow up on a few more of them so I look forward to touch base further before the next vote because from my perspective of both a parent and a

[01:40:50] teacher and a board member I being part of a school community feeling included is an important factor in student success so thank you for your time tonight yeah thank you mr. Wilk thank you I just you don't want to add and thank you for being here having most recently been through this attendance recommendations with the Potomac Shores Middle School, I do realize that no matter what the proposal is, it'll never please every stakeholder.

[01:41:15] I do wanna thank my colleagues in the board who represent the seven elementary schools impacted by the changes with opening a new elementary school. I also wanna thank the building principals and their staff for serving as a voice for the communities and the parents. And finally, I wanna recognize those community members who represented their communities on the Boundary Planning Committee.

[01:41:34] Thank you for the presentation. - I'd like to echo Mr. Wilkes' comments. I wanna first say that Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilk did a fantastic job with the boundaries at the middle school and it was very well done.

[01:41:50] They spent a lot of time working with the community. I wanna thank Ms. Wall, Ms. Jackson, Ms. Zargarpur for the work they've done over break and working with the community. What I wanna emphasize to everyone is this is just a first reading of the plans. You still can email Dr. Cartlidge's office on your opinion on the plans if you live in those districts and your concerns, you can email the school board members as well.

[01:42:13] So please do so. Please take a look at the plans, get on the website. Are the tools still available on the website? - They are, yes. - So there's some neat tools to take a look at what changes are made with the boundaries. We do have, Dr. Cartlidge, a hearing before the next meeting that is a public hearing solely on the boundaries, correct?

[01:42:35] - Yes, it's at your January 18th meeting. - That's two weeks from now. - Correct. from today, there will be a public meeting where citizens can comment specifically on this issue alone. But I would, you know, encourage everyone to reach out to the school board members. They will be working with Dr. Cartilage's office on any input that they're currently receiving from the community.

[01:42:55] So I can't thank you all enough. I think Mr. Wilk eloquently stated all the thanks. And Dr. Cartilage, Mr. Bach, thank you very much. Appreciate everything. - Thank you. - Okay, thank you. We'll move on next to our student representative, Chance Williams.

[01:43:12] He's joining us this evening from Forest Park High School. And Chance, take it away. - Thank you, Dr. Lateef. Good evening and happy new year. As of this exact date and time, I am exactly five months away from graduation.

[01:43:32] As somebody with the last name W, I'm very used to being late. I am truly excited and ready to enter the world with all the tools and opportunities that Prince William County Schools have given me. I can hardly process the idea of leaving PWCS after going to school here my entire elementary, middle, and high school education.

[01:43:50] I am earnest and deliberate about ensuring my efforts as student representative will leave a positive impact for PWCS schools in our community. Before winter break, I was moving around and I had the chance to meet with numerous individuals, including the Chief of Police, Mr. Peter Newsham. It was truly an honor to be able to talk to him directly and discuss possible changes and improvements between our students and our school resource officers.

[01:44:13] I believe that by improving relationships between our students and our local officers, we can improve relationships between our officers and our communities. When incidents happen in our communities, the students know most of the details, but will not share due to lack of trust with adults. By working with our SROs and their leadership, I believe we can help our students while ridding the stigma of ineffective policing and bad cops.

[01:44:34] Following this meeting, I met with PWCS Director of Food Services, Mr. Adam Russo. To go over food quality and to reassure students that we are getting the best quality food. As a student, I often hear concerns of possible rotten or expired food, and the truth is, when feeding nearly 90,000 students, mistakes happen.

[01:44:51] There will be things that accidentally slip through when they should have been caught, and as the customers in this situation, it is the student's job to speak up about the issues when they happen so that they can be resolved. This isn't simply posting on social media and complaining. It is talking to your cafeteria staff and asking for something new.

[01:45:07] The last thing anyone wants is for our students to go hungry, and nutrition and energy are important for long school days. Lastly, I met with Ms. Dana Johnson, principal of my old elementary school, Mary Williams Elementary. I wanted to make sure I was getting a wide range of student voices in these meetings, and this was definitely a great way to do so, as I feel if sometimes our elementary schools are seemingly unseen, as we focus more on the end of our students' education rather than their beginnings.

[01:45:34] When talking to Ms. Johnson, she pointed something out to me. When a student struggles in reading early on, they are likely to struggle in reading later. Elementary school is where students get their foundation. It is hard for students to learn their need-to-knows when many of them aren't even present in school.

[01:45:50] An issue PWCS is currently struggling with is low attendance rates. With students not going to class, this leads to lower grades, which can lead to lower graduation rates, and frankly, we can't have that. We can counter these low attendance rates by encouraging our teachers and staff to do wellness days.

[01:46:05] I understand the time constraints our teachers are under to teach necessary materials, but with some schools not having flex and all students needing a break. It is important to encourage students, and yes, teachers too, to catch up and to breathe, to take the time to truly learn and master the material.

[01:46:23] This is not only beneficial to the students, but to the teachers. The more time we can give them to do this work during the day, rather than intruding on family time, athletics, and extracurriculars, the better. The idea of a wellness day also aligns with the focus on mental health and increasing mental health resources.

[01:46:38] At our lower grade levels, we have to emphasize to our parents and guardians that students cannot learn all of the material online. COVID forced students to learn online, but this is no longer the case. Our students need to be in the classroom. Another thing that would benefit students and teachers would be a conflict resolution review process for teachers and staff.

[01:46:59] In situations where there is a problem between staff and students, often students will report it because they believe no one cares or that nothing will happen. In situations in which students are made uncomfortable or perhaps most of the class is failing, there should be a way for students to advocate for their education, school environment, and overall academic well-being.

[01:47:17] We want a space whereby students can report an issue and it's taken seriously and addressed. Likewise, students must also be able to identify issues or raise complaints and present possible solutions. While the ombudsman is in place, many students truthfully don't know what it is or how it benefits them.

[01:47:35] I will do my part by following up with various schools to see how the ombudsman process works and perhaps students, teachers, staff, and students, teachers, staff, administrators, and the board can work together to improve our schools with genuine communication, collaboration, and problem solving.

[01:47:51] As budget season approaches, I apologize as I revisit a few things close to me. A lot of students in the county, but I believe it's important that they're all properly addressed. I'm going to turn back to robotics as FIRST Robotics begins this Saturday. With over $30,000 going through this team annually, it is a huge deal, and I believe it deserves a little extra attention.

[01:48:13] This is the highest level of robotics platform offered and often jumpstarts many careers for students, as I know a young lady who went to Stanford and is currently planning a mission to the moon. Many of you have seen VEX Robotics, including Ms. Williams, who stopped by Battle of the Bridge to watch my team, Forest Park, and other PDOC, Prince William County Schools, middle and high school teams compete.

[01:48:33] These different levels and competitions require thousands of dollars, leaving coaches with hundreds of out-of-pocket costs because they want to see their team succeed. Prince William County schools should want these teams to succeed as well.

[01:48:48] Students, oh, excuse me, there you go. Missing a page, I apologize. Another thing, focus, ah, excuse me. Schools are seemingly unfocused at the end of their, oh, I am so sorry, I'm all out of order.

[01:49:12] As, there you go, okay. Apologies, a page didn't print, but I remember what it was about. I would like to continue on with the budget and talk about e-hall pass. Many students have brought up a concern about e-hall pass and how it operates at a recent student workshop we had with Dr. McDade, who was present to deliver final remarks.

[01:49:30] I believe, most students believe, that the e-haul pass system does not work. Most teachers do not use it, and most students often don't work with it. A lot of students actually raise complaints about e-haul pass, as when there's a substitute, they cannot access the system, meaning most students cannot leave the classroom.

[01:49:46] There's also concerns of the budget, as it costs Prince William County Schools money, when it could be saving us a couple thousand dollars, because it's being unutilized. It is equipment that is sitting there when the money could be going elsewhere. When there's a substitute, oh, I found it.

[01:50:02] I plan to follow up with our student reps to see how other schools in the county use e-haul pass to see if the county is really putting money towards something useful. I believe it's incredibly important to focus on what we are actually using versus what we can cut. Another thing I believe is crucially important is a student rep, Prince William County Schools controls Instagram and websites.

[01:50:23] When we make our remarks and we deliver information, it is important that the students see changes and they see updates. These updates show the students that there are actually changes and that you are actually listening. And I believe that may be one of the most crucial parts of my position, to deliver feedback, to suggest problems, to show solutions, and to also educate the students on what's actually being done and what's being changed to benefit them.

[01:50:48] A website and a social media run by Prince William County Schools would help with this. As I close my remarks, I want to once again thank Ms. Williams for coming to the competition. It is always nice to see board members away from the board. I would also like to thank Mr. Wilk and Ms. Jessie for their interest in a student talent hall happening soon at Forest Park.

[01:51:06] I am working to make sure there's an amazing opportunity to hear mass student input. Thank you. - You mean to tell me they don't give you like a block of wood that says pass to go out in the room? Like out in the hall, isn't that what we used to do? We don't do that?

[01:51:22] We have paper slips or something? - So at Forest Park specifically, most teachers will try to use the e-haul pass system and it's really finicky. But before we used to have little necklaces with hall pass on. - Yeah, yeah, that's cool. - That's cheap. - Yeah, and some of the CTE teachers, 'cause we're really big on 3D printers and laser cutting, they'll make their own little 3D printer or wood-cutted hall passes.

[01:51:42] And truthfully, I believe those work the same, 'cause if you have one, you know where you're supposed to be at. And if you don't, then maybe you're not supposed to be there. The e-haul pass system is just an extra step because now you have to go to a little podium and press buttons and clarify why you're where you're at when you could have been there and back and in class.

[01:52:00] - All right, all right. Dr. McDade, we'll have some homework here. - Thank you, Sam. - Dr. McDade, superintendent's time. - All right, thank you, Chairman. As students and staff return from our holiday break and begin a new calendar year, we are beginning to finalize plans for the 2023-24 school year, including the budget.

[01:52:19] The fiscal year '24 proposed budget and capital improvement program continue to support the vision 2025 launching thriving future strategic plan the proposed budget aligns investments in our four strategic commitments learning and achievement for all positive climate and culture family and community engagement and organizational coherence i expect to share the fiscal year 2024 proposed budget and cip with the school board on february 1st with a public meeting on the proposed budget scheduled for february 6th and public hearing

[01:52:55] scheduled for February 15th. The school board will consider approval of the budget and CIP on March 15th before submitting it to the Board of County Supervisors for their consideration. I encourage all stakeholders to engage in this important process as we prioritize funding for the benefits of our students. Please look for budget updates on our website and through the scoop in the near future I want to conclude my time by congratulating our new vice chairwoman Jennifer Wall I look forward to continuing our mission together to see

[01:53:33] every single student graduate on time with the knowledge skills and habits of mind necessary to create a thriving future for themselves and their community I also want to thank you miss Jackson for your dedication to our students as the vice chairwoman of our school board for the past year it's been an honor to work with you in that capacity and your service is sincerely appreciated. Mr. Chairman that concludes the superintendent's report. Dr. McDade thank you. We'll go to 1701 proposed policy 796 division counsel. Oh actually

[01:54:09] I'm sorry we need a motions in order. Dr. Vice-chair Wall. Okay I move that the Prince William County School Board approve the proposed policy 796 sexually explicit materials. Do you have a second? Mr. Chairman. Ms. Williams any - Any discussion?

[01:54:30] This is the, we already had the first reading on this, correct? - All right, any questions for division counsel on this? - Okay. - Ms. Williams? - No. - Okay, seeing no discussion, please vote. - Oh, Mr. Wilk, yes, I have a paragraph.

[01:54:47] - Okay, yes. Regarding this policy, we are voting to follow the required regulation and policies enacted by the VDOE. In my opinion, the regulation does not conflict with any type of existing case law or the fourth circuit rulings and does not target individual groups of students.

[01:55:06] As previously stated in our December meeting, I know our division has been proactive in addressing these types of materials. I do not believe this will be a tremendous undertaking for our system. Therefore, I will support this policy. - Thank you, Mr. Welk. - Ms. Walke.

[01:55:22] - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to this policy hopefully passing, but I do want to say something I feel like it's important to say as a parent and I hope to say this as delicately as possible it is well to be worried about the exposure of our children to sexually explicit content and as careful as schools will be and should be we as parents should be also very mindful

[01:56:00] of those devices that our children can access at any time of day, because there is a lot of inappropriate information and material on those devices.

[01:56:15] So the concern that I've heard from the community about these issues is very, very significant and is very important, and I just wish to acknowledge that, you know, we also should be concerned about other places that our children are exposed to sexually explicit material and it would behoove us all to be very diligent I know I attended last year a couple of parent meetings that principals hosted where they had members of task forces FBI internet crimes against children folks who were very blunt with the parents about what things their children can come in contact

[01:56:55] with with it's not even the children seeking it it's the that's that information and those things are seeking their children so I just wish you know I'm happy about this policy I feel it's the right move and I feel like we as adults need to be very vigilant so we can protect our children and not you know see their innocence robbed from them by inappropriate and inadvertent exposure to sexually explicit material okay miss Williams thank you I just miss well we do have policy currently for our computer devices you're referring to

[01:57:32] personal devices I was just referring in general as parents I just want to make sure as parents what we are public the pup because we're mindful when we have our conversations but I just want I'm sure you wanted to clarify that for the public yeah we do have our own devices in Prince William County Schools right policies already right so I just I'm sorry I wanted to be all with that and I also just wanted to remind the public that we should all be respectful of everyone's definition of inappropriate because what may be for one family may not be for another and because we are a public school system we should always keep that at the forefront of our minds when making our determinations and how

[01:58:10] they affect our other families currently in residing in our school division thank you miss sorry for just one last one last thing is communications very important anytime you do have a concern about anything educational please reach out to your teachers. They are going to be, we want communication to be good between our families and our schools.

[01:58:34] - Okay, please vote. Ms. Raulston, how do you vote? - Yes. - Ms. Raulston votes yes. - Eight yes, unanimous, motion passed. - Okay, moving on 1702, revisions policy 910, public information program.

[01:58:51] This item is on for first reading. I have here Mr. Wait, yeah, Mr. Mr. Anderson, you want to turn it over to Ms. McGowan? Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[01:59:07] This item will be presented. It's been a project that Ms. McGowan has been in charge of, and so I'm going to ask her that she present it to the board. Thank you. Good evening. Welcome back, Ms. McGowan. Good evening, members of the board, Dr. McDade. The board will recall that when Dr. McDade arrived here, she was asked by the board to take a look at our social media policies with an eye towards modernizing them, updating them in recognition of a lot of challenges and benefits that we realized during the pandemic involving the use of social media. And so since

[01:59:45] then, I have been chairing the superintendent's task force, and we have been going over these policies. The policy you have before you tonight is policy 910, and it has an ancillary regulation, 910-1, which contains our current social media policy.

[02:00:04] The task force has drafted a new social media policy, which is contained now in new regulation 910-2, which has been attached to the agenda so that the public can have an opportunity to look at it. The policy that's before the board tonight, formal policy 910, is being recommended for revision in order to coordinate that parent policy with the new regulation.

[02:00:29] And essentially, it recognizes that the board appreciates the benefits of using social media, particularly webpages, websites, and social media platforms to further the board's educational mission. And the policy also contains a disclaimer, which is mirrored in the regulation, a disclaimer that the board is not responsible for websites, webpages, or social media platforms that the board that are not officially approved by the school boards IT department and we've also modernized a few other aspects of the policy such as

[02:01:08] the legal references so that's what's before the board tonight will be coming to you at the next board meeting for a vote you have any questions thank you so if anyone has any questions or concerns you know please I'll take them now but if not please can email them or call miss McGowan or division counsel's office I would encourage the public to take a look at these policies they are going to be posted publicly for everyone to take a look and if you have any questions or concerns please email your school board members thank you miss McGowan great

[02:01:42] moving on to 1703 collective bargaining mr. Anderson thank you mr. chairman this board is well aware in the spring in the fall adopted a resolution approving of collective bargaining by board employees it was amended then in November December and that resolution required any employee organization seeking to be

[02:02:18] the exclusive representative of a bargaining unit and there were two bargaining units established one for licensed personnel and one for support personnel any entity or organization that wanted to represent those employees needed to show 30% that they had signatures from 30% of the employees in that defined bargaining unit as a showing of interest in being represented on December 19th 2022 the Prince William Education Association reached that threshold and submitted signatures that were then verified by a third-party

[02:02:52] neutral arbitrator and what is attached in this item in 1703 and board docs are the determinations issued the verifications issued by that arbitrator section 8b5 of the school board's resolution as amended provides that once the dispute resolution neutral verifies an exclusive representative showing of interest for a request for certification notice of the request will be included on the agenda at the next school board meeting therefore those verification forms have been posted in accordance with the board's amended resolution any

[02:03:30] Any questions for Mr. Anderson? - Okay, again, there's Mr. Wilk. - Oh, I thought we were doing comments or, oh, you know, I just wanna state things tonight, yeah. I do wanna thank the division for providing this update on collective bargaining.

[02:03:49] Wade, my goal moving forward is to ensure this election is not a boondoggle. Given the requirements to select union representation, I will provide my utmost support and imbue our certified and classified staff to vote during the provided timeframe. Thank you.

[02:04:05] - Okay, I think Mr. Wilkes said nicely. We encourage everyone to participate in the election and it is critical to have as many people as we can encouraged to work on this and participate in the vote. Thank you, Mr. Anderson, for all the hard work on this.

[02:04:21] This is, it's been a tremendous effort by your office and then the entire team and Dr. McDade's office. Moving on now to board matters. I think last time we started with Mr. Wilkes, so this time we'll start with Ms. Jessie.

[02:04:39] I'm not sure which slide I have. Okay, good. I want to take this time to congratulate the Woodbridge High School's arts team.

[02:04:57] I attended what I consider to be a very professionally done production by the choir, the dance department, the concert band, and the concert orchestra. The last two performances by the concert band and concert orchestra were under, the conductor was Taryn Wood.

[02:05:20] You see, she's a tiny little thing, but she's a powerful person. She has been at Woodbridge for 14 years. She conducted the band performances by the following orchestras in their winter concert with precision and what I would call a stunning performance. These orchestras were the concert, varsity, symphonic, and symphonietta.

[02:05:42] Sorry if I pronounced that incorrectly. But I would like to salute the Woodbridge High School arts team. They are not an art school, but they have a great arts program. i think i have a slide from occoquan elementary do we it didn't get up okay occoquan elementary had its annual multicultural event at least 16 countries were represented by students dressed in their native dress that was complemented with music and food from many countries it was a standing room only event i also like to take this time to congratulate and thank mr william

[02:06:21] Williams Knights who was assistant principal who retired from Occoquan that is my board matters for tonight. Thank you. Ms. Williams. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I would like to start my board matters out with again congratulating our historic Freedom Football High School team. It has been a pleasure over my years serving as board member to watch the team grow and develop and to bring home a state championship in addition to that I attended so many events over well since our last school board meeting and there haven't been any new ones yet so far and

[02:06:58] it was just a pleasure to be able to catch up it was they were almost all exclusively elementary it had been a while since I've been to so many back to back elementary school events special shout out to Belmont the music teacher there is on her 40th year teaching music she is absolutely amazing and to watch her walk into a room and just simply do this with a smile and every single elementary school student just in complete awe that woman is amazing and I just wanted to give Belmont and her special shout out for probably one of

[02:07:36] the best winter music sing-alongs I've ever been to it was a lot of fun in In addition, I just want to continue to bring recognition to our upcoming CTE signing day in the spring. I'm just very excited about that. It is something that I have advocated for and probably one of the few times as a board member where I was like so excited to have an idea and Mr. Wright was coming at me at the same time with the same idea.

[02:08:00] So it's just been wonderful to watch that program grow. To our members of our public, next week, I believe the General Assembly starts their session. I bring that up to remind the public that what occurs in Richmond affects our public schools here. Public education is very important.

[02:08:17] There will be discussions on new legal requirements for everything under the sun related to public education. I highly encourage our public to stay tuned and see what is going on down in Richmond and how it will affect us in the years to come.

[02:08:33] And outside of that, I am just glad that we are back in school. Thank you to all of our staff members who came back with smiling faces and open arms for our students. Thank you, students, for coming back. And I just wanna send a special thank you and appreciation to our virtual school and our virtual school families.

[02:08:51] Spirit Week celebration this year, I was able to participate in with the virtual students. It was a lot of fun. I want to continue to give praise to Mr. Gillespie, who is our principal, for all of the activities that occur for our virtual students, the plannings, the office hours.

[02:09:07] This is his first school year being a principal and the communication, and the activities, and extracurricular events, and the really truly collaborative nature in which he leads our virtual program is amazing, and we don't talk about it enough. I know Chance brought up students being seats in the building, and that is also important, but it's just important to not forget that there are multiple ways to learn, and we should honor them.

[02:09:32] So thank you, and welcome back to our new school year. - Ms. Jackson. - Hi, thank you. Over the last month, I've been fortunate to attend a few unified sports games, including one with Ms. Wall Battlefield. I've enjoyed watching the teamwork and sportsmanship.

[02:09:47] I look forward to more games of unified sports over the next month, and I think there's a, like in February, there's a tournament. Also, thank you to all staff who welcomed me during these games, and for any who took time out of their busy day to talk to me. It has been an honor to serve as vice chair this past year.

[02:10:03] I've appreciated the increased opportunities for engagement and participation. Thank you to Chair Lateef, members of this board, and the clerk's office, the vision council, superintendent and her team for a collaboration congratulations to miss wall and I look further look forward to further collaboration I also want to take a moment to echo support for what mr. Williams spoke to today about either resources or a way for students to increase their advocacy what I've come to appreciate most about this board is collaboration this collaboration reminds me of two points under the code of ethics so code of ethic one I recognize that decisions are made by the majority vote once made should be supported by all board members I respect the right that other board members to have opinions

[02:10:43] and ideas that differ this ethic is a great reminder that we function as a corporate board that in order to put the needs of students families and staff first we must collaborate this past New Year's Day marked the 10-year anniversary of the loss of officer Chris Young I've had the opportunity over the last three years to learn more about officer young and I hope that everybody takes a moment to learn about the namesake of Chris Young elementary it's on their website i want to also take a moment to thank all 19 school principals in the brentsville district and all counselors and i will thank them again in more detail during their weeks i'm just

[02:11:21] very grateful for all staff last i want to wish everyone a wonderful new year and thank you to those who came tonight and have a safe night and be kind mr thank you dr latif happy new year everyone i have a quote for you by author hal borland he says year's end is neither an end nor beginning but a going on with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us that reminds me of how we do our continuous improvement in Prince William County Schools I like to not just reflect at these kind of times but because I think I've said before that to me the beginning of the year is

[02:11:58] actually the school year but I like to take these moments to reflect on what we have done what we are going to continue to do what we need to change and in that regard I want to remind folks that if your child if your child is struggling with anything in school please communicate with your teachers we have access to something called paper online which does tutoring and I know we're going to be hearing eventually about a robust summer program because we had one last year so I can't wait to hear about those things so those are things to look forward to and to be iterative when I also think about how when we are talking about continuous improvement we need to recognize where we've been where we are

[02:12:37] currently and where we are going I got a chance over the break to actually speak to many many different groups of people parents I got to meet with some bus drivers in our county and hear what their concerns were so I appreciate the time you took to share those with me want to also take a second to recognize we had several schools participate in a wrestling tournament at Woodbridge High School the varsity was on one day and JV was on the other day I don't know a lot about wrestling but oh my gosh these kids looked like they were concentrating and working

[02:13:12] very hard and i know um it was a long day for for these teams but congratulations to putting in all this effort and time to continue practicing and competing over the break uh congratulations miss wall on vice chair i know you'll do a great job and miss jackson thank you for your time and service i know you put in a lot of effort and thought and i know you do highly value collaboration and we We will continue to collaborate as a board.

[02:13:39] Looking forward to budget stuff coming up. I have a few hopes and dreams myself for our budget, that there's some way we can find a way to take something off of teacher's plates, because I know they have a lot they're working on. I love that you talk about student voice. The more we hear from students, the better we can be.

[02:13:56] Everyone have a fabulous New Year's, and we'll just jump right in with our improvements and continue going on. Thank you. - Mr. Wilk. - Thank you, a couple items of reflection and thanks. So there were a couple actually events over the Christmas holiday break.

[02:14:16] So I still was able to go to things. So, and I want to address that. So first of all, we did vote on our clerk or deputy clerk tonight, you know, between November 15th and December 15th, I attended 27 events in the district.

[02:14:31] And I'm not touting that as like some great thing for me necessarily, but what I want to mention that all those events are coordinated by the schools the clerks the deputy clerk the admin assistant so it's it is a process and for them to get invites to notify me to make the arrangements when we tell we're gonna come that's just not me I mean every one of the board has events and things like that so you know I didn't make any comments be during the thing but just a testament to you your team Ana Lily it's a lot it's very time-consuming I do want to thank also

[02:15:11] the principals and their admin assistants because they're the ones who have to collect by our mandate tell us our events but they're the ones who collect those for us and send those to our our team here so just want to recognize that you know for those days I do want to reiterate something chance said I did go to Mary Williams too and I go there a lot and it actually ironically you're talking about you know the early education and I was invited to that pre-k hair salon and spent some time with those little babies almost you know three and four year olds it's crazy but everything you said you know I want to

[02:15:47] reiterate that is all true the reading and learning so that is definitely something I want to highlight I do some of the events like I said the over Christmas I do want to recognize Potomac started their first annual two-day tournament the Kyle Honoré tournament for in honor of Kyle who was a outstanding student and basketball player at Potomac High School who tragically died this summer so that was a great two-day tournament and that's something I think a tradition that will continue Forest Park and went to the boys game they actually had a team from Utah come play that was a very interesting experience we lost but we played very competitively and it was

[02:16:27] interesting knowing that the team from Utah flew in and the entire month of December they traveled around to our high schools not just ours but throughout Virginia in the greater DC area playing teams that was pretty cool and last night I went to the Forest Park girls varsity basketball game unfortunately we lost to Colgan but also to reiterate another thing Ms. Zagarpur said she dragged me out of the house one day we went to the Battle of the Bridge the wrestling tournament because you know I had nothing else to do but it was a good seeing teams from all over not just the area but the whole state you know I saw a bus for Franklin

[02:17:02] County which is where my wife is from four and a half hours away so very cool anyways want to thank everyone thank the board thank you Miss Raulston okay yes happy new year be new year to you Miss Raulston thank you so much and then I will wrap up you know the oh vice chair madam vice chair Jennifer Wall Gainesville district thank you so I just want to say welcome back from winter break I hope all of you had a great holiday season and I also hope you're having a great start to the new

[02:17:42] year before break I was able to attend some really great end of year celebration parties winter sing-alongs and some fantastic winter concerts which is one of my favorite things to do and I just want to give a shout out to Tyler Elementary School for one of the most hilarious and creative renditions of 12 days of Christmas I have ever seen and the kids just went nuts they just thought it was also the most hilarious thing they'd ever seen of note I did attend a unified sports basketball game between Gainesville High School and Battlefield High School on December 16th it was fun it was awesome actually and my favorite part was we they took a large big combined photo

[02:18:19] shoot afterwards and you don't usually see that in competitive sports but to have both teams out there and smiling was awesome. I want to share my congratulations to Sakshi Gouda, an eighth grade student at Ronald Reagan Middle School, who is one of five finalists in the Martin Luther King oratorical contest and she will compete with the other finalists on January 16th as they present on this year's theme, A View of the Promised Land. So big shout out to her and the other four students. I want to echo our student reps advocacy for robotics. I am a robotics parent. I am very

[02:18:53] dedicated to robotics so i agree i think we should fund it at a higher level so that we can compete with the teams that have a lot of resources from california and other places and so we can continue our tradition of excellence we do excellence on a budget here compared to those california schools but but i i do agree with you on that with the new year of 2023 upon us I want to renew my intentions for Prince William County Schools.

[02:19:23] My purpose in serving on this board is to see that our students have what they need to thrive, to reach their academic and personal goals that they have set for themselves. I want to encourage meaningful parent engagement with children, teachers and their classrooms and schools and with us as board members.

[02:19:41] I want to pay teachers more. I want to attract the best and the brightest and keep those amazing teachers that we have here in Prince William County and our other amazing support staff. I want our schools to be safe and secure. I feel every parent deserves that peace of mind and every child deserves to feel safe and feel confident in that sense of safety that they should feel at school.

[02:20:04] I remain steadfastly dedicated to these priorities. I wish to thank all who are listening, who work so hard every day, often quietly and often without recognition, to make a difference in the lives of our young students, either directly or indirectly. you are all important i appreciate you i am thankful for you you are valued and you are a part of this great team that we call princewim candy schools i'm proud of the many things we've accomplished as a collective school division over the last three years and i look forward to the coming months of 2023 thank you miss wall um so let me first start out with a couple just a hot

[02:20:43] topic because it's in the press the discussion on thomas jefferson high school for science and technology there has been some concern over there about some issues with awards and and designations of awards for students and that's being looked at by Fairfax County Public Schools remind everyone that Thomas Jefferson High School is also a Prince William County School it is the you know when we when when this board was seated in 2019 Thomas Jefferson High School had been ranked by the US News and World Report in 2017 is the sixth best high school in in the country.

[02:21:19] In 2018, they went to 10th best. This board was seated. In '18, Fairfax County hired a new principal, Dr. Ann Bonitatibus, that started in '18. Actually, they were ranked sixth at that time.

[02:21:36] They went to fourth the next year, or 10th, actually. They went from 10th to fourth. And then every year subsequently, in 2020, 21 and 22, they are the number one high school in the country. And they've been consistently at that level. and that is due to the leadership of Dr. Ann Bonitottemus, that counseling staff, that staff over there, and the participating school board jurisdictions that include Prince William County, Loudoun, Alexander and Arlington, Falls Church City, and Fairfax.

[02:22:04] This work that this board does helps fund that school. We send, we have about 200 students at that school right now, and they are contributing to that school's success.

[02:22:19] and I want everybody to know that. I think that it's very important that this, you know, everyone understand that this board has committed to that school as well as all of our other schools. And I, from a personal standpoint, as a parent of an alum at that school and watched Dr. Bonitatabas work serving, I served on the PTO there and as well as on the TJ Partnership Fund Board of Directors, they are doing outstanding work and they are doing it for all the students there.

[02:22:46] And they are committed to improving the pipeline for more students to come. I want to congratulate, well, I want to thank Vice Chair Jackson for, as I stated earlier, she has been committed to collaboration, cooperation, and a commitment to our students and our staff.

[02:23:06] She has been able to help us, guide us in, with her experience as being a teacher, her knowledge of special ed, her knowledge of English learners has been very helpful in advocating for those students and those issues that we are working on as a school division.

[02:23:24] And she's contributed significantly to the strategic planning document that we are now working on or working with and towards those goals. I wanna congratulate Jen Mulligan for her outstanding work, or, you know, for being elected chair and vice chair, and I look forward to working with her.

[02:23:42] And lastly, I wasn't here at the last meeting, but I wanna congratulate Ms. Williams, the Woodbridge District. We've worked really hard, Miss Jessie as well, very hard on getting that elementary school built in on Route 1 in North Woodbridge.

[02:24:00] It has been my highest priority of all projects that desperately needed to be built in this county. That elementary school for me was the highest priority. Those schools over there are among the most overcrowded elementary schools. It cannot be built fast enough, Mr. Bach, and Mr. Wallingford better be on time.

[02:24:21] no delays like rosemont lewis understood that is the highest priority that i had when i got elected and it took way too long to get there and i hope to god we can get this done and i want to congratulate miss williams miss jesse uh for the work that you guys put into to securing those locations those properties have been finalized and that project will break ground march of 2023 is that correct all right all right thank you all uh this is there being no further business in front in front of this board.

[02:24:49] I will ask that this meeting be adjourned.

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