Coraggio Consulting
Prince William County School Board Meeting, Wednesday, April 17, 2024

Date: Wednesday, April 17, 2024
Place: Prince William County School Board, Virginia
Length: 3h 28m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISRul8Iq1sQ
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 2026-11-01. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:01] - I'd like to call this meeting and the Prince William County School Board to order. A motion is in order for the approval of the meeting agenda. Ms. Zargarpur. - Mr. Chairman, I move that the Prince William County School Board approve the meeting agenda as recommended. - Have a second. - Ms. Wall. - I second. - Mr. Jessie. Okay, any discussion? Please vote.

[00:00:16] All in favor, aye. - Aye. - Any opposed? No. Okay, motion passes. Moving on, motion under closed session. Motion to order, Ms. Zargarpur. - Mr. Chairman, I move that pursuant to sections 2.2-3711 and 2.2-3712 of the Code of Virginia, The Prince William County School Board enter closed session for the following reasons.

[00:00:35] One, to discuss with staff the appointment, transfer, release, assignment, and promotion of specific officers and employees pursuant to Virginia Code section 2.2-3711A, one. Two, to discuss with division counsel and staff actual or probable litigation in specific legal matters involving specific staff and students pursuant to Virginia Code section 2.2-3711A, seven and eight.

[00:00:57] And three, to discuss the award of public contract to employee's exclusive representative, which involves the expenditure of public funds and the terms or scope of such contract or discussion in an open session would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the public body. Four, to consult with staff and legal counsel regarding A, the legal requirements and procedures for collective bargaining by school board employees and B, the potential settlement of claims involving student civil rights, which require legal advice and guidance as provided by Virginia's Code section 2.2-3711A8.

[00:01:28] And five, to discuss and receive briefings by staff members related to the security of school facilities, the safety of persons using such facilities, and actions taken to respond to such matters, where discussion in an open meeting would jeopardize the security of such facilities pursuant to Virginia Code section 2.2-3711A19.

[00:01:47] - Do I have a second? - Mr. Chairman, I second. - Ms. Wall seconds. Any discussion? Okay, please vote.

[00:02:14] - The vote is unanimous, motion passed. - Okay, at this time, the Prince William County School Board

[00:02:19] will enter closed session and return in approximately one hour.

[00:03:23] - Prince William County School Board is now returning to open session from closed session. A motion is in order for closed session certification. Vice Chair Zargarpur. - Mr. Chairman, I move that pursuant to section 2.2-3712 of the Code of Virginia, the closed session of Prince William County School Board meeting of April 17th, 2024 be certified by adopting the following resolution.

[00:03:43] Now therefore be it resolved that the 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 the closed meeting to which this certification resolution applies, and two, only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard and discussed or considered by the school board.

[00:04:06] - Do I have a second? - Second. - Who's, oh, Mr. Anakak. Second, any discussion, please vote.

[00:04:31] - The vote is eight unanimous, motion passed. - Moving on to the approval of appointments and releases. Motion is in order of Vice Chair Zargarpur. - Mr. Chairman, 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? - Second, Mr. Chairman. - Ms. Wall seconds, any discussion?

[00:04:48] Please vote. - The vote is eight yes, unanimous. Motion passed. - Great, thank you.

[00:05:04] Moving on to, that's it. We're up for Pledge of Allegiance, am I correct? Yep, okay, all right. Mr. Tracy Blake will lead us in the pledge this evening. If everyone please rise. - I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[00:05:31] - Okay, thank you. Up next is our Thriving Futures Focus and what a great evening we have for you all tonight. We have some great folks we're gonna be recognizing, so let's just get right to it, okay? Thriving Futures Focus is an opportunity to highlight the exemplary work being accomplished in our schools and fulfill our vision that every student will graduate with the knowledge, skills, and habits of mind to launch a thriving future for themselves and their community.

[00:05:57] We dedicate this time during our meetings to recognizing students, staff members, and schools that have earned an honor or an award at the state or national level. As April is the month of the military child, tonight the school board will first acknowledge our eight schools who are recognized for the first time as Purple Star Schools this school year.

[00:06:16] We begin our recognition with Mr. Justin Wilk of the Great Potomac District, who will introduce our first group of award winners. Mr. Wilk. - Thank you, sir. When we were asked to wear purple tonight, I definitely don't miss an opportunity to fully go out with a theme here.

[00:06:31] So we begin our recognition tonight by recognizing more than 8,000 military connected students enrolled in Prince William County Schools. We are committed to acknowledge and support the distinct educational experiences these students experience.

[00:06:50] The Purple Star School Program, an initiative adopted in numerous states that sets standards to designate military-friendly schools is designed to help mitigate the unique academic and social-emotional challenges faced by military-connected students and their families.

[00:07:06] Schools honored with the Purple Star designation must complete several required activities, including the education of school staff on issues impacting military-connected students and their families. Prince William County Schools has 39 Purple Star-designated schools.

[00:07:22] Eight of those are first time recipients this year. On behalf of the Potomac District, it is my honor to recognize Covington Harper Elementary School and Potomac High School. Covington Harper is represented tonight by Principal Ivanya Ciro, Assistant Principal Kathleen Poe and school counselor, Amy Sutherland.

[00:07:41] Also with us tonight representing Potomac High School is Brandon Bowles and parent liaison, Miss Ava Castro. Congratulations and thank you all for what you do for our military families.

[00:08:00] - Thank you, Mr. Wilk, and I might add, this is really remarkable 'cause we added nine to the list. I think we had some big goals from last year, so this is amazing. Mr. Richard Jesse, next, of the great Occoquan District, will recognize two award recipients. Mr. Jesse.

[00:08:16] - Thank you, Dr. LaTeeffe. The Occoquan District is enormously proud to recognize Antietam Elementary School and Lake Bridge Elementary School. Antietam Elementary School is represented tonight by Principal Mark Marcia Weidawelt and school counselor, Marcia Cook.

[00:08:37] Lakeville Elementary School is represented by Principal Karen Haddock and school counselor, Carrie Pearson and Tammy Harris, office assistant. Thank you for all being here tonight and being there for our military community.

[00:08:56] Thank you. - Excellent, thank you, Mr. Jesse. And from the wonderful Brentsville district, Ms. Erica Tredenik, please recognize your Purple Star schools. - The Brentsville district wishes to acknowledge Haymarket Elementary School, Patriot High School, and Pennington Traditional School as first time recipients of the Purple Star Award.

[00:09:19] Representing Haymarket Elementary School tonight, our assistant principal, Nicole Mills, school social worker, Julie Martin, and fifth grade student, Rachel Oakley. Representing Patriot High School tonight is school counselor, Eileen Lutkenhaus, and representing Pennington Traditional School, We have principal Amanda Johnson and co-sponsors on the Purple Star Committee, chorus teacher Debbie Stewart and Erin Merrill, history teacher.

[00:09:45] Brentsville District is honored to recognize you and the crucial role you have in our military connected students' lives.

[00:10:00] - Okay, thank you, Ms. Trudenik. Next up, I'd like to invite the wonderful Woodbridge District representative, Ms. Lori Williams, to speak on behalf of her schools. Ms. Williams. - Thank you, Chairman Lateef. With great honor, the Woodbridge District would like to honorably recognize Potomac View Elementary School for their outstanding work in caring for our military community.

[00:10:23] Potomac View Elementary School is represented tonight by Principal T.C. Green, special education level one teacher and facilitator for the Purple Star application, William Bill Lemaire, and fifth grade math and science teacher, Sarah Philbin.

[00:10:39] Congratulations on all of your hard work and thank you for all you do for our military families. - Wonderful, Ms. Williams, thank you, And congratulations to our eight new Purple Star schools and to all 39 total schools.

[00:10:58] If there are family members here tonight supporting our Purple Star schools, please stand and be recognized. If we have any folks here, I would like to invite Ms. Kimberly Simpson, Prince William County Public Schools Military Achievement Specialist to share a few words on this achievement and a special recognition for Prince William County Schools advocate and ally, Commanding Officer Colonel Michael Brooks.

[00:11:23] Ms. Simpson. - Good evening, Dr. McDade, Chairman Lateef, and members of the school board. My name is Kimberly Simpson and I'm proud to serve as the new military achievement specialist for Prince William County Schools.

[00:11:40] Thank you again for recognizing our 2023 Purple Star Designated Schools. These eight schools, along with the additional 31 designated schools within the division, exemplify our strategic plan goals, specifically commitment number three, creating a positive climate and culture for our military connected families, is the essential to the success of our students.

[00:12:05] By doing the work required to receive and sustain the Virginia Department of Education Purple Star designation, they ensure that our military connected students and families feel welcomed and supported. Our community partnerships in support of military families are important.

[00:12:21] They play a key role in creating a collaborative relationship between the military community and our school system in support of the educational needs of military connected kids. students. Tonight, I am honored to welcome one of our most committed community partners, Colonel Michael L. Brooks, Commanding Officer of Marine Corps Installation National Capital Region, Marine Corps Base Quantico. Sir, I'll read the resolution. Whereas the Virginia Board of Education

[00:13:01] recognized the month of April 2024 as month of the military child to pay tribute to the military families and their children for their sacrifices made and for their commitment and courage and whereas the commonwealth of virginia is a member of the interstate compact on educational opportunity for military children which addresses key issues encountered by military students including enrollment placement attendance eligibility and graduation and whereas military connected children and their families move every two to three years within the united states or overseas

[00:13:35] disrupting academic routines and friendships; and whereas military-connected children also serve their country by demonstrating resilience, perseverance, and cultural competency; and whereas military-connected children provide unique and valuable insights on learning friendships, service to others, and heightened national or global awareness; and whereas Prince William County Public Schools provides military-connected academic and support programs through a Department of Defense Education Activity Partnership grant to support the unique needs of military service

[00:14:08] members and their families, and whereas military families in Prince William County include men and women and active duty service in the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marines, Navy, and members of the Reserves and the National Guard, and whereas Prince William County Schools serves 5,000 school age, military connected children. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Prince William County School Board and the Superintendent of Schools recognize April 2024 as Month of the Military

[00:14:43] Child and encourage all schools and offices to show enormous appreciation with activities to honor our students from military families. Sir, I proudly present this resolution to you. Mr. Chair, Dr. McDade, good evening.

[00:15:09] Everyone, good evening. On behalf of the Marines, sailors, and family members of Marine Corps Base Quantico, I bring you greetings. You know, approximately 1.6 million military-connected children across DOD is what we have.

[00:15:25] And we all recognize that the first level of responsibility for providing that care and compassion and resources to our children starts with the parents. But then we quickly realized on that second level of care, it extends throughout the community, DOD installations such as mine, as well as our schools.

[00:15:48] And we all work, we're all committed to developing our children, shaping their resiliency and their individuality. And I tell you, when it comes down to Prince William County, I don't think it gets any better. I really appreciate everything that you all have done, everything that Dr. McDade, we have talked about in the past, You all are just all over it, accomplishing things that maybe at one time it seemed like it was lofty, but you all have made that a reality.

[00:16:21] And I really appreciate that. So again, thank you for this. This is probably gonna be my last time as the commanding, being in front of you as the commanding officer of Marine Corps Base Quantico, I will be departing in July. But I did wanna share with everyone that working with you all, partnering with you all has truly been an honor of mine.

[00:16:41] And from the bottom of my heart, I really appreciate the way that you have opened the doors to our children and poured everything that you all have into our leaders of tomorrow. So thank you so much for what you do day in and day out. Thank you.

[00:17:10] - Colonel Brooks remind us, how many years you've been with us? - Three years. - Three years, fantastic. - It is all by. - It has. And a heartfelt thanks to you, Colonel Brooks, for all your support, assistance, camaraderie during this time.

[00:17:27] you know, we do pride ourselves on trying to be a school division that is accommodating to our military families. We've done this for a number of years and we hope that you all tell all the other military families when they're choosing where to live and come, that they come to Prince William County 'cause we do a darn good job at this and we're really proud to have you all here.

[00:17:48] Thank you all very much. Because we have two large groups to recognize this evening, we're gonna pause now to take some pictures with our Purple Star Schools, beginning with Covington Harper Elementary, Potomac High School, Antietam, Lake Ridge, Colonel Brooks and Ms. Simpson are invited to be photographed in that picture.

[00:18:11] Do we have somebody help? Okay, great, we have someone guiding us. All right, and then our second picture will include Haymarket, Pennington, Traditional, Patriot, Potomac.

[00:18:19] Okay.

[00:22:05] Okay, now it's time for our second and last recognition of the evening. And for that, we turn to the Coles District, Vice Chair, Ms. Lisa Zargarpur. Ms. Zarifor. - Thank you, Dr. Lateef. Educators Rising, with affiliate chapters in 50 states and at the national level, is a career and technical student organization available for middle school, high school, and college students to join through clubs at their school.

[00:22:32] Educators Rising Clubs are active in 12 of the 13 Prince William County High Schools for students in grades nine through 12, and the program continues to grow each year. Prince William County Public Schools hosted the 2024 Educators Rising Student Leadership Conference at Potomac Shores Middle School on Saturday, March 2nd.

[00:22:51] 15 Virginia school divisions and 28 high schools attended the conference, which featured various competitions and session workshops, 15 college exhibitors, a keynote address, and an award ceremony. Session workshops touched on important topics like professionalism, pathways to teacher certification, boosting student engagement, and mastering communication and teamwork.

[00:23:15] 140 Prince William County students attended and 25 of those competing earned first place, making them eligible to represent PWCS and the State of Virginia at the Educators Rising National Conference this summer in Washington, DC. Tonight, the school board is honored to recognize our outstanding first place winners and future educators.

[00:23:35] We begin in the Coles District. First, from C.D. Hilton High School, along with Assistant Principal Eric Schweitzer And Catherine Jackson, family and consumer science teacher, we recognize Natalia Barnwell, Khadija Berry, Autumn Brown, Cadence Costello, Sage Crawford, Viviana Saez, and Viola Sarsa.

[00:23:59] This is like a bunch of them. This is great. I love this. From Charles J. Colgan High School, along with Assistant Principal Octavia MacDonald, we recognize Lauren Motter, Quanetta Stolting, Kayla Tyka, Ashlyn Tate, and Brooke Worth.

[00:24:33] From Osborne Park High School, along with Principal Lisa Marie Cain, we recognize Gabriela Arden-Diaz and Sophia Stolmeyer. Congratulations to all. - Thank you, Ms. Zargarpur. From the Brentsville District, Ms. Trdenik, please introduce your outstanding educators.

[00:24:54] - I wish to recognize nine of our first place winners from Gainesville High School, along with Principal Mr. Neil Beach, we recognize Evie Anderson, Amy Cosme Guzman, Diego Emanuel Fizz Ocampa, Rachel Gordon, and Raquel Cora.

[00:25:12] From Unity Reed High School, along with Assistant Principal Kelly McDonald and Family and Consumer Sciences teacher L. Radford, we recognize Yuliana Bonilla, Isabella Sebi, and Vanessa Turquios Lopez.

[00:25:40] From Brentsville District High School, along with principal Dr. Katherine Meintz and tech ed teacher Tiffany Schooley, we recognize Katie Toth. Congratulations. - Thank you, Mr. Denik. Mr. Jesse, please introduce our winners from the Occoquan District.

[00:25:59] - Thank you, Dr. Husteef. I'm not gonna try to mass carry these names with the two students from Stepford, from Woodbridge High School.

[00:26:16] I would try to pronounce her name, Madeleine Florin Nahadro, okay, and Yorida Soha Antunzi.

[00:26:34] Is that close? No? Pronounce your name, quickly, move to the, and pronounce your name correctly for me. Okay. - Yorida Soha Antunzi. - Thank you. These students are here tonight with Assistant Principal Mary Ann Jones Brooks.

[00:26:51] We are immensely proud of your accomplishment, and I apologize for mispronouncing your name. - Thank you. - Madeleine Florian Naharo and Yuridia Sosa Antonez.

[00:27:08] Thank you very much, congratulations. Thank you, Mr. Jesse. I'd like to invite Kelly Stenhouse, Organizational Development Specialist and Growing Our Own Teachers Program Coordinator to share a few words on this great program.

[00:27:26] - Thank you, Chairman Lateef and the entire Prince William County School Board for this public recognition. And thank you, Dr. McDade, for your steadfast support of the Growing Our Own Teachers Program. Educators Rising state and national competitions are comprised of 28 performance-based competitive events in which aspiring educators demonstrate their knowledge, skills and leadership in education.

[00:27:51] To the student participants, I applaud your early commitment to the education field, excellence and professionalism. Parents, thank you for the support provided to your children and teachers as they prepared for the competition. Teacher leaders, I commend you for dedicating your time expertise to make an everlasting impact in the lives of Prince William County schools, future teachers, and school leaders. Thank you to the 100 competition judges, college exhibitors, workshop presenters, and other conference volunteers. I am grateful to all of you for your participation in this year's leadership conference as well as for the guidance of the planning committee and

[00:28:31] the coordination of the day's activities. We are pleased that PWCS was given the privilege to host this year's Educators Rising conference and competitive events and we sincerely thank the Virginia Department of Education for providing us with this opportunity. Educators Rising is a career and technical student organization that partners with universities and school divisions throughout the nation with the mission of growing the number of students enrolled in teacher preparation programs on the collegiate level, increasing teacher quality and diversity. The Educators Rising organization gives passionate young people interested in careers in education an opportunity to

[00:29:11] explore the teaching profession in authentic and meaningful ways amid today's teacher shortage in an effort to meet anticipated employment vacancies school divisions across the nation are being encouraged to have some variation of a growing our own teachers program in PWCS our program is comprised of educators rising Virginia teachers for tomorrow and early childhood education the program helps to identify recruit and mentor those current high school students who after going to college and earning teaching certification will commit to Prince William County school classrooms as teachers and school

[00:29:48] leaders the Department of Human Resources values to growing our own teachers initiative program participants who enroll in post-secondary teacher programs offer PWC as internships substitute and student teaching opportunities, as well as ongoing professional development.

[00:30:06] It is our hope that all of our students will genuinely consider a career in education, become certified, and return home to Prince William County schools, because homegrown teachers bloom where they are planted. Thank you, good evening.

[00:30:26] - Thank you, Miss Stenhouse, those were powerful words. Congratulations again to our 25 educators rising, first place winners, and we hope you all become teachers. It is among the most noble professions out there and none of us here would be here without our teachers.

[00:30:42] So thank you all once again. Before taking a few pictures, Superintendent Dr. McDade would like to share a few words. - Thank you so much, Dr. Lateef. First, congratulations to our new Purple Star Schools.

[00:30:58] Prince William County Public Schools currently boasts 39 Purple Star designated schools and we continue to strive for more inclusivity, support and celebration for our military families, community and the students that we serve and of course again thank you to Colonel Michael Brooks for his many years of devotion and service it has been truly a pleasure and honor to be able to partner with Colonel Brooks and he will be sorely missed as he takes on a new assignment also congratulations to our educators rising award winners I had the privilege and honor to be present during the competition the state competition and I want to thank Kelly

[00:31:36] in-house for just a phenomenal job you and your entire team as I was walking out the door of Potomac Shores Middle School some of the surrounding school systems that were there they said this was the best one yet so that's kudos to you and your team for making sure that Prince William County Public Schools always shows up with excellence and we're so incredibly proud of all of our students and the presence that you have here tonight is more than a celebration your remarkable achievement tonight really is a testament to our collective commitment to the next generation of educators through our grow our own teacher program and we envision a future where

[00:32:13] our program becomes an exemplary model for others to follow and we are already well on our way by the number of awardees that we have from the competition and we're looking forward to seeing you continue to grow and we want to wish all of our winners the best of luck as you represent pwcs and the state of Virginia at the national conference this summer in Washington, D.C.

[00:32:35] Well done, we are PWCS proud. - Thank you, Dr. McKay, at this time I invite the educators, families and friends of our future educators to please stand in recognition of your contributions to their success.

[00:32:52] So all parents and families, please stand. So at this time I'll thank you once again and I'll ask our honorees to come forward for a photo with the school board and receive a small token of our appreciation.

[00:33:08] We'll take photos by, okay, magisterial district. So let's begin with the Coles district first and that would be Colgan, Hilton, and Osborne Park, okay? Come on up first and then after that, it will be... - Colgan?

[00:33:23] - Yes, Hilton.

[00:33:25] - Yeah, that's Coles, Colgan, Hilton, and Osborne Park.

[00:35:01] - Let's go Gainesville, you guys are up next. Gainesville. - You didn't read, you didn't read. - You're fine.

[00:35:55] - Oh jeez, so co-awesome.

[00:38:30] - Okay, well, that was fantastic. We are now moving on to get caught up here, folks. We're gonna do adoption of consent agenda. At this point, Ms. Zargarpur, we have motions in order. - Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[00:38:45] I move that the Prince William County School Board approve the public meeting consent agenda as recommended. - Do I have a second? - Ms. Scrimmon. - Ms. Scrimmon. - Ms. Williams. - I second. - Okay, any discussions? Please vote.

[00:39:03] Mr. Wilk votes yes for the record. - The vote is eight yes, unanimous, motion passed. - Moving on, acknowledgements and recognitions. Motion's in order, Vice Chair Zargarpur.

[00:39:18] - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that the Prince William County School Board approve the acknowledgements and recognitions as recommended. - Any second? - Mr. Chairman. - Ms. Williams. - I'd like to second. - Any discussion? - Yes. - Ms. Williams. - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just, since we don't display them anymore on our meeting agenda, I just would like to make the acknowledgement that these are for the upcoming month, and in the upcoming month, it will be Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Better Hearing and Speech Month, which I'd just like to thank all of those who helped with our student and our population.

[00:39:48] I know that was near and dear to our former, one of our former school board members. Also in addition is Jewish American Heritage Month, Mental Health Awareness Month, National School Nurse Day, National Tourette's Syndrome Awareness Month, and Teacher Appreciation Week.

[00:40:05] May is just full of exciting things for our division to celebrate and special acknowledgement for Better Hearing and Speech Month as well as Mental Health Month and Teacher Appreciation Week. So thank you. - Thank you, please vote, Ms. Wall.

[00:40:22] - I just wanted to add on National School Nurse Day. In my family, I had a child with type one diabetes and nurse was absolutely essential. And I know that we're very lucky to have a nurse in all of our schools, that priority was put upon that.

[00:40:40] And I know my children and my family personally benefited I just want to give a shout out to all the school nurses for all that you do. - Dr. Lateef, I just wanted to point out that they are on the agenda and they are listed out on the screen as well for everyone to see.

[00:40:57] - So there are listed out when you click on 12.01, they are all in there. So thank you, and actually I'd encourage the public to go to 12.01 and look at all the language for each of the resolutions that we have.

[00:41:14] Okay, did we vote? - There's seven yes, one abstained. - Okay, moving on to citizen comment time. We have citizens, those citizens, sign up in advance with the clerk, may address the school board this evening when they are 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 of the policies of Prince William County Schools.

[00:41:37] Please use proper decorum and manners while at the podium or you will be asked to step aside. We ask that the audience please be respectful of 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 to restore public order. Tonight, we have eight citizens signed up to speak.

[00:41:55] When I call your name, please come up to the podium and state your name and address for the record. At this time, I'll go ahead and call up the first five if they want to grab a chair here at the front. If not, they can come up when I call their name. So we have Kimberly Shropshire, Sakina Ali, Lena Guerrera, sorry, Lena Guerra, Sam Villa, and Katalia Kalaros, Kimberly Shropshire.

[00:42:24] - Good evening, Dr. McDade, members of the board and guests. My name is Kimberly Shropshire. My address is on the record. I come here tonight on behalf of my daughter, who is a student in the self-contained autism class at Potomac Shores Middle School.

[00:42:40] Here's some history regarding my daughter. In the second grade, she was found eligible for special education services as a student with autism spectrum disorder and speech and language deficit. My daughter was in the third grade when COVID hit, and like many parents, I watched my child struggle to learn in the virtual environment.

[00:42:58] I then decided to place her in the self-contained setting. For the next two years of elementary school, I assumed that my child was on track since her grades were high. However, I would find myself frustrated in the IEP meetings because they were saturated with educational jargon that I did not understand.

[00:43:16] Test scores were shared, but I had no idea how to interpret them. When I asked the team to explain them, I was told that they would get back to me. That never happened, they never followed up. The middle school transition meeting was the first time I had heard that my rising sixth grader was reading and performing in math at a third grade level.

[00:43:36] Currently, my child will soon be a rising eighth grader who is still reading and performing math at the third grade level and no one can tell me why. The more I inquire about her lack of progress, the more opposition I face. I have spent hours in countless IEP meetings, phone calls and eligibility meetings.

[00:43:55] Additionally, I am now paying out of pocket for an advocate to help support me in understanding the IEP process. I am now getting an independent educational evaluation because the school continues to insist that autism and speech are the only services she qualifies for, despite having no progress over the past two years.

[00:44:14] My daughter will soon be an adult entering the world as a triple minority, black, female, and autistic. All I want is a fair and equitable education to prepare her for a successful future. I want to remind the school board of the Individual with Disabilities Education Act, which is a federal law that quote, makes available a free appropriate public education to eligible children with disabilities throughout the nation and ensure special education and related services to those children, unquote.

[00:44:45] How does the school board intend to hold Potomac Shores Middle School accountable for applying this federal law to my child? How much longer does my daughter have to wait to be placed in an environment that will alleviate the gaps that the Prince William County public school system has continued to exacerbate.

[00:45:01] And finally, how long do I have to wait for the board to respond to my questions? Thank you for your time. - Thank you. Sakina Ali.

[00:45:21] - Good evening, everyone. My name is Sakina and my address is on file. I'm a senior at Potomac High School and as a Muslim student, I'm here to address a crucial issue, which is the absence of halal food in our school cafeteria.

[00:45:36] Imagine being a Muslim student hungry at lunchtime, but you're not able to find a meal that aligns with your religious beliefs. This can make students feel excluded and disregarded. They're often left with limited options like cheese pizza and peanut butter and jelly, which aren't good to eat every day.

[00:45:54] Most of these students, including many of my friends, end up skipping lunch entirely. Not having suitable meal options can affect students' academic performance. They may not be able to concentrate in class because they feel tired and hungry.

[00:46:12] Also, many cafeteria workers at my school are Muslim and they cannot eat the food that they serve. So I think that highlights the urgency of this issue. Both students and staff should feel welcome in the very place where they spend significant majority of their day.

[00:46:28] While pork can never be halal, chicken and beef can be when prepared properly. Halal meat is healthier and more ethical than regular meat because Islamic guidelines require that animals are well cared for and given a clean and healthy environment.

[00:46:44] It's free from bacteria, harmful substances like antibiotics, growth hormones, and preservatives. All of these things can adversely affect a human body. This issue goes beyond religious considerations. Offering halal food can benefit all students.

[00:47:01] It ensures everyone has access to healthier meals, free from harmful additives, and prepared with care. it promotes inclusivity and respect for diverse backgrounds. Schools in New York City have halal programs, which shows that it's possible.

[00:47:18] By providing halal food, we're not just accommodating religious needs, we're creating a welcoming environment where every student and staff member feels valued and included. Thank you for your time. - Thank you. Lena Guerra.

[00:47:37] - She won't be attending tonight, she got sick. - Okay, Sam Villa.

[00:47:57] - Good evening, my name is Sam Villa, my address should be on file. I wanted to talk about Prince William County Schools Regulation 738 Tech 5. And for anyone who doesn't know, 738 Tech 5 basically talks about how, or basically allows any student who identifies as transgender to basically use any facility they want, boys' room, girls' room, doesn't really matter, with very little pushback.

[00:48:20] It doesn't even require a doctor's note. And one of the things I really don't like about the policy is Section 5, where it basically says that teachers and schools can completely exclude parents from any conversation about the child's sexual transition or conversations that they have with the school or teachers.

[00:48:43] And this is a failed policy. It's proven to be a failed policy. It doesn't help the students in any way, shape, or form, especially not the transgender one. Loudoun County, right next door, they had a student who, they had similar policy. They had a student slap on a dress, claimed to be trans-fluid, and then went on to sexually assault not one but two different teenage girls in the girls' bathroom.

[00:49:10] And he was tried and found guilty, he'll be paying for his crimes, didn't help him out at all, didn't help out the sexual assault victims out at all, and if this is not enough to make you want to get rid of this policy, well, I'm just going to switch gears.

[00:49:30] Dr. Lateef, I've seen your campaign video. I know you want to run for lieutenant governor. How cool would it be if you got rid of this policy? Because Republican or Democrat parents do want to be involved in the conversation whenever sexual issues are talked about between their children and their teachers.

[00:49:52] Terry McAuliffe, in a debate, said parents have no right in these conversations. They shouldn't be telling teachers what to teach. Glenn Youngkin said, "No, that's not true. "They should be able to have rights to say things." And he won, along with Winston Sears.

[00:50:07] So it would look really good on your resume to fix or get rid of this policy. But if that's not enough, if the safety of their kids aren't enough, just do it to protect yourselves.

[00:50:22] Cover your own butts. The superintendent who was in charge during the time of these sexual assaults was tried, found guilty, and is facing sentences fines, and a year in prison. So over these very avoidable policies.

[00:50:40] So if, and the, I'm sorry, and the parents are also suing the school board for $30 million. It's just a mess. Honestly, and these policies do not help anybody involved. So yes, please, I don't care what your motivation is, just get rid of them.

[00:50:59] Now, thank you very much for your time. - Thank you. Catalea Claros. - Good evening, Dr. McDade and school board members. My name is Catalea Claros and my address is on file.

[00:51:14] At a previous school board meeting, the Associate Superintendent for Services and Postgraduate Success stated that the main issues causing chronic absenteeism were anxiety, mental health, and lack of social connectedness.

[00:51:32] Quote, "Kids, they wanna be together. "They wanna play games in the morning before school. They wanna have opportunities to have, you know, great off the records conversations with teachers, you know, connect with teachers, you know, connect with people in a personal way just to feel a part of something bigger than that, you know, just themselves.

[00:51:57] So we are listening to that and providing those opportunities. So we were buying some insensitives so that schools can keep some, you know, different activities that kids can join and create these opportunities, unquote.

[00:52:14] It sounds like a recess period for students is a solution. I'm here advocating again for middle schoolers. Your investigation determined that an opportunity like recess would be beneficial.

[00:52:31] We, the middle school recess committee, proposed that the recess in middle school should be added to instruction time. Our proposal recommends a student survey to ask over 89,000 students their opinion on recess.

[00:52:54] All middle and high school students that we have surveyed support recess and we suspect that the data will support that. To implement recess, we propose reducing each class by two minutes and reduce the advisory period by one minute.

[00:53:12] This would allow for a 15 minute recess period. We would like to formally submit the proposal today. We would like to survey to be sent in mid-May and resolution to our proposal by June. Our core values are equity, inclusivity, innovation, integrity, resiliency, and well-being.

[00:53:37] Let us live them through recess. Thank you for your consideration. Gonna get this. - Thank you, Ms. Claros. Michelle Fontaine. So the next three will be Michelle Fontaine, she can come up.

[00:53:55] Zoe Obi-Okiyi and Che Claros. So Michelle Fontaine.

[00:54:10] - Michelle's not coming either. - Thank you. And then Zoe Obi-Okoye. - Hello, my name is Zoe Obi-Okoye and my address is on file.

[00:54:28] Me and my friends have been coming back to the school board meetings for middle school recess ever since December and not receive what we are fighting for. It only takes two minutes from each class to get our 15 minute middle school recess goal.

[00:54:46] There are some benefits in recess too. Here are some examples. Recess improves memory, attention, and concentrations, helps kids' brains work and develop properly, helps kids decompress and absorb what they recently learned, reduces disruptive behavior in the classroom, and improves social and emotional development.

[00:55:11] Our slogan is to do the best on test, you must give students recess. According to the research from PlayCore, Recess improves students' performances in school. To wrap this up, recess is an extraordinary idea for middle schoolers and their grades too.

[00:55:29] Thank you for listening and have a special evening. - Thank you. Che Claros. - Good evening, Dr. McDade and school board members. My name is Che Claros and my address is on file.

[00:55:47] I'm a third grader at Cowboys and Elementary School. I'm here to talk about recess for middle schoolers. Here are benefits of recess. Improves memory, attention, and concentrations. Helps kids bring work and develop properly.

[00:56:03] Helps kids calm down. Helps kids soak up what they have recently learned. Reduce disruptive behavior in the class. Improves social and emotional development. Teachers, too, need their own mental health breaks to model behavior to students.

[00:56:18] Recess is one way to offer such a break to teachers and students. our strategies, plans to talk about innovation. We seek knowledge to create new and unique ideas to reach students.

[00:56:40] Middle school recess is a unique idea, what would, idea that will reach students. Thank you for your talk. - Thank you. Okay, very well, that concludes citizen comment time.

[00:56:56] At this point, we normally stand for student representative time, but our students were not gonna join us this evening due to testing and a number of other issues. We will move to superintendent's time, Dr. Latonya McDade. - Thank you, Dr. Lateef.

[00:57:13] April is a month of many special observances. PWCS is highlighting these recognitions throughout the month in a variety of ways through social media, The Scoop, our YouTube channel, in my weekly letters to families and in school-based activities, events, and fundraisers.

[00:57:29] I invite you to read the stories, celebrate the victories, and engage in your school. We are committed to delivering a positive climate and culture and support family and community engagement for the learning and achievement for all. PWCS would like to recognize Autism Awareness Month.

[00:57:45] I'm encouraged by the strides our schools are making to provide support, resources, and for efforts for our students with autism. Ensuring every student has the chance to thrive and succeed in our schools and community is a responsibility shared by us all.

[00:58:02] April is also National Child Abuse Prevention Month. And I would like to recognize the importance of families and communities working together to prevent child abuse and neglect. We know one in seven children in the US will experience child abuse or neglect in their lifetime.

[00:58:20] And one in 10 children will be sexually abused before they turn 18. Child abuse is a devastating social issue that cuts across all boundaries of race, education levels, and income brackets. And we need to keep this in the front and center so that we can address this critical issue.

[00:58:40] In honor of National Assistant Principals Week, held the first week of April, I would like to recognize our extraordinary assistant principals who have become a source of steadfast leadership and inspiration for us all. And speaking of hard work, I want to recognize the many individuals who provide critical support across our school division, our executive assistants and clerical staff, part advisor, part cheerleader, part protector and part confidant, our assistants and staff keep us on course, on pace and following our North Star.

[00:59:13] And next week is Administrative Professionals Week. And we look forward to thanking and spotlighting the many individuals across PWCS positively contributing to our schools and offices, especially on Administrative Professionals Day, which is Wednesday, April 24th.

[00:59:31] I also wish to celebrate PWCS Transportation Employees Appreciation Week, extending our deepest gratitude to the dedicated individuals behind the wheels and in the offices who ensure our students' safe and reliable journey to and from school every single day.

[00:59:49] Our transportation department does so much to create a positive start and end to our students' school days. So thank you to all PWCS transportation employees for your significant contribution and care for our students. Among the many special observances this month, next week is Public School Volunteer Week and National Volunteer Week.

[01:00:12] A community that is authentically engaged in the education process supports the importance of learning, assists with monitoring progress, advocates for new and innovative approaches, and has the tools necessary to participate in the well-being of every student. I want to encourage our families and communities to reach out to your local school and find out how you can get involved in their academic, social, or humanitarian efforts.

[01:00:38] April marks School Library Month, a time to celebrate the invaluable role that school libraries play in education. These vibrant hubs of learning foster a love of learning and support critical thinking, digital literacy, and global collaboration.

[01:00:53] A book in hand is worth a journey of discovery, and our school libraries are vital in equipping students with the knowledge, skills, and habits of mind necessary to create a thriving future for themselves and their community. And how fitting that we celebrate April as Library Month because I had the opportunity to attend the Battle of the Books, the elementary school Battle of the Books at Unity Read, and I have to tell you, it was impressive.

[01:01:22] Our students had read over, I think about 10 books they competed and congratulations to gravely elementary school who came out as the number one winner in battle of the books at this time i would like to present to the board a progress update to our prince william county public schools vision 2025 launching thriving futures strategic plan we launched the strategic plan in 2022 is when it was adopted but as i came on board as the the superintendent, it was one of the first charges from the board to me to engage with our community to develop the strategic plan.

[01:02:01] And so at this time I will be coming to the podium and I will be providing a progress report update on our strategic plan. And I'll ask that all of our cabinet members who are present this evening to please join me. And I guess you're already there, so I'll join you.

[01:02:32] All right, so I am excited, can you hear me? - The mic needs to be turned on. I don't know how to turn it on. - It's on? Okay. All right.

[01:02:47] I'm really excited to come before the board and the public to provide progress that we've made on our strategic plan. This is the work that we all committed to as a result of the labor that was put into our strategic plan.

[01:03:03] When I was appointed in 2021, I was charged with collaborating with a diverse body of stakeholders to develop a four-year strategic plan that would guide the school system. And we accomplished that with input and feedback from over 4,000 stakeholders that span parents, educators, community leaders, business leaders, and board members.

[01:03:23] And since the board's adoption of Vision 2025 launching Thriving Futures, this strategic plan has served as our North Star with all schools and offices working toward common goals, objectives, and making sure that our priorities show up in our continuous improvement plans and in the way that we fund our school system.

[01:03:44] The strategic plan has been embraced with shared responsibility and ownership by all school communities, which is reflected in each school and department's continuous improvement plan. Today, we are a little bit past the halfway mark of implementation of our strategic plan, and now would be a great time for us to provide a status update, not just to the board, but to the entire public in a spirit of transparency to unpack what we have delivered on and as well as reflect on what still needs to be done in our school system and measure our successes and investments in bringing to fruition the PWCS vision.

[01:04:24] This is a lengthy presentation because I'm going through the entire strategic plan to give you an update on each of our four commitments. The way this will be designed is I will go through each of the commitments goals, wildly important goals that we've established to be reached by 2025. I will give you a current state update letting you know where we are in relationship to those goals. I will then go on to share with you some of the big highlights for each of the commitments. I will also go through kind of a progress report where you'll be able to see each of the strategic initiatives and what is

[01:05:00] green meaning that it is either met or on track to being met what is yellow which denotes that we're approaching being on track the work has started but we've not met the goal yet but we believe it's on track to meet the 2025 deadline and what is in our strategic plan currently that is red meaning that it either is work that has stalled it's not yet met or we're behind in our timeline so we'll be giving you all of that I will close out each of the key four key commitments with a short video that gives some visibility into what's actually happening or representative of each of the four key commitments so that

[01:05:39] will be our time together and then I have my entire entire cabinet here to support with any questions that the board might have towards the end some of the information that you'll see tonight is not new information throughout the year and prior year we've been sharing regular updates with the board and with the public but we wanted to bring everything together to show the comprehensive progress report on the strategic plan so there'll be some things that you've seen already but then they'll also be some new information that you have not yet seen so we'll start with the vision of Prince William County Public Schools the vision of Prince William County Public Schools is to ensure that every student graduates on time with the knowledge skills and

[01:06:19] habits of mind necessary to create a thriving future for themselves in their community and we must do that by being a mission driven organization and so we ground ourselves in the mission of Prince William County to make sure that we're serving as trusted partners in education with our families and our community understanding that as a school system we cannot do this work alone we also must prepare our students which is a critical mission to ensure that they exemplifying the profile of a graduate and I will review the profile of a graduate principals as well in this presentation and also committing to inclusive practices and equity with an expectation of excellence from every

[01:06:57] student and employee every single day so a couple of quick facts this is not anything new the board has seen this but always as we present to our public we want to remind everyone who we are as a school system we are the second largest school system in the Commonwealth of Virginia and the most diverse school system in the Commonwealth. We're the 34th largest in the nation and the 10th most diverse in the nation, which is something we're incredibly proud of because we believe that diversity is our superpower. We are a majority minority system with 74% of our student population identified as minority. We have 42% of

[01:07:34] our student population identified as economically disadvantaged and it is important to note that the Prince William today Prince William County Public Schools today does not reflect the demographics and student population of Prince William County five or ten years ago right now our economically disadvantaged population has grown to the tune of about fifty five point one percent just over the last five to six years our fastest growing population is our English learners today we're at about 28 percent of our population are English learners and we have 14 percent of our population are students with disabilities both of those categories have also grown significantly over the

[01:08:11] last five years English learners have grown at least about 20 percent and our students with disabilities has grown about nine point seven percent over the last five to six years our total population is ninety one thousand seven hundred and sixty we are the largest employer in Prince William County with about approximately seventeen thousand employees that includes both certified classified as well as subs and temps and administrators so that is just a view of some fast facts of Prince William County Public Schools.

[01:08:40] Our core values are equity, inclusivity, innovation, integrity, resiliency, and well-being. And these core values are what undergird our entire strategic plan, but they also align with our profile of a graduate. The principles of the profile of a graduate is to be a critical thinker, a digital citizen, a global collaborator, understanding that we must value the perspectives of others, being resilient, and also being an innovator and visionary.

[01:09:08] Our job in Prince William County Public Schools is to ensure not that students just get the diploma on the stage at graduation, but that they acquire rewarding careers to have post-secondary success. We want them to have economic mobility and we want them to live purpose-driven lives.

[01:09:23] And we believe that as students graduate, if they embody the principles that we have defined within the profile of a graduate, then they will be positioned for post-secondary success. At this time, I'm going to go through each of the four commitments and unpack those and show the progress today.

[01:09:41] Starting first with learning and achievement for all. Here are the wildly important goals for learning and achievement for all. We have set an on-time graduation rate of 95% by 2025 and where we are today is 91.7%.

[01:09:59] We also, as I stated, ensuring post-secondary success, We also put goals in place that measures our success in making sure that students are positioned for post-secondary success when they leave Prince William County. So you'll see here that we set a goal for having 60% of our graduates earning one or more early college or career credentials, and currently we're at 40%.

[01:10:24] And just for those who may be tuning in with us, I do wanna explain what that means. An early college credential would be a student who not only passes an APIB Cambridge or dual enrollment course, but also earns the credit for that course.

[01:10:42] And we know that that is a significant support for students going into financial, removing financial barriers going into college because some students graduate with the equivalent of an associate's degree in their back pocket when they earn those early credentials. Also for career credential, we know that there are multiple pathways towards graduation, and so as we have bolstered and improved our efforts around CTE, we not only wanna expand CTE, we also want to make sure that when our students are graduating on a career path, that they also graduate with the career credential because those students who gain the certification

[01:11:20] upon graduation experience higher wages having those credentials than those who do not. We set a goal for college readiness. Right now, SAT is the strongest indicator of college readiness, and we set that goal at 60%, and we're currently today at 53%.

[01:11:40] College readiness on the ACT suggests that if students score a 10-10, a combined score of 10-10, that they are prepared to persist in a college course and pass a college course, and that denotes college readiness.

[01:11:55] Then we also set goals, of course, for SOL, for our core subject areas. Our goal is 85% across all core subject areas and you'll see where we stand today. Currently in math, we're at 70%. In reading, we're at 73%.

[01:12:12] You don't see science here, but science is at 68%. And I'll kind of go through some of the highlights of the growth in those areas towards making adequate progress. We also set a goal for early literacy, which we know really is the foundation for success as students matriculate through our system.

[01:12:29] So we set a goal to ensure that at minimum 80%, all of these goals are for the end of the strategic plan 2025. So by 2025, we wanted to ensure that 80% of our K-2 students were prepared to be reading on grade level by third grade.

[01:12:47] And that is as measured by the PALS assessment. And today, we are on track towards meeting that goal because we are currently at 75%. You'll see also that we extrapolated from our graduation rate.

[01:13:02] We looked at the student population that had the highest dropout rate and we targeted that population for a 10% decrease. And you'll see here that today our English learners are dropping out at a rate of 28.7%, which is alarming.

[01:13:19] And so we've put significant supports in place for our English learners and we're looking forward to seeing what impact we will have at the conclusion of this year to get towards the decrease of 10%. You'll see some soft goals at the bottom around CTE, which is critically important because again, if we continue to believe that there are multiple pathways for student success post-graduation, which we do and we're investing heavily in that, we wanted to make sure we had strong goals for that as well.

[01:13:46] And so you'll see there that we set a goal to have by 2025, 3,500 rising juniors and seniors, with summer employment, having work-based learning experiences. And today I'm proud to report that we are at 1,065.

[01:14:02] So we are well on our, and that is not including this upcoming summer where we know that we will significantly increase that number. You'll also see here that we set a goal to ensure that as students graduate, a minimum of 500 graduating seniors had formal internships or apprenticeships in their back pocket.

[01:14:22] And today we are at 135, and that's not including the upcoming graduating class. So those are some of the wildly important goals for Learning and Achievement for All, but now I do want to go into some of the highlights for Learning and Achievement for All.

[01:14:37] So we talked about where we are for SOL, and it is important to note that we currently are at 70% for math performance, but it is a significant increase over the two years coming out of the pandemic. we've increased math performance by 17% to get to that 70%.

[01:14:55] Science performance has increased by 9% to get to 68%. Literacy is the area where there's opportunity for continued growth because that growth has not mirrored math and science to the tune of 2.2% growth. But what's most impressive is the 19% growth that we experienced for our early learners as measured by the phonological awareness literacy screener.

[01:15:20] also known as PALS. It's also important for us to note that as we continue to invest in early childhood education, we now boast over 1,300 students in our early childhood pre-K programs, and we do have funding in place to onboard 66 additional classes for pre-K coming into the new school year.

[01:15:44] Here are a few key highlights in Learning and Achievement for All. This one is really important because as I came into the school system, I remember all of the feedback that we received and we were still very much in the throes of the pandemic.

[01:16:00] And so everyone was worried about, as we should have been worried about recovery and intervention and learning loss. But I do remember so many families weighed in and as well as board members weighed in on the importance of making sure that we're accelerating learning as well. And while we are providing interventions for those who need it, we cannot forget that we have gifted learners in our school system, and their needs have to be met.

[01:16:24] But not only that, we wanted to make sure that underrepresented groups who were not accessing gifted education and advanced coursework for whatever reason, that we removed those barriers. And so we went to work to do that as outlined in our strategic plan.

[01:16:40] And I have to say that the results from that work is truly impactful to the students that we serve. You'll see here for underrepresented groups, Right now our percentage of African American students accessing gifted programs has increased to the tune of 11.56%.

[01:16:58] Our Hispanic students are accessing gifted programs now currently with a 14.5% increase. We've increased the percentage of students with disabilities who are accessing gifted programming to the tune of 14.61% and our highest percentage of students who now have access to gifted education is our English learners because what we found is oftentimes students may have been perceived as not to be gifted simply because they are an English learner and the language may not be there but those students are still gifted students who are highly intellectual and capable of thriving

[01:17:36] in a gifted program and so removing some of the barriers that were existing in our school system, we saw the most growth from our English learners accessing gifted programming and that's something for us to celebrate. Additionally, we implemented equal opportunity schools across all of our high schools.

[01:17:52] And we have seen a 9% increase in the percentage of students who are accessing APIB and Cambridge and first time students in advanced coursework. And we also put the supports in place in schools so that they have a trusted adult to go to so that they're not just accessing the course, but they're actually being successful in the coursework.

[01:18:13] The data that's not represented here that Dr. Atkins has been able to track and share with me is that we're seeing the same success rates from our first time AP and IB seekers as we have traditionally when they weren't in the classes, which suggests that they can thrive in these classes.

[01:18:32] We just had to remove the barriers that may exist from them accessing that, as well as educating our students and our families on the importance of being able to access advanced coursework and what it can do for them when they go into college. There's a study that came out of University of Chicago that showed that those students who accessed advanced placement, as well as IB, achieved the post-secondary degree at a rate 50% higher than their peers who did not access advanced coursework.

[01:18:58] So it's important for us to stay the course with this work. And then also, you'll see something that I came into this school system knowing from having implemented before how important and critical it is for every single student to graduate, not just on time, but with a concrete post-secondary plan to chart out their future in their back pocket.

[01:19:19] Because if they have a plan for the future, it's more likely that they will actually experience post-secondary success. And I'm so happy to report that over the last two years of the strategic plan, every single graduate of Prince William County Public Schools has graduated with a plan, meaning that they sat down with a knowledgeable advisor, a career advisor, to talk about their future, whether they were going into college, into the military, into the workforce, and so, or transition services.

[01:19:47] So we're excited about that. And then our scholarship dollars have increased by 31%, so we are now at $119 million, looking forward to seeing what that number will become at the end of this school year. We set a target for $260 million in scholarships, and we saw a 31% increase in a single year, so we are on track to meeting that 2025 goal of $260 million.

[01:20:13] A few key highlights, so those were some of the highlights for Learning and Achievement for All, looking at the academic component. We also wanna look at workforce development and CTE, which is a huge investment for us and give you some of the numbers there as well.

[01:20:30] So what you're seeing right here now is when we started this strategic plan, we had zero formal work-based learning partners in this school system. And currently we boast 297 registered CTE partners in our school system.

[01:20:47] So what does that mean for us? That means we now are the second largest youth registered apprenticeship program in the Commonwealth of Virginia. We have 17 youth registered apprenticeships. These are, the numbers you see on this screen, what makes me so excited about it is because this actually represents students.

[01:21:03] So we always talk percentages, but it's good to take a hard look at what's behind those percentages. So these are actual numbers of students that have been positively impacted by the work in our strategic plan. 49 of our students have gotten internship placements, 118 youth registered internships have been awarded, 1,065 students with summer jobs and employment, 64 students that attended our career fair received job offers, and 1,700 students attended just this year's career fair alone.

[01:21:40] Other highlights for CTE, where I talked about making sure that students are getting credentials, so let's take a look at this. We had 39 students were awarded state licensures earned upon graduation, 4,726 students passed the Workplace Readiness Skills Assessment, 7,469 students received an industry certification.

[01:22:02] 10,459 students also earned one or more early credentials for a total of 12,235 total credentials achieved. Currently we have 758 active enrollments across 19 CTE dual enrollment courses.

[01:22:21] And also important to note that we now have over 151 high school CTE courses across all of our high schools over eight different domains. And here is our status report. This is our progress report for learning and achievement for all.

[01:22:39] So where you see the green check marks, those are all of the initiatives and goals that we've already accomplished. I won't read through all of those, but I do wanna highlight one that is really important and we're so excited that we invested in this in our strategic plan and that is to make sure that we have transition supports for our students with special needs that are exiting out of our program.

[01:23:02] And I just wanna highlight the Employee Explore Work-Based Partnership for our students with special needs. This partnership is with TOTOS Supermarket, which recently our partnership with TOTOS was awarded the Prince William Chamber of Commerce 2024 Business Award.

[01:23:19] We also now have a student voice committee in every single high school and our student senate along with our student voice committees are currently working on our student bill of rights. What you'll see with the yellow check marks here, these are things that we are not calling this green because the goal hasn't necessarily been met or it may not be on track at the pace of some of the other ones, but it's yellow because the work has started and we do believe that we will be able to meet these goals by 2025.

[01:23:51] So you'll see here that the bill of rights is not done, so that's been marked as yellow, but our students are working on that, and some of our board members had an opportunity to come and see our students in action working through a work session on the Bill of Rights. You'll also see that dual language immersion programs, adding those, that is a yellow check mark because we've not met that goal yet, but we're marking that as approaching because in addition to the Bel Air pilot dual immersion program, we are onboarding three new dual immersion schools for the upcoming school year, and that is Featherstone, Minnieville, and Chris Young.

[01:24:27] So that is currently yellow, but it will turn green, definitely by the 2025 culminating strategic plan progress report. And then I already talked about the scholarship, so we're well on our way there. What is red, three things that are red here, meaning that it either is not yet started or we are not making adequate progress on it, and so we have to double down on that in the coming year.

[01:24:52] So the STEM center development. A little bit about the STEM center. In the strategic plan, that was originally inputted in the strategic plan because we have 20 elementary schools that do not have formal science labs. And so we have the Eagle Center at Belmont Elementary School and the goal was to revamp the Eagle Center, which right now, it is an opportunity for students to access experiential learning, but it's only for environmental learning opportunities.

[01:25:21] and we wanted to expand that to make it a STEM center, kind of like the Cedar Point STEM Center or the Think Big Space at River Oaks. We have not started to reimagine the Eagle Center, but what we have done is we will in the upcoming school year be launching two new STEM centers for field trips for those 20 elementary schools.

[01:25:43] One will be at Innovation Elementary School, which is certainly fitting, and the other one will be at Neabsco Elementary School, and they'll be working closely with Cedar Point and partnering with them to replicate what's at Cedar Point at Neabsco and at Innovation.

[01:26:01] So those are in progress. You'll also see reading and writing scores were flat with only 2.2% growth, and so I've coded that as red because I don't believe that 2.2% growth is adequate progress. We are excited about the science of reading and implementing the Virginia Literacy Act, which we think is going to go a long way, as well as we're seeing such promise in our early literacy, so we have a stronger reader coming through the pipeline in Prince William County Public Schools, so I do believe that we're going to be able to rebound there.

[01:26:31] And then of course, our dropout rate for English learners at 28% is unacceptable, and so that is coded as red, but we have put systems in place for that support. We do have an early warning system. We've changed our course catalog, the way we schedule our ELs, and intervention and tiered supports through MTSS for our ELs.

[01:26:49] So we do believe that we're going to get some traction, but that data won't be available until we get grad rate at the end of this school year. Therefore, it is also coded as red. So before we transition into positive climate and culture, I want to share with you just a short video vignette that gives you some visibility into the life of learning and achievement for all in Prince William County Public Schools.

[01:27:16] - They teach us leadership. They teach us how to be responsible and accountable. I've actually worked on that and I'm doing better in school because of it. - I'm taking this class because I've always wanted to do something that helps people. - At first, I really just wanted to take a fun class and program seemed really fun, and out of it, I actually think I want to see this as a career and go further with this.

[01:27:40] - It was heavy, it was fun to build. It's not something I ever thought I'd get the opportunity to in high school. I got the opportunity to be able to hook up the under part of the wing. I got to put the front propeller on, take it apart, and see how the engine operated.

[01:27:59] Programs like this are important because we need more hands-on and we need to bring the trades back to school so that students can have other options besides colleges. I always loved working with cars and I thought this was going to be a great class for me, and it has. And if you feel like one class is going to do you good for the rest of your life, take it.

[01:28:19] Don't miss the opportunity on it. This is like the real deal. We're in an actual kitchen, we have the uniform on, we're making food every day and we're taking it home. It's a very great experience. When I graduate I really want to run a food truck in this program. I took the welding classes because it gives me a good chance to get a job in the future as opposed to having to go to college and take another four years of classes.

[01:28:41] I'm working on the AWS certification, which means that basically it's evidence that I know how to weld well and it gives me a higher chance of being hired. While you were here filming us, I passed my AWS SEND certification. These last few years have just been dedicated towards getting certifications and yeah, I'm really excited.

[01:28:58] I have a job lined up and I'm gonna start two weeks after graduation. - All right, that is learning and achievement for all. And now we're moving into key commitment two, positive climate and culture, all about making sure that we are a warm and welcoming place for students to learn and grow and for teachers and educators to teach and for our staff to work.

[01:29:21] So I'm going to start with the wildly important goals for positive climate and culture, and we'll follow the same format of learning and achievement for all. So starting with the goal to have 90% of our students reporting satisfaction with their school climate and a sense of belonging in all of our schools, and this is 90% overall across both elementary and secondary, and here's our current status.

[01:29:44] Right now for elementary schools, 87%, and that's on our last division-wide survey for 2023, 87% of our elementary school students stated that they have satisfaction with their climate in their school, 81% for high school, and our lowest was middle school, which is at 74%, and if Catalina is here, I know she's documenting this, and so I'm gonna have to answer for this later, but clearly we have to do some work to do in middle school to improve the positive climate and culture.

[01:30:17] We also set a goal of 95% for school administration retention rate because we believe that every school must have strong school administration to establish the conditions for a positive climate and culture and we are happy that we're right now at 93% so we're well on our way to meeting that goal.

[01:30:36] We set a retention rate for retaining highly qualified certified staff at 90% and I'm happy to report that we've surpassed that goal at 91.8%, putting us back to pre-pandemic, actually a little bit higher than pre-pandemic numbers, and Donna will correct me if I'm wrong on that, but we're doing pretty well and surpassed that 90% goal.

[01:30:58] Now, where we haven't gotten as much traction, you'll see for a division-wide greenhouse gas emission, we did set a goal to reduce that, but that's by 2026, so we do still have a little bit more time, but we wanted a 10% reduction. We're currently only at 1%, so we've got quite a bit of work to do there.

[01:31:15] We also have a diversity goal to increase our diversity by 5%, and this is a goal that is on track. We are currently at 3% with a little under two years to go in the strategic plan, so we'll be able to meet that 5% goal. You'll also see we set a goal to have 100% of our schools have access to K-12 environmental literacy curriculum, and we are currently at 86%, so we definitely will hit the 100% mark.

[01:31:42] I did have an opportunity to meet with the sustainability team and review their continuous improvement plan and they do have the plan to meet the 2025 100%. You'll also see some soft goals at the bottom. We set a goal to have our first net zero school by 2025 and that is well underway because we do have the Occoquan school which will be our first net zero school.

[01:32:05] We also established a goal to have five PWCS schools earning the green ribbon and we're not there yet. We have only met 20% of that goal. We only have one school, which is Freedom. But what I am excited about is that we have two schools that have just submitted applications.

[01:32:22] So we should have three out of five going into the new school year, which would then put this goal on track. We also set our goals for 350 international teachers being hired, which is contributing greatly to our diversity goal. And we're currently at 229.

[01:32:39] So we're well past the trajectory for where we expect it to be at this time in the strategic plan. And this other one really excites me and this was the goal that we had to have 75 assistants turn special education teachers and we are at 125 assistants placed into special education teaching roles.

[01:33:04] And so that's something that we are very, very proud of. - Some key highlights for positive climate and culture. You'll see here that as we came out of the pandemic, part of our recovery plan, we instituted PWCS Heals.

[01:33:19] And Rebecca Schlater came before you earlier, if you remember, came before us earlier this school year and really delved into our PWCS Heals plan. We have now 4,500 members of our PWCS school community trained in trauma-informed care and social-emotional and restorative practices and supporting not just students but also staff in our schools every single day.

[01:33:45] And that's been a really, really successful program. We also have our educator workforce now has a diversity rate of 28%. We have 229 international teachers that represent the 159 countries that are represented by our student body in Prince William County and the 174 languages that are spoken.

[01:34:07] So those are some critical highlights. And then other highlights for positive climate and culture, and we saw a little bit of that today with our educators rising, but I have to highlight the work that our HR team has done to bring the first of its kind teacher residency and apprenticeship program to Prince William County.

[01:34:25] This is a collaboration between the Virginia Department of Education and the Virginia Commonwealth University, and we secured $350,000 in a grant to launch this residency and apprenticeship program. And I do wanna give you an update on where we are with that. Currently, there are five residents in the graduate level program, and they're anticipated to complete their program this spring, and two of the five have already been offered teaching positions in Prince William County Public Schools for the 24-25 school year, so this is working for us as we continue to tackle the national teacher shortage.

[01:34:59] There are 18 participants in the apprenticeship program, which began in January 2024, and they will earn a bachelor's degree in teaching upon completion of the two-year program. Thus far for the fall of '24 cohort, we have two participants in the undergraduate program and 12 accepted into the graduate program, and we're still interviewing candidates for the fall '24 program, so those numbers are expected to increase.

[01:35:25] In conjunction with our teaching assistant to teachers program to date, there are 22 PWCS employees currently taking the introductory course, and 163 PWCS employees who have completed the introductory course needed to be eligible to teach special education.

[01:35:43] And we've hired, as I stated earlier, 125 individuals into special education teaching roles since this program's inception. We also set a goal for our high schools participating in the Grow Our Own Teacher program, and we honored some of them tonight.

[01:35:59] 12 of our 13 schools currently host educators rising programs with over 200 active members. And let me just give you the comparison so that you know how much work has been done around this. In 2021, we only had six of our 13 high schools that had active educator rising programs with approximately 100 members.

[01:36:21] And today we have 12 out of 13, we've doubled that number and 200 active members. So we're up by 50%. So we're absolutely meeting our goal there. And just a few other notes here on positive climate and culture.

[01:36:39] 231,934 metric tons of CO2 that we've reduced our carbon footprint by and that we've avoided over 75.1 million in would-be energy costs.

[01:36:55] and that's all a part of Positive Climate and Culture, and also our capital improvement plan, which we launched our facilities index where we assessed our facilities and we re-imagined our capital improvement plan based on that and some other efficiencies that we needed to work through.

[01:37:12] And so that is a goal that also was identified in our strategic plan and that goal has been met. So here is our progress report. All of the things that we've accomplished, you'll see a check mark next to that in green. And the areas where we are yellow, meaning that we've started the work, it's approaching being on track or being met, but we're not there yet, is our Launching Thriving Careers, which is really all around succession planning and leadership development, making sure we have a strong pipeline of leadership.

[01:37:44] So as employees exit positions, especially those in our school-based administration, that we have a strong pipeline going into those or when people exit administrative roles in central office, we have a bench already prepared. What's red here is you'll see that, I talked about the green ribbon schools, we only have one out of five, so we're at 20%, but we do have the two applications going in, but we still coded this as red because until those applications are accepted and approved, you know, we are only at 20%.

[01:38:14] And then finally, the middle school survey satisfaction results at 74% is coded as red because that is off-track. We do believe that the 81% of high school, 87% of elementary school puts us on track, but because middle school is below 80%, we have to double down on our efforts there to be able to meet that goal by 2025.

[01:38:37] And before we transition into our third key commitment, which is family and community engagement, let's take a sneak peek into what the lived experiences of our students are when we realize our goals in positive climate and culture.

[01:38:55] This year we are celebrating our second quinceanera event. Basically, we are sharing the Hispanic culture to the community. This is a wonderful way for students to work with each other, to be leaders, dancers, to demonstrate their talents as artists. We also have a quinceanera poster competition.

[01:39:12] So we involve the National Art Honor Society for this event. And we also involve the cadets that did the flag ceremony. So all the community have been working together to achieve this celebration this year.

[01:39:28] What we want to join this event is because usually I want to learn more about other cultures other than mine. I was just walking by one day and I saw them. And me and my friend Emmanuel, I asked him about it and he said, oh, it's a concierge thing after school.

[01:39:43] And then I asked el señor if I could join and he said, yeah, because they needed more boys. They received me openly and didn't judge that I was one of them. Una experiencia muy hermosa porque fue la primera vez que celebramos la una quinceañera y fue muy bonito porque yo acababa de cumplir mis 15 años y yo no hice una fiesta grande, pero me sentí muy feliz de vivir esa experiencia con demás niños y niñas.

[01:40:09] La quinceañera es una de las celebraciones más bonitas que nosotros tenemos, que es como la transición de una niña a mujer y que le celebramos sus 15 primaveras. - All right, and that concludes Positive Climate and Culture.

[01:40:26] Now we will move into family and community engagement, and here are the goals from our strategic plan, our wildly important goals from our strategic plan in the area of family and community engagement. You'll see the first goal we set out to achieve was to have a parent liaison to bridge the gap between home and school in every single school in Prince William County, and we have achieved that goal.

[01:40:48] We're at 100%. We also set a goal to increase parent participation in our family engagement series. Our family engagement series for targeted populations really, and it's open to everyone, but what we do is we provide education, information and resources to our families so that they can engage in the school community to better support and help their students.

[01:41:11] And we set the goal to increase engagement by 10%, but clearly we set that goal too low because we've increased engagement by 106% in our family engagement series. So we added more offerings in our family engagement series.

[01:41:28] We did more, we had some of our parents who came and gave us feedback. Some of our parents that have frequented the board meeting to share information and their thoughts, met with us and shared, you know, you should send out reminders, you should send out more information.

[01:41:43] And so we did that. And so we have benefited from that feedback and increased our parent engagement significantly. We also surveyed our parents on whether or not, you know, we're meeting the goal, their satisfaction, and I have some data on that as well.

[01:42:00] We also set a goal to have 90% of our families reporting that they are being engaged with their school, so we wanna make sure that schools are offering opportunities for parents to be engaged. And then we also set, and we're currently at 80%, so we're on track, but we haven't met the goal yet.

[01:42:16] The first two we've already met and we just need to sustain that. Then we set a goal of 100% of all of our schools having a formal business or community organization partnership that is aligned to advancing their school improvement plan.

[01:42:33] And I am so excited that our business community, when we launched our strategic plan, our business community and our community organizations stepped up and said, we want to be a part of this, we want to support, and they have done just that. And today, every single school in Prince William County has a formal business partner or community organization that's working to advance their school improvement plans.

[01:42:57] We also set a goal to have 85% of our school advisory councils high functioning. This goal is not on track because we are developing the rubric to actually evaluate the councils.

[01:43:15] So we'll have data on that for next year because we'll start doing the evaluations of our school advisory councils because we will have the criteria and rubric developed for the upcoming, during the upcoming school year. So by the conclusion of the next school year, we will have every council evaluated.

[01:43:35] So here are just some highlights for family and community engagement. You'll see here the Global Welcome Center, which the board, thank you so much for approving the expansion of the Global Welcome Center and the renovation of our Global Welcome Center, which is much needed, and the supports that we have for our new families arriving to Prince William County.

[01:43:55] So that was identified in our strategic plan, and that's why it showed up the way that it did, and so we've made good on that. We also have 100% of our home languages supported through two-way communication and auto-translation.

[01:44:11] that was also identified as a goal to remove the barriers of communication in our strategic plan, and we have executed on that through the implementation of school status, as well as our early warning system where we give regular communication to schools and families so that they know what's happening with their students' success.

[01:44:29] And to date, we've sent 8.5 million messages in the preferred home language to our families, and that's just in the first half of the school year 23-24, along with a 92% engagement rate division-wide.

[01:44:46] And that's messaging going out from all of our school sites as well as from central office. Other key highlights for family and community engagement, you'll see that for our family engagement, I gave you the numbers, the 106% increase there.

[01:45:04] But just to put that in perspective, we've had 28,000 views to date of our family engagement series. And of those who have participated in our family engagement series, 96% of those families have said that their participation in the engagement series events left them feeling better equipped to support the needs of their students.

[01:45:27] And to date, we have about an 87% rate of parents reporting that they have been positively engaged in developing trust with their schools. Another big highlight in the strategic plan, for the first time ever, we identified a funding agenda for Prince William County Public Schools, and we set a $10 million goal through our education foundation, SPARC.

[01:45:52] And so we've been bolstering our philanthropic supports to make sure that the work that's happening in the strategic plan could come to fruition. And I have to say the goal for $10 million was by 2025 and we are today at $13.52 million.

[01:46:10] So what that includes is cash donations, in-kind donations, scholarships, grants, and investments. So when you see our business partners providing apprenticeships and internships or giving out scholarships, that's all a part of our philanthropic supports.

[01:46:28] And so we have really been busy in meeting our funding agenda, and we've already surpassed our goal, and we still have a little under two years to go. And so we're also, here you see we boast 100% of our schools with at least one form of business and community partnership.

[01:46:45] Our business community has been really good to us and later this month we're going to be celebrating all the work that they have done to help us reach some of these goals in our strategic plan. And here's the progress report on key commitment three, family and community engagement.

[01:47:02] This shows everything that we have accomplished and so you see the long-running list for those items that are green. We do have two approaching initiatives. One is the Global Welcome Center because we just approved the capital improvement plan, so that is yellow because it's not complete yet.

[01:47:21] Then you'll also see that we have yellow for implementing a systemic approach to ensure consistency in our communication between families and schools. And the reason that's yellow, we do have school status, we have implemented that. That's been a huge success, but we've also gotten feedback on improvements that we need to make with school status, both from our schools, our educators, as well as from our families, so we're making some enhancements there.

[01:47:48] And then what you see as red is the high-functioning advisory councils. As I stated, the criteria rubric is not developed yet, so we're marking that as off-track or not yet started because we don't have the rubric to actually evaluate the councils as of yet, but we are working on that rubric for the upcoming school year.

[01:48:07] So we are expecting that that will be back on track prior to the culmination of the strategic plan. And that rounds out family and community engagement. And here is a quick look at how our families feel about the work that has been happening in the area of family and community engagement.

[01:48:25] - And the winner of the 2024 gauntlet at Patty Elementary School. Patti's Gauntlet is an oral language and etiquette competition for our fourth grade students. Today's events included a work the room challenge where students needed to literally work the room full of adults, meet them, introduce themselves, and engage in small talk.

[01:48:51] Another competition was an interview where they were interviewing for an internship with the Coca-Cola company. Students also engaged in a news report where they had to deliver a report on a recent Patti event and then answer questions from the media.

[01:49:07] Finally, they participated in an etiquette challenge during lunch. We believe here at Patti that oral language is not prioritized in the way it should be. And we really believe that these soft skills are what's really vital to helping develop well-rounded students. Well, I learned all kinds of oral language skills.

[01:49:25] How to do a handshake. It doesn't matter if I wouldn't. I already learned how to make a debate plan, interview plan. And so it all adds up to help me. I learned how to speak with people properly and I learned better manners.

[01:49:41] I feel like during this competition it will make me feel more confident speaking to people. Not only will these kids develop oral language and etiquette skills, but they will also come away with more confidence in their ability to overcome challenges. Robin Scott!

[01:49:57] It's a lot because all the hard work they do actually helps in like later life and then it all pays off. Rub it, rub it, rub it, rub it, rub it.

[01:50:16] All right. That was family. I think we do that in middle school. That would help our students. Our satisfaction. I think you're right. And I was able to experience that event along with Mr. Wilk and it was just so amazing and impressive.

[01:50:34] And one of the reasons we included that clip for family and community engagement is all of the volunteers and judges, they were members of our community. Our business partners, our community organizations, they all came out to support the event.

[01:50:51] Now for organizational coherence. Here are the wildly important goals for organizational coherence. The first goal, we set out to ensure that we are a school system that is learning how to get better at getting better, which is improvement science.

[01:51:07] And so, we ensured that every single school and department in central office have a continuous improvement plan annually that is aligned to our division goals and strategies. And to date, we have met that 100%.

[01:51:24] Every single school, every department has a continuous improvement plan. When I started in my first year, Our Continuous Improvement team trained every single school leader on continuous improvement, trained every single department leader in continuous improvement, so that we could learn improvement science together, and then implement that with fidelity.

[01:51:47] And what you should know is that these are not plans that just sit on the shelf, they are dynamic plans that we follow. Our level associates monitor and give feedback, and they have three progress monitoring cycles throughout the year, a beginning of the year monitoring cycle to check in to see how schools and offices are progressing on their goals, a middle of the year cycle, and then an end of year to determine whether or not we've actually met those goals.

[01:52:11] And so our level associates lead that work in making sure it's happening in our schools. Of course, our school leadership teams lead the work in the buildings, but our level associates are holding schools accountable for making sure that these plans are dynamic and that they are being implemented with fidelity.

[01:52:27] And here at the central office, Dr. Flannard and I, we lead those three cycles. We protect time in our schedule all through the year so that every single department sits with us and has a progress monitoring session where we look at the goals, their strategies, and how they are supporting our schools and our students and whether or not they're on track to meeting their goals.

[01:52:52] And everything that you see in the four-year strategic plan shows up in the school and department's annual strategic plans, and that's how we know whether or not we're making progress on everything that we have in the comprehensive plan. So I'm really excited about that as a school division, the work that we're doing, and those plans are now on a platform called Plan for Learning and are accessible, so any leader in the system can go in and actually see other plans and see how other schools are doing and what their priorities are, as well as see the central office department plans and and see what's in there and how they're situated to support schools.

[01:53:27] We also set a goal to have 100% of our languages supported, which I already mentioned that earlier, but it shows up in positive climate and culture, as well as a goal in organizational coherence. And then you see a goal here, 90% customer satisfaction. Now this is one, you know, sometimes people question as a school system, why are we focused on customer satisfaction?

[01:53:48] This isn't a business, we are a business. This is a $2 billion organization, We're the largest employer in Prince William County public schools, and we are a business. Our business just happens to be education. And all of our constituents are our customers, and we have to serve them well.

[01:54:05] And sometimes we miss the mark on that, and we have to be accountable when we do. But we also have to know whether or not they're satisfied, and especially here at central office when our customers call us or file a complaint or have a concern, we wanted to make sure that we had, And if you look on page 47 of the strategic plan, you'll see we identified that we were going to house a customer relations management platform so that we can better track and assess whether or not we have customer satisfaction.

[01:54:38] We also launched training for customer service so that individuals who may be manning phones or greeting in the front office learn how to appropriately support and show strong customer service to to all of our constituents and so you'll see where it says we're at 89% so I do want to break down where that number comes from we do we did implement this year Zendesk now not everybody wanted to switch from just sending the email so we did get some complaints why do why can't I just send it to PWCS soup account why do I have to put it in Zendesk I do want to break

[01:55:14] this down any any business organization that you may patron you see that typically you'll get some message that says how are we doing could do you mind taking a quick survey and so and they have systems to track calls coming in calls completed tickets closed well this does that for us so we have to use Zendesk because we don't have a way to monitor email closure rates etc through email. What Zendesk does it's a it's a leading national platform for customer relationship management and it's used by major companies around the world. The

[01:55:50] tool enables tracking of each request and that request when it comes through Zendesk is automatically routed to the right person based on the topic of the request or the concern to ensure that the right person is answering the question and we don't have that you know tag of like oh that's not me call this person. That's not me. Call this person. So it eliminates that. We also track the open to close time so that we can ensure timely answers for our customers, both families and employees. And we're also able to ensure that each customer has a receipt and a tracking number of their request so

[01:56:26] they can also ensure that we're being held accountable for their request. Additionally, it provides us with real-time customer tracking information from the receipt all the way to the solution, the resolution. And so for concerns that have been submitted thus far through Zendesk, this year we started with three departments, three offices, IT, human resources, and transportation.

[01:56:50] And so to date, just from those three offices this school year, we've resolved 120,077 tickets. And from those tickets that have been resolved, We have a customer satisfaction rating of 89%.

[01:57:08] And so this platform allows us to actually track that. Next year, we're going to continue to fold in additional departments until all of central office is accountable through Zendesk. And for our goal of 100% of our schools being funded equitably, we launched the budget task force.

[01:57:27] And you'll see here, we wanna have 100% of our schools equitably and adequately funded, but we can't measure that until the end of the strategic plan because the task force works with ERS, which is a consulting company.

[01:57:43] We're building new rules and methodology for budgeting to make sure, and then we have to actually institute that. So we won't be able to measure it until the culmination of the strategic plan. So you see that that's blank there. You also see 100% goal for updating digital learning.

[01:58:01] So we did put in the strategic plan that we would have a digital equity plan. And we have made good on that already prior to the 2025 deadline. So as you already know, we announced that every single school received through centrally funded support.

[01:58:16] We did not have schools have to take money out of their school budgets. We ensured that every single school had a one-to-one advice, not just for students, but also for teachers. And we also made sure that they were all outfitted with new line boards so that they had instructional technology resources because what we found was some schools had all the bells and whistles, other schools didn't, because they didn't have the money in their budget to do it.

[01:58:39] So we made sure that the digital equity plan ensured that every school had devices that were no more than four years old, and new line boards that were no more than five years old. And so we've met that goal. And then you'll see the last goal in organizational coherence is that we put in the strategic plan that we would complete eight school renovations between the years of 23, fiscal year 23 and fiscal year 26.

[01:59:05] And we're 50% of the way there on that goal. So let's take a look at some of the highlights here for organizational coherence. We are spending $20 million annually for our IT digital equity spend.

[01:59:20] And that's been a significant support to the schools because now that frees up money that they can use towards their instructional program. And also those schools that were struggling and didn't have technology now have it and they don't have to worry about not having the dollars to support that. And then another big highlight in organizational coherence in our strategic plan, in the area of organizational coherence, we outline competitive salary and benefits.

[01:59:44] And so here you'll see the numbers for fiscal year 25, but at the bottom what you'll see is the average teacher salary increase over four years, which is to the tune of 28.2%. So we are making good on our commitment in this area in organizational coherence.

[02:00:01] And here's our progress report for our last key commitment on organizational coherence. You'll see all of the green are things that are initiatives that have already been met, priorities that have been met or exceeded. In yellow, you're going to see that we have yellow there, the enhanced division-wide customer service model survey and training.

[02:00:25] We did launch customer service, but not the entire school division for those personnel that are expected to take this training have not completed the training yet. Quite a few individuals have done it. We still have some more time, but we're not at 100%. So we mark that as yellow because it has started and it is in progress.

[02:00:44] And then you'll see also in yellow curriculum and our curriculum investment in our plan to coincide with textbook and instructional materials. And so here, I just wanna talk a little bit about what that means. We did adopt the HMH, so the board adopted high-quality curriculum in literacy, and all schools are using HMH for literacy, and it is an approved curriculum for VLA, for the Virginia Literacy Act.

[02:01:11] And then in the past few years, we've adopted division-wide curriculum for science as well, but we also have division-wide access to Lexia and CERN for intervention. What we're currently trying to adopt, which is why this is yellow, is Spanish and dual language.

[02:01:29] And so next year we will adopt division-wide curriculum also for math. And then you also see that site-based management, site-based standards. So one of the charges, a theme that came up throughout the development of the strategic plan with input and feedback was around normed practices across our schools where we have some schools doing one thing, another school doing something different.

[02:01:54] It's a strain for families that have students at multiple schools, it brings about confusion. And so, a couple of things here. We're not just addressing some of the practices that we need to norm across, you know, site-based management practices. We're also, in this site-based standards framework, identifying operational requirements on things that should be centralized and what we should own at the school division to support schools and what they should own.

[02:02:21] Also, identifying standards of excellence, meaning that going back to adequacy, no matter how much money you receive in your budget, what is the standard of excellence in Prince William County Public Schools? So if we say everyone should have an arts program, then a school shouldn't be absent an arts program because they don't have the funding, if that's the standard of excellence for every school in Prince William County.

[02:02:44] And so that guideline that's coming out is going to define the standards for operation as well as the standards for excellence. We do have a consultant working with us on that and another item here, but it is marked yellow because we have not published the standards as of yet.

[02:03:02] And then you'll see the other yellow, and I wanna break that down 'cause that's a lot of business jargon there about applying Six Sigma and defining, measuring, and analyzing and improving control processes and how we manage quality across the school system. Basically, what that means is we're starting to document our business processes to ensure that we have clear operational playbooks for how things are done.

[02:03:27] So if this entire team is not here, we should have our processes documented on how the work is being done in Prince William County for anybody to be able to walk in and pick up. And so as a part of this work, we're working with a Six Sigma expert.

[02:03:42] Six Sigma is a proven methodology used to identify inefficiencies in business processes and it guides improvements. And so our plan is to make sure that that is green by the conclusion of 2025 and we have a clear operational playbook in the school system.

[02:04:01] You're also going to notice something that is red here and that is around the implementation of a plan to ensure adequate staffing levels in support of our schools. And the board charged us with doing a comprehensive staffing study that is in the strategic plan.

[02:04:19] That's marked red because although we have done the staffing study, we still are not at adequate staffing levels and we also don't have our full leadership succession plan. And so that's why that is marked red. But because we have the staffing study and the board has continued to invest in increasing staffing where the needs are, we do believe that we're going to be able to get there by 2025.

[02:04:43] But to date, the progress on that is off track. And then our human resources office, I think I mentioned this, is working on the succession planning. So that's everything for organizational coherence.

[02:04:59] That's the progress report there. We do have some additional work to be done, but we certainly have a lot that has been accomplished in this area as well as all of the other key commitments. We're gonna close out organizational coherence with a quick look at what organizational coherence means to our families, our community, and our schools.

[02:05:20] - We make a lot of technology available with our one-to-one initiative, where each student has access to technology inside the school and outside of the school. - Many of our families don't qualify for the Affordable Connectivity Program, so our hotspots are their only ability to connect their kids, so the kids can do their homework, they can do their lexia, practice their math skills.

[02:05:45] It just gives them the complete accessibility the internet. I have to bring the hot spot. I turn it on and do some learning on the iPad. Can you use it anywhere? School status allows our teachers to communicate with our parents in any language, allows the parents to respond in their native language, and it translates it then for our teachers. It's filled a huge communication gap.

[02:06:11] For me, it's good. It's a good experience because they send a message to one and they can respond to one in Spanish. In other words, you have to go to the application and that's the problem that you're working and sometimes you don't see them. If you change the message, you see them quickly, you respond quickly and you respond quickly.

[02:06:33] And that is organizational coherence. So that is a progress report on each of our key commitments. And what you see on the screen here, and I believe every board member should have received a pamphlet that we put together that shows all of the exhaustive lists of school division recognitions of achievement.

[02:06:52] Certainly, I'm not going to read all of that, but for our families and community-- - You should read them all. Go ahead, we have time. - I'm gonna let the board each take a row. But I will say, it was important to include this in the presentation, and this will be made available for our families so they can go online and look at this presentation and see our progress report as well as see the many accolades of the school division.

[02:07:16] And that's important. Listen, we are certainly not perfect. We do have things that are a work in progress, but we have so much to be proud of. This is an amazing school system. We've accomplished so much in a short period of time with our strategic plan. And here are some of the receipts to show what we've done in this school system on behalf of our students and families and for the betterment of our schools.

[02:07:38] And so I'm just proud to be the superintendent for Prince William County Public Schools. I'm proud of the work that has been accomplished in our schools and in our school division. My team that's here, certainly there's no way that this would have been done without the highly capable team that supports me, that supports our schools.

[02:07:57] It wouldn't have been possible without our amazing educators and our principals and our community leaders. This has been a whole community effort. Everywhere that I go, when I talk to business leaders, they all talk about the strategic plan. They see themselves in the plan.

[02:08:14] Families see their input in it, and it's shared. You even heard our student who was coming to advocate for middle school, she talked about the core values in the strategic plan. That's an elementary school student who named all of our core values. So it is taking root, beyond taking root, it is flourishing in our community in Prince William County.

[02:08:35] And so this is where we are today. And I'm not only proud of what we've accomplished and the progress that we've made, I'm confident in saying that when we come before you at the conclusion of 2025, we will certainly have much more to celebrate than we have that is not met.

[02:08:53] So thank you so much for your support of the Comprehensive Strategic Plan for Prince William County. Thank you for your commitment to making sure that all of our investments are aligned to our strategic plan so that we stay the course on the commitment that we made to families and for the partnership of this board in supporting all of the work that our schools and our school division is doing.

[02:09:15] At this time, I'm gonna open it up for any questions that you might have or any comments that you might have. I know that this was a lengthy presentation, but as I said, this is our core business. And so we have to spend time unpacking the work that's happening and taking a dive into that and understanding where we are and where we're going.

[02:09:35] So I do appreciate your patience as we walk through all of the work that has happened over the two and a half years in implementing this amazing strategic plan in Prince William County Public Schools. And my team is joining me now for any questions that you might have or any comments that you would like to share.

[02:09:52] - Well, first off, Dr. McDade, thank you. This is fantastic. This is, let me just use some words to describe it. transparent, accountable, honest, you know, work that's dedicated to fidelity to a plan.

[02:10:12] You know, you are not afraid to talk about our successes, but also our challenges and our, not failures, but you know, work that needs to be done. And in your commitment to excellence, I think this is a strong start to your tenure as superintendent.

[02:10:28] This is really coming out of the pandemic remarkable. And I think, you know, outlines the reason why the other superintendents in the region selected you to be superintendent of the year. And it's the first time Prince William County Schools has achieved that, frankly, in a long time, at least in modern history.

[02:10:50] So I think this is terrific. I think this is, you know, really important. You know, I believe firmly that there'll probably be some the red marks that we don't hit at the end of this. and I would say that when Muhammad Ali said, if your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough, this is what we have to do.

[02:11:11] And so I appreciate this, the dreams that the plan that the community has helped us create and develop is one that should scare us and the work is hard and we really appreciate it.

[02:11:27] So that's all I'll have to say here and then I can let some board members, If they have any questions or concerns, feel free. Why don't we start with Tracy Blake. - I just wanna thank you, Dr. McDade and your staff for this comprehensive report over our strategic commitments.

[02:11:45] And like you said, they are aligned with our core values and the investments are aligned with our core values. And I'm just like family and community engagement and the learning and achievement for all, positive cognitive culture, everything is just wonderful.

[02:12:05] and it's coming from being a parent and then coming and sitting on this side of the diocese and seeing both sides, it's just, it's really wonderful. And I know parents feel heard. I know the community feels heard because they see what's going on and they see, like you said, in the strategic plan, things that they have suggested.

[02:12:23] And it's just excellent. I'm excited to see what the future, thank you. Oh, and the one word that Dr. Lateef forgot was, This was very intentional, and I like that.

[02:12:39] - Strong word, Mr. Blake, and I would encourage each board member to add words that I might have written. I think I'll go to Mr. Wilk, I think he has his mic on. - Thank you. So, and I'm reiterating and echoing some of the things Dr. Lateef said of transformational, transparent, and I've gone off and expounded many times about what I've done for a living for the last 10 years and working with superintendents all over this country in various states, you know, also having, I guess I'll say the pleasure, thanks to the expansion of technology of watching other school districts, because I have to research them,

[02:13:17] watch their exciting board meetings, read their strategic plans, watch their superintendent state of the school addresses. But I have never seen a superintendent come forward and highlight areas we did not meet.

[02:13:32] And I think that speaks to your integrity and the fact that you're being transparent with the community on where we're at. So I'm not trying to be obsequious or anything, but this is really kind of how I feel about this. Now, I do have some questions with that, but it's mostly again, like, again, just clarifications.

[02:13:52] And I'm watching a timer here. I'm gonna try not to go over five total minutes. When I was looking at slide eight, the clarification on the job things, offering jobs for students, the total employment, 'cause I'm looking at those numbers and I'm like, but we have record low like unemployment nationally as a country and I'm at even lower as this region.

[02:14:10] Are those jobs that we employ students at? Are those jobs, those are the ones that we're kind of helping facilitate with local partners? I just need a clarification because a lot of students, you know, getting a summer job is perfunctory and something that they have to do.

[02:14:26] So I'm just trying to get a better understanding on what that job thing is. - It's both, so you're saying who's the employer? So we have students that we employ for summer employment that work in our schools and in the summer school program, but we also have business partners that offer summer work-based learning experiences over the summer for our students as well.

[02:14:45] - Okay, and do we have, I mean, I guess you don't have to on the spot, but looking at numbers of where we're at, the 21 thing, how you were saying it versus 21, versus where we're at, that would be kind of just interesting to see that in the future, just kind of where we're at with the growth in those areas. Something you said kind of struck me in slide 11 and 12, it's great talking about the expansion of CTE in my eight years.

[02:15:09] I keep on forgetting sometimes things we've done and being the vanguard of bringing the electrical apprenticeship program at Unity Reed, but looking at this formal versus informal partnerships. So I was always under the impression prior to you that these were formal partnerships, but I'm guessing they must have been informal if we had zero before.

[02:15:30] I guess I'm confused. What is the difference between informal and formal? - Well, now we have actual agreements. We have partners that register with us where they're committing to certain goals.

[02:15:46] And we have, and I don't remember the exact levels. I don't wanna put Denise on the spot either. We don't have our CTE gurus. - No, no, and these are just broad. - But they just kinda sat with me to go over their continuous improvement plan. And so they have different levels of partnership, like bronze level partnership, silver level partnership, et cetera, and that's about how much they're actually committing to our school system, right?

[02:16:09] So when you think about a formal partnership, that means that they're actually a registered partner with us. And sometimes you have partnerships where businesses will say, oh, you know, we'll do this or we'll do that. They're not registered, they haven't established what they're actually going to support us with. They haven't said we're gonna give you X number of apprenticeships or X number of internships.

[02:16:28] These are partnerships we can actually count on and track and then be able to say we can place student opportunities with these different business partners. They come to our fairs, et cetera. So some, before, I don't know what the process was for how they were capturing it, but I know the team now has a really sophisticated system for registering our business partners with the school system.

[02:16:53] So if the business is not registered with us, we can't necessarily call it a formal partnership. So that's one of the biggest differences. - I guess it's not your control. I'm a little befuddled about what was done before and how that was tracked. But the expansion itself I think is great.

[02:17:12] And I look at opportunities, I believe it's propitious that we continue to expand, but I look at like something like, and again, this is just a plug, but I look at like the new animal shelter that opened right here. And I look also, and I've done research on CTE, it's a passion of mine, and looking at like the Veterinary and Science Program that's the state the VDOE offers and outlines as courses, I just see this as possible future partnerships as we continue expanding.

[02:17:38] Not to say you guys haven't looked into it already, but I just think things like that, veterinary sciences and openings and partnerships that we can find with either local vets or the county government, I look at that as a great opportunity for that. And then lastly, oh, I went to five minutes.

[02:17:56] I'm gonna, yeah, I know, but I wanna set a good precedent here. - Go for it, I want you to hear it. - Oh, you want me to, and I just wanted to say, last thing is slide 23. You talk about the 87% of positivity rating with parents.

[02:18:14] Is that, if we're looking at free form answers, and I don't know if that survey gives them the ability to leave feedback when they take that engagement survey or this, I was just curious if there could be maybe a thematic analysis in the future of just kind of common themes and themes we're seeing from parents.

[02:18:33] Again, maybe it's done, and I know this is a presentation, very succinct versus, yeah, but those are just some thoughts. - We certainly can do that and provide some themes of what we're hearing. - Awesome, I remain sanguine about our future, thank you. - Looks like he reviewed his SAT vocabulary book before he showed up this evening.

[02:18:55] - He's college ready. - Because he knew Dr. McDade was gonna lecture us about college readiness. I will go to Ms. Williams next. - Thank you, Chairman. I just want to piggyback off of my SAT vocabulary using board member Mr. Wilk down there.

[02:19:13] CT also is a love and passion of mine as well and I sincerely appreciate the growth that this program has had and our ability to track and monitor it. I think to Mr. Wilkes acknowledgement prior to your administration taking over, it was a much informal and we had just actually begun things like CTE signing day for our students.

[02:19:36] I'm interested to know where if we have any growth or what growth there is with internal internships. I know that that is something that we're also working on and I was wondering, not now of course, but how we could factor that into some of our, or you're reporting back to us for strategic plans.

[02:19:55] I highly value our students' ability to work internally within the division. I know Independence has a program with their students and facilities. So that's something I think the public would also appreciate. And to chairman's request, I think that this is overall a very holistic and inclusive presentation.

[02:20:14] The way that it is organized in one succinct document for anybody watching our staff our parents the general public to understand exactly where we are from a to z is extremely helpful it is for especially for my brain instead of reporting piecemeal you get a more complete picture of what it is that we're doing as a long serving board member for me the majority of the slides have been seven years eight years in the making for a lot of the improvements things that i have pushed for and advocated for it's nice to it

[02:20:51] well it's beyond nice i was over almost over here in tears on a few of them especially with our gifted times two students the increased enrollment in that with our english language english language learner students sorry my nose gives out about nine o'clock so i i appreciate not only the acknowledgement of those students but the growth and their enrollment in gifted services i also appreciate the fact that as has been mentioned before that we are tracking where we have areas of growth I don't think that there's ever a program or anything that you implement that there isn't always room for growth and I think

[02:21:30] it's important to acknowledge that and set that example I appreciate the fact that you do that as our superintendent because that allows for our staff to be able to do the same and to be feel human we live in a culture where you're not supposed to make a mistake especially in the workforce and we are humans and and education it's about making mistakes it's about learning it's about acknowledging where you have room for growth and i applaud you for standing up and being vulnerable and making those acknowledgements known as the leader of our school operations for our school division it's important it's extremely important um i love the fact that we were going with our

[02:22:07] sustainability in our green program i appreciate that we have some schools that have put in an application i know that that is a challenge i think one of the things that we don't acknowledge is are often enough and you've done a great job of saying that you have to apply for these things it's not just uh the administration saying hey we should do it the individual schools have to take on that responsibility and all that work i appreciate the fact that we have staff that is on site and able to help them and even more so i am excited to hear more about the compensation study because that's round two for me and how we plan on fulfilling those filling those positions

[02:22:44] But the major emphasis for that is that I don't believe that the public still really understands how understaffed we are and why it is important that we fill those positions and how they support the growth and learning of our students, the division operations and everything.

[02:23:03] And then lastly, I just want to say that, you know, since we have voted on the strategic plan and you're in charge of implementing it, just the growth that we've had, the level of engagement with parents. From my perspective as a long-term parent, 'cause I have an elementary schooler and already had one graduate, but also as a board member to be able to attend events and see, especially in my district, the amount of parents who don't have English as their first language coming in, packing the school, participating on those virtual programs because they feel included, they feel that their voices are heard, they matter, and it is definitely reflected in every single presentation you give us

[02:23:43] regarding the strategic plan or just about any activity, how well we recognize and value our voices within not only our communities, our school community, but our business community and the general public at large. And I think that's contributing to continuing to make us an outstanding school division and also you an outstanding superintendent.

[02:24:03] So I appreciate it. I look forward to having more updates and to seeing where our growth and progress is, but I sincerely thank you for taking the initiative and showing leadership and presenting a holistic picture for all of us, thank you.

[02:24:21] - Mr. Jesse. - This was very impressive. I know when I was looking at the strategic plan and going through and I was saying to myself, how in the heck are we gonna figure all this stuff out and when are we gonna have some presentation?

[02:24:39] And you've done a wonderful job. As probably the most contagious, not contagious, but the cantankerous board member here lately dealing with schools and 14th High School and so forth.

[02:24:58] We don't always agree, but I thank God that we have you. I think you are by far probably the best superintendent in the country. - Well, thank you. - That doesn't mean I agree with you all the time.

[02:25:17] - I'm clear about that. But, you know, what you put out here and what you're doing, part of the problem is that you can't change overnight. We got a 14th high school.

[02:25:37] Woodbridge was built 50 years ago. I told my wife, my high school where I grew up in Dixon, Illinois, is still there, and I'm almost 80 years old. And it was there when I got there now.

[02:25:53] And, you know, it's just something that I think we've got to deal. We can't fix everything right now, although everything needs to be fixed right now, it's just not possible. But I like the fact that you talk, you have these plans, you're looking at how to analyze whether it needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and so forth, and you're doing a wonderful job.

[02:26:21] and just keep up the good work and beat me over the head a few times, if you will. - Ms. Trudenik, and then Ms. Wall.

[02:26:38] - Thank you for the presentation. We did not get this one ahead of time, so we actually were soaking it up as it went. So I do have a lot of questions. They don't have to be answered tonight, but I'm gonna ask them out loud if that's okay.

[02:26:56] The CTE questions that Justin asked, I agree with those. One of my questions is, how many of the jobs that you guys are referring to, are those all Prince William County jobs? Are they staying here in the county? No, 'cause we have partners outside of the county as well. I would love for next year to know how many of those jobs are we keeping in the county?

[02:27:15] 'Cause I think that that's something that we, as a school system, can tout. Hey, we're keeping our-- - The majority of them, I believe, are, but I don't wanna, I wanna give you the right information, so I'll make sure that we confirm that. - And as we hit graduation season right now, I'm having a lot of conversations with seniors about what's next for them.

[02:27:33] And that's how I ask the question, not where are you going to school, what's next for you? Because these trades are so cool. There's a kid that's gonna be a lineman. He wants to go, and I'd never heard of that. So what is that, tell me more. There's different, all these different trades that these kids are soaking up and going for and achieving great things and making great money.

[02:27:56] So kudos to the kids that are going on choosing trades the parent liaisons were another thing that you highlighted that's one thing that I can't go into any school without a principal telling me how great it is to have their liaison there so thank you for highlighting that and thank you for making that happen the K to 12 environmental literacy curriculum can you tell me more about that how that's implemented and what it entails I know that that's a long question so that can't be done tonight yeah I'll follow up with you because I want to honor their work and I know If they're watching right now, they're probably cringing that I might not say exactly what they want.

[02:28:35] And I for sure asked you a question with no one in the room, so there you go. Also then the other question I had is, can you explain more about the You Belong Here, specifically about aligning the behavior with the beliefs? Donna, do you want to talk about You Belong Here? That initiative is being launched out of our Human Resources Office.

[02:28:54] And so I would invite Dr. Eagle to come forward. So good evening. We have a number of initiatives that, think of the You Belong Here as an umbrella. It's an organizational development initiative that we're launching out of our employee relations department.

[02:29:16] This year we really focused on using data. We triangulated data between culture and climate data and retention data at schools and actually developed a pilot and we collaborated with an external organization that has done a tremendous amount of research into the key retention factors for teachers.

[02:29:40] And they have provided a survey for staff members in 27 of our schools, and also have provided coaching, and it's non-evaluative coaching, for our school leaders in those buildings to actually develop improvement plans in terms of culture and climate for their buildings.

[02:30:03] So that's been the major initiative of this current year, but we have additional, we have a collaborative team, interdisciplinary across the division team that's working together on additional initiatives. We also plan to include the Upbeat initiative, which is the coaching and the climate survey, continue that into the next school year actually expand it we've had good results and have building leaders have put together some pretty significant action plans as a result of their coaching and their action plans that they put in place through that initiative but some

[02:30:42] other things that will be happening is some additional professional development not only for leadership but also for our staff in how to create inclusive and inviting cultures where individuals feel like they belong so there's a you know a host of things that that that team is working on but the primary deliverable this year was collaborating with upbeat with their research and use of the culture and an individual culture and climate survey for those schools that we

[02:31:16] identified as part of the 27 school pilot thank you the other question I had was regarding the Student Services Department. It is Month of the Military Child. And there are different levels of military children.

[02:31:35] And one of the things that I noticed on the paperwork that goes home to military families being one, once you retire, you are no longer counted in that field or that grouping.

[02:31:51] Please correct me if I'm wrong. But we're no longer on the paper that we fill out, which is-- I know that that's a formal paper. So what I'm asking is, in developing these programs and talking to kids, we are very close to Walter Reed.

[02:32:10] We're very close to Fort Belvoir. And I know that there are families whose children have experienced injuries in war and then they retire and they're here. They are not part of all of your initiatives or the programming inside the schools.

[02:32:27] Have we thought about grouping them in and adding that? because there is a component to those kids and the things that they go through and the extra counseling they may need because of injuries, those kind of things. - So, okay, so I believe you're referring to the impact aid form, is that the form?

[02:32:44] - Yeah, and I know that we don't count on that form, so I'm kind of asking outside of that form, in identifying your military families, those kids still count, they still count as military kids, veterans' kids, all those different ones count. Are they, is there a way to group them into those services or the things that you guys are doing, Programming wise or can I get can I learn more about that later? Can you send me more in? Yeah I'd be happy to but just briefly to kind of explain how we would connect families with resources One of the things that we do do at the beginning of the year is put out a needs assessment Parents have the opportunity to share with us any information that they might want to share choose to share

[02:33:20] We also have a lot of opportunities for our school teams and our counselors to connect families with resources Our social workers are very good at identifying what resources might be available And we certainly would wrap around any family that has any military connectedness, not just with those resources, but any resources in the community that we could connect them to.

[02:33:38] So I appreciate that. It's something that we can consider, and I'll work with our brand-new, amazing military specialist to consider. That's awesome. And I know you guys do a great job with deployed families. I know that. So thank you for that. I just wanted to point that out as another group. So thank you. The CIP question, what have we been using currently since we're now getting that survey done?

[02:34:05] I can't remember which slide it was on, sorry, I think it was 27, the schools will be funded equitably and for adequacy, no, that's not it, sorry, but anyways, you said that we would address this, yes, that is it, and that there's no marks already in place for that, how are we -- What did you say?

[02:34:26] I'm sorry, I didn't hear that last part. Is there no marks already in place for that? ensuring that schools are budgeting equitably, all those kind of things. 'Cause I don't think that we're dropping the ball on that completely. - No. No, we're saying that the work that we're trying to do to improve or enhance the way that we're already equitably funding schools, that is not being able to be measured today because we haven't formulated the methodology, any new methodology or new rules that will come out of the assessment that we're doing.

[02:35:00] So we already fund schools equitably. They're already equitably funded. So I wanna be very clear about that. But what we have found is that even with that, we have schools because of enrollment, let's say a Kerrydale, which is only 300 kids, right?

[02:35:16] With student-based budgeting per pupil funding, the pot you get is based on the number of students that you have in your school. And sometimes, even though you're getting, if you have a school that has a certain percentage of English learners or students with special needs, there's a weighted formula for equity to fund those different populations.

[02:35:38] That is in place both locally as well as at the state level. So that's that. But what we are trying to do is make sure that the way that we're currently funding, so when I first came in, we had feedback from some of our small schools that said yes, We're getting our fair share of the pie based on the number of students we have in our school, but there are certain things that even with that, we can't do, that other schools can do or other schools can offer.

[02:36:07] As a kind of an interim solution, we offered a small schools kind of grant, if you will, that we fund in the school division. And if you have a student population below a certain number in elementary, below a certain number in middle or in high school, then we give additional dollars to support some of the programmatic needs that they might have that their per-pupil dollar amount or their student-based budget doesn't necessarily fund above and beyond the basic minimum to staff and support their school.

[02:36:39] So we'd put that in, but that's not a long-term solution. We wanna create a methodology that accounts for some of those things so that schools that need additional dollars to offer programming that they should be offering or that they want to, that's interest of their community, they can do that.

[02:36:55] And not only have enough just to staff their school, right? And not be able to offer some of the extracurricular or enhanced opportunities that other schools may be able to. So this isn't about not meeting the requirement or the expectation for equitable funding.

[02:37:11] We're meeting that very well. But we do recognize that we have to do a little bit more, especially because we do follow a student-based budgeting formula that's built on enrollment and when enrollment shifts, sometimes there are negative consequences and we don't want, I don't care if it's two kids in the school or 2,000.

[02:37:30] They should have equitable access to excellence in educational experiences, not just academics. And so we wanna make sure that that happens and that's what this task force was charged to do. And so from that, we're working with a partner, we're evaluating our current business rules for funding, beyond weighted formulas and then recommendations from schools of what they're seeing needs to be based on the budgets they have.

[02:38:00] And then we'll look at those rules and make changes to our methodology to just update, because a lot of those rules haven't been changed for I don't know how many years now, Shaquille, that is. It's just time to evaluate that and make some adjustments, especially with the population changes that we have.

[02:38:17] So I do appreciate you asking that question because I don't wanna leave the impression that we're not funding adequately because we are. We are just looking to enhance what we're already doing and bolster our schools even more so that every student has experiences that meet their, not just meet their needs, but actually go above and beyond that.

[02:38:39] - Thank you. I did also like that you guys are defining and documenting the site-based management standards. I think that the parents, principals, teachers, I think everyone's gonna really appreciate that. And I would love to be updated to when that actually happens if we don't get a presentation between now and then.

[02:38:57] I don't think I saw a lot about transportation in there, in this presentation. Which I think is, you know, I think we've made some good strides there. So maybe I don't know where that falls, if that falls. I mean, transportation is what I call keeping the lights on.

[02:39:16] So that's work that we should be improving on regardless. What we put in the strategic plan are areas where we, I don't wanna say missing the mark, 'cause we're missing the mark sometimes in transportation, but these were priorities in the school system that go beyond the basic elements of what makes the division operate.

[02:39:39] And so transportation, we have to do that. Now, the fact that in some instances we haven't done that well, we do have a continuous improvement plan for the Department of Transportation. So just because you don't see these hard and fast. We have some goals around transportation like the megahertz radios.

[02:39:56] I didn't necessarily put that in there 'cause those were some more operational things that we've met. But we have a continuous improvement plan for transportation with goals around on time rates, efficiency and routes and all of those things. So although you didn't see some of that show up here 'cause we can't put everything in the strategic plan.

[02:40:16] That's why it's called strategic. It has to be some big priorities that maybe we haven't been focused on. But I don't want you to think that because you didn't see something for transportation, we don't have a plan for transportation. We have a strong continuous improvement plan for transportation.

[02:40:32] They have some very ambitious goals that they're working towards. And I did share with the board and they'll actually be coming before you very shortly with some updates on improvements that will need to be made to transportation based on a top to bottom review that we did with an external partner called Formative.

[02:40:49] So more to come on transportation, but that's not a miss. We are working very diligently in that area, which is why transportation showed up in the Zendesk as one of the first departments to pilot the Zendesk platform. - Thank you. And lastly, just great work to our video team again.

[02:41:07] Those videos were great. So thank you for their hard work and all that they do. - Thank you. - Ms. Wall, and then we share a picture at this time. Okay, so I was sitting here thinking to, oh my gosh.

[02:41:26] Yes, this is- I love it, I love it, I love it. Yes, I know. Okay, the story is I was picking up my daughter in December and I walked past this sign and I stopped and I walked back and I was like, oh my gosh, I need a photo with this. This is gigantic and awesome.

[02:41:42] So when you said that you belong here program, I took a picture of this because I'm actually wearing a purple scarf. There you go. but you know our efforts to recruit and retain have gone all the way to Dulles Airport which is an international airport and I don't have any idea how many people come through that hallway but it's on the way out to get your your taxi or your uber or your your car so pretty much everybody is in Dulles as

[02:42:18] well as reagan that is fantastic so yes so um i was sitting here as you were presenting thinking this is one of the most important meetings that i have attended as a school board member if not the most important meeting i really appreciate um this update this is something that i have been in my mind tracking and kind of kind of trying to keep score and this this having this all in one place in a presentation is awesome and at the risk of being loquacious

[02:42:55] what is going on tonight i'm going to add some more words i you know i appreciate your forthrightness the sincerity this is a this is a candid presentation it's very direct very informative and impressive um and i appreciate the transparency the honesty um i feel that we are better informed on what we've been doing and where we are and what we still need to do and I think the public is too, whoever's out there in the nother world.

[02:43:30] And I think it's really, as I said, one of the most important meetings. I love when we talk about student achievement and our goals and our progress towards our goals. I think we're modeling success, we're modeling successful behavior for our students and we're an educational organization and what better place to do it you know that would then to what what a better example can we set I mean this is absolutely fantastic so thank you I have a couple of questions not anything major on page or slide 25 do we know what percent or number of schools are have a functioning

[02:44:08] advisory council and I know that's something we're tracking I mean I know we're tracking like what does a successful advisory council look like but we also are we also tracking how many schools have them and do that are you mean operating operating right we can't say what's high quality i i'm gonna have to say that i'll get back to you i don't want to put the level associates on the spot they would really be the ones to know um that and but they each have a separate portfolio so we haven't added up all of the numbers partially because we we couldn't defined quality succinctly and normed across the school system but I think that's a great question in terms of like how many actually have an advisory

[02:44:47] council so for a level associates do you guys want to take a stab at that or you want to come they're like don't look over here okay so we're gonna come back we'll come back with an exact number we certainly don't want to quote something that's incorrect so we'll come back and share with you what the exact number of of schools that actually have a functioning, not necessarily high functioning, but they have an advisory council that is operating on a regular basis.

[02:45:12] We'll be able to collect that data and bring that back to you. - Thank you, I appreciate that. That's one of the things that got me started a long time ago with my kids, is volunteering as a member of an advisory council. So that I, and I appreciated that opportunity to participate at that level.

[02:45:28] And obviously not a lot of parents like will take it to that level. Some do, many do. But I think when an advisory council functions well, it's a really great vehicle. So I'm excited to know, I imagine it's fairly high.

[02:45:43] - I believe it is high. I just wanna be able to give you an accurate number. - Thank you. And my second question is regarding the improvement plans, the continuous improvement plans. And I love this aspect that each school has a plan and each school's plan merges together with our overall plan.

[02:45:59] I mean, this is huge as far as a rudder for our gigantic ship. It just, you know, like having this kind of organizational coherence I think is going to help us be successful in accomplishing our goals. And my question is can the board see the -- is there like a portal to see the continuous improvement plans or is that something the board could see or -- I know this is probably closely guarded, but -- - No, no, no, that's, no, that, these should be public.

[02:46:32] We expect that schools share this with their school communities. When we have open house, when school starts back up, that we have an expectation that every school, the same way that I do the state of the schools address at the beginning of the year, every school is expected to do a state of the school address for their specific school and share that data and share the priorities in their continuous improvement plan.

[02:46:55] So this is no secret. We do have the plan for learning platform and so Elisa will work to make sure that board members are able to see their school's continuous improvement plans and see what's happening there. - Okay, awesome, and so then do the schools, I'm assuming then they probably post them somewhere on their website or something like that.

[02:47:15] I know it's been kind of hit and miss when I've attended back to school nights. Some schools have got it running. - Some schools put them up and they share them and some schools post them. - And others, I don't know. I can't say what number actually post them on their websites, but the expectation is that they share them publicly with their school communities when school starts back at the beginning of the year.

[02:47:34] - That's fabulous, 'cause I think when parents understand that there are goals that school is working towards, I think they'll be empowered to be better partners in accomplishing those goals. 'Cause they actually play a very important part of our success in what happens between the parent and the child and on those off hours child's not at school you know what kind of support the family can give when they know okay we're working on this yes and all and our school teams so every school has a continuous improvement um plan team and the expectation there is that they have parent representation on that team as well

[02:48:12] okay well i don't have any other major um comments except to say um i love that we are documenting how things are done a playbook because if you know you ever leave we're going to be in trouble I mean, you've done so much for us, as far as leadership is concerned, and your team has done so much.

[02:48:33] I know everybody's working so hard, and it's just really a pleasure to work with such great professional folks who are really dedicated to our students, so thank you. - Thank you, Ms. Wall. Ms. Zargarpur.

[02:48:48] - Well, thank you for this. I have referred frequently to our strategic plan for a number of things that either talking with constituents or just showing my own colleagues things that I just love how we've done it.

[02:49:07] Some people will criticize what we just heard as a dog and pony show. So I'm gonna bring it down for just a second. We're gonna talk about a few of those red checks. Can we do that? Okay. Because I know people do talk about this and specifically I don't need the, it kind of goes back to Ms. Wall's comment about the school improvement plans and things like that.

[02:49:29] school, each community is going to have a plan in place for their community. There isn't anything we can say in this boardroom that's like we're gonna improve reading scores by doing these three things. It's not really gonna work that way. Same thing for math. But I wanted to, I think you'll appreciate, hopefully you'll appreciate this because you know I just did a big paper and one of the researchers I read about was Sebring and Brick, they did a research in Chicago public schools back in 2006 they found that the community engagement having liaisons and a strong parent and community engagement in their schools

[02:50:03] were led to a rise in math score specifically and reading and I'm just a couple those little red checks were things like our reading score our SOL scores in reading and math are a little bit lower than the 85% and our elementary students will be on reading level you were at 75% we're aiming toward 80, is there something you could maybe say that's quasi-specific about like our schools are looking at sort of these buckets of things?

[02:50:38] - Well, if you'll recall, we did, during the State of the Schools Address, we did share all of the things that we were doing in terms of next steps to address areas that were not performing at the level that we expected them to.

[02:50:55] So the strategic plan update was more about the progress being made on what we committed to in the plan, not so much about like, okay, what are all of the next steps? 'Cause we've been covering that throughout the year. Certainly in literacy, the literacy adoption was one thing.

[02:51:11] Having access to high quality curriculum is important in every single subject. Adopting the science of reading and making good on reading specialists in our schools. There's a laundry list of things that Dr. Sullivan, I'm sure, can get up now and even I or Dr. Flanar can join in and talk about, you know, for ad nauseum.

[02:51:33] - You don't have to do that. - I guess what I'm saying is that the idea here tonight was to be transparent about what we've gotten done that we said we would do in the strategic plan and what our current state is today.

[02:51:50] - Correct. - And our, you know, in our other updates, So for example, we'll have the third quarter data update that's coming and that's where we'll talk more about specific things that we've been doing. But throughout the board meetings, we have been updating you and the public on specific next steps for all of the areas for which we're not making adequate progress.

[02:52:11] One thing I wanna point out in terms of what you said, which is true about people saying, oh, this is a dog and pony show. Well, a dog and pony show doesn't usually have ugly dogs. We had a couple of ugly dogs in here. - Right, right. - So, you know, this isn't a dog and pony show by mention of that.

[02:52:30] I have been and will continue to be transparent. Nothing that we do will be perfect. The goal is to make adequate progress in this school system. When I present the state of the schools, I show you the things that are red, the things that we're not.

[02:52:47] I stated to you that the English learner dropout rate was unacceptable and abysmal. That's something that I'm not proud of. It's something that keeps me up at night. Our reading was flat, which I mentioned it was only a 2.2% increase. That's basically no increase at all.

[02:53:03] So this was a status report. It's progress monitoring the same way that we make sure that schools progress monitor against their goals and our division offices progress monitor against their goals. We have to be accountable at the highest level and progress monitor against what we said we would do in our strategic plan, because this was a very public commitment to our families, to our students, to our schools and our communities, and they have weighed in on what they want for this school system.

[02:53:33] So there are spaces where we have been successful. I'm proud that there are more successes that we have than areas of opportunity, but areas of opportunity exist nonetheless, and we will not rest until we address those.

[02:53:49] Dr. Lateef made a statement that is absolutely true. When I come back at the end of 2025, 'cause we actually launched this almost mid-year of the first year of the strategic plan, so this will go over into the 26th school year and actually conclude at the end of the calendar year 2025.

[02:54:07] And I imagine that when I come before you, I'm going to have to be very vulnerable and say that there are some commitments that we made that we didn't meet. And I basically showed you today that there's some things that are not yet started or read, and I'm not quite sure that we're going to hit the mark.

[02:54:25] So I do want to say that for those individuals. I mean, and we even have families come in here and share some experiences that are less than desirable, that are bothersome to me, that I take note of and come back to my team and I say, okay, what are we doing about this?

[02:54:40] What's happening at this school? So by no means are we a perfect school division and never do I want to portray us to be that because it's simply not true, but we are a school division that is on the rise. We are a school division that is making substantial progress. We are a school division that have significant accomplishments and recognitions that we should be proud of and that we should acknowledge and we should celebrate because that's also a way that we continue to boost morale and make sure that people know that we appreciate and we recognize the work that's happening.

[02:55:11] I tell my team all the time that I am not leading the outcomes. We, the people you see here tonight, we do not lead the outcomes. In the words of Simon Sinek, we lead the people that lead the outcomes. And so it is the many employees and staff members that are dedicated to this vision and our school-based employees that are doing this work and our teams that we lead that are doing this work.

[02:55:35] And they're doing really strong and amazing work. But yes, there is a lot of work that is left to be done. So for tonight, I am not prepared to walk through all of the red areas and say all of the next steps of what we're going to do.

[02:55:50] But throughout this school year and moving forward, there will be times where we bring the data that speak to those red areas and actually focus on a particular area where we're going to talk about what the next steps will be. - And I love what you just said about, it is 16,708 people making a difference every single day.

[02:56:12] that's the important part the without this staff without the commitment of the staff members who pick up our kids on the bus who feed our children who welcome them into our classrooms who support their learning in pullout groups who take them on field trips do concerts do plays whatever it is help them find library books all of these all of these people are helping our students every single day and it were a human service organization at the end of the day these are human beings we've got a you know we're not the same thing every single

[02:56:47] day so I love this I I wish this room was packed this was like one of the most important things we could be listening to and I hope people replay this this is much this is the must-see TV I thank you guys for all the work you've done all the staff everyone who sits here in these chair in these chairs I know you you do a lot to put these graphs and things together and make it presentable, but all of the work is really leading up to that moment.

[02:57:17] So thank you so much. - Okay, words added. Holistic, intentional, transformational, candid, forthrightness, and must see TV. Okay. - There's some other big words. - Yeah, there were some other. Well, your pursuit with the strategic plan has been done with alacrity.

[02:57:36] So I appreciate that. Look at that, Mr. Wilk likes that one. - Yes, it is, and I did look them up. Yeah, that's one of the 1,000 most common SAT words for those at home who are studying right now because the universities are bringing them back. And I appreciate Dr. McDade for not letting down on this.

[02:57:55] I think, let me take a moment to just add a couple comments, a couple more questions, and then we'll wrap up. First off, I think if the public's watching, every board meeting has important monitoring aspects to it, whether it's the quarterly reviews, that we dig deep into the data on the scores, the grades, the attendance, that happens four times a year.

[02:58:20] Whether it's the superintendent goals that we are meeting, you know, we talk about each year, and have we achieved those? That's separate than the strategic plan, right? Those all make up what counts for the things on a broad, high altitude level we're trying to accomplish with the strategic plan.

[02:58:39] I think some of the highlights, Dr. McDade, that I truly appreciate is, look, I don't apologize for our commitment to diversity, our commitment to equity, equality, and inclusiveness. And whether that's with our workforce, whether it's with our students, whether it's with our committing to improve efforts for our students with disabilities, our English language learners, we've heard a lot about that tonight.

[02:59:02] And I think that is important, and I make no apology for that effort. I think the documentation in our strategic plan clearly outlines the importance of why we do this work and how important it is. And some of these groups are our fastest growing groups.

[02:59:18] And if we are to be competitive with our regional partners, colleagues like Montgomery County, Fairfax and Loudon, then those students have to succeed as well. And I think this plan outlines a strong commitment to that work. And I think it's important to say that this is the 70th year since the Brown versus the Board of Education for desegregation, and the work isn't finished.

[02:59:41] And I truly appreciate that. You know, moving on to some of the aspects, I really am so impressed, and on slide nine, I think it's important to repeat it again. So we've had a 17% improvement in math performance coming out of the pandemic.

[02:59:56] And we all know what we saw in the pandemic and what we needed to do to recover from that, to replace the loss of learning, to accelerate learning. We still have a ways to go, as you pointed out on the slides, 9% improvement in science.

[03:00:12] In all these numbers, not just the reading keep me up at night. You know, I do believe, and I think it would be remiss for me not to say and to reemphasize that my commitment to the school division is the rigor in curriculum and the demand that we improve much better in math.

[03:00:27] We have ways to go. For even those students who are achieving at the math level we say are good enough, I don't think that's good enough. I think we still have a ways to go on rigor. And especially if we're competing with the other counties, and as we're approaching and trying to get more students into our accelerator programs, whether the IB, Thomas Jefferson, Gov School, all of those places require a very rigorous background in mathematics and science.

[03:00:54] And so I applaud this effort to do this, and I think it's really important. You know, I do look, I mean, it is my job as chair to look around and see what other school divisions and what even the private schools are doing. What can we do better? And you know, I've always been impressed with some of these really sort of very expensive private schools.

[03:01:12] They do a really good job in polishing students in reading and writing. I mean, you know, and I've always been impressed with that and I feel like public education broadly, we need a lot of work to do in that. And you know, one of the things that I was disappointed in over the years was the removal of the writing SOL and the commitment for that.

[03:01:32] But I do think an emphasis on reading and writing will really improve that 2.2% and we'll get even higher. But I think, again, that needs to be rigorous and it's not that hard. I think demanding more homework, demanding more reading, demanding that the students do more writing, I think that will help us get there and I don't think that's too much to ask of our students and families and I think it has to be done with rigor and a commitment to excellence.

[03:02:02] And I think we're on that right path and I think the science of reading will help us with that. So I appreciate that. Listen, I think the video on the PADI work and what those students were doing is fabulous. I think that's something we should encourage, you know, at all levels.

[03:02:20] It is so important, and in this day and age where the kids are sitting on their phones all day, you know, that was really fresh to see, and I think it's really important to see, and I think that goes a long way in finding, you know, helping our students succeed. You know, I appreciate the fact that you, you know, on the last final slide, you list all the awards.

[03:02:40] I think there are a few awards, there's so many other awards that I would tell you that, you know, we can't even fit on one screen, and you've had to make this so that I have to wear my grandmother's reading glasses to see this. But, you know, it is really, it's good.

[03:02:55] Some of the stuff that I would say might be missed is, you know, our work in the science fair, which is part of the strategic plan, and some of those awards and success that we've had with our students going on to, whether it's the Virginia Junior Academy of Science, the American Academy of Science, the International Science and Engineering Fair's, you know, our students going to National History Day, and our sports, you know, here we didn't even list our success in sports, which really is part of, you know, some of the parts of the strategic plan, which, you know, we have state championships, and we continue to be a county, and I like to remind everyone, you know, while I do compare ourselves to others, I'm not gonna be shy to say where we do great in,

[03:03:34] and I think we do better than most counties in the country in robotics. We have middle school sports that many counties don't have middle school sports. We made a commitment to spending on that, which helps our families who don't necessarily have to, who not everyone can do travel leagues. And so like in our neighboring counties, I won't say their names, they don't have middle school sports, right?

[03:03:53] So it helps with all of that stuff. And so we do a great job with that. We even have middle school science fair, which some of the counties don't have. So thank you very much. I know I've talked a lot, but again, I really do appreciate this, this is excellent, and for the public, I think it's important, if you're gonna watch this meeting, Dr. McDade's presentation really began at 8:05, we're sitting at 10:07 now.

[03:04:15] The meat of the presentation that everyone should really watch is the 8:07 to 9:07, which she covered the entire summary. You can see this on the video that will be put out on the website, I think usually it gets out on Friday.

[03:04:30] I think it's really important for everyone to look at this. And I think it's fabulous. And so, I think I don't have anything further to add. And with that, Dr. McDade, you can join us back up here. - All right, thank you so much. Thank you for engaging with me this evening.

[03:04:46] I do, again, wanna publicly thank my team. I want to thank our communications department because they not only put together the video, they helped me put together the actual presentation. So, and they do a tremendous job. And also thank you to all of our schools and all of our staff and our families for believing in Prince William County Public Schools that we can ensure that every student graduates on time with the knowledge, skills and habits of mind necessary to create a thriving future for themselves and their communities.

[03:05:19] I know I believe it. I believe in every single student in this school division and it will be my life's work as long as I'm here to realize that and bring that vision to fruition. So thank you so much for selecting me to be the superintendent. I'm proud to be the superintendent of Prince William County Public Schools and I'm excited for the work ahead.

[03:05:40] - Thank you so much. Okay, next up, oh, I threw my agenda. What are we up to? Committee reports, what do we have for committee reports?

[03:05:57] Jen Wall. - Okay, thank you, I'll make this brief. Safe Schools Advisory Council met on April 1st and we did have a quorum so that was awesome. And we, first goal accomplished. And one of the things that we discussed was a security leadership cohort, which is being planned for next year.

[03:06:19] And the purpose is it's intended for security assistants and school security officers to create a pathway to grow those employees to be able to be a lead middle school or a lead high school security person.

[03:06:35] So the purpose of establishing the security leadership cohort or the leadership academy is to provide support preparation to grow those individuals in their career progression so that's really great the timeline is going to be next year October through April with a capstone project and a graduation also we received the MOU for school resource officers and we our instructions are as a committee to look through that and make suggestions so there's just a couple of quick updates from safe schools advisory and our next meeting it says to be determined so I don't

[03:07:13] remember if we actually identified I think we might be done actually we have our bylaws which have been an ongoing project and I believe we have one more meeting where we need to wrap that up so that's the update from safe schools anything Justin do you want to add anything great all right thank you miss well we are now on to board matters and we will start with NEAB SCO's Tracy Blake thank you madam vice chair zagapur good evening and welcome back to all my colleagues, students, parents,

[03:07:51] and members of the community. In the past month, our district has embraced numerous opportunities to enhance learning, celebrate diversity, and promote inclusivity through several impactful events.

[03:08:08] These gatherings not only brought us together, but also highlighted our collective efforts to ensure a positive climate and culture within our schools. Let's start with the Penn Elementary Color Room. This event was a beautiful montage of health, joy, and community spirit.

[03:08:25] Students, staff, and families came together to participate in a fun and active way, showcasing the strength of our community and our commitment to promoting healthy lifestyles among our students. At King Elementary, we celebrated our diversity at the Multicultural Night.

[03:08:45] This event was a profound reminder of the richness of our community. Families shared their heritage through food, music, and dance, creating an atmosphere of unity and mutual respect. It was a vibrant demonstration of how our differences make us stronger and more connected.

[03:09:03] Moving to Minnieville Elementary, they hosted both a field day and a Title I family camp night. These events focused on fostering family involvement and promoting educational activities that go beyond the classroom. They were opportunities for parents to engage with their children's education in fun and meaningful ways, strengthening the bond between home and school.

[03:09:27] Then I had the pleasure of joining Ms. Zagapur at Kogan High School, and they put together a spectacular performance of "The Little Mermaid" through the Fine and Performing Arts program. This production was not just a display of the remarkable talent we have within our schools, but it also was a testament to the hard work of our students and the staff support of the community that makes such endeavors possible.

[03:09:57] Finally, I'd like to end with the PWCS Unified Track Meet at Forest Park was a genuinely inspiring event. It embodied our commitment to inclusivity with students of all abilities coming together to compete and support one another.

[03:10:15] It was, I mean, it was really awesome. There were Gen Ed students helping the SPED students and it really reminded me of when I used to, my school used to help out at Special Olympics every year and it helps to just teach compassion and empathy and I really liked it.

[03:10:32] Witnessing such deliberate inclusion was both heartening and a powerful reminder of what we can achieve when we celebrate every student's potential. These events reflect the enthusiasm of each teacher, student who are excited to learn and teach, contributing to the positive and welcoming environment of our schools, they are living proof of our mission and action, learning and achieving for all, no matter the circumstances.

[03:11:00] In conclusion, these past months have shown that our great lives, that our strength lies in our unity and our willingness to embrace every member of our community. Let's continue on this path, ensuring that every student not only achieves, but thrives within our supportive embrace at Prince William County Schools.

[03:11:20] Thank you. - Thank you. be hearing from Woodbridge's Lori Williams. Thank you Vice Chairman, Chairwoman, excuse me. I just want to start off by saying I had the opportunity on the 3rd of April to attend the Student Leadership Workshop which was held right here at the Kelly Building. As someone who has been a longtime advocate for ensuring that student voices not only heard but actionable items are then taken from the students being able to share their voice. It was an amazing honor to watch

[03:11:59] students from every single high school be represented to work on developing a student bill of rights. Most of the students that I talked to were impressed and actively participated in the process. I do see further growth and development but because we continue to allow our students to to work collaboratively together.

[03:12:23] I wanted to give a special shout out to our own Prince William County Schools graduate, Norman Jones, who also was a former award-winning MLK orator, who came back and participated in a leadership portion of the workshop and provided some insights on students on how to be good leaders.

[03:12:45] After that, I am very proud to have attended the groundbreaking of our new elementary school the Woodbridge District. It is so exciting to me that we are having the first new elementary school built in decades in my district. I'm also excited by the fact that it will be able to be a green school. It won't be a net zero school but it will be a green school and the construction girl in me was ecstatic that we had the skeleton of the building behind us so that we could actually see the work going on during the groundbreaking celebration.

[03:13:21] I want to give special acknowledgement to all of those hardworking individuals who are actively putting up our new school, as well as all of the architects, our own facility department, everyone who makes this possible. There's been a lot of confusion in the community when the headlines read first new Woodbridge District Elementary School.

[03:13:41] I heard people talking about John Jenkins. That's not technically Woodbridge. better way to think about is by magisterial district the way that you vote that's how the our each of our board seats are divided and that is what we consider our districts so I'm very excited that there'll be a lot of collaboration between the new school and Fred Lynn I'm looking forward to seeing what all kinds of new names are proposed by our community in addition to that I just want to remind everyone there will be a joint environmental task force meeting on 4:18 tomorrow. There's also a gov school meeting. In addition we have open registration for our summer programs for both academic and

[03:14:21] enrichment. I highly encourage our families to participate in that. My family has for several years or for the academic last two years for enrichment. It is SOL time so all of our students need to get a good night's rest, plenty to eat and there are practice tests on the VDOE website if you are a student who struggles with test taking you have the option available to you and I look forward to to this weekend participating in Comic-Con at Fred Lynn so thank you

[03:14:51] thank you from the Gainesville district Miss Jen wall thank you so we all know by now that April is a month of the military child I have to say I kind of enjoy having a coordinated, color-coordinated meeting. You all look fabulous. It's really kind of fun. We should do it again sometime. I love that we, what we have in place here in Prince William to support children and military families, and I applaud all the efforts that the schools are making to recognize the challenges that students face and support them in their educational

[03:15:25] journey. So thank you so very much. This month I've been meeting with schools and getting feedback on the budget and seeking greater understanding of the needs of schools in my district. And that's been great because it's helped deepen my understanding of how things are going and what needs still are out there.

[03:15:43] I have just a few more schools to go and I've enjoyed every one of my conversations so far. Thank you to the principals of Gainesville District Schools for welcoming me. And since we last met, I've attended a lot of events since we met a month ago. And I do this to show support for students, staff, volunteers and families, to gain greater understanding of our programs and opportunities and to celebrate kids.

[03:16:07] What I see underscores the importance of strong public schools. I believe in kids, in their innate abilities to learn and to grow, and in the ability of families, teachers and leaders to work together to show kids the way. I try to cover events that I've attended on my official Facebook page, which is Jennifer T. Wall, PWCS school board member, Gainesville District.

[03:16:30] that's a mouthful and I encourage folks to take a look at that but just to kind of highlight some of the recent events Battle of the Books, Gravely and Tyler taking first and second those are both schools in the Gainesville district so I was really proud of them and all of the schools that participated. Sinclair had a color run for kindness. Pancakes for Patriots at Pennington. Unified sports track meet for high school so I think it was Porter sorry. Unified sports track meet for high school track and field which Mr. Blake spoke about. The Arts Festival for Middle School, the Middle School Edition, Alvy's Breakfast and Parade. They had

[03:17:05] the Marine Corps Band as their guests, and they were so amazing. Battle of the Brains at Unity Braxton that featured the four IB Middle Schools, the groundbreaking for Woodbridge Area Elementary at Tyler for the Eclipse, and the Orchestra Pyramid Concert at Bull Run back in March.

[03:17:22] So to end, I want to conclude by taking a moment to thank all of the individuals who serve on on various committees across the division. You all serve of your time and talents without compensation. You answer the invitation because you care about students and you want what is best for our schools.

[03:17:39] So I know we each appoint individuals to various school board and school division committees, people we know, trust and invite to be participants. I thank you for your service. I appreciate your perspective. Thank goodness we don't all think alike.

[03:17:54] The value of a committee or a council indeed a board is that we have various experiences and I want to say thank you to everybody who does serve in a volunteer capacity in principal and county schools. Thank you.

[03:18:09] From the Occoquan district, Mr. Richard Jesse. Or Jesse. Or Jesse. Jesse, yeah. First of all, I got Occoquan, the old bridge observer, and I happened to notice that two of my school principals are listed as potential finalists for Principal of the Year, Mr. Jim Dutro, I think the principal of Lake Ridge Middle School, and Ms. Miner, Principal of Springwood Elementary School.

[03:18:45] And more importantly, there's a new category now called the Service Award, Supporting Employee of the year, and Ms. Zee-Hugh Min, I think, is nominated as a finalist for that.

[03:19:02] So that's really exciting. I like competition. Somebody told me that you don't want the teachers to be competitive. Yes, I do. Because without, people love to win. People love to compete. And I remember listening to some parents saying the SOLs are not, yeah, SOLs are too stressful and so forth.

[03:19:29] But when my wife was a principal, it was a big event. I mean, kids were excited. It was a pep rally. And I was so happy this week when I found out that I'm going this week to a pep rally for the kids in elementary school getting ready for the SOLs.

[03:19:48] That's exciting. I mean, we cheer for the March Madness. We cheer for the Super Bowl. We should be cheering for our kids to make them excited and happy to get involved in the SOL. They shouldn't be afraid of it. They should be looking forward to it, and that's up to us to get them there.

[03:20:11] Dr. Lateef said a few minutes ago something about homework. You know, I don't agree necessarily that we should have a bunch of homework. I think what, you know, the problem with that, in my opinion, is that, you know, it's up to us to get the teachers and do it right.

[03:20:30] But it's important that we do do things in here and get things excited. I'm looking forward to continuing. I'm looking forward to Occoquan schools being some of the highest scoring schools in the SOL in the county.

[03:20:50] So I throw out the challenge to the rest of you. Thank you. MR. Ms. Erica Trudenik of the Brentsville District. MS. Thank you. It's been a rewarding journey serving as your school board member for the past four months.

[03:21:06] Your trust in me to enact positive changes for our students, parents, and teachers means a lot. To continue to learn and engage with our community, I value your feedback and suggestions. With budget season behind us, our upcoming focus will be on reviewing the code of behavior.

[03:21:22] I'm eager to hear your thoughts on both matters. Please take a moment to share your feedback through my survey that is on my Facebook page or by sending me an email. Your input is crucial and I'm committed to ensuring your voices are heard and your needs are addressed. Spring sports are fully underway.

[03:21:38] I've enjoyed watching girls lacrosse, boys and girls spring track, softball, and boys soccer. And I'm excited to be invited to more games in the district. Um, we're in the fourth quarter, and as I tell my kids, the gradebook will stop rolling in the next couple of weeks.

[03:21:54] So make sure we're finishing strong. Also it's transportation employee appreciation week. So make sure that you say thank you to your bus drivers and transportation staff. Bring them a treat and tell them how important they are to you. They are a vital part to ensuring that our kids arrive at home and school safely.

[03:22:13] I'm excited to come and visit you all on Friday. We're embarking on an exciting time as the class of 2024 prepares to graduate, spread their wings, and start their bright futures. I'm excited to see the joy on their faces and their parents' faces as they cross the stage at graduation.

[03:22:28] I also wanted to let you all know that I'll be hosting office hours on Thursday, May 9th. I'll have a signup posted on my Facebook page soon, or you can send me an email and I will send it to you. And I hope you guys all have a great night. - Justin Wilk, Potomac District.

[03:22:45] - Thank you, brevity is best here. I will quickly just highlight a few events. It has been a month. So I did visit 10 different schools during the school day in the mix of those 30 days. They were great.

[03:23:00] You can follow me on my Twitter or on my Facebook. All those are public. Want to go back to that PADI event. We saw the gauntlet, an exceptional event. that's, like I said, there are no words. Again, the beauty is, you know, we said all schools should be doing it.

[03:23:16] It has taken off in other buildings. Ashland did a version of called the amazing shake and adaption of it, which was really nice. But going back to the gauntlet, you know, like Dr. Lateef, I support more rigorous homework. And I happened to be in the room when two of the kids were debating one another.

[03:23:34] And the kid, I was obviously impartial, but I was definitely in the side of the young man who was advocating for more homework. But that was a great debate to watch between those two kids. Mary Williams, I said I would wear the shirt today, but today's like the military color purple day.

[03:23:51] So I wanna highlight for their autism inclusion walk throughout the building parade. They gave me this lovely shirt. It's different, definitely made on a cricket. It's cool. It says it's okay to be different. In fact, it's pretty awesome. So very cool. That was Mary Williams Elementary, great event.

[03:24:10] Attended performances, musical at Forest Park. They did SpongeBob SquarePants. Adam's family was at Potomac Shores. Potomac High School had a phenomenal multi-culture night. And then other last event is highlighting I went to Washington Reed for a science STEM night with the pre-K program.

[03:24:28] Thank you. Ms. Dargum. - Thank you. I got to, I didn't get to do as much as I'd like to. I'll get into that in a second. went to Colgan to see the Little Mermaid performance which was fantastic. Osborne Park also did Spongebob and I had no idea that was a musical until recently and it was fantastic. And then I had gone to Bennett Elementary School for something called Photo Voice where the students learned how to take photographs in their art class and then their teachers helped them work on writing about the photographs that they took. The PTO framed everything and then

[03:25:06] they were displayed all across the school and it's an effort to learn more about each other so that was a it was really there was a lot of the impact of that was was huge actually you would hear people talking excitedly about things that they saw that were similar you would see different things about people that maybe you didn't already know and it was it was a fantastic way to build community that night they also did their glow night and I got to hear the strings play a concert uh and it just was a lot of fun so um i also want to highlight a graduate

[03:25:44] of osborne or osborne park high school i remember when he gave his speech at graduation edwin santos was the class president he did one in english and one in spanish he just won the truman scholar award it's highly competitive he's the only student from virginia he's been at the american University, and they only award like 45 of them across the country, I believe, and he's the only one from Virginia to win. It's like $30,000, and part of it is that you are going to move on after your bachelor's into doing something with public service or government. I believe he wants

[03:26:22] to be a lawyer. Yeah, he wants to be a lawyer. So I was busy with family stuff. My father's 91st birthday was April 5th, and that was the same day he passed away. Within a few hours of him passing, my second grandson was born. So I've had a lot of reflection, and just it was kind of a weirdly momentous day. My dad was a teacher. He taught for over 30 years, and he taught thousands of students, and I was thinking about, you know, this new baby born, and all the hope that we have when we have these new people in our lives, and the dreams that we have for them, and then I was thinking about my

[03:26:58] dad how he influenced all these kids and how impactful that had to be that there are thousands of students who are now grown adults probably grandparents themselves now who had him for a teacher he taught the math he taught them geometry he taught them consumer math taught them how to be people I am so grateful that I had a teacher for a dad a dad for a teacher good night all thank Thank you, Ms. Zargarpur, very sweet words about your father.

[03:27:38] Okay, so we're in the fourth quarter, always one of the most exciting quarters, spring sports, science fairs, robotics finals, competitions, proms, graduations, exciting 'cause juniors are gonna become seniors, eighth graders are wrapping up their middle school experience, fifth graders are wrapping up elementary school, students getting ready for SATs, ACTs, taking them this summer, getting ready for college admissions, for our next cycle, so many exciting things and so many things, great things happening.

[03:28:06] Spring plays, final shows, final exams, all of those things. I would just encourage our students to finish strong in everything they do. It's been a great year for Prince William County Schools.

[03:28:22] We continue to achieve in many areas and at the highest levels, and I wanna see that continue and finish strong through the rest of this school year. So with that, no further business for this board. We will adjourn, thank you.

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