Coraggio Consulting Prince William County School Board joint meeting with Board of County Supervisors, Wednesday, October 8, 2025 Date: Wednesday, October 8, 2025 Place: Prince William County School Board, Virginia Length: 2h 5m (video) Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85gR-s0FmDw 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 2026-10-29. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [00:00:03] all right thank you everyone for joining us today this is our annual joint meeting with the board of county supervisors and our colleagues on the school board before we go around and do introductions i'm going to have my colleague do uh do his statement sure good evening everyone thank you madam chair madam chair and chairman lateef before the board and school board hear from staff and discuss federal impacts enrollment projections and other school matters i need to declare a personal interest in these matters my wife is a school's employee as a school's employee my wife and I are members of a group which is affected by these matters I will be participating in these matters because I am able to do so fairly [00:00:41] objectively in the public interest thank you madam chair all right thank you so very much it's always great to meet with everyone when the board is county supervisors weren't talking about things we want to discuss one of the members made a comment about making sure that we're working closely and fostering relationships with our members of the school board obviously we work very closely together. And that's going to have to be an even closer relationship as we navigate what's ahead of us. We'll certainly be talking about the economic impacts later, but I want to have everyone go around and introduce themselves. My name, obviously, DeShondra Jefferson, Chair of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, and I'll go to my left. Bobber Lateef, Chairman, [00:01:21] Prince William County School Board. Wade Anderson, Division Council for PWCS. Erica Tradenek, Brunsville District. That was Yesli Vega, Coles District. I'm Lisa, Zargarpur, Coles District. Tracy Blake, Neabsco District. [00:01:39] Carol Flannard, Deputy Superintendent. LaTanya McDade, Superintendent. Chris Shorter, County Executive. Shaquille Youssef, CFO. Lori Williams, Woodbridge District. Margaret Franklin, Woodbridge District. [00:01:57] I'm so happy to be here. Richard Jesse, Occoquan District. Connie Bode, Occoquan, who's the backbone of the county. Andrea Bailey, Vice Chair of the Board, Potomac District. Justin Wilk, Potomac District. [00:02:14] Michelle Roble, County Attorney. All right, thank you so very much, everyone. I've already said a few remarks, but I'm going to turn it over to my colleague on the Board of County Supervisors, Dr. Lateef. Thank you, Madam Chair. We also have one board member missing this evening, that's Jen Wall of the Gainesville District. [00:02:34] First of all, thank you. Welcome to the Kelly Leadership Building. We are always grateful to see you all and have this meeting. We truly appreciate the incredible support the Board of County Supervisors in Prince William County continues to provide to the Prince William County Schools. [00:02:51] support has resulted in as you've seen in the articles of recent the highest paid first-year teacher salary in the entire Commonwealth we have and you can add to that probably near the highest paid teacher first-year salary in the nation as well we have been voted by Forbes magazine is one of the top three school districts to work for regularly since 2020 and this year as well we continued we had a record graduation rate this past summer for our students record scholarship dollars, improved scores across the board since coming out of the pandemic, [00:03:25] success in and out of the classroom, on the field, in the auditoriums, and on our courts. We continue to work hard to backstop your AAA bond rating, and we're very proud of all that work. [00:03:41] And so, we could only do that with your great support, and so I first would like to thank you for the support over many years and our community our students our families truly appreciate it thank you all right thank you very much we have one member who will be here shortly and when he gets here he will also have to read a Koya statement but in the meantime I was gonna tee up our first presentation and that is federal impacts on workforce and economy and again in this region we are all so dependent on the federal government what happens in Washington [00:04:20] has an intimate impact on us here in Prince William County when about 12% of our workforce works directly for the federal government we're not just talking about the contract we're talking specifically for the federal government so I'm gonna actually turn it over to mr. shorter it's gonna say a few more before the presentation thank you very much madam chair members of the board and members of the school board again wonderful to see you all we we did these presentations yesterday for our board I'm going to ask first that we talk about the federal shutdown and so this will really be a summation of where [00:04:58] we stand as a county there are certainly a lot of uncertainties as it were then we will have the agencies most impacted by HR 1 come up and do presentations really about HR 1 and how they are impacted this is our we'll start with our Department of Social Services then we'll have community services and then we will have we will have Brian Meissner with emergency management but before we do we're gonna do federal shutdown first so we'll have [00:05:32] Dave Sinclair come up to talk about the federal shutdown good evening this is just intended to provide a general overview and I'm going to talk a little bit about school funding I realize that the experts are in this very room so if [00:06:03] If I misspeak on anything, please do not hesitate to correct me. So real quick, I'm sure everybody already knows this information, but the federal fiscal year began on October 1st, 2025, and the federal government is funded by 12 appropriation bills that have to be passed by the Senate and signed by the President by September 30th of each year. [00:06:36] Obviously, appropriations were not passed by the September 30th deadline. So the federal government was forced to shut down on October 1st. Mandatory spending programs, I'd like to emphasize, will continue. [00:06:55] These spending programs are not subject to annual appropriations. These are benefits associated with Social Security, Veterans Affairs, Medicare, Medicaid. Services will be impacted in terms of new card issuances and customer service in those areas but the benefits should not be impacted. [00:07:22] Services funded by user fees such as the US Postal Service will continue and services that are funded by annual appropriations will be impacted both for essential services and non-essential services. [00:07:37] Essential services will continue to function. Employees will work without pay. examples are obviously national security air traffic control and other transportation safety but as we are seeing air traffic control is starting to be impacted in terms of service and capacity to address safety law enforcement and criminal investigations will also be essential as will emergency and disaster assistance non-essential services will cease and employees [00:08:14] will be placed on furlough status without pay supervisory i don't know if you wanted to do that koya thank you for uh for that madam chair and chairman latif before the board and school board i can't even see this for the board and school board hears from staff and discuss federal impacts enrollment projections and other school matters i need to declare a personal interest in these [00:08:54] matters my wife is a special education instructional aid with the schools as a school's employee my wife and i are members of a group which is affected by these matters i will be participating in these matters because i'm able to do so fairly objectively and in the public interest thank you obviously federal employees will not be paid during the shutdown essential employees will continue to work [00:09:26] however it will be without pay this is becoming interesting in the sense that some federal employees are going to start seeing paychecks either reduced and based on my reading on October 15th you will see members of the armed services not receive a paycheck on October 15th they will supposed to receive a paycheck but if this continues they will not be paid this bullet [00:10:01] point has it actually flared up yesterday in the news back pay is supposed to be guaranteed once federal government reopens via the government employee fair treatment act which was enacted in 2019 as a guarantee of federal worker back pay there was a lot in the news yesterday about that rather not say anymore at this time i hope it's just trying to get folks to the bargaining table [00:10:35] and move things along federal contractors are unlikely to be paid during the shutdown that will be on a firm by firm basis but they are not guaranteed any back pay we have a couple stats here on federal government workforce estimates in the region and within prince william county there are about 450 000 federal government workers in the region that's as of march 2024 and please note these numbers are likely different today than they were six months [00:11:11] ago and there's about 400 000 contractors in the region within prince william county as of february 2025 there were almost 31 000 federal government workers as i said previously these numbers will change due to the federal government's deferred resignation programs and reduction in force actions that took place during the summer and early fall this slide provides a snapshot of the combined prince william county schools and prince william county government budgets this is direct [00:11:49] federal funding received total federal funding is about 169 million dollars with the schools comprising 92 million and the county 77 million dollars on the school's side based on my reading of budgets about 44 million dollars is for school lunch and breakfast programs funded through the usda and about 48 million dollars is in the school's operating budget this is your obviously [00:12:25] your title one title two title four uh that type of federal funding on the county government side of our 77 million dollars almost 50 million dollars is in housing and community development and 20 million is social services those are the two largest areas on prince william county i will drill down in the detail on the next slide i'd like to emphasize is that on an agency by agency basis very few details are currently known directly from federal agencies based on the 2018 [00:13:04] 2019 full shutdown that lasted 35 days services might be extended one or two months using prior your appropriations that's available to federal government agencies but continuation of services is not guaranteed and is contingent upon remaining funding availability on a case-by-case basis real quick summarizing prince william county schools to my knowledge a portion of title 1a and [00:13:40] title 2a funds were advanced funded and should not be a problem they will be available to us as a community however the school lunch program is a little more problematic i believe there's funding through this month the month of october but after that decisions will have to be made if the shutdown continues it might be able to extend a little beyond october but that's really [00:14:16] on a state-by-state basis on the prince william county government side the good news is we believe the county's housing housing choice voucher program is funded through the calendar year However, HUD programs such as CDBG and home program should remain available. [00:14:49] In our Department of Social Services, SNAP is expected to have enough funding from prior year carryover funds, and that will continue to pay benefits through this month of October. However, the situation is a little more dire for the women, infants, and children, also known as WIC programs. [00:15:14] That funding may be exhausted through next week. TANF is a temporary assistance for needy families. [00:15:33] In the past, states could use unspent funds from prior year allocations to sustain services. States also have the option of using maintenance of effort funds to sustain services until the shutdown ends. [00:15:52] And then they hopefully will be reimbursed after the fact by the federal government. this is our our last slide this evening the duration of the shutdown is obviously unknown and contingent upon congressional and presidential actions prince william county will continue to evaluate our contingency plans for services reliant on federal funding obviously that is largely a function of how long this lasts and the prince william county office of management budget will continue to monitor federal updates on a daily basis and with that i'll happy to answer [00:16:31] any questions all right if anyone has any questions please just hit your button so I can see what lights up more to the point the board of county supervisors we had this great presentation last night thank you again for sharing us with today if anyone on the school board I was going to give first crack to anyone the school board I see dr. Lateef then supervisor Franklin who's known the school board but okay great great presentation do we have any idea the number of contractors that live in Prince William County I know you had said 35,000 beds do we have any idea [00:17:08] what numbers yeah I unfortunately I don't have those numbers with me we'll dig around and see what we can find out sir as I mentioned there's about 400,000 in the region but let me get back to you on that if I may thank you Supervisor Franklin sure and happy to defer to any school board members if not but just a couple of questions wanted to talk a little bit about title one and what impact some of this not only the shutdown but also hr1 will have on title one obviously in the [00:17:43] woodbridge district we have a lot of title one schools so just curious about that couple other things i'll just mention students with disabilities how this will be impacted by hr1 and also the shutdown i believe it's the idea program that primarily deals with students with disabilities and provides resources and then how much of these resources are being diverted to charter schools i'm just curious i don't know if we have any answer to that but it's something that we may just want to be mindful of and then lastly the school lunch and breakfast programs i know during [00:18:17] covet we brought on some community partners to help with school meals but just wondering how again HR 1 and the shutdown will impact our school luncheon and breakfast programs so right now we in the process of we've completed and filed our 26 [00:18:49] applications about 24 to 26 27 years and for our title 6b which is our students with a disability, it has been approved. Title I hasn't been approved. There is some flux with some of our grants in terms of this is very new news to us that some of it is being moved out of DOE, Department of Education, the Department of Labor, specifically adult ed and our Perkins grants. [00:19:19] So we're looking at that, our applications are online. We have been reimbursed through August 22nd because what they do is they give the money up front the to the states and then we get reimbursed and we go through the states our big month of reimbursements is coming up which is due on October 15th so we anticipate that you know we will know where the where the federal government is but the video is slightly behind in its approval and some of it [00:19:54] also has to do with some reorganization that's happening specifically with uncertainty of the role of the department of education now and and and so we just heard that some grants are moving to the department of labor so that may take some administrative time in terms of the school and nutrition fund we will continue feeding our children and during covid we had we had built a fund balance there which we have through the state nutrition administration have [00:20:31] been asked to spend down on so we should be able to sustain it in the short run but in the long run what it means is that there is there will be a cash flow problem us getting reimbursed on a timely manner but we intend to continue feeding our students madam chair i'll just say that with regards to our legislative priorities both the county and the schools it may be worth looking to marry some of these priorities to make sure that the general assembly understands how important it is to help kind of pull the weight if the federal government pulls back so thank you [00:21:08] thank you is there anyone else and supervisor franklin you happen to have a very good relationship with the person who chairs our legislative committee all right anyone else all right mr shorter with no other questions i'll ask i'll thank dave sinclair director of management and budget for prince william county for the presentation and i'll ask director phyllis Jennings Holt director of our Department of Social Services if she would come up now the next three presentations will all be about HR 1 and the impact again [00:21:48] some certainly some uncertainty here but there are things that we do know and appreciate that our directors have put together a slide deck for for us to see and discuss good evening ma'am madam chair Jefferson chair dr. Lateef members of the school board and members of the county board Phyllis Jennings Holt [00:22:24] director of social services and to my left is my deputy director Holly Handy she's gonna be my Vanna White this evening and so what we do know first let me thank you for the opportunity to be here this evening to share with you information regarding the HR 1 bill regarding SNAP and Medicaid and share with you the things that we do know but there are some things that we don't know. So this bill came into enactment in July of this year of 2025. What we do know is Virginia [00:23:01] is required to match the federal SNAP benefit at 25 percent. Previously with the administrative cost, it was a 50-50 where the FAS did 50 and Virginia did 50. At this point, the sharing would be at 75 percent. In addition to that, they will be expanding the work requirements for the able-bodied adults both in SNAP and in Medicaid. [00:23:29] So what we do know is Virginia is looking at having to cover an additional $90 million with that 25% match at that administrative cost. This slide here is a slide that we put together at DSS in reference to our budget lines and the federal money that we receive. [00:23:53] So with that 25% reduction, the projection is that it would be a $1.6 million deficit. As we know, VDSS has not given us any information regarding any money that they will be putting towards it or what the localities would be needing to pay. [00:24:15] But this is just something that we projected. Next slide. So beginning October 1st, 2027, state agencies will be required to pay a state match to the federal government based on the state's SNAP error rate. [00:24:31] This is the chart that they have created. The state match is determined based on the state's SNAP allotment and the percentage of errors listed under the Food Nutrition Services Quality Control Payment Error Rate. Currently, right now, Virginia is at 11.5 percent and the error rate and looking at approximately 400 million dollars to pay effective october 1st 2027 so vdss has established a goal [00:25:05] to reduce the snap error rate to six percent um by september of 2026 the food nutrition services will assess the state snap error rate in september of 26 and they will assign the required match based on that percentage scale what we do know is that vdss the system that we use in social services is what we call our vcms system which we have used for years to process applications the virginia department of social services have shared that they recognize that the [00:25:39] system is antiquated and has played a part in payment errors in the applications vdss have been advocating to the general assembly to replace that system what we have been told at this time that the general assembly is not putting any money towards that so it would be up to vdss and all the localities to come up with plans to lower the error rate they are requiring and we have been in training for the supervisors and for staff to make sure that they are properly trained with the [00:26:14] new policies to make sure that we are processing applications accurately to reduce the error rate this error rate needs to be reduced across the state of Virginia just not with localities what I can tell you currently right now is that Prince William County DSS has a zero snap error rate and we are our plan is to try to keep at a zero snap error rate previously in FY24 we were at a 28.4 error rate that was because we were in the process of Medicaid unwinding we had to shift [00:26:53] our human resources to the Medicaid unwinding and Medicaid appeals, but now we are in the process of regrouping. We do have our own quality assurance team within the department that does case readings and helps us to make sure that we are processing applications correctly. [00:27:17] Beginning this month, 2025, the general work requirement expanded to include ages 54 to 64. With this change, all SNAP recipients, 18 to 64, will be evaluated under the able-bodied work requirement, which means they need to be working either 20 hours a week, which is 80 hours a month, volunteering or in an educational program. [00:27:42] If they are not, they are risking their benefits to be limited to three months of SNAP benefits. Currently, right now, in Prince William County, there is about 25,000 constituents would need to comply with that work requirement by 2030 the following populations next line the following populations would be exempt from the work requirements and that includes those who are homeless veterans and children who are aging out of foster care under the age of 24 next so [00:28:21] a part of this bill as well is the low income energy assistance program that we have quite a few of our constituents in the county and that is going to be eliminated as you can see the numbers on the slide there is about over 1100 households that receive assistance for heating 125 for crisis and over 1200 for cooling next we will move on to medicaid and the medicaid expansion as of august [00:28:57] 25th we have close to a hundred thousand constituents that receive medicaid benefits in prince william county as of december the 31st of 2026 medicaid expansion recipients will be required to participate in a redetermination process every six months right now that is being done annually and we have over 26,000 constituents that are included in that Medicaid expansion [00:29:31] covered group as of 20 as of December 31st of 2026 in addition these those that are involved or included in the Medicaid expansion group will also be required to for the work requirement meaning again they would need to work volunteer or education 20 hours a week 80 hours a month [00:29:53] So there are some exemptions, and these exemptions include individuals or females, pregnant postpartum women, foster care children or former foster care children, tribe members, veterans with disabilities, those who are medically fragile, to include physical, intellectual, and developmental disabilities, individuals who have a serious medical illness or are receiving treatment for a substance abuse disorder. [00:30:24] So this slide here shows the data of constituents in Prince William County that are in that Medicaid expansion cover group. [00:30:41] As you can see, Woodbridge has over 14,000 constituents. Next is Manassas with 5,300, and it goes all the way down to 14 for Broad 1. Now this is as of July of 2025. As well as information regarding SNAP and Medicaid, in the big, beautiful bill, there was concerns regarding possible fraud or fraud reduction. [00:31:11] As of October 1, 2026, the eligibility requirement for those who are considered a qualified alien status will be tighter for them. The scope will be tighter in reference to them being able to receive benefits. January 1st of 2027, we would need to utilize a data source to verify recipients' addresses. [00:31:34] And as of January 1st of 2028, we would need to review the Deaf Master List quarterly to identify anyone who is deceased. So VDSS has been working with all localities to come up with a plan across the state of Virginia to lower the SNAP error rate, to get it down to 6%. [00:32:00] Back in August, we had what we call Operation Fix and Fine, where they were selecting cases randomly and giving us feedback to make sure to see if we had any payment error rates or any procedure rates. DSS All Localities was also required to develop their own plan about how they were going to do quality assurance. [00:32:23] We have done that, and part of our plan is that our supervisors will be reading two cases per worker, which means that we will be reviewing 320 cases a month to ensure that we are on track providing feedback to staff. [00:32:44] We also have our own training unit internally, so we train folks that come in new before they start getting cases. So if there's anyone who needs a refresher, we send them back through that training to make sure that they have what they need. [00:33:00] And so we have completed the state requirement for the training as of the end of September. So in addition to that, what we know is that it's going to take a lot of time in reference to the training and in reference to making sure that we are processing these cases appropriately and on track. [00:33:25] So we have talked with executive management and we know that we will probably need overtime for our staff in order to make sure we're doing what we need to do. Virginia does not want to have to pay this bill. [00:33:41] So we want to make sure that we're doing our part here in Prince William County to help with lowering that error rate. So we are very much involved in what's going on with the state. [00:33:57] They have a lot of initiatives. We are one of the agencies that they look at as far as quality assurance since we have a zero-snap error rate. Staff is on panels down in Richmond talking about the quality assurance team that we have, processes that we have in place, providing feedback and information. [00:34:19] We are part of the Big 20. What we know is that the 20 largest agencies in the state of Virginia account for 50 percent of the eras and so they are working closely with what they call the big 20 and so we were on a meeting earlier today and again Prince William County was providing information regarding the good work that we do and providing feedback and tips and so I am happy to take any questions all right do we have [00:34:54] any questions supervisor Bodie you madam chair I wanted to look around to make sure our school board colleagues have first shot at it but I'm not seeing anyone so miss Jennings hold thank you again for this presentation thank you for adding some more depth I know that we didn't get a chance to talk about yesterday can you go back to the slide that talked about the slide 12 that breaks it out by by sort of region of the county mm-hmm so is this by zip code I appreciate that because as most folks here know that there's parts of DLC that are called wood roots or parts of Occoquan are called wood roots or parts of Occoquan there are lake roots parts of Occoquan there are Manassas so it's I [00:35:33] I just wanted to make sure we knew if this was based on zip code or what they're called on the postal system, because I know those are two different things. Yes, zip code. Thank you. Do we have any other questions? All right. [00:35:48] Mr. Shorter. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and Director Phyllis Jenning-Holt. Thank you for the presentation. We're now going to have Georgia Backman, Acting Director of our Department of Social Community Services, for presentation. [00:36:05] Thank you. [00:36:45] good evening chair lateef chair jefferson and members of the boards i'm georgia bachman acting director of community services or some of you may know us as community services board or csb thank you for having me here today to speak to the federal funding landscape and how it may impact community services the key takeaway today for community services is monitoring. Community services is monitoring the federal landscape closely for potential [00:37:20] impacts to our clinical and administrative operations. The good news is that, to date, there has been no major impact, but potential risks do remain. Let's see. What we do know. [00:37:38] In regards to federal grants, we are monitoring grants management closely. We do have one five-year, $5 million federally funded Department of Health and Human Services, HHS, SAMHSA, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Grant. [00:37:59] It's a system of care expansion and sustainability grant. This is a children's mental health initiative grant and serves youth with complex behavioral health disorders or those at high risk. The system of care framework is to provide evidence-based, trauma-informed, resiliency-developed behavioral health services to children and their families, using natural supports in a community-based manner to help them meet their self-identified goals and needs. [00:38:30] We have just received our third-year renewal, and we have six full-time staff for this initiative. To date, there is no notification of risk to the federal funding of this grant. Following our ARPA block grant funding, originally those funds were to be made available through September 30th of 2025. [00:38:52] However, the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disability Services did receive notification on March 21st, 24th last spring, that those funds were to be terminated immediately. [00:39:07] This left an impact on many Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disability services projects and programming. However, Prince William Community Services had proactively invoiced for our projects and therefore we saw no loss of funding from that unforeseen event. [00:39:27] There are no other known federal cuts impacting community services at this time. Regarding Medicaid as a behavioral health care treatment provider, there are some concerns that if we did see any Medicaid reimbursement reductions, this could severely limit our ability to offset the cost of needed positions. [00:39:55] The impact would likely be a reduction of positions or needed increase in local funding to support positions. One of the most critical examples of this would be with our developmental disability programming. [00:40:11] As many of you may know, the governor allocated funding this year for all of the individuals on the priority one waiver wait list. This is the highest need group of individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities who have the most urgent need for services, facing immediate risks to their health and safety. [00:40:35] And these waiver slots allow them to receive essential community-based support services. Medicaid increases did support new, relatively cost-neutral positions for us to be able to serve these individuals. [00:40:54] And as you can imagine, demand has grown. A reduction could lead to capacity challenges for us. In addition, the additional Medicaid redeterminations that Ms. Jennings-Holt mentioned could result in some concerning coverage gaps or loss of Medicaid for some of the individuals we serve at community services. [00:41:26] While we would continue to serve these individuals, we would be at risk for significant revenue loss and increased wait lists due to our limited capacity. To mitigate some of this potential impact, we have administrative staff who do work closely with the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disability Services and also the Department of Medical Assistance Services, DMAS, to get up-to-date information on changes and potential impacts. [00:41:58] And so we are staying abreast of any changes. Lastly, we are closely monitoring the executive order related to individuals who are unhoused. have been expressed regarding a potential return to policies that encourage psychiatric commitment of individuals with mental illness who struggle with housing needs and who need community-based treatments. These risks could put an added burden on our already overtaxed [00:42:34] public hospital system. With some of these potential changes, increased demands for psychiatric beds could create some bottlenecks and undermine some of our crisis transformation efforts so again in closing we will continue to monitor the federal landscape closely and keep you all informed thank you all right does anyone have any questions dr. Latif yeah thank you for the presentation and for the prior presentation as well I don't know maybe Shaquille you can answer we [00:43:12] do billing for Medicaid in the school division for some of our special ed services have we seen any cuts yet since last spring not at the moment we're still in the billing cycle so it's it's a little bit early to say whether we we will get cuts or not yeah and do you remember what number of it was two million three million dollars I think a year on Medicaid services yes I can give you an exact number oh it's revenue that we have that's about right okay but I'll get you an exact number thank you all right I see school remember Zagrapar [00:43:51] thank you I'm going back to the the SAMH SA funded system of care grant who who gets that like how do people access or is that something that funds the county and the county then supports families and kids so that is currently being overseen by our New Horizons youth program Tanya Odell and they have a the [00:44:24] team consists of six staff and it's a they have it it's ICC intensive care coordination team and so they they take referrals in the same manner that they would take referrals to the New Horizons Youth Behavioral Health Program. [00:44:44] Okay. Do we -- is it sufficient for our population? In what sense? Is it meeting the needs of our students, our adolescents? I mean, we always have more need than we have capacity, so. [00:45:03] So my next question then -- thank you. My next question, then, is because adolescent mental health and substance abuse care are a lot harder to get for kids because of the regulations and the right people have to be involved. [00:45:21] So the landscape for our kids is a little different than for our adults. And people with some means, your middle, upper middle class, are going to be able to maybe get somewhere, but it's not often in the county. care that they receive they often have to go to Fairfax or Loudoun or Maryland and that's just that's one of the things that you know as a school division we have the tele the mental telehealth but that's not the same and I'm just I am concerned about the amount of beds we have here and how we could increase that [00:45:59] capacity and I know dr. Lateef and I've had discussions about how this works but But I know it's based by hospitals, and then I know communities tend to not want to have mental health in their neighborhood. The reality is that we really need places for our adolescents. [00:46:19] Is there anything you can enlighten me on? Well, it's good timing, but you may know that tomorrow we do have our grand opening for our new crisis receiving center, which will have 16 adult crisis stabilization unit beds, as well as 16 observation chairs. [00:46:43] There's also a regional CRC that's gonna be opening next spring in Fairfax, but it is a regional project that came from our Opioid Abatement Authority funding. [00:46:58] So there is, and Loudoun is also opening one, so there's a lot happening in the crisis landscape right now, which should be definitely, you know, reduce some of that burden. Some of it, but I am concerned about, like, people who are getting to crisis and they, like, what help is available to them and things like that. [00:47:21] Especially for adolescents because I hear stories about people trying to get help and these kids are in the hospital for a long time waiting for care someplace. And I would love to see Prince William do something. We need something. [00:47:39] Thank you. I do. Thank you. All right, Dr. Lateef. Real quick, on your slide here, added burden on already overtaxed public hospital system. What are you referring to as a public hospital system? [00:47:55] we've had a psychiatric bed shortage for many years that you know even before covid but it was severely exacerbated during during covid they had to take many many psychiatric hospital beds offline and the state has put a lot of their funding into these new crisis receiving centers This has been, you know, that's been sort of the big effort. [00:48:23] So if there were to be a loosening of commitment laws and more people going back into public hospital beds, you know, there could be a reallocation of funds back into the public hospital system as opposed to, again, more of a community-based treatment. [00:48:44] Where are the public hospital beds in Northern Virginia? I don't know that we have any. Mental Health Institute is the local one. And that's a public one? Correct. Where is that located? In Falls Church. Is that its actual name or is that Dominion? [00:49:01] Isn't that Dominion? Dominion's private. Private, got it. Okay. So we only have one public hospital system, set of beds in Northern Virginia. Correct. Although there's other public hospitals in the state that sometimes individuals get moved into. [00:49:19] Yes. Depending on availability. Sure. all right i'm going to call on school board member richard jesse and then um supervisor franklin i believe and correct me if i'm incorrect that everything we have now is short term our problem is this with because it's short term in a month or so the person is released but the problem is not cured and is that correct that nowhere in the state that i'm aware of Do we have the long-term facility that is needed? [00:49:59] Is that correct? It would depend what the level of care needs are for the individual. So it would be, you know, we're customizing the treatment approaches. The ideal is to help people live in their community. [00:50:19] But to your point, absolutely, there's certainly not adequate need for a demand for the need. thank you all right supervisor Franklin sure and I'll just you know ping Lori Williams to chime in as well as we were having this conversation on the side but Miss Zargarpur raises an excellent point and you know the concern that I've always had as soon as we open the CRC perhaps we'll be at capacity almost [00:50:56] immediately now to mr. Jesse's point these are short-term stays but you know i've always been concerned about and obviously i support anyone in crisis obviously regardless of where they live but my concern has always been okay if we have what 30 32 beds i think and if they're 30 from fairfax that need um assistance and you know what about us us locally so very good point very valid i think that's a conversation we're going to have to continue to raise with [00:51:30] other stakeholders and making sure that we can expand at some point because it is true that even though this is a milestone we still have a long way to go to house those that are in crisis and also just to kind of clarify even to Mr. Jesse's point about short-term stays and if that actually cures the issue I don't know that the point of the CRC is to necessarily cure as opposed two in the immediate crisis to be able to level out, but those individuals will likely [00:52:03] need longer-term, you know, therapeutic or, you know, psychological care, but thank you for bringing that up. That's been a concern of mine, and it's something we're going to have to continue to talk about in terms of expansion. Thank you. [00:52:23] And just to the point about the short-term stay of the Crisis Receiving Center, Connections Health is the vendor that's coming into the state to operate the facility. [00:52:41] And their model is very much a community partner model. I was on a call earlier today with Sentara Health along with Connections and our emergency services staff. They are very, very committed to building community partnerships because they are very aware that the CRC itself is not a panacea. [00:53:04] It is one aspect of crisis transformation and certainly will help alleviate some of the things that were happening in the community prior, such as individuals boarding in emergency departments and, you know, adult detention center, et cetera. [00:53:25] So it's not a panacea, but it's definitely a part of the solution. We also do have, in terms of the earlier question, we have significant contractual partners throughout the state who also help us with serving the individuals who come into Prince William Community Services Board for services so it's not just our agency but it is a whole a network of community providers that work to get individuals [00:54:02] and families and children the services that they need all right thank you so very much before I go on to I'm gonna go to supervisor Bailey then Bodie but I just wanted to talk a little bit more because you mentioned 16 beds and you but 16 standby where are we with opening having facilities for juveniles and can you talk about the HHS waiver so I'm sorry the the facility has 16 beds for [00:54:34] youth and 16 observation chairs and then 16 for adults and 16 chairs so it's for both serving both youth and adults did that answer your question so when you you're saying I'm sorry is it 16 each or is it 16 total 16 each that's what I believed yes and so because earlier there was a process with the HHS waivers has that been worked out we are still waiting to hear from CMS on the status of that waiver one of the things and I don't know I'm looking over the people [00:55:13] across from me is it worth the school boards working with us and putting in that and their own legislative agenda the reason why I asked is making sure that we have everything that we need because it's not just obviously a board initiative a board of county supervisors initiatives the school board whatever help that we can get whatever allies we can get mental health is a real problem in our community and I'm glad that people start to recognize that more during the pandemic and start to talk about it more you know meeting people where they're at especially in crisis is hugely important so I'm gonna look to the people across [00:55:51] from me for answers what I'll say we were very successful last legislative season and moving the language around the waiver through these through the Commonwealth our federal delegation thanks to your advocacy has been very active in this conversation I don't know that we would benefit from having the schools be a part of the discussion at this point and to be clear this waiver will help us with Medicaid billing for the facility and so you know I know Nikki [00:56:27] is certainly here and would certainly invite her to come up if if she'd like to but the conversation is a very positive conversation up to this point the federal delegation all of them have been very active and are very supportive so we are just now waiting for for a response to the application I don't know Georgia if there was more on in terms of we've always we continuously advocated for mental health support so we certainly would be in support of adding [00:57:05] but we currently have in our legislative priorities mental health services and support all right thank you and you know as you say mr. short it maybe not at that level but I just feel that the more people see it the more people that we have who can go to a committee hearing a subcommittee hearing just to say something you know would be a bonus for us I mean if that is not the case and I certainly accept it but what I'll do we'll share the language with with the schools and if there's an opportunity for us to you know work [00:57:41] together we certainly will what we'll do is just share share the language that we put in our legislative agenda last season and give information on how we're working with the federal delegation all right thank you and I'm gonna go over to Bailey then Bodie thank you madam chair the conversation is rich and representative Zach before you started it so but I want to assure the panel the boards both boards that our continual advocacy together has started where we are with the CRC and I think we are we are very much fortunate in that we do [00:58:21] have a CRC and and the facility in Chantilly so we have partnered together from the inception what we have to do is partner together even more in advocating even in our different ways as we go to the to the General Assembly with our leadership I think the CRC here in Prince William County was named in the governor's budget and so that says a lot when we talk about how important Prince William County is and the services that we need for our youth particularly and our adults and this was during the time the season when the [00:58:58] institutions were shut down so I think our foot is in the door in terms of advocacy in terms of securing funding it's just that we're at a tender spot as you presented miss Bachmann even with a new CRC increased demand could create bottlenecks and so no one gets to determine when a person is going to have an episode but what is determined is how we advocate for it and so I think as an encouragement I just want to encourage the school board and the board that we are in a very good place in terms of moving forward and addressing mental [00:59:37] health because it has been swept under the rug for much too long but Prince William County is at the precipice at the pinnacle of making sure that it's not swept under the rug anymore so I want you to be encouraged in that in terms of the language that we're talking about it certainly has been shared already there has been discussions but we need to advocate and talk about it more thank you madam chair supervisor bodi thank you madam chair and uh school board members agrapoor i see you i hear i know we've had a lot of conversations around this now that we have shared experience around juveniles um in crisis [01:00:13] so i i i see where you're coming from on that um and frankly that's one of the reasons why as mentioned before, we talked about really investing that New Horizons program back in 2020, before a lot of this stuff began to fall. That's why we have the CRC. Going to look over at my colleague and thank her for advocacy. And what's so tragic about this issue is there's so many different logjams and bottlenecks. Because we talked about one of the big ones here, increased demand, but we haven't talked about the workforce struggles that we constantly see around the country let alone here in Virginia we know that there's constantly [01:00:52] conversations out we don't have enough mental health workers in the pipeline to really ramp up the way we all would want to so I know we've been talking to our friends at the state would love to see we have a conversation with the school division how we can help you all maybe try to find more pathways to see folks you know take more interest earlier on in those fields so we can begin trying to to address that so that's one piece the other one is just frankly we it took us some time to find the right partner and connections as was mentioned is out of arizona if i remember correctly so we looked around the entire country to find the best partner the crisis now model that's a lot [01:01:29] different than what's been done in virginia before so it's also bring something frankly from outside the the region here and seeing how that's been able to go up all over time so there's a lot of bottlenecks there. And again, I get the frustration I go that part of this piece and why we got here the way we did is because, to your point, for a long time there are regulations in place that prohibit the expansion of public beds. We know that. We know that there are frozen enrichment that go back and forth on that all the time. And this is frankly one way we're able to sort of sidestep that entire piece. But we know the demand is still there. So really looking forward to us having more conversations, knowing there's acute need, especially among juveniles, like you [01:02:08] said we have other programs in place that we're trying to do and the last thing I'll just say is part of the beauty of the CRC which we'll have the room cutting tomorrow morning bright and early is we were able to have a big enough building to wrap it around with other services too so you just go in there for a crisis then you're told to go some other part of the county if you need I'll have other needs and other services you need it's co-located right there so we're hoping that to your point earlier may not be curing them immediately but at least get some in a proper path and get the service they need alongside of it instead of trying to send them somewhere else and being at the whims of, can they get there? [01:02:40] Are the hours right? There will be a soft handoff to those other agencies. Thank you for the time. All right. Supervisor Bailey, did you have something? Thank you very much. One thing that just came to mind that my colleague just brought to mind was as the chair of the Health and Human Services Committee in VACO, one of the conversations that was brought up on a call last week with the executive director of dbdhs was the fact that we we need to look beyond in mental health [01:03:14] how we can get the credentialing for more subject matter experts to assure that when we look at other places to to address mental health the credentialing is there so why am i saying that i'm saying it to say that it's on their minds and dbdhs and dmask so maybe may seem like we're far but it is on their minds the part that we're struggling with right now is the funding piece all right is there anyone else all right thank you so very much [01:03:49] thank you very much madam chair and to Georgia Bachman thank you for the presentation and so madam chair for the emergency management slides they are really for reference we do have the leader of our emergency management office here brian meissner and so if there are any questions throughout the evening he is certainly here to answer those questions but really wanted to [01:04:16] have those for for reference and for our agenda madam chair so for item 2a I think that covers it other than moving on for growth projections in that part for that thank you madam chair we truly appreciate the presentations this evening and regarding um security and emergency management services we in the school division are [01:04:55] very grateful for the work that we do with our police department our fire department all of our emergency services we are grateful you know many of the largest events that take place every week are school events you know whether they're football games or basketball games and they are the ones that are most highly attended and we truly appreciate all the work our our security services across the county do and provide for our families and our students and you do a terrific job and we are very grateful dr. McDade I'll turn the meeting over to you thank you so much dr. Lateef at this time I'd like to introduce our supervisor of planning and capital improvement program for Prince Brigham [01:05:31] County Schools dr. Matt cartilage and then we also are joined by our chief operating officer mr. Vernon Bach and they'll be presenting information on our enrollment numbers in pwcs thank you dr mcdain first of all we have a slide prepared that shows you the overall process throughout the calendar year of how we are continually responding to changes in data updating projections using those updated projections to make capital decisions with the intent of providing the educational services for our approximately 90,000 students each [01:06:11] September 30th we count our students evaluate the grade levels and use it as our new baseline to inform five-year projections for elementary, middle, and then seven-year projections for high school. [01:06:28] Throughout this process, there is an end-to-end data pipeline that leverages cloud computing, automation, and a variety of industry-leading best practices to provide our projections upon which the capital improvement program is built upon. [01:06:48] At this time in the calendar year, it's a bit preemptive for us to have detailed conversations about new trends, new data, simply for the fact that the team is currently working on the student enrollment projections using our new September 30th data as a baseline. [01:07:06] What we can share is that the comprehensively redesigned model two years ago, again, has provided us accurate projections. The industry standard previously was about 1% projection error per year into the future. [01:07:24] With the onset of the pandemic, the changes that have come into public education, that Kona variance surrounding data projections for student enrollment has increased. Many sources are now saying it should be increased to 2% to 3% projection error for every one year you go into the future. [01:07:44] What we can share is with our preliminary data that our projection error was three-tenths of a percent this year. These slides are probably familiar to many of the folks here this evening. [01:07:59] We share them with the Planning Commission, the BOCS throughout the year. And what we can share with you are the kind of salmon-colored boxes that indicate what has changed since the last time we spoke. overall for those new to this presentation we have been observing continual elements of population change affecting k-12 enrollment in prince william county for the most part these are tied to decreasing birth rates that are not endemic to pwc it's happening throughout the commonwealth throughout the nation throughout the world and the chart on the lower left shows you [01:08:38] historical birth rates for the county they are on a downward trajectory and the most recent data that we've received from virginia department of health show that there is a continued decrease in births this is really important to k-12 enrollment projections because those births are tied to what is your kindergarten class five years into the future as those children age in place. With decreasing births, you then have typically smaller kindergarten cohorts, which then matriculate throughout your school division, and you have a base that's much more constrained [01:09:15] than your older grade levels. Another element of population change would be the migration factor. Continually, we are seeing continued domestic net out-migration from Prince William County, northern Virginia and many of these individuals are relocating to places where the cost of living is more affordable we see that in the greater Richmond metro the tidewater region and not on this map further south into the Carolinas and Georgia as I was mentioning when you have decreasing [01:09:55] births you're really being reliant on migration to offset that I've given the analogy before that you effectively can think of this as a bathtub with the tap on and the drain open. The tap can be births. It can also be new residential development. The drain open is your net migration out, people leaving the area. So it becomes increasingly difficult to project this because you have two opposing forces at play and you never really know is the tap going to outrun the drain or is the drain going to outrun the tap? [01:10:30] Time will tell. But that's our job to make data-driven predictions and share that with you. The graphic on the slide here shows effectively every grade level based on last year's data. And the takeaway is the lower grade levels are significantly smaller than our upper grade levels. [01:10:51] And if you hold everything else constant, just let these children progress and matriculate throughout the 12 grade levels, you're going to have decreasing enrollment. One of the elements that we work closely in tandem with the PwC government staff is tracking new residential construction in the county. [01:11:14] Every year, we reconcile our data tracking with the staff in planning for the county and use the development records that are in the pipeline to build out in our model so So that those future constructed units yield students and we build those into our projections. [01:11:37] The graphic on the slide shows historical data to the left of the red line. And then the 2025 data was our projection of how many new housing units were we anticipating as of last September 30th. We projected just over 1140 new housing units. [01:11:57] The actuals that we are seeing in the data this year are approximately 1,500. So within, you know, 300-ish housing units. And then we will use this as a new baseline, you know, take these new housing units, project housing for the next five years. [01:12:21] The trend that we're seeing in Prince William County schools is one comprised of decreasing student enrollment. Over the next five years, we are anticipating overall about a 3,700 student decrease. [01:12:38] Year over year since last year, it's been approximately about 1,000 students. When we look at the grade level, or the school level really, elementary, middle, or high, you can see that the purple line is our elementary. [01:12:57] For the most part, we're projecting a decreasing trend at the elementary level. There's a slight bump in last year's projections in that 2029 year. That's a function of those birth data are the only birth data not observed, and by that I mean the Virginia Department of Health does not release the most recent data that we need for those five-year projections in the same timeline that we're actually doing the calculations. [01:13:26] So we partner with the county's demographer to project births five years into the future. concludes our presentation thank you all right thank you so very much before I call on my colleague supervisor Bodie growth is a big issue in the county and a number of people mentioned schools they want to make sure that our schools have capacity when you're talking about falling enrollment is that across the county are we seeing it in more areas in some areas more than others it's not [01:14:04] uniformly distributed across the county there are pockets in the county where the number of students is and is projected to exceed the capacity of our schools and so our five-year CIP that is updated every year it reflects that and addresses strategies to ensure that there is adequate space for those students all right thank you very much I'm going to turn it over to my colleagues supervisor Bodie you madam chair thank you for the presentation I know we've had conversations around this before and I matter I appreciate your [01:14:41] question, because it piggybacks well onto my question, because I'm just going back to when we did redistricting back in 2021, and we saw that some areas of the county sort of shrank in population over time, or at least remained stagnant, other ones had substantial growth, other ones were somewhere in between. [01:15:00] And I just feel like the land use patterns, the projects we approve, what have you, sort of ebb and flow. And so it's hard to tell overall how this feeds into what parts of the county, going back to Madam Chair's point, because I mean, I can, I don't want to speak for my colleagues in the Neabsco district, but we know for a long time, there wasn't a lot of big building. [01:15:18] Well, then we approved the Quartz District. I know that my colleague over to my left always talks about how there needs to be more investment in our district, and that she's doing that, so there's going to be more growth there. My district, too, we're approving these projects. So I'm just wondering how that flow is going to change over time, given that I appreciate you all are sort of projecting this out based on our approved projects, but knowing that, Frankly, growth is catalyst for more growth. [01:15:42] And the more that folks are able to see that, we're actually making investments. We're actually putting forth housing because we see it as a public need that it might catalyze more folks coming to us, having more projections, more proposals, and approving more housing because we know we need it. So I wanted to leave that because it's not really a question but sort of a food for thought. [01:16:01] But my question is, how does your guys' projections jive with the Weldon Cooper Center? Because, you know, we've talked a lot about over the past couple of weeks how the Weldon Cooper Center recently put out their projections. And by 2050, Prince William County will have approximately 707,718 people. [01:16:19] So, yes, in sort of the midterm, the next five years, 10 years, we may see that plateau and dip. But in order for us to get from where we are right now to 200,000 more people, some of those have to be kids. Some of those have to be people having babies. [01:16:34] Some of those people have to be people who are going to be enrolled in school, going an upward trend versus decreasing one. I know that aging, people who are aging contribute to that a little bit because they're sticking around longer, what have you. But some of those folks that are part of that population growth have to be kids in our school system. So I want to leave that question with you. [01:16:50] First of all, most of the counties in the Commonwealth have had an increase in median age. That's indicative of an aging population. Second, a few years ago when this was first brought to your all's attention, there was a census estimate that showed PWC increased year over year in population, while PWCS showed a decrease in K-12 enrollment. [01:17:23] There is the opportunity for a correlation, but at least on that data point, it's indicative of they're not directly correlated. As far as how we align with Weldon Cooper, when we redesigned our projection model two years ago, it was a stark change from what the previous trends and models have suggested where we were on this perpetual increase of 1,000 kids every year, and then our projections were way off. [01:17:49] So we redesigned it, and we came out in about October/November with a very different narrative. Thousands of kids being missed over the next five years. It wasn't until February the following year that Will and Cooper came out with their projections, and it was very similar to ours. [01:18:11] However, our model is far more sophisticated just because of our extent. We're focusing on one county. They're using a generalized approach for the entire commonwealth. So we're able to pick up on nuances in the data that no fault of Weldon Cooper, it's just it's beyond their focus. [01:18:29] If I could, Madam Chair, just final point there, and I appreciate that, because correlation does not mean causation, you know, I appreciate that. I guess for us as policymakers, not that we have direct control over that, but we should, like I said last night, we're all together, ask ourselves why that trend, those numbers are deviating, right? [01:18:47] aging in place, being people living longer, that's a great thing, but frankly, if we're not creating the kind of opportunity where people feel like they can invest and have children, and they can be financially stable enough to grow a family in this county, that's one of the questions we'd be asking ourselves in the back of our head as we see it as this, so I appreciate that. [01:19:08] All right, this is Supervisor Angry. Thank you, Madam Chair. I know I haven't said much this whole evening. The word generalized approach, I'm going to run with that for a sec, because I think what What you all do in the school system, you can't base this off of generalized approach. [01:19:25] You've got to be pretty much spot on what you're doing. Thus, we don't build schools and let them sit for a year or two or three until population grows to enter them. I think that's such a great word because I want us to focus on, as we look at our CIPs and have buildings and projections in the pipeline that we're not using generalized approach. [01:19:47] I wonder and I know I just I hope that we're utilizing what you're what you all are doing on a county approach as we're looking at future buildings and development to make sure we're kind of hitting those targets to what you are doing and holding until such time that it matters to do such a thing I just want to as you said that it triggered how I see some projects develop and we kind of may may look at rounding up a number where you all have to focus on [01:20:23] round it down and I want to like talk to even like the courts dishes and I'm working right now with with superintendent in the school board here on we can set aside land for a school development but the question becomes as we develop out and what we're trying to do do we really need that now because I think as future dictates what you will need we can address those situations then but what we're doing now I want to make sure that the opportunity doesn't pass us that we're just sitting on opportunities with inflated numbers so thank you for that that was really triggering for me so just want to say that if I can I'll say that yes we do work very closely our county demographer [01:21:02] works very closely with the school system on projections so yes I'll also say that our office of planning actually works with COG more closely in terms of projection population projections and just like the school system we are focused on the county where some of our partners are more regionally focused or Commonwealth focused but to answer your question we absolutely make sure that we [01:21:28] are being as detailed as possible when making projections around population yeah I've been in my current home now for 30 going on 31 years and I said this before yes I do agree that a lot of people are moving south and so forth when we first [01:22:03] moved in there in that community there's only about 70 homes our two girls were in elementary school at that time and they went from elementary to middle to high school and then about 15 years later there were no kids in that community basically the buses didn't even have to run because the kids were gone today there are a bunch of kids back in that community and how [01:22:40] How we project that and deal with that is another issue. But there is some form of 15, 20 years, people sort of migrate back, start living. My neighbor down the street, his kids went to California, and they just moved back here a month ago with two little kids. [01:23:06] So it's really a projection, and I think we do a good job, but it's very difficult to say what it's going to be. Nobody wants to have a school like they do in some communities where we have to close the school because there's not enough kids. [01:23:25] At the same time, we don't want to be like we're over in Potomac Shores where they're building so fast, we can't keep up with them. And that's probably going to happen out in the West. you know it's a amazing thing but the projections are very difficult and I think you guys do a good job but I don't know if we get really have this thing I think we have a good model but I wouldn't count on it being accurate 10 [01:23:58] years from now all right thank you so very much I'm going to go over to school board member Erica Trudinic then I'll come back over here thank you mr. Jesse you touched on some of the points that I wanted to bring up we've talked about the growth in different pockets in the county and certain areas I have schools in my district that are very overcrowded and we've mitigated that with trailers and with you know talking about different strategies that are up and [01:24:34] coming such as building more classrooms and things like that I have not been shy at all about proposing a redistricting because there are different pockets in county um including in my district and other districts that would um it would be solved i mean we have a school under five miles away from each other multiple schools that are under crowded meanwhile i have an elementary school that's overcrowded and that's fixed simply by redistricting so um and talking about you know uh mr angry was talking about the the land and donating land in [01:25:10] different places and and um you know really being fiscally responsible and not building a school that's not needed that the numbers don't dictate and you know I've been a huge advocate on on making sure that if we're going to build a school that it's actually needed in the area that it's needed in my district it appears right now that we need a new school but I once again like I think it's solved by simply moving lines and boundaries and and reallocating these students into schools so that we don't have to close schools in areas instead we could utilize and we could utilize buildings that are underutilized as well to also save us [01:25:47] tax dollars so thank you for bringing that up to mr. Jesse all right I don't know if anyone else will say anything we're going to go over to a supervisor Bailey did you have something so the thing that I wanted to say also all the all the points that have been made especially the redistricting point is I think it's something it keeps coming up so I think that's an excellent point but the thing that I wanted to make note of is the conversations that we have with [01:26:26] our school board members is critical and I tell Justin awesome Gary did toot your horn for me she woke me up I woke you up so I'm very proud of the relationship that we share in terms of me not getting in his lane and but collaborating with him as well as collaborating with the superintendent and her staff and understanding when I'm talking about land use what does that mean and understand understanding what is being projected and so that type of [01:27:01] collaboration when we talk about land use when we talk about overcrowding just an understanding of that and I think we are just at the precipice of building more collaboration in that regard by utilizing our demographers and understanding what that means because in the past we weren't doing that and I'm going to be very honest about that we just weren't so we're in a special place right now where that kind of collaboration that kind of truth that kind of those kind of discussions got to be held not just when we're having a joint school board and board of county supervisors meeting it has bode very [01:27:40] very well for Justin and I and it hasn't always been pleasant but it's been truth and so as a result of that the example if you want an example is to look at the Potomac Shores elementary school because we've got trailers too I get it we've got trailers too but I just want to offer that because I think we're making progress in that regard in our discussions but the numbers and the data don't it doesn't lie I don't like that we're not having babies but that's where we are right now but that's just an example and i just wanted to offer that all right um [01:28:15] supervisor i'm sorry i don't know if i'm demoting or promoting school board member justin wolf she's not leaving us um i agree with the collaboration part and i you know i think working together you and i have been more sagacious and how we're working and planning you know there we go there's and then the other word was obdurate anyways um but with that you know looking at these areas of growth and you know guys i'm going to belabor this and talk about the it was already brought up potomac shores um you know i think where we're seeing a lot of the growth in the east especially [01:28:52] is potomac shores it's a um it's kind of a little blip in an area otherwise that is seeing a decline in student enrollment and one thing i will say about that is land is scarce it's not you know infinite we can't just go anywhere and get that land and so when we're doing these plans for residential development and stuff i just want to make sure we're continuing and we're all working as we have in the collaborative effort because you know as a community like potomac shorts keeps growing which my understanding from the last meeting there's more land being [01:29:31] purchased off cherry hill potentially for development you know i'm one to believe down the road that i think potomac shores is probably the next montclair and we'll have three elementary schools uh eventually attached to it but with that comes you know the planning part we on the school system you know looking at our cip and using the scarcity of land and building up with the new elementary school that we will have this beautiful building someone said i said big beautiful building in the press big beautiful building um opening up in the fall of 27 um just like i said being [01:30:06] mindful of the land and where we need to get this land i know mr angry you were mentioning earlier about planning and land and development and stuff like that so again when we're looking at the residential and the housing making sure we have an area where we can build up and build a school and let us have the ability to put those kids in there in a timely manner and move them to that building as they matriculate up through the secondary as well so all right thank you so very much supervisor Franklin I'm sorry school board member Laurie Williams thank [01:30:41] you chair just to put a little context in history I'm really proud of our board and the work that we do as someone who was sort of in since I got on the board concerned about land use and schools even serving on a joint committee before most of the people at the table got here about land and land use I think it's just important a to stop and be proud of the collaboration that we have now between our staff the work that they've done in changing our models for projection is amazing we are more better situated now than we ever have been [01:31:19] also the continued collaboration with the county staff getting that process up and going was challenging and I can absolutely attest to the fact that the open communication has been a benefit for all of us I think what's important remember is even though we are two separate entities what the work that we do affects one another but there really is no magic solution that will solve everything right at one time because it's a complex problem Potomac Shores an example Belmont Bay how long have they said they were gonna build sometimes they are sometimes they not those are all factors that we have to consider where [01:31:55] we stand now we do have schools that are overcrowded but that's also a reflection of what's going on who's moving where how many kids have moved in sometimes we don't have any control over that I'm just gonna keep picking on Potomac Shores since it was brought up it's a good example in the sense that well I mean it's a good example right in the sense that we started building we opened a school people moved in there's continued growth right but at the same time the things that we I believe we are should be more mindful of this is reminding people that we do have a time of year that we discuss this with the CIP like the school division has had a long-term plan for Potomac Shores area [01:32:32] we followed our plan it's outside of our control if they start building tomorrow if there's in the construction phase there's a mystery discovery that we didn't know those things are also added factors that contribute to the situation that we're in right now and I think it's important that we keep all of those things in mind because we do do a good job we don't have any control over Millennials having babies or not and there is a difference between the growth in the county the houses versus how many individuals are actually going to be in our building I just want to take a moment to add a little bit layer of history because this has been an ongoing thing and to just take a moment to say [01:33:11] that we do work really collaboratively together I think we should continue to do that I think it would also be helpful to bring in members of the community like real estate agents when someone buys a house that they're even more clear of how our school division operates where their students would be in school things of that nature I think that's often the missing link from our public right because we do the work so I just want to take a minute and say I think we do a really good job we should we should continue to grow and work collaboratively but also it might be time to bring in other members of the community so that we can all get a clearer picture when it comes to growth and students and how it really does affect our school population and also on the county side [01:33:49] thank you supervisor Franklin sure yeah just want to say briefly and it kind of ties into what miss Williams was saying I think actually the school board has a very difficult job in trying to decide between these boundary lines right i think for a little bit we take for granted um how contentious those discussions can be supervisor bailey and i were just in a potomac shores meeting where we got several questions about boundary lines right we don't have to deal with that so much until redistricting comes around but you all have to [01:34:23] deal with that with regards to building new schools where to send a lot of those students so i just want to highlight and really thank you all for some of those more difficult discussions i know that the superintendent and i have had some conversations about some of the schools in the woodbridge district and what the future of those schools look like and while you know those are some concerning discussions they're realistic that's the reality that we're in and i happen to think that some of this i saw kind of the stats on why we think they're declining enrollment rates [01:34:58] but i also think that some of this had to do with covet as well when our students were not in school and and perhaps some of them did not come back to school and then we also had a cohort of students that graduated right consistently during covet and so i just wanted to kind of point that out and thank the school system for uh the work that you all do all of you uh because it's it's very very difficult and um you know when i get calls i just pass them right along to laurie and and the superintendent but these are very very difficult decisions and I think my colleagues can agree that when we're talking to constituents a lot of those [01:35:34] questions are around the school system so just want to thank you all for that all right thank you dr. Lateef thank you madam chair and thank you for the oh yeah please but it's for you dr. Lateef does your board get an update on the trailer usage throughout the county and if so how often you know that's a great question do we get an update on the trailer uses i mean you know every year when we go through the cip we we look at the trailer usage i know since i was on the board for the last seven years our [01:36:08] number of trailers have gone down or moved to different areas but we still use them yeah i mean you know it's the brentsville district potomac district are our districts where we have a lot of trailers still a little bit in coals um it has been a um you know commitment by this board to try to reduce trailers over the last few years and as much as possible and that's been able to do with bringing on new schools online but as ms tradenik pointed out and as as many of you have discussed redistricting is um you know and i can bring that up in my final comments but um you know trailers [01:36:47] are something that we're needing less of as enrollment continues to drop so sorry maybe i missed it how often do you get the report annually annually so once a year um it's just very telling I was driving to the football game over at Brentsville and both my kids went to the Noakesville school and I believe that they're sitting on 13 right now, which is quite a high number in my opinion. [01:37:10] I would like to hear from Dr. McDade your opinion on redistricting and if you feel that that would perhaps alleviate some of the overcrowding issues that we're experiencing right now. Well, certainly we do have schools to balance, you know, the only way to balance would be to redistrict. We do have schools that have underutilization. [01:37:29] you have some schools that are overcrowded it's a little bit more nuanced in that where the overcrowding is happening and where the under utilization is happening it just depends because you could have a situation like um miss trended said where in her district you've got a school that is highly over utilized and then the other school that would feed into that is not actually in the brinsville district it's in the gainesville district so it all just depends on where the school is it doesn't necessarily mean that it would have to be a whole countywide because we've got pockets and those are things we talked about like where does [01:38:06] the redistricting actually happen you know which schools does it benefit or not benefit but I would say that you know to not have to have a situation where we have to close the school that would be the first line that first line of defense or the first action that should be taken is if you have a school that is significantly underutilized the first thing you would want to do is look around at the surrounding schools if they are overutilized and that would be the mitigation strategy thank you one final thought madam chair and what does that look like in terms is it something that the board is actively discussing is [01:38:41] there a timeline a plan in place to actually really look into these areas to actually implement redistricting or is it just still a general point of conversation so redistricting is a function of the board what we do is bring forth the enrollment projections and we show what the utilization is for every school so the board receives receives a utilization report along with that comes the number of trailers annually and then that is that policy is governed by the board all right dr. Lateef I was gonna go over to mr. Wilk [01:39:19] and then mr. Jesse because I thought you had a comment no you're gonna wait all right then I'll go to mr. Wilk to mr. Jesse I do want to add despite the struggles with the with the trailers you know we have collaboration with the division and our leadership the first and foremost priority has still been student safety and security and we're doing as much as we can to mitigate and ensure that those trailers whether it be in Covington Harper at Potomac Shores are out in Brentsville that you know this division has been amazing to work with when it comes to ensuring the security cameras are there the [01:39:53] additional security on-site the people that are able to take the students back and forth to bathrooms we're doing as much as possible to mitigate until we can have that alleviation from another school being built so just wanted to mention that despite the struggle we're doing as much as possible to ensure safety and security thank you mr. Jesse with regard to trailers the Occoquan district several many probably ten years I can't remember how long we had a lot of [01:40:29] problems with trailers and fortunately three of our schools we added additions to it and that's sort of eliminated but that's not the case now we're going back to starting to have trailers part of that is because of new new buildings in area uh part of that i think also and dr mcdade can correct me if i'm wrong we now have an emphasis we try to have pre-k in our schools which mean that an elementary school in addition to the [01:41:06] regular kindergarten has a pre-k sometimes in there so that's adding to the capacity of the schools but trailers are going back up and buildings are going back up so it is a problem as far as redistricting you have not lived until you have to redistrict school zones that is one of the most challenging things that we have in the county and it is a lot of fun all right do we have anyone else did you [01:41:46] want to say something Dr. Lateef sure you know a couple things and to just to wrap up this number one I think if you haven't seen the article that came out by I think it was realtor.com and the school division did out a few weeks ago Prince William County National Realtor Association said that we're in the I think was the top 30 of counties that people google online to check their school districts to move they want to move here because of and so I want to I want to thank you all because that should credit the entire Board of County Supervisors, Dr. McDade, the work you all do has increased our reputation, our rankings have increased dramatically over [01:42:22] seven years, teacher pay has increased, student performance has improved, and so I, you know, I look at things like that to drive people to move here, maybe to have more babies here. We need babies. If there's a headline in tomorrow's articles, it should say, "We need babies," okay? [01:42:42] need them it is important I think it is critical it is the taxpayer dollars and we have to be responsible with them and in in much of the work we do is is not popular or easy to do and the board has you know over the last seven years done things to mitigate trailers we've added classrooms we've added schools we've done some rebounding we've done some innovative things in Brentsville with new developments coming on that don't impact families we actually move those [01:43:17] neighborhoods into schools that had less capacity prior to the construction so we are looking and doing different things we've changed the policies in our redistricting offices to be more nimble about the work we're doing the five-year strategic plan the CIP is what used to be like a ten-year plan it's a five-year plan to be much more nimble but we do take this very seriously and there are some serious issues that this board has to deal with there are questions about do schools need to be built and where do they need to be built do we need to redistrict at a county level across high schools do we need to redistrict these are some questions that the public will raise anxiety [01:43:56] over i mean let me be very clear and it will not be popular to do many of these things we have some high schools that are levels that are too low we need to move students into those schools we have and Dr. McDade, I'll give you an example, moved, you know, created an Eastern pre-governors program at Freedom High School. [01:44:17] That allowed us to add more students to Freedom High School, also make it more convenient for everyone on the East to not have to go to Osborne Park, which was the only governor's school. Her staff is looking at more programs like that to do that. Mr. Wilk is talking about bringing more programs into schools like a veterinary science program. [01:44:35] We are looking at those things to kind of create capacity. But Weldon Cooper said by 2030, the state of Virginia will lose 100,000 students. 60% of all students in the Commonwealth are in Northern Virginia. 7% of all students are in Prince William County. [01:44:50] We are taking a hit. There was an article the other day that Loudoun County has dropped to, I wanna say 83,000 students in this year's enrollment and they're gonna be down 81 next year or they're at 81 now. They were just about a thousand students behind us. I talked to their chair this morning and they are struggling And you would think that, you know, everybody wants to move to Loudoun County, but you know, it's expensive. [01:45:12] It is becoming very hard for young families to move into these counties. And that's where we look to you to get more babies. You know, I mean, I'll be honest. And so, but we do have serious issues that have to come up that the public will not be happy about us talking about. [01:45:32] I can tell you in our overcrowded schools, I get very little complaints or emails about someone not wanting to be in that school. Let me be very clear about that. You can FOIA my email box, and you will find that I have very few complaints about, yeah, it's fine, you know. [01:45:48] I have very few complaints from our families about our schools being that overcrowded. 'Cause a lot of our folks who are in the overcrowded schools know that they might be the ones redistricted out of that school that they like, okay? I have schools that we have low capacity, and I have principals worried about fielding football teams. [01:46:08] fielding a JV girls basketball team in our schools, while other schools have a JV girls basketball team. We have real problems that we have to be honest about. And that's where the Board of County Supervisors, and I've been very grateful over the last few years of your support, but if we are gonna make some of these very difficult decisions, whether to build a school or not, whether to redistrict certain areas, these are gonna make the public anxious, possibly angry. [01:46:41] And so we have worked hard. Dr. McDade really came in and we're gonna approach our, and here's where now I'll wrap up by inviting you all to participate in our new strategic planning program. We've completed our first four-year strategic plan. [01:46:57] Many of you contributed to that the last time. Tell us what you want. Look, if we have under capacity, there are ideas of creating more pre-K programs. What about universal pre-K in Prince William County? I don't know, that would be amazing. We have capacity now to maybe do that. We have Patti Elementary that's a pre-K program. [01:47:14] We can do that. There are things we can do, but we need your support, your help, and they are gonna be some things we have to do that are not gonna be popular. But having a BOCS that is unified with us in addressing capacity issues, as Ms. Vega brings up and Mr. Angry brings up, these are real issues. [01:47:33] And I do worry about these programs. We have great high schools. I mean, we have some of our high schools, population has dropped so much and these are historically strong high schools, strong athletic programs, strong academic programs that now are suffering a little bit because of low enrollment. [01:47:49] So I want to fix that. I'm happy to entertain, you know, the public's desire to fix that, but I can tell you our public is generally extremely happy with the schools. Dr. McDade came in and made a commitment to make all of our schools better, not just our good schools better, Not are better schools better, but are all schools better? [01:48:09] And that has worked. And that's made folks, I will say, generally happier about our division, which is what leads to improved rankings, improved retention of great teachers, and all of that stuff. So I thank you for supporting us. Thank you for doing that. [01:48:25] Feel free to offline call us and tell us what you think. We're happy to hear from you. Thank you, Madam Chair. You talk a lot about babies. What type of doctor are you again? I always thought you were... - Well, I get two eyes with each baby. So that's double the business. [01:48:42] - It works out. - Dr. McDade, I think you have your mic on. - One, just wanted to say that we will share the link to our survey for the Vision 2030 strategic plan. So if you would like to provide any input on the strategic plan, we'll make sure that the entire VOCS gets that link. [01:49:00] And then just to put a piece of information that I think wasn't noted that is important to note, response to supervisor Vega's question about the trailers and and the pockets of overutilization and underutilization and just to put a finer point on the fact that we are losing enrollment while we are gaining in certain pockets just as much as you're seeing us putting trailers online we're also taking trailers offline significantly at some schools so you look at a school like UNITY READ OR LIKE HILTON WE'VE TAKEN SIGNIFICANT TRAILERS OFFLINE EVEN THOUGH YOU MAY SEE AN [01:49:39] INCREASE IN TRAILERS IN ONE AREA SO IF YOU SEE A LOT OF TRAILERS IN ONE AREA THAT'S MASKING THE FACT THAT IN OTHER SCHOOLS WE'VE SEEN SIGNIFICANT REDUCTION IN ENROLLMENT WHERE WE'VE HAD TO TAKE TRAILERS OFFLINE SO IT'S KIND OF LIKE A BALANCING ACT THERE SO I DID WANT TO MAKE AN THAT'S AN IMPORTANT NOTE SO THAT IT DOESN'T APPEAR THAT WE'RE JUST ADDING MORE AND MORE TRAILERS BECAUSE WE are so are subtracting trailers in certain pockets of the county all right thank you so much I just but I have to ask a question because you're mentioned unified you need the board behind you what is it that you need from the board [01:50:15] you know you when we when we what yeah I mean I look I mean if we're gonna go down the road of redistricting certain areas as you heard from my school board members those are not easy meetings those are challenging meetings with the public and and and and rightfully so right like folks don't like to change so So, you know, to credit the school board and Dr. McDade, we've tried to balance enrollment in the least painful ways we can. [01:50:40] That is the first things we've done, you know? You know, to school board member Tradenik's real credit, there were a couple big projects coming out there where those land, those properties were gonna, those homes were gonna go to a very overcrowded, I think Nokesville school, but there's no current homes, really, or maybe one or two homes in that area now. [01:51:01] We decided to preemptively say, okay, we're gonna redistrict that area before the houses get built to go to two elementary schools that are actually physically closer to that area, but weren't zoned for that are actually under-utilized. You know, if we do program capacity, things like Mr. Jesse and Dr. McDade have talked about moving folks around to where we have building space, that helps, but some things are not gonna be popular. [01:51:29] And so we're trying to do it in the most least painful way the public because the public doesn't like to be moved you know they buy a house in a certain area expect to go to that school so you're going to hear it from them when we start doing this but there will be some painful points in the next few years i promise the public that i appreciate that thank you so very much um i want this oh supervisor angry i was only trying to be quick like we have our screen that you can get in and talk first so i didn't know if you were going to go around the room for the board i was just trying to be i wasn't going to go around the the board, but I was going to see if there were any last minute questions, so you're the number one. [01:52:07] I really want to say I appreciate this presentation from both the staff perspective, yeah, okay. So I appreciate these presentations from the staff perspective, but I think the better part of this meeting is this conversation right here. [01:52:23] So I just want to share with you, as Mr. Blake and I have been discussing, I didn't recognize and realize we have you know some trailer concerns in some of the schools in the outskill district which is a concern but other things that really are important that i will i really want us to work on as a board and the school board and and the school board of county supervisors is you know the issues that we've been talking about such things like this indoor sports complex where i know it's very beneficial to the schools as much as it is to the county because of the opportunity for the sporting aspect not just that but the graduation aspects and as you look at the fact [01:53:01] that we spent a lot of money in fairfax i don't like to spend money in fairfax i i'm happy that we can graduate there but i would really love for us to bring all that back to the county from gas from hotels from restaurants from families being here to share the experience of our children graduating the school system so i think those are very important i think that's a conversation we We should be talking about what does a public-private partnership look like. [01:53:26] The school system, and I'm going to brag for you, is the largest employer in Prince William County. In the Commonwealth of Virginia, I believe you all say, but the fact that you have that many employees, I want to, I'm going to, okay, don't go that high, okay, just Prince William. But the fact is, if you're the largest employer, I want, I think we can work together and do things that really benefit both sides of what we're doing. [01:53:47] So, you know, we were discussing the issues of, you know, our children walking to school And really, at some point, we should have a real conversation about pedestrian bridges and really what that looks like and how much do we value a life over what that might cost. [01:54:04] And I'll just say, you know, the last point that is a nugget for me is the whole public safety side of the conversation that we deal with on both sides of this house. And so when I look at how schools right now in the morning, which absolutely is a concern of me, of mine, is there was a point where children rode the bus to school, but now all the schools in the morning have about a two-hour window where you have so much parking or backup traffic of kids being dropped off at school. [01:54:36] I kind of want to understand how we got there and is there a way that we can work out of it. So one of the number one concerns I get as a district is traffic backup at schools, and many of them are in neighborhoods and so that becomes the question and i don't have an answer for it i know you all don't either but i just think that's a conversation of is there anything we can do i watch traffic cut off buses trying to get kids into the school like i just shouldn't the bus have the right-of-way it's just these concerns for me is just something and so i just want to bring up what i think we should kind of be discussing at least my one night so thank you [01:55:17] Oh, turn your mics off if you're not speaking for a sec, because she can't get hers on. Go ahead, Dr. McDade. No, I was asking if he wanted a response to that. Okay. And honestly, I was sharing, I think, like, as I was sitting here listening, I got a lot of insight to the relationship of us. [01:55:38] And so when we do this every year, I think there's some things that we can really kind of talk about and figure out next year if we're doing any better collectively together. So I just, you know, I want to share those. And I appreciate the presentations. i just think as i'm talking i really spent some valuable time here just talking to mr blake about some of the concerns and then things that i had i noticed and see uh in the community as i'm you know getting these calls so all right hold on i so as dr latif said we can only have so many microphones on at once and i've written people down um we're going to go to bode bailey and then [01:56:16] williams um and i wanted to first thank uh school board mayor blake and and so guys are angry for for sort of their collaboration and then sort of talking about something I know that's near and dear at heart, which is transportation, right? We talk about that all the time. And I know that you all, to the point of school division, have a really hard job of trying to navigate all those kids coming from all different places. As someone who had kids who were on a specialty bus that goes from Jenkins to Potomac High School last year, there's a whole lot of stuff that goes into that. So I wanted to commend you on working through that because I know it's not easy. At the other hand though, and we've had this conversation a little bit at the Joint Invisual Task Force, is how [01:56:53] we can better partner on giving more transportation options to our school staff we have omni ride buses go all around the county and we don't really do a good job of figuring out where are those places where we can get more uh you know teachers janitors admin those folks on our local free buses to help deal with some of that we know that sometimes you know a school staff may have mobility issues just like everyone else they may have one car and someone has taken the car so how do they they get to school we shouldn't have teachers having to take uber to get to school to get to work we shouldn't have to be in a situation where folks have to [01:57:30] jump in their car to drive to a school that's nearby because the local bus can't take them there quickly so I think there's something there that we haven't talked too much about in terms of how do we do better about meeting the need of transportation for school staff and I would love for us to partner on that so that's one two walkers safe route to schools and things like that I know that's been a long conversation has been ebbs and flows over the years I know that for a little while we had some volunteers were looking at gaps between not only schools and communities but also public facilities like libraries what have you you know as we talk about the the trails and parks bond that we just sort of [01:58:09] started talking about the board level we have this comprehensive safety action plan that we approved and adopted earlier this this year I feel like there's still gaps in the pedestrian network to get folks whether the kids or or staff to schools through pedestrian and biking safely. [01:58:26] So how do we more collaborate on that? And then just the last piece I'll say is looking back on some of the county's documents and some of the things that we do to inform our decisions, it's been 20-ish years since the county did a futures report. The last one expires on 2030. [01:58:43] And what I looked back on is there was a lot of youth engagement on those last two iterations on the future report for the county. There are school children of all these that partook in that, you know, had ideas, had drawings, had all these things that they envisioned for the future. So if we continue to talk about young families, children, how can we look more ahead to sort of how do we grow up over the next 30 years as a county, I think it's a real important conversation to have to see how we can collaborate more, to see how we can have more youth engagement on the county side in forming our documents as well. [01:59:17] So it's less a question but more sort of commentary. Thank you. All right, thank you, Supervisor Bodie, Supervisor Bailey. - Thank you, Madam Chair. I've got five quick points and I'll talk fast, not as fast as Kenny. But first of all, I just wanna, the chairman of the school board mentioned about the strategic plan and you invited us to be a part, I would love to be a part of that because you created a strategic plan when you first came on board and you led us through that and you've accomplished a lot on that strategic plan your staff and with the board and so I think that's an excellent idea we're [01:59:54] doing the same and so I think we can see some synergy there the other thing I want to congratulate you on is highest starting salaries in Virginia we weren't there when you came on board and so you value just as the county has the employees that work for you and we value our teachers and our and the staff on the school board and we just thank them for hanging in there because teaching easy and all of that I can't do it I'm the resource person anyway the other thing is graduation rate that's important that says that we're focused on our students and making sure they can thrive and go out into the community and [02:00:33] do what they got to do with that the trades I was in the cog meeting today and they talked about how the trades were so important to where we are in society right now where we are nationally right now and so that trades piece is very critical to making sure that we're stimulating our kids and making sure people can eat and feel good about what they're doing in life even if they don't have a degree so that's very important then congratulations on the awards that you're getting every time we have one of these meetings you're talking about the awards that you're getting and that's important that's be [02:01:11] and dr. Lateef that's why people want to check and see do I really want to move here because that says we're doing so they do thank you we're doing somewhere and I want to say to our school board members you're the greatest because you really care about our kids even you know we do the same thing when we're not agreeing but you care about our kids and that allows us when we're funding or when we're supporting y'all what that means as we go forward and growing this county that's gonna grow whether we want to or not but I just I just wanted to just highlight those things thank you madam chair for allowing me to do that [02:01:50] because I think that we are on the right track as we go forward you know with our babies and passing this baton to the next generation and a lot of times things get a little political but that doesn't matter if we keep our mind on what we're supposed to be doing so thank you and the last person we had was I believe school board member Williams thank you chair Jefferson I just want to thank everyone including the staff for taking the time to come here and and share information our plans with the public it's our job but everyone showed up and that's always nice I remember a time when I first got on the board that [02:02:28] we met more than just once a year and I think that history has shown how well that we can work together for the benefit of everyone despite whatever political leanings or anything that is going on we're all here for the betterment of our community and I would like for all of us to really consider meeting more than once a year as we go through the unknown because we do work collaboratively together for the benefit of everyone and as we move into this time there's a lot of uncertainty and I hope that we can continue that relationship but also consider we might need to meet more regularly just so we [02:03:05] can continue to plan efficiently and proactively we should be proud our our county is one of the only counties in Northern Virginia where you guys gave us additional funding, where people had to give money back. We do have good working relationships. Problems get solved, we work together. [02:03:20] I think that's the benefit to everyone and I would like to see us continue doing that and really consider meeting more regularly as everything with the shutdown goes on because it affects both of us as entities. So thank you everyone. I appreciate the collaboration. I think tonight is a good way to set the tone for that so everyone knows where we are let's continue a meeting so that we can move forward together thank you all right thank you I'm gonna turn it over to dr. Lateef thank you madam chair thank you all for coming this evening thank you for the staff for setting it up on both sides of the OCS and the school board and dr. McDade and mr. shorter madam chair [02:03:57] thank you I truly appreciate our relationship as well and we you know well I know we don't maybe meet as much but we do talk regularly and and it's important that we keep that relationship good and i really appreciate all the support for the school division thank you very much all right i'm going to make this quick i appreciate again everyone who is here today and all the work and time that it took to set this meeting up i'm going to quickly say i did have a chance to go visit jiffy lube live earlier they want you guys they want more graduations you know i know i know hold on i see you we'll talk later i know that they have a [02:04:34] different schedule but but we will talk because they made it a point to talk about during the pandemic how they helped 27 graduation or whatever we'll talk but with that strong schools are the backbone of our community it is what makes people want to live here raise a family but it's also what attracts more businesses that's why strong schools have been such an important priority for me with that i'd like to get a motion to adjourn it's been moved and seconded it let's go ahead and everyone um say aye i kind of prompted you on that one thank you very much meeting is adjourned ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Coraggio Consulting ยท aguyonx.com