Prince William County School Board joint meeting with Board of County Supervisors - October 8, 2025

001All 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 Latif 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 objectively in the public interest. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> All

002right. Thank you so very much. It's always great to meet with everyone when um the board of county supervisors when we're 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. Um we'll certainly be talking about the economic impacts later, but I want to have everyone go around and introduce themselves. My name obviously Deshandra Jefferson chair of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors and I'll go to my left >> Bobber Latif Chairman Prince William County School Board. Wade Anderson, division council for PWCS. >> Erica Tennic, Brensville District. >> Good

003evening. >> That was Yes, Cole's district. I'm Lisa Zaraport's district. >> Tracy Blake, NABSCO district. >> Carol Flard, deputy superintendent. >> Latana McDade, superintendent. >> Chris Sharter, County Executive. Shaquille Ysef, CFO. Lori Williams, Woodbridge District. >> Margaret Franklin, Woodbridge District. I'm so happy to be here. >> Richard Jesse, Aquaan District. Kenny Bod, Aqua District, the backbone of the county. >> Andrea Bailey, vice chair of the board, PTOIC district, >> Justin W, PTOIC district. >> Michelle Roel, 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. Latif. >> Uh, thank you, Madam Chair. Um, we also have one board miss board member missing this evening. That's Jen Wall, the Gainesville District. Um,

004first of all, thank you. Welcome to um the Kelly Leadership Building. We are always grateful to um see you all and have this meeting. Uh we truly appreciate the incredible support the Board of County Supervisors in Prince William County continues to provide to the Prince William County schools. That support has resulted in, as you've seen in the articles of recent, the highest paid firstear 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. Uh we have been voted by Forbes magazine as one of the top three school districts to work for. um regularly since 2020 and this year as well. Uh we continued u we had a record graduation rate this past summer for our students, record

005scholarship dollars, improved scores across the board since coming out of the pandemic, success in and on in in the classroom, on the field, in the auditoriums, and in on our courts. uh we continue to um um uh work hard to um back stop your AAA bond rating and we're very proud of all that work 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 um 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'll also have to read a KOYA statement. Um, but in the meantime, I was going to tee up our first presentation and

006that 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 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 going to actually turn it over to um Mr. Sharter who's going to say a few words before the presentation. >> Thank you very much, Madam Chair, uh members of the board and members of the school board. Again, wonderful to see you all. Uh we uh we did these presentations yesterday for our board. Uh I'm going to ask first that we talk about the federal shutdown. And so this will really be a

007summation of where we stand as a county. Uh there are certainly a lot of uh uncertainties as it were. Uh then we will have the agencies most impacted by HR1 uh come up and do presentations uh really about HR1 and how they are impacted. This is uh our uh we'll start with our department of social services. Then we'll have community services and then we will have uh we will have Brian Meisner with emergency management. Uh but before we do, we're going to do federal shutdown first. So we'll have Dave Sinclair come up to talk about the federal shutdown. Good evening. Uh, this is just intended to provide a general overview and um, I'm going to talk a little bit about school funding. I realize that the experts are in this very room, so if I

008misspe on anything, uh, please do not hesitate to correct me. So, real quick, I'm sure everybody uh already knows this information, but the federal uh fiscal year uh began on October 1st, 2025. And the federal government is funded by 12 appropriation bills uh that have to be passed by the Senate and signed by the president by September 30th of each year. Um, 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. Uh, these, uh, spending programs are not subject to annual appropriations. These are benefits associated with Social Security. uh veterans affairs, Medicare, Medicaid, um services will be impacted in terms of new card issuances and and customer service in those areas, but the benefits

009should not be impacted. 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. Essential services will continue to function. Employees will work without pay. Um some examples are obviously national security, air traffic control and other transportation safety. But as we are seeing um air traffic control is starting to be impacted in terms of uh 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 will be placed on furlow status without pay. Supervisor, I don't know if you wanted to do that, Ko. Uh, yep. >> Thank you for uh for that. Madame Chair and Chair Chairman Latif, before

010the board and school board I can't even see this. Before 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 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. Uh obviously federal employees will not be paid during the shutdown. Um essential employees will continue to work. However, it will be without pay. Um this is becoming uh interesting in the sense that uh some federal employees are going to start seeing paychecks either reduced and based on

011my reading on October 15th you will see uh members of the armed services not receive a paycheck on October 15th they will supposed to receive a paycheck but if this continues um they will not be paid. Uh this uh bullet point has uh it actually flared up yesterday in the news. Uh back pay is supposed to be guaranteed once federal government reopens via the government employee fair treatment act which was enacted in uh 2019 as a guarantee of of federal worker back pay. Um there was a lot in the news yesterday about that. Um, I'd rather not say anymore at this time. Um, I hope it's um just trying to get folks to the bargaining table and and move things along. Uh, federal contractors are unlikely to be paid during the shutdown. Um, that will

012be on a firmby-firm basis, but uh 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 uh workers in the region. That's as of March 2024. And please note, these numbers are likely different today than they were uh six months ago. And there's about 400,000 contractors in the region. Within Prince William County, as of February 2025, there are 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 uh during the summer and early fall. This slide provides a snapshot of the combined uh Prince William County schools and Prince William County government budgets. This is

013direct federal funding received. Total uh federal funding is about $169 million with the schools comprising 92 million and the county $77 million. On the school side, um based on my reading of budgets, about $44 million is for school lunch and breakfast programs uh funded through the USDA and about $ 48 million is in the school's operating budget. Uh this is your obviously your title one, title two, title four. Uh that type of federal funding on the county government side. Um, of our $77 million, almost $50 million 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 uh on an agency by agency basis very few details

014are currently known directly from federal agencies based on the 2018 2019 uh full shutdown that lasted 35 days. Uh services might be extended one or two months using prior year 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-byase basis. Uh real quick summarizing Prince William County schools. Uh to my knowledge, uh a portion of title 1A and title 2A funds were advanced funded and should not be a problem. um they will be available to us as a community. Um however uh the school lunch program is a little more problematic. I believe there's funding uh through this month, the month of October, but after that decisions will have to be made um if the shutdown continues. Um, it might be able

015to extend a little beyond October, but that's really on a uh state-by-state basis. On the Prince County government side, uh the good news is we believe the county's housing choice voucher program is funded through the calendar year. Um however uh HUD programs such as CDBG and home program uh should remain available in our department of social services. Uh SNAP is expected to have enough funding from prior year carryover funds and uh that will continue to pay benefits through this month of October. However, the situation is a little more dire for uh the women, infants, and children, also known as WICK programs. Uh that funding may be exhausted in uh through next week. Uh Tannif is a temporary assistance for needy families. In the past, states could use unspent funds from prior year allocations to sustain

016services. States also have the option of using uh maintenance of effort funds to sustain services until the shutdown ends. And then they hopefully will be reimbursed after the fact by the federal government. So this is our our last slide this evening. Uh 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 any questions. >> All right. If anyone has any questions, please just hit your button um so I can see what lights up. More to the point, the

017board 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 on the school board. I see Dr. Latif and then Supervisor Franklin who's not on the school board, but okay. Uh great, great presentation. Do we have any idea the number of contractors that live in um Prince William County? I know you had said 35,000 feds. Do we have any idea 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. >> Okay. >> Um, as I mentioned, there's about 400,000 in the region, but uh, let me get back to you on that if I may. >> Thank you, >>

018Supervisor Franklin. >> Sure. And happy to defer to any school board members if not, but um, just a couple of questions. wanted to talk a little bit about title one and what impact um some of this uh not only the shutdown but also HR1 will have on title one. Obviously in the Woodbridge district we have a lot of title one schools. So just curious about that. Couple of other things I'll just mention um students with disabilities how this will be impacted by HR1 and also the shutdown. and I believe it's the uh IDA program um that primarily deals with student 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 the answer to that, but um it's something

019that we may just want to be mindful of. Uh and then lastly, the school lunch and breakfast programs. I know during COVID um we brought on some community partners to help with uh school meals. Uh but just wondering how again HR1 and the shutdown will impact um our school lunch and and breakfast programs. you want to talk a little bit about the launch program >> and and I don't want so um right now we're in the process of um we've uh completed and uh filed our um 26 applications uh 20 yeah for the 26 27 years uh and for our title 6B which is our students with disability it has been approved title one hasn't been approved. There is some flux with some of our grants in terms of this is very new news to

020us that some of it is being moved out of VDOE DOE, Department of Education to the Department of Labor, uh specifically adult ed and our Perkins grants. So, we're looking at that. Our our applications are online. We have been reimbured through August 22nd. uh because what they do is they give the money up front to the to the states and then we get reimbursed and we go through the states. Um our big uh month uh of reimbursements is coming up which is due on October 15th. So we anticipate that um you know we'll we'll know where the where the federal government is but the VDOE is slightly behind in its approval. Um, and some of it also has to do with some reorganization that's happening specifically with uncertainty of the role of the Department of

021Education 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 um nutrition fund, uh we will continue feeding our children and uh during COVID we had uh we had built a fund balance there which um we have uh through the state uh uh nutrition administration have been asked to spend down on. So we should be able to s 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 reimbured on a timely manner. Uh but we intend to continue feeding our students. Madam Chair, I'll just say that with regards to our legislative priorities, both the county uh and the

022schools, it may be um worth looking to marry some of these priorities to make sure the general assembly understands how important it is to um help kind of pull the weight if the federal government pulls back. So, thank you. >> 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. Sharter. >> All right, 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 uh director uh Phyllis Jennings Halt, uh director of our department of social services, if she would come up. Now, the next three presentations will all be about HR1 uh and the impact. Again, some certainly some

023uncertainty here, but there are things that we do know and appreciate that our directors uh have put together a slide deck for uh for us to see and discuss. Okay. Good evening, ma'am. Madame Chair Jefferson, uh, Chair Dr. Latif, members of the school board, and members of the county board, Phyllis Jennis Ho, director of social services, and to my left is my deputy director, Holly Handy. Uh, she's going to be my Vanna White this evening. Okay. And so what we do know uh first let me thank you for the opportunity to be here this evening to share with you information regarding the um H R1 bill regarding SNAP and Medicaid um 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

024enactment in July of this year of 2025. Um what we do know is Virginia is required to match the federal SNAP benefit at 25%. Previously uh with the administrative cost uh it was a 50/50 where the FAST did 50 and Virginia did 50. At this point the sharing would be at 75%. In addition to that the they will be expanding the work requirements for the able body adults both in SNAP and in Medicaid. Next slide. So, what we do know is Virginia is looking at having to cover an additional $90 million with that 27 25% match at that administrative cost. This slide here is a slide that we put together um at DSS in reference to our budget lines and the federal money that we receive. So with that 25% reduction, the projection is that

025it would be a $1.6 million deficit. Um, as we know, VDSS has not given us any information regarding um any money that they will be putting towards it or what the localities would be needing to pay. 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. This is the chart that they have created. Uh the state match is determined based on the state's SNAP aotment and the percentage of errors listed under the food nutrition services quality control payment error rate. Currently, right now, Virginia is at 11.5% and the error rate and looking at approximately 400 million to pay effective October 1st, 2027. So, VDSS has established a goal to

026reduce the SNAP error rate to 6%. Um by September of 2026, the food nutrition services will assess the 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 um which we have used for years to process applications. The Virginia Department of Social Services have shared that they recognize that the system is antiquated and has played a part in um payment errors in the applications. Um VDSS have been advocating to the general simile 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

027all the localities to come up with plans to lower the error rate. They are requiring um and we have been in training uh for the supervisors and for staff to make sure that they are properly trained with the new policies um 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. Um, previously in FY24, uh, we were at a 28.4% error rate. That was because we were in the process of Medicaid unwinding. We had to shift our human resources to

028the Medicaid unwinding and Medicaid appeals. But now we are in the process of regrouping. Uh we do have our own quality assurance team within the department um that does case readings and helps us to make sure that um we are processing applications correctly. Beginning this month 2025, the general work requirement expanded to include ages 54 to 64. So with this change, all SNAP recipients 18 to 64 will be evaluated under the ablebody 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. 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, um there is about 25,000 constituents that would need to comply with that

029work requirement. By 2030, the following populations, next slide, 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 slide. So, a part of this bill as well is the lowincome energy assistance program that we have uh 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 uh about over,00 households that receive assistance for heating uh 125 for crisis and over 1,200 for uh cooling. Next slide. Next, we will move on to Medicaid and the Medicaid uh expansion. As of August 25th, uh we have close to a 100,000 constituents that receive Medicaid um benefits in Prince

030William 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. Um, and we have over 26,000 constituents that are included in that uh Medicaid expansion covered group. Uh, 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. Um so there are some exemptions and these exemptions include um individuals or females females or pregnant postpartum women, foster care children or former foster care children, tribe members, veterans with disabilities, those who are medically fragile. Uh to include physical,

031intellectual and developmental disabilities. uh individuals have a serious medical illness or are receiving treatment for a substance abuse disorder. Next slide. I think did next slide. So this slide here shows the data of constituents in Prince William County that are in that Medicaid expansion cover group. As you can see, Woodbridge has over 14,000 constituents. Next is Manasses with 5,300 and it goes all the way down to 14 for Broad Run. Now, this is as of July of 2025 of this year. As well as um information regarding SNAP and Medicaid in the um big beautiful bill, there was concerns regarding um possible fraud or fraud reduction. Um, as of October the 1st, 2026, the eligibility requirement for those who are considered a qualified alien status will be tighter for them. The scope will be tighter in

032reference to them being able to receive benefits. January 1st of 2027, um, we would need to utilize a data source to verify recipients addresses. 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%. Um, back in August we had what we call operation fix and find where they were selecting cases randomly um and giving us feedback to make sure to see if we had any payment error rates or any procedure rates. Um, DSS all localities was also required to develop their own plan about how they were going to do quality assurance.

033We have done that and part of our plan is that uh part of our plan is that our supervisors will be reading two cases per worker uh which means that we will be reviewing 320 cases a month um to ensure that we are on track providing feedback to staff. We also have our own training unit internally. So we train folks that come in new before they start getting cases. Also, if there's anyone who needs a refresher, we send them back through that training to make sure that they have what they need. Um, and so we have completed the state requirement for the training um, as of the end of September. Okay. 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

034in reference to making sure that we are processing these cases appropriately and on track. So we have talked with executive management um 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. So, we want to make sure that we're doing our part here in Prince William County um to help with or lowering that error rate. Next slide. So, we are very much involved in what's going on with the state. Um they have a lot of initiatives. Uh we are one of the agencies that they look at as far as um quality assurance. Uh since we have a no zero snap error rate, uh staff is on panels down in Richmond talking

035about the quality assurance team that we have, processes that we have in place, um providing feedback and information. We are part of the big 20. What we know is that the 20 largest agencies in the state of Virginia um account for 50% of the eras. Um and so they are working closely with what they call the big 20. Um and so we were on a meeting earlier today and again um Prince William County was providing information um regarding the good work that we do and providing feedback and tips. So and so I am happy to take any questions. >> All right. Do we have any questions? Supervisor Bod. Thank you, Madam Chair. Wanted to look around to make sure our schoolboard colleagues had first shot at it, but I'm not seeing anyone. So, Miss Jennings,

036thank you again for this presentation and 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 um slide 12 that breaks it out by by sort of region of the county? >> So, is this by zip code? Okay, I appreciate that because as most folks here know that there's parts of DLC that are called Woodbridge, there are parts of Aquin called Woodbridge, there are parts of Aquin Lake, parts of Aquan are Manasses. So, it's I just wanted to make sure we knew if this was based on zip code or what they're called in the postal. So, because I know those are two different things. >> Yes, zip code. >> Thank you. >> Do we have

037any other questions? >> All right, Mr. Sharter. >> Yep. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and Director Phyllis Jenning Hold. Thank you for the presentation. We're now going to have uh Georgia Bachman, director of our acting director of our department of social community services, come up for presentation. Thank you. Um, good evening, Chair Latif, Chair Jefferson, and members of the boards. I'm Georgia Bachmann, acting director of uh, Community Services um, or some of you may know us as Community Services Board or CSB. Thank you for having me here today uh to speak to the federal funding landscape and how it may impact community services. Um the key takeaway today for community services is monitoring. Uh community services is monitoring the federal landscape closely for potential impacts to our clinical and administrative operations. The good news

038is that to date there has been no major impact, but potential risks do remain. Let's see. Okay. What we do know in regards to federal grants, we are monitoring grants management closely. We do have one five-year, $5 million federally funded uh Department of Health and Human Services, HHS, SAMA, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration grant. Um 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. We have just received our third year renewal and we have six full-time staff

039for this initiative. To date, there is no notification of risk to the federal funding of this grant. Regarding our ARPA block grant funding, originally those funds were to be made available through September 30th of 2025. However, the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disability Services uh did receive notification on March 21st uh 24th last spring that those funds were to be terminated immediately. This left an impact on many uh department of behavioral health uh and developmental disability services projects and programming. Um however, Prince William Community Services had proactively invoiced uh for our projects and therefore we saw no loss of funding from that uh unforeseen event. There are no other known federal cuts impacting community services at this time. Regarding Medicaid as a behavioral health care treatment provider, um there are some concerns that if

040we did see any Medicaid reimbursement reductions, um this could severely limit our ability to offset the cost of needed positions. The impact would likely be a reduction of positions or needed increase in local funding to support positions. One of the most uh critical examples of this would be with our developmental disability programming. Um as many of you may know, the governor allocated funding this year for all of the individuals on the priority one waiver weight 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. And these waiver slots allow them to receive essential community-based support services. recent Medicaid increases um did support new relatively costneutral positions uh for us to be able to serve these

041individuals. Um and as you can imagine, demand has grown. A reduction could lead to capacity challenges for us. In addition, the additional Medicaid redeterminations that um Miss uh Jennings Halt mentioned could result in um some concerning coverage gaps or loss of Medicaid for some of the individuals we serve at community services. While we would continue to serve these individuals, we would be um at risk for significant revenue loss and increased weight list due to our limited capacity. To mitigate some of this potential impact, we have uh administrative staff who do work closely with the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disability Services and also the Department of Medical Assistance Services, DEMSS, uh to get up-to-date information on changes and potential impacts. Um and so we are staying a breast of any changes. Lastly, we are

042closely monitoring the executive order related to individuals who are unhoused. Uh concerns 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 uh could put an added b an added burden on our already overtaxed 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 uh keep you all informed. Thank you. >> All right. Does anyone have any questions? Dr. Latif. >> Uh yeah, really thank you for the presentation and and for the prior presentation as well. I don't know if maybe Shaquille, you can answer. We

043do billing for Medicaid in the school division for some of our special ed services. Have we seen any cuts yet um 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 $2 million$3 million I think a year on Medicaid services? >> Yes, I can give you an exact number. Uh but it's revenue that we have. That's about right. Okay. >> But I'll get you an exact number. >> Okay. Thank you. All right. I see schoolboard member Zagreapor. >> Thank you. Um, going back to the the SAMHSA funded system of care grant, who who gets that like ho how do people access or is

044that something that funds the county and the county then supports families and kids? So that is um currently being uh overseen by our New Horizons um youth uh program Tanya Odell. Uh and they have a um the team consists of six staff um 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 Horizon's um youth behavioral health program. >> Okay. Do we is it sufficient for our population? >> In what sense >> is it meeting the needs of our students, our our adolescence? >> Um I mean we always have more need than we have capacity. So, >> so my next question then, thank you. So, um my next question then is um because adolescent mental

045health and um substance abuse care are um a lot harder to get for kids because of the regulations and and right people have to be involved. Um, so the landscape for our kids is a little different than for adults. And um, 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. The care that they receive, they often have to go to Fairfax or Lowden or Maryland. And um that's just that's one of the things that you know as a school division we we have the tea the mental teleaalth 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 capacity and I know Dr. Latif and

046I have had discussions about how this works, but I mean who I know I know it's I know it's like based by hospitals and then I know communities tend to not want to have mental health in their neighborhood. The the reality is that we we really need places for for our adolescents. Is there anything you can like enlighten me on or >> 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 be serving >> um 16 uh we'll have 16 adult crisis stabilization unit beds as well as 16 um observation chairs. Uh there's also a regional um CRC that's going to be opening next spring um in Fairfax, but it is a uh a regional project that um came from our

047um opioid abatement authority funding. So there is and Louden is also opening one. So there's a lot happening in the crisis landscape right now >> which um should be >> definitely you know reduce some some of that burden >> some of it but I I am concerned about like people who are getting to crisis and they like what help is available to them >> and and things like that especially for adolescence 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 like we need something. >> Thank you. I do. Thank you. >> All right, Dr. Latif. >> Uh, real quick on that qu on your slide here, added burden on

048already overtaxed public hospital system. What What are you referring to as a public hospital system? We've had a psychiatric bed shortage for many years that you know even before COVID but it was severely exacerbated uh during during COVID they had to take um many many psychiatric hospital beds offline and the state has put a lot of their um funding into these uh new crisis receiving centers has been a you know that's been sort of the big effort. So, if there were to be a loosening of um commitment laws and more people going back into public hospital beds, um you know, there could be a reallocation of funds back into the public hospital system as opposed to again community based treatment. >> Where are the public hospital beds in Northern Virginia? I don't know. Northern Virginia

049Mental Health Institute is the local one, but >> and that's a public one, >> correct? >> Is that where is that located >> in uh Falls Church? >> Okay. Is that its actual name or is that >> Yes. >> Dominion, isn't that Dominion? >> Dominion's uh private. >> Private. Got it. Okay. So, we only have one public hospital system set of beds in Northern Virginia. >> Correct. Although there's other uh public hospitals in the state that sometimes individuals get moved into. Corre. Yes. Depending on availability. Sure. >> All right. I'm going to call on school board member Richard Jesse and then um Supervisor Franklin. >> I uh believe and correct me if I'm incorrect that everything we have now is shortterm. Uh our problem exists with because it's short term in a month or so

050the person is released but the problem is not cured and is that correct that nowhere in the state that I'm aware of that we have the long-term facility that is needed. Is that correct? >> It would it would depend what the level of care needs are for the for the individual. So it would be, you know, we're we're customizing the treatment approaches. The the ideal is to help people live in their community, but to your point, absolutely. Um there's certainly not um adequate need for a demand for the for the need. >> Thank you. All right, Supervisor Franklin. >> Sure. And I'll just, you know, ping uh Lori Williams to chime in as well as we were having this conversation on the side, but Miss Zarapor raises an excellent point. And you know, the the

051concern that I've always had is as soon as we open the CRC, perhaps we'll be at capacity almost immediately. Now, to Mr. Jesse's point, these are shortterm stays. Um, but you know, I've always been concerned about and 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 bed 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 um other stakeholders and making sure that we can expand at some point because it is true that um even though this is a milestone, we still have a long way to go

052um to house those that are in crisis. And also just to kind of clarify even to Mr. Jesse's point about short-term um stays and if that actually cures the issue. I don't know that um the point of the CRC is to necessarily cure as opposed to in the immediate crisis um to be able to level out um but those individuals will likely need um longer term um you know therapeutic or psycho you know psychological um 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 add. >> Thank you. Um and just to to the point about the short-term stay of the um of the crisis receiving center um Connections Health uh is the vendor that's

053um coming into the state to operate the facility. Um and their model is very much a community partner model. Um I was on a call earlier today with uh Cantara Health along with connections and our emergency services staff. They are very very committed to building community partnerships because they are very aware that that the CRC itself is not a panacea. Um it is one aspect of crisis transformation and certainly will help um alleviate some of the things that were happening in the community prior such as um individuals boarding in emergency departments um and in you know adult detention center etc. So it it's not a panacea but it's definitely it's a part of the solution. We also do have um in terms of um the earlier question, we have um significant contractual partners throughout the

054state who also are um help us with serving the individuals um who come into uh Prince William Community Services Board for services. So, it's not just um our agency, but it is a whole network of community providers that work to get uh in individuals and families and children the services that they need. >> All right. Thank you so very much. Before I go on to I'm going to go to supervisor Bailey and 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? Um and can you talk about the HHS waiver where we at? So, I'm sorry. The um the facility has 16 beds for youth. Yes. And 16 observation chairs and then 16 for

055adults and 16 uh chairs. So, it's >> for both serving both youth and >> adults. Did that answer your question? >> So, when 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 waiverss. 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 across from me. Is it worth the school boards working with us and putting in that that in their own legislative agenda? Um, 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

056county 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 going to look to the people across from me for answers. >> Yeah. What I'll say, we were very successful last legislative season in moving the language around the waiver through the through the Commonwealth. Our federal delegation, thanks to your advocacy, has been very active in this conversation. I don't know that we would uh benefit from having the schools uh be a part of the discussion at this point. And to be clear, this waiver will help

057us with Medicaid billing uh for the facility. Uh and so, you know, I I know Nikki is certainly here and would certainly invite her to come up if uh if she'd like to, but uh 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, um we are just now waiting uh for uh for a response to the application. I don't know, George, if there was more. >> I was just going to respond in terms of we've always um we've continuously advocated for mental health support. So, um we certainly would be um in in support of adding, but we we currently have in our legislative priorities um mental health services and support. >> All right. Thank you. And you know,

058as you say, Mr. Short, 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, then I certainly accept it. But >> no, what I'll do, we'll share the language uh with uh with the schools, and if there's if there's an opportunity for us to, you know, work together, we certainly will. But what what we'll do is just share share the language that we put in our legislative agenda last season and uh give information on how we're working with the federal delegation. >> All right. Thank you. And I'm going to go over to Bailey then

059Bodie. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh the conversation is is rich and uh um Representative Zagor you started it. So but I want to assure um the panel the boards both boards that our continual advocacy together has started uh where we are with the CRC and I think we are we are very much fortunate uh in that we do have a CRC and and a facility in Chantilli. 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 um to the general assembly uh with our leadership. I think um 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 County

060is and the services that we need for our youth particularly and our adults and this was during the time the season when the 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 health because it has been swept under the rug for much

061too 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. Um, 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 Bod. >> Thank you Madam Chair and uh school board members Aapore 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 in crisis. So I I I I see where you're coming from on that. Um, and frankly, that's one of the reasons why, as mentioned before, you know, we we talked about really investing

062that New Horizons uh program back in 2020 before a lot of this stuff began to to to fall. Um, 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 log jams and and and and uh bottlenecks because we talked about one of the big one here um increased demand, but we haven't talked about the workforce struggles that we constantly see all around the country, let alone here in Virginia. Um we know that there's constantly conversations how 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 our friends at the state. Would love to see if we

063have a conversation with the school division on 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 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 different than what's been uh done in Virginia before. So it's also bring something frankly from outside the the the region here and seeing how that's been able to go up over time. So there's a lot of bottlenecks there and I again I

064get 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 uh there are regulations in place that prohibit the expansion of public bets. We know that. We know that there are 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 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 rib cutting tomorrow morning bright and

065early is we were able to have a big enough building to wrap it around with other services too. It's not like you just go in there for a crisis, then you're told to go some other part of the county. If you need or have other needs and other services you need, it's colllocated right there. So, we're hoping that to your point earlier may not be curing them immediately, but at least gets them in in a proper path and gets them 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? Are the hours right? There'll be a soft handoff to those other agencies. Thank you for the time. All right, >> Supervisor Bailey, did you have something? >> Thank you very

066much. Uh, one thing that just came to mind that my colleague just brought to mind was um, as the um, the chair of the health and human services uh, committee in Veco. 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, how we can get the credentiing for more subject matter experts to assure that when we look at other places to to address mental health, the credentiing is there. So why am I saying that? And I'm saying it to say it's on their minds in DBDHS and DEMAS. So maybe may seem like we're far off, but it is on their minds. The part that we're struggling with right now is the funding piece.

067>> All right. Is there anyone else? All right. Thank you so very much. >> Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and to Georgia Bachmann, thank you for the presentation. Uh and so, Madam Chair, for the emergency management slides, uh they are really for reference. We do have uh the leader of our emergency management office here, Brian Meisner. And so if there are any questions uh throughout the evening, he is certainly here to answer those questions. Uh but really wanted to have those uh for uh for reference. And for our agenda, Madame Chair, so for item 2A, I think that covers it other than u moving on for growth projections and that >> word for that. >> Thank you uh madam chair. Uh we truly appreciate the um presentations this evening and regarding um security and

068um emergency management uh services. We in the school division are 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. Um, Dr. McDade, I'll turn the meeting over to you. >> Thank you so much, Dr. Latif. At this time, I'd like to introduce our supervisor of planning and capital improvement program for Prince William County Schools, um,

069Dr. Matt Carlage. And then we also are joined by our chief operating officer, Mr. Vernon Bach, and they'll be presenting information um on our enrollment numbers in PWCS. >> Thank you, Dr. McDade. 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 September 30th, we count our students, evaluate their 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. Throughout this process, uh there is an in end end toend data pipeline that leverages cloud computing automation and a variety of industry-leading

070best practices to provide our projections upon which the capital improvement program is built upon. 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. 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. 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. Uh many sources are now saying it should be increased to two to 3% projection error for every one year you

071go into the future. What we can share is with our preliminary data that our projection error was 3/10en of a percent this year. These slides are probably familiar to many of the folks here this evening. 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 K12 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 historical birth rates for the county.

072They are on a downward trajectory. And the most recent data that we received from Virginia Department of Health show that there is a continued decrease in births. This is really important to K12 enrollment projections because those births are tied to what is your kindergarten class 5 years into the future. As those children age in place with decreasing births, you then have typically smaller kindergarten cohorts which then metriculate throughout your school division and you have a base that's much more constrained 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

073Tidewater region, and not on this map, uh, further south into the Carolas and Georgia. As I was mentioning, when you have decreasing births, uh, 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. Time will tell, but that's our job to make datadriven predictions and share that with you. The graphic on the slide

074here 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. And if you hold everything else constant, just let these children progress and metriculate throughout the 12 grade levels, you're going to have decreasing enrollment. One of the elements that we work uh closely in tandem with the PWC government staff is tracking new residential construction in the county. 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 that those future constructed units yield students and we build those into our projections. The graphic on the slide shows historical data to the left of the red line. And then the

0752025 data was our projection of how many new housing units were we anticipating as of last September 30th. We projected just over,40 new housing units. The actuals that we are seeing in the data this year are approximately 1,500. So within you know 300ish uh 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. 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 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. For

076the 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. So, we partner with the county's demographer to project births five years into the future. That concludes our presentation. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you so very much. Uh 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

077enrollment, is that across the county or are we seeing it in more areas in some areas more than others? >> It's not 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 colleague, Supervisor Bod. >> Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for the presentation. And I know we've had conversations around this before and I mad I appreciate your question because it piggyback it piggybacks well onto my question because I'm just going back to when we did redist

078redistricting back in 2021 and we saw that some areas of the county sort of shrink in population over time or at least remain stagnant. Other ones had substantial grow. Other ones were somewhere in between. And I just feel like the the the land use patterns, the projects we approve, what have you, sort of eb 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 my colleagues in the district, but we know for a long time there wasn't a lot of big building. Well, then we approved the court's district. I know that my colleague over to my left always talked about how there needs to be more investment in her

079district, and as 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 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 as a a public need that it might catalyze more folks coming to us having more projections, more proposals, and us approving more housing because we know we need it. So, I wanted to leave that piece, not really a question, but just sort of a a a food for thought. But my question

080is, how does your guys' projections jive with the Walden Cooper Center? Because, you know, we've talked a lot about over the past couple weeks how the Welding Cooper Center recently put out their projections and by 2050, Prince William County will have approximately 707,718 people. So, yes, in in sort of the mid midterm, the next 5 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. Some of those people have to be people are going to be enrolled in school going an upward trend versus decreasing more. I know that aging people who are aging contribute to that a little bit because they're sticking

081around 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. First of all, most 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 yours attention, there was a census estimate that showed PWC increased year-over-year in population, while PWCS showed a decrease in K12 enrollment. 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 Welden Cooper, when we redesigned our projection model two years ago, it was a stark change from what the previous trends and models

082have suggested where we were on this perpetual increase of a thousand kids every year and then our projections were way off. 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 Welen Cooper came out with their projections and it was very similar to ours. However, our model is far more sophisticated just because of the 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 Walden Cooper. It's just it's beyond their focus. >> Appreciate if I could. Madam Chair's final point and I appreciate that because correlation does not mean

083causation and you know I I appreciate that. Guess for us as policy makers, not that we have direct control over that, but we should, like I said last time, we're all together, ask ourselves why that trend, those numbers are deviating, right? People 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 uh financially stable enough to grow a family in this county, that's one of the questions we be asking ourselves in the back of our head as we see it as. So, I I appreciate that. All right, Supervisor Angry. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I know I haven't said much this whole evening. Um, the word generalized approach. Um, I

084want to run with that for a sec because I think what you all do in the school system, you can't base this off of generalized approach. 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. Um, 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. So, I wonder um 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 um to make sure we're kind of hitting those targets to what

085you're all doing and holding until such time that it matters um to do such a thing. Uh I 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 rounding down and I want to like talk to even like the court districts and I'm working right now with with superintendent and the school board here on we we we can set aside land for school development but the question becomes as we develop out and what we're trying to 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

086doesn'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 works very closely with the school system uh on projections. So yes, I'll also say that our office of planning actually works with COG uh more closely in terms of pro population projections. Uh and just like the school system, we are focused on the county where some of our partners are more regionally focused or commonwealth focused. Uh but to answer your question, we uh absolutely uh make sure that we are being as detailed as possible when making projections around population. Yeah, I've been in my current home now for 30 going on

08731 years and I said this before. Uh yes, I do agree that a lot of people are moving south uh and so forth. When we first moved in 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 we project that and and deal with that is another issue. But there is some some form of 15 20 years people sort of migrate back, start living. my neighbor down the street uh this uh his kids went to California and they just

088moved back here two a month ago with two little kids. So, uh it's really a projection and I think we do a good job but it's very difficult to say what's going to be. Nobody wants to have a school like they do in some communities where we have to close the schools because there's not enough kids. But at the same time, we don't want to be like uh where over in Ptoic Shores where they're building so fast we can't keep up with them and that's probably going to happen out on the west. So, you know, it's it's a amazing thing, but the projections are very difficult and I think you guys do a good job, but uh I don't know if we get really have the thing. I think we have a good model, but

089I wouldn't count on it being accurate 10 years from now. >> All right. Thank you so very much. I'm going to go over to school board member Erica Treenick, then I'll come back over here. >> Um, thank you, Mr. Jesse. You touched on some of the points that I wanted to uh bring up. We've talked about the growth in different pockets in the county and certain areas. Um, I have schools in my district that are very overcrowded. Um, and we've mitigated that with trailers and with um, you know, talking about different strategies um, that are up and coming such as building more classrooms and things like that. Um, I have not been shy at all about uh, proposing a redistricting because there are different pockets in the county um, in including in my district and

090others 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 undercrowded. 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 different places and and, um, you know, really being fiscally responsible and not building a school that's not needed. Um, 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 um in the area that it's needed. uh in my district it it appears right now that we need a new school, but I once again like I think it's

091solved by simply moving lines and boundaries um and and reallocating these students into schools so that we don't have to close schools in areas um instead we could utilize and we could utilize buildings that are underutilized as well um to also save us tax dollars. So um thank you for bringing that up to you, Mr. Jesse. >> All right, I don't know if anyone else wants to say anything. We're going to go over to um I guess supervisor Bailey. Did you have something? >> I did, but I thought I saw Was she before me? I don't >> I'll go. Right. So, the the the thing that I I wanted to say also um all the all the points that have been made, especially the redistricting point is I think it's something it keeps coming up.

092So, um I think that's an excellent point. But the thing that I I I wanted to make note of is um the conversations that we have with our schoolboard members is critical. And and I I tell Jess, I'm getting ready to toot your horn for a minute. >> She woke me up. >> I woke you up. So, um I'm I'm very proud of um 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 collaboration when we talk about land use when we talk uh overcrowding just an understanding of that and I think

093we 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 bo board of county supervisors meeting. It has bowed 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 PTOIC Shores Elementary School because we've got trailers, too. I get it. We've got trailers,

094too. 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 they it doesn't lie. I don't like that we're not having babies, but that's where we are right now. But, uh that's just an example, and I just wanted to offer that. >> All right. Um, supervisor, I'm sorry. I don't know if I'm demoting or promoting. Schoolboard member Justin Wolf. >> She's not leaving us. Um, I I agree with the collaboration part and I, you know, I think working together, you and I have been more sagacious in how we're working and planning, you know, there we go. There's and then the other word was abdate. Anyways, um but with that, you know, looking at these areas of growth and you

095know guys, I'm going to belabor this and talk about the it was already brought up PTOIC shores. Um you know, I think where we're seeing a lot of the growth in the east especially is PTOIC 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 PTOIC Shorts keeps growing, which my understanding from the last meeting there's more land being purchased off

096Cherry Hill potentially for development. You know, I'm one to believe down the road that I think PTOIC Shores is probably the next Monontlair and we'll have three elementary schools uh eventually attached to it. But with that comes, you know, the planning part we and 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 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

097residential 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 met metriculate up through the secondary as well. So, >> all right. Thank you so very much, Supervisor Franklin. >> I'm sorry, school board member Lori Williams. >> Thank you, uh, Chair. Um, Just to put a little context and history, I'm really proud of our board and the work that we do. Um, 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. Um I think

098it's just important a to stop and um be proud of the collaboration that we have now um between our staff. The work that they've done in changing our models for projection is a amazing. Uh we are more better situated now than we ever have been. Also the continued collaboration with the county staff. Getting that process uh 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 to 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. Um, PTOIC shores as an example, Belmont Bay, how long have they said

099they were going to build? Sometimes they are, sometimes they not. Those are all factors that we have to consider. where 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. Um, I'm just going to keep picking on PTOIC 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 a 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 um should be more mindful of is this is reminding people that we do have a time of year that we

100discuss this with the CIP. Like the school division has had a long-term plan for PTOIC Shores area. We've 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 um 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 um 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. Um, I just wanted to take a moment to add a little bit layer of history because this has

101been an ongoing thing and to just um take a moment to say 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 uh 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. Um, things of that nature. I think that's often the missing link from our public, right? Because we do the work. Um, 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

102a clearer picture when it comes to growth and students and how it really does affect um our our school population and also on the county side. Thank you, >> Supervisor Franklin. >> Sure. Yeah, just wanted to say briefly and it kind of ties into what uh Miss Williams was saying. I think actually the school board uh 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 PTOIC shores meeting where we got several questions about boundary lines, right? and we don't have to deal with that so much um until redistricting comes around, but you all have to deal with that with regards to building new schools, where

103to send um a lot of those students. So, um I just want to highlight and really thank you all for some of those more difficult discussions. I know that um the superintendent and I have had um some conversations about some of the schools in the Woodbridge district and what the future of those schools look like. And while um 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 I saw kind of the stats on why we think there are declining um enrollment rates. But I also think that some of this um had to do with COVID as well when um our students were not in school and and perhaps some of them did not come back to school and then

104we also had um a cohort of students that graduated right um consistently during COVID. Um, and so, uh, 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 Lori and 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 questions are around the school system. So, just want to thank you all for that. >> All right. Thank you, um, Dr. Latif. >> Um, thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for >> Madam Chair. I had a >> Oh, yeah. >> But it's

105for you, Dr. Latif. Um, does your board get an update on the trailer usage throughout the county, and if so, how often? >> Um, you know, that's a great question. Do we get an update on the trailer usage? 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 number of trailers have um gone down or moved to different areas, but we still use them. Yeah. I mean, you know, the Brensville district, PTOAC district, our our districts where we have a lot of trailers still a little bit in Kohl's. Um it has been a um you know commitment by this board to try to reduce trailers over the last few years and as

106much as possible and and that's been able to do with bringing on new schools online. But um as Miss Treenic pointed out and as as many of you have discussed redistricting is um um you know and I can bring that up in my final comments but um you know tra trailers 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. 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 Noville school and I believe that they're sitting on 13 right now. Um, which is quite a large a high number in my opinion. Um, I would like to hear from Dr. McDade your

107opinion 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 um underutilization and you have some schools that are overcrowded. It's a little bit more nuanced in that where the overcrowding is happening and where the underutilization is happening. It just depends because you could have a situation like um Miss Trenetting said where in her district you've got a school that is highly overutilized 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 um

108it would have to be a whole countywide because we've got pockets and th those are things we've talked about like where does the redistricting actually happen? Um you know which schools does it benefit or not benefit. But I would say that, you know, to to not have to have a situation where we have to close a school, that would be the first line, the 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, then that would be the mitigation strategy. >> Thank you. One final thought, Madam Chair. Um, and what does that look like in terms is it something that the board is actively

109discussing? Is 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. Um, what we do is bring forth the enrollment projections and we show what the utilization is uh for every school. So, so the board receives receives a utilization report along with that comes the number of trailers annually and then that is um that policy is governed by the board. >> All right, Dr. Latif, I was going to go over to um Mr. Wilk and then Mr. Jesse because I thought you had a comment. No, you're going to wait. >> All right, then I'll go to Mr. Wilk and Mr. Jesse. I do want to add despite the

110struggles 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 Cington Harper at Ptoic Shores or 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 additional uh security onsite the people that are able to take the students back and forth to bathrooms um 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.

111Uh Mr. Jesse, >> with regard to trailers, uh the Aquan District, several many probably 10 years, I can't remember how long, we had a lot of 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 are going back to starting to have trailers. Part of that is because of uh new new uh buildings in the 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 prek uh in our schools which mean that the elementary school in addition to the regular kindergarten has a prek sometimes in there. So that's adding to the capacity of the schools but uh trailers are going back up uh

112and buildings are going back up. So, uh, 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 want to say something, Dr. Latif? >> Sure. Um, you know, a couple things and to just to wrap up this number one, I I think if you haven't seen the article that came out by I think it was realtor.com and the school division put it out a few weeks ago. Prince William County um National Realtor Association said that we're in the I think it was the top 30 of counties that people Google online to check their school districts

113to move they want to move here because of. And so I wanna I want to thank you all because they 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 seven years. Um, teacher pay has increased. Student performance has impre improved. And so I, you know, I look at at things like that to drive people to move here. Um, maybe to have more babies here. We need babies. If there's a headline in tomorrow's articles, um, it should say we need babies. Okay. Um, we need them. Uh, it it is important. Um, I think it is critical. It is the taxpayer dollars and we have to be responsible with them and and and much of the work we do is is

114not 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 reboundering. We've done some innovative things um in Brentville with new um developments coming on that don't impact families. We actually moved those 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 um 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 10-year plan. It's a five-year plan to be much more nimble. Um, but we do take this very seriously and there are some serious issues that this board has to deal with. There are questions about

115do 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 over. I mean, let me be very clear. And it will not be popular to do many of these things. Um we have some high schools that are at levels that are um too low. We need to move students into those schools. We have and Dr. McDade give you an example moved you know created an eastern go pre-governor's program at Freedom High School that was uh 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

116only 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. 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. We are taking a hit. There was an article the other day that Lowden County has dropped to I want to say 83,000 students in this year's enrollment and they're going to be down to 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 and

117you would think that, you know, everybody wants to move to Lowden County, but you know, it's expensive. it is becoming very hard for young families to move into these counties and that's where we look to you to um get more babies. >> Um you know I mean I you know I'm going to 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. 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 foyer my email box and you will find that I have very few complaints about Yeah, it's fine. You know, very few complaints from our families

118about our schools being that overcrowded because 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 principles worried about fielding football teams, fielding a JV girls basketball team in 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 going to make some of these very difficult decisions, whether to build a school or not, whether to redistrict certain areas, these are going to make the public anxious, possibly angry. Um, and so

119we have worked hard. Dr. McDade really came in and I and I, you know, we're going to approach our, you know, 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. Many of you, 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 prek programs. What about universal prek in Prince William County? I don't know. You know, that would be amazing. We have capacity now to maybe do that. We have Patty Elementary that's a pre-K program. We can do that. There are things we can do, but we need your support, your help, and there are going to be some things we have to

120do that are not going to be popular. Um but having a BOCS that is unified with us in addressing capacity issues as Miss Vega brings up and Mr. Angry brings up these are real issues. Um and and I do worry about these programs. We have great high schools. I mean you know we have a we have some of our high schools their 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. 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

121better. Not just our good schools better, not our better schools better, but our all schools better. 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 um, you know, retention of great teachers and and all of that stuff. So, I thank you for supporting us. Thank you for doing that. Feel free to offline call us and tell us what you think. U, 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, you know, operate. >> I get two eyes with each baby. So, that's um >> There you go. That's that's double the business. >> It works out. >> Yeah, double the business.

122Dr. McDade, I think you have your mic on. >> Um one just just wanted to say that we will share the link to our survey for um the 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 um BOCS gets that link. And then just to put a piece of information that I think um wasn't noted that is important to note um in response to Supervisor Vega's question about the trailers and and the pockets of o overutilization and underutilization. Um 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

123you look at a school like Unity Reed or like Hilton, we've taken significant trailers offline, even though you may see an 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, um, we've seen significant reduction in enrollment where we've had to take trailers offline. So, it's kind of like a a a balancing act there. Um, 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 um trailers in certain pockets of the county. >> All right. Thank you so much. I just but I have to ask a question because you mentioned unified. You need the board behind you. What is it

124that you need from the board? >> But you know when we when we >> Yeah. I I mean, look, I mean, if we're going to go down the road of redistricting certain areas, as you heard from my schoolboard members, those are not easy meetings. Um, those are challenging meetings with the public and and and and rightfully so, right? Like folks don't like to change. So, uh, you know, to credit the school board and Dr. McDade, we've tried to balance enrollment in the least painful ways we can. That is the first things we've done. you know, um, you know, to, uh, schoolboard member Troenic's real credit, there were a couple big projects coming out there where those land those properties were going to those homes were going to go to a very overcrowded I think Noville

125school, but there's no current homes really or maybe one or two homes in that area now. We decided to preemptively say, "Okay, we're going to 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 underutilized. You know, if we do program capacity um things like Mr. Jesse and Dr. McD have talked about moving folks around to where we have building space. Um that helps. Um but but you know it some some things are not going to be popular and and so we're trying to do it in the most leastful least painful way for the public because the public doesn't like to be moved. You know they buy a house in a certain area expect to go

126to 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 sir 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 board, but I was going to see if there were any last minute questions. So you're you're number one. >> I I I really want to say I appreciate this this presentations um from both uh the staff perspective. >>

127Yeah. Okay. So, I appreciate these presentations from the staff perspective, but I think the better part of this meeting is this conversation right here. So, I just want to share with you as uh Mr. Blake and I have been discussing I I didn't recognize and realize we have, you know, some trailer uh concerns in some of the schools in the AB school district, which is a concern. But other things that really are important that I I really want us to work on as a board and a school board and and and a school and 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

128opportunity for the sporting aspect, not just that, but the graduation aspects. And as you look at the fact 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 should be talking about. What does a public private partnership look like? the school system and I want to brag for you is the largest employer in Prince County in the Commonwealth for Virginia I believe you all say but the fact that you have that many

129employees I want to I'm gonna okay don't go that high >> just win >> okay just prince but the fact is if you're the largest employer I want I think we we we can work together and do things that really benefit both sides of what we're doing 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 that might cost. And I'll just say, you know, um the the last point that um um is uh a nugget for me um is the whole public safety side of of the conversation that we deal with both on both sides of this

130house. 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 2-hour window where you have so much parking or backup traffic of kids being dropped off at school. I I 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 and many of them are in neighborhoods. And so, that becomes the the question. Now, I don't have an answer for it. I know you all don't either, but I just think that's a

131conversation of is there anything we can do? I watched traffic cut off buses trying to get kids into the school. Like, I just shouldn't the bus have the right away? It's just these concerns for me is just something. And then so I just want to bring up what I think we should kind of be discussing at least my 1/8. So thank you >> I don't >> turn 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 just I I was sharing I think like as I was sitting here listening, I got a lot of uh insight to um the relationship of us. And so when we do this

132every 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. Um I just think as I'm talking, I really spent some valuable time here just talking to Mr. Blake about some of the concerns uh and then things that I I notice 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 Bodie, Bailey, and then Williams. >> Thank you. Um, and I wanted to first thank uh uh uh school board

133member Blake and and Saras are angry for for sort of their collaboration on that sort of talking about something I know that's near and dear to 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 sorts of different places. As someone who had kids who are on a specialty bus that goes from Jenkins to PTOAC High School last year, there's a whole lot of stuff that goes into that. So, I wanted to commend you all on working through that because I know it's not easy. At the other hand, though, I we've had this conversation a little bit at the joint enviral task force is how we

134can better partner on giving more transportation options to our school staff. Um, we have omniide 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 uh 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 uh uh school staff may have mobility issues just like everyone else. They may have uh one car and someone is taking the car away. So, how do 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 jump in their car to drive to a school that's

135nearby 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 uh meeting the need of transportation for school staff and I would love for us to partner on that. So, that's one too. Um walker safe route to schools and things like that. I know that's been a long conversation been es and flows over the years. Um, I know that for a little while we had some volunteers. We're looking at gaps between not only schools and communities, but also uh public facilities like libraries, what have you. You know, as we talk about the the trails and parks bond that we just sort of started talking about the board level, we have this comprehensive safety action

136plan that we approved and adopted earlier this this year. I feel like there's still gaps in the pedestrian network to get folks whether they're kids or, you know, staff to schools through pedestrian and bike biking safely. So, how do we more uh uh uh collaborate on that? And 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 20ish years since the county did a a futures report. The last one expires in on 2030. 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 were school children of all age that parttook in that you know had ideas, had drawings, had

137all these things that they envision for the future. So he continued 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 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. So, it's less a question but more more sort of commentary. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you, Supervisor um Bod. Supervisor Bailey. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um I' I've got five quick points and I'll talk fast, not as fast as Kenny, but um first of all, I just wanna um the chairman of school board mentioned about the strategic plan and

138you 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 we and you you led us through that and you've accomplished a lot on that strategic plan with your staff and with the board. And so I think that's an excellent idea. we're doing the same. And so I think we can see some synergy there. The other thing I want to congratulate you on is um 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 and our and the staff on the school board and we just thank them for hanging in there because

139teaching ain't easy and all of that. I can't do it. I'm the resource person. Anyway, um the other thing is graduation rate. That's important. That says that we're focused on our students and making sure that they can thrive and go out into the community and 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 uh in society right now, where we are nationally right now. And so that trades piece is very critical in making sure that we're stimulating um our our 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. And then congratulations on on the

140awards 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 and and Dr. That's why people want to check and see, do I really want to move here? Cuz that says we're doing something right. >> Yeah. Yeah, they do. Thank you, Dr. We're doing something right. And I want to say to our school board members, um, you're the greatest because you really care about our kids. Even, you know, we do the same thing when we are 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 going to grow whether we want to or not. But I just I just

141wanted to just highlight those things. Thank you, Madam Chair, for allowing me to do that 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 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, schoolboard member Williams. >> Thank you, Chair Jefferson. I just want to um thank everyone, including the staff, for taking the time to come here um and and share information, our plans with the public. It's our job, but everyone showed up and that's always nice. I I remember a time when I first got on the

142board that we met uh more than just once a year. And I think that uh history has shown how well that we can work together for the benefit of everyone despite whatever political leanings or or anything that is going on. We're all here for the betterment of our community. And I uh would like for all of us to really consider meeting more than once a year as we go through the unknown uh 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 I hope that uh we can continue that relationship but also consider we might need to meet more regularly just so we can continue to plan uh efficiently and proactively. We should be proud. Our county is one of

143the only counties in Northern Virginia where you guys gave us additional funding where people had to give money back. Um we do have good working relationships. Problems get solved. We work together. I think that's the benefit to everyone and I would like to see us continue doing that and and really consider meeting more regularly as everything with the shutdown goes on because it affects both of us um as entities. So um thank you everyone. I I appreciate that the collaboration. I think tonight is a good way to set the tone for that so everyone knows where we are and let's continue a meeting so that we can move forward together. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Latif. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, thank you all

144for coming this evening. Thank you for the staff for setting it up on both sides, the BOCS and the school board and Dr. McDade and Mr. Sharter. U Madam Chair, thank you. I truly appreciate um our relationship as well and we um you know while I know we don't maybe meet as much but we do talk regularly and um and it's important that um um we keep that relationship good. 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 um to set this meeting up. I'm gonna quickly say I did have a chance to go visit Jiffy Lube live earlier. They want you guys. They

145want more graduations, you know. I know. I know. Hold on. I see you. We'll talk later. I know that they have a different schedule, but but we we'll talk because they made it a point to talk about during the pandemic how they held 27 graduation or whatever. We'll talk. Um 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 adjurnn. >> It's been moved and seconded. Let's go ahead and everyone um say I I >> kind of prompted you on that one. Thank you very much. Meeting is adjourned.