001I would like to call this meeting of the Prince William County School Board to order. Before we move on to the approval of the agenda, I need a motion to amend the meeting by removing item 18.02 under board matters. Mrs. Wall, I move that the Prince William County School Board amend the meeting agenda by removing item 18.02 under board matters. Is there any discussion? Uh, yes. This will be moving um to the May 7th board agenda. This item will isn't ripe for our discussion. Please vote. Oh, sorry. Oh, can I get a second? Thank you, Mr. Will. Then discussion now. Please vote. Yes. Six. Yes. One not present at vote. Williams, one absent. Latif. Motion passed. Okay. A motion is now in order for the approval of the meeting agenda as amended. Miss Wall. Mr.
002Blake, I move that the Prince William County School Board approve the meeting agenda as recommended. Do I have a second? Mr. Chairman, thank you, Miss Zagore. Any discussion? Please vote. Six yes, one not present. Vote Williams, one absent. Latif motion passed. Okay. Thank you. A motion. Uh moving on to a motion to enter close session. A motion is is in order. Mr. Blake. I move that pursuant to Virginia Code section 2.2-3711 and 2.2-3712, the Prince William County School Board enter close session for the following reasons. one to discuss with staff the assignment, appointment, promotion, performance, demotion, salaries, disciplining, or resignation of specific public officers, appointees, or employees of any public body pursuant to Virginia Code section 2.2-3711A1. And two, to review disciplinary matters for specific student that would involve the disclosure of information contained in
003the scholastic record for the individual student and to receive legal advice regarding same as provided by Virginia Code sections 2.2-3711A2 and 8. Three, to discuss with division council and staff actual or probable litigation and specific legal matters involving staff, students, and other civil litigation involving the school division under Virginia code sections 2.2-3711A7 and 8. Four, to discuss with division council and staff a specific legal matter involving the lease of real property pursuant to Virginia code sections 2.2-3711A8. and five to discuss the award of a public contract to employees exclusive representative which involves the expenditure of public funds and the terms or scope of such contract where discussion in an open session would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the public body pursuant to Virginia code section 2.2-3711A29 2-3711A29 and six to discuss
004and receive briefings by staff members related to the security of schooli school facilities the safety of persons using such facilities and actions taken to respond to such matters where discussion in an open meeting would jeopardize the security of such facilities pursuant to Virginia code section 2.2-3711A19. Thank you Miss Wall. Do I have a second? Mr. Chairman. Thank you Miss Agapore. Miss Aapor seconds. Please vote. Uh, six yes, one not ab one not present at vote Williams, one absent. Latif motion passed. The Prince William County School Board now will enter close session and return to open session in 1 hour. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] The Prince William County School Board is now returning to open session from close session. A motion is in order for 8.1 close session certification. Miss Wall. Mr. Chairman, I move that
005pursuant to section 2.2-3712 of the code of Virginia, the closed session of the Prince William County School Board meeting of April 23rd, 2025 be certified by adopting the following resolution. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Prince William County School Board hereby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge, one, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements were discussed in the closed meeting to which this certification resolution applies. And two, only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard and discussed or considered by the school board. Do I have a second? Mr. Chairman, Miss Zag, second. Any discussion? Please vote. Vote is seven yes, one absent. Latif motion passed. Moving on to the close session action items. Uh motion is in order for
0069.01. Miss wall. Mr. Mr. Blake, I move that the Prince William County School Board approve the appointments and releases of specific employees as presented in close session. Do I have a second, Mr. Chairman? Thank you, M. I second. Any discussion? Please vote. Vote is seven yes, one absent. Latif motion passed. Moving on to the close session actions and items. A motion is in order for 9.02. Miss Wall. Mr. Chairman, I move that for the reasons set forth in the student management and alternative programs department's letter of March 26th, 2025. The Prince William County School Board approved the student management and alternative programs department's decision to reassign students SRH25-113 to the computer-based instruction CBI program via remote access only based on charges of unlawful acts in the community. Do I have a second? Mr. Chairman, thank
007you, Mr. Agapore. Any discussion? Please vote. vote is six yes, one abstain. Tradenic, one absent. Latif motion passed. Thank you. Moving on to the pledge of allegiance. I'd like to invite our student representative, Amadul. Amadulla Lord, Lord Tore to lead us in the pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands nationy and justice for all. Thank you. Uh moving on to our thriving futures focus. All right. Good evening. Thriving futures focus is an opportunity to highlight the ex exempl exemplipary work being accomplished in our schools. fulfilling our vision that every student will graduate on time with the knowledge, skills, and habits of mind necessary to create a thriving future for themselves and their community. We get we dedicate this time during our meetings to recognize students, staff members, and
008schools that have earned an honor or award at the state or national level. We appreciate how these honores have positively represented Prince William County Schools and the school board is proud to recognize them publicly for their accomplishments. Tonight, the school board will first recognize one of our student state champions and then and then move on to our 13 purple star distinguished schools. We will we will begin with Miss Treenick of the historic Brensville district. The Brensville district would like to congratulate Patriot Patriot High School's Siobhani Davis on her first place finish for her original oratory speech at the VHSL 2025 class 6 speech tournament. Shiovani is accompanied here tonight by her family, gifted education teacher Adrienne Phillips and acting principal David Van Gelder. At this time, I would like to invite either Shiovani or Miss
009Phillips to share a few words about her accomplishment. Thank you so much for the ch Thank you so much to the school board for the chance to be recognized tonight. It's not every day that students have the chance to be recognized at the county level for their achievements and I am so grateful for this opportunity. The speech I competed which I titled a promise the promised land of America is a speech that is meant to remind us that unity is always stronger than individuality. Unity is the grounds for change and the platform of success. Speaking of success, I'd like to thank my unified support system, which is the backbone behind my achievement. I'd like to start by thanking God for giving me the idea for this speech and the words to say. Next, I'd like
010to thank my family. Since 8th grade, they've supported my passion and allowed me to express my creativity through writing. I'd also like to thank my coach, Miss Phillips. You listened to countless drafts and gave me the resources I need to make my speech the best it possibly could be. In addition to this, I'd like to thank Mr. Vanelder, Patriot's current acting principal. Thank you for allowing so many students like myself to feel seen when we accomplish big and small things. Again, thank you for the chance to be recognized tonight. And I encourage you all to remember the power of unity. Thank you. Congratulations, Shiovani. You've made the Brensville district very proud. Congratulations. Now, I'd like to kick off our recognition of our Purple Star designated schools. Starting with my district, the NAVSCO district. Uh the
011Purple Star designation awarded by Virginia's Department of Education is more than just a title. It represents a deep and meaningful commitment to the unique needs of military connected students and their families. Military families often face extraordinary extraordinary challenges like frequent moves, adjusting to new schools and making new friends. They also have the emotional toll of having a parent deployed and at times missing important milestones in their loved ones lives. These are not small burdens for our young persons to carry. Their sacrifice deserves specialized support from their school communities. Here in Prince William County Public Schools, we serve nearly 5,000 military connected students. And every one of those students deserves to feel welcomed, supported, and understood from the moment they walk through our doors. This achievement also reflects the broader commitment of our division. Nearly half
012of all PWCS schools now hold the Purple Star designation. A remarkable accomplishment that speaks to our shared belief in the power of connection, consistency, and compassion. The NAPSCO district would like would first like to recognize King Elementary School for its first purple star designation. King is represented tonight by principal Kathleen Poe, assistant principal Iette West and school counselor Ursula Daniels and Sarah Tracy. The Neapsco district also would like to recognize the Garfield High School for its first Purple Star designation. Garfield is recognized represented tonight by assistant principal Tiffany Gisham, Lieutenant Colonel Eric Kelly, and retired senior marine instructor, Spanish teacher Jasmine Garcia, and graduation coach Erica Frasier. Congratulations again to King and Garfield high schools. We will now turn to Miss Wall. [Applause] On behalf of the Gainesville District, it is my pleasure to first
013recognize Alvi Elementary School for its per first Purple Star designation. Alvi is represented tonight by principal Elizabeth Johnson, assistant principal Ma Moore, parent liaison Melissa Hedrickk, and counselor Janet Marish. Awesome. Second, the Gainesville District would like to recognize Ronald W. Reagan Middle School for its first time receiving the Purple Star designation. Representing Reagan Middle School is principal Chris Beamer and eighth grade math teacher Tina Frasard. Hope I said that right. Okay, wonderful. Third, the Gainesville. Should we clap for them, too? I'll come for both those great schools, Alvi and Reagan. And third, the Gainesville District would like to recognize Tyler Elementary School as being designated as a Purple Star School for the second time. Tyler Elementary is represented tonight by Principal Jennifer Perilla, security assistant and former Marine Nick Shier, and parent volunteer Captain Matthew
014Hendris, United States Air Force. Congratulations to all three Gainesville District Schools for the Purple Star designation. Thank you, Miss Wall. We move on to Miss Zagapore and of the Kohl's district. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Kohl's district would like to recogni recognize two schools, Osborne Park High School and Parkside Middle. This is Osborne Park's first time earning the Purple Star designation and the third time for Parkside. Osborne Park High School is represented tonight by principal Lisa Marie Kaine, executive administrative assistant Marie Emory, and high school counselor Vicky Oh, sorry, sorry, Jackie Viaondo. Pr uh Parkside Middle School is represented tonight by principal Aaron Miraa, assistant principal Shanette Miller, and school counselor Laura Pelzar. We are incredibly proud of our first time and longtime schools. Thank you, Mrs. Zagapore. Miss Williams, would you please introduce your
015schools? Absolutely. I have one purple star designate school, and it is the mighty Mary G. Porter Traditional School. Porter traditional is represented tonight by principal Caitlyn Lyn for assistant principal Joe Wood and director of school counseling Laura Mays and school counselor Jessica Rose Jones. Thank you. Thank you so much. Uh and congratulations to Porter Traditional. Excellent. Excellent. Thank you, Miss Williams. Mr. Wilk, please introduce your award winners. Thank you. Uh, Mr. Blake, on behalf of the PTOAC District, I would like to recognize three Purple Star designated schools. First, we have our first time winner of Triangle Elementary, represented tonight by Principal Jeffrey Dvers, Assistant Principal Courtney St, and Counselor William Parker. The second time winner, I have Patty Elementary School, represented tonight by Principal R.J. Luchiotti, assistant principal Tiffany Turner Bell, and counselors Karen Modesto
016and Chelsea Wilkerson. And finally, third time winner committee I served on as a parent. The first time Ashlin Elementary School. They are here represented by principal Anna Houseworth. Third grade teacher Kristen Kescll and school counselor Sarah Llair and military liaison Sonia Baltisburgger. Congratulations PTOIC District Schools. Thank you, Mr. Wilk. Mr. Fedenn, the Brensville district would like to congratulate Cedar Point Elementary School and the Nooksville School for earning their first Purple Star designations. Cedar Point is represented tonight by principal Erica Williams, fourth grade teacher Michelle Baldwin, school counselor Ashley Pit, and parent leaison Grace Riley. The Noville School is represented tonight by principal Amanda Johnson, director of counseling Don Schaefer, Caitlyn Bralt, middle school counselor, and Heather Mo, school social worker. Congratulations to both schools. [Applause] Thank you, Mr. Dennick. At this time, I would like
017to introduce Kimberly Simpson, our Prince William County Schools Military Achievement Specialist, to say a few words on behalf of tonight's 2024 Purple Star designated schools. And on behalf of all Prince William County schools, 47 purple star schools, she will also introduce and recognize Colonel Jenny A. Colgate, the commanding officer of Marine Corps Base Quanico, who will who will also say a few words. Thank you, Miss Dr. McDade, members of the school board, PWCS stakeholders. Good evening again. My name is Kimberly Simpson and I am honored to serve as the Military Achievement Specialist. Thank you for supporting our 2024 Purple Star Distinguished Schools and their dedication to our military connected students and their families. As the Purple Star program continues to grow in PWCS, it's important to bring awareness to the why behind initiative and how
018it aligns with our vision. In 2018, Virginia became the second state to implement the Purple Star program. The Virginia Department of Education introduced this initiative to address the unique challenges faced by children from military families. The program requires schools to provide professional development for staff on the needs of military connected students. Establish a student transition support team among other measures. These efforts aim to create a supportive and inclusive environment where students can thrive both academically and socially. For our division, the Virginia Purple Star program is more than just a designation. It stands as a testament to our dedication to supporting those who serve our nation. Committed to sustaining and expanding the number of purple schools, we will continue to uphold the program's values, ensuring our military connected students receive the support they need to succeed.
019The Purple Ser program is a reflection to our commitment to supporting military families, but equally important is our ongoing genuine engagement with community partners. This evening, I have the distinct honor of introducing one of our most valuable military community leaders, Colonel Jenny Colgate. Colonel Jenny Kate is the commanding officer of Marine Corps Marine Corps Installation National Capital Region Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia. Always a mouthful. She has had a distinguished career in the United States Marine Corps, which began with her enrollment in the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps program at the University of Arizona in 1998. Colonel Kate graduated with a bachelor of science and criminal justice from the University of Arizona and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1999. In 2013, she earned a master of arts degree in national security and strategic
020studies from the United States Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. Throughout her year, throughout her career, Colonel Kogate has held various positions including aircraft maintenance officer, series commander at Paris Island, and executive officer at Marine Corps Air Station New River. She has also served in multiple deployments including Okinawa, Japan, Kuwait, and Afghanistan. In July 2024, Colonel Colgate made history by becoming the first woman to command Marine Corps installations National Capital Region, Marine Corps Base, Quantico, Virginia. Colonel Kogate, I ask that you join me at the podium podium for the reading of the 2025 month of the military challenge recognition. after which I will extend an invitation for you to say a few words. Whereas the Virginia Board of Education recognized the month of April 2025 as the month of the military child to pay
021tribute to the military families and their children for their sacrifices made and their commitment and courage. And whereas the Commonwealth of Virginia is a member of the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children, which addresses key issues encountered by military students including enrollment, placement, attendance, eligibility, and graduation. And whereas military connected children and their families move every two to three years within the United States or overseas, disrupting academic routines and friendships. And whereas military connected children also serve their country by demonstrating resilience, perseverance, and cultural competency. And whereas military connected children provide unique and valuable insights on learning friendships, service to others, and heightened national or global awareness. And whereas Prince William County Public Schools provides military connected academic and support programs through a Department of Defense education activity partnership grant to support the
022unique needs of military service members and their families. And whereas military families in Prince William County include men and women on active duties service in the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marines, Navy, and Space Force, and members of the reserves and the National Guard. And whereas Prince William County Public School serves approximately 5,000 school age military con connected children. Now therefore be it resolved that the Prince William County School Board and the Superintendent of Schools recognize April 2025 as month of the military child and encourage all schools and offices to show enormous appreciation with activities to honor our students from military families. approved by the Prince William County School Board on March 5th, 2025. Please join me in welcoming Colonel Jenny Kobe. All right. Thank you very much uh for this generous recognition. As a
023commanding officer, I've witnessed firsthand the incredible strength, resilience, and sacrifice of our military children. They often face frequent relocations, long periods of separations from their parents, and the challenges of adjusting to new schools and communities. Despite these obstacles, they are resourceful. They are independent, and they develop strong coping skills. They also have a deep sense of pride in their family service to the country and often show maturity beyond their years. Military children are also incredibly supportive, understanding the importance of teamwork and the value of connecting with others who share similar experiences. Thank you very much for celebrating the month of the military child and for your continued support for those of us that serve. And thank you to all the schools who recognize the challenges that our military children go through on walking in on
024day one and knowing nobody. um and they have incredible um teachers um and academians who really focus on us and I just wanted to say thank you to all of you for continuing to develop into Purple Star Schools um and for developing the children of our youth. So, thank you very much. [Applause] Thank you, Dr. McDade. At this time, I invite all the honor. Wait. Oh, yeah. I invite all the honores to come forward for Oh, I invite Dr. McDade to say a few words. I apologize. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, first I want to say congratulations, Siobhani. We are so incredibly proud of you on your first place finish. And although this is absolutely an incredible accomplishment, it also represents the power of student voice and student leadership, which is one of the cornerstones
025of the PWCS strategic plan. And so you represent all of our students um with your first place finish because we we in Prince William County embrace the power of student voice. So congratulations to you. And then to our 13 PWCS schools that are here with us tonight, um, congratulations on earning the 2024 Virginia Purple Star designation. Um, this designation really just represents your strong support for our military connected families. And the work that you do to create a positive climate and culture for our schools and for our military connected uh, students really does deserve this recognition. This brings the division's total to an impressive 47 purple star schools and I would yes that is a true accomplishment and we set a goal to grow year over year and that we do want to get to
026the point where all of our all of our PWCS schools are military connected schools that are um purple star designated. I would also be remiss if I did not acknowledge the hard work of uh Kimberly Simpson, our PWCS military achievement specialist. I want to personally thank you for all of the work that you're doing with our schools and our school leaders. And then for Colonel Colgate, I had such a honor and a privilege to meet you personally when you first took your post. And I just want to thank you so much for honoring us with your presence tonight and for your continued partnership and support which means so much um to the school division. Um it's always a pleasure to have you with us in our community and partnering with us and showing your strong
027support as well. All of the successes that we recognize here tonight reflect the talent, the dedication, and the spirit of students, staff, and our schools in PWCS. And with each accomplishment, we continue to be PWCS proud. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. McDade. At this time, I invite all our honores to come forward for a group photo with the school board and to receive a token of our appreciation. We will begin with one group photo with our original oratory winner and then our 13 purple star schools. Start with uh Colonel Kate and Miss Simpson. I hope you'll join us. So after Come on down. I know. I haven't been in this row for a while. All right. Thank you all for being here tonight. And this concludes our Thriving Futures focus recognition. Thank you all.
028Now we are moving on to 12.01. 01 adoption of the consent agenda. Miss Wall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that the Prince William County School Board approve the public meeting consent agenda as recommended. Do I have a second? Mr. Chairman, Miss Williams, I second. Thank you. Any discussion? Please vote. The vote is six yes, one abstained. Tradenic, one absent. Latif motion passed. Thank you. Moving on to 13.01. Acknowledgements and recognitions. A motion is in order. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Prince William County School Board approve the acknowledgements and recognitions as recommended. Do I have a second? Mr. Chairman, Miss Williams. Thank you. Any discussion? Please vote. Vote is six yes, one abstained. Chadenic, one absent. Latif motion passed. Thank you. Uh now moving on to citizen comment time. Those citizens who have signed
029up in advance with the clerk may address the school board this evening when they are called to the podium. The citizen comment period for various schoolboard meetings is 1 hour and citizens may speak on agenda items or other topics germaine to the operations and policies of PWCS. Please use proper decorum and manners while at the podium or you will be asked to step aside. We ask that the audience please be respectful of each speaker and refrain from any clapping, cheering or jeering to avoid disruption of the meeting. If you do not, the board will recess and I will ask that the room be cleared to restore public order. Tonight we have eight citizens signed up to speak. When I call your name, please come up to the podium and state your name and address for
030the record. Latasha Thompson and Brooke Marshall speaking as a group. Hello, I'm Natasha Thompson, Brook Marshall, and our address is on Hello, my name is Brooke Marshall. I'm the school counselor at Coington Harper Elementary, and this is Latasha Thompson, our librarian and media specialist. One of my responsibilities as a counselor is to advocate for all my students, and that's why we're here today. Mrs. Thompson previously emailed the board our concerns and we appreciate that some of you took the time to respond. We know the school board cares about the students of Prince William County and their education. Our representative, Mr. Wilk, brought up a discussion regarding Coington Harper at a schoolboard meeting on October 16th, 2024, but nobody offered solutions. We were very disappointed that the school board did not take more than a few
031minutes to discuss the possibilities of helping our students. Cington Arbor is overcrowded and currently has eight trailers with more to come. I know other schools have dealt with overcrowding, but how many elementary schools could say they have over 1,028 students and many more on the way. Being overcrowded has many negative impacts on our students and number one is safety. We do our best to keep all of our students safe and this can be a difficult with over 175 students outside of the building. Next year it will be even more. We are so overpop populated that finding space during emergency drills has been cumbersome. Spacing is a big issue and imagine having 400 students transitioning in the hallways to get to lunch on corn classes at the same time. Meanwhile, multiple classes are lined up for
032our limited number of restrooms. The cafeteria is another problem. We are very have a very small cafeteria and a large number of our students. And because of this, students start eating lunch at 10:40 and are spaced very tight together. The number of students in the cafeteria leads to safety issues and parents who come to the school often report concerns. Recess is impacted as well. We created recess zones to spread out the classes for safety. But this has led to a majority of our students having limited access to any playground equipment. Loss of instructional time is another great concern for us. We have employed someone to watch the students who need to come into the building. Think about the instructional time lost when students have to walk to and from the bathroom, the nurse, strings, or
033any other service within the building. Unfortunately, due to the layout of school property, the trailers are very far from the building. Students must walk across probably a couple basketball courts along sidewalk just to get to the main building, then through the main building to the bathrooms. As you can imagine, students do not always walk with purpose to their destination. And so, this impacts their learning. Some teachers have opted for bathroom breaks to try to decrease the wasted time, but this takes the entire class away from learning for as long as it takes for 28 students to use the restroom and walk back to class. A new school is many years in the future and no guarantee to when it will open. The new school in Woodbridge, for example, has been delayed due to unforeseen circumstances.
034We are worried that the overpopulation of our school will remain an issue for several more years. With 365 upcoming condos and more houses to come, we are facing the need to explore solutions right now. We do not want to wait until things get worse. One of the elected school board members. Thank you, Miss Marshall. Thank you. Thank you. Kaitlin Weston. Good evening, Dr. McDade and esteemed members of the school board. My name is Caitlyn Weston and my address is on file with the clerk. I am here to express my immense gratitude for continuing to do everything in your power to protect our most targeted communities. Thank you again for your continued commitment to the non-discrimination policy. I feel proud to be a part of PWCS and I hope you continue to stay strong. In regard
035to our immigrant community, there are several specific actions that PWCS took that brought me a sense of relief, including the email on January 27th stating that our division policies remain unchanged and that PWCS will protect the legal rights of all students and staff in our schools. Dr. Dr. Latif's verbal recommmitment to protecting all students, including our families who may be impacted by ICE raids, and seeing the website updated with a link to immigration protections and PWCS policy. I can only imagine the fear some of our residents are experiencing during this time, and I am hopeful that your commitment to student safety is bringing many others some sense of relief. I do hope you will consider other ways in which PWCS can proactively protect students that may be impacted by ICE raids. For instance, a big
036area of concern are bus stops. Please consider how you can equip our bus drivers to be on the lookout for suspicious behaviors from others. How can we inform families and students that they can stay on the bus and return to school if they feel unsafe getting off the bus? Also, please consider making general public resources available to families. For example, immigration law help has information about nonprofit legal service organizations by state. We know you cannot give legal advice to families, but we do hope you find a way to inform residents of their rights. I have emailed you a resource created in partnership with the American Federation of Teachers, United We Dream, and the Center for Law and Social Policy, which highlights immigrant immigrant rights regarding access to public K12 education, protections for students in for
037student information under FURPA and provides guidance for students and families if ICE authorities come to their homes. I do hope you strongly consider sharing this resource with families. Thank you. Thank you, Yoko Sack. Two years ago, my daughter was diagnosed with high functioning autism. She's eight now. A year later, she was diagnosed with ADHD. While she was in public school, almost every day, she had meltdowns. After school, she was always in bad mood, easily agitated, and refused to talk about what happened at school. After she came home, she started to turn off lights and locks doors. These behaviors lasted for months. I asked teachers how she's doing at school. They said she's doing fine. Autistic kids have repet repetitive behaviors. Do you know why they do it? They are trying to regulate themsel and calm
038down. My daughter lines toys everywhere. That's how she regulates herself. They have sensory issues. One day I noticed that she was overwhelmed by the all the stimulants in school. Noise, lights, smell, crowds for five, six hours of every day. No wonder she's not functioning well when she gets home. It got to the point she started to line furniture in the room. That's not normal. As soon as we got her diagnosis, we requested an IEP. Instead of going IEP evaluation, we were told she will have an intervention. The second time we requested for IEP, the school gave 504. 504 doesn't work. Here's the reason why. Allowing kids like my daughter to wear headphone is not accommodating for them. It is more like they accommodating for school. They can't stand the environment. Having them sit facing the
039wall, you are humiliating them. My daughter doesn't want to eat lunch in the cafeteria. Too many stimulants. If the environment is controlled, they don't need extra time for exam. I believe she was unable to get a fair and equitable education. I don't believe current system is working well. immediately. Please re-evaluate the school system and make a change. At this time, I cannot send my child to public school for my child well-being. Please acknowledge that all kids won't fit in public schools. School choice is necessary. I ask you all to please address this with the appropriate point of contact. When my child was six years old, she cried and told me that she doesn't want to exist. She only lived six years and as she told me that their lives are so restricted it was too
040much for her. This is the reason why autistic people have higher suicide rate and a depression with higher suicide rate with depression and anxiety. Thank you. Anessa's story. Anisa Stroy, my address is on file. Bullying. Far too often minimized to horseplay, mean words, or kids being kids. Unfortunately, with this small-minded thinking, it is allowing children to be impacted academically, socially, and most importantly, emotionally. Bullying is an alarming issue that cannot be overlooked. It is heartbreaking when the school administration fails to take adequate action, leaving families feeling unheard and unsupported. That is what is happening at Coington Harbor. The failure to enforce disciplinary action to ensure behaviors do not reoccur is desensitizing what the victims are experiencing. It is normalizing the bullies behavior and making it acceptable to harass and torment their peers while the victims
041and their families are left to handle the long-term effects. Mental health, low self-esteem, and academic challenges to name a few. It is also showing the victims that they cannot entrust the leaders in their schools to keep them safe. Bullying prevention programs provided through the county should be proactive, not reactive. And schools should be held accountable for ensuring a safe environment, positive climate and culture for all students. If administrators are failing to seek additional resources, it raises significant concerns about their priorities. It is a disservice to the growth and development to the children that they service and support. When it is at the hands of the administration, they should be taking all the proper and necessary steps when handling situations that arise. Overcrowding will not be used as an excuse to dismiss the lack of leadership.
042This is my daughter's first year at Covington, and it was nothing short from traumatic. During one of my most recent meetings, the assistant principal, Dr. King, stated to me regarding my daughter, and I quote, "This is forever in terms of her learning how other people can be. Although I'm not happy about it, it is how our little people little by little deal with conflict, learn how to deal with conflict, because it's not always going to be positive." End quote. She's right. The trauma my daughter has experienced at Cington will have to be worked through as a family forever. However, this will not define her and she will overcome this because I will not allow this division the opportunity to make my daughter become another statistic of suicide due to bullying. I hope that you all
043investigate what is happening at Covington and divisionwide and address what can be done to improve bullying consequences. Thank you. Gloria Jordan. Good evening. My name is Gloria. Uh the GOP president delivered an ultimatum that US schools eliminate DEI programs specifying that governors be required to certify compliance or lose all federal funding for state public schools. So what does this mean? Get rid of DEI programs. What even is a DEI program? As a mom, nurse, and educator, I feel it is important to begin with the understanding of what our terms are. We cannot answer a question or address a concern without understanding what we are even talking about. Too often we hear DEI and many do not know what it stands for nor what it means. And they certainly do not know how it applies to
044them. DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion. In their simplest definitions, Diversity means a variety of people who are in some way different. E equity is a synonym for fairness. I inclusion means welcoming everyone. DEI diversity, equity, and inclusion. People who are different in a variety of ways. Different than what, you may ask? Different than a cis, white, able-bodied, middleclass, Christian, male with traditional American upbringing and background. So, who is diverse? What is diverse? Women are diverse. Any of the 140 different countries represented here in PWCUS, the 10th most diverse county in the country, is different. Every culture, ethnicity, religion, and creed, is diverse. The LGBTQ community is diverse. Anyone who is raised by a single parent, grandparent, stepparent, same-sex parents, older sibling, in foster care, unhoused or displaced is diverse. those who have a disability, are
045autistic, or any kind of medical condition, disease, or health concern is diverse. All 504s, IEPs, even gifted education, starting with signant, AP, IB, and dual enrollment classes are diverse. Specialty schools and classes that cover a variety of different topics, perspectives, knowledge, and skill base are diverse. You are DEI. I am DEI. We are DEI. So when this Republican administration led by Trump says we must remove DEI, they are asking us to do the impossible. We are diversity, equity, and inclusion personified. We are a county made up of a variety of people. We welcome all and include everyone into our various work, school, religious, athletic, and living communities. Here in Prince William County, we seek to help everyone have the opportunity for success. We seek fairness. Recognize when one person succeeds, we all succeed. Small business
046owners are DEI. Trade workers are DEI. Farmers, federal workers, and our honored military members and their families are DEI. We can no longer exist if we remove DEI. We cannot educate our children or worship as we choose without DEI. We are Prince William County strong and Prince William County proud. We are DEI. Matt Audit Adet, Matt Adet, Kyle Ellenington. My name is Kyle Ellson. My information is on file. Why am I even here right now? I'm supposed to be coaching my kids' baseball team. Instead, I had to cut that short to come back to look out for the well-being of all kids at Ptoic Shores because the indiv individuals in front of me aren't capable of doing so. Co and Harper should have been reszoned months ago, but here we are again. Since my last
047remarks, we've had parents come up here and explain the safety concerns, the educational disadvantages, and the rise of bullying attributed over caring at Covenant Harbor. I mean, look around. It's ridiculous. More importantly, you had a bomb threat that was communicated to the school. You didn't let no parents, you didn't par let parents know until the day after after drop off, right? What can we do for our kids after that? Just ridiculous. And the school principal even submitted her resignation. It's a circus. It is a circus over there. And you should be ashamed of yourselves. I blame you. months of inaction despite community begging for help and your own colleague Mr. Wal asking for help. I personally asked you for help in the issue on behalf of the community months ago via email to all of
048you through your responded. Thanks to Mr. Wol for your response. I appreciate it. Appreciate your continued efforts. I'd also like to thank Mr. Blake for your response despite the inaccuracies. Sir, you referred to me to Miss or excuse me, Dr. McDade. It's not a responsibility. That's your responsibility. It's a shame that you don't even know as your vice chairman. Um, thank you to Miss Williams as well for the response, although I'm pretty sure it was an AI generated reply. I can't say I'm surprised considering you don't even realize 20% of your constituents attend CO and Harper. Not shocked. I guess the most disappointing aspect about all of this is that on September 16th, you all took time to ratify policy 264 focuses on school boundaries. your own chief of planning came up here and stated
049quote optimizing capacity is the top priority. Also quote the goal is not to be over capacity by more than 5%. He even admitted quote when schools get overcrowded you get all kinds of impacts from that. Co and Harper's at 120%. Your own paid employees said 5% is a problem and you could sit here and be okay with that. It's shameful. Absolutely shameful. And then for the the folks on the left, none of this applies to you. You still voted no. When bloke put it across, you voted no. Why? Lastly, I got 25 seconds. The remarks tonight about Purple Star Schools, that's a farce. We got 10% of our community that's military affiliated. You're not helping us at all. You're harming us. If you really want to make a difference, all schools should be purple stars,
050right? Why don't you help ours? We need your help. Thank you for your time, Jessica Sh. Hi. Um, good evening members of the board. My name is Jess Sher and I'm a proud parent of three children in Prince William County schools. One in elementary, one in middle, and one in high school. And I'm here today to speak from personal experience on why diversity, equity, and inclusion, DEI, are not just buzzwords, but essential values that shape our children's educational experiences. Um, so let's start with my youngest. He's a student at Gravely Elementary. He's autistic and he has ADHD. Because of PWCS's DEIdriven policies, he has an IEP that provides him with the support he needs to thrive. He receives accommodations like visual aids, extended time, movement breaks, and strategic seating. He has access to a flash
051pass to take breaks when he's overwhelmed. And he receives specialized instruction, writing, social skills, and behavior. And his incredible special education teacher, Mr. Wells, ensures he feels included and supported in his classroom. So without these inclusive and incredible approaches, my son's experience in school would be drastically different. This is DEI. My middle schooler has faced three orthopedic surgeries in as many years while at Ronald Reagan Middle School. Through a medical 504 plan, he received adaptive PE when he couldn't participate, and he had homebound instruction during recovery. His instructor, Miss Rashansky, who I love, worked one-on-one with him to ensure he stayed on track. Um, this wasn't just about catching up. It was ensuring they had equal access to his education during this difficult time. This is also DEI. My daughter at Battlefield High School has
052ADHD. Her IEP allows her extra time on assignments, the use of headphones to reduce over stimulation, and strategic seating. Um, these might seem like very small accommodations, but without them, she wouldn't be doing as well as she is right now. She has straight A's. And this is DEI. Um, DEI is not a political stance or an abstract policy. It's a lifeline for our kids with IEPs and 504s. It's the reason my children are not just surviving, but thriving. Um, PW PWCS's commitment to DEI has created an educational environment where every child, regardless of the ability or circumstance, is given the tools and opportunities they need to succeed. I'm sorry, I'm very emotional because this one it's about my kids. Thank you so much for um continuing to support DEI policies in our schools and helping
053our families like mine feel seen, supported, and valued. Thank you very much. Thank you. Um, that concludes citizen comment time and now we move to student representative time. Joining us tonight is Miss Lator. She is a senior at CD Hilton High School. Miss Lator, the floor is yours. Thank you. Uh, good evening to the board members, Dr. McDade and everyone who's taken the time to be here today. I'm happy to be back here as a student representative after quite some time. I hope everybody enjoyed their spring break. I want to start my remarks by highlighting a special event that took place earlier this month. On April 10th, Garfield High School was the host of a unified prom. On that day, a combination of general ed and special ed students came together to dance and have
054fun. While they did not have the pleasure to attend, I was told that students from over five schools were present and that Dr. McDate also participated. I am grateful for all of those that worked hard to make sure that this occasion was possible. It inspires me to know that I'm part of a community that is welcoming of all people. On a similar note, uh on a different topic actually yesterday many students came back to school after taking a break for a week. Now we are that much closer to summer. For high schoolers, graduations are scheduled to start on May 28th. that is only a little over a month away. I'm excited to hear what a lot of my peers are planning to do after graduation. May 1st, which is decision day, is fast approaching. I
055hope family members, teachers, and counselors will join me on this day to celebrate the accomplishments of all seniors. To underclassmen, summer opportunities remain open. If interested in learning more, please feel free to reach out to career counselors. I'm certain they would be happy to help. and good luck to everyone on upcoming exams. Next, I'll share some of the concerns I have received from students in numerous events, including the student leadership workshop that was held on March 27th. Here, principles, teachers, and student voice committees shared the progress they have made, but also the struggles that they have seen. For example, something that a lot of middle schoolers brought to my attention is the fact that the dress code is not equally enforced. Girls tend to fence more restrictions and harsher consequences than guys do. Moreover, students
056have let me know that they would appreciate a visual representation of clothing that is and is not allowed, especially in terms of length. As we move on into discussions about the code of behavior in the next few months, I want to advocate for clearer resources about the dress code so we can ensure that schools are enforcing the policies equally. Some other concerns include an increase in school tardies and doubts on how the new cell phone policy will be implemented. In order to address the later, I would recommend for the board to continue working on ensuring students, not just parents and teachers, are aware of how the policy will impact their future school years. Everyone, please remember it is time to stop the scroll and take control. That was the winning slogan of the recent Prince
057William County context. Congrats, Rudy. Moving on, I will now share some news and updates about student voice committees and the student senate. Currently, high school student voice committees are looking to partner with SBC's from their feeder middle schools. So far, Lakeidge and Benton Middle School have already held meetings with their respective high schools. I know I speak for all senators when I say I'm excited to work with these young leaders in the future. In addition, as a student senate, we continue to meet regularly to ensure student voices are heard, and we appreciate the opportunity to provide feedback on the future strategic plan. Finally, I'll conclude my remarks by congratulating and taking everyone who applied to become a student representative. It is an amazing opportunity and I wish you all the best. If anyone has any
058questions, please not hesitates to reach out to me or my fellow student representatives. Those are all my remarks for tonight. board members, Dr. McDade and everyone listening. Thank you for having me. Thank you, Miss Lator. We now move to superintendence time. Dr. McDade, the floor is yours. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good evening all. Um, we acknowledged our new purple star schools a little bit earlier and so I do want to share um a short video that I believe um demonstrates our vision's commitment to military families and also spotlights one of our schools who are doing an exemplary job in celebrating their military families. And that school is Ashlin Elementary who was here with us this evening. And so I would like for our team to play a short video at this Well, this is our
059first military um ball for our students. So, we put together lots of little details to make this a really big um event for the month of the military child. We wanted it to be formal so that kids got to dress up. We wanted a DJ to make it fun. And then we added the month of the military child ball cake to have a nice cake cutting ceremony. Highest ranking service member gives it to the newest service member. We're going to add a little twist to that because it's all about the kids. So, we also need the youngest child in attendance. Good job. We have about a third of our population of students who are military connected students. And so, April is the month of the military child. We really try and make sure that we
060thank all the families who are military so that we celebrate them. A lot of times when we come to the communities, uh, we have to find new family members and we have to join in. We have to try to fit in where we can get in. So here to be invited in is awesome. Just knowing that they they recognize us for um the sacrifices that we make and especially the little ones um the resiliency that they show um through all the adventures that they get to take. And I think that it's great that um Ashen recognizes that. I like that the lights were off and there was music on. Tell me what your favorite part's been so far. The music, a purple carpet. By the kids dancing on the floor, jumping around, the smiles. They
061look fantastic. I think they're having a blast. Prince William County Ashland Elementary School. You're making it very hard to go to military balls because this is excellent. The purple carpet. Way to go. [Music] This was truly an amazing event for our students, but we just wanted to kind of spotlight Ashlin and show what it really looks like to have events that that bring our families together and support our military families. Also last night, PWCS held the annual outstanding educators awards program recognizing educators who received or renewed their national board certification as well as our finalists for um support employee of the year, novice teacher of the year, teacher of the year, and principal of the year. This was a beautiful celebration that was held at the Hilting Performing Arts Performing Arts Center, showcasing the phenomenal
062work that is happening in our schools every day. And so I do want to congratulate the following winners. For support employee of the year, uh Connor Sadler from PTOAC High School was our winner. Novice teacher of the year for um elementary preK to five. Destiny uh Font Laoy from Sinclair Elementary School. Novice teacher of the year for secondary grades 6 through 12 was Sarah um Antion from Gainesville High School. And then teacher of the year for grades uh prek to five was Kristen How West Elementary School. And teacher of the year for grades 6 through 12, Kelly uh Wasson, Independence in Non-traditional School. And then also I want to congratulate our principal of the year for elementary as well as secondary. For elementary, preK to 5, Heather Good from Sinclair Elementary um took the win
063for this year. and principal of the year for secondary 6 through 12, Amanda Johnson of the Nosville School. And so we're incredibly proud of all of our educators and excited to honor them in our annual outstanding educator awards ceremony. I also want to congratulate another uh school leader who's doing a phenomenal job and was recently awarded, none other than Elise Zafiro, principal of Carydale Elementary School, who is this year's recipient of the National Distinguished Principal Award for Virginia. And the award is given by the Virginia Association of Elementary School Principles and it recognizes principles who set high standards for instruction, student achievement, character, and a positive climate and culture for students, families, and staff and their learning community. We're incredibly proud of Miss Zero's Zero's accomplishments and the dedication that he she has shown to
064our PWCS community and her support for teachers in delivering highquality education. Also, as we talk about high quality education and we are winding down for the school year, we are in the height of testing season. So, I would like to remind all families of the upcoming standards of learning tests and endofear course assessments that are taking place. These evaluations are essential as they assist us in measuring the progress that our students are making in their learning as well as the effectiveness of our curriculum and teaching methods. And as we approach the beginning of May, cooperation from our families and support from our families are invaluable in ensuring that our students are well-rested and attending school each and every day. PWCS will be hosting a few events that I do want to spotlight. Tomorrow, I want
065to invite all of our families to our family engagement series webinar um to review the in-person summer learning opportunities that that are available to PWCS students as well as how to complete the registration process. BWCS offers an academic recovery and academic support summer program for recommended students in grades kindergarten through grade 8 as well as discovery enrichment programs. A credit recovery program and so remediation is offered for students in grades 6 through 12. Also, we will have a an informative webinar on Tuesday, April 29th, in which students and families will learn how to complete the common application through a detailed walkthrough. Families will also discover what steps can be taken during the summer before senior year for those students who are preparing to go off to college. You can check out our website for more
066details on these events. And then finally, in April, we are celebrating numerous special observances. PWCS is dedicated to fostering a positive climate and culture while fa while fam supporting families and community engagement to enhance the learning and achievement for all. Making sure that all families and students and staff feel welcome and supported in Prince William County schools. This month we would like to acknowledge autism awareness and acceptance month. We're encouraged by the progress that our schools are making to provide support and resources for students diagnosed with autism, ensuring every student has the opportunity to thrive and succeed within our schools and community. That is a shared responsibility. The last full week of April is administrative professionals week and we are looking forward to expressing our gratitude to these individuals especially today on administrative professionals day
067Wednesday April 23rd. As adviserss, cheerleaders and confidants, our assistants and assistants and clerical staff keep us organized, focused and aligned with our goals. We also want to recognize National Child Abuse Prevention Month. No child should ever have to live in fear of abuse or neglect. And we wish to underscore the importance of families and communities working together to prevent child abuse and neglect. It is known that one in seven children in the United States will experience child abuse or neglect during their lifetime. In 2021, 1,820 children died of abuse and neglect in the United States. This is likely an underestimate because many cases go unreported. Child abuse is a significant social issue that transcends all boundaries of race, education levels, and income brackets. The devastating effects of child abuse can ripple throughout a person's life,
068impacting their emotional health, relationships, and overall well-being. And as we consider student health and well-being, tonight we are providing an update on substance abuse prevention. We've been trying to do a lot of work to be preventative in our um in our school district division and rather than um reactive. And so I want to invite our associate superintendent of student services and post-secary success as well Denise Heapner as well as our director of student health and wellness, Dr. Kayla Goodwin to provide us with an update on the division's efforts towards substance abuse prevention. Good evening. Thank you so much for having our team here. Vice Chair Blake, members of the school board, Dr. McDade. I'd like to just start by introducing a few of the members of our team. We have Dr. Kayla Goodwin, our director
069of student health and wellness. Additionally, we have Kim McLaren, who's our supervisor of student prevention programs and family assistance. We have Annne Henry who's our supervisor of elementary counseling and related services as well as Lieutenant Kimberly Mercer who's our supervisor or lieutenant over SRO's who also supports our prevention efforts through education and through our SRO's. Um before we start I also want to thank the school board and Dr. McDade for the additional substance prevention specialists that we received in last year's budget. It has really helped us um in our collaboration and coordination among offices as we make education prevention efforts. So under commitment two in positive climate culture, our goal is to promote wellness for all. As a division, we work to create conditions for those students who are experiencing addition conditions for those um
070students to receive resources and education about prevention and also align um our families with additional resources in the community. Our strategic plan was built on core values of equity, inclusivity, innovation, integrity, and resiliency and well-being. We take responsibility for the well-being of our students physical and mental health. One of the most important things that we do in prevention of substance abuse is help our students make good decisions. On this slide, you'll see some examples of the success skills that we utilize to help our students achieve academically. And these are embedded in our counseling curriculum and our day-to-day interactions with students. Social awareness, relationship skills, self-management, and self-awareness. But mainly, the responsible decision- making is um key in our prevention effort. And so I'm going to introduce now Dr. Kayla Goodwin, our director of student health
071and wellness, who'll be sharing the highlights of our prevention efforts. Good evening. We're on slide four. I don't know where. Oh, this is a clicker. I'm sorry. Okay. What slide is this? Substance abuse prevention education and programs are essential. PWCS places a strong emphasis on substance abuse prevention to ensure the safety and well-being of its students. The division implements a comprehensive approach that includes prevention education, intervention, and support services. The substance abuse prevention specialists play vital roles and supporting the substance abuse prevention programs in the division. To support the programs, a new position was added on July 1st, 2024. As Mrs. Cedner said, "The substance abuse prevention specialists develop and implement programs to educate students, staff, and families on substance use risks, prevention strategies, and healthy decision-making. They provide training sessions, lead workshops, and collaborate
072with schools and community partners to provide support and resources to students and families. They coordinate red ribbon week activities to engage students in drug free awareness campaigns that promote healthy decisionmaking. We couldn't do this work without our wonderful partnerships. Internally, we work closely with schools, crossep departmental teams, health and PE staff, the substance abuse prevention task force, and parent organizations like PTO. Externally, we collaborate with Prince William County Community Services, local coalitions, and regional workshops, including the Prevention Alliance of Greater Prince William, the Northern Virginia Substance Abuse Prevention Work Group, Opioid Process Action Team, Systems of Care Advisory Committee, Treatment Providers, Law Enforcement like DEA, and the Health Department. These partnerships allow us to expand our resources and align our efforts to provide more comprehensive support to students, families, and staff. We extend our gratitude
073to our partners. Without their assistance, we would not be able to provide the critical education and support our students and families need. The graph, this graph, provides a comparison of high school teen substance use in Virginia versus national averages. Overall, Virginia's rates in orange are lower than the national averages in most categories. However, one exception is cigarette use before age 13, where Virginia's rates are slightly higher. These data are from the Virginia Office of Substance Abuse Prevention's 2024 annual report. They help us better understand trends at both the state and national levels. on slide nine. On slide six, figure nine shows the year-to-year comparison of Virginia middle school students tobacco use behaviors. The results show a decline from 21 to 23 in all areas except ever using an electronic vapor product where there was a
074slight increase from 9 to 10%. Figure 10 shows the year-to-year comparison of high school student tobacco use behaviors. data show an overall decline in all areas. Figure 12 shows the year-to-year comparison of middle school students who try marijuana before age 11. While middle school students trying marijuana before age 11 has decreased over time, it is slightly up from 2021 at 1.1%. Figure 13 shows the year-to-year comparison of high school student marijuana use. High school student marijuana use also showed steady improvement. Period. 3.3% of students tried marijuana before age 13. In Virginia, drug overdose deaths peaked in 2021, followed by a 5% decrease in 2022. This trend was also seen among 15 to 24 year olds who overdose on fentinol or other synthetic opioids. While 2023 data for this group show a slight increase in overdose
075deaths compared to 2022, the total number remains relatively small, making it hard to draw a definitive conclusion. These trends highlight the ongoing need for prevention, education, and early intervention efforts. Now, let's take a look at the PWCS substance use data. This slide shows a comparison of total substance use infractions over the last three years FY23 to present along with our current numbers for this school year. The data reflect incidents from August through January for each year. We saw a decrease in infractions from FY 23 to 24. However, this year we are experiencing an increase in overall substance use infractions. on this slide. Slide 10 represents a comparison of discipline referrals for substance use infractions over the past three school years. The most common infractions continue to be for marijuana possession and electronic cigarettes. Marijuana possession,
076the number of infractions remained steady between 22 and 23 and then saw an increase this school year. Electronic cigarettes infractions saw a significant decrease between the 22 23 school year but have started to increase again this school year. These patterns highlight important areas for ongoing intervention and monitoring. Tracking these data help us identify where to focus our efforts. Here we see a continuation of our substance use infraction data for the last three years. Tracking these trends help us identify areas for targeted intervention and monitoring. Slide 12 provides an overview of the substance abuse prevention lessons develop delivered in grades K5 as well as some of the standards of learning that guide instruction at the secondary level. In elementary schools, lessons are taught by our school counselors. At the secondary level, lessons are delivered by the
077health and PE teachers in grades six through 10. Each grade level has a unit guide developed to address the specific health SOS ensuring students continue to receive substance abuse prevention education as they metriculate through high school through middle school and high school. Now you'll hear from an Henry who is our supervisor of elementary counseling and related services. At the elementary level, substance awareness lessons are based on the Virginia health education standards of learning located in the substance use and misuse prevention st strand. School counselors deliver the lessons at this level because they often work with students on such topics as positive decision-making and personal safety, which align with these specific health standards. The elements in each grade level lesson are developmentally appropriate. These include defining substance misuse for students, discussing harmful effects when substances are
078misused, teaching coping skills like refusal skills or resistance to peer pressure, teaching problem solving and decision-making, and including peer interactive elements such as roleplay. At each elementary grade level, notifications are sent home before the lessons occur. The content of the lessons is available for review, and we provide parents and guardians with the opportunity to opt their student out of the lesson if they choose. An example of an elementary substance awareness lesson is the second grade lesson on healthy and unhealthy choices. During this lesson, students begin by reviewing the definition of a drug as well as harmful effects of drugs. Students then participate in an activity in which they work together to sort healthy versus unhealthy choices. They discuss their choices as a group. In a previous grade level, the don't touch, don't taste, tell a
079trusted adult protocol was taught to students and it is reviewed in this lesson. It is a brief and simple phrase that aids in positive decision-making when it comes to students encountering unfamiliar substances. Finally, students apply their learning by interacting with their peers. They roleplay and respond to scenarios that involve potentially dangerous situations. Now, you'll hear from Kim McLaren, supervisor of student prevention programs and family assistance. Thank you. Tonight we would like to present an overview of the substance abuse prevention initiatives within the student health and wellness department. These initiatives are designed to support students through education, prevention, and early intervention efforts to ensure they have the knowledge and resources to support wellness and positive decision-making. Prevention requires a collaborative approach. We work closely with student health services, college, career and student support, and various community
080partners to provide comprehensive education and resources. Our partnerships further strengthen our ability to address substance use and connect students and families with the right support. The formerly named Tobacco Program was changed to Stop and Think, vaping, marijuana, and opioid prevention program, which now addresses topics that better align with priority areas identified by our data. The Stop andthink program is an education program for students who have violated the code of behavior as it relates to substance use and possession. School administrators may refer students to this program as a response to substance use infractions. The program is virtual and takes place once a month for students in grades 6 through 12. The goal of this program is to provide students with the opportunity to gain accurate information, honestly assess their involvement with substances, and make personal decisions
081about behavior changes with vital replacement options. Feedback from these sessions has been inspiring as students demonstrate a growth of learning. An example is during one session a student thanked our substance abuse specialists for teaching them about opioids. The students stated that they didn't realize how dangerous these drugs were. The stop and think program commenced during the 2023 2024 school year. This slide provides an overview of stop and think participant data from the last two school years including referral numbers, attendance rates, and participation by secondary level. This chart compares to data from August to January for both years. The 2024 2025 school data participants as is as follows. 12 schools have referred students to the stop and think program. The referrals by grade level for the 24-25 school year are in sixth grade there were four
082referrals, seventh grade, four referrals, eighth grade 11 referrals, 9th grade 17, 10th grade 14, 11 5, 11th 5 and 12th grade 5. This year our department launched the stop and talk parent education program which is designed for parents of students referred to stop and think. Our goal is to strengthen comm community communication between students and their families by providing parents with the same key information their students receive. Sessions are scheduled during the same week as the student sessions, ensuring that parents are equipped to engage in meaningful conversations at home after infractions occur. The stopand talk program launched in November 2024 and as we continue to pilot this year we are actively working to increase parent engagement and participation. Our most recent session was on March 27th and our next session is scheduled for March for
083May 1st. The substance prevent the substance abuse prevention task force has undergone a name change to better align with its mission, objectives, and the broader scope of work this committee is dedicated to achieving. Some of our current initiatives include reviewing our return to-learn regulations to ensure that students receive the support they need to successfully reintegrate into school after rehabilitation, overdose, hospitalization, or other substance related challenges. The goal is to support the student with reintegration, collaboration with the student and parent, and relapse prevention and stigma reduction. The second thing that we're proud of is that we partnered with the student health services develop to develop an empowerment screening tool which standardizes the tool for nurses to provide consistency in their assessments and improve documentation and increase early identification and interventions. And in improving our data collection
084is a third thing that we've been able to do in this work group is to be able to gain an accurate view of substance use in schools and evaluate current programs to ensure that they are adequately meeting the needs of our students. This group brings together key partners including Prince William County Community Services, family members impacted by opioid overdose, law enforcement officers who support school resource officers, and various central office staff. In addition to our core members, we invite guest speakers throughout the year and share insights on community data, emerging substance use trends, and other critical information. These presentations help ensure our strategies remained informed, relevant, and responsive to student needs. As this task force continues to work towards strengthening our prevention and intervention efforts within the school division, I would like to take a
085moment to highlight two key accomplishments of our work group. The initiation of developing early prevention for students in grades K through five. Through the targeted programming, schools have increased students awareness of safe medication practices, decision-making skills, and the impact of substance use on brain development. The second key initiative is that the deployment of the revive training for all staff. We were able to successfully roll out the revive training for all staff, ensuring that they are equipped to recognize and respond to an o an opioid overdose. We've also increased our access to nonoxalone in all schools and administrative offices, reinforcing our commitment to student and safety. Participation in training grew by 20% from January to June 2023 compared to January to June 2024. This demonstrates strong engagement and willingness by staff to support this initiative. Revive
086is the opioid overdose and the Knox loan education program for the Commonwealth of Virginia. This training covers understanding opioids, how opioid overdoses happen, risk factors for opioid overdose, and how to respond to an opioid overdose emergency. We partner with Prince William County, Prince William County Community Services to offer these training opportunities to staff. It's important to note that in 2022 2023 revive training started in January. In 2324 the data is for the full year and in 2425 the data is from August through January. Shaw provides a number of professional development opportunities for staff throughout the school year. These presentations focus on substance use and the impact on students as well as our community. Our presentations take place on designated professional development days and cover a range of important topics including substance use trends and oxalone
087education and available resources for staff. Last year, we expanded our collaboration to include sports medicine, ensuring all coaches, athletic trainers, and athletic directors receive training to strengthen our collective response to opioid related emergencies during the school day as well as after school hours. We are still growing, but we know this work will have an indelible impact on our students. The PWCS substance abuse program envisions continued data monitoring to develop guidance for school administrators on use of appropriate substance abuse codes. We plan to collaborate with research assessment and data systems to conduct a program evaluation to assess the impact of substance abuse prevention initiatives within the school division. Efforts to increase organizational coherence are aimed at enhancing existing initiatives such as the vape detector pilot program. Additionally, the vision is to seek an increase in collaboration
088with school health counseling and administrative teams to bolster substance abuse prevention supports. Strengthening the connection between schools and our department is also a key focus. For additional information, please visit the PWCS substance abuse prevention website. Thank you for your time and attention tonight and we welcome any questions. Miss Zagapore. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh thank you for the presentation. It contained a lot of really important information. I just would like to get a little bit more here um on the stop and think. Um you said it's a once a month and it's online. Is that synchronous or asynchronous? It is synchronous. Oh, it's synchronous. Okay. And then um so child goes and does the thing and then what happens after that? Like I'm just imagining there might need to be a followup but a month
089later seems you're not. Yeah. So what what what's happening in between those monthly meetings? So after the child participates um in with stop and think. So after they participate they are the the administrator is con is talked to and spoken to about the fact that the child attended and we the administrator tracks and monitors if the student has any more infractions. Oh okay. Okay. Thank you. Then the other thing I'm I'm concerned about, it's not a it's not an US problem, but um when students are going to go through rehabilitation or hospitalization, are are there any places within Prince William County that are currently doing rehab or hospitalization? I would have to get back to you with that with that question because I'm not sure at this moment. I'm sorry. Um Dr. Hemer, you should
090be able to take that one. So, thank you. So, Miss Agraper, your your question is our knowledge about providing Yeah. Are there providers in the county? Because I know a few years ago, you know, if if a student has a mental health crisis, they're often going to Fairfax and rehabilitation places are few and far between, especially for adolescence. So, I'm just wondering if we've had any increase in opening facilities or if you know of where because I know that's a concern for parents who are going through this. Yeah, thank you. So we um rely on our community partners, community services board to connect families with resources. Our role is the education and and providing supports to remove the barriers for learning. So that would be our role in this and that would be the extent
091that I can answer that question. No, no, thank you. I just um I just wondered if you knew and it's it's one of those sticking points because I know when it comes to student mental health, we've done a lot of things on our end and I know like Dr. McDade likes to say, we're in the business of education. Um it's but schools are always having to make up for the gaps and lacks of things that rest of society doesn't always have available to us. So that's why I asked the question. Thank you. Understood. Thank you, Miss Lagaport. Miss Williams. Thank you uh Miss Hunner and uh team for all of your hard work for this presentation. Um my question really sort of relates at this time to middle and high schoolers. So I was just
092wondering um when I the feedback that I receive is that they they get this. So I know that you're glad to hear that understood, comprehend, digest it. However, they um feel that or at least what I've received is that there's not enough um information on vapes and it not being socially acceptable. Um they kind of feel like it's just a thing that's out there. as well as marijuana use because they see it kind of everywhere. And so I was wondering what sort of new um language vocabulary, what are we doing in sort of an updated way or how have we updated it because I'm not in class with them and I'm excited to hear that they are paying attention. It's not boring because that's what I used to say. This is boring. So I understand
093the message is getting through. I was just wondering um you know what are we doing new for those two groups and I see it's mostly in health and physic and PE right are we doing any sort of companion lessons throughout the year like maybe there's a a information night or I'm just curious so thank you for the question as you heard the team really is the goal is to evaluate our current programs enhance those in the coming years there's a new resource that's been put out um it takes one and that is um a lot of great information lessons that have um provided to schools to evaluate if that's something that we would be able to use. So the resources are being updated all the time and in particular under the it takes one initiative.
094So we will be looking at those resources to do exactly what you talked about. How do we connect with kids at their level, make them understand um you all received an example. Y hold it up. Yeah. Fentinel awareness. And so we really have some um resources that come to us from VDOE. We typically use those resources because those are aligned with what the vision is for teaching the students. Um but we will definitely keep you informed on those. Thank you. And then my last question is um considering all that's going out in society and the rhetoric and economy and all these things. Um it tends to right now we're sort of at a negative aspect I guess you could say in some areas depending on who you are. And historically when we have hard or
095tough economic times we see um substance abuse uh rise. So are we doing anything sort of proactive kind of discussions held in um within leadership to acknowledge that that might be coming forth or we putting together any plans because I know it's not there yet. I'm just asking if we're talking about it if we're being mindful. That's all. So I I I'll I'll make a statement that I do feel especially this time of year. It's it's a very um stressful time of year for students in general. We're racing toward the end of the year. Some kids are excited about the end, other kids aren't. Um, you know, we have a lot of resources available in the division, including our Hazel Health. And so, we have increased our awareness to parents through our communications out into
096the public and internally to our administrators. We provided them um with that, you know, resource that should students need additional help or support. So, we're increasing our efforts for awareness in general to support mental health and working individually. Our student support teams are always available to work with students as well. And so, there is a raised awareness just in the heightened time that we are. And we we did have a a significant increase in um Hazel Health usage as well. We were only like at about 300 a little over 300 and now we're up above 2,000. Yes, we we we had a recent push and our administrators did a great job of really getting that information out to the community and I anticipate seeing that grow as we move forward. Thank you. I really appreciate
097that. Um because I I know those mental health and substance abuse go hand in hand and I appreciate the renewed effort of being mindful because it's very stressful times and I can see the difference as a middle school parent now um from a lot of the attitudes of the students on even how they interact with each other um about substance abuses and the conversation. So I I can middle schools are talking about it. I think it's working right in a positive sense and getting on each other about how um substance abuse, tobacco use and vapes are not a good thing. can't say it's cross division, but from what I see um so I I really want to congratulate um you and your staff and 11 years I've been sitting here. It's the first time I've
098heard uh the younger students really get on each other and inter daily interaction. So um thank you and I and I appreciate the mindful attitude about where we are. Go ahead, Miss So thank you. I have a question. So from what I see, the substance abuse prevention curriculum ends during 10th grade. However, from my experience as a high schooler myself, as a senior, I see that it is mostly juniors and seniors that are using um drugs or illegal substances and they are the ones who, you know, lead younger students into that same path. Is there any way we can like give more resources to our juniors and seniors? It's we definitely appreciate the feedback and that's why that data is so important as you heard the team mention that we're really working on effectively coding
099and recognizing when there are trends and so we can certainly consider that we do have in our high schools our new horizon counselors and so we have resources available when infractions or there is a need but I appreciate that feedback Mr. Denick. Thank you. I was actually going to ask the same question because I noticed that it ended in 10th grade um and that 11th 12th grade um those those kiddos could use some extra reminders all the time as well. So I don't know if there's something that we can do to extend that curriculum. I think they would just love one more thing, you know, to add on senior year just end strong. Um I do appreciate you highlighting our governor and his wife's program that it only takes one initiative. I know um Mr.
100Dr. Wilk and I and I think a few other colleagues attended um one of their fentinol awareness programs and it was eye opening for me as a parent to understand that a little bit better. So um if if people get a chance to go to that website, it's very insightful and to attend one of those trainings um and then to speak to your children about it I think is so valuable. So thank you so much for this presentation. I appreciate the comment about asking parents to speak with their children. the education and prevention piece. It is a family group effort. Um, you know, and one of the things that we can promote through conversation. Mr. Wilk, thank you, Mr. Blake. You know, my love for and my adoration for the code of behavior. So, I
101do want to talk about slide nine and 10 with the data and the statistics there. So what concerns me with those numbers is you know on the safe school advisory council and Miss Donley can back me up on this. We were presented preliminary data. You mentioned the pilot program of the vapes and there were schools that are part of this program where for every month there were hundreds of detections of vaping occurring in the school in the the bathroom or wherever these vape detectors were. Unfortunately, the disparity was when you turned it over and looked at how many times there was an infraction in the code of behavior, it was minuscule. And so I'm just wondering if I look at, for example, you know, slide 9, 784 violations with the code of behavior on substance
102abuse, but then more specifically on slide 10, the 80 for vaping in the entire division. Is that factoring in these pilot detectors at this point or is that going to be looked at later? And then my other question with that is what constit constitutes an infraction with the coded behavior. So are those for example students who get the first level and then they have a detention or something like that for getting caught with the vaping or is this only for potentially suspensions? So Mr. as you know and I'll keep reiterating all the great work that's being done on norming our expectations and on the implementation of the code of behavior. I can't speak specifically to the the p the pilot the vape pilot. Um that's you know falls under a different team but I do
103know that we have examined that exact data that you're talking about the frequency the followrough on the infraction and what makes a infraction an infraction. So no it's not necessarily a suspension it's a code. So when we pull that code it means that there has been documentation and followup. It's not um correlated with an expulsion or exclusionary discipline if that was your question. I also just want to add really quickly with the pilot why you can't we can't necessarily say that there's a direct one to one correlation with the data that you see here in the pilot is with the pilot it's letting you know you know we can tell how many times the vape detector may go off but every time that happens doesn't necessarily mean that the school can specifically identify which student
104you know that that may occurrence may have um happened with and may not rise to the level of them being able to um issue an infraction or a discipline um because they can't identify the student, right? Especially if you've got multiple students coming in and out of the bathroom at the time when the the sensor goes off. And so that's why with the pilot, we're taking that kind of data to make some determinations about how we actually implement this um you know in more schools, the dos and don'ts, what we learn from it, what kind of guidelines we need to give schools, things of that nature. So, the pilot is a learning opportunity for us and and the data that we're collecting doesn't necessarily equate specifically to um behavior instances or infractions. Can I ask
105one more question on the vape sensor? Sure. Is it possible that we get a presentation? I don't want to um risk security or anything like that or you know give the kids hints on what goes down but I it was a question that was posed to me in the public twice now from parents um because I think there's some confusion about our uh security um what do we call those again evolve thank you sorry clearly I haven't evolved um evolve and and the vape sensors and why do we have evolve or why are we getting a vape sensor if we have evolve the difference between those um I think something very insightful that you said because I'm also on that committee that Mr. Wilk apparently doesn't see me on, but um it's okay. No, I
106know. But um that you talked about how the vape sensors also detect noise and other things. So that could also be part of why the infractions weren't listed. So something like that, possibly getting a presentation on that here would maybe also help with the public's knowledge on it as well. I think we can at the conclusion of the pilot, we could do a presentation on what we've learned from the pilot, the data that came out of that um and then kind of dig into some of the explanations that would probably be helpful as well as how what role evolve does and doesn't play um with with vapes. So that that could be um a way to address that through the conclusion of the P. Typically when we do a pilot, we do do a presentation
107to the board so we can do it then. Miss Wall. Thanks, Mr. Blake. Um, I'm glad to hear about I'm glad to hear this presentation. Um, this is a topic that I've talked about on multiple occasions in past years. Um, and I knew you guys were working on a number of things and so I've kind of laid off on it. Um, and so it's exciting to hear some of the great things. Um, I'm glad to hear that the additional substance abuse prevention specialist is making a difference. um because you know that's a resource that you know when we allocate a new position and we hope that it will make you know more work possible and and better work. Um I am really glad to hear about the prevention efforts since we are a school division.
108You know the education piece is really more in our wheelhouse than like the treatment side of it which we really heavily rely on our community partners and our medical professionals and and our families to kind of pick up you know and take care of um problems if they do occur. But the education part we can really we can really help with through our um through our counselors and um our teachers. Um so I was really glad to hear about that. Um I I am pleased about the stop and think program and the stop and talk program. Um and the task force. I'm just highlighting a couple things that I'm really happy about. And I do did I also am pleased to know that we are doing a vape detector program and I do look forward
109to hearing more about that because that is also something that I talked about a number of years ago when I said I bathrooms was one of my biggest concerns and it was the vaping in the bathrooms. When I talk to students or when students reach out to me they tell me that the bathrooms are still a problem. That's a place where things happen that they shouldn't be happening. Like kids will go to places like that to you know abuse drugs. Um, and it makes the kids who are not in that not doing those things uncomfortable and and rightfully so because, you know, we want our schools to be drug-free and that's what we say, but then when they aren't, it's just it's a problem. And so, I really um am pleased with the effort and
110the focus to try to clamp down on this problem because it is a society problem and as we know, what happens in society does affect our kids. what's happening in our families and our communities. It does affect our kids and their ability to come present to school ready to learn. Yeah. Which is our goal is to help them learn, but if they're, you know, high or whatever, thinking about their next hit, then they're not focused on learning and they can't learn. They they can't learn. So, it is really important what you guys are doing. And I wanted to just thank you, every single one of you who are working on this problem. Well, it's not like our direct, you know, we're an educational institution and this is like set of a sort of a side
111thing, but it is important because it does help our children. Um, hopefully we can keep more of them from falling off the cliff into the drug abuse world. We can keep them up safe, you know, with the fence. Um, my I did have a question on the stop and think program. Um I you said uh may refer and that it's a virtual and then I'm assuming it's generally voluntary because the data showed that like we refer kids but not all of the kids participate in it. And so my question would be maybe we could look into making it mandatory in order to I don't know come come back to school or something. I'm not sure. I'm thinking just off the top of my head but in some way a little bit more compulsory so that
112they they need to go through it. um and that the parents maybe need to go through it. Um I know that's controversial, but um it sounds like for those kids that do it, it is helpful. Um and I also wonder if the ver I know virtual is easy and awesome, but maybe we could pilot an in-person conversation with a kid like like a face to face, you know, eyeball to eyeball. Let's talk about the content that's in the stop and think and see if that's even more effective. Um, just just throwing that out there. But I think, you know, you have an adult looking eye to eye with a kid who has a problem, you know, and they're saying, "I care about you and I really think this is important and I want you to
113listen to me because your future's on the line." That may be even more effective than like a a virtual click through it kind of thing. So, that's just my feedback. But anyway, I just wanted to say thank you for all you guys are doing. Thank you, Miss Wall. Okay. And I I have a few remarks and I just want to acknowledge um Prince William County Schools for its multiaceted and u proactive approach to this substance abuse prevention. And what is most striking in this presentation to me is the divisions recogni recog recognizing that uh discipline alone is not enough and you need education, family engagement and compassion must work hand in hand with policy. So I I strongly support like Miss Wall, I strongly support the continuation and expansion of the stop and think and
114the stop and talk programs like like the suggestions you made and the you know these provide not just intervention but education with dignity offering students and family you know tools to recover, reflect and grow. So um the increases in violations yeah between uh between um the 2023 and 20 4 and 204 and 25 year um particularly regarding the marijuana and vaping is concerning and should uh serve as a call to intensify communitywide prevention strategies. So, um, as a community, we should all be, you know, having our eyes open for this. And I I also appreciate the, uh, the data analysis and the division's emphasis on early prevention, including grade appropriate uh, curriculum starting as early as kindergarten. So, I I I really appreciate that. And, um, finally, I just want to thank Miss Hubiner, Dr.
115a good one, Miss McLaren and Miss Henry for your leadership in this space and um your team's work reflects an unwielding commitment to student wellness, family partnership and prevention with purpose and uh we all appreciate it and I know I'm proud of the direction we are taking and I remain committed to strengthening this work and partnership with our community. So, thank you and keep up the good work. I had one one PS. No. Um I I echo the thoughts of our um student representative about juniors and seniors. I know PE curriculum ends in this sophomore year, but a lot of juniors and seniors, you know, they're kind of stretching their wings and they're feeling invincible. Um and also, you know, as seniors, they prepare to go off to college or military or um careers. They
116leave home. That's kind of a time when it might be good to come up with a way I don't know how you would do it, but a way to talk about these issues in a more serious way with kids um and just kind of touch base on it, you know, as you move out on your own. I mean, there's a lot of those parents should be having these conversations with their kids, but it doesn't hurt as an educational institution to maybe extend that into those junior and senior years when there is a lot of potential for abuse because there's a lot more independence and there's a lot of invincibility and you know, people they they feel like they're they're eternal. They're never nothing's going to ever hit them. And so I think um and plus
117just cognitively and there's more awareness and more decision- making ability. So I I kind of I like that idea. I think that's important like maybe we should explore that. I would I would um second that idea. Thank you. And definitely it is the goal. And as I mentioned, you know, earlier with that second position, we are able to increase our collaboration. Um and Lieutenant Mercer is here. She's done some education in building. So we don't just limit it to health and PE. I know we we emphasize those lessons, but it's a comprehensive approach to educating kids, um, meeting kids where they are, having them be interested in hearing and receiving the information, you know, through our counseling teams, our social workers, and so that feedback is appreciated and we definitely will look at doing that.
118Miss Williams, one more question. Thank you. Last question. I just forgot to ask. Um, I know at one time we were hosting e programs in the evening for um, parents and guardians on what substance abuse um, indicators look like in your home, like what a container someone could store something in or candy and things like that, but it was by request from the school itself. I just haven't heard or or really looked for that this year. Is that something that we're continuing to do? Because I went to one last year, I believe, and it was extremely helpful. Um there was like a a bedroom Yeah. set up. Sure. And um I hear a lot of things and I learned a lot from that presentation as a parent. Um so I was just wondering if was
119that's a program that we're continuing to do or if we've sort of uh modified it to be electronic so you could click through SL. I don't know. I'm just I'm going to I'm going to give my team permission to correct me if I'm wrong. That is a program that um we partner Heather Martinsson um with community services board is the person who is involved in that. We have actually had that same display in that setup here in the Kelly Leadership Building. I believe it was during Red Ribbon Week. I'm looking over here. Yep. So far, I'm doing okay. So, that is something that we partner with our community resources with in order to do that. So, um it's it's certainly something that we can help schools be aware of and, you know, work with PTO's
120or parent, you know, teams request for that. But that is something from the community. That's not a Prince County initiative. It's just something that we partner with them. Okay. Thank you. It was it was seemed very school. It's a very educational. It was wonderful. So, I'm glad that school that I went to partnered with the community. I I wasn't aware of the difference. So, thank you. Yeah. All right. Thank you, Dr. McDade. All right. Tonight, we have two committee updates from Miss Wall and Miss Zagapore. We will begin with Miss Wall, who will provide an update on the school health advisory board. Thank you, Mr. Blake. I um attended the school health advisory board on April 11th um here at the KC and Mr. Wilk attended with me was a very good meeting. Um one
121of the things we heard was a vaccine clinic update and this is a great partnership with a number of community providers that help offer vaccines to kids for the state um mandated vaccines. Um so we got some update on that. the we also received a very um interesting and important update on the family life education uh human trafficking curriculum which is something that I know some community advocates have advocated for um over a number of years and as we know this is a problem in our commu in our community um in our communities and nobody's um immune to being potentially um influenced by human trafficking and so there will this was a really important important update um and there will be um some curriculum very important curriculum um coming our way soon. Um also we
122received an update on secondary devices for continuous glucose monitors. Um this is a topic that I think is well it's near and dear to my heart because I have a son with type one um who he was diagnosed as 10-month old baby. So, yeah, we've lived this world. Um, and this is exciting because there's a pilot happening, I believe, this week or this month. Um, and it will continue through the rest of this school year, um, for children who wear continuous glucose monitors. Um, and a a way that the schools can help monitor blood sugars in a less intrusive and more comprehensive and very much more effective way. So, I'm very excited. We were excited to hear about that. Thank you to all the staff who worked hard on that. Um and then um we
123heard a couple of other updates on the wellness policy and student health services. Other than that, it was a very productive meeting. I was very excited about it and excited to hear about the great things that we are doing in PWCS to support our children um and their health needs um so that they can be successful in their educational goals. This is my update. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Wall. Mrs. Zagapore is now welcome to present an update on the joint environmental task force. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, I went to the Jet meeting on April 10th and it was held here at the Kelly Center. Um, the the public can come and do public comment. No one shows up, but if there's something that uh you feel like you want to speak to that's
124either on the county side or the school side, you are very welcome to come and and make a public comment there. Um we covered uh just some business that to to facilitate our meetings a little bit better and then there were a couple presentations um short presentations. One of the things that I wanted to to make sure that um we heard about on our side of things was Jessica Wymer from Prince William County Schools reported that there's been um Bair Elementary School has the geothermal um uh heating and air uh you know the the temperature controls. Anyway, there's a 70% reduction already in energy costs and um I thought that was outstanding because it was just just became operational recently. So, um it's it's things like that that are making a difference in our schools
125and our communities and just pointing out that um of the county buildings or buildings in the county, the schools have so many pieces of property. The more that we can do to make them energy efficient, um it's making them cost effective as well. So, uh it was a great meeting and I look forward to our next one next month. Thank you, Miss Zagapore. That concludes our committee updates. Uh we are now moving on to board matters with agenda item 18.01, the presentation on factors contributing to the current enrollment at Coington Harper and potential solutions. Mr. Bach and his team will give a presentation on this topic. Thank you uh Chairman Blake and good evening uh board members. Uh I have uh Dr. Cartage, Dr. Matt Cartage joining me here at the podium. First, I'd like
126to thank uh Matt and his team for developing uh the presentation tonight, which really aims to provide for you an overview of factors contributing to overcrowding at Covington Harper uh elementary school, but also share uh with you and discuss some potential solutions. Uh so, at this time, I'm going to turn the presentation over to Dr. Cartage. Thank you, Matt. Thank you, Mr. Bach. Vice Chair Blake, members of the school board, thanks for having us this evening. We're going to go ahead and kick off. The presentation this evening will focus on three key points. The first one is talking about the historical circumstances and factors that led to the current landscape of overcrowding at Cington Harper Elementary. We'll then move into a section that discusses what factors were contributing to the delayed construction of what we
127are calling PTOIC Shores number two elementary school. We'll then wrap up this evening's presentation with an overview of the various solutions that are already being pursued and are forthcoming. The first part is talking about the circumstances that led to the overcrowding at the elementary school in the 2008 CIP. This was when we first identified the need for additional elementary schools in the Cherry Hill area. At that time, there was an initial redistricting u resing application applied by a different developer for a project called Harbor Station. That project was later picked up and pursued by a different developer and that is what came to be PTOIC Shores Homeowners Association. The developer profered two school sites to PWCS. One later became Coington Harbor while the other became PTOIC Shores Middle. The board of county supervisors approved the
128construction of approximately 3,500 housing units within the PTOIC Shores land bays. The animation that we have created and providing you this evening is showing the construction of each of these housing units since 2013 quarter by quarter. And then they are symbolized by whether they're detached homes or town houses. If anyone is counting, I can let it run one more time. Okay, I think we're ready. What we're providing on this slide is an illustration or a data visualization of the year-over-year construction amounts of housing units. We've identified with a gray call out the opening year of Cington Harper, which was for the 201718 school year. Over those first five years, the developers were constructing primarily detached homes, approximately 450. During that window of time, there were only about 30 town houses constructed. If you look at
129the bars right after the school opened, so 2018, you can see that the number of housing units per year increased significantly as the developers began building more town houses more rapidly than they had in the past with over 200 almost 300 units in the 2022 year. So over six years there was a shift to constructing about 500 detached homes but nearly 1300 town houses. One of the enhancements or under the hood improvements that we made to our projection model last fall was evaluating how houses that are 10 years old or newer actually yield students at a slightly different rate than the overall average. Detached homes actually yield students about onetenth more on average per housing unit while town houses are actually onetenth less per townhouse on average. So if we use these yield rates for
130Covington Harper and multiply these by all the housing units that have been constructed since the opening of Cington Harper, you'll see that that there have been about 450 students yielded from the new construction. Now, we'll bring into light why that number matters. When we opened Cington Harper in 2017, the school opened at about 75% of capacity and had roughly 280 seats unassigned or available. If we fast forward to the current school year, you can see that we no longer have a surplus. We're at a deficit. We're 200 plus seats above capacity. But the delta between when we opened and now is very similar to these 450 students that are yielded from new construction. As we look into the future, uh we anticipate about 100 more students coming from new construction coming to Cington Harper and
131that would be by 2627. So 2627 is the last year that we would anticipate overcrowding at this school as the BTOIC Shores number two elementary school is scheduled to open for the 2728 year. We're going to focus on the portable classrooms that are being leveraged at the school to provide temporary overcrowding relief. If we look at the top five schools in PWCS this school year with portable classrooms, you'll see Freedom is the most with 12. We also have 12 at the Nookville school. Nine are allocated for elementary. Three are allocated for middle. Kan has 10, Enterprise Elementary has 10, and then there are multiple that are at eight. Cington Harper is one of those. If we look in recent history at elementary schools alone that had a significant number of portable classrooms, PTOIC view for
132the 1617 school year had 14 while NABSCO had 12 for the 1718 school year. As we look ahead with these 100 additional students, we estimate or project the need for possibly five additional portable classrooms between this school year and the 26 27 school year. Now we're going to pivot into a conversation about the factors that contributed to the delay of PTOIC shores number two. In the 1625 CIP, an elementary school was identified as a future need in the Cherry Hill area. At this point in time, the scheduled opening was for the 21 school year. Land was needed. is if you recall from the earlier part of the conversation, the developer profered us two sites. Those became Cington Harper, the other PTOIC Shores Middle. So, we needed to secure an additional third site either through profer
133or through purchasing. As we move into the discussion of the delays, the first delay actually occurred during the 1928 CIP. This pushed the school back two years to the 23 24 school year and land acquisition was the chief contributing factor for the 22 through 31 CIP. This was the second delay an additional one year. The property acquisition was actually reaching final settlement and the absence of a site before that CIP is what contributed to that one-year delay. The third delay was for two years. Um, this pushed us back to the 26 27 school year. The factors at this point were largely out of the hands of PWCS. There was limited progress by the developer on the site preparation. So, these includes things like grading, utilities, infrastructure like the roads that would go to the site
134of the school. Uh the developer recognized this, offered the school division an alternate site and that took time to assess and evaluate. Additionally, the developer was navigating a variety of other factors as well, including negotiations with VRE, trying to time the VRE station with the opening of the town center. The town center in of itself required reszoning to accommodate the vision that was being cast for this area. Also during this time, the developer paused conversations with the school division as there was interest by an unnamed party in purchasing land that the developer owned, which included the 5-acre site that was intended to become PTOIC Shores number two. The fourth delay was during the 2433 CIP. This pushed it back to its current scheduled opening year of 2728. And the primary factors again beyond our control
135were related to site suitability issues that contributed to permitting delays. Now we're going to move into a discussion of what solutions might we pursue or continue to pursue to resolve this matter. We are taking a multifaceted approach. Some of the intermediate solutions are already underway. We are critically evaluating any new educational programs that are being proposed for being housed in Cington Harper. We're trying to align programs being in the school that align with the students who are assigned to the school and if they are not then we consider alternative sites in the immediate area. Additionally, we are using portable classrooms to serve as temporary overcrowding abatement. When it comes to the long-term solutions, the key one is PTOIC shores number two opening. But we also recognized with updated projection models, updated data that what we
136were initially proposing for the size of PTOIC storage number two was going to be inadequate for the region with the growth that we are observing and projecting. So during the FY2529 CIP, the board approved our recommendation to increase the capacity of this school by approximately 300 seats, bringing it up to over a thousand seats for this new school. We also want to mention that the redistricting for the opening of that school is going to begin this fall. We're going to run that concurrently with the redistricting we have planned for the Woodbridge area school that is just north up Route One. So, it'll be a phased approach. This allows us to critically evaluate all the elementary schools up and down the Route 1 and 95 corridor. We will implement part of the boundaries that are related
137to Woodbridge area for the 206 27 year and then the other portion will be for the 27y year when PTOIC stores number two opens. I want to mention that we recognize we've heard from the community members, we've heard from the board members, we would want redistricting now. And what I want to bring to our awareness is that as the speaker mentioned earlier, the board adopted an updated policy, a routine update like we do every five years for redistricting. They updated it in October. And one of the elements in there is talking about the capacity utilization of schools. The board strives to not change attendance areas that puts any one school beyond 105% of capacity for the first three years that the redistricting goes into effect. If you look at the chart on this page, you'll
138note that the other elementary schools in the Cherry Hill area, all of them already have portable classrooms. Most of them already exceed 105% of capacity before we try to send any more students to them from Cington Harper. We would be not able to create a draft proposal that would be in compliance with this key element. There was a motion back at the October 16th, 24 board meeting to amend the meeting agenda to task planning staff with proposing and pursuing redistricting. The motion did not pass. The last thing that I'll mention from the updated redistricting policy is that the awareness and highlighting of student stability is put into effect. When we look at the geography of this area, if we were to redistrict students out of Cington Harper for the remainder of this school year or
139to go into effect for the 2627 school year, the following year, most of those same students very well would end up going back to Cington Harper for the 27 school year. as a fact of the geography of where the new school site is, where development is occurring, we would not be able to embrace something that's so pivotal to student learning, and that's the stability of a school. Therefore, as we bring to a close to our recommendations, our recommendation is to stay the current course, continue to critically evaluate any new educational programs proposed for Covington Harper, utilize portable classrooms as necessary, add the capacity from the PTOIC Shores number two elementary school for the 2728 school year, and begin planning its attendance area in fall of 25. The key justifications for this primarily is twofold. We
140want to avoid the shortcomings of redistricting. Um it's a it is a task that puts a lot of burden on students on the schools and we don't move into it lightly. And additionally, there's just simply not space at the surrounding schools to offer any measurable significant overcrowding relief to Covington Harper. Lastly, as I mentioned before, we are supporting student ability and student learning by being mindful that the attendance areas for this geographic area will be changing for the 2728 school year. And that wraps up our presentation. I'm here for any questions, Mr. Wall. Okay, I know. Shocking. I'll start us off. Uh, thank you Dr. Carlage. Thank you uh, Vern. Thank you for the team. Uh, I appreciate you guys putting this together and doing the research. Um, it definitely, um, met my desire in
141the fact that you provided an overview um, uh, laying out the timeline of what occurred, what what led to these delays. Although I don't agree with the solution, I respect it. My board voted and voted it down back in October, as you mentioned. Um and unless there's a change or something in their opinions or something that they can state later uh probably after me then we're just moving forward as you said with the current plan that you have outlined there. Um I appreciate Mr. Jennick. I appreciate Miss Zagreapor uh helping me get this added to the agenda. Um I wanted this to be as transparent as possible uh because of the growing concerns as illustrated tonight with some of the speakers. Um, you know, I appreciate Miss Thompson, Miss Marshall, Miss Troy, and Mr. Ellingsson
142coming tonight as long as others who came before them. So I guess what I want to talk about now and it's already been brought up and broached I guess I should say by a number of speakers and and I'm not expecting answers right now uh at this moment about some of the concerns I have moving forward for the next two school years intermittently before this 150 seat building PTOIC Shores Elementary uh opens. Uh but these are some things that I've flagged and I do believe are you know growing concerns and I know we have a number of months the school year is actually coming to an end fairly quickly believe it or not as we all know. Um and then of course we'll have a summer and then the school will open. So families are
143going to have uh undoubtedly questions about this matter in a number of key areas that I would like to bring forward. And again, this is by no means a comprehensive list and some of it again has been articulated by other speakers tonight. And and if I was to summarize safety and security, right? And Mr. Bach, you know, I've brought this up. Um we're I think we're fortunate um as a district that um the the chairman of the Safe Schools Advisory Council is a resident of PTOIC Shores. Um so, of course, he sees the need and um the desire to um uh add some more security features. And um I know I've brought it up and the idea that uh again this idea I'm not saying that I'm going to get the approval, but this is
144what something I'd like for the board or everyone to consider is you know having a community safety officer assigned to that building. And we don't have to just make it Cington Harper specifically. We can make a benchmark in our division for elementary schools. Again, in my opinion, for if you hit a certain threshold of a number of trailers, do you get some more heightened security or support to better um you know uh what word am I looking for? Not assuage, mitigate. Thank you, Mr. Jennick. Uh to mitigate some of the concerns of the um constituents with that. Um so that would be uh an extra layer of protection. Um, I would love to see and I if my colleagues do not support the redistricting immediately for the next school year, this is something to consider
145as we expand the capacity of that building and add more trailers. Um, another item that was broached uh by Miss Stroy and in full transparency 3 weeks ago she and her family met with me at Panera. I heard this story from her um what she um mentioned tonight um uh during uh her citizen comment time and some of the frustration uh that she is experiencing with bullying as the number of students continues to exceed capacity. I continue to fear about the capacity and the ability for administration to be able to tackle the rising number of disciplinary issues. And this maybe again is not necessarily just Coington Harper specific, but what I'm looking at is a school that has really the enrollment of an a middle school. It's actually larger than Gramp Park. Uh the enrollment
146of larger than some of my middle schools. And again, I would like to hopefully look at if we're going this route, analyzing and seeing that if only two assistant principles is enough to support the disciplinary measures and the enforcement of that in the building. Lunch and transition times have already been brought up uh brought up. Miss Marshall mentioned about how lunch does start at 10:40 a.m. and that is true. Uh, of course I have concerns about how that's going to work um with the scheduling and ensuring that instructional time is not lost and all these kids are going to be able to go in not just for lunch but also breakfast in the morning and to ensure they have everything they need. I understand we do follow as a division the capac um the student
147per teacher ratio or you know um I forget the acronym but we follow that um procedure. My concern though is bandwidth on things such as cafeteria staff, such as janitorial staff, things like that nature that come up as a result of this increased number of students going through the school on a daily basis, encore special classes. Um, you know, when I was asked um by I believe a newspaper reporter about the 13 trailers, um, you know, I I I I was speculative about that because not questioning your data about that and your numbers, what I'm looking at potentially is, okay, so 13 trailers, but what about how do we add specials? How do we provide that additional support without adding additional trailers? So, that was something that came up to my mind and I know
148originally I think a couple of weeks or months ago I brought up the number 15 and I think we didn't have a final number and I don't think we're ever going to necessarily have a final number because of the construction and the growth that is going on back there um at an inex inexurable rate. But I I I do believe we have to look at potentially more than 13 trailers. But again, that is all something I know a principal makes a decision on based off their numbers and projections and things like that. I just look at that as a concern especially again with the transitions to and from the building. I also look at that with those projections and saying right now we have a system in place with um someone equipped with like the
149walkie-talkie and connected with the system and for safety and security. I acknowledge that. But again, increased number of students, increased crossing, you know, the courtyard, having to be led into the building, bathroom breaks, uh early dismissals, uh late arrivals, these different things that are potentially going to impact instructional time. Those are again further concerns of mine. Staff and space that, you know, was brought up earlier and again bandwidth. Um you know, as our two teachers came tonight and spoke about making sure we had the bandwidth to be able to support and educate these students. So those are some again this is not a comprehensive list and and I know other speakers can or will come in the future uh and uh and bring forward additional um topics. Um but those are items that you know
150I hope as a board uh without doing the changes in the redistricting this year that we are able to address um to the families of the community. And so final thoughts on this to summarize about what I've just talked about is I want to put a you know uh disclaimer that I don't believe student success is limited by learning in trailers. I had a trailer when I was in school in Michigan. My son was in a trailer at Swans Creek Elementary. I don't believe the quality of education diminishes inside a trailer in a classroom. That's not my concern. My concern, as you heard, is a a plethora of other issues. So I want to put that there out there originally. um a and and high quality teachers are there now. They're doing the best that
151they can. We have some outstanding educators in that building as we do in a number in all of our schools, excuse me, in Prince William County. Uh I want to also mention Mr. Jesse highlighted earlier this year, uh Coington Harper has received strong recognition for so scores. So, it is a top performing school despite you know what we've talked about here. Uh and so again, you know, my concern I think we have things in place right now for the present. I would like to obviously see major improvements, but my concern is for the future. What are we looking at the next intermediate years between the two? I don't have the support and the votes to change that. So, what can we do as a system and a board to assure our parents to mitigate any
152other issues that may come up as a result of this? And again, I'm not asking for immediate answers. These are just concerns and thoughts kind of where we're at with the presentation. So again, I thank the division for putting on the presentation. Uh I think one of the most glaring slides is slide 10. Um where we see all the delays and I would encourage people to dig in a little bit more about the unnamed party that caused the 2-year delay. Um this building was set as you showed the projections 2021 and that would have alleviated the overcrowding immediately but the delays that were compounded year after year after year caused the delay in this opening of school and as division a lot of this I know preceded this administration and this is what in a
153sense you guys inherited exactly so we're doing the best we can in that um in that regard um but that again that amongst other slides in the data that we're showing with the overcrowding that was pretty glaring to me and um I would encourage people to do some research on that item. But that is where I'm at. So unless something changes, uh those are again my concerns moving forward and I appreciate the division's time putting this together. This will also be my board matters, don't worry. So I will not need my four minutes at the end of this. So thank you Mr. Wil. Thank you. I I we hear your concerns. I've noted those and uh I appreciate your concerns. Thank you, Mr. W. Uh, Miss Williams. Thank you. I want to thank the division
154um for putting together this pretty con comprehensive presentation. I want to start with just saying that we have had a plan in place for this issue for years. It is not new to the division. It is not new to any of the board members um that have been here for a while. I just want to make sure that I reiterate that as much as possible because there seems to be this sort of sense of misinformation in the public that we are not aware or we have not been working on this and I'm glad that that was highlighted in this presentation. I think one of the things that there's a lot of information around is um how challenging it can be for the division to acquire land and to plan for a new school site. uh
155as someone who has served on this board almost since the first year I got on and been involved in land acquisition and finding new sites for schools and as the um district uh Whippers District is getting its first brand new ever school in well over two decades. This is an issue that's near and dear to my heart. Um as well as boundary issues. Um sat through many of those. I understand the importance of the cohesiveness of keeping a school community together and how much uh trauma it can cause especially for our young ones when we redistrict a reboundary within a certain amount of time. I believe one of our policies is we don't do within three years um because in my district I've had to uh put the kibash on that several times under the
156previous administration. Uh my district, I also understand as well as uh working with our former school board member, Miss Jesse, uh about trailers and trailer issues. I've always had trailers at my schools. It's never not been a trailer situation. Um I can say that that is something that this board has especially sensitive to over the years. There's mixed bags and feelings from staff and students whether they like trailers or not. Um, and I understand the complexity of Covington Harper, the distance is a little bit longer than at typical elementary school sites for the students to come in and out. Um, I want to stop right right here and ask a question about that. At one time we had trailers where students could utilize the restroom outdoor in the trailers. Um, is that still an option
157that's available now? That is an option and that's a note I've made to investigate um, an option for a trailer restroom at that location. Okay. Thanks. Because I've been in one of those. They're they're nice. way better than portaotties and concerts and sometimes even nicer than the ones in the inside of the building because they don't get as much use. Um, but I think that that's important because our our youngest uh learners often don't have the longest legs. Um, so I I hear the concerns from the staff. Um, but I I do want the public to know that our staff is amazing and this is not an issue that is new to them either in the instructional time or the safety concerns. I remember a few years ago, Morco Hills had over uh 10 trailers
158and there was just not enough space um because I sat up here and and was very vocal about emergency drills and that's an older smaller school. So, there wasn't even enough room if they did a tornado drill to house all of the students and the staff at one time and we've since resolved that issue. So, I know that we have extremely capable staff um on our side to help work through this. I understand as a parent too um because both of my students have been at schools with trailers how difficult it can be. Um but there are also some good things that come from that as well. Um but I just want to for the public to understand that it the beginning of that route one top of the PTOIC districts Cherry Hill area all
159the way up to north route one almost every single school is over capacity. There really isn't a place to put students. When you start to go further south, the distance and the time and the traffic and the bus schedules and all of those things also have to be put in consideration when we do redistricting. And there aren't a lot of other elementary schools in close proximity that we can bust those students to that we wouldn't add then again have to interrupt them. You'd have to really sort of go in western uh into the county and further Montlair area um where there is availability. But again, as you pointed out so nicely in this presentation, once we redistrict those students there, if we were to decide to do that, they'd have to come right back. And
160then you're talking about a loss of instructional time because of the longer bus times it would take for the students to get there. You're also talking about impact of families abilities to participate in programming within the school for their students and to be involved. So I I am very empathetic and sympathetic to our Coington Harbor families. Um, as a parent, I have experienced some of that myself with my student in school. Um, but what I can say is we do have amazing staff. We have great so scores. We have great programs at our schools. Um, and it has always been the case. Featherstone at one time, love the school, completely biased, but has been an award-winning school for several years now. Good so scores last year. One of those schools, significant amount of trailers, um,
161leading the way on having attendance. um and some other awards. So, while this is more than uncomfortable um for those students and our staff members of being a little bit overcrowded, the main goal of educating our students and learning and growing I know is continuing to happen. I just want to make sure that um I heard you clearly when you're talking about new programmatics that we're not taking away anything from the students and the families that are currently at the division at that school. Correct. That's correct. And we have no intention to do so. Correct. Correct. Okay. And uh the other thing that I want to uh bring up too is the lunch transition times. I'm pretty sure almost all of our elementary schools our lunch starts around 10:30 10:45. Correct. That's accurate. Yeah. Cuz
162I had a when I remember when I my youngest there's 12 year gap when they started elementary school again. I was like what? You're eating lunch at 10:00? What is going on? We do have second chance breakfast and other resources available for our students if if they're hungry after that. Um, but I know that we can't do any additional um adding of classrooms and such like that to Coington Harbor at this time because there isn't the land space too as well. Correct. That's correct. And we wouldn't be able to accomplish that within the time frame before we start redistricting. That's correct. Okay. Um because the other thing I want our our listening community and the public to understand is how long it takes to build um something. even with my new elementary school coming in
163that's also been delayed and due to site issues correct I I believe that's the issue one of the issues right and so I can tell you after serving and um our director of facilities could probably also uh agree I'm a pain in the butt when it comes to these kinds of things it's also something that I enjoy but uh Dr. Dr. Carter's going to tell you too, I'm in there when it comes to where we're putting students, how long it's going to take the buses to get there. Are we adhering to the laws and regulations that we have to for students in in a building, where we bust them, are we communicating well enough with the community and the family and educating them on all of the moving parts in this process? And are we
164being equitable? Because that's another very important thing. Um, it is not a slow, it's, excuse me, it's not a fast track. Anytime you want to move students, anytime you want to build a new building, you want to put an addition on, we have to work with developers, county, the public, the parents, the families. Sometimes it can even speak to in the case of my new elementary school, we have done all the things correct. You dig a hole and find a surprise that wasn't even on the county's um, development records. So, it's not an easy thing. and nobody likes an overcrowded school. Um, so I understand that, but I just want our our public to be very clear on the fact that we are aware that it is overcrowded. We knew this was coming and we
165have been doing everything we can for several years to ensure that the overcrowding period was temporary that we had uh mitigation plans going back in our CIP uh several years which speaks to the fact that we knew that this was an upcoming issue and that we plan to do our best to resolve it. We can't control when other parties are interested in landsite. We can't control if you find a surprise during construction. But I just wanted to be perfectly clear that um we knew this and we've had a mitigation plan for a long time. There have been changes to it, but we're going to do our best to ensure that our schools um are are populated as as we plan them to be as effectively as we can, but we also don't control when a
166developer starts developing, which is another key issue. Um we've experienced that or I've experienced that in Belmont Bay. We've had a couple of times where we've had developers go, "Oh, we're going to start to build houses." We start to plan for that. no housing or we've had issues where a site has been already approved for development, we're monitoring it, the developer says nothing, and all of a sudden we have construction. Um, so I think that there's a fine balance when it comes to student generation, where they're going to be located at, and all of the timing involved. I do want to congratulate this administration for uh not only changing how we look at student generation rates, but also how we plan to uh accommodate students. That was a major uh update to our uh procedures
167which I think has been very helpful. I also like the new graphic animation. That's pretty cool. Um when it comes to extra security, could you tell me what we have currently at our elementary schools for security? Yeah, we uh we have uh currently 12 csos that uh patrol our school division. They're armed uh former uh commission law enforcement officers. Next year uh through the budget markup, we'll be adding six additional. So they'll be uh um patrolling in essence four schools per day and be assigned to four schools. They go around our school division in a in a randomized uh format. We have uh uh added over 150 um school security officers in um and we have one at each of our elementary schools. Um with respect to trailers, we have cameras that are focused on
168our uh trailers um and also uh communications with intercoms and radios into the trailers. uh those doors just like our school building are kept secure and locked and we've trained staff in the school in those trailers too. Uh you know before opening a door make sure you recognize an individual just don't you know open the door for anyone. U so I think we have a lot of different safety and security measures that we've implemented at the elementary level to accommodate uh the trailers. Do we have armed security officers at our elementary school? We do. We have we have the csos that I mentioned going to 18 next year that patrol our elementary schools. Okay. And and do you I'm not sure if you know the exact time. I know it's a pretty short time period
169from a response for the police division to arrive on. I I don't have response times, but I know it's very quick because I remember at one point no matter where we were in the county, I think it was like under five minutes. It's very quick. Um so it's very quick and that school's also ve relatively close to um the Eastern District uh police station as well. That's correct. Um, do we have any um the cameras you say and I I don't want to go into detail, but they not only monitor the trailers, I'm sure, but as well as the grounds around Yes, ma'am. Okay. Multiple cameras around each uh each campus because I I inside and outside concerned about, but I know Coington Harper does not back up into any wooded areas. Uh so it's
170pretty open line of sight as well. Correct. Okay. I just wanted to make sure because I have a lot of schools where there's nothing but tree lines back there. So, and trailers. So, I heard a lot of comments from our our families about that. Um, and I just wanted to be clear when we do the redistricting plan, um, it's going to involve for Cington and the new elementary school. Will we also be looking at some of the schools on the other side of Route One and opening up to a broader, uh, viewpoint because I think that's one of the issues is that we notice there are some schools as you move to the west that have available seats, but I'm not sure what that looks like. Could you talk a little bit about that as
171well? Yeah, absolutely. So, as part of the process, we will update our enrollment projections in October based on our new baseline September 30th. At that time, we'll be able to really identify what will be the total scope of the schools affected. We know now that we confidently want to move forward with the entire route one corridor from Belmont all the way down to Triangle. I'm assuming you're kind of referring to like Ashland and Montlair kind of going up. I'm not a geography expert, but I know there's there's available seats on that end. We we are aware of the space at Ashland. So we will be looking at that more comprehensively and then recommending to the board this is the scope that we think we should move forward with. And how will the community be able
172to participate in that process? Yeah, so through the new regulation and policy that was adopted last October, we will continue to use community town hall style meetings to engage with everyone. And then we will also for the first time be using uh focus groups and these focus groups could be representing schools on the north on the south. It could be a subset of population within the affected area that could be its own focus group. Additionally, we'll have an online interactive website that parents and guardians will be able to go to, learn about all of the milestones, the process, enter their address, and be instantly told this is how your school assignment would change from these various proposals. Thank you. I appreciate that. Um, I know everyone doesn't like trailers, but I can tell you they've
173been here for a long time. When I was a student at Prince William, when the dinosaurs roamed, we had trailers. I had trailer art and a trailer back then at Rock Ledge. Um, I just really want to thank your you Mr. Bach, you and your team for all the hard work uh that goes into presenting this material and really being aware and monitoring what the county does because we are limited um in the amount of time that we have to make a decision. And there's so many other outside factors uh that occur that we have zero control over that often interrupt our plans um to have uh schools not at over capacity. So I want to thank you again for this presentation. I hope that u the public um will be able to tune in
174and and um if they have any questions reach out any after this. So thank you. Thank you Mr. Go ahead Mr. in it. I mean, we do have great technology. It would be wonderful if we could somehow get buttons where once we push in, we're in a order. Um I, you know, since we'd like to remind the public of things, I'd like to remind the public that last meeting I tried to vote to limit our time to five minutes. Um I think it's very difficult for us as board members to get to allow each other to speak when we take 15 minutes of time and we don't switch over and allow for other questions. I would like to thank you, Mr. cartilage because a lot of the questions that were asked I know you've covered
175in another presentation that you gave us in the past. I would also like to thank my colleague Mr. Wilk because I think that um this this lens is put like Mr. Wilk is doing something bad by asking for this. Um Mr. Wilk was elected to represent his district and his constituents, his teachers, his parents, they had an issue and he needed to address it. whether it had been addressed on a board years ago doesn't matter because right now there are parents who may not have had kids in school years ago who have an issue and Mr. Wilk needed to address that issue. So I thank you Mr. Wilk for doing your job as a schoolboard member and addressing your constituents and their issues and their concerns. Um I too have constituents that have concerns in
176my district about overcrowding. We've talked about this before. You we've had good discussions. Um, what I'd like to ask for, um, because I think this was very insightful. I don't need you to do a presentation here, but possibly a smaller, and I know you did a little packet for me, but possibly rescending it and updating it for Hey Market because um, because this has come up on the agenda, my Hey Market parents have reasted, what are we doing? What's the plan there? I know that there is steps of mitigation and plans. Um, I also uh would like to say that leadership matters at our schools too. Um, our schools that are overcrowded, leadership matters, and I think that it's a big deal when that's a trickle down effect to some of the issues that we
177heard tonight of um, you know, discipline and things like that. I think some of those things hopefully will will change at certain schools that are overcrowded um, with with different changes as well. Um, and I know I've seen that firsthand and appreciate that. So, um, but I I do feel strongly for our Coington Harper families, uh, the parents that came and spoke tonight. Um, and I'm I'm sorry that we can't do more, that you can't see what we're doing, um, tangibly right now. Um, but I hope that some of these mitigation strategies are helpful to them um and to their students especially and that um I believe that they're still getting a wonderful education and I hope that continues and that it it can only get better. It can only keep getting better for them.
178Um I I do disagree strongly with talking about trailers being great. Um I've just never liked them. Uh that can be my opinion alone I guess. Um I'm not a fan. I don't think that they should be included in capacity especially when we talk about capacity of the school because the school is the building that we built for them to go. I do not believe that the trailers should be included. I don't believe that they should be included when when we're talking about land use cases and things like that. Um so I that's something I struggle with. I I do um see this as an issue and I see us repeating this history and I've said this before. Um in in my district, we're getting ready to have neighborhoods that are continuing to be approved.
179Every single month we have land use cases coming to the Brentville district for approval. Um and as that happens, our schools are going to become overcrowded, especially because you talk about how new houses have more children than old houses have, I guess, is what you said. Um, not the houses physically. I assume it's the people that move into them, but okay. Um, I think that that's going to be a conversation that we have to have. And like like we said, I think a comment was made that we have overcrowding in all of our schools. I I know that that's not true because I know that in my district, we have overcrowded schools and under capacity schools. And I think a redistricting effort would help mitigate that even without the build of a new school and
180things like that. Um, so I appreciate all your work. I know you guys are working through different strategies and um, again, I'd just like to thank Mr. Wilk for advocating for his constituents. Mr. Jesse, you know, I I I'm really happy that you've brought out the causes for what we have here. uh it's a very delicate situation. Uh humans, parents, people who buy the homes, you know, they were probably told about the problem with the uh school being overcrowded, but they bought the home anyway. the developer. What I would hope, but I know it's not going to happen, that the parents get really ticked off at the developers because that's where the the problem lie. But that's not going to happen. They're going to get ticked off as us and it's not necessarily fair. We're
181doing the best we can, but that's just the reality. So, we have to deal with it. But again, we got a real can't use the word I want to from the developers and that person or the persons are making money now and they're not doing anything to say let's help get something with our school system. They are just making money selling the houses as fast as they can. I think Mr. Wilks gave some excellent uh ideas uh that we need. I do agree with my colleague to the left here that we should not and I hope we are not counting trailers as far as the capacity of a school. So that that I hope but you know is this again we need to the other thing I think and I'll end here. Uh, I believe,
182and correct me if I'm wrong, if a school is a title one school, the amount of students that they have is limited by the capacity of the building and also if you have trailers. But is that correct? I think you you might be mentioning the Virginia kindergarten through third grade class size reduction grant that some of the schools utilize as a function of when they qualify based on the number of free lunches that would then invoke reduced class sizes for grades K through three. And as long as they're in compliance with keeping the class sizes for those four grades under what the grant outlines, the limiting factor to your point is are there enough classrooms to make those class sizes upheld. Okay. Title one isn't necessarily directly related to that. It's more the Virginia K3
183class size reduction grants, but some of our schools are are using those grants and that's that's the issue and we don't want to give up the grants. Correct. Correct. So again, uh thank you for uh doing this. Actually, I would like for you to have beaten up on the developer a little bit more, but uh you did did a reasonably good job. Thank you. And and if Mr. cartage could just address the trailers incap uh incapacity of buildings. I'd like him to do that. Yeah, thank you. Um to Mr. Trading's point and Mr. Jesse's point, when we receive a reasonzoning application from the county government asking for an impact statement. If the developer has identified the school's capacity inclusive of trailers, we flag that as an issue. Our impact statements that we deliver to the
184planning department, which then goes to the planning commission and the BOCS, those impact statements only provide an assessment on the physical building itself. No portable classrooms are ever included in those assessments. Thank you, Miss Wall. Thank you. Um so um to Mr. Wilk and community members from the Coington Harbor area, I am very sympathetic um to what your school community is experiencing um due to delays in the um area um for Gainesville High School, delays for getting the school open, the land, and all other kinds of delays. Um, you know, my my students were at Battlefield High School when it was had a a thousand extra students beyond capacity. Um, so I I know what you're experiencing. You're not there yet. Hopefully, you won't be there. But I I understand. Um, and I and I
185am sympathetic. Um, overcrowding is is is something, you know, we don't we we try to avoid. Um, I think you know the BOCS approving housing and approving lots of higher density housing than originally perhaps was planned, the developers slowdowns and delays and the land issues, the suitability issues of the land. These are things that are without beyond the school division's control and they are all three a factor in what has h what has transpired here. I think the history was very informative. Um, it helps to understand like how did we get to this place? Um because you know it is frustrating to have lots and lots of housing built and then the schools are trying to play catch-up. Um and and then when you get developers and delays and land issues and you know site
186suitability thrown in the mix, you end up with a problem like this. And so I am truly sorry that this has happened. Um, however, having experienced a number of boundary adjustments in my area of the county back a decade, 15 years ago, um, when the same kind of thing was happening where developers were building handover fist and making a ton of money and, you know, just throwing houses up and the school division was trying to build school year after year after year. Um, and I served on several boundary committees because I was in areas where my kids were getting redistricted. I know that one thing people really do not like is getting moved out of a school that they're happy with. And if you move them one year and then two years later you move
187them again, they're going to be very unhappy. And I know this from personal experience in my neighborhoods, in the town halls, in the boundary committee hearings. you people just do not like it because it disrupts their play group associations, their mom groups, their birthday party lists, their babysitters, you name it, it it's very disruptive. And so I think while the community does have a a you know a a a desire to say, "Okay, let's let's redistrict and it's okay if we redistrict in a couple of years." I don't know. Just take it from somebody who's lived through that. it is it does come with a lot of unhappiness and and frustration. Um and in this situation if a boundary adjustment were to proceed this year like the 25 26 school year let's say we you
188know did it um and then again two years later in the 2728 school year we would have to redo that and invariably there would be kids who would be moved out of Covington Harbor to another school and then moved back into Covington Harper or they could be moved from covington Harper and then moved to yet another school which is what happened in the Bristo Gainesville Ville hey market area, you know, 15 years ago. Um, and it and it did cause a lot of pain. Um, and and people don't like that. They don't like getting moved around. They don't they don't like getting jerked around. It feels like that. And ideally, people think, "Oh, well, I won't move. Somebody else will have to move. I'll get to stay in the school." But it doesn't necessarily work
189that way. And so, I think um I appreciate the chance to talk about this problem. Again, I sympathize with the desire to do something quickly and now it feels like we need to solve it now. But sometimes the quick solution can cause greater problems down the road for families. And I know while it's difficult, um this is a difficult challenge the community is facing with the rapid development of housing in a relatively small area and all the land issues and everything else. I do um trust that we can get through this and that's what my community had to do back in the day. Um and and I and I think we do have a good plan. I wanted to offer one suggestion and I don't know if it would it's kind of out of the
190box thinking. We can take it or leave it. It's totally fine. But um what if we another idea to the ideas that Mr. well put forward would be what if we had like a liberal transfer process where if somebody really felt like I just can't deal with this overcrowding and I'm willing to be the one that moves that we had like a liberal uh transfer process in the elementary school within a region or something where families could apply to go to a school where there was space as long as they provided themselves transportation or something like just throwing it out there if you want to move we'll let you move because normally we have a we have limits right you have to have like a a babysitter or like a bullying reason or a doctor's
191note Just throwing it out there because we do have availability. Not necessarily next door. There are only a couple schools here. I see Swans Creek and Mary Williams have a few spaces. Um, but that's something we could consider like just kind of opening it up a little bit, a liberal transfer process where if families are willing to be the one that moves for a couple of years knowing that they may have, you know, they may get redistricted back into Covington Harper, then at least they could escape the overcrowding. Just throwing that out there. Yeah. Thank you, Miss Wall. And we do have that process in place already. Coington Harper does qualify for that as it exceeds 120% of capacity. Parents can request a transfer through regulation 721-1 and site significantly overcrowded as the reason. It
192becomes an accepted reason for transfer and they could transfer out. I did not know that we had that policy. That is great to hear. Okay. Yeah. Um maybe maybe that could be offered to the community. Like if this is you're really unhappy about you know kids in trailers then here are some schools that you could transfer to. What was the policy again? 721-1 probably. All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate your work on this. I think you know thank Mr. Book for bringing it up. It's good to talk about these things. They really are important issues and people do care deeply about it and I understand that. Thank you Miss Wall. Miss Daggerapore. Uh, thank you. Um, so, so Cington Harper is not a school I am as familiar with and I know when
193I looked at the numbers of the area schools, they all seemed overcrowded and data shows this. Um, but when you put Patty on here, Patty is up 234. Yes. How many miles is it away from Covington Harper? It's not close. It's on an adjacent school. We use CIP regions. Okay. And the theory behind that is that if they are in the same elementary CIP region, then through redistricting, cascading effect, those schools are close enough in proximity. Okay? because um the one thing that I've had to do as a board member was when we built the new elementary school in Manasses and three of my schools were affected. None of my kids were going to go to the new school and I get the they were trying to move kids out of a crowded school and
194sort of spread it out and and families were upset about that. They were happy in their school as it was. Um my concern and this is my concern for a lot of pockets in this county particularly down on the Route One corridor, Mr. uh Wilks district, uh Mr. Gennick's district, and this is going to be some tough conversations, I believe, because we have schools that are so overcrowded. Um and I'm looking at this Patty Elementary and I'm I'm thinking, but there's Henderson nearby, there's Ashland, I have Kyle Wilson, which has got a a ton of kids in it. um and you're you're you'd have to shift these populations all around and you get to um you know as you kind of push into different territory. I I feel like that's what's going to end up
195happening in some of these very very densely populated places. And I am worried about Brentsville because that sounds like one that's just going to it's a it's going to happen. So I I I don't have a solution. I just um want to offer up that this this is um not as easy as it would appear and uh and echoing a lot of what Miss Wall had said. Um it it's there's a lot of other things to be considering. So thank you. I I don't know if you have a response or anything, but I I or or if you have a great idea and you're just like I was waiting for someone to open that door, but thank you for for this presentation. I think I'll just bring um a reminder to the board and to
196those tuning in that Prince William County is not immune to decreasing birth rates like we're seeing throughout the entire nation and globally as well. So what we have to be mindful about is we have projections today that are a a prediction of the future. We're going to have updated projections come September 30th and that'll be our first set of projections that do no longer has the effects of the preandemic. Also, this coming year, the kindergarten class has an heightened amount of variability for projections because we still recorded their births in 2020 as living here. And as we all know, a lot has happened since the pandemic. There's been a lot of mobility, a lot of shifts to the exerbs of DC, to Richmond, to the Carolinas and South. So, we'll need to see what that
197kindergarten class actually looks like this fall. And some of these places that have been overcrowded, they might course correct themselves without any redistricting. It won't be the case for every school, but some will. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um yeah, just thank you for that detailed analysis and uh the responsible approach to problem solving. Um I just think this kind of forward I think it's a um that it's a forward thinking, forward planning, and it's uh grounded in data and sensitive sensitivity to the community needs. So I think it's a good a good um a good course of action and and I think it sets a standard for effective governance. So uh I appreciate the presentation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. On to board matters. All right. We start with Oh, Mr.
198You said you got you pass. Okay, Mr. Denn, [Music] come in. I I'll I'll pass too, Mr. Jesse. Three strikes. You out. I'm the third strike. We out. What? We'll have all 14. Yeah, I never give an opportunity away to say something, right? Um, okay. Um, first of all, happy administrative professionals week to all of our administrative professionals. Um, also I love stop the scroll, take control. I don't remember the name of the student who won that. I love it. Um, I'm really excited about the cell phone policy and implementation and communication and enforcement plan, which I would love to hear more about. Maybe we're going to hear about that. I'm not sure if we're going to hear about that by um at the end of this set of meetings, like hopefully next month, but
199um I would love to hear about it and I think the public would probably benefit from hearing about what our plan is um come August. So, if um we can talk about that later, I think that would be fantastic. Um I hope everybody had a great spring break. I know I did. I was able to visit my three um college students, my three PWCS grads um and spend some time with them and they are doing great. And they tell me because I asked them, you know, how do you feel that your PWCS education prepared you for college? And they all report that they feel very prepared and they're all doing very well. So, good job educators who educated my kids. Um, I want to share my congratulations to all of the outstanding educators who um
200came out last night for that amazing ceremony. It was a really nice event. Um, I am told that the reception food was provided by Garfield's culinary program and it was delicious. What an honor to be there in attendance with some of the people I hold in the highest esteem. Educators have been some of the people who have directly influenced me the most in my life. Apart from um my parents and ecclesiastical leaders, they're they're right up there with these great great wonderful people. Um, congrats to all the finalists. Um, we had a couple of folks from the Gainesville district, so that was pretty exciting. Um, I also wanted to say, um, earlier today I attended the unified track meet at Forest Park. There were 13 high schools in attendance from Prince County and Fauler County.
201And there were so many amazing, supportive students there to help out that track event to be a great um, unifying um, inclusive event for students. It was just a wonderful feeling, unifying um kind, thoughtful. It was it was amazing. So, great job for everybody who participated in that. Now that the budget um has been approved, we'll be heading into our annual review of the code of behavior, which is um a ritual. I think I look forward to reviewing the recommended improvements and I hope that they um reflect my thoughts on where we need to go with the code of behavior. Um I'm looking forward to hearing about how our students did in the third quarter. Um, and I encourage everyone to work hard and stay committed to the end. I've quoted this before. Um, but
202it's that time of year when this thought comes to my mind. Um, some years ago, my father gave every grandkid the chance to earn a large pack of Skittles if they could memorize this poem that he gave them. And not surprisingly, many of his grandchildren took him up on the offer. And some of his own children did as well. And um I am the recipient of his frequent quoting of this poem, which has become kind of a mantra. And I'm not going to quote the whole poem, but I'm gonna start it out. It goes like this. It's the steady constant driving to the goal for which you're striving, not the speed with which you travel that will make your victory sure. It's the everlasting gaining without whimper or complaining at the burdens you are bearing
203or the woes you must endure. It's the holding to a purpose and the never giving in. It's the cutting down the distance by the little that you win. It's the iron will to do it and the steady sticking to it. So, whatever your task, go to it and life's purpose, you will win. It's a very nice thought for the final quarter of a school year. And uh thanks to my dad, I multiple times have memorized the spell for a bag of Skittles. Anyway, um to thine own self be true. Good luck everybody. And uh have a wonderful wonderful week. Thank you, Miss Wall. Miss Williams. Well, looks like I should have added that minute a long time ago because uh the amount of time we're saving. Um I'm not going to take up too much
204time. I just want to say welcome back from spring break. I hope that everyone had an enjoyable spring break away from school and got some rest. We are in so season. I want to let parents know that one of the best ways to help their students is by talking about it. Um teens aren't especially excited to talk about it, so you may want to do it in short chunks. That's what we do at my house. makes it much more effective especially car rides places uh because if you have boys it tends to go better less direct eye contact also for parents testnav is on your students Canva account on their device that is a place that they can go to do practice so tests um if you are like me even though I've been doing
205this all these years sometimes the questions throw me I don't want to throw my student direct them right to test nav uh we get rewards if you take a test and get a good score I also O want to remind parents it's not just the material on the test that's important. It's learning how to take a test that's also important. So the best uh you can do to replicate an environment similar to what they will be doing in school when they take the test. Also maximizes the score that the student can achieve on the test. If you don't have a quiet environment, it's okay. As similar as it can possibly be works just fine. Uh also in my house, we do one test and I let it go. Um, the older the students are, the
206less likely they want to do homework back to back. It's also good to have breaks in between. Um, and that's very helpful. I know a lot of students have test anxiety. I did not enjoy taking tests myself. So, those are some of the few helpful hints and suggestions that I have from at my house because we often focus on the material. Um, and we don't uh we live off the part of how important it is to learn how to take a test as well. Um, in addition to that, it's schedule times. A lot of students will be making selections, course selections for next year. Our course catalog is online if you want to take a look at it for parents. Also, I would highly encourage you review um the Dr. McDade, I'm sorry, what's it
207called? It's not th it's profile of a student, right? Gradu profile of a student profile of a graduate. Yes. So, it's in your parent uh view or your student vision profile. Sorry, I keep getting the two mixed up. But, as we're moving into next year, that's very important. Parents, it's in your parent view account. And students, it's in your student view account. It's uh all the information you need to plan for the future, for your academic future. So, go ahead and look in there. If you have a rising ninth grader, it gives you all the high schoolers, especially programs, everything under one sun on one document. It's uh amazing. Outside of that, I'm going to wrap up by saying happy administrative professionals week and happy administrative professionals day. Thank you to our clerk, Miss Laura
208Mills. To our deputy clerk, Miss Anna, and uh Danielle is in the back. It is important to uh appreciate our administrators. They are often the ones that are the backbone of the people you see out in front making the decisions. They do the work behind the scenes. And I just want to say thank you very much as someone who spent 20 plus years as an EA uh and in in administration. It's how I grew up. I know the work that is done. And I just want to say thank you very much from the bottom of my heart. Um it's a lot. So uh with that uh there's some new upcoming events and the only one I want to mention is rising senior applications for common application overview for families. That's on April 29th. It is
209a virtual parent engagement series. Thank you, Miss Zagapore. Thank you. Um well, this won't be too long. Uh I forgot to mention that at the um the meeting that I had attended, we had talked a little bit about the event that's going to be tomorrow night, the SE's highlights. Um SE's is the um Prince William County student environmental action showcase. So these are project-based learning opportunities that students and their teachers worked on together. Student driven um teachers the guide on the side and uh they came up with their own questions about something in their environment and uh just kind of followed that thread until they got to a project. So those will be tomorrow night at independent school. U there's not a lot of parking over there. They said that there will be parking over
210here and a bus to take us over. So I forgot to mention that one earlier. I want to thank the uh parents that I got to speak with over the past week. Um my spring break was uh spent uh time just with my grandsons uh three in one. And watching how they learn and grow has been um fun to relive, but I don't have to live it every single day. I can pass them back off. But I was home and I got a chance to take extra time to meet with community members, um some teachers, uh and um and parents and some students as well. And I I just want to remind um teachers, I love hearing your concerns and I will always make sure we start our meetings by saying as long as it
211doesn't have anything to do with the collective bargaining stuff, I will sit and listen. Um because that's just a conflict of interest and I want to make sure that if there is something that's important that doesn't that's outside of that, I am available to you. Um thank you all for uh everyone who came to talk tonight. Um I do care what everyone has to say. Uh sometimes it's not always easy to listen to where we are not um thriving in and I want to make sure that we are doing things to make um our schools better for our students. Hope everyone has a great last quarter and have a good night. Thank you, Mrs. Eapore. All right. Well, I just want to say uh welcome back from spring break. I hope everyone found some time
212to rest and recharge and spend some meaningful moments with family and friends. And as always, it's been a privilege to be here representing the Neapsco district and reflecting on their incredible experiences since the last meeting. So over the past few weeks, I've had the honor of attending a wide range of events that truly highlight the uh vibrancy and dedication of our schools staff and most importantly our students. Uh let me start by congratulating Hampton Middle School who defended their title and won Battle of the Brains for the second year in a row. Uh congratulations. I also had a chance uh to spend quite a bit of time at Garfield over these past two weeks. Uh which I like to describe as a small city. It was bustling. Just between the orchestra craft show, they had
213a community popup event. They had a powerful studentled uh six the musical and a health and wellness expo. So as as you can see Garfield just continues to be the hub of culture, health and community connection in Dell city. And um speaking of energy and expression, I want to give a special shout out to the uh Fitzgerald Beam Steppers and my Beville Imperial Steppers who lit up the stage at the step up and show out step show. um at Patriot High School. And then our our students uh critical thinking was also on full display as I attended the math quest and math 24 competitions at Ben Middle School. Uh that was great. And I also attended uh the round two of the mock trial competition where the students presented arguments before the appellet court. And
214I mean just the level of preparation and confidence these students showed was uh remarkable. I also attended Battle of the Books, uh, where Glen Kirk Elementary emerged victorious. Congratulations. It's always refreshing to see such enthusiasm from reading and teamwork. Um, at Dell City Elementary, it was so night that stood out to me. Um, the parents came in and we were writing uh encouraging messages on greeting cards for the students to to read before they take their test. So that was that's that's what community really looks like. Um and then we celebrated multicultural night at Neapsco Elementary. Um like you heard tonight um just congratulate all of the winners from the outstanding educator awards last night. And then we today I just enjoyed the gray weather for field day at Minville. And I got to go
215with my colleagues or meet my colleagues at the unified track meet like Miss Wall said. It was 13 schools from Prince William County and Faul here competing side by side. And then you have our general education students out there serving as peer models and peer partners. and it's just truly um a model of inclusion and action and it's just a really a good thing to see. Um and then I just want to thank thank you all for the continued work you do in your respective roles and I I thank you I thank you to our community for showing up for lifting up and stepping up for our students every single day. And um I just also would like to say um I will continue to stand with with our families, with our educators, and most
216importantly with our students. Equity is not a trend. It's a moral imperative. Diversity is not a checkbox. It's our strength and inclusion is not optional. It's foundational. I remain committed to the decisions that reflect the values of our community and uphold the dignity and opportunity of every student we serve. Thank you. And there being nothing further to come before this board, I declare this meeting adjourned.