October 5, 2016 PWCS School Board Meeting

001I call the Prince William County Schoolboard meeting to order uh we will start with the invocation uh today's invocation is request of Mr Justin wil of the bomic district we will start this meeting with a moment of silence thank you moving on to the Pledge of Allegiance I understand that boy troop 1378 from the Dale City area will be leading us leading Us in the Pledge of Allegiance so I ask that you come up and stand somewhat near the podium here and afterwards lead us in the pledge and afterwards if you can give us your grade your school your name your grade and your school that would be great okay thank you please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the

002Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you your name your grade in your school please my name is Lucas bills and I'm homeschooled my name is Isaiah Brown I'm in sixth grade and I go to Ripon Middle I am Zachary buff I'm in seventh grade and I go to Middle I'm Ashton Williams I am ninth grade and I go to Heritage Christian School my name is Logan bills and I'm also homeschooled okay moving on to the approval of the public meeting agenda a motion is in order Mr chairman Miss sat I move at the Prince William County School Board approve the public meeting agenda as recommended thank you do we have a second Mr chairman Miss Rolston I second thank you discussion those in favor

003of the motion please signify yes by raising your right hand thank you the vote is seven yes one absent Williams motion pass uh moving on to the adoption of the consent agenda a motion is in order Mr chairman Miss sat I move that the princ County School Board approve the public meeting consent agenda as recommended thank you Miss site do we have a second Mr chairman Miss Ralston I second sensing a pattern any discussion on the matter those in favor of the motion please signify yes by raising your right hand thank you the vote is seven yes one absent Williams motion pass okay we're moving on to item 13.01 which is the title one school's presentation uh asked for by Miss Rolston good evening chairman Sawyers Schoolboard members and Dr Walts this evening we were

004asked by Schoolboard member Diane Ralston to present on Title One programming within the division we will be sharing information summarizing the title one program models Staffing and resource support for Title One schools we will be talking about our current reality for Title One schools with respect to standards of learning and phonological awareness literacy screening data I would like to recognize at this time our hardworking Title One principles and our staff members who are in the audience and ask them to stand for recognition at this time I would like to invite Michelle Rose supervisor of Title One to the podium you good evening chairman Sawyers Vice chairman Jesse members of the board and Dr Waltz I put my glasses on um as Miss GS just mentioned Miss Ralston requested um a brief summary of the title

005one program the title one program part a um Grant allocation included on this slide um currently supports 26 elementary schools and two middle schools in Prince William County in additional two elementary schools uh Swans Creek and King Elementary are receiving Title One funding for the first time this year the purpose of this funding is to um provide additional resources to schools with a high percentage of economically disadvantaged students so that all students are able to meet challenging State academic achievement standards schools with 75% or more of their students qualifying for free and reduced lunch are required to receive Title One funding and it's at the discretion of the school division to serve schools below that threshold and historically we've served schools uh elementary schools at about the 50% rate and middle schools at about the

00670% rate while schools are identified for Title One funding by the percentage of low low-income children School allocations are distributed based on the number of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch so therefore schools that have a greater number of students um receive a larger allocation the majority of this funding is used to hire additional instructional staff to support with reading and math um it's also used to provide funding for extended day tutoring programs whether it be before or after school sometimes on Saturdays um purchasing instructional materials technology professional development for teachers and administrators and to purchase summer reading and math materials to mitigate the summer learning loss that commonly occurs in order to ensure compliance to Federal fiscal guidelines the title one budget is managed at the central level These funds are not

007included in school site-based budgets and are currently also not Consolidated with other title programs the primary fiscal rule of title one is that title one can only be used to supplement resources and services and not suppliant so in other words it can only be used for resources and services that um are over and above what is expected to be provided of all children in the division engaging parents is one of the major requirements of the title one program a 1% set aside is mandated for this purpose and 95% of this set asde is given directly to schools for the purpose of engaging uh parents and families in their students learning each year Title One school teams comprised of Administrators instructional staff um and parents develop parent policies and compacts that describe how families and schools

008will work together and use this funding to um increase student learning schools offer at least four workshops dial meetings for families um and typically they learn in practice math and reading Strat IES at this at the at meetings so parents are better equipped to help children at home each Title One school's parent policy is currently being updated and will be um on the school's title one website for review division parent meetings are also held in fact we have one coming up later on this month um parents from all Title One schools are invited to the division parent meeting um and so they have an opportunity to learn more about Title One at the division level ask question questions um provide feedback and uh recommendations for improvement additionally we collect parent uh surveys uh information and

009the 2016 title one parent survey included responses from 965 parents 91% of the parents who had children in the math Support Program um indicated High satisfaction and reported that parent uh students understood math concepts better as a result of the program and '94 4% of parents who had children in the reading program reported that their children improved in their reading skills 86% of the parents reported satisfaction with the program either most or all of the time um a growth area for us would be to improve attendance at our title and family events 55% of the parents reported attending at least one event but our Focus this year is not only to support and improve the attendance um at these events but to really family engagement as um an improvement strategy um and not just a

010series of isolated events uh this slide shows the two types of program models that schools can choose to implement schools with a poverty rate of at least uh 40% can choose to operate a schoolwide program all of our uh tedan schools meet this criteria and this model has become the more common model to implement not only in our division but neighboring divisions and across the state the schoolwide concept is based on Research showing that pullout services for low performing students typically are less effective than coordinating wide-reaching Improvement strategies that could impact all aspects of the school's instructional program individual students at these schools are not identified as Title One students um any student in the school May benefit from the the resources Title One schools implementing a schoolwide um program must develop and annually evaluate

011a schoolwide plan and the first step in the schoolwide planning process is to conduct a needs assessment and this planning team is led by the school's Administration and includes instructional staff Specialists such as guidance counselors curriculum Specialists um and parents the needs assessment includes an analysis of performance on the state assessments um and it is disaggregated so we're looking at groups of students um and those groups of students would include students who are economically disadvantaged um students with disabilities English Learners um students from major ethnic and racial groups as well the plan has to also explain how the schools will identify students in need of support provide interventions and then monitor their progress the the other model is the targeted assistance model and that was the predominant model implemented in Prince William County till about

012eight years ago in the targeted assistance model students are identified to receive Title One Services based on multiple academic criteria such as state assessments division assessments um and sometimes teacher rating scales the title One funds in this type of model can of course be uh used to hire additional instructional staff to support with reading and math and purchase materials and some of the same things I mentioned earlier with a schoolwide program but it can only serve a specific group of children and that's the children who are identified as at greatest risk for not meeting academic standards so basically this type of program must provide evidence that the title one funding stream flows only to those targeted students this slide includes the current reality of the reading so pass rate for all students in Title One

013schools for the last three years the data is reported on the VOE school report cards and it this data does not include adjustments for State accreditation purposes in reviewing three years of reading data there were six Title One schools that had a pass rate of 70% or better in 2014 in 2015 and 16 there were 16 title wi schools who earned at least the pass rate of 70% while some improvements have been made since 2014 uh of course there's always room for improvement in closing the achievement Gap you can see from this slide that um each of the 28 Title One schools are unique in terms of their pattern of performance my goal as the program supervisor is to increase the number of schools that are achieving a pass rate of at least 70% so

014that by the end of this year we can say 100% of them have achieved that Benchmark and of course goals for students schools that are already at that Mark would be to increase their um performance by at least five to 3 to five percentage points depending on where their current performance is some of the action steps that my office has taken to support Title One schools include working collaboratively with the office of student learning and accountability to assign division level staff members to serve on Title One School Improvement teams to help with the school Improvement planning efforts um professional developments have Specialists have delivered job embedded professional development targeting specific components in reading for the um areas of balanced literacy and those um professional development sessions are usually identified at the school level based on

015their unique need Title One Specialists have also assisted with um uh unpacking standards uh and helping uh teachers navigate through the the curriculum expectations during Collaborative Learning team meetings and Title One also works collaboratively with the office of special education and particularly with the CIS program to help schools develop a multi-tiered systems of support which I believe you'll hear more about later on um and we've also conducted instructional rounds with um staff at the school level so we can get into classrooms and see what's happening and with efforts to just improve the next level of work to improve performance So based on this data and input from Title One principles and also through our observations through instructional rounds um the title one office will also take additional steps this year um in providing professional development

016to increase alignment and the cognitive level of independent practice students are engaged in during the reading and writing Workshop uh that would be their independent practice we're also offering a study group for Title One Reading teachers focused on building academic vocabulary because we know that many students not just English Learners in Title One schools often lag behind in vocabulary development moving forward another strategy that will be utilized includes learning from our high performing Title One schools as a start in highlighting best practices Mr provencio and his reading team from minville elementary and Miss Ellington and her reading team from Mullen will be sharing how they've established a culture of literacy at this year's reading recovery administrators Institute happening later this month additionally Mr Brewer the principal at acaan elementary has also invited and agreed to

017have instructional staff visit aaan to learn about the practices they've put in place to ensure that all students are achieving at high levels this slide similar to the reading um is the current um status for the math so performance for the last three years um just like reading this data is reported on the videoe report cards and it does not include adjustments for State accreditation purposes once again schools are unique in their Trends in 2014 there were 17 schools that had passing rates of at least 70% in 2015 there was an increase to 20 and last year we had 18 schools in this range um three of those 18 schools had a pass rate of 90% or better once again my goal as the program supervisor is to move the cohorta schools so we have

018more schools achieving at at least that 70% pass rate and continuous goals for um Improvement goals for those who are already there some actions that were taken by the um tle and math coordinators include assisting schools with building an early mathematics program uh we've been using the research and um um program elements of assessing math concepts and developing number concepts by Kathy Richardson uh we hold monthly meetings um with our Title One Math teachers so that we have an opportunity to study instructional strategies relating to the early number sense skills um other other standards as well last year we had a focus on number talks uh implementing number talks in our classrooms to improve our students numeracy skill and increase the discourse that happens in mathematics Title One Math teachers worked with classroom teachers on

019this to implement this practice in the classrooms this year in response to our so strand data we plan to use the a lesson study professional development model to study math standards that have have been historically challenging for students and just like in the area of reading our approach to improving student performance has been primarily through a professional development approach so that we build the capacity of the teachers and the instru all the instructional staff at Title One schools oh must have sorry about that all right this slide um has data that is available that measures um literacy performance at early levels and it's the kindergarten phonological awareness language screening assessment or Pals for short um kindergarten students are assessed using Pals in the fall and the spring and this slide includes a graph that compares

020the fall data to the spring data for certain pal sub subtests um The Brighter Blue Bar um is the fall data and the darker blue bar next to that indicates the spring data and the gray bar if you could see that behind is the expected Benchmark students are expected to achieve and both the fall and the spring on average kindergarten school uh students in tile one school are meeting or exceeding these benchmarks on subtests such as alphabet recognition Beginning Sounds letter sounds and spelling generally kindergarten students are are showing good progress from the fall to the spring however beginning sound Beginning Sounds when presented within a word is is a growth area that we will need to Target strategies to address um this area include continued professional development for all new teachers new to teach

021in kindergarten and working with our reading specialist to ensure that these early literacy skills are not being taught in isolation but within the context of the reading and writing of text so of course like any other program or School the title one office recognizes there's both celebrations and challenges um through data reflection collaboration among School staff central office staff and families and most importantly by establishing a culture of high EXP expectations for all students um we will continue to work towards closing the achievement Gap and ensuring uh excellence and equity for all thank you for your time this evening and for your interest in the title and program thank you open up to discussion Miss Rolston thank you Mr chairman um how often do you have parent involvement meetings at the division level uh this

022um should we've had a fall and a spring and um in both cases we offer two meetings so we offer an East and a West in the fall and an East and a West in the spring to make it easier for parents to attend um we are considering adding a winter uh meeting this year so that would be three times okay and as far as test results that we see here how often do you report progress to this board to everybody uh this is the first time I've been asked to do a presentation on title Title One okay um can I hear from some of the principles especially my principles Mr provencio and Miss McDonald when people think of Title One programs they think of kids that cannot um be taught very much and it

023that's not the case at all if you give everybody an opportunity and you think that they can do a good job then you put forth that energy and they do when Title One started back in the 80s I don't want to go too far back cuz it really it really was a long time ago parents were more involved by law than they are today so whether you come or not your child still gets that same service back then you would still get the same service but we would Wag the finger at you and say why aren't you there it wasn't so much that they were looking for parents to educate their kids but it was to give the parents an opportunity to find out what principls are doing what teachers are doing so that in

024some way we could help out too but um of course uh these are two principles from my district and I know we have some other principles and I want to hear from them too if the um chairman doesn't I anything that they're comfortable doing them okay with uh we wanted to monitor time as well but that if they weren't part of the presentation or you would like to ask them go from there okay so please chairman Sawyers Dr Walts thank you very much for uh having the disc discussion about the importance of of tital one schools all 28 of those schools are just we're just working really really hard and we're all at different places in our journey um and it's amazing when we have our collaborative conversations about just the hard work and Equity

025uh Sweat Equity that's going into to achieving Excellence for every single student and I think that's what tidal one does is that it provides those extra resources to help every single child um perform at their absolute best um we're all at different places places in our journey but we're all we're all very very determined and focused on on that end result which is Excellence for not all students each student um which will help all students so so thank you for starting the conversation appreciate it thank you all right um I'm anet McDonald principal at Belair and as a new principal I'm really really excited with the data that I received this year um beginning in July and seeing uh the opportunity of all of our students at our school uh as a very diverse population

026and a lot of children that look like me um it's refreshing to know that I have staff that that are extremely supportive and parents that are extremely supportive and all feel that all students can be successful um with my staff I'm able to hold them accountable and have them uh hold me accountable in regards to providing just Stellar 21st century education um no matter the backgrounds of our students so to TI to one program this supports in the um the budget the staff um is extremely knowledgeable on curriculum documents activities Etc it's just a wonderful program and I'm just like uh Mr Provincia very excited um that we're on different Playing Fields however we're able as administrators to just latch on to each other and um and learn from each other this is really awkward

027to be called to be called out but um I'm excited to have the opportunity to be heard for sure and thank you for your leadership thank you any other board members with questions or comments Mr bran uh Mr sers thank you for the opportunity to talk um M Ro thank you for coming back I I I was on the other side at the last two meetings and I I think I saw you out there waiting for an opportunity to speak to us so third time the I'm glad you're here tonight and I'm glad you finally have the opportunity to speak to us tonight um you mentioned I think it was was it King El school and Swans Creek correct you don't have to do this tonight on the spot of course because you may not

028have the data but would it be possible to get some of the statistics some of the reading scores and math scores for those schools as well over the last few years maybe just emailed to us or sent to us absolutely absolutely I believe they weren't included because technically they weren't a title one school for the last three years but absolutely yeah and I understand that that you didn't need to include them but if you could I would appreciate that sure thank you thank you Mr BR additional comments questions Mr deuts thank you Mr chairman thank you all for coming out uh thank you to the principals for being here uh thank you uh Miss gu um so just a few questions I guess I'm a little surprised that we're going for a a 70 80%

029pass rate for the grades here because that means that's not like scoring 70 80% on the test that's just a pass rate which means 30 30% of elementary kids still aren't like passing reading correct so what's I guess why why is that the case what are we doing to and then like what are we doing to keep moving moving those rates up because everybody needs to be able to read in elementary school so when um in my discussions and considering smart goals that are specific measurable achievable um that is certainly just a starting point that is not an ending point um and considering where we are and where we want to be and we want 100% of those schools falling into that category but schools that are already there of course that expectation would be

030that they would continue to improve um but for schools that are far from that Mark we want to set incremental Target so that they they can achieve um and um you know find that to be a reality um we're certainly moving the needle on a lot of the schools that we've been supporting but some of the leaps uh might be great and like I said each school is so unique and where they currently are um when you look at a cohort of of 28 schools it seemed to be um sort of an an achievable Target and if we were there and all schools made continuous progress I think we'd be moving in the right direction do we have a a time frame for when we're hoping that all schools are going to be hitting at

031least 70% Pass rates in reading and math by well my time frame would be by the end of this year do we think that's achievable I I do I do think that's achievable cool um you mentioned uh resources for helping engage parents and that's awesome is there anything we're doing with the PTO groups at those schools to help you know add more members help out with them because often those are a huge resource for the schools and sometimes schools that have uh more uh economically diverse student bodies have a harder time recruiting members um are we doing anything to help maybe beef them up or give Assistance or um that is a challenge um that is a real reality um of getting more parents to um participate uh we I hold um two meetings with

032the tit all the title and staff each year and it's devoted just to family engagement we have schools share best practices because we do have schools that have very high numbers of parent attendance so we try to learn what's bringing those parents out in those particular schools and uh we share those ideas all the time pretty cool and then so what are we mention on here there are two middle schools that count as Title One what are those two schools I'm sorry what what are the two middle schools that are count as Title One Redlin and um Hampton Middle School okay very cool and then I guess the the follow-up question is what are we doing or not what why don't we don't have any Tittle one high schools um is there what are we

033doing to at least help facilitate more resources to you know we have two or three high schools that are far uh in more challenging circumstances maybe they barely don't hit the marks that y all laid out but they they have some challenging numbers they're trying to work with correct so there's there's additional um support in the division for high schools I'll let Mr Basset speak to that so one of the one of the philosophies that has traditionally been applied as it relates to Title One programming is to intervene with the greatest amount of resources as early as possible with with students obviously that doesn't mean that you don't tend to the needs that you have at the high school and with the limited resources that are available um spread across so many schools it does

034require some difficult decisions about when you bring which levels on high schools um there are very few high schools in the state of Virginia I think there are two high schools that are Title One high schools um and so it's it's not a common practice most folks do try to Target those resources earlier but for our high schools um we try to provide coaching support professional development support to those to those schools um there are also grand opportunities that we Chase to be provide additional resources to uh high schools to provide them with with additional support as well um but it's certainly a place where we could where we could use some additional resources particularly in schools that have higher concentrations of students with greater needs so I one last followup I know it's slightly

035tangential but uh at the high school level what can we do to Target more resources to those high schools that need it because a lot of our funding formulas are based purely on number of students where maybe we need some added um targeted funds to help boost scores at certain spots I was leaning back Dr W I didn't see you Dr Waltz thank you uh one thing that we have in our funding formulas is for every child on free and reduced lunch there is a funding differential for each child so a school that would have a higher number of students on free and reduced lunch would get additional dollars so the more students you had the more dollars that you would get we when we get into the budget uh time if you're further interested

036in looking into that uh Mr Klein can give you a couple of examples how that works sounds good anyone else Miss Jesse I'm sorry thank you Mr deuts Miss Jesse uh thank you for coming um and I want to thank Miss Roston for putting this on the agenda uh as some of you know I was a tital one supervisor in Prince weam County for 10 years and I know how challenging it can be I wanted to um as we look at this year our goal really is to close the achievement Gap we've discussed it as a board and it's a very serious matter because although we're saying tonight there are all these These are scores that are for the general population there's no disaggregation of this data this year uh so do you know where

037you're um free and reduced and I was really looking at the data the free and reduce where your gaps are do you have a a sense of where your gaps are um in those schools I do we so again um each school is is very unique in that sense so I have average um Pass rates for the reporting groups um that I think you're referring to um so um in re um in reading and in math I I would say that um groups of students that are having the most challenges are students with disabilities um and the average pass rate is around a 45% for both reading and math um another um reporting group in Reading that um has I would say larger gaps is are English Learners um we know that you know research

038shows students Take 5 to seven years to really acquire a second language and unfortunately our assessment system gives them pretty much one year um and then perhaps they get an alternative assessment however perhaps they do not um and they're at about 64% okay um in terms of their average pass rate in in Reading um the economically disadvantaged uh subgroup uh in Reading is at 67 so I would say just to answer your question the other reporting groups are in the high 60s mhm um our white subgroup in Reading is 80 and Asian is 86 as an average so there are definitely gaps that need to be closed um in math I would say the the data is similar um but our reporting groups such as our um African-American students LEP Hispanic um are falling in

039the lower 70s um so not as much of a gap in math and I think that probably speaks to the the language uh you know we have a high percentage of LEP students in our Title One schools and the reading assessment is going to be more challenging um and as I mentioned before some of our students even if they are native English speakers there's a vocabulary deficit um that would impact the reading achievement that sometimes isn't present in the math or there's different accommodations to take the reading aspect out of the math um so that's about where we sit with the sub with the group reporting groups well I I wanted to uh thank you for um you know we we did meet and talk about because you know I have a lot of questions

040and I appreciate you giving me the time to sit with you and talk about what our current reality is because um as I told um Miss Gau and I've told the superintendant uh when we come in this boardroom and we present this data and it just sounds like everything is going going along great and we know that is not and it's not just for us but Nationwide but we have set a goal to close the achievement Gap and I also want to thank um uh the superintendent staff uh as we're looking at ways to really close the gap in a very specific way so when you say you set a smart goal of 70% for all of the groups I think that um when you do the current reality formula and you set your smart

041goals you really have to look at where people are and to make sure that your smart goals are reachable goals and that they are stretch they're you know there're there are goals that will stretch people and I to be honest with you I'm a little bit concerned that if you set a 70% for I know that everyone wants to be at 70 75 it just 75 for reading on the state level for reading for State accreditation for State accreditation is 75 those are those are adjusted those are adjusted R and they average them out three over three years uh actually that changes um but they do a threee average correct for sometimes for that so I I would like for you guys to look at for example um there are some schools where the special

042education uh data is uh really very extremely low because 45 or so is our average so when it's an average that means that there are some above and some below so um when you sit down and you decide on your current reality uh you really should engage your teachers in setting a goal that they think they can achieve what stretches them uh and for some schools that I know when I go to aquan he's not here uh they have a stretch goal of um 95% because they hit 95% so then the next year they may set another two points but if you're asking people who are at 40% to move in one year 40 points uh I think when you look at that you might want to just think a little bit about that um

043yeah so that 70% was for the all students um that wouldn't um hold true for the different reporting groups of students we would definitely have to look at that on an individual basis that's critical to look at because the reason you're below 70 Pro is is those groups and you really need to look at where those groups are and deal with that because this year the state of Virginia has decided because we're in a transition from you know we're looking at that whole waiver thing and uh the new esaa SSA and we only have to look at the average Miss Jesse I think M I think Dr Waltz actually can is wants to help answer that question Dr Waltz C could I just finish because I think he I may answer it for him or

044you may not have to answer it at all but the that next year they I've talked to Dr Sadat down to the state department and next year they're going to come up with a formula and we're still going to be accountable for those subgroups so I just want you guys to be aware that although this year the school system looks great because we're 75% that we keep in mind and I think we talked about it when we had the meeting that we look at the subgroups and establish re realistic goals and I also want to thank you for um looking at which what we call those islands of Excellence where people there are schools in this County who are tied of one schools doing exceptionally well and that we all learn from each other so

045so that's that's all I really unless you feel you need to answer a question I'm I'm good Dr Waltz I'm I'm good any further discussion Mr wal thank you uh thank you for presenting tonight uh so yeah and I too am very concerned about looking at the subgroups and looking at you know the groups from I three schools in the pic District now that Swans Creek is added Elementary School you know and and I see the variations and I understand the idea that every school is different um you know one is doing exceedingly well one's mix in one also is low um and you know some of the Stark variations a lot of it is what I see is with the special needs students um and and that might be something you know to look

046into at the higher level as well with the special education but I have a couple questions as they relate to special ed uh and these subgroups uh and then maybe you can answer um are there variations in the case loads uh for special uh education teachers in the title one schools meaning do they have because they're Title One do they have smaller case loads of students on their list or is it comparable to the other schools yeah so do I'm gonna have Dr Lawson that's her area of expertise oh there she is okay I didn't know if she was here good evening at all schools in Prince William County abide by the student teacher ratio that the state requires we are fortunate in that um Dr Walt supports a cut off if you will uh

047when it comes to the 24 students that uh one teacher could have on her his or her case load when the students have uh a learning disability in Prince William County we keep that to 20 that's when that's a level one student IE are spending most of their time in a general education setting so really the case load apart from the the numbers dictated by the state and we are always in compliance um is capped at a at a certain number because we have been able to do that thank you and so just for clarification so what I'm asking is if I was to go to a dumre Elementary and look at the case load of a special needs teacher there is it going to be comparable to one at I'm trying to think of

048an affluent district glenkirk elementary or Ashlin Elementary are they going to be comparable I mean what I'm saying is if a school like a title one school like dumre has you know clearly a need and they're a title one school do their special education teachers have lower case loads than some of our more affluent schools or is it across the board about the same quite honestly L not every school in Prince William County has multiple programs so for example in dumre they don't have additional programs they have students um with learning disabilities and that is the only one um their case load if I can remember off the top of my head is about 17 but that's because of the the number of students in the school um I mean there is a ratio B

049based on the overall population in the school so without giving you the data in in every school which we can get for you m um and specifically about students with loading disabilities because the other areas have a totally different student teacher ratio and those programs aren't in every school okay thank you that's yeah I I believe so okay thank you um oh no there's more I'm sorry there's more special education questions Dr Lawson sorry it we were talking a lot about professional learning communities and sharing best practices uh with these schools when it comes to special education in particular with the title one schools are there specific learning communities where those teachers of special needs in the title one schools are able to collaborate and share best practices amongst one another uh to help improve

050for example if one school has a 40 Point Gap compared the lowest School in their special education math and English scores is there any time allotted where those teachers can collaborate and share best practices of helping close those gaps gaps and the variations between the schools and I think this is what you were asking but within the um the schools There's an opportunity for teachers to work together whether it's a general education teacher who is co- teing with um a special education teacher but certainly there is a collaboration between um central office offices um which includes student learning and title one I think it's also important to note that each of our um uh level Associates the elementary levels in particular because that's the the majority of of the title one schools hold collaborative team

051meetings with their principles in which principles get to talk about their um student learning data and can work across schools to have teachers um visit each other's schools to look at those best practices that you're talking about and replicate that Excellence across the division okay another question this might be a more higher level Grant monies and we were talking about the monies that's the money that is allocated to Title One schools because they're designated as Title One schools does the principal determine the additional positions that they're hired or does that come down from central office I'm sorry I don't know who's answering what and yeah so is that a site based decision or is that something from higher up and you say for example central office is it a needs-based so if you were to

052look at a school and see that there's you know quite a drop off in their math passing rates for special education teachers and that's a need there do you put that person there and say we'll put and add another Mass specialist to this building or is that left to the discretion of the individual building principle um it's a formula and so Title One School allocations are only determined by economic need not academic need now we do put other supports in uh we offer other supports to schools that are not achieving at high levels um uh but Title One funds are not allowed to be distributed based on an academic need um it has to be an economic need now with that said um schools are provided um you know an FTE allocation each year and

053it is at the discretion of the principal whether or not to staff those positions with reading or math or both based on their data okay I think I'm done thank you appreciate your thank you Mr W Miss site I'll just be real quick in the interest of time I just wanted to comment I was at mull Elementary School for back to school night and you've talked about parent engagement and we had a different model of back to school night where the parents were actively engaged in learning and of course M and the parents are bringing their kids and it was a joy to walk into every classroom and see the parents actively engage with games with their students I also met a family engagement specialist who was visiting from out of state and working with

054the school and so I've seen it in action I know we're doing it and so thank you for everything you're doing for thank you and I would love really love to brag on Mullen because we've um had some professional development through Dr Karen map who runs um parent University in Boston and is a professor at Harvard and they're participating in that and so so uh we're seeing the Implement in practice so thank you and I'll be just as brief I'm going to Echo what Miss satte said for the most part um is that obviously parent engagement is is is the key factor I mean it's it's it's to me it is anyway in my non-expert role and obviously I'm not the expert in this field you guys are but for but for my role as

055as a citizen I mean the more parents can be involved the better the more we can get in get parents involved in low-income uh areas and like like the ones that I grew up in it's it's very clear that those who have parents waiting at home for their kids to go over homework right away have an advantage so the more we can get lower income families involved um obviously is is I think a key and again echoing what Miss sat said so I thank you again for the presentation thank you thank you all right we are moving on to Citizens comment time um get my notes organized here I'm going to call we have 10 speakers signed up ahead of time two speakers at the door so I'm going to ask that I'm going to

056call everybody up um and so if we can clear the front row here guys if you don't mind we're going to call up some speakers you guys can move around we got to call everybody up here um if you guys don't mind moving back a one row or so there that'd be great um we've got our first speakers are joint speakers we've got Amanda Kramer and Eloise uh bra Fogle then we've got Riley o Casey Steve Bender Brian Pace Amy Cannon Rebecca Anderson Dan roome Mario Roso Dave douly Ginger Jabs and then to the two signups at the door uh Richard Jesse and Winston Forest uh will be our speakers so uh standard deor I know many of you spoke before but standard deorum applies please use proper deorum in front of the board everybody

057will get 3 minutes to speak uh the time will be clicked on the monitor above my head when I remember to click on it you'll see your time uh yellow will come up at 30 seconds that means get it going and red comes up at at zero and we'll ask you to step aside again use proper deorum at all times uh otherwise you'll be asked to step aside from the podium and don't be afraid to adjust the microphone as needed so you can speak directly into it new mics you kind of got to talk right into them so our first joint speakers are students uh from Battlefield high school and Regan Middle School Amanda Kramer and uh Eloise Bray Fogle good evening my name is Amanda Kramer and my address is on file with the

058clerk I attend Battlefield high school and I'm on the archery team where this past year I became the best high school female shooter in the state of Virginia not very many people know about us I've been asked on countless occasions what we do well in the past four years we've gone to State national and World tournaments where not only did the team win but individuals took some of the top places we've traveled to eight states and participated in many local tournaments as well wherever we go we represent one of the best programs in the state nobody is more thankful for the program than the coach and archers themselves going into high school we were unsure if there was going to be a team or not I was worried I would have to leave archery and

059middle school but we were persistent and the high school welcomed us into the Bobcat family when I walk down those Halls I see many familiar faces but my favorite ones to see are those of my teammates we go to school together hang out together and shoot together that's a bond not even an arrow can sever we are welcoming new Shooters to the program this year and I'm excited to see how we do come the state tournament in March we're a great team with great Shooters a great coach and a great support system we may not be well known but as we have always been we will still be here still shooting and making Virginia proud good evening tonight I Elise ble the top female shooter on the middle school team and pleased to share with

060you the joy of the archery program since I got my start in sixth grade Archer's been a blessing prior to try outs I shot extremely badly and thought I would never make the yesh would never make the team my mom convinced me to try out and I've been forever grateful that Christmas my parents bought me my own bow it's gotten me through all the competitions with good and bad the great people on the team have also gotten me through all the tough and stressful Slots of competing the whole team acts like a big family we joke tease and certainly fight like one through archery I've met many people I never would have talked to otherwise and you could even say I gained many brothers and sisters during the competitive season we as a team eat

061breathe and live archery we've even had practices at 6:30 before school and would come back at 5:00 p.m. after the other teams finished practice and let me tell you coming into the gym after wrestling stinks but it was all worth it during our travel for competitions I've had many neat opportunities to meet new people I once even shot with the person who won the national AR TR in the schools program National Tournament in Louisville Kentucky speaking of winning I myself had many successful tournaments as well I won the cubid Classic held at Ronald Reagan Middle School and placed in many other competitions we as a team also had a good season we recently came back with our second personal World Championship at this most recent tournament we won and I personally play second none of

062this would have been possible without the constant support of my fellow teammates friends and Coach thank you and good night just a brief uh Miss Miss okas before I call you up just brief Chairman's privilege here I see Mr buckford the coach of the archery teams here as well Mr bucka I'm at the risk of speaking for Miss satte we are going to invite you and your entire team here to be recognized for your world championship and we'd like to uh we'll give you proper notice so you can tell your families and everything but congratulations girls wonderful thank you very much for all that you do thank you sorry Miss o Casey you're you're now up good evening chairman Sawyers board members Dr Waltz my name is Riley o Casey and my address is on

063file with the clerk our children in Prince William County don't have burning political agendas their agendas include feeling safe and supported being respected by adults they should have adults in their lives they can trust access to the services they require to be successful opportunities for remediation and enrichment in their classes access to high quality teachers with high quality learning opportunities and the chance to develop as a whole person Robert Frost wrote and I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages ages hence two roads diverged in a wood and I I took the One Less Traveled by and that has made all the difference everyone must follow roads some only for themselves and some for the betterment of others there are roads to success and Roads to disaster Prince William County schools

064must be on the road to success and we all play a part I am inspired by the continued collaboration between pwea and pwcs all agendas and diversions have been cast aside and the children are the focus because our children want and need small class sizes great teachers functional technology adequate resources less standardized tests and a school board who will fight for them Walt Disney said whatever you do do it well do it so well that when people see you do it they will come back and see you do it again now is the time for this board to change the focus and get back on the road needed to make education better for our children thank you thank you our next speaker is Steve Bender Mr Bender [Applause] my name is Steve Bender my address

065is still on file with the clerk and dare I say I still vote in Burnsville district chairman at large Sawyers members of the school board Dr Waltz U your last speaker tonight Winston Forest will be speaking on behalf of the Board of Elections and I will let him explain the board's reasoning behind their position on the school calendar question I know that Mr trenham wrote all of you uh a couple weeks ago about a third alternative on the calendar uh sort of a hybrid between the two that were proposed by the committee I wasn't sure if staff would have anything on it tonight so I brought you this one page side by side by side that color codes and numbers each of the day so you can figure out where where the differences are there's

066really only four uh his calendar starts a week early it ends the uh a week before the post Labor Day Option and it has one fewer Day by Taking Back into the school calendar Thursday the 21st the the scheduled first day of the Christmas break and also April 2nd Easter Monday um and it's only since it drops a day it's only 180 day calendar which is the minimum we're required to have um only the Trum option addresses the issue of the Electoral board and only one of their issues which is no school on election days June 12th the primary both these all of these calendars have about 12 days worth of hours built in but we can't take any more days away because we're required to have 180 day calendar uh if you guys aren't

067going to address the concerns that the Electoral board has expressed to you by a letter uh then you at least have to address the parking issue 53 elementary schools 14 middle schools are going to have parking problems at the November gubernatorial election because that's a 40% turnout espe ESP the elementary schools I've talked to the area superintendents it can't just be left to the principes and the chief to figure it out it needs to be a coordinated plan division-wide that makes sure the schools understand the importance of keeping spaces for the voters because nothing irritates me more than hearing that people came to vote there was nowhere to park so they went home I doubt you want a fourth option but if you added that whole last last week in June to the pre-c calendar

068you could take back the two election days and close schools completely um that's really all I have on say on the calendar I'd like to jump back to that title one presentation you guys haven't solved the problem yet you're not going to solve the problem it's kind of like getting Congress to reduce federal spending it is never going to happen once again I'm finding I'm in total agreement with do with uh chairman Sawyers and and uh the idea that parents need to be involved is critical we really need to find a way to get them more involved if it means maybe 2% or 3% we need to do that thank you our next speaker is Brian Pace Mr Pace well thank you uh my address is still on file um I apologize I was not

069here for the last uh board meeting anything happened I I heard that it went for about uh about and wrapped up about 6:00 tonight and then you just went on into your next one so uh Sean you have any second doubts about taking the job um I don't actually have prepared notes here or prepared statement um I do have some additional information that might be of use uh this is an ongoing conversation clearly that's what the uh board decided uh or elected to do is to engage in having more conversation more dialogue more information and so I'm game uh so what I did was a little bit of research and uh talked to some folks through Alba Marl County which I believe has a model um uh policy regarding uh adding sexual orientation gender identity

070to the non-discrimination policies for their school district uh they did it on November 12th 2015 um so uh this whole idea that uh you know nothing can be done until XYZ uh didn't play out the quite the same way in Alba Marl County they do have an enumerated policy which was voted on on on November 12th um it has gone into effect uh for both their students and for their Employment contract uh or employment policy and uh there has been no eight-hour board meetings there have been no great bits of drama floating around it has just happened uh and by the way Virginia Beach City Schools did the same thing at their August 18th meeting uh of 2015 uh and they did by uh consent so there was a unanimous vote to do that so

071this is something that can be done uh this is not something that has to revolve around bathrooms um all of these policies that I'm mentioning to you you'll have in your email box uh with PDF links uh by the time you get home tonight um so I do I've already spoken to a couple folks here I look forward to talking to more of you uh as we move forward with this process with this uh um uh learning curv with this uh uh uh uh education if you will uh I am pretty much done so I do want to just mention that um y'all need to really make sure that you dress up to Mr wil's standards because y'all are falling apart compared to what he's wearing so that's pretty much all I have to say

072for this meeting uh but thank you for your time thank you our next speaker is Amy Canon Amy good evening my name is Amy Canon and my information is on file with the clerk I would like to start by pointing out that many of those in favor of adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the non-discrimination policy would have been here for the September 21st meeting but we could not even get in the building when I was in high school one of my best friends was gay I didn't know it then because as Christians we were taught that being gay was bad so I defended my friend and stood up for him when he was called names but I did it by denying his identity I insisted loud and often that he was not gay

073it never occurred to me to ask him and I doubt he would have told me the truth if I had asked it breaks my heart that he died before I had a chance to tell him how sorry I am that I didn't know how to be the friend he really needed I loved him like a little brother but I was never the safe space for him that I should have been that knowledge has informed my actions for many years now it taught me to become a safe space for my daughter and her friends and my own friends and family members and now the school board has the opportunity to create create safe spaces at school for Prince William County students faculty and staff a place where they are protected from bullying and discrimination in all

074its forms how many of our students and faculty are right now living in a closet that we created for them by not protecting them we have the power to tear those closets down with five simple words sexual orientation and gender identity I've heard a lot of misinformation about this policy first of all it isn't about bathrooms that part is already off the table this is about discrimination and safety we need to be as Vigilant as we have always been with regards to our kids but adding these five words to the policy will not put them in any more danger than they already are on a daily basis we can make the world safer for our kids by teaching them that a predatory adult can be anyone but being transgender or gender non-conforming doesn't make it

075any more likely that a person is a predator than anyone else I've heard people say that this is not the purview of the school board that the board should be focused on education what is more important to education than safety it's well documented that all students learn better in schools where they are protected from discrimination and bullying in addition several people mentioned that there were no documented instances of discrimination for these reasons in Prince William County in recent years but how are you supposed to file a complaint for discrimination when you are not protected by the non-discrimination policy by saying that these five words don't need to be added you're saying that lgbtq people are less worthy of our protection than those the policy already protects some of you claimed that you hadn't had time

076to study this policy change sufficiently even though you all knew in June that this was on the agenda for September I offer you now some of the resources that exist in our County equality Prince William P flag and glisten are just three of the many organizations that you can reach out to members of all of these organizations stand ready to attend town halls or serve on any committee you might put together to study this further I would like to publicly thank Mr Sawyers for providing leadership on this issue we stand with him and appreciate that he stands with us I urge you to reconsider waiting until June to vote on this there are students and staff right now living in fear in our schools you can change that thank you our next speaker is Rebecca

077Anderson Rebecca at the last Schoolboard meeting each speaker had one point in common safe spaces are important when I was growing up in attending Public Schools I always felt different but I wasn't sure how and why I felt that way I felt High School band was a safe space but most of the rest of my school experience was less so when I wasn't in a safe space I felt like I had to be a pretend version of myself in order to avoid being perceived as different for fear of judgment or negative attention for those who were perceived as normal for a certain amount of time my church was also a safe space when I was 15 I was saved and baptized at my church and at school I attended FCA the The Fellowship of Christian

078athletes where you didn't have to be a Christian or an athlete to join we were inclusive to any person who wanted to attend and careful to keep our meetings a safe space for all because it was the best way to show God's love I went away to college and joined a gospel choir as a way to stay connected to my Christian friends and when I returned home on break I attended my home church with family during the sermon the preacher talked about how terrible homosexuality is and how anyone who allows a homosexual into their life even as a friend is inviting the devil into their heart I was hurt by those words and was downright heartbroken when the people around me started cheering and applauding by what they had just heard about my friends and

079about some of the things that I was still trying to learn about myself I walked away from church for almost 10 years and it took a long time before my husband and I could find a safe space in which I could worship god with other people again while speaking at the last Schoolboard meeting I came out for the very first time in public and I stayed here for about an hour after speaking in the hostil in the room was palpable it was the least safe space that I have ever that I had ever encountered in the name of God people said hurtful things about me my friends my current and former students and an entire room of people cheered on my way out people in red shirt said things directly to me that I do

080not wish to repeat and I heard speakers quote a statistic that there have been zero cases of lgbtq discrimination in pwcs in the last number of years and I wondered if that was because for a person of file discrimination they have to out themselves and to be out as an employee of pwcs when there is no non-discrimination language that protects us that is a big risk I heard a number a member of the school board refer to students as either transgender or umn normal and I want to pause for a teachable moment cisgender is a ter is a term for a person whose gender aligns with the sex which they were assigned with at Birth and on a side note there is no such thing as normal I also heard many speakers equate transgender people

081to sexual predators and was led to believe that some of the same speakers operate under the assumption that my awesome employer pwcs doesn't or won't maintain a safe space for cisgender students if a non-discrimination policy were passed for lgbtq students and employees and that is false I want to thank the school board for taking time to listen to All perspectives on the subject so that all people including lgbtq students and employees can have safe spaces in which to learn and work in pwcs # Timberwolves rock thank you thank you our next speaker is Danica Rome Danica hey for the third time in three meetings how you all doing good to see you my name is Stan Ro I'm a journalist I'm a lifelong Prince William County resident and I'm a transgender woman um I'm actually

082speaking in favor of lovely Jesse's uh proposal to have the task force to study non-discrimination issues um in princ L County Schools I think this is a good idea and I think it's a good way to find common ground and to find Middle Ground as someone who spoke in favor of including sexual orientation and gender identity at um in the non-discrimination policy the last couple of times I think it should have passed unanimously just like we were talking about like how it didn't Al maral and you know other localities Virginia Beach Arlington I thought that should have been just fine that didn't happen so in speaking with several the opponents afterward and I had some like really just nice courtesy like you know just cordial conversations with folks I realized why this was actually controversial

083to them in the first place I asked over and over do you know a transgender person in your life every single one even the people who were really nice to me said no every single one of them told me no and a lot of them spoke about transgender people as if they knew who we were when they didn't know me they didn't know us they actually told me they didn't know so a lot of people are making assumptions about what it means to be transgender without knowing anyone who lives it every day instead we heard hundreds of people applaud the speakers who us to rapists and pedophiles instead of starting a meaningful dialogue how can we find common ground with people who talked to us and about us like that all of that said governing

084is the art of half a loaf and at this point we have to find common ground with everyone we have to find common ground with people who are open to supporting the a policy change but have concerns about procedures and implementations Alison I know you're one of them I've known you for the last 5 years and I'm seriously dedicated to I want to work with you to get to get all everyone to yes but I want to work with you especially to get to yes on this I think we can find a lot of common ground I honestly do I really really do and I think the task force is a great opportunity to do that and it's a great opportunity to bring opponents and proponents together if you all would like some people from

085the lgbtq Community to serve on it I would be happy to oblige I think we can make meaningful progress together so we can both protect and respect all of our students and faculty and I'll close with this back at the Georg Hampton uh Middle School reaming I talked to six of you all there and by the way uh Mr BR it's nice for you to join this um and five of you all told me one-on-one face to face that she would vote for this policy now that vote hasn't come up yet M Sawyers and Miss Willams tried to put it forward and by the way Ryan especially thank you thank you for doing that and for Stand by Your Word I sincerely appreciate that but I everyone for everyone else who told me that there

086is still time we still have the chance to get to yes and I want to work with you to get to yes let's do this together thank you our next speaker is Mario Roso Mario good evening members of the school board my name is mar Roso my address is on file I'm a resident of the neapco district so I want to just express how I wasn't I'm not angry at the school board how the vote went last week but I was disappointed I was let down I know that a lot of the students who wanted to come out and speak for the policy couldn't make it and many of them when I told them the news were so let down but a lot of them couldn't make it because either they're not out and telling

087their parents oh I'm going to go to a Schoolboard meeting to speak about a policy involving sexual orientation could possibly out them or simply because they're students they have bed times they have homework and there are other things they have to take care of but I can come here and speak to all of you about my experiences as a gay as a gay kid in Garfield High School because I've grown the skin from having to deal with epithets slurs being pushed around and I know that if I come out and speak on behalf these kids maybe I can change your mind and hopefully let you see how it's like to be a gay kid in our school system back in Garfield the one thing that we had was a very supportive Administration under Brenda Aken

088she helped push to make sure that all kids were protected under the policy that we had but unfortunately that policy didn't have the te heat that it needed in order to protect LGBT students and as much as teachers principles guid counselors intervened because there was no real guidelines to how to protect LGBT students it was something that was kind of left up in the air and many teachers and administrators were afraid because they felt like a lawsuit could come from the wrong person I know that many people in Garfield supported me and I was so thankful for their support and I'm forever I'm thinking for the people who helped saved my life in high school but the one thing that I constantly remember are the people who called me horrible names who pushed my friends

089around even ones who weren't gay even ones who were just a who just came off as what was not normal to them were harassed and bullied I hid into a shell and didn't allow myself to express who I truly was until after graduation and every day I live to regret that I regret the experiences that I missed out on being out in high school so hopefully if I can take the time to speak to you Miss Ralston I want to meet with you and I want to discuss with you and hopefully we can find some dialogue to build a bridge in order to protect these students because I know one thing is for certain I I may not I may just be one person but I know how these schools are I went through them

090I I love d City I love Garfield and I love George Hampton and I just want you to know that my door is always open thank you our next speaker is Dave dly Dave good evening my name is David douly and my address is on file I'm here again to ask you to reconsider the motion approved at the September 21st 16 school board meeting to delay the vote to the proposed change to policy 060 to add sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes for students and faculty members why do I bring up this hot topic again because it's important to me as a basic civil right just like allowing women to vote or V uh vote counting as one vote versus three- fifths of a vote bringing Racial equality to the voting system I

091recently found out that one of my co-workers for the past 6 months had passed away suddenly sorry it shocked me and broke my heart he was 55 years old and left a widow after 18 years of marriage his wife's Health had been failing the relationship strained because of his work and her care we recently lost a contract that we all thought we had in the bag and he was forced to look for other employment company which he ultimately found however my heart broke again for my friend who loves science fiction as much as I did because he died by his own hands none of his co-workers and I knew why that he chose to do this I as a happy gay man lost a straight friend after only knowing him 6 months this tragedy has

092reminded me that suicide rates happen in the school in the military and in life suicide rates within lgbtq lesbian gay by sexual transgender and questioning Community is higher than the straight heterosexual Community because they are bullied they are afraid and they are not loved by either their straight counterparts their family members or the Rel religious community so please reconsider the motion passed in the last meeting and help stop someone from committing suicide because they believe there's no other option please protect the faceless and unknown lgbtq not because I'm asking you to but because it's right human thing to do opponents in making a change to policy mention there's no records of bullying loss of employment or suicides due to someone's sexual orientation or gender identity it's not broke why fix it why do we need

093this change it's just another political Ploy I cannot disagree more and believe it's nothing but an excuse just because you don't hear a story doesn't mean it isn't one you can check Google and check the Heartbreak around the country and the world please reconsider this motion thank you our next speaker is ginger Jabs Ginger hi I'm Ginger Jabs and myor is on file good evening I wanted to come up and speak to you um as well about the um o6o matter and sexual identity and I'm sorry sexual orientation and gender identity um I want to thank Lily Jesse for proposing the task force um I know you have it in your heart to get to this and I see it I feel it and I want to thank you um I wanted to just say

094uh one of the two times I was here in SE September um I know I heard Miss sat white mention um a list of things that we would have to look into before anything could ever take place and it was at least it felt like a 100 item list maybe it was only 50 but um it sounded like it was overwhelming and it kind of gave me the feeling and I hope the board doesn't feel this way that we need to reinvent the wheel that we need to step back in our own little vacuum and come up with all all of the answers to all of these complex questions and I just want to say that I hope that we're going to look to other places like uh Fairfax County Alexandria Arlington whomever has put

095this type of policy in place or is trying to um I just want to say that I hope that all of you together will look at this and rely on other uh entities organizations to see how they're handling it too we're not here alone in Prince William County to make this effective uh I also wanted to mention that the times I've been here I have to tell you the fear and atrocious Behavior and the things I heard were really upsetting and I'm sure uh other people that felt the opposite of me and not wanting this to go through probably felt they were hearing the same thing but when I was hearing things as a parochial uh father his kids going to our parochial school he didn't even go to the school come in here and

096talk about how he felt he has every right to it's an amendment but I felt that was pure bullying I also feel that Mr Marshall I'm sure he's a great gentleman I've never got to meet him personally perhaps I should ask him out to lunch um but I kind of got the feeling that his posture was unless in the general assembly me and other white men decide that we would allow this to happen will it happen and I find that bullying for you I uh also of course heard a lot of nasty comments and again that's that's also bullying which gets to my point of people teachers staff and kids that are bullied on a daily basis because of their gender identity because of sexual orientation I have 16 M uh seconds left I just

097wanted to tell you quickly that I kind of liken this to the segregation era I can see where uh White fathers would say oh those black boys aren't coming into my school they're not going to be with my daughter lusting after her and that type of thing and I just don't want us to get back to that era that's it thank you moving on to the two signups at the door um we've got Richard Jesse as our next speaker Mr Jesse good evening uh chairman sers Dr Walts school board members my address is on filed I want to talk to you today about uh and I'm not I didn't have have any notes cuz I wasn't planning to speak but I want to talk to you about what I call but for but for a

098kid going up to the cafeteria line and getting a carton of milk but for a police officer intervening but for that kid now faces Petty larne charges and misconduct I believe being filed by the police department but for th that one action why does it have to go that far now you can say and my wife and I attended three or four Community meetings with the police department and we told kids this is what you need to do but you know kids are kids and when you have a staff member or somebody in the in the staff Administration if that police officer was not there that kid probably would not have missed attending the school that he attended to take the SATs he would not have now be charged with a misdemeanor uh and so

099forth I think we all also need to look at what is a resource officer there for and I have a feeling that we as a you as a school board need to address what roles the police officers have in the schools what they should and should not be involved in and and take some action on that also look at the demographics of who are being charged by the resource officers on a regular basis and so forth the whole is issue of well the police officer was black the kid was black and the principal was black my wife was a principal I can tell you my daughters felt they got a harder time attending her school than the other kids you you have to understand that just because you're black and you are doing something to

100another black person doesn't mean you're not discriminating because it could happen so thank you the last thing I want to say uh it is the school board the teachers responsibility to teach the kids and my parents were involved in schools because they were dead my wife parents weren't in involved in school it is your responsibility to teach the kids thank you and our final speaker is Winston Forest Winston chairman Sawyers and members of the prince Willam County School Board good evening my name is Winston forest and my address is on file I am the election Communications coordinators with the with the Prince William County Office of Elections we enjoy a close working relationship with the PWC school system because as you know a vast majority of our polling places are in the schools tonight I'm

101here to discuss the school calendar for 2017 2018 which will be voted on tonight next year's election is a gubernatorial election which could see as many as 140,000 Prince William citizens go to the polls in addition should uh should Virginia need to elect a new Senator that special election will take place at the same time as the 2017 general election we would like to propose that schools be closed to all activities for uh for the November 7 general election in 2017 and close the students on June 2018 for the primary election the two main re reasons for our request are many of the parking lots in for the primary and middle schools uh have around 150 parking spaces are already near capacity with staff alone when schools are open for teacher work dayss and parent

102meetings space in the Lots can be at best difficult to find adding 1,000 plus voters uh to to the parking for that day there is just not enough parking to guarantee voter access to the polls our second reason involves student safe we are unable to prevent legally registered voters access to their polling place this would include anyone normally barred from entering school grounds that would include non-custodial parents who uh who vote at their child's where where their Childs attend school individuals who have protected border against them offenders who are registered under Megan's Law and any others who have been banned by pwcs the Attorney General in 2006 gave an opinion which stated access must be granted even though children are present it is for these reasons we request that the calendar under consideration be amended

103to close the schools for all activities in November 2017 and for students in June 2018 we realize that this may seem to be an inconvenience however we believe student safety considerations and access to the polls should be the highest priority when considering whether or not to close thank you for your time thank you and that concludes citizens time um moving right along to item 15.01 the multi-tiered systems of student support Miss Goss this has your name on it good evening again chairman Sawyers Schoolboard members and Dr Walts this evening we were asked by School Board member Diane Rolston to present on our multi-tiered systems of support for students with academic and behavioral CH challenges this evening Dr Lawson director of The Office of special education will provide details of those academic and behavior supports in

104the partnership between schools parents and central office Personnel that supports student academic and behavioral success at this time I invite Dr Lawson to share about some of our division efforts to ensure that our supports and interventions successfully impact student achievement thank you Miss gos good evening CH chairman Sawyers ladies and gentlemen of the board and Dr Waltz this presentation will provide a brief overview of the process used in Prince William County to address the um behavior and academic supports that some children require in order to access the curriculum however I can't pull up that slide oh thank you thank you the intervention process that we use in Prince William and any other County quite honestly is a general education process and it begins when either the parent or a teacher suspects that the child is

105having some concerns over their progress the team m members discuss the difficulty in the classroom they consider the possible impact of language and culture and develop ways in which the student can access the academic or behavioral supports needed this is called achieving academic Excellence with Equity improving academics and behavior outcomes in school is about ensuring that all children have access to effective and accurately implemented instructional and behavioral practices a multi-team oh dear me sorry a multi-tiered system of supports and you can see the diagram in front of you um I'm sorry the writing is rather small on the pyramid itself a multi-team tiered system of supports is an evidence-based model it is a problem solving model that provides a structure to identify Implement and evaluate what in fact is going on with the student that

106pre prevents them from reaching their full potential it is a use of a research-based process it is effective in the problem solving area because it is based on the use of strategies with Fidelity and the problem solving process itself has an implementation of the instructional intervention plans the problem solving process is applicable to all three tiers of instruction or intervention Behavioral or academic and can be used for problem solving at the classroom level and also at the division level pwcs is using this multi-tier system of support this culturally responsive system of interventions uses evidence-based models of schooling that employ databased problem solving to integrate academic and behavioral instruction in other words it's it's um a way that we can look at why this child is not successfully accessing the curriculum we can't just guess we

107have to use strategies in order to ascertain what that problem may be those strategies have to be implemented with great Fidelity we can't try them for two days and then say they don't work they are um monitored and the progress is monitored over time the need for intentional thank you whoever that was the need for intentional and explicit instruction the um in 2000 there was a a national reading panel they looked at basically where we were in terms of how we can and where we need to Target our work when we are teaching children to read the multi-tiered reading model emphasizes early identification supplemental instruction ongoing assessment and the use of assessment data to identify students who are in need of Greater interventions than can be reasonably provided in a general education classroom setting this

108multi-tier system of supports is based on Research that states that good good first classroom instruction should meet the needs of most students but an efficient system of providing high quality interventions is required in order to meet the needs of all students we also have a way to um look at behaviors which came first the chicken or the egg there is also a need in um all schools and this is a national conversation to look at how we can intervene when a child's behavior is getting in the way of their academic progress this is a good reason to look at whether or not we should conduct whether the child is child with special needs or whether it's a child in general education setting a functional behavior um assessment an FBA just as we have students that

109demonstrate the need for academic supports we also have students who demonstrate the need for Behavioral supports in the same way as the academic supports Its Behavior um is sorry the intervention is datadriven it's produced by a team and its cause or its reason is to look at why what is the underlying issue that is getting in the way of that child's success an FBA functional Behavior Analysis can look at um existing information but it can also look at and ask for additional information based on that information we put in place proactive strategies which again should be implemented with Fidelity and determine whether those strategies are or are not working come back to the table assess whether we need to put other strategies in place it's an ongoing prog uh process it doesn't stop with one

110meeting we can ensure for children with special needs fape free and appropriate public education through the FBA process um when we have completed that functional Behavior Analysis we look at what in fact we are going to put in place in terms of behavior education if you will in order to give the the the student the support that he or she needs a bip a behavior intervention plan is not a disciplinary process its intent is to ensure that students can access their education it is a plan that utilizes all of the behavioral interventions positive behavioral interventions and again it is carried out with Fidelity over time it is not a static document we can come back and look at this to see how well or not this is working and at the end we may with

111with actually talking to the student the student needs to be involved in this and talking to parents we can actually bring the whole process to an end but that can take a a while we may have to go back after time some children need reassurance after the time that they have had these interventions and we are available to do that so as you have heard we do have supports in place in Prince William County through our multi-tiered intervention system we are working diligently throughout the county to actually um build capacity in all of our schools whether whether they are using academic interventions or behavioral interventions these supports provide quality instruction for all students and most importantly perhaps they prevent they assist in the prevention of disproportionate representation of minority students in special education this had

112that had been identified as a natural a national issue since basically 1976 so we are addressing I may say pretty successfully that whole issue within our schools with collaboration between the schools the principles in those schools the teachers who come to our our presentations on behavior supports or reading supports the support of Miss gos across all of her Department because we work with other offices and as always the support of Dr Waltz thank you very much ladies and gentlemen thank you open up for discussion and questions Miss Rolston thank you thank you very much for finally getting an opportunity to do this I I'm very excited um when um how often do you have parent uh major parent groups well actually we had one two two nights ago oh well thank you through the parent

113resource um uh Center we sponsored um one of our the process of special education workshops you know special education is not just easy to understand and the first time a parent can hear the words we think that your child may have a disability that has to go through their mind well what in fact is that and what does that mean for my child so we have workshops through the PRC the parent Resource Center um we start round about this time of the year let things calm down a little bit let us get the parents help them get their children into schools and we go through a number of of workshops looking at the process the process of assessment in order to determine whether or not the child does in fact um have a disability and

114then afterwards we also look at the IEP that's developed following those um that determination one other um from time to time there are some disciplinary problems that come up and I've always asked the same question If he if this child already has an IEP and yet behavior is doing something else so is that IEP set in stone or can this child uh have a second look because it could be something added on absolutely an IEP again is not a static document but a child with um a pattern of given behaviors uh we would probably supplement the IEP within the we're we're all about initials and special ed but with um a functional Behavior Analysis and followed up with a bip because you can put a goal in the IEP and it's monitored over time but

115we want to have shortterm term modering uh um monitoring so with a a bip that's based on what's the underlying cause of this Behavior why why is this child manifesting this particular Behavior we can address that in the short term um the goal in the IP May reflect what we are going to do in accommodations to address that behavior but it's really too pronged it's not just one thing or the other so there's one IEP per year it there can be a parent um or the school can actually call for an IEP meeting at any time so if a parent has has concerns or the teacher has concerns about the existing IEP then they can call for an IEP meeting now that wouldn't be a good idea to do it every week Mr alustin well

116every any time I'm going to see a kid that has already has an IEP and they're displaying something else so if it gets to my attention then the first thing I want to know is what is the contributor to this new Behavior because that behavior doesn't match this IEP MH so I've always wanted you guys to say oh okay we'll slow down and and do something else to take a look at what's creating this type of new Behavior maybe well I see a lot of this you you know um some behaviors uh especially when there's an an external um factor to the school there's a a change in the child's life um the Goldfish died which can totally you know throw a child off we need to find out what that is now that's not

117going to perhaps change an IEP goal but the first thing that we need to do is sit down and talk to the child when you see a child slipping whether it's a child in the General Ed setting or the special ed setting when you see um slippage and significant changes in Behavior it's time to intervene and that's what we do through the multi-tiered system either with um positive behavior interventions or academic interventions thank you you're welcome thank you Mr rolon and Miss Jesse thank you very much um you know my favorite phrase is current reality what's the current reality with our disproportionality is it an issue or where are we where are we in in Prince William County with disproportionality okay the the um on the the indicators that we report to the state and

118the state reports to the federal government on a yearly basis there are four indicators that look to disproportionality indicators 9 and 10 basically look at the over representation of students in minority students in special education and then um 10 looks at the particular area of special education particular disability that the child may be um found eligible for we are not we are not disproportionate in Prince William County in indicator 9 and 10 and that took very hard work from a lot of people it's really an outstanding achievement in in the county um indicators 4 a and 4 B are discipline of minority students we have a way to go on that we know it we're working on it and we'll continue to work on it if we can look at at nine indicator 9 and

11910 as we have done and we can succeed in that we can definitely succeed in the next thing and we have strategies in place to do just that Mrs Jesse I hope so uh you know my experience has been um and nationally when kids are learning at high levels you really don't have Behavior problem I think it comes back to the learning and I think there are students who have real serious problems and you know and I've work with special ed and work with your office uh but again uh We've got to look at why the discipline problems are with these students and that they're from a particular group of students because um I really didn't expect my husband to be at the podium tonight so I and I don't want to respond to him

120in particular we will talk later but I I it it it breaks my heart and I I have to tell you that this milk carton thing has just stuck with him for months he he it's like I'm going to the courthouse I'm going to because we've seen kids who have problems at the lower levels and then you get to uh middle school and when you look at it I think if you look at a lot of these kids you'll get back to literacy levels uh academic engagement situations uh so those kind of there are schools throughout this nation where We There are 909090 schools where 90% of minorities 90% of low income but a 90% pass rate there are schools where kids are going to college uh every child in the building is going to

121college in high poverty areas and so that's my goal and I I think the superintendent and Mrs Darlington I think we're pretty much on the same track we have the same goals we just got to find a way to reach that the other question I have for you when did you start this program which which program the the multi-tier system of intervention you're your tier multi-tier okay well it's it's actually the title has morphed over time when you and I worked together it was called RTI I was asking you did it did RTI become something else no well it RTI was um you know we were pretty unique in Prince William County when we brought response to intervention into the county um and Virginia as a state vdoe really didn't have um a meeting of

122the minds between the behavioral piece and the instructional piece at their level again Prince William County was one of the prompters to vooe to say we need to look at RTI as something that we use throughout the Commonwealth and that way we can get some money yeah to um provide professional development vooe finally picked up the the culle and decided they were going to move in that direction they finally also decided that were going to come back come become part of the national mtss right so it it's just more from RTI to Virginia tier system of intervention and also to mtss I picked up a a uh an appreciation plaque for the superintendent relatively recently because we were acknowledged as the one of the forerunners in the state for implementing RTI so I know that

123you and enjoy yeah well RTI is is is the nationally recognized uh intervention plan so I'm really glad to see that we're working on that and how do you measure um results what type of results how do you measure how do how do you measure success your your your rubrics and how do you do that well actually it's it's um some S one child at a at a time but as I said through when at the beginning of the presentation um we we recognize that most of the children are not going to need academic or behavioral support so we' the first thing we look at is good first instruction in the classroom that's going to be more than enough for many children but we then have to look at what we put in in terms

124of a system to look at the children who require the extra help that way we can actually look at um perhaps changing the instruction in the classroom yeah we can also find a baseline for where the child is as far as reading is concerned and develop a goal line with data points along that goal line we can do exactly the same thing with behavior um goals and and data points and um we have worked with schools and again uh across the the offices in the department of student learning to put that kind of of system in place yeah and I'm just for a review I don't want to take any more time the two areas you said there were four areas and it's discipline and what's the last one that you still need to work

125on 4 a and 4B it's discipline of minority students overall and discipline um basically of given groups of children so that's all minorities and then specific minorities thank you but don't forget we shine when it comes to 9 and 10 thank you Miss Jesse any further discussion thank you thank you all right moving right along here to item 1502 School Board calendar do we have are you guys going to present anything here or I'm asking because I don't know I didn't want to jump ahead if if you had something to show us that's all it's it's on for action but we're here to answer any questions or or talk about um anything to the that's why I knew there was an introduction of of a different item that's why I just wanted to make sure

126I wasn't jumping the gun and not giving you your opportunity so all right do we have a do we have a motion we have a motion for the item 15.0 two Mr chairman Mr deuts thank you Mr chairman um I move that we adopt uh the hybrid proposal as proposed by uh Mr trenum okay I have to make a slight modification to what's already typed in here Mr deuts so I have it typed in Mr deuts that the Prince William County school board approved the 2017 2018 annual school calendar known as the tranum hybrid calendar is that satisfactory sounds good all right do I have a second for that motion Mr chairman Miss sat thank you sorry I'll second that motion thank you all right discussion Mr Deutsch thank you Mr chairman um in talking

127to people about the school calendar uh there were there's a number of good rationale for moving the uh calendar as early as possible to facilitate more time uh in advance of testing um in advance the sols ETC uh to increase learning opportunities uh there's also been a lot of concerns with the way that the uh calendar as originally proposed that the uh pre-labor day calendar my my apologies sorry anyway really quick uh starting pre- Labor Day helps for educational purposes uh but starting as late as the uh pre- Labor Day Option here uh has uh a number of a lot of people in the community uh concerned about how late it is even the proposal that we have uh from staff says that the survey we had had 63% of people opposed to it uh

128so Mr trenum uh helps create a hybrid uh it also addresses uh in the best way possible um from these polic from these uh calendars what the Electoral board has brought forward and hopefully um really satisfies a lot more people um satisfies all the concerns on the table I've talk to people who support uh both the pre- and post Labor Day calendar and they're all a lot happier with this IID proposal so I think it would be a good idea thank you Mr Deutch um if you don't mind I I probably do have a few questions so you didn't come up for not so you're welcome um I actually think all three of the proposed models have their have the I'm sorry Dr Waltz did you have something I was just going to suggest that

129we put the slide up that has all three if we're considering those is that what that was is that what that motion is that what that meant all those all those hand movements please so if we have a slide to put up that would be that would be great comparison slide I don't have the ability to do that Al probably don't there you go it's not in the it's not part of this presentation it was a single slide we gave them yeah it's it's the one page that Mrs sat White's holding up in her hand it's yes there it is thank you okay look at this so um class um world class Mr Sor it would be helpful if I walk through what's on this slide yes thank you let's go there and then I

130may have questions off of that I don't promise I won't have question schoolb Mr Sawyers Mrs Jesse Schoolboard members Dr Waltz um hello um the this slide shows you the three options um and there's a lot of similarities between among them um the First Column shows you pre-lab the original pre-labor Day Option um and what we include are the places where there are are differences so the start date one winter break fall spring break the End date and the total number of days so you can see all of those for the pre original pre- Labor Day the post Labor Day and Mr tren's modified pre- Labor Day aka the hybrid option it's a hybrid um not because of its start date but because of um the changes made to make a compromise so that the

131school year could be ending earlier which is in response to to um to questions and concerns so in order to do that um you have to find Days somewhere and those days were found by shortening winter break by one day which looks like the post Labor Day Option hence the hybrid by shortening spring break for students and teachers by one day which and shortening the school year overall by one day so those are the things that it shares with the post Labor Day Option it shares with the pre-labor Day Option the start date and then it gives you an end date of June 8th which is a Friday okay and um I actually remember the number that Mr deuts cited earlier and and if I remember correctly from the survey it was basically that if

132it was it was kind of a cake have your cake and eat it too kind of that that the survey came out which was the survey came that people wanted post Labor day but but as early as but early as well is that right so it's kind of to be to be fair the question the yes no qu the the what was your preference question had 63% of the folks saying post Labor Day Option the comments and when we looked at those a lot of folks in who favored both options said we want to get out as early as possible and have longer breaks so that was just context so people would like to have yeah your cake and eat it too but the question itself was pre- or post and the post Labor Day

133Option that was on the table um got 63% of that vote okay and then the coming out the ending as early as possible was more of a a comment was the comments themes but from people on both in both who' answered either way to the yes to the so regardless of how they answered on preer post the the idea was they still wanted out as early as possible yes sir so okay I find that as more as the common theme then okay got okay that that's that's that's the one part from the previous um and honestly why why I T tend to leads towards what the motion is for which is the June 8th and there's lots of reasons for that but um I tend to lead towards the get out as early as possible

134side as well Dr Waltz you have something dad along the lines of eat your cake have your cake and eat it too right um another thing they talked very strongly about was the two weeks at the winter holiday which we've had a couple of those so I just want to point out that the longest break on the longest options preor post neither of those are two weeks the modified is even one day less so I just want to throw that in there as well perfect just adding to it how many days for what M so let me okay that that was the main question I had so the the breaks are basically the same that I see for winter break other than the one day for the pre-labor day uh uh meeting as well and

135then how does do we factor in how we're going to handle first of all the snow days and I apologize is this is something that that that that is that is off subject but the snow days and um and ultimately if we use the snow days do we do we determine that ahead of time or is that something that comes more you know as the snow comes I guess okay so um yes and yes okay so the fir um the first question is we if um the state requires that we start us we you approve a school calendar that has 180 days um with a minimum of 990 hours of instruction any of the options you approve uh that are currently on the table um do that um once you start losing time to weather

136which happens almost every year it happened a lot last year um you we fall if you start with a calendar with 180 or 181 pretty quickly you fall below that number of days but we have a longer day than is the minimum requirement by the state so we have in a 180 day calendar since that's the motion on the table about 12 days worth of time okay that sounds like a lot but last year we closed um 10 times and had some delays so so you get close to that so we also build in um that our traditional days have been first is the President's Day holiday and you say well that's really early well if you really get hammered in December or January you want to make that day up sooner during the year

137the second day is the work day at the end of the third marking period which would be April 16th of 2018 and the third day we always put on the calendar would be the day after school gets out regardless of which of these options it would be that next day day that currently shows as a teacher work day if heaven forbid you go beyond that that's when it would come back to the board for any other decisions that could be made in the past time additional time has been added to the day and there have been days added to the calendar we haven't had to do that um knock on wood in a few years and the time when you mentioned the time that time is still added on from when 2 years ago when

138we added time to the day that that time is still on the school day is that correct and that's what builds up to get approximately the 12 extra days that we have based on longer days but not actually scheduled longer hours not scheduled days correct yes sir thank you I'm trying to wrap my head around today appreciate you great job appreciate you teaching me um that's those are the questions I have I'll open it up to anyone else Miss Miss Jesse u m Dr cassad I'm trying to understand the the teacher work days um in some one of the calendars it's you know the kids are out of school right tell me on the three calendars how many days teachers have to remain in the building okay so that's a great question Mrs Jesse so

139in a 181 Day Calendar let let me preface it our teachers um the majority of our teachers have a 195 day contract so school's in session for 181 days they have 14 days um teachers have an additional 14 days of contract those are sprinkled throughout the year there's a there's some at the beginning 181 day calendar you end up with two days at the end of the year in a 180-day calendar as proposed in either the post Labor Day or the the um Mr tram's option which didn't didn't formally address that there were three days at the end of the calendar in order to make sure that you have the 195 days for the teacher contract I I I'm just you know I think I've been a principal too long and my teachers when the

140kids left they want to go home and I'm not sure for 3 days what are these teachers going to be doing in that building when kids are gone because I'm telling you they pack up if they have to stay at night so that they can come in maybe on Monday and check out so it's it just appears to be and I don't mean this in a bad way a punishment for teachers to have to remain three days and there are no children children in the building what what do you guys see teachers doing for three days Dr W There Are No Children two things one was part of what we discussed a lot probably a decade ago was the fact that we had little to no professional development days built into the to the calendar

141so if you're going to Vision something for the following year you're going to do a data analysis or something like that that afforded um perhaps a data set aside to do that and then typically if people are packed up we have allowed them to check out early in fact this past year it was two days question is are we going to allow them to check out early because by the end of school they have checked out mentally I I'm just I'm just dealing with the reality of what I've seen I mean they Li that's the only time I tell you where I say be in the library at 20:05 to check out they're down the hallway because they're ready to go so are we going to allow them to check out on one of those

142days are we going to have a plan for them to remain I'm just wondering if there's some way that teachers can go home well again um these are great things to be discussing before a decision is made another thing to keep in mind is when we talk about these snow days because remember if we have to add days or time which we have had to do more than once very very painful like most board members who have lived through that that's one of the things they never forget is how upset people are so part of that part of the reason that they were allowed to check out early this past year the two days was because we were okay with with our snow time we had enough minutes and it worked out so again you

143know if that were the same in the next year I don't make that decision till close to the end of the year and then we put it out there when we are reasonably confident that we either have no snow time to make up or there's not going to be an early hurricane or flood or something else that causes a code red so I would I would have no reason not to continue doing something like that um on at least one of the days I appreciate that because um I had an expression in my building and the expression was that we're holding them against their will and uh we're not going to get a lot of fruitful types of things would you say that Mr will one year I watched Lincoln um a bunch of three-hour

144movies during my three days and I had good test scores Everyone by the way so thank you Miss Jesse any other any Miss satte thank you Mr chairman Dr Casada I just want to address a couple things that have been out there in the public and just try and straighten some things out people have asked why can't we just go to school Labor Day to Memorial Day is that because of state law and can you explain that please um okay so we could um technically right the state of Virginia require School divisions to start after Labor Day unless you meet some qualifications which we've met because we've had some challenging Winters and as I said um gosh about a month ago when we were here um we qualify for that for the next several years

145based on um our past experiences so um we could start after Labor Day in order to end before Memorial Day you still need the number of days and the number of hours and when you factor in weekends and breaks that folks want and holidays you'd have to have very long school days to make that happen so um that that's why um that's why we don't it's that number of hours and number of days combination that you have the later you start the later you're going to finish unless you do some tradeoffs on holidays that would be unpopular I appreciate that because I know that was some confusion with people they didn't understand that that was something we have to deal with so we have a requirement of 180 days that have to be on the

146calendar so we've put that in place if we fall Below on minutes because of snow we're okay because we set the 180 calendar is that correct you have to approve a calendar with 180 days so what you're doing now is approving it if you have inclement weather um be it snow or we've had floods or we've had superstorm Sandy so we've had things in October September um those are decisions that are made in an emergency situation so that is not an change to the approved calendar that's an emergency reaction um making decisions up front are approved calendar decisions does that make sense so your approved calendar has to be 180 days you can follow below fall below below that should the need arise and then that's why it's good that our school day is longer

147than the minimum required by the state because it Banks us extra time that um reduces the likelihood of um additional days being tacked on at the end of the year I appreciate that and I've I've watched over the years as a parent on the other side of the dis and then here I've watched over the years as we've gotten this process more refined and done a better job of preparing you have done a better job of preparing with your committee and I thank you for that with the 10 minutes built in with having the days in reserve that if we have to we use those days for extra days off and um your planning has been terrific and you the the reason I think we're looking at the modified calendar is because there have been

148so many people say okay we're start if we start school pre- Labor Day a week early why aren't we getting out earlier and the trade-off is yes we lose a day at winter break yes we lose a day at Spring break but we've always had um the allowances for families that if you are taking an extended little few days extra let's not get too crazy here but if you take a few days extra if you send in the note for the pre-arranged absence and let your school know we usually do approve that and so that's always been our policy or regulation with Prince County Schools am I correct Dr Waltz yes so that's that's no different and getting out June 8th I mean I can't remember ever doing that in Prince Lam County Schools so

149sad thing is I won't have any kids still in Prince William County schools when this calendar is in effect but it's pretty exciting still and so I really do hope we pass this the reason the board was very excited when we first had the option for the pre- Labor Day waiver is because it does give us that extra week um that we have for education in the school year prior to SOS and it's not only s sols also that's an extra week in the beginning of the school year prior to SATs prior to acts it's a time to get in that extra instruction because if you had that time at the end of the school year your testing's done and this I think is the best benefit for the kids and what we're about is

150education not just the vacations we'll accommodate vacations we've got to focus on the education so thank you thank you Miss s anyone else Mr bran I almost said trenum and I apologize Mr bran that's all right um thank you chairman Sawyers I I guess I'm kind of looking at this from an ex-teacher perspective and I was a teacher in the school system for seven years and I really like that June 8th dat because I know as someone who taught an so class every single year that I was a teacher English 11 a lot of my students physically and mentally as soon as s sols were over and probably me as well we were done we were checked out um we were ready for the school year to come to a close so I think that's

151one reason I do find that that June 8th date in date quite appealing because you know from a school calendar perspective it it is nice to end earlier I do have a question about the committee makeup and I I apologize I wasn't up here on the on September 7th but um when it comes to the committee makeup I noticed there was an election board representative on the on as part of the group and we had a couple gentlemen come up tonight and address that topic of election days I think uh for for the fall and also for June of 2018 were how did that factor into the decision- making because I I know they were brought up tonight but did they come up in your committee meetings as yes Mr Forest was at the committee

152meetings I believe it was Mr Forest um he was at our committee meetings so we've had an election representative as part of the committee and those issues do come up and get discussed and there's um Sometimes some uh vigorous dialogue about them but the decisions have um remain consistent with the way we've done practice for the November elections um so yes he was he was president at both calendar committee meetings okay thank you thank you Mr bran other discussion Dr Waltz thank you for calling on me so many you're welcome sir so one one final uh note that hasn't come up in any of this is the uh building and construction and maintenance department will be estatic if the modified plan goes through um because five days onto the construction calendar is huge if you

153take the potential days of all of our Renovations and construction over the course of the summer five days is a pretty big percentile so if you choose that one well we're about to find out so any further discussion on the matter with that I'll call the vote um I'm actually going to do this one here miss Ralston uh the motion on I'm going to repeat the motion that the prince Willam County school board approved the 20178 annual school calendar known as the trenum hybrid calendar Miss ralon how do you vote Yes Mr bran yes Miss Jesse yes yes Miss sat yes yes Mr deuts I Mr wil yes I too vote Yes it's easier than I thought it would be shouldn't have to do it that way I promise I click save Miss irban I

154can't see the votes because they still have that slide up there we go thank you there it is the vote is seven yes one absent Williams motion passed all right moving right along thank you Dr cassada um moving right along we are on item 16.01 which is the legislative priorities a motion is in order Mr chairman Miss site I move that the princic County school board approved the legislative priorities for the 2017 legislative session thank you do I have a second Mr chairman Miss Ralston I second thank you discussion Miss s thank you Mr chairman um there was a change made and I think Mr Iman mentioned that when we were here last time um number seven was added provide new funding with the standards of quality so the school divisions can staff for one

155nurse for every 750 students um it's my understanding there's going to be a Statewide push with School nurses to push for that standard quality change um so that we do have um a smaller case load for our nurses than what we currently have also I did see something recently with the Department of Education where they also are looking at adjusting the standards of quality for this so I think this is a very good time to move that from our list of supports to our legislative priorities and I appreciate everybody um if we do support that so thank you Mr chairman thank you Miss s white anyone else discussion on the legislative priorities well with that I'll call the vote those in favor of the motion please signify yes by raising your right hand thank you

156vote is seven yes one absent Williams motion passed moving on to finance and support services we have the proposed sale of vpsa bonds fall 2016 a motion is in order Mr 17 Mr chairman say 1701 yes Miss Jesse Miss satte do you have to read the whole thing or say as recommended I believe you can say as recommended I'm I'm I'm okay with actually I kind of want to tell you you have to read the whole thing but I I think the whole board having it in front of them is fine with as recommended Mr chairman I recommend that the princ County school board approved the proposed sale of the vsba bonds for the fall 2016 sale as recommended Mr chairman I second thank you Miss sat white Mr Ron seconds discussion Mr deuts thank

157you um I have a question I Mr Klein's here I have a process question real quick sorry just so I understand what it is we're actually voting on here um at the very end of all the words in front of us it says as the first step the school board must request Board of County Supervisor submit an application consent to the issuance of the sale of bonds the vpsa so are we just voting on requesting the BCS submit the application and then we vote on actually approving authorizing them later or what exactly are we doing here no you essentially you are taking I'm sorry Mr chairman members of the board Dr Waltz you are you are voting both stages of the process and that is it's a request to the board of County supervisor to

158uh sell those bonds through the vpsa and to the extent that that is approved by the vpsa you are consenting to the issuance of such bonds okay this is the one vote on all these bonds here thank you Mr Deutch anyone else okay with that uh we'll call the vote those in favor of the motion please signify yes by raising your right hand thank you the vote is seven yes one absent Williams motion passed moving on to superintendent Time Dr Waltz I would like to begin by reminding the board that I yielded my entire time at the last school board meeting well first and foremost I would like to welcome our newest School Board member uh Mr Shan bran and uh had a good meeting with him yesterday so uh we will work with you

159as we do with each of our board members and welcome and thank you for your service I'm pleased to announce that we have taken another step to give teachers more time to teach this involves What's called the Orange literacy folder that elementary teachers had been required to keep on their students based on teacher input we have eliminated duplication in data collection cut paperwork and streamline required assessments as always teachers will continue to assess students as needed to diagnose and properly address their learning needs in reading and writing and we are confident this approach will provide extra time for planning and good instruction September 15th through October 15th is National Hispanic Heritage Month during this month our nation recognizes the valuable contributions of Hispanic Americans to our country's history there are numerous events sponsored by the

160Northern Virginia Community College during this time check out the college's Global Learning Center website under news and events for details our second college fair will take place on October 13th 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at Garfield High School all Juniors and seniors and their parents are encouraged to attend and explore postgraduation options you will have a chance to meet representatives from colleges and universities technical schools and the military October is bullying prevention month this observance reminds us that bullying of any type has no place in our schools or in the lives of anyone anywhere here in pwcs we all work together as a team students employees and parents to prevent it the school board approved a resolution at its last meeting to recognize the importance of programs that encourage positive behaviors and discourage bullying behaviors among

161these programs is the widely acclaimed Rachel's Challenge earlier today NBC 4 reporters were at Parkside Middle School to cover that school's r ch's challenge assembly I would also like to remind parents and community members of a round table on bullying which will occur tomorrow Thursday October 6th at 700 p.m here in the Kelly Leadership Center Courtney burky a nationally known expert on bullying will meet with parents to discuss subjects such as cyber bullying and ways to help students affected by bullying another important date and topic to note on your calendars is the Prince William County Police Department's Youth Services bureau's presentation on social media and sexting on October 12th at Patriot High School this presentation will take place from 7:00 to 10: p.m. and all students and parents are invited to attend now is the

162time to learn about the many Middle School specialty programs that our School Division offers these are rigorous programs that help students acquire in-depth knowledge in a field of interest to them Middle School information sessions will be held on October 10th and October 17th at the Kelly Leadership Center and will cover Math and Science World languages and the international borate middle years program the annual great Southeast ShakeOut will take place on Thursday October 20th at 10:20 a.m. pwcs will participate in this multi-state earthquake drill as a reminder it was only 5 years ago that a 5.8 magnitude earthquake struck Virginia Mrs Lori Williams our school board representative from the Woodbridge District was recently elected to serve as chairman of the joint board for the Governor's School at Innovation Park for the 201617 Academic Year she served

163as Vice chairman last school year and we offer our congratulations to Mrs Williams now to student accomplishments congratulations on our 2016 National Merit semifinalists Christopher Chi and Kimberly Zang who attend Battlefield High School Cameron Phillips from brinville District High School Christian Ellis and Tian Tian low students at Woodbridge High School and Gregory Bastion Victoria bavard and Jonathan binsky who are students at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology two Patriot High School marching band members Ariana Nar and Natalie Wong have been selected for the United States All-American marching band this band will perform at the US All-American Bowl in San Antonio in January Ariana will be the drum major and Natalie will play the Picolo the selection process was very rigorous requiring audition videos a written essay and recommendations from the band director hats

164off to Patriot director of bands Mr David Van gelder for his work with these talented musicians and in closing I am extremely proud to announce that a record number of pwcs students graduated on time last school year our new 2016 ontime graduation rate is 91.8% which continues a steady climb from 83% 8 years ago and again outpaces the Statewide results this kind of success can only be achieved because the important work that begins in our elementary schools continues through our middle schools and culminates at the high schools on behalf of the administrative leadership team and the school board I thank and congratulate all of our 11,000 employees for their outstanding work as we strive together to provide a worldclass education thank you thank you Dr Waltz moving on to item 1901 Mr deuts this is

165your special education advisory committee appointment thank you Mr chairman uh I move that Prince William County school board approved the appointment of Charles Ronco to represent koh's district for the special education advisory committee for a period of two years and I will second that motion uh Mr Deutsch do you have any do you want to discuss it uh he is a uh very smart uh math teacher in the county uh with a uh interest in special education and I look forward to uh seeing the work he does any further discussion I know Mr Ronco as well I know he's passionate about what he does and I think this is a great appointment and so I'm happy to support him anything else those in favor of the motion please signify yes by raising your right hand

166thank you the vote is seven yes one absent Williams motion passed moving right along to 19.02 the lgbtq task force Miss Jesse this mic is too far away I'm recommending that the Prince William County School Board um develop a task force uh for the lbgt uh Q uh since last week we had the last meeting we discussed this and uh I guess I'm just make recommending that and can I at this time discuss my rationale yeah yes okay absolutely this this is on for information but you you can okay okay absolutely do that um um first of all I I think that our school system's job is to provide educational access and safe learning environment for all students including transgender students um I know there are some legal considerations um the idea is not to

167discriminate against students based on their trans transgender status uh is one that needs to be addressed and one that I fully support So in doing my um research I think that um it was important for me to go back and obtain guidance and my guidance comes from the National School Board Association who said in April of n that we should do two things because it's such a sensitive and complex issue one we should engage our communities in policies and procedures to ensure access to education while reflecting on the community's concerns and values I know there were people here who said things that were very hurtful there were people who came and shared their hearts uh it was a very difficult thing to do but I think the issue was it wasn't actually the uh policy

168itself it was the support of the policy and how it was going to to be implemented and that's why I recommend the task force that would be uh under direction of the division superintendent uh secondly the uh National School Board Association recommends that we need to know that the superintendent and the staff are ready and that we are involving other people and seek to reconcile some sometimes deeply conflicting Community views that and legal imperatives that comes with this issue uh I know that at the last board meeting I I remember Al Mrs satte mentioning it and I've chatted with other school board members uh and chatted with some other people in that Community uh I have chat talked with Dr Waltz and asked him whether or not he would be willing to form that task

169force he has indicated that he's willing to do that and to perhaps bring back back a report after the first of the year the formulation of that uh task force should con include community members it should include teachers who deal with these students parents uh and members of the community itself uh I think that we say we haven't gotten any reports but we haven't gotten reports because it's not something that's very popular to do so I'm hoping that I call it the Goldilocks formula I know we can't all have this just right thing and I know that there're going to be people who uh differ but we have uh a Safety Committee we have a special education committee last night I was at Woodbridge as we talked about a new school and I just want

170to commend um Mr Klein and his staff because some of the ideas that came out last night I was thinking whoa I don't know if that's really a good idea and they were just so nice well we'll consider that uh people just want to know that they're heard and so I think the way it was done not the recommendation itself is something that we I would like to see us re adjust Mr chairman thank you Miss Jesse Miss rolson I think I'll second that because it hasn't been seconded there's no motion on the floor this is only on for information oh information only okay um I agree with you on this Miss Jesse um when I listened two weeks ago and even two weeks before that it was just how angry people were and I

171think you can drum up people against an ant if you phrase it correctly it doesn't mean that ant's going to bite you it just means that you figured out the correct words to hit the right buttons so I think think that this is a great idea I look forward to it I look forward to you doing this and I'd like an opportunity to at least put a person on there um if you don't mind and if that's how you're going to do it Dr Waltz if not let me know because I can think of at least one or two people um so I do look forward to it I think it's a great idea thank you Mr Ron any further discussion Mr DCH thank you Mr chairman I guess I'm still concerned with what we're

172doing here and also kind of the the priorities of the school board right now uh just like the school division does every year uh we gave the superintendent a list of priorities for what we wanted him to focus on for the year uh and so far there hasn't been a lot of follow through from the board on facilitating making sure that those goals happen um right now we're talking about creating another task force which um will consume a fair bit of time and a fair bit of energy from the superintendent both in uh formulating executing reporting Etc um and we need to make sure that the priorities we already have established are what we push forward and put our resources towards uh so that we truly improve things as we pile more things on the

173superintendent's plate it's going to be very hard for him to accomplish things we already have said we want him to accomplish um I'm also very nervous about the way that we are going forward on something where we know the legal landscape may change under us in couple months so if we come forward with a bunch of proposals uh if we get a report in January so we have proposals in February or March we vote on and then we have rulings about 3 months later uh that maybe change things up uh then we have to almost go back to the drawing board because then we have to meet with people in light of what the actual legal landscape is so I think it's a matter of us contining to prioritize what we've already said we would

174prioritize um not continuing to burden staff and make sure we make effective uh proposals uh based on the actual legal landscape after it settles and I think that would be more Prudence do we continue to focus on education here Dr Waltz again I I can defer to uh Vice chairman Jesse but my understanding from our conversations was that in January we wouldn't have a task force put together with completed work but that in January I would bring back to the board a framework for a task force that would involve Community input and so forth for you folks to react to and see if we have five or more board members who believe this is the right path so the initial work would be done by an administrative team to carve out a timeline and how

175that might work to present to the board in January thank you Dr Waltz Miss Jesse I just wanted to say that he is correct uh I wanted to make sure we have ample input uh when the legal uh decision comes down we're going to have to react to the legal decision but in some way and I'm not sure how depending on how it's worded we've got to find a way to be fair to all members of this community and that include transgender what we do as a school board we're not going to violate the law but I think to just sit and to hold our hands and because people were saying we had no input we don't know uh many people don't know the difference they there's an education process too but I'm not asking

176that you formulate some big committee that's going to we're going to have to have a major vote but we can at least begin the process of selecting members establishing a framework so because we say that the reported the decision is going to be back in two months we don't know that what happens if all those people the people tonight for example who came here and the courts decide to wait a year or two years what do they do what do we as a board say to them that well we're waiting two years before we even formulate any ideas of how we can create equity for all the people in our school system that's that's my concern and Dr Waltz I wanted to also say that because there was not a lot of opportunity for input

177Dr Waltz and his staff have been doing quite a bit of work in this area and nobody knew about it I was talking to one principal and she said well we had this meeting and we were talking about you know this this this concept and the sensitivity there's a lot of work that's been done behind the scenes already and some of that work we can augment modify or adjust but we do the people who are involved the transgender Community has a right to at least have their voices heard in some systematic and professional manner they should not have to come before this board and stand up and then by some be ridiculed because of who they are so that's that's basically my thank you thank you Miss Jesse Miss Sato thank you Mr chairman uh

178Miss Jesse and Dr Waltz I'm glad that you guys have met on this excuse me you guys it sounds really informal I'm glad that the two of you have met on this and discussed it and it was on September 7th I mentioned the need for a task force because we had not had these discussions in the community I mentioned it again last meeting and I'm really glad that you've met and had this discussion Dr Waltz I appreciate what you've just laid out about bringing us um a framework for a task force you we know that in Fairfax County they've pretty much stopped everything right now as they're waiting for things to play out with the courts someone referenced tonight my long list of questions that I presented on September 7th and when we're here on

179this board we have to think through implications whenever we pass something we do a tremendous amount of research when we're on this board and it's our responsibility we have to do these things just on calendar which should be easy we spend a tremendous amount of time on and this isn't something that's easy and we have to we have to work together to bring people in our community together and Dr Waltz I I definitely would like to see you put together a task force and um that would look at some of these things that have been talked about on the entire issue and then bring us together some recommendations incorporating what we hear um hopefully from the what we know that we'll hear at least from one of the courts next year and um I think

180this is a good thing I mean a lot of people who have spoken um from different aspects have volunteered their services and um I I know that you have professionals on staff who are constantly working with our members of the community and I know you can put together a good task force as you've done in the past with sensitive issues and bring us some good answers so I am looking forward to this um one thing I would say is that we also want to be sensitive in how the task force is named because we want to be sensitive to everybody in the community so we like to on this board to put things in your lap that are difficult and say fix it so um yeah you know thank you very so thank you very

181much U Miss Jesse for bringing us forward Dr Waltz for um taking this on for us and assuming that we approve this thank you and I'll I'll just be very brief um just oh I'm sorry Mr um sorry Mr W go ahead you had your mic on before I did Mr W it's okay I did I I I just want to uh again miss our white said it very succinctly mostly what I was going to say the need for this task force you know at the end of what I was saying two weeks ago would be calling for the task force and I commend you miss Jesse for putting this forward I think this is is very important uh you know I would remind uh Mr deuts that you know people from both sides of

182the aisle were calling for the need to have the conversation out there in the audience and I think it's important we do this in a you know bipartisan red blue purple manner you know and we see this happening all across the country you know in conservative communities in Liberal communities and moderate communities I think the discussion needs to be had and we need to have some type of framework in place and the educational opportunity like you were saying Miss Jesse I just think it's very important uh and I support this uh idea thank you Mr dech uh uh Mr wil excuse me um yeah I think it's important as well uh you know to Mr deutch's point about focusing on education and things like that I think you know there's obviously basic needs that need

183to be met in order for the education to take root that we're providing these children safety a basic level you know they have to come in not starving every day we want to make sure they have food in their belly so they can take ADV manager of Education um clothes on their back those types of basic needs because a student or employee for that matter that that's uncomfortable or unsafe um in their environment ultimately doesn't get the most out of their education and so I certainly agree with focusing on education but we have to make sure as I look down the rest of our agenda and see you know our last three items um have nothing to do with education um that you know that we focus on those things but it's it's important that

184that that basic needs are met in order to um in order to take advantage of the education that we do provide our children so that's why although ultimately obviously um I wish things would happen faster at the same time I'm willing to walk down the road and make sure that we we at least move and start having the conversation as well so thank you Mr bran uh during the very lengthy Schoolboard meeting last time I I wasn't up here but I did have the opportunity to to walk out in the lobby a couple times and one of the things that impressed me and Danica I'm going to point you out was I I did see um you talking to to a a gentleman I who I believe was one of the ministers for a very

185long time and I was impressed by that I saw two people that were from different sides of the owl I'll use uh Mr wil's term uh definitely on this topic but the two of you appear to be engaged in a very civil discussion and seem to be listening to each other for for well over an hour plus that impressed me and it it just made me think that a task force the idea of a task force definitely has Merit because people even if they disagree on topics even if they don't see ey ey they can get in the same room and they can talk to each other and they can communicate with each other and they can treat each other with respect and they can be civil um I like the timeline that Dr Waltz

186mentioned tonight I think that's a good thing I I don't think we should Rush this I I kind of agree with a couple other folks up here that have pointed out you know there will be court cases either at the state level or definitely at the national level that give us some guidance on this um but getting started with talking and discussions and communicating is a negative thing so I I definitely think it has Merit thank you Mr bran I think that gave everybody a shot so we will move on to the next item which is item 19.03 Improvement advanced placement scores for all students presentation Mr rson this is on as yours but I believe Mr Mulgrew will be coming to the podium thank you yes you know I'm trying to look at this

187one and see what I I have had so many many things on and they've all come finally at this time yes please I I deserve that hand clap thank you Miss um Mr Mulgrew will tell us all about it thank you thank you good evening chairman Sawyers members of the school board and Dr Walts tonight's presentation is at the request of Miss Ralston I'd also like to thank Miss sat white for assisting me in Boston with this presentation at the national Schoolboard conference this past April tonight's presentation is called improving advanced placement students advanced placement programs for all students 10 years ago the Su the school board challenged the superintendent to increase access to advanced placement International Balor in Cambridge classes the key was to increase access to all students but still maintain High Pass

188rates for students at that time only about 177 % of students Nationwide graduated having passed an advanced exam the superintendent wanted to double that average the school board and the superintendent agreed on this vision and changed his strategic plan to refect the percentage of Prince William County graduates who pass an advanced exam there were three actions taken by the school division to complete the task one of the first actions was to present the research conducted by John Hattie all the instructional techniques listed on the leftand side were found to have positive effects however Prince wayam County high schools focused on three of the instructional techniques that were found to have some of the highest impacts on student achievement these three instructional techniques teacher student relationships feedback and the self-reporting of grades by students were identified

189to have some of the highest impacts the second action was to analyze the research conducted by Hanover research Dr Casada our director of accountability routinely shares best practices identified by Handover research Handover identifies the following actions schools should effectively use the PSAT test given each October to both sophomores and juniors the school board agreed and continues to fund this for our stud students using the PSAT scores effectively utilize the AP potential reports to increase enrollment the school board agreed and continues to pay for all advanced tests increased in professional development for teachers remove the Inhibitors from Advanced coursework participation and emphasis should definitely be given at the lower levels the preap situations the PSAT test is given in October to traditionally the results of the test come back to the school in mid December depending

190on how a student scores on the PSAT counselors can identify students who have been identified by the College Board as having AP potential Prince William County also uses the AP expectancy table to increase student access let me see if I can get the mouse this is based on a national uh probabilities 90% of students who score a 67 if you can follow the error or higher on the math portion of their PSAT not Nationwide students who have 67 or higher 90% pass the calculus test two years later if they have a 64 through a 66 80% of them pass two years later when they take calculus by the way we're speaking of calculus AB not BC just a semester worth of college calculus 58 to 60 that student has a 60% probability this is based

191on National statistics provided by the College Board I'd like you to bring to your attention to your attention to students whose PSAT scores are around 50 or below if a student had a 50 somewhere between 49 and 51 Nationwide only about 30% of those students students end up passing the calculus test 2 years later if they're below it at a 47 to a 48 obviously that number goes down it's at 20% if they're below 43 it's just a 10% proficiency here's Prince William Count's these are actual students from the 2014 cohort this student 50 which means he only had a uh 30% % probability of passing the Test passing the test means he only got a three this student got a perfect score this would be accepted this AP score at Harvard this 50 another

192one perfect score five this 50 perfect score five a 54 for student D perfect score five way down here you have a student with a 44 that is a three on the calculus test which almost guarantees uh College acceptance and college credit at most universities there's some that will advocate for a four these are outstanding these are students actually who far exceeded what their probabilities were two years later overall how did our division do now I'm going to make sure I say this to Mr wil Mr bran and then miss Ralston as well this is just advanced placement you have Cambridge test um Mr B you have IB test at Stonewall and the same there we just the the College Board gives advanced placement okay right here students who had a 10% probability we did

193not do very well we had five students overall in calculus but zero pass but look at the students who only had a 20% probability we leveled the national average at 43.8 students had a 30% probability of passing this is not a high score on the PSAT 60% passed if we had a 40% we were at 47 50 we were at 62 60 we were at 70 at the 70% Mark we were at 67% 80% Mark nationally we were at 90 and and at 90% we were basically 90 what I would like to try to bring to the board's attention is that in short there were 260 students who took the calculus AB test in 2014 I have highlighted the fact that 2third of those students highlighted in red 154 of the 260 were students who

194probably would have never taken the course 10 years earlier they wouldn't have been enrolled much less getting fives or fours or threes we have greatly expanded the opportunity for our students it is significant in the fact I'm sorry I apologize the lessons that we have learned collaboration between the school board and the superintendent is very important in promoting student achievement and advanced placement I'd like to personally thank you and the previous board as well for your support on this initiative over the last couple of years sometimes you print out I I fund PSAT I want to tell you this is the reason why you do that provide indicators or goals in the Strategic plan that benefit the desired effect I think by switching from the percentage of students who pass an AP test to the

195percentage of our graduates we have greatly expanded um AP enrollment and proficiency programs to in improve advanced placement succcess Works work best with other programs or initiatives it's comprehensive it's everybody pitching in in Prince William County we have discovered keeping lanes open for advanced placement students is important many students did much better than their PSAT indicators would have projected what we've learned a little bit is in this case math and advanced placement might be a marathon you might not be ahead at the math at the halfway point at the 13 Mile Marker in sixth grade but many of our students are sprinting at the end of it in 9th 10th 11th and 12th and are doing exceptional work the results Prince County now has roughly 33% of its seniors graduating having passed an advanced placement

196International baloran or Cambridge exam SAT scores have risen 17 points over the last few years with more students taking the test and the percentage of socioeconomic students Rising during that time Prince William County ontime graduation rate is 91.4 at the time that I made the slide and that we presented this it was 91.4 the the ontime graduation rate came out as Dr welt so eloquently said it's now 91.8 so this slide is incorrect because now it's the highest in the history of our County and the time that this was written it was the seventh highest among the 50 largest school districts and this is the one that I'm most proud of Prince William County has been honored twice in the past three years by the college board with honor rooll status for its success in

197raising advanced placement access and scores to underrepresented groups um to my knowledge no other jurisdiction in Northern Virginia has gotten it once again I'd like to thank you for your support thank you Miss Rolston thank you very much um this evening I hope that for those who are still here are maybe watching this you've had an opportunity to hear about our students from Title One to special education to advanc placements it shows that good things are truly Happening Here each child is being educated to the highest of their potential and it's an excellent staff excellent staff that'll take the time and look at our kids and say yes they can thank you very much thank you Mr rolon anyone else Miss Jesse um gotta get closer to my mic I'm sorry uh I want to

198also thank you and uh you know I look at a lot of data and uh the SAT scores I think is a discussion that can't be had tonight I'd rather uh down the road chat with you about talking about our SAT scores uh there are some areas that I think we really need to improve in but first I want to congratulate you for this uh but down the road I'd like to look at that I talked to Jennifer today and wanted to talk about the percent of Virginia Public Schools meeting the college readiness Benchmark because at the end of the day because I've been checking on that to say Well when our kids graduate what happens are they graduating with the scores that they need in order to move on to that college level and

199Jennifer Miss Dr Casada said that scores on the college readiness Benchmark is not available or we don't have that now because at a state level um Governor uh well miss Dr an Holton who is now Mrs Kaine who was running for the had written in the last uh Virginia vdo news that uh we have uh chronic gaps in uh the number of kids 45% at the state level that can move on to college at um and the likelihood of getting a b receiving a B minus average during the first year so it's just as I read it over and over in this afternoon as I read it I thought you know this is just uh too much information so I'd like to get with you and so we can chat about that because at the

200end of the day it's about our kids being ready for college but also if we have a percentage of kids who are not going to be ready to be successful in college it comes back to me that you know I've been on the sport for a while and I'm beginning to refocus my energies on the fact that our kids need to leave the school system either career or college ready and so as we look at this college readiness we really need to have an alternate program for kids for career Readiness when our kids walk out of the school system and they don't get a job or they're not going to college it's just an accident waiting to happen and we're talking about that you know that pipeline situation I think it starts with us and

201my husband said this but I've always been a person that said and many people in high performing school system their edict is it's not the parents job to teach their kids it's our job to teach their kids and their job is to support learning um my husband was talking about his background I happen to get this ancestry thing to do and we were doing it last night and I knew that my parents were not very literate and last night for the first time I realized that my mother had a fifth grade education so this whole thing of her being involved with me was not going to happen the school it's the school's job and that's what I want to say to Dr Waltz it's our it's our job parents support but it's our responsibility to

202get these kids out of here and get them ready for college or into a career thank you very much no thank you thank you Miss Jesse any further discussion Mr D thank you Mr chairman so as I look at the first slide it says that our goal is to double the 177% um of students who are graduating with an ex uh an advanced exam we've hit 33% are we roughly saying we've hit our goal uh doubling would be 34% essentially I I at the time that he did that it would be um which means I have to go back and find another 60 kids out of this graduation cohort I'm just looking for 60 more children children to take an advanced placement class in their area of interest and if we can get those 60

203over the hump we'll hit 34% to get to 35 it's another 60 um that's how we look at it um very much can I go through this school system and find 60 kids that we have yet to paint on their canvas we're we're we know they're good but for some reason we haven't identified and given them the confidence I think we can um that's how we got from 31 to 32 to 33 it's 60 so we're we're essentially we're pretty darn close we've essentially hit our goal is that fair I would say that basically there and but I mean ultimately if we were a state onto ourselves Prince William County we would be the number one state in the United States because Maryland I think was at 31.5 32% if Jennifer still here if we

204were ourselves a state just with the 500,000 people we we have we would be the number one jurisdiction as far as the equality and Excellence rating coming out um then why doesn't dual enrollment fall under um these types of classes because it gets students college credit it's just as good a college credit as an AP or another type of test why aren't we you know including that in terms of what we're pushing students to do we can certainly do that um Mr will I Mr de I just have to tell you at the time we began this several years ago we began with the AP potential report and everything that miss Jennifer Casada gave us as far as advanced placement I would agree with you that if a student takes a dual enrollment course I

205would E I would count that as Somebody But at the time we didn't include that measure we certainly could go forward and do that do we have kind of targets and benchmarks for what we're trying to hit for the number of students who take a dual enrollment class or uh we have not done that as of yet I I've been more focused on IB Cambridge and advanced placement but we certainly can look at that yeah I mean you know students take test that work for them you know and get the college credit works for them I just want to make sure we're not uh having the the trio competing against the dual enrollment so we're encouraging people to do all four and what works best for them vers we see one of the other three

206is better than dual enrollment or anything like that yeah there are certain there are certain places Mr wil has a very successful welding class at at bomic they get du enrollment credit it's an outstanding program I was there today um I did not count those students in this because I didn't have an AP expectancy to show the growth from 10th till 12th but we can certainly work on that thank you Mr Deutsch anyone else thank you thank you what's next moving right your mic's on I'm sorry your mic's on thank you're welcome moving on to item 19.04 it's an action item Mr Deutsch thank you Mr chairman I moved that to Prince William County school I moveed that to Prince William County School Board approve the revisions policy 137 polling of the Prince William County

207school board thank you Mr doy do we have a second Mr chairman I second Miss Rolston thank you discussion Mr dech thank you Mr chairman uh this item is a continuance um actually from before the summer uh where we had it on for an info item uh at the end of the summer uh this is a policy that a number of people work together on revising towards the end of the spring uh essentially the main thing it does is make sure that we have written in that the superintendent and division council is consulted before we move forward with a board poll I think it's a prudent and helpful measure and uh hopefully it help us as we conduct business and uh hope we vote uh to approve this thank you any further discussion I'll briefly

208say I worked with Mr trenum on this um we had a couple different versions kind of floating around uh several months ago um I don't necessarily see it as as seeking approval from from the superintendent or Council but that they need there part of it there's lots of changes to it but part of it being informed and I think ultimately you could nitpick several different versions of of what we had going on but but I'm I'm satisfied with the version that we have moving forward I mean you could you could sit here and pick it apart a couple words here couple words there but I don't think that's completely necessary so um you know if if the if the big thing is that the the council and the superintendent uh be advised of any board

209polls that's fine we do want to be careful as a school board that we don't abdicate ultimately our Authority um to the superintendent or to legal counsel but you know keeping them informed of what we're doing is certainly uh not a concern of not a concern that they're involved in that anyone else with that I'll call the vote those in favor of the motion please signify yes by raising your right hand thank you vote is seven yes one absent Williams motion passed okay and this is item 19.05 designation of the division Council Miss Mary McGowan as the official School Board parliamentarian Mr deuts this is your item and on for information thank you Mr chairman uh this was also an item uh brought forward by Mr trenum uh requested actually at the very last board

210meeting before the summer uh I think the the essence of what is uh being requested is that we have a parliamentarian um to assist us as we move forward uh and uh so I think that that's why we've brought it Forward is to make sure that the the school board has parliamentarian uh at the time uh division Council was considered a a natural fit um there's been some discussion as to uh potentially hiring a an outside parliamentarian uh I think the the essence is to make sure that we have one any other discussion um briefly I'll chime in here well maybe not as briefly but just a few points I I want to um make is I think ultimately if we kind of follow um this has seem to become an issue uh recently um

211you know as as obviously uh running for chair it's my job or when I ran for chair I knew it would my job if I want to to ultimately be the parliamentarian essentially before the board uh in my studying of it one of the first things they say is that even the best laid Parliament even the best trained parliamentarians will mess up occasionally um with that being said um I obviously have some concerns with legal counsil also being the parliamentarian um Mary what would be your approach to to being the the Sorry Miss mwan I apologize what would be your approach to to being the parliamentarian Mr chairman I've discussed this with several board members um it was not my idea to be um the parliamentarian and my major concern is that as the legal

212counsel I'm counsil to the entire board and I I try very hard not to um to to remain impartial to any of the particular issues that are before the board and to maintain that neutrality um the current motion or proposal which would have me not just be the parliamentarian but also be the final vote on the parliamentarian um I think think um is ill advised to the extent that it would inject me as a voter and I have a non-voting role I'm not a member of this board uh under Robert's Rules the customary role for a parliamentarian is to be an adviser to the board to offer advice which the chair can either ignore or accept and the and and under the current uh Robert rules which we've adopt this board has adopted um if

213there's a disagreement with the Chairman's call then the board has the ability to overrule that call so I I think you have a mechanism here if the board chooses to exercise it themselves um I would prefer not to be the parliamentarian for those reasons um but if the board decides that you that a majority of you want me to be the parliamentarian I would strongly strongly request that it only be in an advisory capacity I have served previous boards in an advisory capacity over the years even before Dr Waltz came here on the occasional need for uh an opinion on how Roberts applied thank you Mr McAn um ultimately I think the real issue here um to bring that that this has been brought up is really comes from uh a lack of communication you

214know reading through other even other boards and how they handle um amended motions those types of things uh Fairfax County for example just just to pull one out Fairfax County ultimately says that you know any any planned amendments to the motion need to be told to the rest of the board two days ahead of time And So It ultimately gives the board a chance to function more smoothly and properly at the time as opposed to having surprise amended Motions like we even saw at our last school board meeting um coming up and just and just being put out there without having more than a few seconds to kind of understand what was going on so this is kind of standard policy ahead of time so the re I mean things have happened until this became

215a subject you know Miss sat White had gotten a hold of me one time when she pulled something off the consent agenda Miss Williams wanted to add something to the Clos section agenda one time and she she told me ahead of time she was going to do that so whether or not I agree or disagree personally as the chairman wasn't really in play the fact is that these other items that have come forward ultimately were were brought up ahead of time so PE so we knew they were coming and that we could plan accordingly so I think the reality is spending money on a parliamentarian to come in um and be the parliamentarian isn't necessarily something that we need to do I think ultimately this can be resolved simply by better communication amongst the board

216as far as planning when it comes in um the reality is is that the board before I came on also had violations of Robert's Rules of Order friendly amendments were allowed to happen on a regular basis which are for forbidden by Robert's Rules of Order um members spoke against their own motion uh you can vote against your own motion but according to Robert's Rules of Order you cannot speak against your own motion that had happened at previous board meetings before I came on the board as well so previous boards weren't perfect with Robert rules either and I and I certainly won't claim to be um but they they are certainly something that I think with with proper communication amongst the board um this step isn't necessary and we can we can avoid we can avoid

217you know more confusion on the board um when we when we communicate any any intended changes to the plan or amended motions um uh coming forward out out of what's on the agenda so that's my that's my take on it and I appreciate that anybody else want to chime in on this Miss Roston I have given this a lot of thought uh more than I think it rightfully deserved and I was wondering why I was really trying to stick with it because I believe in a separate parliamentarian it just came down that easy for me and I think that no matter how it works for you Mr chairman and you you you set your rules you do what you do as the chairperson but I watched you actually told a member that they were out

218of order and they couldn't make a motion now I don't profess to know too much other than what I read about parliamentary Roes and I carry the little book with me and so that told me something then and as as time moves on I think that maybe we won't have to have them this person being paid um meeting after meeting but to me it I will feel a whole lot more comfortable if and you still have the opportunity to overrule that person but I still feel personally feel a lot more comfortable if we had someone thank you thank you Mr rson anyone else Miss s thank you Mr chairman um Mr allson you referenced um having possibly a paid parliamentarian do you have a company in mind uh there's the National Association but I was

219going to ask Miss mwan if she would contact them the National Association of parliamentarians I don't know what they charge from a little to a lot we're not looking for someone with you know that's charging hundreds and hundreds of dollars and that would be my request of of Miss mwan or um Dr Walt with the approval of the board if if we could find out before the next meeting what the cost would be so that we would have that in front of us when we make a decision right I think that would be helpful um you know I I also would like to have an outside parliamentarian as Miss rson said the chairman would still have the opportunity to make the final call I think that would actually keep things more even with all of

220us and right now we need that and as Mr rson said it might only be for a little while and um I can respect that so so and I understand Miss McGowan's concerns I I also respect her opinion and wanting to remain impartial and be just our legal representative um so I am interested in Miss ralston's proposal thank you Miss Swit anyone else let's make sure no one else wants to go first before Mr deuts goes second anyone else wants to go again miss Jesse um I too have given this a great deal of thought I wasn't sure of um if this was something that uh we've had some very difficult kinds of uh situations happen on this board uh in fact I was at a I was a panelist on a committee and um

221and the topic was budget and you know we talked about budget and we talked about infrastructure and board of Supervisors and they the audience had questions and the audience the last question was pretty much why are you guys so pretty much dysfunctional and uh which sort of caught me by surprise but I I I said that we were in the middle of a transition and we are uh but I know there's been discussion about the the school system and who we represent uh we've had had several issues on this board now let me just say this I've been in community organizations I don't know 30 years or 40 years really I have been a member of my sorority uh for many many years and various organization and every organization that I've ever been a part

222of has a parliamentarian but the parliamentarian in those organizations are usually an internal person so I I would see that we would look at an outside person maybe until we all felt a little bit more comfortable uh however when I went to the training for the vice chair at Virginia Board of Education I have an entire packet of information that was presented we we spent an hour or two just on parliamentarian procedure and they talked about how important it was so I'm not suggesting that I be the parliamentarian in by no means it's not my thing but um I'm just wondering if either that particular organization that has this and I had his card but I do have the information who does parliamentarian types of activities for just for school boards because it's just so

223important as we're going through this learning process ourselves and it may be that at some point um through some preliminary training that a member of this board could act as the parliamentarian I tell you we on my sorority we have a a tough little lady who's a parliamentarian I mean she walks up and down that aisle and say you're talking which is usually me but uh she keeps us on task uh we get so emotional that uh I think sometimes we get um you know we just don't follow all the procedures but I think there there is something to be said about getting information on a parliamentarian what it would cost whether are there are alternatives for us to get some guidance perhaps uh I think Mr sya said it best when he said that

224perhaps it's just communication if it's just communication then perhaps we don't need someone for a long period of time but I think we need to to communicate better as a board because I went to to the Board of Supervisors meeting and I said to uh the chairman I said God you guys fight out loud and uh he said yes we do and and I have to tell you guys uh we're at a point now where we fight out loud and this is not good for our school system and it's not good for us as a board I know we're in the learning process but all of this unanticipated uh it's almost like we're into these gotcha moments and we owe our children and we owe the School Division more than this it's not really about

225uh individuals any person or individual because I think all of us violate um Robert's Rules and sometimes it gets to be too sensitive I don't I think that person would be in an advisory I don't see that person having any voting uh rights on this board but just to make sure we're following the law and that we create a more amicable uh situation on this board I don't think we can afford to continue to have all of these surprises happening uh the the last meeting there were two surprises and uh the we're we're getting better than Scandal so I'm thinking maybe we should get some commercials Dr Waltz and make a little bit of money I knew any I knew no one who watched Schoolboard meetings and now people are saying when many of you

226guys coming on are you on this week they're they're actually taping their they're they're taping Scandal because uh we are better than Scandal but that's not a good thing for us because I I know that um members of this board came on this board to do the right thing for kids and I've always been a very professional individual when it came to my staff if there was an issue we tried to take care of it that's why I recommended the task force there's nothing you can't solve if you take a professional stance and listen to people and sometimes you need to have someone there to kind of keep us on task until we can become uh a little bit more uh fluid in our our actions on the board thank you thank you Miss Jesse

227anyone else Mr deuts thank you Mr chairman uh I guess just to clarify uh I didn't Envision I don't think anybody envisioned the idea of a parliamentarian as being a voting member I've served as a parliamentarian a number of organizations and that position doesn't vote been involved in plenty of other organizations where we have parliamentarians and they don't vote so parliamentarians most all the time are uh advisory in non- voting uh I appreciate uh Mr CH uh the Chairman's uh desire to increase Dialogue on the board uh and I think that will be healthy and help strengthen this board overall um and you know in that vein I appreciate the the very active role that the chairman took in our last uh board retreat and look forward to continuing to work with the chairman at

228this upcoming board retreat to continue to improve dialogue as we continue to move forward any further discussion thank you Mr Rich this next one is yours as well we've got revisions to policy 131 regular special and close meetings and it's the first reading thank you Mr chairman uh this item uh was drafted uh there's been a lot of discussion uh between board members community members Etc uh about the length of meetings uh The Importance of Being more focused uh as the board we have a small time frame to conduct our business in uh we meet once every uh we meet twice a month uh in the evening uh hopefully not pass midnight on a regular basis uh in order to make sure that what we're doing is conducting the business of the body um this

229item was ad uh drafted to uh basically make sure the items that are brought forward have the consent desire of multiple board members uh so that we're not just you know each is acting as individuals but acting more as a body you know other full-time legislative bodies people can drop in all the bill as they want there's a committee process there's months spent on it but we have to move quickly and in a time efficient manner and still get a lot of business that staff has That's essential and so this is an idea to hopefully help us move forward uh and simplify things all this says is that any uh item that a board member wants on the agenda has to have at the time of it being put on the agenda the concent of

230two other board members um so it hopefully will just keep us more focused thank you Mr Deutch M Rolston do do you mind saying the end of that again you say it has to have what yeah let me find the exact words real quick well here's the red line here we go uh it simply changes it to where it says a school board member with a consent at least two other board members uh and in details how I can put an an item on the agenda agenda so it just make sure that there's at least three board members who agree that this item needs to be discussed by the board U to make sure it's uh okay something we want thank you I I got that now thank you thank you Miss uh Jesse um

231if I thought that the number of persons putting an item on the board uh would stop uh what's happening with our board board we put the items that caused us a great deal of time were items that were just very sensitive items that got on the agenda um I I'm not sure I agree with having two people because then you have to go to that person and tell them why and you've got to negotiate with them and I I think it just creates more politicking behind the scenes uh when uh uh the task force I knew that um uh Miss site had mentioned a task force and some other people were but I I didn't do a lot of calling around I I don't like all the calling around and asking other people if you

232put your name on it everybody's assuming that you are supporting that individual so if I want you to support me I I put your your I put I add my name to your item and then I vote against you I just think an individual has a right to put something on the on the agenda and then um then it goes to the item that you want on the agenda really on Friday morning uh superintendent chairman Vice chair the one Authority that uh when I was in my training the one Authority that the chairperson has is to set the agenda and I'm not sure if that's not part of some um code Virginia code I'd have to go back and look at my training man it's not a part of the Virginia code but generally we

233those items are brought to us and we look at the Timeline we look at how many items are and we move things around but I would I may have something really special I want on the agenda and maybe want to somehow convince the rest of the board to vote with me but because I can't find a second person who's willing to stick kids are her neck out I wouldn't be able to put it on the agenda that's just my view on that hold on sorry Mr rson let's let's let if anyone else wants to go first before we go around again um I'll just briefly say that actually I think I think there's merits to what Mr deuts said I think there's merits to to what Miss uh Jesse said quite honestly it'll be interesting

234to see you know I've some more time to think about this for good uh which is good um you know I've actually done a lot of research into and actually since Mr deuts brought up the um the the board training that we went through when I when I met with uh via phone when I met with the two the two people who ran that training I had a lengthy conversation with them about different things that I was seeing as chairman and they I don't want to speak for them but I'll certainly summarize the conversation is that they were very surprised that one member had the right to add to the agenda um they said several times that you know the agenda shouldn't be held at the whim of one board member or even a minority

235of the board members um it it should be it should be done a consensus or or at least a majority of the board so based on you know again summarizing a lengthy conversation there are basically two ways uh we're we're we're we're not we're in the abnormal part this policy predates basically everybody on this board so this has been done for a while now the the way this has been done so essentially there's two kind of main ways from my research which is the chairman plans the agenda um with obviously the guidance of the vice chairman and with the superintendent and of course the superintendent by law has the right to add to the agenda as he sees fit um but or she in in other in other in other places as well um but

236uh if we don't go the chairman route then the only other route that makes sense to me is that a majority of the board uh agree to add something to the agenda um and not just um not just uh a fraction a minority of the board to add to the agenda so those are the two main ways that that I have understood through my research that are done primarily either the chairman sets the agenda with the superintendent and the vice chairman um or at least to get onto the agenda takes a majority of the board not a not what Ian I think the number three is convenient in this case but ultimately I think it would take a majority of the board to have the agenda if we're going to go down that road so

237if this does come up for a motion and I will I will I will um follow my own guidance based on previous debate discussion we just had in a previous item that if this motion does come forward as basically being three or however it's worded with the the the the the initial intent plus two other people which ultimately it's three I do intend to make an amendment to that motion to make it five uh total so I just like to give the board notice on that as well if we're going to if we're going to go forward with with it so thank you anyone else Miss rolon okay let me see if I have this correct beside for you and Miss Jesse and the superintendent are you saying that two more people this is what

238this motion is saying no the point of information Mr Deutch if I misspeak please correct me um ultimately no the superintendent doesn't have to approve anything added by the board the superintendent can add anything by law he can add to the can add to the school board agenda as as he and his staff sees fit Mr Deutsch's proposal would be that the one basically three people the one person who wants to initiated and two others um would would be able to add to the agenda as as he currently as he currently has it written that would be you as chairman it could be any three members of the board it wouldn't have to be me or the vice chairman it could be any three um any three members any three of us eight could could

239do it according to Mr de's proposal is that correct Mr deor yeah that would be thank you Miss saty thank you Mr chairman um mine's a little bit of wording issue that I had with this um I was a little bit concerned about it and so right now it's worded with the consent of at least two board members I know we want to avoid the appearance of illegal meetings because that's not something we want to see happen so I would propose that um I don't know if I can go with five board members but I propose we change this to either one board member or adjust the wording and um I have some proposed wording that someone helped me with um and let's see um may be placed on the agenda by the superintendent or

240by a board School Board member who has obtained the consent of at least two other board members by separate contact with each such board member and that way we're clarifying how you get that contact and um make sure that we don't get into trouble with any accusations of illegal meeting because none of us want to see that happen thank you Mr chairman thank you Miss s uh Miss Jesse so the question is uh and perhaps you said this if you get three people to put something on the agenda does the chairman when he's conduct deciding to do the agenda have the right to remove the item from the agenda for various reasons um if you have does the the two votes two people adding automatically places your item on the agenda but does the the

241chairman still reserve the right to remove an item from the agenda actually I currently do not have the authority to remove an item from the agenda that any one member can add an item to the agenda now obviously we've had conversations with with and I I know it happened in previous boards as well encouraging to move around based on time or or whatever is needed with the important things like when we had budget season I asked that few things be moved around so in case we needed more time for Budget season and that's been done on a one-on-one basis with the person adding the agenda but I currently do not have the authority and neither did the previous chair um every board member had the right to add to the agenda I know Dr Waltz

242who's in our on our agenda plan of meetings he he raised his hand Dr Waltz right I was just going to reinforce what you said that uh the previous two chairs have always had the right to move things around um because you you know you're sitting there an agenda planning the officers and myself and and uh Mary assists us as well miss mcgallen um but I think that is important and I think we're doing a little bit better tonight with the board meeting but uh in terms of the time but I think that that is something that's very important that we have kind of an overarching look at things hopefully not delay them as many as some of Miss ralston's items but uh that is helpful thank you Dr Waltz Miss Jesse you still have

243the floor um I just don't want to give the appearance for example if we move something around and that person feels um I I think there was a discussion before that there was a time that that individual wanted on the the agenda but we didn't think that this was this would add to the agenda so there become ill feelings because your item has been moved around and someone else said well I got my item in earlier why was my item moved around and maybe that your item required a great deal more discussion uh I I just think it's something that we probably need to think about uh before the vote the next vote and I need to get some more clarification thank you thank you Miss Jesse any further discussion Mr George thank you just

244in closing uh I guess I think that us talking about things before we bring them up helps increase dialogue obviously we have to do in one-on-one you know conversations but I think the more we're communicating as board members I think the more that we will uh work out our problems uh I I agree with if Miss s wants to help clarify with the language she offered I think that that makes sense I me I think we're already required to not violate Foya but if we want to clarify I think that makes a lot of sense but I think the extent that we're working together as a board about what our agenda is I think we're going to be able to work together as a body better and uh really be about our real business I

245I will speak a little bit real briefly to um not not to add to what Mr Deutch just said but I I think there's also a um really when it comes to uh the meetings that we have uh which is two Fridays before a board meeting where Miss Jesse and I meet with uh the superintendent and Miss McGowan um ultimately comes down to time and I know we've had further discussion about maybe even setting a limit on on our Schoolboard meetings as far as time goes and making sure the agenda the agenda preparation would play a big role in that making sure that that that not only we get out of here on time but the people that actually have to wake up and educate our children and and and and work with our teachers

246and professionals uh get home at a decent hour as well so I think that all kind of plays into the agenda planning as well and so we can um find a mechanism to to add some control to that and give the chairman and the vice chairman some discretion which it sounds like other other chairman have used in the past um then then we certainly can do that as well and make sure that agenda items are gotten to because it's not my intent in any way to stop anyone from adding to the agenda but like I said we have worked in the past to to kind of massage it to make it more effective as as effective as possible so with that any any further discussion okay moving right along to board matters we'll start with

247Miss ralon to my left thank you Mr chairman I just want to thank um all of the schools in the absco uh back to school night and for t-shirts and I have every Elementary School that was passing out a t-shirt or and the two middle schools in my high school uh and it was wonderful meeting parents that I had not met before and working with the principes in the schools on Saturday uh at Garfield at noon they will be honoring supervisor John Jenkins to the Hall of Fame and of course our homecoming game is on Friday and we will be there there's been many things that has excited me about this uh new school year is the fact that I'm coming in at the right time so that I can understand what Mr kleene is

248talking about because the budget is very very important and so I'm off to a good footing I'm starting to read things and to understand what you're saying which I did not truly understand that well last uh last time so I look forward to that I also want to thank the superintendent he has all he constantly directs me in the right direction um and I trust him and so of course you know I'm buttering you up for something but whatever it is I'll save that one to a later date to use on you but I thank everybody and welcome back and it's another school year and so I'm very excited about where we're on our way to thank you and now the moment we've all been waiting for Mr bran thank you chairman sawers uh first

249of all want I want to thank this board for their unanimous support um putting me in this position a couple weeks ago I do appreciate that um after that I keep referencing this very lengthy Schoolboard meeting we had a couple weeks ago but I'm going to do it again but after that meeting um the next day I did go to clerk MC mig's office and I did take the oath and and I tell you it was it was a very solidary moment it was just myself and the clerk and my wife and I raised my right hand I took an oath and I got to the words of the US Constitution and the sentimental side of me kicked in and I had to kind of push through that I could have just been experiencing sleep

250deprivation I don't know but um I did get a little emotional when it when I kind of came to that moment and thought about the responsibilities of of being a board member um I do value this opportunity to represent the brinville district and and all the students in Prince County Schools I will do my best to represent them and I will do my best to represent or board member trenum while he is deployed I don't have any updates on him tonight but I will try to add that to to Future meetings so we can all kind of keep track of what what he's doing across the ocean there uh locally I did attend some back to school nights last week I was lucky to attend uh some at Victory Piney Branch and also the noville

251school and I want to thank the administrations of all those schools for welcoming into their schools I I do plan over the course of the next year to to get to all the schools in the district at least once twice three times as much as I can uh to to meet the teachers and the and the principles and assistant principles and and hopefully developed a little bit of Rapport when I you know with with all those those different schools and the people in those buildings um lastly I do want to thank there's some folks up here that were very uh helpful to me over the course of the last couple weeks uh Miss manur Miss Urban Miss Simpson uh Miss McGowan many folks here at the Kelly Leadership Center have been very helpful to me

252uh because as as you can imagine uh being a new board member and having it kind of thrust upon you at a very quick pace is is definitely a learning process an educational process so uh and it will be one over the course of the next year so I'll keep learning which isn't necessarily A Bad Thing and uh Riley I do thank you as a former English teacher for bringing a little Robert Frost into the room tonight so I appreciate that you know when when National poetry month comes up in April if you want to come back and do some more poetry we can we can definitely uh share the floor and and and do that that's all I got thanks thank you Mr BR I did want to remind you that your board dues

253are due you can pay them you can pay them directly to me so and the other members May not have told you about those but they they do exist I promise you can just pay me directly cash cash is accepted Miss Jesse I want to W also want to welcome our new board member and uh members on this board are very helpful and I think all of us will uh do everything we can to support you because if we don't I think we will hear from overseas uh there's no doubt in my mind that we will but I do want to welcome you and uh you know we're gonna get out of here before 11 so no promises yet no you still have the floor h no oh no no no I I have um

254I didn't I didn't present last week but I do want to say that um I've I've gone to back to school nights uh some of them I've gone for 15 minutes to one and uh in that lak Ridge area they're all they're having Bard these the week for elementary works out well for some people but it's it's hard for me because I'm running from school to school but uh the principls there are doing a great great job and I was able to meet some of the advisory councils and some of the Girl Scouts should be contacting you um Miss Urban because I'd like to see some more girls at the podium here uh Woodbridge High School is under new leadership and I just want to tell you that the their student engagement and involvement with

255teachers has been phenomenal the the culture in that build building you can feel uh you can feel a difference in the culture in that building I know uh Mr Mulgrew was there the student involvement the teacher involvement they designed their own senior Lounge uh there was a teacher who redesigned the uh the uh room for the teachers and she said I've been in the school for a long time and no one knew I had this gift or this Talent uh so I was just very very impressed with what's going on because she got off to a very Rock start but she has done well um I met with principles and I talked to um Mr um Klein about uh as we're looking at all these new additions and trying to establish some communication so that

256we don't have long board meetings if we can't anticipate it I think some things are given when you're doing boundary kinds of considerations but uh the number one issue and I didn't put it in the legislative agenda and I maybe it's too late but I think it's not just um class size it's it's really overcrowding because once you deal with the overcrowding you will deal with the class size because you have the space so I'd like for that to be consider and I want to make a special tribute which I was not able to do last week uh to a board member Mrs Roston um you know I work with her with I worked with her I think I'll take it all back uh I worked with her um on the uh the the the

257new school the Hampton School and so last night as I was watching these wonderful wonderful debates and I heard Tim Kaine mention uh Barbara John's it's a part of our history that most of us did not know about and it's a part of our history that even the people at that school did not know about and I think um I want to thank you for allowing for working with us and with me and with that committee they're very internally grateful and uh on behalf of the democratic party of Prince William County because it was not the Democratic party of Prince William County who put your name up for recall I just want to say that um I know it's challenging but it was not our Democratic party that did that although it appeared to be

258the Democratic party of Prince William County schools you know we we all say that this is a non-political position but in reality all of us belong to a party uh this lady over here I think she's like the guru of the women Republicans she is you know and I don't think that any of us should be embarrassed by the fact that we represented by our party because we have different ideas but when it comes to children I don't play politics with children but some things happen in the public Arena that I wanted to say tonight to say that um I apologize to you for the person or whomever decided to put your name up because that was a very very difficult and I think uncomfortable place to be and thank you thank you Miss Jesse

259Miss Sedro thank you Mr chairman I want to thank Amanda and Eloise are our archers from Battlefield high school and bu middle school for being here tonight we are so proud of them and the accomplishments that they've made I also want to thank Mr buckfin the parents for being here um I'm looking forward to as the chairman said to having our team back to recognize them for um their huge accomplishments and look forward to that at a future meeting so thank you Mr chairman for mentioning that tonight um it is so good to say that we are finished with back to school nights um there are so many of them and um this year because I have a senior in high school I had to miss a couple and to my schools I was unable

260to get to for back to school nights I will get by to visit you before too long um there was a college fair one night and when I have a senior in high school I kind of have to make that a priority um thank you to Battlefield high school for hosting the first college night and um Mr Dr Waltz mentioned that we do have another one coming up so parents make sure to put that on your schedule um also um when your senior in high school has a seven birthday and you know he's going to be in college next year and won't be home for that his next birthday you clear your schedule and you celebrate it so again my apologies for not making some of this back to school nights and um I want

261to thank this board that I might actually get home before midnight tonight so thank you Mr chairman thank you Miss s and Mr Deutsch thank you Mr chairman uh we had a lot of fun at a lot of back school nights recently I want to highlight uh two things coming up uh first of all the social media training at Patriot High School on October 12th uh the superintendent referenced it and I think it's very important as people become more digitally connected uh that they are especially at such a young age that they're taking seriously what they're doing uh the ways that really it can impact the future of their life uh we have had students that are denied high school or denied College scholarships because of what they do on social media we've had people

262get into uh much more trouble because of what they do on social media uh everything uh can be a tool but you have to learn how to use it wisely and uh I appreciate the things that we continue to do to help train students and I hope that students and parents take advantage of this opportunity also uh one other uh deadline worth mentioning uh October 17th is the deadline to apply uh to be page in the Virginia General Assembly uh it's a really cool opportunity uh for some uh students and it's definitely worth uh applying and uh go for it and have fun thank you Mr Deutsch Mr W thank you I'll be uh succinct uh just I was really uh it was crazy year uh for back to school nights uh I was told

263you don't have to go to every one of them but I did um and so I for all my principles I don't know if that's going to be an every year expectation but I did my best um I went to them all um bless my wife and my family for being supportive of that uh as Miss Jesse was saying Elementary week is tough because they're all those nights and I was running around like a madman in the districts trying to make sure I was at the beginning of one at the end of other um but it was a good experience uh I did go to the 12 uh however Montclair little caveat I didn't go to theirs but I did go to their family fun night the week before so that counts balanced it out

264exactly and so I really enjoyed them great opportunities I'll be back tomorrow I'm in Patty tomorrow filming U my board brief that'll be fun uh showing off some of their cool stuff uh and Saturday morning um I'm very excited to join um the Ashlin and Forest Park autism walk uh with my family and my four-year-old son um as we continue to raise awareness to this growing issue uh in our County and the nation so with that I am done thank you Mr wol and I'll wrap up here um Mr wol I'm impressed that you made it to well it seems like there's a caveat there but um I impressed that you made it to all your back to school nights um when you have 97 of them like I do and you can make all

265of them that'll be truly impressive so that that would be something that that would be I so I did just so everyone knows I did make all of my 97 back to school nights now didn't even come close um so um OB I went to as many as I could um with with a lot going on in my life and in business as well at the same time but uh I did make it to pic Middle School uh I made it to uh Buckland Mills uh Elementary School also made it to um my my son's Gainesville uh middle school as well so made it to those for sure uh my wife made it to the one at glenkirk elementary and she reported back that it's the same as it's always been and great so they

266do a great job there so um I also want to welcome Sean I know that I briefly mentioned it at I think it was 400 a.m uh last school board meeting that you and I met uh previously before and obviously had had little interaction together but always had good conversation uh about about our community and obviously I live in the brentville district as well not all that far from me so um always welcome to stop by and and chat just don't bring any friends because that's an illegal board meeting but just you and I we can do that we can do that as much as you want I believe that's my camera over here I'd like to show off the the shirt that Miss satte and I got um which is the the rean archery

267shirt that they gave us and with the backto back world champions uh thing on the back so I thank uh Mr bucka his and his crew uh for getting that to us it's not going to come to a surprise to really any of you that this will be the first shirt that I have that says rean on it um so I I really it's really really going to be an added addition added addition to to to my wardrobe I will wear it with pride as I as I go on my my walks and jogs down uh down the road through the brunville district for sure so I will I will wear that plus coming from Appalachia and my dad being an outdoor writer since 1979 uh the camo always fits uh quite well um Sean

268you were very astute in your point that you brought up at the very beginning you didn't take you long to figure out that yes debb and B are awesome by the way they will be they will be your greatest assets uh on this board so uh you use them as as as much as you see fit but not to the point where they have to call me so to go right up to that line and then stop just short of that that's always wonderful when that happens um and Mr Deutsch you brought up a great point and I'll and I'll end on this um I get to go back to my uh college athletic roots on this which is the social media side um I know no one's watching that actually is you know think

269considering how hard College athletics maybe a few of their parents are as a former college coach for 15 years I coached the NCAA division 1 division 2 Division 3 and Junior College level um I can tell you without a doubt that any college coach worth his salt will research you online um and I'll tell you a very simple re there's a million reasons and we can we can have a long discussion on College athletics and why different things are important but I'll tell you why because when you're a college coach it's how I fed my kids it's how I paid my mortgage it's how I did everything that I it wasn't a hobby for me being a coach at Purdue University wasn't something I did on the side it was how I paid my bills

270and so if someone came in who thought posting certain things online was funny when they were in high school and they chose to continue to do those in college it could literally cost me my job um there's a million different reasons why you shouldn't be doing those things in the first place and we can talk about those uh in in these in these uh other town halls and and uh safe schools advisory Council things that we do but the reality is is if coaches want to if college coaches want to look at those from a selfish perspective we need to protect what we do there are plenty of stories you can look up I won't I won't mention any of them by name but there are plenty of stories you can look up that coaches

271have lost their jobs because of things that have been uh first declared on social media and what the NCAA likes to call which is their favorite saying of all time lack of institutional control so um that is the NCAA speak for no one's doing their job and you're all gone so although the NCA can't fire you certainly the presidents of the schools can so uh with that I think it's a very important message that certainly I know applies to way more than Athletics uh but that's certainly my experience as well at Future jobs um and and even our roles here as as Ed officials so uh with that I thought that was a good piece I wanted to add to Mr Deutsch's point about the social media side of things so with no further business

272before this board this meeting is adjourned [Music]