FCPS School Board Meeting--06 13 2019

001This June 13th 2019 regular meeting of the Fairfax County School Board will now come to order Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance and let us do so in celebration of Flag Day, which commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777, by resolution of the Second Continental Congress. Please remain standing for a moment of silence and the performance of the Laya Ensemble from Spring Hill Elementary under the direction of Ruth Donahue. Madam Chairman, may I say a few words? I'd like to thank Ms. Donahue and our wonderful players from Spring Hill and the wonderful parents who brought their children. Our strings and music program at Spring Hill is one of the largest in the county. Yes, almost 400 kids. 400 kids. And Ruth, you are a wonderful leader, and

002your children do a wonderful job. We're very proud of you. Thank you. And I want to mention that our superintendent actually sat in my classroom and played a violin one day. Remember that? We won't ask him to play. So now we're going to have certification of our closed meeting compliance. In order to comply with Section 2.2.37.12d of the Code of Virginia, it is necessary for the Board to certify that since the Fairfax County School Board convened a closed meeting on June 13, 2019, to the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered by the Board during the closed meeting. Do I have a motion? Motion made

003by Mr. Moon, seconded by Ms. Darinak-Kofax. All those in favor? That is Mr. Wilson, Ms. Palachuk, Mr. McElveen, Ms. Darinak-Kofax, Mr. Moon, Ms. McLaughlin, Ms. Kieskemarer, Ms. Evans, and Ms. Strauss. Those opposed? Those abstaining? Ms. Schultz and Ms. Hines. That motion carries. A few other announcements before we begin tonight's meeting. This school year 2020-2021 standard school year calendar agenda item has been moved to the June 20th school board meeting. The Holiday for 12 Month Employees agenda item has been pulled from the consent agenda at the request of a board member. The Award of a Contract University of Wisconsin ELP Assessments agenda item has been pulled from the consent agenda at the request of a board member. If you would like to review a copy of the agenda and any agenda item that is being discussed

004tonight, that information is on the table by the auditorium entrance. Tonight's agenda is available by going to school board on the Fairfax County Public Schools homepage and selecting board docs under upcoming school board meetings. The meeting is also being streamed live online. Select school board from the full menu, then click on the watch live button on the school board meetings webpage. Please turn off or silence your cell phones. I now call on Mr. Moon for a recognition. Thank you Madam Chair. I have a recognition of 2019 School Board Character Award recipient. The School Board Character Award was initiated by former student representative to the School Board, Chris Giaverelli, and established by the Student Advisory Council in 2001. The Apple Federal Credit Union Education Foundation has generously funded the $500 award since 2007. The award is

005given to a junior or senior who demonstrates a continuous record of high morals, strong integrity, and good character, and who is recognized as a role model for students in Fairfax County Public Schools in day-to-day behavior. The recipient of the 2019 School Board of Our Character Award is Camden Wiseman, a senior at Thomas Jefferson High School. Camden is a powerful source of inspiration for the TJ community. As a survivor of childhood cancer and volunteer ambassador for the Childhood Brain Tumor Foundation, Camden has shared his story in hopes it will inspire others to find strength and power in their own lives. His positive words and actions encourage his peers to pursue their own unique passions in making the world a better place. According to one counselor, Camden has grown into an amazing advocate for himself as well

006as others and enriches the lives of everyone around him. Simply put, I am better for knowing him. Camden is an intrepid and buoyant thinker whose residual visual impairment has not deterred him from serving his community. He is the captain of his chess team and in this leadership role founded a chess outreach program at an FCPS Title I elementary school where he and his teammates provide free chess instruction to students on a weekly basis. He has also served on the school's Honor Counselor for the past two years, being a certified soccer referee since 2013. and was selected to serve as his National Honor Society Chapter's service chair, where he has helped coordinate events for causes such as safety in driving, food for homeless shelters, bookmarks for kids at low-income elementary schools, a book drive at a

007nearby synagogue, and a pet toy drive for an animal shelter. With a great dedication and a courageous spirit, Camden eagerly anticipates broadening his exposure to economics, finance, and frontier oncology breakthroughs and aspires to a business career that encompasses cancer research advocacy. Camden's high morals, strong integrity, and resilience epitomize the character traits we want to see in all of our students. Through his exceptional work ethic, he has developed an admirable profile in academics, athletics, and community service. Camden has earned and truly deserves the School of the Character Award. At this time, I would like to invite Camden, his family and friends, and TJ Principal, Dr. M. Bonitaribus, to the dais for a photo with the board. I now call on Ms. Hines for a resolution honoring the 2019 Laura Ashley Piper Scholarship Award recipient. Thank you,

008Madam Chair. This is such a privilege. Laura Ashley Piper served as student representative to the Fairfax County School Board from 1986 to 1987. This outstanding student, talented athlete, and exceptional leader graduated from Robinson Secondary School and the Air Force Academy and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Air Force. She was killed in action over northern Iraq in April 1994. to honor Laura Ashley Piper's strong commitment to student participation and to recognize her high standards of achievement and involvement and her willingness to continually accept responsibility throughout her lifetime, the School Board of Fairfax County has established the annual $1,000 Laura Ashley Piper Scholarship. In 2007, Apple Federal Credit Union Education Foundation began its endowment of the Laura Ashley Piper Scholarship, providing $1,000 annually. We so appreciate their continued generosity. Each year, every high school may

009nominate one senior student who exemplifies the attributes of personal excellence and commitment to student government of Lieutenant Piper. A committee from the Office of School Counseling Services, Department of Instructional Services, considers the nominees. There is an engraved plaque in the school board office with each winner's name. The school board tonight will recognize Matthew Capuano Rizzo from George C. Marshall High School, the recipient of the 2019 Laura Ashley Piper Scholarship. I will now read our resolution. Whereas, Matthew Capuano Rizzo has remained consistently committed to excellence in academics, community service, athletics, and student leadership responsibilities throughout his years at George C. Marshall High School. And whereas, Matthew has shown great potential for continued academic success by maintaining a 4.385 grade point average and receiving a score of 1400 on his SAT. And by being an active member

010of the National English Honor Society as an officer. the French National Honor Society as a tutor coordinator, and the Social Studies Honor Society as an officer and liaison to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. And whereas during his time at Marshall, he has demonstrated innovation, responsibility, and kindness, and has helped foster student success by volunteering for the Writing Center as an outreach coordinator, and serving as a senior mentor for the Freshman Transition Program. He also created a pop-up poetry museum in the school's library to promote literature and creativity. And whereas Matthew has contributed to his community by being an engaged citizen, sharing a passion for environmental causes, and being known to ride his bike long distances to reduce his own carbon footprint, serving as an officer in the Octagon Club for four years where he

011helped organize various volunteer service projects and by being a youth board member for Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church And whereas through his overall excellence in academics and activities, including athletic success in cross country and tennis, and the way he inspires others with his maturity, intelligence, and enthusiasm for service to others, he in every way personifies the characteristics and ideals to which Laura Ashley Piper adhered. And now therefore, be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board awards the Laura Ashley Piper Scholarship to Matthew Capuano Rizzo in memory of Lieutenant Piper and in recognition of both for their drive, determination, and dedication to excellence. I so move. Is there a second? Seconded by Ms. Palchik. Ms. Hines, would you like to speak to your resolution? Just briefly. I think we've probably already embarrassed Matthew

012enough with all of this. But it's just such an incredible honor for me to do this. Matthew is clearly not only an excellent student and seems to have a particular talent for writing, but he has many broad interests, all of which it seems that he has turned to service. which is the highest calling for our students. And I have to say that it's my honor to serve as Matthew's school board member and to recognize him tonight. Thank you, Ms. Hines. Ms. Palchuk, would you like to speak to your second? Just very briefly, this is such an honor. I know you've worked hard and it's been a long year. So I hope you get some rest and we look forward to seeing all the wonderful things. And congratulations, mom and dad. Good job. And we look

013forward to everything you'll be doing for our community. Thank you, Ms. Palchuk. Ms. McLaughlin. Yes, to both Matthew, his family, and also to the audience members who are here to celebrate this tremendous honor. I did want to add additional context. The selection committee each year involves a school board member as well as someone from the Apple Federal Credit Union. And this year I served on the committee, so I had the distinct pleasure of reading through over 19 applicants from across the county. It was... truly remarkable. The students who were competing for this scholarship, all of them were really outstanding and so to Matthew in particular having had a chance to see all who applied, just absolutely outstanding. So excited for his future and really appreciate what he represents for the best that we have here

014in Fairfax County Public Schools. Congratulations. And with that, I will call for the vote. All those in favor? And that vote is unanimous. At this time, I would like to invite Matthew, his family, and friends to join us at the dais for a photo with the board. I call on Ms. Darinak-Kofax for a recognition of school resource officers. Thank you, Madam Chair. It is my pleasure to read this recognition. Fairfax Public County Schools and the Police Departments of Fairfax County, Fairfax City, and the Town of Herndon have enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship for more than two decades. One of the hallmarks of the relationship is the School Resource Officer Program. SROs partner with school administrators to ensure safe, productive, and inviting school environments for students and staff by deterring crime, maintaining orderly schools, and preventing

015truancy. In addition, SROs provide relevant safety education programs to FCPS students. Many SROs also volunteer as student mentors through the Mentorship Works program, serving as trusted adults that students can depend on to assist them in making healthy and safe choices. Furthermore, SROs play a critical role in ensuring the success of alternative accountability program. collaborative and community-oriented response to juvenile offenses that utilizes the principles of restorative justice to hold students accountable for their actions while at the same time preventing formal criminal involvement and satisfying the needs of their victims. Simply put, in order for our students to be successful, they require a safe and productive learning environment. Our SROs provide these positive environments and also establish valued and trusted relationships with students and staff. Thank you for all that you do and at this time I

016invite our school resource officers here in the audience to please join us up front to take a photo with our board. I call on Ms. Palchuk for a recognition of the DSBA Business Honor Roll Awards. The Dewberry Companies Inc., or Dewberry, is a locally owned, right around the corner, and operated comprehensive engineering, design, and construction firm that has partnered right here at Luther Jackson Middle School for 26 years. beginning in the fall of 1993 as part of a career awareness and exploration and tutoring partnerships with other businesses called Expanding Visions. They have essentially adopted Luther Jackson Middle School as their own. Dewberry, through funds donated to the Foundation for Fairfax County Public Schools, earmarked for Luther Jackson, has fully funded the school's Technology Student Association, or TSA team, which now has over 25 active members

017competing at region and state level competitions. In preparation for the competitions, Dewberry professionals come to Jackson and consult TSA students on projects in the fields of LEED environmental design, landscape architecture, and architectural engineering, allowing them to share their work for feedback from professionals before heading off to competition. In May, Jackson Middle School's Dewberry-sponsored team reached semifinalist status in seven categories, including biotech, coding, electrical applications, mechanical engineering, medical technology, technology bowl, and video gaming, which qualifies them for the national competition. Dewberry supported the school's new outdoor classroom, which was designed by students with the help from a Dewberry landscape architect, then built by a local Eagle Scout candidate with materials paid for by Dewberry. They started construction on the stormwater drainage pond located next to Luther Jackson's turf field and the civil engineers who designed the

018pond came and presented an overview of the project to science and engineering students, explaining the scope of the work and connected it to the seventh grade science curriculum on watersheds and wetlands. And they plan to help the school's Eco Schools Club expand their garden and fix a drainage issue along the walkway on the way to the outdoor classroom and provide more shade for trees for the space. Incredible. The efforts of the Dewberry team to establish, grow, and sustain such meaningful connections that are relevant to the curriculum and do so steadfastly for more than two decades is to be commended. Thank you to the entire team at Dewberry and congratulations on being named a Virginia School Boards Association 2019 Business Honor Roll recipient. I know we're doing the picture later, but I just want to recognize

019that Michelle Burkhart from Dewberry is here tonight, as well as Matt Hoffert, the Afterschool Program Director for Luther Jackson Middle School. Thank you. I now call on Ms. Darinak Koufax for recognition. Thank you, Madam chair. I am proud to acknowledge integrity management services beginning in February 2017 with a school-based partnership at Lee high school in Springfield and assisting as needed at Bren Marr Park Elementary School Integrity Management Services Inc has provided considerable time effort and resources for supporting weekend food programs providing more than 150 pounds of food per year, donating hats, gloves, and scarves, and health and hygiene items at Bryn Mawr Park, judging the food truck wars organized by Lee High School's gourmet foods teachers and students, and welcoming and training a high school intern. With a focus on supporting STEM education, Integrity M

020has also supplied science fair judges for three years, judges who ultimately help select and prepare students to participate in the regional science fair. As a woman-owned small business in the STEM arena, Integrity M has a keen interest in supporting young women. In August 2017, Integrity M participated in the FCPS Genesis Works program, hiring and mentoring Zarina Castro, a senior from Lee High School, to work in their IT department. Ms. Castro, now a student at Northern Virginia Community College, is also a part of the time network support specialist at Integrity M but they aren't done this summer Integrity M and Lee High School will create a food pantry that will supply students with breakfast and snack food each day expanding the summer lunch program that already exists at local elementary schools thank you to the entire

021team Integrity M for giving your time effort and resources in support of our students at Lee High School and Brenmar Park. And thank you and congratulations Integrity Management Services Inc. on being selected as a member of our 2019 Virginia School Boards Association Business Honor Roll. I now call on Ms. Hines for a recognition. Well, we're here also to recognize WorldGate LLC. WorldGate LLC is an IT solutions company located in Reston that supports public clients with project management, change management, and solution architecture. The WorldGate team is partnered with Aldrin Elementary School, also in Reston, and their involvement in the school and broader community runs deep, donating their time and resources and targeting lower-income students and families since 2012. While the team's philanthropic strategy is focused, WorldGate knows that they have an impact on all students at

022Aldrin. In addition, WorldGate is a woman-owned company providing role models for girls who understand that they can do anything. Worldgate LLC supports Aldrin Elementary in several important ways including assisting approximately 50 Aldrin students and families with nutritious food support each week so students who might otherwise not eat over the weekend have food, making certain students can take part in supplemental activities like an after-school math activity, a field trip or sports camp by funding students after school programs. supporting the PTA's landscaping efforts, leading clothing drives, plus sending readers to Read Across America Day, creating the school's first ever Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics, or STEAM, night, implementing a financial literacy program in conjunction with Middleburg Bank, and in 2018, providing school supplies to students when a longtime supporter could not. The Worldgate team knows what

023need looks like and knows it is often hidden. More importantly, they know that it takes thoughtful generosity, action, and hard work to mitigate the effects of poverty. A genuine thank you goes out to Worldgate LLC team from this school board and on behalf of all the staff members and students at Aldrin Elementary School. Thank you and congratulations for being selected a member of the 2019 Virginia School Boards Association Business Honor Roll. Thank you, Madam Chair. So at this time, oops, sorry. I now call on Mr. Moon for a resolution. Thank you, Madam Chair. It is my great pleasure to read this resolution, a VSBA Business Honor Award resolution. Whereas public schools and local businesses are an integral part of this community, and whereas many local businesses play a crucial role in supporting our schools, and

024whereas the economic health of our community, state, and nation depends on a strong public school system. Enroll as collaboration between local public schools and local businesses strengthens schools and the business community alike by providing a well-trained and highly educated workforce. Enroll as an excellent public school system is vital to the quality of life in this community and fundamental to preserving a strong democratic society now and in the future. Therefore, Be it resolved that Fairfax County School Board names the Dewberry Companies, Inc., Integrity Management Services, and Worldgate LLC to the 2019 Virginia School Board Association Business Honor Roll in appreciation for their ongoing support of Fairfax County Public Schools. I so move. Is there a second? Seconded by Ms. Everybody wants to second it. So why don't I let... I'll let Ms. Schultz second this. Mr.

025Moon, would you like to speak to your resolution? Okay, thank you, Madam Chair. Just so briefly that there are 450 unique business and community partners in FCPS. So in as much as we greatly appreciate all those partners and especially those recipients, tonight's recipients. helping our schools and our students, it is a truly meaningful recognition for these three business partners to be named to be on business honor roll because we are only limited to pick, limited to select three out of 450. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Moon. Ms. Schultz, would you like to speak to your second? Well, I don't want to blow up Jay Grant, but we have 450, like, you know, double that, 900. Yeah, we'll double you, but... Living in a business-rich community that we do in Fairfax, you want those

026strong business partners, not only for the health of the school system, but for the health of the children that are in our school system. And the fact that you all have stepped up and received this recognition. you know, in such a vibrant business community, you are the best of the best, the best of a breed of a very large class of business peers. And you and your staff should be very proud of each other, and we're proud of you. Thank you, Ms. Schultz. Ms. McLaughlin? I just briefly wanted to add my appreciation as a social worker. One of our favorite mottos is it takes a village to raise a child. And for the business community to partner with Fairfax County Schools through the great work that Jay Garant and Elizabeth Murphy do on behalf of

027our school system and the foundation, I just wanted to also express my appreciation. Without question, we have great need in still one of the most wealthy counties in the country. because there is also tremendously great poverty that continues to have unmet need. And so the great work you're doing is not only important to us, but I also think that you're enabling us to spotlight for you and for our community and for our children. What it means that no matter what role you are in you can always give back to our public enterprises and especially public education. So thank you so much for modeling that. It's appreciated. Thank you, Ms. McLaughlin. Before I call for the vote, I too would like to thank our business partners and the staff in our business partnerships office. It really

028is paying it forward to our students when our business colleagues come in and support our kids, and it's such an important role modeling. And we talk about it takes three assets to succeed, and oftentimes it is the role of individual business partners in our classrooms that provides one of those invaluable assets to our children. So from the bottom of our hearts, thank you and we hope that your role modeling will encourage others to come forward as business partners. And so with that, I will call for the vote. All those in favor? And that's unanimous. And Madam Chair, at this time, I would like to invite the following individuals to join the board for pictures. From Dewberry, Michelle Burkhardt. From Integrity Management Services, Disha Shahjahan, President and CEO, Cheryl Gordon, CFO, Natasha Williams, COO, Erin Healy,

029Senior Communications Associate, and Mioshi Moses, Executive Director, Genesis Works. And from Worldgate LLC, Kathleen Montgomery, President and CEO, and Scott Montgomery, Chief Customer Officer. From Fairfax County Public School System, Shane Wurf, Principal, Eldrine Elementary School, Deirdre Levery, Principal, Lee High School, Elizabeth Williams, Principal, Brandmar Elementary School, and Matt Horford, Afterschool Specialist, Luther Jackson Middle School, and of course, Jay Garand. I now call on Ms. Schultz for a recognition. Observed annually in June, National Safety Month is a time to increase safety awareness with the goal to keep each other safe. We are reminded that safety is no accident. It is a choice we need to make throughout our lives. We are all empowered to make safe decisions for ourselves and those we care about. Over 186,000 FCPS students depend on school employees to provide a safe

030environment in schools and in our centers. Prevention, identification, and abatement of hazards are integral parts of every employee's job. The FCPS Office of Safety and Security is a 24-7 operation that develops, deploys, and monitors safety and security programs throughout the division that keep us all safe. The office has established emergency plans and provided appropriate training for employees to cultivate safety and security throughout the school district. Safety services are focused in the areas of environmental health, chemistry classrooms, theater arts, fire alarm systems, traffic operations, OSHA programs, and include a comprehensive annual inspection process at all of our schools. Security services provide a 24-hour security operations center for emergency communications, security patrols, response to calls, school inspections, central monitoring of the security and fire alarm system for all FCPS facilities, training and assistance to all schools and

031centers and crisis management, facilities assessments, emergency management, incident command, technology-based and physical security initiatives and systems, the SRO program, and telephone, text, and email tip line for safety. During National Safety Month, we also honor law enforcement officers of every rank and file who have chosen a profession that puts their lives on the line every day for the safety of all our community. They've answered a call to public service that is demanding and often unappreciated. On this day, we have an opportunity to thank these dedicated men and women for the service and sacrifice they make for our communities. They selflessly confront danger to protect our families and defend our communities. These officers serve with courage, dedication, and strength, fearlessly enforcing our laws, even at the risk of personal peril, safeguarding our property, our liberty, and our

032lives. We owe them. and their families are full and enduring support. At this time, I would like to invite the staff from the Office of Safety and Security and the law enforcement and safety officers who are here this evening to please join me and the rest of my school board members at the dais for a photo with the board and our cesarean appreciation. I will now hand the gavel over to Vice Chair Mr. Moon. Thank you, Madam Chair. Let me call on Ms. Dana Koufax for the resolution. Thank you, Mr. Moon. I invite Mr. Dade to the podium. Mr. Dade, I am honored to read this resolution honoring your service to us. Whereas Terry J. Dade has served with distinction in the field of education as a teacher, principal, executive principal, and for the last

033four years dedicated to Fairfax County Public Schools as an assistant superintendent at Region 3. And whereas he supported principals and school communities as the assistant superintendent of region three, demonstrating outstanding leadership skills and exceptional professionalism, conveying a vision for positive. student-centered learning environments and setting high expectations for the achievement of all students and whereas with a keen insight into the strengths and talents of staff members Mr. Day drew from his extensive knowledge of school life to guide and mentor principals, assistant principals and other school administrators thus influencing the quality of services to students in our school system for years to come. whereas Mr. Dade has set high standards for the schools and staff in his charge always leading by example to ensure parent involvement and open communication with community members thus making the position of

034the Region 3 assistant superintendent a true resource for parents and whereas his personal commitment to staff students families and communities was evident each and every day through his exceptional integrity, his compassion and his understanding of diverse perspectives and his ability to find common ground. Now for Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board extends its highest commendation and deepest appreciation to Terry J. Dade for his outstanding service to Fairfax County Public Schools and to the students and citizens of this community. I so move. Is there a second? Seconded by Chair Corbett-Sanders. Ms. Tenor-Coffex, would you like to speak to your resolution? Yes, I would. So Terry you've been a part of our Fairfax community for 15 years as the resolution says serving as a teacher a principal and executive principal and the

035regional sister and Superintendent and it was through this position where I got to meet and work with you I met you during the panel interview for the region 3 RAS and I was so impressed by your Understanding and vision of what was needed for region 3 and you did not disappoint. We have seen student achievement gains across all content areas, all subgroups, and you and your team have modeled how quality instruction should look for our diverse community. In addition to your role, Terry, as your RAS, you are also a caring and fun dad that I see on your Twitter feed. And I also found out a few years ago at a summer feed program, watching Terry and some of the school staff. execute dance moves perfectly. I was like, what is going on here? I

036found out that Terry is a certified Zumba instructor. And I have never brave enough to take a Zumba class with Terry. But Terry, I will tell you that you did motivate me. And although I am terrible and still trying, I have taken a few Zumba classes over the past year. And that is a direct result of talking to you about what you do. Terry with its diverse population in Region 3 our high newcomer student population and our high level of poverty it is a particularly challenging region. There were times in the last few years where the challenges were steep and I felt like we were consistently hiring new staff new principals and even with these challenges you also you always manage to take a difficult situation and stay positive. Always. You have always been professional.

037You are motivated. You have motivated me. I appreciate all the support you have given me as part of your team when we were working together with families and the community. I thank you for all of your hard work. It has been a pleasure to work with you, Terry. I know Rochester awaits, but we will miss you so much. And again, please stay in touch because your... dedication to FCPS will always be remembered and like I said happy trails but stay in touch. Chairman Kovacendaz would you like to speak to your second? Yes thank you Vice Chairman. Terry it's been a pleasure to work with you. I'm going to actually modify Ms. Darinak-Kofax's comments. You've actually been in Fairfax your whole life. You're a graduate of Herndon High School. And that is something that I love

038to remind our students about because what an excellent role model. A model of somebody who took the best that they could out of our schools and then paid it back when you came back after graduating from UVA. And so we appreciate your dedication to Fairfax. We want you to know that like the Wizard of Oz, there's no place like home so you can always come back. And I know that you will use the excellent experiences you've had here to make a transformational difference in Rochester, New York. Mrs. McLaughlin? Just briefly, I did not have the pleasure of having Terry represent my schools in the Braddock District, but I did have the pleasure of spending some time down in Charlottesville with Terry through a connection he has with my husband. And you were... everything that my

039colleagues have shared this evening. You just bring such a joy and a passion to your work and there's no doubt in my mind that you will go up to Rochester and through your incredible ability to connect with people, you will make a positive difference up there. And I'm just very pleased that we've been able to benefit from your time here in Fairfax and especially because you are homegrown, I do hope you will not only stay in touch but that we will be seeing you in the future for sure. Go Hoos. appointed a superintendent. And we're very proud of your accomplishments and you've been a rising star as the leading educator for some time as we've all watched you move forward. And of course, Herndon turns out wonderful educators. I'm very proud of that. But it

040is exciting to see you go on to be a superintendent. And we hope that we hear from you and we hope we get great clips about how you have done great things for children. As was noted, your understanding of classroom instruction is outstanding. You know what it takes to support teachers. You know what it takes to actually turn a school around. And that is such an important skill for all of children. And, of course, you will teach dance when you go up there. We all know about that. But congratulations. We're very, very proud of you and very proud of your accomplishments. Ms. Pritchett? Terry, I just wanted to share an anecdote that was shared with me by a teacher at Graham Road the other day as we were starting the search for a new principal

041there. And one of the longtime special ed teachers specifically fondly remembered you and said she was struggling to get one of her kids back to class. And she went and told you and she said, Terry, he just went out there. He said, let's go get him back. And you were just that kind of hands-on, helpful, on-the-ground partner to our teacher. Thank you for all of your years of service and wish you all the best. Ms. Evans. Thank you so much. And Terry, you and I only had an opportunity to work directly together for a short period of time, but it was such a pleasure when we did. And I know what an impact you have made in the lives of children and families in the region that you have. that you have led so beautifully

042and so well. And I just want to wish you the best. You know, Rochester is very, very lucky to have you, and you are very ready to take the reins there. We will miss you tremendously, as Ms. Corbett Sanders says, you know. You can always come back home, but in the meantime, thank you for the impact that you've had on the children and families here in Fairfax County, and thank you for the impact that you will have and that you will continue to have. All the best. Any other board members? If not, I'll just say a couple of words. Mr. Dade, when did you graduate from high school? From London? 1994. 1994. That was right before I became a school board member. You are one of those fast region superstars. And as some other board

043members have already said, Rochester is lucky to have you. That one of the things I may regret. not having had an opportunity to be able to call you Dr. Dade because you're not picking up your PhD, your doctoral degree until end of the summer, correct? Next time when you come back, I could call you Dr. Dade. That I consider myself to be a pretty calm person, but you are even much calmer than I am. I don't know how you do that. Even when you are on a hot seat, you are very calm. That's something not just myself, but many of us may need to learn how to emulate that. With that, congratulations. And I have Mr. McElveen for final words. So from from one Wahoo to another congratulations on moving on. It was interesting that

044several years ago I was going through the historical archives in the school board office and for some reason in there there was a clipping about Terry and about an award he had won his senior year of college, his fourth year as they say at University of Virginia. And he was actually one of the recipients of the highest award that the Student Services gives out every year, which is the Sullivan Award. And that is given for service to humanity. And I think that is really, that foreshadowed his service to Fairfax County because he really has, over the past several decades, truly. served his community and humanity and I hope that he goes on to do that further in Rochester and beyond and so wish you all the best sir. Okay now let me call for the

045vote. All those in favor raise your hand. Vote seems to be unanimous. Congratulations. Okay if you could all see it we're gonna we're we'll have a Mr. Dade address us. So first just thank you the board for allowing me this opportunity. I remember the last time I stood before you for a vote was back there to become the Region 3 Assistant Superintendent. So I truly do thank you for your ongoing service to this fantastic school district. The leadership team, I'm going to miss you all. immensely. The best collection of talent and dedication in this nation. And I say that as someone who doesn't parse words and give out false accolades. So truly indebted to you all for your, for being just amazing colleagues for our students. The dream team behind me. Grace, Evangeline, and Diane,

046I couldn't ask for a more special team. Truly folks who put kids first always above themselves. Working through difficult situations, I just couldn't ask for a more amazing team. They've been with me through thick and thin. I'd be remiss if I didn't thank Dr. Berjardo who took a chance on a 33-year-old principal from DC to come to Fairfax County. I truly do say take a chance. We're a rare breed in Fairfax County coming from the outside back in to serve as administrators. And I always remember her. words that I've tried to emulate through everything I've done. She said all of the success and accolades will mean nothing if you sacrifice your integrity. And I've always tried to act with integrity and do what's right despite the consequence. So I'm truly thankful for her. Mr. Tyson,

047who convinced me one spring day to apply for executive principal for school improvement, I said no. Then he called back and absolutely convinced me, and I'm forever indebted to him and his friendship. and Dr. Zuluaga right behind me. He was my boss twice as the principal of Dogwood and then as the executive principal for school improvement. So the amazing principals who I've had the pleasure and honor to serve, just remember what I've always said, that you can have immense success and treat people right each and every day. So thank you for allowing me to serve as your. your leader. So thank you again. I'll miss you all. Please send coats and scarves and jackets up to Rochester and I will not be a stranger. Thank you. And please, friends and family of Terry, please come

048up for a picture with us here in front. I now call on Ms. Strauss for a resolution. Thank you. First, I ask Dr. Panarelli if you will come to the podium. It is truly an honor to celebrate Dr. Panarelli tonight, but it's also a little bitter. We didn't want to see you go. Let me first share a little bit about Dr. Panarelli. When Mary Ann Penarelli joined FCPS as an instructional assistant in 1977, she left and returned as a school psychologist in 1989. She brought rich and varied professional and personal experiences that have influenced and shaped her work on behalf of our FCPS school community. In 1975, Dr. Panarelli graduated from Georgetown University with a degree in psychology and a husband and headed to California to run a group home for emotionally disturbed children. After

049a year of running the group home, Mary Ann and her family, which now included Michael, their adopted seven-year-old son, moved to Virginia. After working for one year in FCPS as an IAA and teaching for 10 years in Loudoun County Public Schools, Mary Ann returned to Fairfax County Public Schools as a school psychologist. While teaching and adding two more children to the family, Mary Ann completed a degree in school psychology at George Mason University. She returned to FCPS in 1989 as a school psychologist working in the old Area 3 office. I remember that office. In her nine years as a school psychologist, Mary Ann built relationships and deepened her belief in the power of community. Her problem-solving skills and capacity to build strong teams led to her transition to the role of team leader, a precursor

050to the current procedural support liaison position. Her experience as the mother of an adopted child with special needs and as a general education teacher helped build relationships of trust and collaboration with parents and school teams as she could understand the fears and misunderstandings that often were driving conflicts in discussions. Mary Ann led the early implementation of school-based eligibilities, helped transition over 200 preschool children to elementary programs, and led facilitated IEP meetings to ensure that all parties had an opportunity to share ideas and be heard. Mary Ann then worked for two years as the coordinator of Pyramid Resource Specialists and provided training and leadership to a cohort of special education ombudsmen who were parents working to support parents new to the world of special education. Following a budget readjustment that ended the Ombudsman program and reorganized

051the Pyramid Resource Specialist, Mary Ann moved into the Office of Special Education as coordinator of ESY, IEPs, and Special Education Assessment. In this role, she oversaw the development of the online IEP system, Seastars, and the training of over 3,000 teachers and staff, led the implementation of a new portfolio assessment that could be used for students with disabilities as an alternative to the SOL, and reorganized the ESY program to specifically address individual goals rather than placing students into pre-existing courses. While leading the work in her office and collaborating with other offices, Mary Ann Panarelli became Dr. Panarelli, completing her doctorate in special education public policy at the George Washington University. The move in 2010 to the director position in the newly formed Office of Intervention and Prevention Services and the Department of Special Services was a

052natural step for Dr. Panarelli. Intervention and prevention services like instructional services provide services which are available to all students and therefore are broad in scope and a good fit for an individual student with a strong mental health background. Under Dr. Panarelli's guidance, the offices of school counseling, psychology, and social work reexamined our bullying prevention and response, threat assessment, crisis response, suicide risk assessment, and trauma-informed practices and created materials and professional development. to ensure that when adversaries occurred in the lives of children, an intentional, informed, caring response named the strengths of the child and helped them recover from the experience with increased resilience and confidence. For some of our community members, barriers to mental health care remain, and Dr. Parent Panarelli began working more and more with Fairfax County government agencies to integrate the work across

053offices. partnering on behalf of citizens. She was an integral voice in the development of the Children's Behavioral Health Blueprint and remains a key contributor to the Community Policy and Management Team and the successful Children and Youth Policy Team. With county partners, she led the multi-system committee to draft the One Fairfax Policy, which served as the foundation for much of the FCPS equity program. She is also partner in the development of Opportunity Neighborhoods and the launching of the first community schools in Fairfax County. She has actively participated in county efforts to reduce referrals of youths to police, which resulted in the Restorative Justice Alternative Accountability Program. As well as the supports and recommendations of the Gang Task Force and the Opioid Task Force, these efforts have increased resources for FCPS students, including more hours of support

054from parent liaisons and the restitution of and the Restitution of Substance Abuse Prevention Specialist, and the Institution of Substance Abuse Prevention Specialist in Six Pyramids. Dr. Panarelli has participated in multiple revisions of the SR&R and helped develop the role and function of the system of support advisors. Additional offices under Dr. Panarelli's leadership include the Homeless Office, and non-traditional schools offering students alternative paths to high school completion, mediation and problem resolution, and shelter. In 2014, FCPS was awarded $5 million as part of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. a newest Department of Education grant to develop a tiered system of supports for social and emotional skills. Dr. Panarelli's office was given responsibility for oversight of the grant, which included work with the Center for Emotional Intelligence out of Yale University. She also serves on the

055board of directors of the Josh Anderson Foundation, an organization honoring a former FCPS student, which works to support much of the student-led mental health work. in the schools. What an amazing career. Now the resolution. Whereas Dr. Panarelli has served Fairfax County Public Schools for almost three decades with dedication and distinction in a variety of service, management, and leadership roles, culminating in her position as the Director of Intervention and Prevention Services in the Department of Special Services, serving over 189,000 students in 198 schools. and where she demonstrated the knowledge and skills necessary to integrate the work of multiple offices within FCPS with county agencies, government offices, and private providers, developing a standard for practice and a shared understanding of needed mental health services for students and families. And whereas Dr. Panarelli served with honor and integrity

056as a representative of the FCPS to multiple Fairfax County government agencies, private organizations, federal and state agencies, and international education organizations. And whereas through her dedication to mental wellness and her belief that all students can succeed. Dr. Panarelli created sustainable practices that support the development of strong, resilient individuals, established and honored relationships, and helped create an awareness in others of the value of meaningful relationships. And now therefore it be resolved that the Fairfax County School Board extends its highest commendation and deepest appreciation to Mary Ann Panarelli on her retirement for her inspirational leadership and outstanding service to Fairfax County Public Schools and for her unwavering dedication to the students in our FCPS community. I so move. Is there a second? Seconded by Ms. Keys-Gamara. Ms. Strauss, would you like to speak to your motion? Very

057briefly. Mary Ann, you are a problem solver. We have watched you, regardless of the adequacy of budgets or not, craft together solutions for children. You have been able to sew together other agencies, other people, because you truly understood what the children and the families needed. you began at a tremendous level of emotional and intellectual understanding of the problems that children and families see and experience. Building from that, you were able to bring the resources to bear for those children. You have such a warm heart and such a brilliant mind, and I can't imagine what we will do without you. Me personally and everybody else. Thank you, Ms. Strauss. Ms. Keyes-Gamar, would you like to speak to your second? Sure. Ms. Panarelli, I, as the newest member of this board, will probably spare you because I

058haven't been here as long as others, but I am grateful for the work that you've done. I came on this board concerned about issues of bullying and mental health and tiered approaches to the concerns, and you have been a consistent, calm resource despite... you know dealing with some very difficult things and parents that were rightly upset and so I'm grateful for that work that that foundation that you've laid that makes it easy for us to continue you know you lay a good foundation and it and I think that you've given us something upon which to continue to build for the betterment of all our students so thank you thank you miss keys Kamara miss Evans Mary Ann, I hardly know where to start with my kudos for you. I've been on the board for almost

05910 years now, and we have come a very long way together in terms of student health, and particularly student mental health. And that road, wherever the road leads, it seems to have started with you. and then come back to you while you continue to work on some of the most important issues that we have here in FCPS, whether it's the resiliency piece, which has been so important to our kids, the mental health piece. Looking at the wellness policy, which is a huge effort. Restorative justice has made a huge difference in the lives of our kids. But overall, as we grapple, we continue to grapple with mental health, of course, and we will for some time. I'll just say, as an advocate for sleep, I know you and I work together on that issue, and I

060always knew when I talked to you that you just... understood that issue. It wasn't giving lip service to it. It was understanding that this is so important to the physical and mental health of our kids. And I knew I could count on you to understand the research. You know, you're very research-based, too. So as I look forward to the things that we still have to accomplish, I think, well, how are we going to do it without Mary Ann? You know, it's because all of these things have been accomplished with your... fingerprints all over it. So we will miss you so, so much. And I just want to thank you. It's hard to think of anyone who's had a bigger impact on the lives of kids and families, particularly in the area of mental health. So

061I want to thank you, and I want to wish you the best. But if you ever decide that you just miss us so much that you have to come back, we can always use your expertise. So thank you for all. that you have done for kids and families for over the decades. Ms. Schultz? So if I vote no on this, would it veto it and not make her? Leave us. I'm just what I'm just wondering if I like if I just say no You can't leave. I'm you know, I mean, that's the way it should be really right When we have somebody who has this much experience you're kind of leaving a hole I mean, you know, I think you have like a fan section over there, but you know, you have a fan section

062up here, too so I vote no I know that won't do any good. I will support your motion. Okay, all right. See, he seconds my emotions. So, gee, if only that would work. In the real world, you've made real-life solutions, and I wish you could make that solution come true tonight, but I know you can't, and we wish you well. Ms. Hines. Thank you. Well, sort of along the same lines. There are some people who leave and it feels like they're taking a whole wing of the library with them and it really should not be allowed, actually. But Marianne, over my time on the board, I've just... come to think of you as the person I can go to for whatever information I need, whatever help I need. I can ask a question in any

063uninformed, goofy way that it might come out and you will know what I'm asking and you'll have an answer. And so I just thinking of the latest example, we. bumped into each other at the Courtney Schilling Memorial 5k at Forest Edge Elementary a couple of months ago back in April and I'm sure you probably would have enjoyed a nice relaxing walk on a Saturday morning without shop talk but I was kicking myself for not writing down questions ahead of time because I spent the whole time grilling you didn't I I did because that's that's what I do because I know that you understand what I'm asking and you have answers and you'll help me get so much smarter about whatever the the important issues in special services are right now and those are often the

064most important issues that we're dealing with as a board so I understand you're headed out of town so we can't ask you to come back really you're going to Colorado yeah to be with family, grandchildren, I know. And I'm so happy for you that you're doing that. And your imprint on this school system, I mean, really will be felt for such a long time. You've made an enormous difference in the lives of an enormous number of children. So thank you. Mr. McElveen. So I think like several of the more veteran board members here, I remember very well driving around the county with you and Kim Dockery getting the introduction to all the special services we offered. And I think... Pat said it well, you do have an encyclopedic knowledge. And I think that experience showed

065me just the breadth and the depth, not only of the things that our system does for students, but what you personally do for students. And when I think about the past several terms on this board, You have been on the front lines of all the major battles, both political and otherwise, whether it was the discipline and SR&R reform, the sleep issues, as Sandy said, the gender identity issue. and also the stress and wellness and suicide prevention. And I think when you think about the accomplishments of our board, none of that would have been possible without you. So thank you. I wish you well. I know you are going on a long camping trip with your grandchildren and you are going to need some rest after that as well. So thank you. Bye. Ms. Darinak-Kofax. Mary

066Ann, I think I mentioned to you we were in that equity conference at Richmond and we were just talking a lot about your personal life. We were sharing each other's stories. And I was like, I didn't know you did that in your career. And tonight, you know, again, I'm so impressed at all that you have done. And you're the kind of person that... that I know when I say impressed that's not even something you strive for but it is who you are because you are the essence truly of what we say here is a caring culture that's who you are I remember meeting you as Ryan said in those drive drive-thrus this is the way we take care of our kids and this is what we do when we have kids that don't quite fit

067into our traditional schools and this is how we And that's why I feel so secure in some of the things that we do because I know individuals like you have your hand in making certain that those situations are going to be good for our kids. We've worked on opportunity neighborhoods together. That's when it first started in the Mount Vernon district. We've worked on skip together. And as Ms. Hines mentioned, you are my go-to person. If I don't understand something, I'm sure to pick up the phone, call you, and you'll be able to explain it. to me and I'll be able to better understand which way I need to make a decision. So thank you so much for doing that. Your expertise, institutional knowledge will be so missed and I know but I've heard enough stories

068about the grandchildren and seeing pictures that it is time, it is time for that next chapter and I am so excited for you. Just drop us a line from time to time. Let us know what you're doing. Send us pictures. But best of luck and enjoy this next chapter. So before I call for the vote, I too would like to offer my heartfelt thanks. Mary Ann, you are our portrait of a graduate. You every day exemplify what our caring culture should be and have always been there for keeping our children in the forefront of all decision-making and that is so appreciated. I also look at you as our portrait of a graduate as being an incredible collaborator because you work across departmental lines here in FCPS but more importantly you're able to bring together all

069of our county resources to make the best decisions and wrap around our children who are most vulnerable and so that is so appreciated and then your critical thinking skills of being able to unpack these issues that we, you know, we're facing every day. Not only issues that have been decades in the making, but also those issues that are cropping out of what seems to be nowhere and help us to really unpack them and craft solutions. So I really appreciate all that you've done for us. And I know that I am, I have unity on this board in being able to say that a life well lived and leaving a footprint that is so much broader than anybody could expect. And so thank you for all you've done for our kids. And with that, I'm going

070to call for the vote. All those in favor? Okay, that's unanimous. And at this time, I would like to invite Dr. Panarelli, her family, and many friends and colleagues to please join us at the dais for a photo with the board. Oh, wait, actually, before we do that, we'll follow the protocol of what we did with soon-to-be Dr. Dade. And Dr. Panarelli, would you like to speak before we take the picture? I have a... Very short comments. I have several people to thank, but I would start with my parents, whose expectation for, I'm one of six, for all of us was that we could do anything in the world as long as we worked hard. And we gave it our all and gave it our heart. And I want to thank and at all ends

071if we were going to be anything be kind as the saying says. So I thank Fairfax County Public Schools for giving me an opportunity to do that every day of the 30 years I've worked here. I also no one gets to where I am without a lot of mentors. So I'd just like to mention the name of a few of those. Susan Kay who is no longer with us but was. step ahead of me every step of the way so that when I came in as a psychologist she helped me learn how to be a psychologist in Fairfax County she was team leader before I was she was the coordinator of PSL's before I was and I just stepped one time after another into the positions that she had had and every time she was

072so generous with her time and and support Joy Sudan Pat Addison Jane lip I really want to thank Teresa for her leadership and her incredible integrity and her willingness to frankly and honestly address problems as they exist and work together to find solutions. And of course my incredible team, Dee Dee Baylor, Mary Jo Davis, Kate Salerno, and Stefan Moskal have been just always with me. It's nice to hear all the things that you think I've done. but none of that happens without an incredible team behind me. So I just want to thank everybody. The next order of business is citizen participation. Tonight, four citizens have signed up to address the board. Speakers are requested to limit their remarks to not more than three minutes. The school board will not hear statements involving issues that have

073been scheduled for public hearings, such as capital improvement, budget, and boundaries. Complaints regarding individual students or school-based employees should be directed to the appropriate school principal or other school official. Speakers should refrain from using personally identifiable information in connection with an individual student. Speakers are expected to deliver their comments with the decorum and respect appropriate to the conduct of the public's business, and please be mindful that there are often young children in attendance at these meetings or watching at home, so language should be appropriate for all age levels. Thank you for your cooperation, and thanks to those who have come to speak to us tonight. I'm going to start with Joanne Gerard, followed by Norman Hall. Good evening. Regarding FCPS caring culture, I wonder if you can be responsive to parents like me who are

074on guard against government overreach. FCPS proposes universal social emotional learning, SEL, S-E-L. I object to SEL and its intrusiveness into private lives. making the individual conform to a one-size-fits-all program to affect attitudes and beliefs. I think FCPS is sidelining parents and our role in transmitting values. What academics will be cut to make time for SEL? My second objection tonight concerns language arts. Two years ago, FCPS implemented a hidden critical literacy curriculum for grades one through six. Most parents have no idea that teachers are using this Marxist pedagogy to raise consciousness in children. The planning guide explains, quote, the aim of critical literacy is social change and transformation, end quote. Identity politics and power pervade every grade level so that children internalize the categories of race, class, and gender. Children are told to focus on stereotypes,

075identity, power imbalances, and to look for us versus them situations in picture books. Their critical lens forms their worldview based on their limited knowledge. Critical literacy is a non-scientific teaching practice. It molds a worldview of an oppressive society while promoting collective action for social justice. Children are to, quote, understand that critical literacy is a way to read the world and develop agency. For two years and counting, parents have been kept in the dark. How many know that Jacob's New Dress is a book suggestion for first and second graders to explore gender? Critical literacy isn't even on the FCPS website. The planning guide refers to students transferring the practice to all texts inside and outside of school. What are the implications for family faith practices? The ELA Curriculum Review Team will meet next month. Reading scores

076are flat. Let's focus on measurable skills and stop the government overreach. I have to wonder what other hidden agendas are in the FCPS On learning environment that separate families that separate parents from their furthers, from their, I'm sorry, the FCPS on learning environment that separate parents from their children's education. We need transparency. Thank you. Mr. Hall, followed by Amanda Campbell. Good evening. I'm Norm Hall, the Advocacy Chair of the Fairfax County Special Education PTA. Tonight is a presentation on the Caring Culture Package of Goals. As I said on May 23rd when describing the Student Success Package, this largely ignores problems with special education. Do you want to know about a school system that currently demonstrates top-to-bottom concern for caring culture involving students with disabilities? I invite you to view the half-hour segment of the June

0775th presentation by the Special Education Education Advisory Committee to the Prince William County School Board. Let me be clear, I am very proud of the abilities, determination, and effort of most of the Fairfax County community that works on issues for our students. Dr. Panarelli is a certain great example of that. But all too often these activities are conducted behind the scenes. A prime example is the work done as the equity plan for discipline policy and practices. Until this Tuesday, the public, even interested parties such as me, can only guess at what would be the basis for discussion next Monday during hours of work session presentation and discussion. I want to believe that the work product will resonate throughout the entire community, as did the short SEAC report in Prince William County. What frustrates me is

078that while your staff and contractors reportedly worked exhaustively on what at a quick glance does appear to be an invaluable work addressing many equity issues, I have a hypothesis that was not considered before your final report was prepared. By working this way, by design, SEPTA isn't a partner. We are critics. This is an unforced error. For the record, I think disciplinary issues for students with disabilities are linked with poor placement, lack of services, low teacher tenure, and high turnover rates by school and system-wide. By examining these concerns using appropriate research methodology, there might have been a better plan to implement. Turning back to caring culture, let's consider page 26 of the presentation. I translate this page titled Disruptive Behavior as saying that last year there was system knowledge that the existing approaches were not being

079fruitful, and yet we saw no hint of changes until WAMU broke a story about restraint and seclusion. There is a simple sentence on page 28 of the report under data analysis and conclusions that calls for implementation of a positive behavior approach. Surely this change in direction did not require... school board action did it? What have we been waiting for? Now the good news is as we close out the school year there are many voices in the community that want to make sure FCPS makes good decisions about special education. I am pleased to note that many parents have offered to volunteer on many of our septic committees next year as just one example. But more directly I have seen a transformation of the advisory committee for students with disabilities into a body that will seriously engage

080the whole FCPS community. community, DSS school-based teachers, staff, parents, and students to represent their views and possible changes. And my personal hope is that this board will support a meaningful exchange with the ACSD just like your Prince William counterparts did last week, and that this takes place before many of you step down next year. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hall. Amanda Campbell? Good evening. I am speaking tonight as an individual. In the spirit of the caring culture that we all want for FCPS, I would like to take a moment to thank the school board for the three special education amendments that passed with the budget. All of them are issues for which I and others have been advocating for quite some time, and it is encouraging to see these steps begin. It is just a

081beginning, though. This staffing review needs to not just include the review of the data on paper, but a review of the practices for assigning a child services. As an example, data may show a projected decrease in the need for speech services next year, but I would ask, why is that? Is it truly because there are less children needing those services, or is there gatekeeping happening that is... making it increasingly more difficult to access those services. It is my understanding that out of the entire special education preschool population this year, only 79 students were screened for speech services. As I've testified to this body before, all of the parents in the room on our preschool tour were told we wouldn't receive speech services. And sure enough, we were told in our IEP meeting that it was

082a language-rich environment and that's why they were not offering a speech evaluation for our then nonverbal daughter. Other parents have been told their child was too nonverbal to receive services. Because we disagreed with the school and specifically requested documentation of the disagreement on the plot page, our case might have had a data point for FCPS. But if the parents ask about a service and the school indicates they don't provide it for whatever reason and the parents don't push back, it may not be documented anywhere. A first step in this process could be to survey your related service providers. regarding the practices they observe. As many of them travel to multiple schools, they are in a unique position to offer more comparative data than most teachers and even case managers might be. I would also suggest

083opening the floodgates for related services during the critical time of neuroplasticity up until a child turns eight. On another note, I have also been following the calendar discussions closely, and the documents I've brought to you tonight include a proposed calendar that I have created that I hope you will consider. I think the disconnect many of you noticed in the survey results preferring the one week before Labor Day yet choosing calendar one at the end comes from the fact that from what I've observed in local conversations online, many didn't realize how late Labor Day fell this year until they saw the actual calendar date at the end. When you say two weeks before Labor Day, many assume you're talking about August 17th or 18th. I would suggest in the future wording it along the lines of

084starting no earlier than August 23rd. Moving forward would be much more clear than tying it to a holiday that moves. I would also like to emphasize the importance of getting out earlier, especially for students with disabilities. The standard ESY that FCPS offers begins in July. With getting out on June 18th, that doesn't give students much time to decompress from the year before they are back in school. The point Ms. Schultz raised about camps is also valid. VDOE's I'm Determined program runs a summer camp for students with disabilities in June. This is an excellent program offered by the state, and it's a shame that many of our students miss out because it starts before we end. I also took into account the discussions regarding the quarter length that stated the desire for more inclusivity in our

085observed holidays and the need for professional development. I don't profess to know all of the ins and outs of calendar creation, but wanted to provide an outside perspective as an educator who's taught in other states and as a parent. Thank you. Thank You miss Campbell if you could provide the calendar to our clerk I have provided everything to the clerks already excellent thank you very much Andrea bear Good evening. My name is Andrea Bayer and I'm here to talk about the caring culture of FCPS. So last evening I noticed an interesting post on our next door neighborhood website in which a mom in Vienna was soliciting help for her 16-year-old daughter. Her daughter had been recently diagnosed with mild ADD and was struggling with organizing and completing school assignments. Specifically, the mom was needing guidance

086on how to help her daughter. In addition to some ADD specific comments, many of the responses provided to this mom by various parents focused on technology usage and its interference into the ability of students to be successful. Now I've been a private tutor for a long time and I've also raised three daughters who've attended FCPS with our youngest just finishing her sophomore year. And like those providing comments, I'll completely agree about the intrusiveness of technology and its ability to add confusion. And like this mom, many of the families who've contacted me for tutoring over the last several years are now primarily requesting that I help their child with organization. So what's driving this? First, long gone are the days whereby each student had one or maybe two books per class, as well as some paper

087and a writing implement. Second, long gone are the days where students were taught to use a tangible calendar to map out their assignments, quizzes, tests, and extracurricular activities. Third, gone are the days where parents had a simple paper syllabi to keep them informed. And suffice to say, gone are the days whereby only very few students actually needed to use outside tutors. But somehow back in those days, kids learned a lot while they were sitting in class. They all had a manageable amount of homework, and parents were not only able to know what their kids were learning, but they were also able to help them if they needed it. Starting in 2011, with some of the same members sitting on this current board, FCPS opted to prematurely start adopting the use of online social studies and

088history textbooks. And despite the fact that these books were frustrating to use and often malfunctioned, the board continued to adopt online textbooks for almost every subject area. So today taxpayers pay for both hard copy textbooks and online textbooks, but sadly many of our teachers don't bother to use either. Instead many teachers either use daily handouts and yes I mean paper, which is especially true for math classes or they use web-based assignments. Ultimately the kids are left with mounds of papers to organize plus a lot of non-tangible online stuff. and for many kids and parents this is too overwhelming. I can only imagine how extra difficult this must be for our non-English speaking families. Do I dislike technology? No. Technology is wonderful if used appropriately and in moderation. However, I fear we've become so focused on

089technology that we've inadvertently lost our focus on academic basis and what's best for our students. and we must ask ourselves who are the real winners, the kids or the people creating and selling the technology. As adults, we should be the ones providing some simple and caring solutions to this mayhem rather than being the ones to perpetuate it. Thank you. Thank you. Now I call on Dr. Brabrand for an introduction to our goal to caring culture. Thank you Chairman Corbett Sanders as you know Caring Culture's goal to in our strategic plan and we have our assistant superintendent for special services Miss Johnson here Just to remind the board. We do have a work session on this scheduled for Monday and We want to give you the high level of the presentation and really look to address

090as many as your questions at the work session as possible And without further ado, I have Ms. Johnson and her team. So thank you, Dr. Brabrand. I just want to thank the board for the opportunity to share information from our caring culture report tonight. The work of multiple offices has gone into this report and this presentation today. So I want to thank the following departments that are lining up behind me here and the offices that helped prepare the presentation and the report. And that would be special services, human resources, finance, instructional services, and the Office of Professional Learning and Family Engagement. So while I'll be doing the entire presentation tonight, we have representation from each of these offices to answer any questions that you might have at the end of the report. As Dr. Brabrand

091said, our work session for Goal 2 is scheduled for June 17th, and we'll have the opportunity to have some additional discussion. Goal 2 has two desired outcomes that focus on welcoming environments and healthy life choices. The outcome for welcoming environments states that all FCPS employees will demonstrate cultural responsiveness when supporting families, students, and other staff. And our healthy life choices outcome states that FCPS will use best practices to enable students and staff to make healthy life choices. As this is the last goal report of the year, I won't report all of the information and the details about the structure of the report but for the sake of the community I will review a little bit. The majority of the metrics use three-year baseline as the average performance to develop the targets. This is the average

092performance from school years 2014-15 to 2016-17. There are one and two year baseline performance metrics that are listed and those are only when there were not three-year averages available. The targets are what the division should achieve by school year 2020. The aspirations are what the division wants to achieve in the strategic plan. You will see a change in the color coding at the bottom of this slide based on board input from previous presentations. The new color, lime green, I'll call it, was added to identify limited progress towards the metrics. And the other three colors denoted on this slide have already been reported to you and have been throughout the slide. So please keep in mind that the return on investment data in this particular report is soft data. The Office of Research and Strategic Improvement

093took a preliminary look at the return on investment for the first time ever, and we hope to have more comprehensive data in future reports. So we'll begin with the welcoming environment metrics. And again, I won't repeat that particular statement. You'll see on the next slide here, the areas where progress was made for two metrics, students feeling respected and included in school and staff who reported feeling respected at work. Limited progress was made on staff referrals for disruptive behaviors. And one metric, families who report feeling respected. on the family engagement survey is currently under development and these will be addressed in more detail on the following slides. The data for the metric all students feel respected and included at school came from the state climate survey and indicates that there's some improvement in student report of

094feeling respected at school which has been linked to better discipline and academic outcomes. For the school year 2017-18 performance improved four points from the previous year's performance. Participation in the state climate survey measures student and teacher responses about discipline, school environment, school culture, bullying. And in school year 2017-18, it's important to note that the survey was not required by every school, and it was used only at the middle and high schools in alternate years. It is currently being revised by the state, and the state is looking at moving towards a required survey for schools. The metric for families feeling respected is currently under development as I shared in the previous slide. Fairfax County Public Schools has disseminated a family engagement survey in the spring of 2019. This was the first ever division-wide family engagement survey

095administered to our families. The Office for Professional Learning and Family Engagement is working with K-12 Insight, the same organization that administers our Employee Engagement Survey, to review and analyze the data. Starting with the next strategic plan report, FCPS will be able to report the extent to which families feel respected at schools. The school board will hear more about the K-12 Insight and about the Family Engagement Survey results at the July 15th work session. The employee engagement survey includes the question, I work in an environment where there is mutual respect among staff. As you can see on the slide, progress was made toward the target for this metric. The percentages of administrators and support staff who felt respected at work improved since the two-year baseline. However, the percentage of teachers who felt respected at work decreased

096slightly. For this next outcome, all staff will view student behavior through a culturally responsive lens. The metric utilized the rate of referral for disruptive behaviors disaggregated by ethnicity, English language learners, economically disadvantaged, and special education. A decrease in referrals in the student information system was seen in four student groups, black, Hispanic, economically disadvantaged, and students with disabilities. Two groups, white and Asian, remain the same. and one group, our English language learners, saw an increase in disruptive behavior referral rate. While improvements have been seen, the rate of progress is not sufficient to reach the target performance. And you may note that similar data by school is available on our FCPS equity profile. For the area of welcoming environment, multiple actions were initiated during the 2017-18 school year. This slide depicts high-level actions and early on information

097about return on investment. During school year 17-18, all FCPS staff completed the cultural proficiency model two and module one was completed in the prior year. Training on module three continued in the 18-19 school year. Staff who wanted a deeper dive into equity and cultural responsiveness participated in cohorts or in an FCPS Academy course. FCPS expended over $333,000 in training towards creating a welcoming environment. Future budget and policy considerations for improving school culture and environment are listed here. For budget considerations, continue to fund division-wide professional development around cultural awareness and responsiveness. Consider increasing funding for cultural proficiency cohorts if staff find lower rates of disruptive referrals among schools who participated. Support recurring funding of the family engagement survey because it is critical that we continue to measure our impact. on families. As for policy, FCPS will

098be implementing recommendations from the Equity Discipline Plan that is being developed or has been developed in response to the discipline study to include incorporating a culturally responsive lens to discipline in student learning. This will include reviewing the discipline process as a means of educating students to improve their behavior. As noted in the previous slide, FCPS will be supporting implementation of improved discipline behavior in school climate practices that are recommended in the discipline study. And this has also been developed in our equity plan that we will share with the board Monday morning, this Monday morning, June 17th. Now we'll move on to the area of healthy life choices. As we review the information on the next set of slides, you'll see that there was limited progress on a number of the metrics in this section of

099the report. The good news is that there was an increase in the number of students who reported being drug and alcohol free. The metrics on this slide use data from the youth survey from 2017 and have been relatively stable for many years. It's important to remember that the youth survey is administered in November of every year. The data clearly shows that additional efforts are needed and we look forward to the actions taken by FCPS during the following school years to impact the metrics in the future. As we continue with healthy life choices, you see the progress was made towards increasing the number of schools with low rates of students with frequent absences. Limited progress with disruptive behavior referrals and FCPS met the target for employees who utilize the Employee Assistance Program, also known as EAP.

100And each of these metrics will be discussed as we move along. FCPS has made progress on increasing the percentage of students who report being drug and alcohol free on the youth survey in 2017. While there was improvement in the percentage of students who indicated that they did not use drugs or alcohol, it should be noted that greater progress will be needed to reach the projected target. Also, when this metric was developed, use of tobacco products was not included, in part because the previous survey results showed low rates of use of tobacco and e-cigarettes. However, there's been a significant increase in the reported use of e-cigarettes and vaping since this baseline was created, which suggests there may be a need to reset this indicator to include vaping. The metric students will report positive relationships with peers

101and adults remain flat. Like the baseline, 85% of students report three or more assets on the youth survey in 2017. Students who report that they have three or more assets or protective factors also report that they are better able to manage stress, to make better choices, and to develop healthy habits. These assets include having high personal integrity, having community adults to talk to, performing community service, participating in extracurricular activities, having teachers recognize good work, and having parents available for help. In the fall of 2018, Fairfax County launched the Three to Succeed campaign. I've included the link on the slide. This campaign promotes awareness of the critical role adults have in the lives of children and youth and provides tools to help support how to make these connections. Three to succeed, the notion that the presence

102of just three protective factors in a youth's life can dramatically lower his or her risk has been a long central message of the youth survey. Many staff and stakeholders emphasize that building assets within youth is more effective and efficient than implementing programming to prevent poor outcomes. If we can ensure a young person has a protective factor at home, in the community, and at school, that young person will already have three and will be well positioned for success. FCPS will continue efforts to engage parents in the community in engaging and improving student assets. This indicator here measures the percent of students who report that they experience low to moderate levels of stress, which is associated with higher motivation, focus, and school achievement. Higher levels of stress, in contrast, interfere with functioning. There was no change in

103reported levels of stress in 2017. Here we see the measure the percent of students who report healthy lifestyle behaviors on the youth survey. As you see in the box on the slide, healthy lifestyle habits include nutrition, sleep, and exercise. Healthy nutrition is demonstrated by eating fruits, vegetables, and greens regularly. Healthy exercise is defined as exercising at least 60 minutes four times a week. And healthy sleep is defined as eight hours or more. On the youth survey, these three correlate with each other and are closely related to routines and practices at home. No progress was made in students reporting out improvements in sleep, nutrition, and exercise in 2017. Here again, we address high-level actions and early-on information on return on investment. FCPS collaborated with county partners to develop plans to address both drug use and the

104development of stronger relationships with adults and peers. Lessons regarding the hazards of vaping were added to health lessons, and FCPS participated on the Opioid Task Force, which resulted in spring of 2018 with the Board of Supervisors funding six new substance abuse prevention specialists for the 18-19 school year. In addition, FCPS partnered with the county to develop a social media campaign that I mentioned before called Three to Succeed to reach parents, teachers, and community members. And as I mentioned, that was launched in 2018. In 17-18, an online simulation called Friend to Friend was piloted in some 10th grade health classes. This program helps youth practice responses when they are concerned about a friend or when a friend shows signs of depression. The pilot of this program went well and will be expanded to schools in 19-20.

105Lastly, DSS collaborated with the Student Advisory Council to identify better ways to communicate with students about what mental health resources and supports are available for students, as well as to plan student-led presentations about their school's youth survey results to peers and adults in the buildings. The funds noted on the return on investment bullets reflect time spent by FCPS on collaborative planning teams with county staff to address drug use. $50,000 was provided by the Board of Supervisors to contract with a public relations firm to develop the 3 to Succeed campaign communication and planning materials. Several actions were taken during 17-18 to increase student voice in addressing mental wellness. This included creation, with input from members of the Student Advisory Council, of a website with tips for teens on creating emotional balance and addressing concerns when they

106arise. Support was given to the Josh Anderson Foundation to start Our Minds Matter clubs in eight high schools. These clubs provide both an opportunity for club members to build a sense of connection and reduce stigma around mental health issues, as well as provide opportunities for club members to lead school-wide activities like Stress Less, Laugh More weeks prior to exams. daily tips on radio programs, and a number of other activities. You'll see on this slide that over 100 students were trained in the youth mental health first aid classes. There were over 1,000 adults and students combined that completed the eight-hour youth mental health first aid course. And wellness screenings for signs of depression have been expanded to the middle schools. The return to learn protocol is a team meeting with parents when their child has been

107absent for an extended period of time, whether due to a concussion, a mental health concern, or some other physical problem. There are a series of questions that are considered, and the team uses to ensure that supports are in place as needed to adjust class schedules or length of the school day. emotional supports, and academic supports that are needed to transition this student back to school. The funds noted in the return on investment bullet in this slide funded time spent by the mental health wellness specialist supporting work with teens, including the SAC, the Student Advisory Council, our Minds Matter Club, which expanded to additional schools in 18-19. There are several highlighted actions to address nutrition. The farm to school planning has been a main focus beginning with the elementary salad bar program. Food and nutrition services

108added 32 salad bars to elementary schools for a total of 51 at the end of the 17-18 school year. The salad bar offers a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables each day with an all-you-care-to-eat approach. Students choose options based on personal preference for both acceptability and quantity. As of June 2018, 35 elementary schools offered breakfast in the classroom and to date there are over a total of 38 sites participating in this program. Breakfast in the classroom allows students to have more time to consume their meal and helps to eliminate any barriers or negative perceptions that may be tied to breakfast served in the cafeteria. An additional benefit of breakfast in the classroom is that meals are offered at no cost at all to students regardless of their individual eligibility. The USDA Summer Food Service Program

109is operated throughout the summer months to provide nutrition support to children and communities in Fairfax County. In the summer of 2018, over 200,000 nutritious meals were served at no cost in eligible areas of need to children 18 years or younger. Students attending eligible schools with after-school programs have been supported with a Super Snack meal under the USDA At-Risk After-School Meals Program. Super Snack is a balanced meal that consists of grains, fruit, protein, vegetables, and milk. Lastly, a new health curriculum is piloted in five high schools for grades 9 and 10 that addresses drug and alcohol-free health, nutrition behaviors, and sleep. Teacher feedback informed revisions and full implementation of new health curriculum conducted this school year, 18-19. Moving beyond middle school fitness planning, grade 9 students begin a personal wellness plan that is then reviewed and

110extended into grade 10. Wellness plans include a general overview of current health status and goal setting, and monitoring for at least two areas of health selected by the student. Significant progress was seen in the attendance metric as more schools had larger percentages of their student body with regular attendance. FCPS had a meaningful increase 18 schools in the number of schools with low rates of students with frequent absences. The Department of Special Services will continue to target individual schools for support to improve student attendance. Several actions were implemented to address attendance. During 17-18 school year, their primary focus is on reducing unexcused absences. Schools implemented close monitoring and contact with parents of these students with a focus on collaboratively developing plans with the parents to overcome barriers to attendance rather than a reliance on consequences through

111the attendance officers or the courts. In addition, there were efforts to raise awareness about the potential negative effects of absence. for any reason and the need for children to be in school whenever they weren't ill. During 17-18, this information was shared with schools and a school and community task force planned strategies to address barriers once they were identified. During the 18-19 school year, there was a much more extensive campaign with parents, businesses, and other community members. Check and Connect is a staff intensive intervention to establish relationships with students who are chronically absent and their families. It is a highly structured form of mentoring which includes calls to the student when they're not in school and a positive and welcoming approach when they show any improvements in attendance. The funds listed in the return on investment

112covered development of new areas in the student information system to trigger and track interventions for students with unexcused absences, development of websites and resources for parents, staff, and community members to address chronic absenteeism. Also included are portions of time committed by social workers, psychologists, and counselors to implement Check and Connect now at all high schools, providing this intensive mentoring to students. An earlier metric looked at disruptive behavior across different subgroups. This slide demonstrates percent of students with disruptive behavior by level. The overall rating indicates limited progress on this indicator. While the overall percent of students with disruptive behaviors remained constant in 17-18, there were decreases seen in the elementary and high school levels. However, there was an increase in disruptive behavior referrals at the middle school. During the 17-18 school year, actions to address discipline

113included an increased focus at the elementary level with support from the behavior intervention teachers for students with intense and frequent disruptive behaviors, as well as the implementation of evidence-based small group interventions by psychologists, social workers, and counselors for students who appear to have skill deficits in managing their emotions when frustrated or confused. All schools are required to attend a revised training on the process of conducting functional behavior assessments and developing behavior intervention plans. The ROI funds reflect the cost, a portion of that salary, for the trainers and the time spent reviewing and providing feedback on the mock functional behavior assessments and behavior intervention plans that they were required to complete. While the return on investment seems minimal, it's important to remember that the functional behavior assessment and behavior intervention process, while essential to meet the

114needs of children with the most disruptive behaviors, also impacts only a small percentage of the total number of students who may demonstrate less intense or less frequent difficulty. FCPS employees continue to utilize the Employee Assistance Program, or the EAP program, which is promoted as a resource to manage work-life balance at rates that exceed the provider's typical utilization statistics at other organizations. The EAP employee engagement levels are robust and have seen an increase in combined online and in-person access, indicating employee confidence in the program. Areas where utilization increased included those for legal and financial resources, work and life balance resources, website services, and critical incident responses to support staff at schools. In the school year 2017-18, the Department of Human Resources made a concerted effort to reach employee populations by providing multimedia communications and on-site presentations

115to promote employee engagement and awareness. The FCPS engagement level has been higher in large part due to the multifaceted and ongoing efforts to promote this benefit and the continuous outreach efforts promoting awareness and access of services among employee populations. The return on investment for the EAP utilization is seen in cost avoidance realized when employees can complete counseling sessions within the EAP without having to access health vendor services where FCPS incurs costs. Research shows that offering access to work-life balance resources for employees yields more positive life choices by staff. The annual cost per employee per year for EAP services is about $13.56. Future considerations for healthy life choices include funding for a universal social-emotional program. This is foundational to implementing a quality multi-tiered system of support framework as there must be explicit instruction on social-emotional skills

116for all students. It is also in alignment with the recommendations of the discipline studies. If approved, there would be a request for proposal released during the next school year. Additional substance abuse prevention specialists will be needed to support all students with first-time drug offenses or vaping to participate in alcohol and other drug intervention, participate in screening to determine whether there are more significant concerns with drug use, to provide follow-up support through cannabis youth treatment groups, and to help families connect with community resources. Additional or continued funds will also be needed to expand programs that promote healthy nutrition, exercise, and sleep, as well as support for employee wellness activities. There are also policy considerations or suggestions to impact efforts to reach targets. These would include potential changes to the student rights and responsibilities regarding drug, alcohol,

117and vaping to support an intervention-focused consequence, which we will be addressing at Monday's work session. Additional considerations include recommending that the board consider changing alcohol and drug-free metric to include vaping. This will more accurately reflect concern and efforts underway to support students. This will also require a resetting of the baseline for this measure and may impact the setting of a target. To fully impact many of the objectives of the Caring Culture Goal, a comprehensive, high-fidelity Tiered systems of support must be in place at every school. Realistically, this is a multi-year effort which will take ongoing coaching and targeting to support continuously. However, clear expectations from the superintendent and the board that this is the expectation for all schools and that our multi-tiered systems of support includes academic behavior and emotional wellness is critical for our

118success. To decrease discipline referrals, FCPS will provide additional trainings for school staff to focus on positive behavior approaches to discipline. In addition, more positive behavior intervention training will be provided to schools with the addition of the behavior intervention teachers for every pyramid. In 2018-19, FCPS partnered with Stanford University to conduct a research study about the effectiveness of teacher perceptions for the reasons of behavior or reducing discipline referrals. Results of this study will be incorporated into our future actions. And lastly, support the communications and programming necessary to maintain robust engagement in the Employee Assistance Program. That is the end of the Goal 2 presentation. And as I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation, the work session to discuss and review the Gold Tier Report is scheduled for June 17th, this coming Monday. And with that,

119I have a whole team behind me ready to answer questions that you might have. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. And as you can imagine, I have a number of members of the board who would like to have a few comments or questions. I'm going to start with Ms. Evans. Thank you very much. I appreciate the excellent report. And I see we do have some significant improvements. Certainly it's good news about the reduction in drug use or the improvement in being drug free. I do hear what you're saying about the adding the vaping in. That certainly is an issue we're going to need to attack. Certainly the absences, that's a significant improvement in the number of schools that have reduced their absences. Of those remaining, are you seeing a pattern of what schools those are that continue

120to have absences and in particular are we seeing that more at our high poverty schools at well let me let me ask you that question and I understand we're going to have a work session but I just wanted to preview some of the issues that I plan to raise so actually we're not seeing a clear pattern that way certainly some schools with high poverty are among the schools that we would want to target but because chronic absenteeism is absent for any reason in some of the schools where we have higher than expected levels of chronic absenteeism they are schools with more affluent populations where students may leave for a portion of the year to go to other countries to visit them they may be away for a whole variety of activities that they're involved in

121their parents are more likely to take them on vacation etc etc so yes some of our schools with high incidence of poverty are the schools who continue to have some difficulties with chronic absenteeism but it's not a one-to-one correlation I think for Monday it would be useful to see a list of those where we're still we're still working on it and of course I'm gonna raise sleep I do need to point out that our baseline is, I think, in terms of where we started with our metric, is about the lowest baseline, too. And so for us to have such a low baseline and not be making any progress is certainly disappointing to all of us. We did make progress after we changed the start times. I know the Youth Risk Survey showed that at least

122at the high school level, we did make progress there for a while. But, of course, we went backwards on the middle schools because of the middle school start times going earlier for most. So that is an area where we need to continue working to get those middle school times at something that's reasonable. Even the high school times, we're not where the medical community believes we should be. So there's more work to do on that. I did have to ask, though, in going to slide 29, not seeing anything there in new work for the effort to improve sleep. And of course, as we know, it impacts so many other things, getting enough sleep. So is it... Is there someplace that I'm not seeing or have we, what are we planning to do to help improve the

123amount of sleep our kids get? So educationally we updated the curriculum K through six that includes that includes the importance of sleep. We again piloted a ninth and 10th grade curriculum that includes the importance as well and more focus on that that was being implemented this year. So we don't have information yet on how that. you know, how that's going or if that's moved the needle on this beyond the education. So maybe I misread this slide. I thought that there was something in the previous slide that said that it had not had an impact. Is that because we haven't measured the impact yet? Because that was 17-18 data. I see. And the implementation really was this school year 18-19. So the pilot, we will not have seen the impact of the pilot? Correct. Oh, okay.

124Correct until fall and the pilot was only with five schools five high schools. Okay, so that was 1718 so now full implementation this year. Mm-hmm. So We'll see. Again, the youth survey is conducted in November. Okay. So we'll only have a couple of months, and so not every student will have had health education by that point. Okay. Well, I would be interested in seeing a bit of that curriculum because I think that we, of course, have high hopes that if we let students know just how important sleep is that they will voluntarily find a way to change their own. schedules a little bit. So I do think that that's a particularly important area where we need to focus more attention. And lastly, for tonight, I would say this is a very impressive array with the

125list of improvements on food, with the salad bars. I don't know what slide it's on. Is it on 14? Let me go back to where it was. 22. Somewhere in there, there was a, yes, that one, thank you. We really have done a lot in terms of... farm to school, the salad bars, the super snack program I think just started this year, I mean the after school meals that we provide. So that makes it, and I guess perhaps this is lagging data, is that again lagging data where in the healthy lifestyles it showed I believe a small decrease in nutrition. Is that also because of lagging data? This is all 2017-18, so that is correct. It will probably be another year before we start to see increases. Because I do think that some of these

126programs should be having an impact in the long run. And just to alert everybody, I had had a forum topic a few months ago about food insecurity. PTA presidents in my area were particularly concerned about what happens to kids. in the summer and I know we have some summer programs what happens to kids on snow days what happens to kids during breaks and so the chair has rightly suggested that rather than having it be a separate forum topic that I asked for some information as part of this goal report so I'll raise that again on Monday thank you again for the excellent presentation thank you Miss Evans Miss Kees-Gomara Miss McLaughlin So I'm going to try to be very mindful for my colleagues that it's 930 and we have to go into closed session again

127and I'm very much looking forward to our work session on Monday. But I did want to just spotlight for the board and the community and most importantly for our staff. I'm very appreciative of the end of the presentation where you talk about where your future considerations are for budget and policy and strategic concerns. And just to say that I I hope my colleagues will have the conversation that these won't be future considerations but actually future commitment starting in the upcoming year. There are excellent suggestions all around. I want to compliment you all for what you've listed there. I think they're all essential, Dr. Brabrand. So on Monday, I really hope that'll be a key piece of our dialogue. And I also want to speak to something that was cited earlier as My colleagues know I

128am a social worker with a background in mental health. I am so thankful that we live in a school system that is recognized that nationally social-emotional learning is one of the key aspects of a lifelong ability to be successful. You can be extremely smart and intelligent, but if you do not have strong executive functioning skills, strong social-emotional learning, you cannot. have the ability to be your full successful self in the way that you have interpersonal relationships in the workplace, in your own interpersonal relationships with family members, loved ones, and friends. It is so foundational. And just now in the 21st century, we are understanding that. So I wanted to give a special shout out that I, for one, am... just wishing that my boys who were a little bit too far ahead in FCPS schooling

129wise they didn't necessarily get all of that and I certainly would have loved to have had it 40 years ago. So thank you again for the great work that you and your team do. It's deeply appreciated and I believe that this report is going to help spotlight again why coming to Fairfax County Schools is not just about academic achievement but overall whole child achievement. Thank You miss McLaughlin miss Schultz So well, I appreciate my colleague mr. McLaughlin's perspective and and I do find that there's value in in some of the the Mindset there. I do think that there is a big question about parental rights and about what What do parents know their children are being taught? This has been, has always been, a concern of mine. The access to curriculum and all curriculum, not

130family life, this is not restricted to family life, this is all curriculum, is increasingly difficult. As a parent of children in the school system, what teachers post with fidelity to Blackboard has always been a problem. I've had years where some teachers don't post at all. You know, the original syllabus for the class goes up and pretty much nothing else from that point forward. Some post their curriculum with great fidelity. Some post it in arrears so that what appears at the top is the oldest and you have to slide all the way down to find the newest. do the reverse. And for children with executive function issues, as they move from elementary school into middle school, where they're moving from class to class, where block classes, they don't have the same schedule every day, and now

131you have a whole series of teachers who aren't even necessarily posting with fidelity. And we've moved to increasing online digital curriculum or online resources. And that's if the teachers are following the textbook because often they're doing teacher sourced material, teacher led professional development and curriculum. Now it's like catch as catch can. What is your child learning on any given day? What is, who are the content? creators of social-emotional learning, what is their objective. I am a little bit concerned about something that we heard earlier about critical literacy, and as a parent, I haven't actually heard of that. So, you know, here we are, we're in a situation where parents are the primary educators of their children, period. We are partners with the parents and the education of their children. We live in a school district

132where our children speak 200 languages. And I don't even know how many countries they come from. All of them, I would assume. So you are dealing with parents who they themselves do not possess or retain or hold their native language literacy, never mind English literacy and numeracy. and the right of that parent to know what their children are learning. And I'm not entirely sure that we've captured, you know, some of what the parental rights aspect are in this. Not that we don't have noble goals, but it isn't transparent to a two-parent, well-educated, solid... you know household never mind anyone else who is a single parent a culturally diverse or linguistically diverse household. So I want us to keep that aspect in mind because I want us to not assert because we have the staff and

133we have a tremendous amount of experience within our staff and in our schools that we at any time insert ourselves between children and parents so i just want to make that that point clear there are other things that i'll talk about on monday but i do want to say that for the record thank you miss schultz Mr. Moon followed by Mr. McElveen. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you for the presentation. Obviously there is a lot to digest. I'm going to have to spend this weekend to do a more thorough reading which I urge my fellow colleagues to do because I am one of the meeting managers on Monday and we have a lot to cover on Monday. With that said... I was looking for some raw data to do some further analysis for what I

134saw on slide number nine, which I found to be somewhat surprising that for English language learners, obviously we see behaviors not getting better by going the other direction, at least referral-wise, whether the baseline, the three-year baseline, is that from 14 through 17, 14, 15, 15, 16, 16, 17, is that the three-year baseline? Yes. When we say, do you think whether even in that baseline, whether we could see some numbers, whether there's a trend? Miss Ruda was here. She's in the back here. I don't need that for tonight. I just wanted to see whether if 17-18 is worse than three-year baseline, and that seems to be the only category where we see a worsening in data, whether that's been a trend over the last four years. And when I know that large part of our English

135language learners come from certain ethnic group, but that particular ethnic group on this slide number nine has shown improvement, but ELL is the other way. So I'm having a difficulty, you know, seeing how this is so. So I would love to have some raw numbers. And if it could provide the raw numbers over the weekend so that I could give some more thought before I ask you some follow-up questions on Monday. Understood. Thank you. Mr. McElveen. Thank you. This is a terrific presentation. I really like how it's laid out. I think you've done a great job. Normally I would not speak tonight because I like to reserve conversation for the work session. Unfortunately I'll be out on work travel on Monday so I will miss the conversation. Just a couple issues on nutrition. You say

136that we currently have 51 salad bars. You're just referring to elementary school right? Because all of our secondary schools. Yes. Yeah and all of our secondary schools have salad bars currently correct? I'm going to ask the expert to. So currently we have 82 salad bars at the elementary school level. And then we have next year and the following school year to add the remaining salad bars to all elementary schools. Right. Yeah, that's fantastic. But the question on secondary, do we have something in every school? We do not. We do not. What does that look like? So we offer the Fresh Express instead of salad bars at the secondaries level, so middle and high school and secondary schools. So they're prepackaged sandwiches and salads that are made fresh every day at our central kitchens and then

137sent to the middle and high schools for students to select from. Okay. That's news to me. Thank you. Another question is in the budget implication section you had mentioned advocating for new programs to promote nutrition. What would those be? Okay. I apologize. Ms. Burden, are there additional programs that we were interested in adding for nutrition? I don't believe that's something that we're currently It said it in the PowerPoint. Right. Yeah, but that's not something that we're ready to move forward with just yet. The food services group is still looking at that. But it is something that's on our radar. Okay. I do think it's true. Maria, why don't you share a little bit? We've had a conversation with the state superintendent about working to try to do second chance breakfasts at the secondary and some

138grant money that the state may have. And I can't recall all the details, but if there's a little bit you could share a flavor with the board, I think, for a sense of what Mr. McElveen's questions are around. OK. So we've been working with Share Our Strength, No Kid Hungry Virginia to look at enhancing breakfast participation in our schools. And we've done a lot with breakfast in the classroom over the past couple of years at elementary school level. And so Share Our Strength has been looking at middle and high school and where there's areas for growth and participation at breakfast. And they've offered grant money for several different schools to look at. second chance breakfast right for that breakfast that happens sometime after you know the first or second period and then also offering money

139to support breakfast carts to have you know mobile breakfast at different areas throughout the building for that grab-and-go opportunity either when school first starts where that first breakfast happens or at the second chance breakfast later on so our area specialists have been talking with principals and encouraging principals to look at these opportunities and ask for some participation so right now we've been we're working with Share Our Strength and we're looking at five schools for additional grant money at this time to support breakfast carts and second chance breakfast for next school year. Okay thank you. I will probably have more questions that I'll ask offline. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. McElveen. Before we close out this discussion, I do have a couple of comments. First, thank you very much for a very thorough report. There

140is so much in here, and it's one where I read straight through it, and then I found myself wanting to go back and reread and look at the data. So it's really quite good, and I encourage all of my colleagues. to take the time they need to be able to come on Monday and be ready to discuss this. We have allocated quite a bit of time, but I think it's one that we will want to dive into. There are two areas I'd like to kind of tee up for discussion. One is the chart on page, hold on, let me give you the exact page. 25 on disruptive behaviors I'm a bit concerned with the language in the box which says that there's been an increase in middle school and so it would be very helpful

141if you could provide a bit more clarity as to why we think that there's been the increase in middle school and some solutions for it. You don't have to answer it tonight. You can certainly think about it until Monday. And then the second one is the discussion about assets, the three to succeed. We seem to be hitting up against a wall there. And it actually... I think touches on a conversation about the role of families and the role of parents in their students lives in that partnership. And so I think it would be very helpful for my colleagues to be ready to talk about how we assist our students and families in those asset building. And I see there is a light and I don't know if, yes it is. So Ms. Schultz, would you

142like to? Right. And again, I understand that we have a work session on this, but the other comment was a specific comment. There are a couple things I will want to talk about on Monday. I do note that on slide six. At the bottom, it's very difficult to read, and unlike one of my other colleagues, I actually don't love this layout. I do think that the charts should have their own page. You can have a commentary on a previous page leading into it, but I do think that the charts should have their own page. At the bottom it says Virginia Department of Education State Climate Survey. I don't know who takes that, what age is, and so I don't know the validity of this data. because if this is only taken by, for example, I

143don't know if only high school students take this or how many students participate, so I'd like to hear some more related to that. And then on what I think will be a much talked about, I predict, slide nine. Some of the data, well, first of all, I don't know what. I think it's a little edge of speak to say that we're going to look at student behavior through a culturally responsive lens. I don't really know what that means, and I don't think parents do either. And, you know, to say that you're going to, to me, that sounds like, you know, you're going to look at one child's behavior through their culture. and a different child through a different culture, if they're a different culture, we should be looking at children's behavior the same. And hopefully

144not setting different goals based on what culture they come from. The goal should be the same. And there's a notable difference here. you know, it stands out. So the question is, why is that different? So my question is, do we do anything to discern why Asian students have a, you know, multiple factor reduction compared to other students? What do we do? Do we find out if parents are, if students are coming from a two-parent, you know, stable background household versus the other students? I don't know. These are things, there are things that are out of our control that will always be out of our control. and we need to have that's sort of one of those brave you know courageous conversations that need to be included in this is what's out of our control when

145we have this discussion um so things that can lead into the conversation for monday um uh pertaining to that um i i would welcome there'll be further questions but i do think that there's going to be i anticipate that there will be a lot um around um around that thank you Thank you, Ms. Schultz. So I remind my colleagues that we will be discussing this report at the June 17th, this Monday's all-day work session, and the action is currently scheduled for June 20th. And so with that, thank you very much, Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much. And we look forward to Monday's discussion. And thank you to your whole team for being here. This is the portion of the meeting where the board will confirm any action taken regarding issues that were discussed in the

146closed meeting. These issues may include action taken regarding student disciplinary matters, board members have discussed each individual case, and at this time we'll make several motions to confirm the recommended action. So I call on Ms. Strauss for a motion. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I move that the... Continuing teachers identified in closed session be dismissed at the conclusion of the 2018-2019 school year and their contracts not be renewed for the 2019-2020 school year. Do I have a second? Second. Seconded by Ms. Darinak-Kofax. All those in favor? Mr. Wilson, Ms. Palachuk, Mr. McElveen, Ms. Darinak-Kofax, Mr. Moon, Ms. McLaughlin, Ms. Evans, and Ms. Strauss. Those opposed? Those abstaining? Ms. Schultz and Ms. Keyes-Gamara. That motion carries. I now call on Ms. Strauss for a motion. I move that the probationary teachers identified in closed session be dismissed

147at the conclusion of the 2018-2019 school year and their contracts not be renewed for the 2019-2020 school year. Second. Seconded by Mr. Moon. All those in favor? I have Ms. Strauss, Ms. Schultz, Ms. Evans, Ms. McLaughlin, Mr. Moon, Ms. Arnott-Kofax, Mr. McElveen, Ms. Palchik, Ms. Corbett-Sanders. Those opposed? Those abstaining? Mr. Wilson? Oh, you voted in favor. Okay, I'm sorry. And Ms. Keyes-Gamara is abstaining. That motion carries. I call on Mr. Moon for a motion. Is M3? Oh, I'm sorry. I call on Ms. Evans for a motion. Yes. I move to deny the school reassignment appeal of a student who possessed and used illegal drugs at school and to confirm the disciplinary decision of the division superintendent. Do I have a second? Seconded by Ms. Keyes-Gamara. All those in favor? Ms. Palachuk, Mr. McElveen, Ms. Darinak-Kofax.

148Ms. Keys-Gamar, Ms. Evans, and Ms. Strauss. Those opposed, Ms. Schultz, Ms. McLaughlin, Mr. Moon, and Mr. Wilson. Those abstaining, Ms. Corbett-Sanders. That motion carries. I call on Ms. Schultz for a motion. I move to grant in part the school reassignment appeal of a student who possessed and used illegal drugs at school and to modify the disciplinary decision of the superintendent division superintendent seconded by Miss Palachuk all those in favor that's unanimous oh I'm sorry I thought yours was up so it's Mr. Wilson Miss Palachuk Mr. McElveen Mr. Moon, Ms. McLaughlin, Ms. Keyes-Gamar, Ms. Evans, Ms. Schultz, Ms. Strauss, Ms. Corbett-Sanders. Those opposed? Those abstaining? Ms. Starnak-Kofax. That motion carries. I call on Ms. Keyes-Gamar for a motion. I move to grant in part the school reassignment appeal of a student who assaulted school is that

149the correct one yes assaulted school staff and disrupted the educational environment and to overturn no modify the disciplinary decision of the division superintendent second seconded by Ms. Schultz all those in favor Ms. Strauss, Ms. Schultz, Ms. Evans, Ms. Keyes-Gamara, Mr. Moon, Ms. Derenac-Kofax, Mr. McElveen, Mr. Wilson. Those opposed? Those abstaining? Ms. Palachuk, that motion carries. Oh, Ms. McLaughlin. That motion carries. And I now call on Ms. Evans for a motion. I move to deny the school reassignment appeal of a student who assaulted school staff and to confirm the disciplinary decision of the division superintendent. Second. Seconded by Mr. Moon. All those in favor? Mr. Wilson. That's unanimous. Call on Ms. Evans for a motion. I move to deny the school reassignment appeal of a student who improperly touched another student at school and to confirm

150the disciplinary decision of the division superintendent. Second. Seconded by Ms. Strauss. All those in favor? Mr. Wilson, Ms. Palachuk, Mr. McElveen, Ms. Darinak-Kofax, Mr. Moon, Ms. Keyes-Gemara, Ms. Evans, Ms. Schultz, Ms. Strauss. Those opposed? Those abstaining? Ms. McLaughlin. That motion carries. I now call on Ms. McLaughlin for a motion. I move that the school board approve Friday, July 5th, 2019 as a paid holiday for all 12-month Fairfax County Public School employees. Do I have a second? Seconded by Ms. Palachuk. Ms. McLaughlin, would you like to speak to your motion? Briefly, I had asked that this be moved from our consent agenda to the action item because I thought it was important for the public to understand that a key reason for why this is coming before the board is because the Fairfax County government will

151be granting Friday July 5th as a paid holiday for its employees and I feel it's very important that we have as much equity and parity as possible for all public employees who serve our county whether it's for the schools or county government so I think this is in keeping with our one Fairfax vision for really ensuring that and so I hope my colleagues will support this proposal that came from our superintendent but needs to have the board's approval because as people may or may not be aware as one of the largest employers in Virginia with each paid holiday it's well over a million dollars per day in just costs associated with worker productivity. Thank you Ms. McLaughlin. Ms. Palachuk would you like to speak to your second? Yeah, no, just briefly. I agree that it's

152important to have the parity. It is the Friday right after 4th of July. It is during summer break, and I just think it's important that we do this for our employees. I also have heard some concerns. I know there's a change to the calendar for next year, and so just want to make sure we continue to have a conversation about our employees, the work that is there, the parity, but also... Are there areas where we do have to differ because our work is not 100 percent the same work and the same calendar as the county? But in this instance, I fully support this change. So thank you. Thank you, Ms. Patrick. Ms. Schultz. So did the Board of Supervisors consult us before making this decision for their employees? I had a conversation with Brian Hill.

153It came as a board matter from the Board of Supervisors, as I understand it. And I was informed that the board had done that. So really, it's kind of no. They made a decision and they have, how many employees do they have? 17,000? Is that right? Somebody. Ms. Burden, do you know if they have 17,000? Something like that? much less you don't know so the problem I have is we're playing follow the leader another board that has a different budget that has taxing Authority made a decision and because they made a decision they forced our hand we would not be I don't think how be having this conversation if the 4th of July was on a Tuesday would we be giving Monday We create a four-day weekend in that case. Well, what happens if it's

154on a Wednesday? Then do then do we give an extra bonus holiday if it's on a Wednesday in the middle of the week? So is it by mere virtue of the fact that it happens to fall, you know close to a weekend But it's not really a weekend that we're that we're you know Coming up with the money and I don't know what my how we're paying for this Of course you have to pay for it because work's not being done. So by virtue of the fact work's not being done, that work has to fall at a different time. So there is always a loss to a school system when you don't have employees working. And I don't appreciate being put in a position by another authority. who doesn't have the responsibility to manage our

155budget, who doesn't have the authority to manage our employees, that simply because they made this decision, we have to, we're going to, too. It is the penultimate keeping up with the Joneses. We didn't ever have a work session to discuss this. We don't have a work session, frankly, to discuss the holidays that are for 12-month employees beyond the school calendar. And this is being pulled off a consent agenda. It's happening, you know. in a matter of weeks, and we're playing follow the leader. I don't think this is great policy making. It's a feel good. Like if you vote for it, you're gonna be a champion, but it isn't wise. This isn't good governing. I just I don't appreciate the way this is being done. I think that if we're going to have a policy about

156federal holidays and when we're going to give bonus additional holidays and impact the work product of a three billion dollar entity, then we should do so in a strategic manner, not weeks ahead because somebody else did it. We're going to. That's not parody. That's lack of governing that's allowing somebody else to govern us and we don't want to make a decision of our own accord we we are our own entity we're reliant on that entity for funding and Just because they do it is not a good reason for us to do it Thank You miss Schultz. Mr. Moon I'll be I'm gonna be supporting this motion. I don't know what there are I had a chance to have a brief conversation with you. I'm going to support that as well. But just to be correct

157on record, let me ask Dr. Nixon a couple of questions regarding number of employees that may be affected by this. I know that we have about 24,000 full-time equivalent employees. 15,000 of them are teachers, and teachers are not being affected by this. So among the remaining... 9,000 school bus drivers are not being affected by this. So we have to subtract that from 9,000. And also, full service workers are not being affected by this. So this is even less. So even though our daily... the compensation cost may be about a million dollars. If you subtract all those numbers, it's going to be substantially less than a million dollars. Am I correct? Yes. So Mr. Moon, it would be, but when you look at the calculations that we did, we've already pulled those individuals out. So we're

158looking at our 12-month employees. And so when you look at our 12-month employees, it's about $1.4 million per day for 12-month employees. And then when you're not paying your hourly employees who don't normally come in on snow days or holidays, there's about a $200,000 saving. So that's about a net of $1.2 million. Okay, somehow I'm at 200,000 I said 2 million 1.2 million dollars 1.2 million dollars for the 12-month employees paid for one day Yes, okay. I better I better do my math again. Thank you. Mr. McElveen So I am grateful to my colleagues for pulling this off the consent agenda. Normally I am not, but this is one where I think it's actually worthy of discussion. It's concerning to me. I think it was well said that the tail is wagging the dog, and

159I think this is not the first time that this has happened. with this board even in this calendar year I don't think that we should govern our decisions based on what what the county does as you know someone who works in an office environment we don't randomly get thrown holidays they are put they are annualized as part of a calendar and so this is concerning I don't at this point it to strip it from employees is also concerning if they have the understanding that this is coming to them Thank You mr. McAleen I have a go back for miss McLaughlin but before I allow her the go back. I do want to first thank Ms. McLaughlin for taking it off consent because it does warrant a fuller discussion. And it is particularly important to look

160at this in the context of not only this decision but the follow-on motion which calls for greater collaboration before we set calendars for the year. So that because we do know that many of our employees are employees who have a spouse who works for Fairfax County. And so where we can have some collaboration in setting our employee calendars, I think that that is something welcome. However, we also know that we will not have full parity between the two calendars because of the unique roles that people may play or may have in Fairfax County Public Schools versus Fairfax County government. And so although I will be supporting this amendment, or this motion i do think it is important to do further consultation and collaboration between the county executive and the superintendent in advance of us setting

161our employee calendars because it's my understanding that we have a fixed number of days that we provide as part of our annual calendar that allows for our 12-month employees to have those days off. But given the situation that we're in today, I will be supporting this amendment. And so with that, Ms. McLaughlin. Yes, I just wanted a brief go back because, Ms. Schultz, I do understand you and Mr. McAveen and others are expressing consternation, but I do want to at least speak to myself and maybe where many of our other colleagues are. I do not have a reputation for being a follower or a lemming or being someone who gets wagged by a tail, but... I do think that this isn't the first time. This board has done this actually during my eight-year tenure when

162we had 4th of July falling right before the start of a weekend. There was the request from staff to say that bringing everybody back in for a Friday only to then go back into the weekend to why not go ahead and just make it a four-day weekend. Ms. Schultz, you and I, when we served on this, one of the things that we asked the prior superintendent who proposed it and the prior HR superintendent who proposed it is, at the time, the board was told, this would be great to give the extra paid holiday because we save $40,000 in our air conditioning and utility costs. And it was actually many of us on the board who said, That's only half the story. The other half the story is you're having everybody on a paid holiday, which

163there is still worker productivity. What is our payroll for that day that work won't be done? And that is part of tonight's conversation and in recognition that our payroll is about 1.2 million for that day. But the bottom line is that... Our employees serve the county residents just like the county government employees do. And so... As of now, I think the parity is fair and that we should be supporting this decision. However, as my follow-on motion is going to talk about, we can't be doing these decisions in isolation. And again, I want to reserve my comments for this follow-on discussion. But without question, Ms. Schultz, Mr. McElveen, and others, I think my follow-on motion speaks exactly to your desires, which is that both the... superintendent and the county executive along with the two boards should

164be having a much more mindful and forward conversation about additional paid holidays that go outside of the federal holidays that we recognize here in our country thank you miss mclaughlin miss evans Just very briefly, I'm going to support this motion and appreciate it being taken off the consent agenda because I think it is worth having the discussion about it. But I think it's a matter of common sense, frankly, more than anything else. Our 12-month employees don't punch a clock. They work very, very hard. So I think rather than requiring people to come in and, you know. work a little bit and then go home. If we were in the private sector, I don't think we would really even be having much of a discussion about it. Ms. Schultz. So I just looked. The federal government

165does not give Friday, July 5th off. We live in a county that probably has more federal workers per square foot, never mind per square mile. So if we're talking about parity, next-door neighbors going to work when our employees aren't, what's the difference there? My question is for staff, how many paid holidays are there for 12-month employees? 12 and a half. 12 and a half. So that's the federal holidays. But what about doesn't that include the days between Christmas and New Year's? I'd have to get in front of me. It's 12 days. Excuse me. I said 12 and a half. Right, Marty? It's 12 days. It's 12 days. 12 days. But what about the time between Christmas and New Year's? I'd have to look at for the 12 month of this calendar coming up I don't

166think there's a couple of days that are holidays but not all of them well it may be different this coming year but only because some of us have have brought that to the table so it was probably at least 17 and Some board members shared with me earlier in the year about looking as we went to one Fairfax to take a look at the calendar and We had added some days in in previous years and I scaled that back. I think it had gotten up to 16 I scaled it back to 12 to be in parity with the county The county if they were here, I don't speak for them, but just to add one other context I know before the county made its decision the governor a few weeks before gave state workers july

1675th off so i imagine but i can't speak for them that they saw that and had a similar conversation to what you're having right now about the county so So so this is this until I asked that question that information wasn't on the table This is exactly why I'm saying this is poor governing This is poor decision-making that weeks before a holiday. We're trying to navigate 1.2 million dollars worth of productivity and just because that's payroll to my good colleague from the Braddock district just because it's payroll doesn't mean that on top of that there isn't productivity so payroll payroll alone um is just what people are paid on top of that they're the reason we pay them is they're they're a tremendous value add so there is something to be derived for the good

168people of fairfax county whose money we're talking about um using for a paid holiday um you know the governor making the the fifth you know potentially colors that slightly differently. But, you know, this, the reason I support the successive motion, and I'll talk about it then, is because that is strategic. This is knee-jerk. And it's a, because other people are doing it, we're being asked to do it and we're being asked to do it right now and not take it into context with what we have done historically, what is a good practice, and what it means for the division. And I know it's only one holiday and it's just, oh, just let it go, just let it go. But this is the problem, is that if we don't talk about these things strategically and we

169don't talk about what the value of 28 and a half thousand full-time employees and yes some of those are teachers and you start subtracting subtracting but you don't subtract all of them um we are a $3 billion 12-month entity, and some teachers are not working in the summer. Many are. Many are doing curriculum development, professional development, collaborative training. So just to take it off, you know, it seems like it's an easy thing to vote for. It isn't easy, and we shouldn't be proud, even if we pass this. Again, this is a feel-good motion, but it isn't. the wisest way for us to go about doing our business. Thank you, Ms. Schultz. And with that, I'm going to call for the vote. All those in favor. So Ms. Hines, Mr. Wilson, Ms. Palachuk, Mr. McElveen, Mr.

170Moon, Ms. McLaughlin, Ms. Kiesgemar, Ms. Evans, Ms. Strauss, and Ms. Corbett-Sanders. Those opposed? Ms. Schultz. That motion carries. I now call on Ms. McLaughlin for a follow-on motion. Thank you. I move to direct the superintendent to work with the county executive in reviewing the upcoming and future employee calendars to ensure greater parity related to additional paid holiday closures beyond official federal holidays. The superintendent will then report back to the board any recommended changes to the employee calendar in terms of adding additional paid holiday closures. Second. Seconded by Ms. Schultz. Ms. McLaughlin, would you like to speak to your motion? Yes, briefly. As was referenced in the earlier motion, we have for some time had some... differences between what the county government has for additional paid holidays compared to what we've done with Fairfax County Schools.

171And as we have wanted to really create a one Fairfax in terms of for all of our employees and how they serve the county residents, but equity in terms of their paid days off, and as well as a focus on fiscal stewardship and responsibility. and the ability to overall best serve our county residents, I felt that this motion would be very helpful. I have been appreciative that Dr. Brabrand, you've been very responsive and very mindful of the concerns that we've brought to you when residents in the community asked us why our additional paid holidays were different from what the county government was issuing to its employees. And while I do believe that every one of us here on the board is appreciative of the hard work that our 12-month employees put into, I think we're

172also mindful that, as Ms. Schultz, you noted, in our county of one million people, we have everyone working extremely hard. And when the private sector and or even the federal government and other employment sectors don't have additional paid holidays but require those employees that if they want to take additional time off surrounding a federal holiday, they need to use their vacation days. And so that's why this is a really important collaboration with this motion here to have both the county executive and the superintendent. work to that discussion. And just something that my colleague from Springfield District mentioned earlier, I absolutely recognize that it's not just our payroll. It is about worker productivity. It's something I've always spoken to for years. I don't take lightly that $1.2 million a day is something to just, you know,

173cast off as... It's fine, not a problem, but I do think this is a way to be far more strategic and planning on a going forward basis. And to my colleagues, I also want to say I'm very sorry that this came rather quickly, but I really wasn't aware that this was on the consent agenda, pulled it off, and then thought this might be our best way of approaching it. So I appreciate your indulgences, and I hope that you will take it in good faith that this is maybe a good... Step going forward for directing the superintendent miss Schultz So, you know as I alluded in the in the previous motion This is actually good strategic governance. This is how we should work. We should be working in collaboration, proactively in advance, with our chief executive,

174that is the superintendent, with the board of supervisors, with their chief executive, who is the county executive, and discuss Okay, what is it that we're going to do? What is the financial impact of what we're going to do? In combination, our, by the way, 28,500 full-time employees plus another 13,000 to 15,000 part-time employees, what are we going to do in collaboration with them, and how do you make a wise decision for... the functioning government of a county and the functioning government of a school system. And so I support this. This is, I prefer. had we done this earlier. It is important to note that heretofore we were having not 10 or 11 or 12 but 18 or more paid holidays for 12 month employees. And it has been in collaboration with my colleague from the

175Braddock District that we have brought this to bear and talked about the inequity of that and that There is a reason that people have leave. Leave should not be saved up to the point that you have thousands of hours of leave and have to be cashed out at the end of your career because you never took the leave because we were giving you, you know, vast amounts. I will also make a note for my colleagues. As we were originally planned to have as an action item, the 2020-2021 school year calendar on our agenda for this evening has been... postponed to next Thursday, that as we go to discuss that, the early outs that happen through that calendar impact working families. And I have asked that those be minimized, and it is for the convenience, supposedly,

176of the employees. to do professional development that we're impacting families and detracting from academic time for students. Plus, we still do not have Veterans Day on that calendar as a definitive choice. And we're going to have to wrangle votes in order to come up with a calendar that recognizes one of the 10 federal holidays, Veterans Day, on that calendar. And yet we've just granted our 12-month employees another non- federal holiday and a bonus holiday. So I ask my colleagues going forward to keep that in mind as we talk over the next week about a potential final final calendar for 2020 2021. Miss Keyes-Gamara. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I do look at these two matters jointly, knowing that we've been having some discussions about the calendar, knowing that this follow-on motion was coming forth, and

177we have every intention of having appropriate discussion, also providing notice to our parents and staff members. So I will be supporting this and wanting to make sure that we... bring as much uniformity to our local government employees as possible. Thank you, Ms. Kees-Gemara. Mr. McElveen. Sorry, nothing further. Ms. Strauss. Thank you. I think it is wise to, in the future, to plan with the Board of Supervisors so we have calendars that match. Many of my colleagues have made other, I think, important statements about planning calendars that are fair and responsive and all the rest of that. But another piece, and occasionally we have done this where we've given extra holidays, particularly to create a longer weekend. But I think from the viewpoint of our employees, if they know this is coming in advance, they can

178plan family holidays. And while I do support giving them the Friday off, I think that's the nice thing to do, letting them know this in advance. It gives them greater opportunity to make the best use for their families when they are planning vacations. And so if you're going to have a long weekend, the Fourth of July, it would be nice to know ahead of time so that you can plan to go camping, you can plan to drive somewhere, you can fly somewhere, you can do something with your family. Because family time, if you have a long weekend, is very important. And it takes a long time of planning to do that. I would hope that in the future we would plan ahead and then they really could make the best use of holidays. Thanks. Thank

179you, Ms. Strauss. And before I call for the vote, I, too, want to comment on this. And I want to comment in the context of what already occurred this year. Many of us, it was not limited to my colleague from the Braddock District or my colleague from the Springfield District, many of us did note that there were some differences between the two. the Fairfax County government employee calendar and the Fairfax County Public Schools employee calendar and that it had changed over a period of time. And the superintendent heard the concerns by both individual school board members and some in county government and he worked to address those concerns. And he did that because he was listening. So I appreciate, Dr. Brabrand, your intentful listening to the conversations in the community and on this board. What

180this motion does... is it actually puts in action the whole concept of greater collaboration and communication between the two government entities so that we more closely model a one Fairfax approach. And so I think that's a very important... progress between the two systems. And the other piece is that, to address what Ms. Strauss mentioned, is it allows this joint planning and collaboration. actually provides greater transparency, it provides greater opportunities for our families to plan their summer vacations, their winter vacations, and other dates, but it also allows our employees to look at their their own paid days off and say, and they can then make those strategic decisions that say, I'm going to use a day here or a day there to provide my family with the opportunity to have a long weekend or other activities.

181And so I will be supporting this and I'm going to call for the vote. So all those in favor of the follow-on motion to direct the superintendent to work with the county executive in reviewing the upcoming and future employee calendars to ensure greater parity related to additional paid holiday closures beyond the official federal holidays. The superintendent will then report back to the board any recommended changes to the employee calendar in terms of adding additional paid holiday closures. All those in favor? And that is unanimous with Ms. Darinak-Kofax having left for the evening. I now call on Ms. Strauss for a motion. Thank you. I move that the school board award the contract to the University of Wisconsin for English Language Proficiency Assessments for the period of time required by the Virginia Department of Education beginning

182with the 2018-2019 school year and authorize the director of the Office of Procurement Services to execute, deliver, and administer the contract on behalf of the school board. Seconded by Miss Palchik Ms. Strauss, would you like to speak to your motion? Yes, I believe this was pulled off consent. There is interest from some colleagues to know more about what this contract is, what is the service, why is it necessary, and what is the content. I'm assuming that's what people would like to ask, as Evans was the one, would like to know what this is about. So this provides this opportunity. So after the vote. or I guess for part of the discussion is staff I'm assuming is prepared to explain what this is. Absolutely. Ms. Palchik, would you like to speak to your second? Yes, no,

183just support having more information and look forward to hearing from staff on this contract. Excellent. Ms. Evans. Thank you. Yes, I ask that this be pulled off the consent agenda. I primarily wanted to get more information both for the board and for the public about this. It is a significant contract. It's a $1.1 million contract. So I guess I would start by simply asking the general question. If you could, Dr. Brabrand, if you are a member of the staff, could explain what exactly this is for and why we need to do this. Sure. I'm going to let Dr. Presidio give us a start and then we may add a few other folks in depending on where the conversation goes. Great. So at a high level, this is the assessment that we are required by federal

184regulation and state regulation to give to all of our English language learner students. Whenever a student who's potentially an English language learner starts their public education in Virginia, we're required to give them a placement assessment. And then annually we're required to assess their progress and growth each year. So we have about, as you know, about 36,000 English language learner students and we're required to assess those students on an annual basis. So when you do the math on this, it's about $27 per student is the cost of the assessment. We are not allowed to choose the vendor that we use for those assessments. The vendor's chosen by the state. And in fact, There are about 40 states now that use this particular vendor, which is the University of Wisconsin that developed the assessment that's used. And

185again, this is on the agenda for board approval because board policy speaks to the requirement for the board to approve contracts with other government entities over the amount of $250,000. So if the state requires this vendor, Does that mean this is a sole source contract by the requirement of the state? The state requires us to do this and therefore it's a sole source contract, is that correct? So we're going to let our... financial services and procurement team maybe answer that question we wouldn't categorize this as a sole source by definition we are categorizing this as a public to public contract because the University of Wisconsin is not a for-profit entity they're a public entity so yes the state mandated who we're going to contract with but we're not categorizing this as a sole source contract

186and does the state provide funding So that's a great question. The state does not provide the funding for this, and they haven't provided it since its inception. So just a couple of more things. This does say it's for the 2018-19 school year, which has just ended. Could you explain that? So the assessments are given each January, and when the purchase order, which really is the contract in this case, came to us, we kind of said, you know, we need to dot our I's and cross our T's. This is something that needed to go to the board for approval. So we had to wait until we knew what the amount was and the assessments had been given. So we've actually already committed to pay? As required by the state, yes. Okay. How long have we had

187this contract? Well, there is no contract. The state has had the contract since 2007. I see. So our purchase order will become our contract with University of Wisconsin. I see. When we issue it. We have not issued it. Okay. All right. But, Ms. Evans, what we are trying to do, what I've heard loud and clear from the board, is greater transparency around contracts and contract regulations. We've had a lot of discussions with this board and to me to do better. And so this has been a long-running contract that we've really had procurement. We look at and interpret. How does this look? It's a lot of money. It's What we the layperson would see is a sole source even though it's complicated not it's a governmental entity but it's required by the state and we want

188to start to err on the side of transparency when it comes to issues of contracts so while we've been under this for years now we felt we needed to come back the bill came in and it was a pause to go you know what we really need to be bringing this contract and we will begin bringing this contract every. year moving forward unless something changes in terms of the state's requirement for this assessment. Well, Dr. Bray-Wren, I appreciate that very much, and I think that this is a step forward, and that is one reason I wanted to pull it off consent, because it is significant, and I think when we have this on our agenda, maybe next year we won't need to, because we've had this conversation now, but I appreciate you putting it on

189here and giving us an opportunity to let the public know that this is why we're approving this rather large. contract. And so thank you, Dr. Presidio, and thank you, Dr. Vrabrand. Thank you, Mr. Evans. Ms. Schultz? So great minds think alike. I wish I had told my colleague that I actually asked these questions a couple of weeks ago when I saw this coming up. And being a former contracts professional, I understand this actually isn't a contract in and of itself. The state holds the contract, and this is a purchase order off. the state contract. So the state has the vehicle. I appreciate Dr. Presidio highlighting what was one of my earlier concerns, that this is another unfunded mandate the state requires. And I can see, this is an instance where I can see all 138

190or whatever it is jurisdictions in the state using the same assessment because now we all know what the ELP assessment of a student you know that it matches in Loudoun and Fairfax Arlington and you know Henrico and wherever else I find it interesting that we're erring on the side of transparency for $1.2 million. I recall hearing that number just a little while ago in our conversation, $1.2 million. We need to err on the side of transparency, whether it's $1.2 million for payroll or $1.2 million in an assessment vehicle. So I do think that this gives us an opportunity to maybe bring up... when there are unfunded mandates for testing and assessments at $27 a student. At $27 a student, if you have 1,100 students in your school district, you may not be testing very many.

191You may be writing a purchase order for, I don't know, $54. We clearly are not. We're writing it for $1.2 million. And so maybe this is the launch. for a conversation about how we defray some of those costs or that when you have more students, we get more or that we have, I don't know, public universities in Virginia, really good ones, and maybe, maybe, just maybe, we can encourage the governor to create a contract vehicle with a public university in our own backyard. I'm just saying. Thank you, Ms. Schultz. Mr. Wilson. Okay, thank you. So if I'm understanding correctly, this state contract, the vehicle, has been in place for years. Is this the first year we've submitted a purchase order? for 1.1 million or have we been submitting it every year for $1 million and

192we just never heard about it on the board? This is not the first year that Fairfax County Public Schools has paid for this assessment. However, this is the first year that we're bringing this to the board. So how long have we been using this assessment? I would presume since the state contracted with University of Wisconsin in 2007. Yeah, I don't I don't know the year we began using this particular assessment But we've been assessing English language learners for you know decades in the state of Virginia and the state has always required that Jurisdictions use the same assessment vehicle and instrument But I could get you the exact date when we began using this particular so we've always used whatever the state mandated test was that's what we did we part because we've always been required

193by state law to do so yes yeah I think that that it really answers my question because my question was well would we do before and did we feel like we couldn't assess the children that came in accurately I mean that's really what I would be focused on is you know is this really a service that we really need you know we've got very competent staff that are dealing with with English language learners and this this cost I mean, it's mandated, so we can't avoid it, but maybe we should think about figuring out a way to do it locally. I mean, if we've got the staff and the ability to do it on our own, but maybe it's a state law, so we've got to comply with it. Ms. Kieskemar. A number of my questions

194have been answered, but I will ask that we keep this in mind when we talk about our legislative agenda and perhaps bring that up and look at bringing some of this business back to Virginia. Thank you, Ms. Kies-Gamara. That's exactly what I was going to suggest, is that we need to go to our state legislators and encourage them to have a different approach to this, because we certainly, as the largest, the system with the largest number of English language learners in the state of Virginia, doing something more locally sourced would certainly benefit the economy here in the state of Virginia. I do want to clarify to all of my colleagues that what you see here tonight is actually a wish to and a... showing progress towards more transparency in our contracting. Many of you know

195that when I came on the board, I was focused on greater transparency and accountability on how we spent money, and what you see here is the superintendent and his staff. really taking a positive approach to bringing things to us to make sure that we know about large financial transactions. And I would hope that this is becoming more of the norm rather than the one-offs. And so I am very appreciative of the superintendent for bringing this to us. I do see that Ms. Strauss just Turned on her light. I'm just curious. I appreciate the explanation for this. We have other, I would imagine, invoices that we must receive for testing requirements. Do we pay for the SOLs? No, the SOLs are paid by the state. They are, okay. And are there any other invoices for standardized

196testing? that we provide that would somehow come under this? Yeah, I couldn't speak to all of the assessments that we give right now. But I would say, I mean, you can think about we are providing funding for AP tests, IB tests. I mean, there's, you know, PSAT tests that we're providing funding for. I was going to say, I mean, we must get invoices for other, which you technically could consider sole soice because it's the only test available. but that we pay for them. And I know that in the past when we have agreed through the budget process, agreed to pay for whatever fees or tests or what have you, we've always looked at it as part of the budget process as a line item. So we've been very public in our discussion of how we

197pay for some of these. assessments and they're only given by one company so I appreciate knowing about this one so if we for some of these invoices if they come to us as a part of the budget process I would think as long as it's highlighted we understand what we're voting for that in some of those instances that we don't necessarily have to vote on them again as part of a procurement process. In other words, I'm not expecting to have to pass on twice every invoice for a sole source thing that we have to do. Correct? There isn't that expectation. Or is there? No, go ahead, Marty. I would just say that we brought the... contract this evening because it's part of our procurement regulation and so in adhering to that regulation for government to

198government purchases over $250,000 we wanted to be very transparent with that with the board. Okay so I guess going forward we'll have to see what you decide as to where it falls whether it's part of a budget line item. or whether, because sometimes there are, the school board has made different decisions on what we're gonna pay for for some of this stuff, or whether or not it comes to us like this. Just curious. So honestly, as Marty said, we've taken these new regulations from the spirit of the board, and honestly, you're going to continue to see it unless we're directed otherwise. So we really are, and... Our procurement folks are really looking at everything coming through now through that new reg and trying to bring there may be I mean There could be more things

199that we would bring to show you and I'm committed and this staff has committed Marty and his team Lee Michelle to bring it to you and explaining it so that that transparency builds trust with you all and with the public about the gosh a million bucks for That's it is it is an unfunded mandate and we're the largest in a lot of districts even where I was for a while Yeah, it's a thousand bucks. No one's blinking an eye in Fairfax We have the most. It's a million-dollar item. And we were having big debates just a few weeks ago over just a couple of million dollars. So it is significant, and it is an important discussion I think the board had tonight, and we want to continue to help contribute to that transparency and fiscal

200accountability. And I'll remind my colleagues this was on the consent agenda as per our reg and then it allows individual members to say I would prefer to have a deeper conversation about this and so I think that placing these contracts on the consent agenda does give the flexibility for us to say, okay, it's directly linked, we've already had the discussion as part of our budget process, and it becomes pro forma, or, oh, I'd like to understand this in more detail, I'd like to know how this impacts student outcomes. And so, I think that... This is a good demonstration of how we are utilizing that new reg in our board governance. So with that, oh, I'm sorry, Ms. Evans? I said one more question I'm rereading the motion and it it says that we are approving

201this beginning with the 2018-19 school year is it your intention to bring this back to us annually or is is this off because it does say that we're now authorizing this beginning with the 2018-19 school year as opposed to this is just for one year what's your intention so the intent is that we would be able to write a po each year as mandated by the state so we would we would do this again next year if approved tonight but would you bring it back to the board next year Not unless you want me to. Okay. Well, I think that's an important piece of information that when we approve this tonight, the new board won't see it again. We'll be spending presumably $1.1 million, and presumably that's going to increase because our number of ELL

202students are increasing. So at least we need to understand. tonight if we do this as written then we're not the the new board is not going to see this let me review that with my team and okay let's make this decision tonight for this contract and we'll look at the regulation and again we're trying to reinterpret the regulation or interpret the regulation to be as transparent as possible and let me do a little bit more debrief with staff well i we knew we knew it was important to bring it tonight for this year and as far as ongoing we can tag that and and i can do a follow-up in the break brand briefing i i think that would be valuable because particularly with a new board um it it might be valuable for for

203um the the folks on the new board to see it again even if it's just for one more year um so so they have the same benefit of being able to ask the questions too and i do think that we need to review um the reg in different ways as well. Some of the answers we're getting as well if it's government and disease if it's this or that, but that's a conversation for another day. Okay. Ms. Schultz. I'm sorry, just based on that, I have a clarification question. So at $27, I mean, I'm just going to do a little back of the envelope math. At $27 a test, $1.1 million is 40,741 students. Are you telling me that 40,741 students are taking a WIDA test a year? I mean, that's a stunning number. So every

204student who is receiving ESOL services is required to test annually. Additionally, there are placement tests that are given for students. So some students are going to test twice in a year. So that's why that number is a little bit higher than our actual ESOL student enrollment count. So, but every ESOL student is taking a WIDA exam? Yes, because this is I believe that I have brought this up repeatedly previously and this is another launch point for a conversation is We we have students who are passing their classes Who are passing SOLs? Who are even passing AP or IB exams and fail the WIDA? And so if you pass an SOL but fail the WIDA, there's something wrong. And I've had ESL teachers come to me out of frustration because they spend all this time preparing

205students to take the WIDA, they turn around, they pass the SOL, but then they fail the WIDA. So the WIDA is not really... a pass fail exam. What the WIDA does is it tests students in reading, writing, speaking, and listening domains. And it allows us to determine the level of language acquisition that they would be instructionally at, right? So it allows us to target our instruction to their language acquisition development needs along that continuum. I stipulate maybe that not the right language to say fail. But if you are not promoting your student to the next level of target language acquisition, that's in contradiction to passing your SOL. So I just wanted to help people understand that there are five different levels for students who are receiving services. And then there are actually levels for students

206who have kind of met that proficiency benchmark. that we're required to continually monitor their progress. So you're right, as students get towards that proficiency point, sometimes they're actually already passing some of their standardized assessments, but they haven't achieved that proficiency level yet. But because we're able to look at the different levels of service, most of those students at the higher levels, they're getting a lot less direct service than students that are level one or level two, for example. So all of that works kind of together. But, you know, again, it's a complicated calculus for sure. Well, I think this conversation that we had tonight, actually, this is the work of the board. And I think we, as my colleague from the Mason District said, I think this is what we should be doing more of

207is talking about and understanding this, looking at ways that potentially... We could be having conversations with the State Board of Education, the governor, directing those monies back here. How do you minimize? We've talked before about we assess kids to death. Is there a way to assess them less and just teach them more to promote lifelong learning? So this has been a very beneficial conversation. I do think that giving us sort of the... background detail to stuff like that that it's not 40,741 students it's something less than that and some of them are taking multiple tests those are good things for us as a governing board to hear from staff and I recommend more of that in the future thank you Ms. Schultz and I would encourage that in response to your earlier question Ms. Evans

208about whether this is a one and done in looking at this when we are looking at the order of you know over a million dollars I would suggest that at a minimum it does come back to this board on the consent agenda and then if individuals who are serving on the board choose they can ask to move it to the action so there can be a robust discussion of it and I don't expect that this will be limited to just this expense but other large contractual dollars because we do have a responsibility for resource stewardship and understanding how we spend money in the system. And so with that, I will call for the vote. All those in favor? And that is unanimous with now Ms. Hines and Ms. Dernot-Kovacs away. So for the consent agenda,

209are adopted rules of parliamentary procedure. Robert's Rules provides for a consent agenda listing several items for approval of the board by a single motion. Many items listed have gone through board review and documentation has been provided to all board members and the public in advance. Items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member prior to the meeting. 6.01 approve the minutes of the May 9, 2019 regular school board meeting. Is there any... Is there any objection to approving the consent agenda? Having and seeing no objection, the consent agenda is approved. Seven, new business. The following are new business agenda items. There will not be a vote tonight on these items, but action is scheduled for a future meeting. 7.01, approve the strategic plan goal two, caring culture report as

210detailed in the agenda item. 7.02, approve the appointment of Michael Burke to the ERFC Board of Trustees for a one year term beginning July 1, 2019. 7.03. approve the addendum number 10 to the memorandum of agreement with Northern Virginia Community College to the pathway to baccalaureate program effective July 1 2019 through June 30th 2020 and authorize the division superintendent or the deputy superintendent to execute and administer such contract on behalf of the Fairfax County School Board 7.04, authorize the division superintendent or the assistant superintendent of facilities and transportation services, either of whom is authorized to act without the other, in consultation with the Office of Division Counsel, to take all actions necessary and appropriate to negotiate, document, execute, and deliver a deed of easement to the Fairfax County Water Authority and any other related documents

211on such terms as they deem advisable and to accept. in return certain improvements to school board property. Item 7.05, appoint individuals to serve for a one-year term ending June 30, 2020 on the adult and community education advanced academic programs, career and technical education, human resources, minority student achievement oversight, school health, and students with disabilities advisory committees as listed in the agenda item. Item 7.06, approve the appointment of Lee Burden, Helen Nixon, and Marty Smith to the ERFC Board of Trustees for a one-year term beginning July 1, 2019 and ending June 30, 2020. Now I call on Superintendent Brabrand for Superintendent Matters. Thank you, Chairman Corbett-Sanders. Just a couple quick things, given the hour. We had a wonderful FCPS honors recognition ceremony last night. I want to thank Dr. Helen Nixon and her team. Human Resources

212really lifted up a program that we used to just have maybe four or five people getting recognized. We reached out and recognized over 500 people across our school sites and offices. And then we had a chance to really bring all of them together and then bring the finalists up on stage and provide one person as the... the final finalists and so we're proud of all of them and again i want to thank dr nixon and marty smith our coo for really pulling together just a wonderful wonderful program today was the last day of school It was the last day of school. Knock on wood. I got no phone calls or emails about the last day of school. I think it's been a great school year. I think I know now tomorrow I'm going to have

213500 emails, but it's been a great school year. You know, kids learn and grow. And I think I've learned and grow a grown as a superintendent. And this leadership team is committed to continuing to work to. make each school year the best year possible and better than the year before so it was a wonderful year and we look forward to continued work together and I hope all of our students and staff who are on less than 12-month contracts have a wonderful summer. Thank you Dr. Brabrand. Next on the agenda is board reports and I call on Ms. McLaughlin for an audit committee update. So I prepared to give you a lovely detailed report on all that we discussed at audit, but I know it's late. People are tired. So the good news is there are

214no significant issues being identified with our work with the audit committee. Everything is going well. Nothing too alarming to let you all know, but just continue to be really thrilled with Esther Ko's performances, our auditor general and her team. Very professional work that they're doing. but i will say to that point about last day of school i think our audit our oag office should be looking into and advising the board on our last day of school that certainly is my memory serves me the kids get bused in to go to school for all of two hours and uh that was at least what i was being told so ms schultz you're shaking your head so if that's not happening anymore that was certainly uh the case and transporting kids in for just a few hours

215although I don't know what's happening at the high school level Ms. Schultz because you don't have anybody in high school anymore two two hours early for middle school and high school three hours early or I'm sorry the reverse two hours early for high school and I think three hours early for elementary and middle I think that's the way it works well then thank goodness for that next on the agenda is board matters and I call on Ms. Strauss Thank you. I, too, want to compliment everybody on FCPS honors last night and celebrate with all of our wonderful employees we celebrated. And, of course, I'm very proud of Jesse Kraft, who, from Louis Coast Elementary School, which happens to be in my district. Very, very deserving principal. Wonderful, wonderful program at that school. So I was

216excited to know a lot of people who were recognized, and I'm pleased that we are recognizing that number of employees. It is important that we say thank you in a very public way. and celebrate the excellence and the dedication. And I know it took an awful lot of people to nominate people, to read their resumes, and then to put on the event last night. It was extremely well done. So thank you very much. Congratulations to all the graduates. We've all been to a gazillion graduations, and it is fun. And to see the excitement of the students and the proud parents, that's great. I also went to see the presentation. as a global classroom, which was outstanding. This is, I think it's the second year of the program, and we now have a partnership with, again,

217Dr. Presidio, I guess he's gone, it's with the organization. Organization of American States. Of American States, and I had the opportunity to meet the very nice representative, and outstanding projects. These are really, you know, would satisfy our. Capstone projects are multiple language, are reaching out with technology to other students across the world. I listened to an amazing panel by the students who talked about what the global project made to them. And they were young students through middle school. And one of the threads that the kids themselves talked about, particularly the youngest ones, was how different people across the world solve problems. what is the commonness among the students and their approaches and it really was a threat of the commonness of humanity and looking and the students understanding that it's going to be all of

218the children of the world who must find solutions to very difficult problems. So I was really blown away and of course the theater people are a part of this global classroom and they have partnered with China. and when they were first doing this project I did get to meet some of the theater people from China which is very exciting and thank you for all those who came to Capri's it was a great event at the Kennedy Center two weeks ago congratulations to Westfield High School who got the final award for musical and Langley High School for play and as one of the excitements is that there's room for absolutely everybody to be on stage to help with storytelling and it's a very inclusive activity for all kids. 21st century learning, I think, at its best.

219So it was really a lot of fun. We brought back a lot of students who had been part of the program in the last 20 years, and we actually had interviews of some of our students who have actually gone on professionally, several of them on Broadway, and they provided interviews for us. But it was really a lot of fun. We had... At one point, I think 150, 160 children on stage at one point, and none of them fell off the stage or crushed the orchestra. Yes, we weren't sure, but it was wonderful. A cast of thousands to put this thing on. It takes us months, but it was fun. Kids had a good time. Parents were very pleased, and so off to another good year of theater. So fun. Very inclusive. We love all children.

220Thank you, Ms. Strauss. And was that the 20-year anniversary? It was the 20-year anniversary, and my daughter, at the very end, and by the way, it's pre-broadcast now on Channel 20, my daughter Vicki gave a wonderful, wonderful tribute to my husband, Bill, who founded it. It was really lovely. It was a surprise. I didn't know she was going to do that. It was great. Thanks. Thank you. Ms. Schultz? So we obviously all had very exciting last week and a half and this is where we have the opportunity to give the shout outs and so I'm going to. Fairfax, best homegrown graduation. West Springfield. What do I have? Best music group, Madrigals. Chantilly, the most excited students to graduate. Robinson, I'm sorry, best graduation overall and best student speaker, but of course I have a bias.

221South County, best hospitality and best orchestra. Centerville, the loudest parents. I think they're most excited parents. Lake Braddock. the most organized, and then Mountain View, you always get me. I'm glad they provide tissues. So they were really tremendous, tremendous graduations this season. I'm thrilled for everyone. In addition, I did spend part of my day today again at JDC. with Eric Shaver, principal at the Juvenile Detention Center, the teachers, the counselors, the security personnel, support staff, Kate Salerno. You know, in a way, it's great what we do with those kids. In a way, it's devastating. They've had over 300 students go through JDC this year. They have a record number of middle school students. It's very, very difficult to go and spend a day at JDC and see very young children. It's part of the reason

222why I am so determined with that student rights and responsibilities for us to be proactive, to find ways to identify early and change the trajectory so they don't wind up at JDC. But I do want to give a shout out in particular to I'm sorry, forgive me. I have to read their names. To Trooper, Kai, Sophia, Peanut, Truffle, and the Caring Angels organization for, again, bringing in your dogs. It is amazing to see the transformation of... people who are basically young criminals and being charged through the judicial system be transformed with the volunteer time of these individuals, many whom are actually employed somewhere in our school system, and the tremendous work that the Caring Angels organization does. And I thank all of those volunteers. So it's been a great couple of weeks. Drive safe. you

223kids who are headed off to college are going to be working this summer and we'll see you in the fall. Miss Evans. Thank you. I wanted to mention a couple of issues, a couple of events. Congratulations to Glen Forest Elementary School, which has been named an international model professional learning community. We had a ribbon cutting over at the school this past week, and that was quite a tribute to that school. That same day, that same evening, we had the first community, well, it was actually. We've had some in the past, but we had a community meeting to discuss the upcoming boundary study. Appreciate all the people who came out to have the conversation about what direction they believe we should go in when we look at boundary changes there. At Belvedere Elementary School, they had

224their annual primary years program exhibition with their fifth grade projects which are just marvelous. I wish everyone could see the projects that these student groups work on, including things like the impact of immigration on kids. They interviewed fellow classmates and came up with some conclusions as part of their project. Several projects on the environment and animal rights. The impact of divorce. Video game addiction was one of the topics. Promoting diverse relationships with some students who promoted and started New Friend Friday. Try to find a new friend. Political honesty. And many, many more. I mean, they were just marvelous projects. So thank you to Belvedere for the invitation and for... opening up the school to the public to see this marvelous work. Next Wednesday, we're going to have a kickoff. Here it is. not missing a

225beat, kick off at Bailey's Primary with the Summer Meals Program. I'm going to be there to help kick that off. We just talked tonight a little bit about food security and this is part of our effort to make sure that our students do have a meal during the summer. And other than that, I just want to congratulate all of our graduates. The graduation ceremonies were so heartwarming, so inspiring. The student speakers are just marvelous, and I was delighted to be a part of it. And in particular, I will say the first graduating class of Justice High School. So with that, I just want to wish everyone a happy summer. Ms. Keeskemar. I want to, well, I've enjoyed going to, I think, 15 graduations, I believe. That's the most that I've been able to do since

226I've been on the board. And my favorite is always the hat toss. I also was able to go to a little bit of the global classroom showcase, which was really interesting. And we, Dr. Braybrand featured, I forget the teacher's name, but she, you know, how we're teaching our teachers to, bring cultures back to FCPS I found extremely exciting. And I was also able to go to the Justice High School convocation. I was very impressed to see that there was, I want to say close to 50% of the students that were graduating were the first in their families to. reached that milestone and many of them were going to college so just great to see all the accomplishments and I do I too want to congratulate all of our 2019 graduates and to top it off

227driving down my street I met new neighbors with three little boys and one was about to start kindergarten so grateful for our system and all that we provide and hope everybody enjoys the weekend Ms. McLaughlin. Again, it's now almost 1115, so I will not really do much reporting other just to say that I very much enjoy going to celebrate the graduations in my district at Woodson, Robinson, and Lake Braddock with many of my colleagues and very much hope that our graduates will go on to have a wonderful restful summer and soak up time with family before they head off to college or to new jobs or serving the military and I also just wanted to let my colleagues know that today I had a great meeting with Dr. Brabrand and our chair Karen Corbett Sanders,

228our president of FCC PTA Jane Miscavige and Vice President Stella who we met with also Teresa Johnson. and two other members of her staff to talk about vaping in our schools. The FCCPTA very much wants to look at how they can partner with us. And it was really a wonderful discussion over an hour and a half of looking at what we have been doing and what we can continue to be doing. And I did share with a couple colleagues to find out that last year we had 69 vaping cases. and this school year we've had 700. it can't come too soon monday's conversation about how we help be a part of the solution for intervention prevention and supports to our families and the students thank you miss mcloughlin mr moon thank you madam chair in

229addition to attending santa virgen high schools orchestra performance and also watching regional final baseball game between Centerville and Westfield, and also attending Chantilly Pyramids Minor Student Achievement Committee's annual awards program. I have attended many, many graduations along with my colleague, another college colleague, Ms. Ryan McElveen. Over the last eight years, you and I probably attended close to 200 graduations. I will yield the rest of my time to you so that you can give us a little full report on graduations. So for the other half of the dynamic duo, Mr. McElveen. Given the late hour, I'm not going to do a full graduation report because that would be here a long time. But I will thank my colleague, Mr. Moon, for taking me to get ice cream yesterday. It was a wonderful treat and badly needed

230after sitting for the past two weeks on stage and elsewhere. Ms. Palchuk. Yeah, just very briefly. Happy end of school. Happy graduations. I was able to attend a few very different ones, starting with a pre-K graduation over at Vienna Elementary School, as well as... two of my favorites at Kilmore Center and the Davis Center ceremonies, as well as Falls Church and TJ, which TJ was, I think, 18 years from my graduation. And I just want to say that I'm just so proud of all of our students, our staff, our faculty. Our student speakers are really incredible, inspiring, and insightful, and really give me a lot of hope for our future. And I also want to thank Principal Lindsay Elliott, who is leaving Graham Road this year to move back closer to her family. She's done

231incredible work, left the school much better than she found it, and has set the stage for great leadership ahead. And so we had a very good meeting, and I was very happy to see that we had... large representation from different parents in our community. And they will have a voice in that. And then finally, I don't know if it has been posted, but I know we will have our summer barbecue program starting next week, I believe. Friday, tomorrow. And so I haven't seen the listing online yet, but hopefully it's up of all the school sites for the summer. It's just a really great opportunity around the county for students to have a free lunch, barbecue lunch. And adults, I often go and you can pay, I think, a couple dollars for lunch and join your

232students. And just a really good way to move forward. I know there's a lot of food insecurity over the summer and a lot of us come together. and our community partners. So please find a way to volunteer, give back your time, and it will be a very fulfilling experience for our very busy summers ahead. Mr. Wilson? Thank you Madam Chair. First congratulations to all of the graduates and especially to the parents of the graduates. Well done and enjoy the break. If you're returning to the school be safe over the summer and if you're heading off to college or to a job good luck. Best wishes during your new adventure. I also wanted tonight to wish a happy Father's Day to Dr. Bray Brand and Mr. Moon and Mr. McElveen. And I wanted to say just

233a couple of words about my own father. I did this about a month ago about my mother. And this one is not going to be as long because my dad would not want me to spend as long talking about him. You know, it is, it goes without saying that, you know, every child deserves a great dad. And I certainly had that. And, you know, the mother and the father and then the child. They're the family that is the building block of our society. We often hear it talked about as being the individual, but really it's the families because they're the ones that produce the students that are in our schools. They're the ones that promote and build the next generation as we go forward. And of course, parents are the first and best educators of...

234children. And so as a school board member I've always tried to keep that in mind as we talk about the issues that come before us. Personally, my own father taught me the values of hard work, sacrifice, justice came into play quite a few times, but also showing mercy. And he And I've mentioned this before from the dais. He spent a career in the service and served multiple tours in Vietnam and raised seven children along with my mother. And I always have struck me that he has an unbelievable ability to look beyond the exterior and see the interior. My colleagues may not know and certainly most of the public does but my mother lost the leg to cancer at a young at a young age and I guess I mentioned that probably a month ago and

235he met my mother in college and he describes it this way he said there was a woman that came in on crutches into the classroom and He was sort of startled initially this beautiful young woman came in and then she proceeded to go down every desk on the way back to her seat, saying hello to every person and giving them a hug and just greeting everybody that she knew. She knew everybody in the room. And I tell the story just because here was a man who saw not somebody who was disabled. He saw somebody who was caring, who loved the community that she was with, who was moving past the severe disability that she had to endure as a teenager. And that is an example that I've thought about many times over the years. And

236I am very grateful for my father and all that he has done for me. Both as a child and as an adult, frankly, you never really stop relying on your dad. And I do until to this day. So happy Father's Day, Dad. Thank you, Mr. Wilson. We appreciate your insights into fatherhood. And I think most of us share them, if not all. So yes, happy Father's Day to everybody. I do want to also wish all of our students, those that ended the school year today, as well as those that either completed high school with their high school graduations, some of our more specialized programs that have transition ceremonies, it has been truly a rewarding... past couple of weeks i actually had the opportunity to be at the key center and sit next to chairman bolivar

237and at the completion of that ceremony we both looked at each other and went Now this is why we love Fairfax County, is that we create these opportunities for every child and every family. And so it was just truly fulfilling. There were also, I want to bring people's attention to something that was noticeable in this year's graduations and that was the number of alumni who actually spoke at our graduation ceremonies. It was a great addition because they were able to speak to the students. So for example, Mayor Justin Wilson from Alexandria City was a graduate of Lee High School. And so he came back and spoke to the students. And Jason Serda, who I had never heard of before, but he is a Latin pop star and actor, graduated 14 years ago from Edison High

238School. and gave a great presentation. And I understand the TJ speaker also came back and shared his post FCPS experiences. And that's truly inspirational for our kids as they continue on. I would suggest to the superintendent the more that we do that the better. I'm glad my colleagues mentioned the summer meals programs and please get the word out to your communities about them. And then I just want to I mentioned an event I went to this morning was at the Mount Vernon Lee Chamber of Commerce where we had folks from both Amazon and Virginia Tech speak about their new programming and what's happening as a result of HQ2 and the Virginia Tech campus which will be in Alexandria City. What was interesting about it was that the gentleman from Virginia Tech explained that they are

239going to be starting their new graduate programs this year and that they have recognized that in the STEAM area, in the cyber area, it is important to infuse all teaching with ethics. And so I would suggest that we might want to learn from that because as we go to one-on-one computing and one-on-one learning with our students that we might want to just remind them about the importance of ethics in how they use the online space. And last but not least, I'm going to wish everybody a happy Flag Day. And those that are U.S. Army, members of the U.S. Army, or veterans, or the students whose parents are in the U.S. Army, happy birthday, because tomorrow is the Army's birthday, and it actually predates our republic. So with that, this meeting is adjourned.