001in terms of like out to people that 100% Uh I get the script. >> I am trying to get it to go into to the one and then the >> I have it open. I'll send it to you. I'll send it to you now. Just know that Thank you. Yes. Yes, we're working on some good stuff. I think what we'll end up doing because >> That neighborhood over by Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, it's not on yet. Okay, just wait. So, don't about him until he Hi, good afternoon, everyone. Um, this April 20, 2026 regular meeting of the Fairfax County School Board Public Engagement Committee will will come to order at 4:07 p.m. Ms. Dixon has notified the chair and clerk of the board that she is using remote participation as she qualified Yes. Uh we
002are not getting any Hello, hello. Okay. Okay. Uh Ms. Dixon has notified the chair and clerk of the board that she is using remote participation as she qualifies as an individual with a disability under the Code of Virginia 2.2-3708.3b and the School Board Electronic Participation Resolution of 2026. This Ms. Dixon will be counted as in person for the purpose of quorum today and does not need to be voted in by the board. She is located in Centreville, Virginia. So, can can we check your mic? Ms. Dixon, can you hear us? Okay, we can't hear you. Yeah, we're not hearing you. I think she's going to probably log back in. What happened? >> Okay, we are still not hearing you, Ms. Dixson, but we can see that you're speaking. Ms. Dixson, you might want to check
003your mic on your computer to see if it's not set to something different. We can see you talking, but we can't hear you. We still can't hear you. So, do you want us to call you, and then that way you could be listening? Okay, let me Can you hear us? Okay. Okay, she can hear us. I guess Mr. Frisch is going to call you. Thank you, Ms. Dixon for being flexible. Okay, we will now vote to approve the minutes of the December 15th, 2025 meeting of the Public Engagement Committee. Do I have a motion? Mr. Frisch. Do I have a second? Mr. McElveen. All in favor? Unanimous by all present. The minutes are passed. Um so, we're going to move um we did some work on the strategic governance manual edits in terms of proclamations
004and recognitions. Um we put that up for you all this morning. Um we were just trying to clean up and verify certain items and requests that had come in. Um so, if uh we can go over it. Um what what I am proposing is based on the proclamations that were member brought. Um that we put them as annual proclamations, which was for March, the Social and Emotional Learning, that was brought by Ms. Dixon. As needed, the Bond Citizen Committee in affirming the importance of a triple A bond rating, and I think that that is something that might be looked at biannually as opposed to annually. Uh the Family Engagement Month, and that was brought forward by myself. And then the Disability History and Awareness Month that was brought forward by uh our previous school board
005member uh Rachna Sizemore Heiser. Um and she brought that uh as Disability Pride Month, but we changed the name a little bit further down if you'll look at that. So, do I have any conversation on that? Mr. Frisch. I also see that um Pride Month is added in June. One of the things that um the previous list did was it limited the number of things that were annual recognizing the fact that there were probably multiple things that you could recognize any given community for in the calendar year. And so LGBTQ History Month was always on the annual list while Pride Month was something that a member could bring if they wanted to. I worry that opening the door to to LGBTQ annuals that don't require a member to bring one um to disability uh awareness
006or affirmation proclamations that don't require a board member to bring one of them starts us down a path of just adding everything that we reduced previously. Um So, that's my big ticket takeaway. Other than that, I think most of this is fine. Okay, so what What I'm saying is that previously we had many many many many many proclamations that were done every single year. Many that you would probably have trouble distinguishing between if you were a lay person what the differences were. And so previous PEC committee winnowed those down um not limiting the ability of board members to to bring additional ones if they wanted to. But what that meant was there was one LGBTQ uh proclamation as opposed to the two that we previously did. And so one thing to consider is whether we
007want to have They're not duplicates per se, but they're very similar. And there is no shortage of similar other proclamations that could be brought as annual related related to other communities that we recognize. Right. And so we we looked at that and we looked at folding some in together. Um And I see what you're saying cuz we have one we have the develop developmental disability awareness month in March. And then we have the disability history and awareness month in October. And we could fold those in. Well, I don't think we get to say when those communities observe their heritage months. So, we don't have to fold them in. We just have to neces- And we don't have to do what I'm proposing, either, frankly. Uh but, what the board previously did is they picked one,
008and then if a board member wanted to bring the other one, they could. >> Okay. Um I'm going to call phone a friend that has been helping me with this. I um This is me. Jessica O'Connor, staffer for Marcia. Um just to just to clarify, currently the governance manual does have two different um annual um proclamations related to LGBTQIA+ Pride. It's the October uh history month, and then also in June, that's currently in the governance manual. So, I just wanted to clarify that those are currently there. Um in in the As annual >> Yeah, so there are two there. So, if that if one was meant to have been taken away at one point, I don't know, but that's not what's currently reflected. And then, yeah, so I just wanted to make sure that everybody
009was um clear on on that point. And that the um the March observation, which was previously called um disability affirmation, um the correct term is the developmental disabilities awareness month. That's what's used in the FCPS communications, and our colleagues from that office, I'm sure, can confirm confirm that. And so then, the the concept is to add an additional um uh one uh which is typically also observed in FCPS for uh regarding general disability um celebration. Thank you. Does that help, Mr. Frisch? Yeah. Um in so far as I'll want to do the research to figure out when they added Pride Month back because I'd always taken it as one of my proclamations previously. So, I hear what you're saying and I know how we did try to whittle it down and I'm wondering if we
010could have a list kind of like split the baby and have a list of these are the annual and then maybe have a list that if members want to bring this forward or is that going to be too complicated? Members can do whatever they want. >> Well, I know but I know they can do whatever they want but sometimes they may not be aware of and there might be some members that might want to bring some forward if they're aware of them. Yeah. I mean, I think we're only adding um well the bond one would be bi-annual. The social emotional learning because it covers so many of our it it is in our strategic plan and is one of those things that we really emphasize that I think sometimes doesn't get enough >> Yeah. attention.
011I kind of feel that the value of it is important. Um I was just putting it out there for the sake of the conversation. >> Right. I'm fine with the changes um uh on a macro level. I like the idea of putting together a list just as like a maybe like a Google Doc that can be added to over time that can help board cuz sometimes board members get to the end of the calendar year and they're like, I want to do one more but I honestly can't think of anything that I you know uh that might not have already been covered. Um so I like the idea of like a running list of things that board members could consult or things that we've done as one-offs that we can add to. You probably already
012>> Yeah, so that's what we do. We have um an annual proclamation tracker where you can see what ones remember brought in the 24-25 and we've updated it up for the 25-26 although I think I need to update it a little bit to see what has been brought this year. We also have the annual proclamation schedule which shows what annual proclamations we have every year and a little bit more. It's it's a little bit more um organized by month so um it's not necessarily by topic like it is in the strategic governance manual so it makes it a little easier to read. Yeah. But I do like the idea of having like some of because sometimes we don't know like sometimes there are things that are happening in the community and they're big things but
013we don't know like what month they fall in and that there are recognitions. Um you guys can chime in about you know certain things that you think that you know sometimes would be worthy of it and and we may not be aware of it. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. No? Okay. And I don't think we that we think that there are anything and there is anything missing. Right. Okay. Um and we don't ourselves necessarily acknowledge as many as the board does. Right. Okay. Thank you. I make a motion. Sure. Oh, Brian's got his hand up. Sorry. Sorry. I was just going to add that I think this is a um this is good work. Um and are we going to talk we're going to talk separately about the others of
014interest. Okay. Great. Thanks. So so then so this this goes to making these annual proclamations. So yes, someone like to make a motion? Trish. Oh, go ahead. I did have a general motion uh in the thing that was more just approving the overall changes regarding proclamations and um recognitions. I don't know if you want to do just an overall one or if you want to do it one by one. I'll probably put just the overall one in to the minutes. Okay. We'll just let's go through all of them and do an overall one. Okay. Um so then now we're going to go down to recognitions and these are based on some member requests and um one of them that was advocated for was the International Society for Technology and Education uh certified teachers, the ISTE.
015Um and part of that was because we do the certification for our teachers um that we just did at our last board meeting and my understanding is that getting it getting ISTE certified is very strenuous and actually might is very difficult and we don't have the teachers that we have in our community that have gotten that certification should be recognized. So it would be handled as a recognition uh which I think is a really good recognition because of the amount of work that the teachers um and staff members that go through to do that. Um the other one that was also brought up by a board member was the US Presidential Scholars at the beginning of each academic year to recognize the distinguished graduating high school seniors named as uh US Presidential Scholars. And then
016the next two that we're talking about is the International Science and Engine- Engineering Fair winners and the Cappies winners. And the questions that I had about this was one was both of these were brought by Mr. MacElvane um which I think is fantastic. Do we want to just recognize the winners or do we want to recognize the participants? Like for example, like like Cappies, like if you were nominated it's a big deal. And I'm not sure how many what the International Science and Engineering Fair winners, how many that would involve. So do we want to just recognize the winners or the participants? Um so I I do think we just we I guess with ISEF it's we'll take each of these separately. So, ISEF you probably have about maybe 25 to 30 going and um
017Is that right? Yeah. And so, those are those would be the ones we would recognize. Folks that I think it's supposed to be it's not supposed to be winners, it's supposed to be participants. Okay. >> Yeah, so it's it's ISEF participants because these are the folks we send to the international science fair. >> Okay. Right. Um, and I mean I Correct. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, I think yeah. And I I think when we did this last year we had maybe most 15 show up just because it's we were doing it in June after school had ended, but I think if we are um and this has it for July, I would I wouldn't change that. Um I would put it either in May, late May, or ideally late May. Cuz I think they go there
018in Um, I just think doing students in July is is a a loser generally. Um, and then um finally with Cappies uh you know, I do think it would be we'd probably have too many folks if we did all the nominees. Um I think winners it's probably probably the right amount. And I mean, we can calibrate this over time. Um but that's my general sense for now. Um, and I sorry, and then the one other thing on the US Presidential Scholars, I don't think it says at the beginning of each academic year and that I may have said in that language, but that's not right because I think they're designated maybe in October, November-ish. Um, so I think that's one we could probably do in the early part of the calendar year. Those are my
019thoughts. Thanks. So, we can look up when they're designated. Oh, oh, see Mystic Zip. Oh, hold on. You're you're going to be put on speaker. Yep. Seema, you're going to need to mute your computer. Just the speakers. All right. Now, it's good? Yep. Okay, so what there are lots of nominees, participants, and Cappies, right? Maybe are we going to name every person? Are we just going to say participants? So, I think what we were discussing is it when we do the recognition, should we do nominees or winners? And um Mr. McElveen expressed that maybe we should just do the recognition for the winners because he thought there would be too many if we did it for the participants. What what are your thoughts on that? Their winners are also like the whole team. Are we
020going to just say the school's name and like I think we I I have no problem either way, but I but I know sometimes there are like 20, you know, participants from one team. Correct? Yeah. So, we'll be reading out like those names and and all you some of our proclamations are really recognitions and very detailed. Um but some of our not that like we say, "Hey, we are recognizing Cappies and all the nominees and the and the winners." Uh but are we really like That's the part I I'm I'm I'm bit about that. Where Where do you think us going in which direction? Mr. Pusch. On the the two pieces, first to Ryan's points about the timing, I think we can leave that to the clerk and the chair to figure out the appropriate
021timing based on when things are. So that they don't have the dates that are necessarily listed in the motion, but like whatever fits best, right? On Ms. Dixit's point, I think this would be more like the athletic recognitions where we go around Robin with board members and like let's say Oakton High School has six winners. I read Oakton High School's and then Melanie reads South Lakes and then Ryan reads Lake Braddock and and then you know, whatever. It just goes around and you read like the list of winners from that school. If there's a list of 25 people, I don't think that that's necessarily ever the case. There might be like It would be like dance ensemble, but you would say the dance ensemble. You wouldn't read the 25 names. Yeah, or you would just
022say the best musical and we wouldn't necessarily read every kid. We'd just recognize the school, right? We don't read the names of every athlete, for example, when we're recognizing a team. Does that work for you, Mr. Pusch? Understood. Yes, correct. I'm I'm going back to Okay. >> [laughter] >> So I do agree that we should let the the chair and the clerk decide when these fit best in the calendar cuz I know we had to move things around the calendar because some were heavier, but also to Mr. McElveen's point when it involves the kids not making it so late in the school year that they're not going to show up. Especially because a lot of these kids might end up being seniors and they're just not going to show up. We've had problems with some
023of the athletic recognitions before where they were too late, so they were either competing with playoffs uh or championship games um or after graduation. And so, it's super early this It seems early, but it's by design. Right. Of course. We were looking up the Presidential Scholars Program uh for 2025, they announce the scholars in September of 2025. In 2024, they announce the scholars in May of 2024. So, you all may want to figure >> [laughter] >> Yes. So, you guys okay with this? Okay, thank you. Um so, then if we move further down, um we were looking at consolidating and putting things together so that it's one proclamation, uh and we were looking at the consolidation of social workers, school counselors, psychologists, and nurses appreciation into a single proclamations and add security officials to the
024same as they are not recognized elsewhere. And then we'll just omit the week and month designations cuz they fall all over. You know, we'll find a place where we can put it in the calendar when it's not overly burdened with proclamations or recognitions. Um What are your thoughts on that? Um and then the other thing that we noticed was that we have in in none of our proclamations are assistant principals added, so we wanted to keep the principals and administrators appreciation in January, but add the assistant principals. Even though they're recognized like this past month, but they're not in any other of our proclamations and they do a very heavy lift and they should be recognized in a proclamation, so. Um and then we were looking at also the dates, but now I'm wondering because
025of what Mr. McElveen said, we were looking at moving from June till July, the VSBA Business Award, the Student Representative End of Term, and the National Merit Scholarship Winners Recognition. Yeah. >> Um so I think that's fine for VSBA, no issue. Student Representative, no issue because their term does run run through that time. Um National Merit Scholarship, um this is uh like the this was the same meeting at which we did the um ISF winners last year and again we had a very low turnout. It was the last meeting in June. So, I would suggest moving that up as well to probably late May. Do we Do we have the them by late May? We have them by late May? Okay. Are you talking about the semi-finalists, the commended students, or the winners? Um the
026winners. So, they start rolling in during May, but I they trickle in over time. Right, cuz there are some that are corporate awards. >> Yes, exactly. >> we have like as of now we already have the list of the finalists. Of the finalists, yes. >> Right, and that's who we we would be. Yes, but in terms of the actual winners of partic- who actually are awarded scholarships, we have not received any of those releases yet. >> yeah, I think this is supposed to be finalists, not winners, cuz winners would just be limited to the court. There's There's other ones that are related to the university as well. Um Let me um Let's go back and see what it looked like last year cuz it was the last meeting in June. Um I think that it
027was probably the right amount of people whatever we did last year. I think it was finalists and then we just had a a low turnout. The The finalists is a very large number. It's like 181 and I think we maybe had like 30 show up. >> Okay. It's like 95% of the semi-finalists. >> Right. Anyway, I think it's a good thing if we have more to celebrate for that one at least. So, you want to make it finalist or winners? Uh finalist. I'm going to double-check that that's I'm looking at board docs now, but um cuz I remember I had to read read a very long list of names. I was hoping to avoid I mean, I guess it's a big deal if we're finalists. Yeah. Um Okay. Anyway, keep going and I'll look. No.
028Um So, those were the things we were looking at based on member input and looking at some of the things we saw that were missing. Um we, you know, I included like some general edits um which you will see on the notes where uh developmental disability awareness month replaces disability affirmation because that's the language we use. Uh and then to put LGBTQIA+ instead of LGBT. And then um AAPI to spell it out Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Same thing for um LGBTQIA+ Pride Month. Um Adding to Custodian and food nutrition, adding employees. And then doing the advisory committee members in July. And the Holocaust remembrance in April. That one you put April 14th on, that changes year to year. It happened to be April 14th this year, but the year before it was
02923, 24. So, it should just be April. Okay. Yeah, I think it had Okay, without objection. Yeah, cuz I think it had April, May, and we just we're just going to put it in April instead of putting it in May. I think we had to >> Yeah, in one draft I saw it said April 14th and I was like, "Nope." Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. Um so, that's kind of the stuff that we wanted to to look at for this meeting. We um I know what we had discussed before was having a second student representative, but the work that has to go into getting all of that done and some of those processes I mean, this wasn't on the agenda or anything. I'm Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Go ahead. Uh I sent it around. Yeah, I
030sent it was winners. So, it's yeah. Anyway, let's just keep it as winners. Yeah, it's managed. Okay. >> Second. Yeah. I was thinking Well, Wait, I think she said Okay. what, but I think I just Let me move it back. Yeah, not in this question, but I think I just want to know about the participation and the efforts of these proclamations you're doing. Okay. The You want to know about participation? So, basically, when we have these a lot of these proclamations and you know, it's really well-intended, but sometimes the community members are either not aware of them or they don't like come to us receive them. And it happened few times already this year that we were just literally looking for people to come and join us for at the dais, right? Like we're like
031Yeah. >> the Arab Heritage Month and uh there was no representation from the community, and I was just wondering like can we, you know, can we do more efforts in bringing the community to receive the proclamation? I think that's a great topic for our future PAC agenda is what's the What do we do for outreach? Okay. Like I know what I do if I have a proclamation, and I know that the clerks have a process that they use, so should we move on with the vote and then Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was thinking I will I'll I was not trying to block the vote or anything. >> Oh, no. Yeah, no, it's fine. Sorry. But that that is a great point cuz I know what I do, too. Like I send out things, but okay.
032So so let's move forward on the motion. All those in favor? Oh, wait. Before Excuse me. Before I do this, um just when we were talking about VSBA business, the way it's listed the way we have it listed is VSBA business honor roll award. So we can just make sure that language is correct. If we can vote all of that in, all in favor? Okay, that's unanimous by everyone present. Um so just moving on a little bit more of things that we are looking to consider um is when it comes to proclamations and recognition, we're looking to coordinate with the school board office standard operating procedures that is that are being developed by the admin committee. Um and then considering also as we looked at certain proclamation minimum content um such as one of the
033things we noticed on the Women's History Month it should include specific references to International Women's Day. Um this one already does, but there's no standard for the content to ensure that it would be the same for future years. So there are some things like that that you know, we want to make sure are in the proclamations. Um and then the other thing is moving the majority of formatting and procedure guidelines and specifications to the strategic governance manual annex and future school board school board office uh standards of operating procedures and also include a template. So I think that would make it easy for everything that we have as standards, but also when somebody wants to come in. I remember that you know, when I wanted to come in and bring a proclamation, I had no
034idea how to you know, do that. So I think that template would help everyone if there was a basic template. And I recognize that sometimes if we're recognizing a certain person it might look a little bit different, but if there's a basic template we have something to work from. Um, so those are things that, you know, we could look at in more detail as as also adding what Ms. Dixon brought up, what kind of outreach do we do for all of these proclamations? Like what is the mechanism that or responsibility of the school board member versus the clerk's office. Um I think [clears throat] we should add the discussion about this possibility of another school board student member to the agenda and perhaps begin the conversation about expanding the student leadership program. Uh, those conversations
035could maybe be on the same agenda since they're very related. Um, and then if everybody's agreeable to adding those, I would like to make I would like to make a motion to adjourn since we're at the end of our agenda. Yeah. Um, so we can't Is there any way to discuss any of that this at this >> been agendized. Okay. Um, then I not speaking to any specific agenda item, I will just say that the the election for student representatives um, is currently underway. I know the first round is on the 23rd and then I think the second round is May 7th-ish. Um and I do think it would be an easy fix just to take the top two for next year. Um, the student leadership program we could wait till later, but um, that
036one I think is time sensitive. >> I I think that when we start looking at it because there's also funding implications in the budget because they're paid and so that's something we have to look at. So Right. Okay. Right. >> Wait. Right. Yeah, we started looking at it and we're like, this is like there's too many things we have to pull together, but to your point um and I actually did not think about the funding implications, which I should Oh, that should be top of my head as a school board member. Uh phone a friend over here? Yeah. I just just to note on on that that there um it's a rich rich potential conversation in terms of if it would be, for example, the top two students and which like there there different considerations
037like which geographic region they would represent or there's a certain like discussion a rich discussion that we had around the methodology and what you would want to do. I do think that there could be possibility of like taking advantage of the timing there, but there's also a school of thought potentially around pulling from the student leadership program. Like it's there's a lot of things to discuss on on that note. Just to add that and we're working with the clerk's office to come up with kind of a proposal on the along those lines, but that's all. Yeah, at the next meeting we will look at that. And I just wanted to say that we had discussed that, but that wasn't The reason I started talking about it is we didn't bring it forward because there was
038a lot of things that was like and the other thing that we had been discussing was the toolkit and also there's a lot of things with that. We were held up because it had to go to IT to get the platform and everything. So, there's a lot of things still mechanisms that are going on there that which I know this isn't on the agenda, but we've discussed in the past and there there's a lot of fine-tuning that we have to get to before we can discuss. Um we can I can try put it on the agenda, see if we get some of the Yeah. Okay. Okay, Mr. Fish. Move to adjourn. I Oh, second. Okay, all in favor? Right. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you, Marcia. Not ready for a replacement.
039I'm sure I would. At this point, I would like any dog, but um a bit much to take on after 16 years. Thanks.