001Hey, Everything okay? This March 20 or I'm sorry, March 26, 2026 regular meeting of the Fairfax County School Board will now come to order at 7:12 p.m. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance, followed by a moment of silence and a performance of the national anthem by the Fairfax County Public Schools students in the all Virginia chorus under the direction of Luke Frs. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag >> of the United States of America and to the stands nationy andice for all. Say you see by the dawn early so proud we at the twilight last gleaming. and bright so gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. Oh, say does last our spangled b of the free and the home of the brave. Can we please have one more round
002of applause for our amazing students? If you would like to review a copy of the meeting agenda, please see the back of the auditorium. To obtain copies of any items or supporting materials being presented tonight, please reference the QR code on the agenda or visit www.fcps.edu/boards. Tonight's meeting is being broadcast on Cox channel 99, Verizon FiOS channel 11, and live streamed on and on our website at www.fcps.edu/livestream. Agenda item 3.03, music, theater, and art and the arts appreciation month proclamation. I call on Miss Maron for a proclamation. Whereas March has been officially designated as Arts and Arts Schools Month, encouraging communities across the nation to focus on dance, music, theater, and visual arts education. This month serves as a reminder that all students deserve access to and equity in the delivery of dance, music, theater,
003and visual arts education. And whereas Fairfax County Public Schools has a thriving fine and performing arts education program with over 630 music educators, over 46,000 students in instrumental and chorus programs, over 430 art educators, and over 20,000 students in elective secondary art. FCPS hosts one of the largest theater education programs in the United States with nearly 60 theater teachers and more than 6,500 theater students. FCPS Dance has programs at the elementary and high school levels, dance, music, theater, and visual arts students at FCPS demonstrate the importance of quality fine and performing arts education programs to the lives of young people. And whereas FCPS arts programs are known throughout the state and country as a model of excellence, emphasizing conceptual learning, personal relevance, and innovation. In March and throughout the spring, FCPS school pyramids celebrate the
004arts with pyramid art shows exhibiting the works of elementary, middle, and high school students in each community. Each year, middle and high school artists are recognized throughout the FCPS artifacts awards, the Scholastic Art Awards, and other art recognition programs. And whereas the SCPS music program consistently receives recognition as a recipient of the best communities for music education award from the National Association of Music Merchants, the sixth grade allcount coral festival is recognized as one of the largest elementary choir events in the nation. FCPS secondary ensembles garner accolades at prestigious events including the Virginia State Music Conference, Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic, National Band Association, and American Coral Directors Association. Our schools have been honored with several national distinctions such as the Sler Flag of Honor, the Sler Cup of Distinction, the VMEA Blue Ribbon Award,
005and the VMEA Honor Band Award. And whereas FCPS theater and dance offer a vast array of curricular and extracurricular art experiences, including dance events and showcases, plays, musicals, drama clubs, improv competition, student directed one-act festivals, the VHSL state one act competition, the Brandon Victor Dixon Awards, and the Cappies. The Cappies, an international high school program that celebrates theater performance, journalism, and student ownership, originated in Fairfax County Public Schools. FCPS theater students and teachers are recognized at this annual gala in Washington DC. Now, therefore, be it resolved, Fairfax County Public Schools recognizes March as dance in our schools, music in our schools, theater in our schools month, and youth art month to celebrate and acknowledge every day that fine and performing art education experiences and opportunities are an essential part of every student's well-rounded education. Is
006there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Mr. Fresh. I will call for a vote. >> All those in favor, Mr. Fresh, Mr. Mr. McDaniel, Miss Marin, Mr. Mavine, Miss St. John Cunning, Miss Lady, Mr. Dannon, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, and myself with Miss Dr. Anderson away from the table. Now you can cheer. Agenda item 3.04, Disability Affirmation Month Proclamation. I call on Mr. Moon for a proclamation. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Could I ask Miss Maron to read this one as well? Whereas the Americans with a Disabilities Act of 1990 was founded on four principles, inclusion, full participation, economic self-sufficiency, and equality of opportunity for all people with a disabilities. Fairfest County Public Schools FCPS is committed to these and principles and the principles of equity, excellence and opportunity for all students. And we
007as inclusion is an attitude, an approach and a mindset that welcomes and facilitates participation of students with a disabilities in every aspect of student life which requires mutual responsibility for adaptation and removable barriers so that the students with the disabilities have the same opportunity to participate in student life as any other student. annual day as FCPS celebrates efforts to recognize disability awareness and acceptance to increase public awareness and respect for persons with a disabilities. Inform the public concerning their many contributions to society. Ensure accessibility for persons with a disabilities. encourage health promotion to increase community awareness of the needs of persons with a disabilities and emphasize the abilities and rights of a disabled persons. And whereas over 30,94 and approximately 17% of the FCPS students receive special education services and research has shown that students
008with a disabilities encounter more difficulty being accepted by their peers making friends and becoming involved in school and community based activities and clubs than non-disabled students. And whereas FCPS provides innovative and individualized programs to advance the achievement and knowledge of students and young adults living with the disabilities in the areas of vocational, social and life skills. And whereas disability is a natural part of human diversity and people with a disabilities have the same human and civil rights as everyone else including the right to be included in all aspects of a society. Therefore, we must ensure they are included in the FCPS community by increasing knowledge and understanding of disabilities, promoting positive attitudes by creating a cultural respect and inclusion, and ensuring the school curriculum and norms, events, and processes are accessible and inclusive of a
009disability history and disability norms. Now therefore be reserved that Fairfest County School Board does hereby proclaim March 2026 as a disability affirmation month in recognition of the many contributions and strengths of people with a disabilities and to promote inclusive school communities across our division. And now therefore be it further reserved that the Fairfest County School Board renews its commitment to inclusion for all individuals with a disabilities in our schools and communities. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Mr. Dunn. I will call for a vote. All those in favor, Mr. Fresh, Mr. McDaniel, Miss Marin, Mr. Mavine, Miss St. John Cunning, Miss Lady, Mr. Dannon, Mr. Danon, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon with Dr. Anderson away from the table and I am also in the affirmative. Madame clerk, will you please read the
010vote? >> It's 10001. The motion carries. >> Perfect. Congratulations. Agenda item 3.05, Transgender Day of Visibility Proclamation. I call on Mr. McDaniel for a proclamation. Whereas Fairfax County Public Schools is committed to fostering a safe, welcoming, and inclusive in learning environment where every student, employee, and family is respected and empowered. And whereas Transgender Day of Visibility is observed annually on March 31st to celebrate the lives and contributions of transgender people while raising awareness of the disproportionate discrimination and violence the transgender community continues to face. And whereas transgender students, families, and staff are integral members of our community whose talents, leadership, and courage enrich our classrooms, strengthen our schools, and inspire all. And whereas transgender people have made significant contributions throughout history, including early LGBTQIA plus rights movement activists like Marshia P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera.
011Artists such as Leverne Cox and Kim Petrus. Leaders like Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender member of Congress, and Virginia Senator Danica Rome, the first openly transgender state legislature, scientists like distinguished neurobiologist Dr. Ben Bares and Dr. Lynn Conway, whose innovations revolutionize computer science, and countless others whose courage and achievements have advanced equality and inspired others. And whereas all transgender people have inherent worth and are deserving of respect and dignity from these and other well-known historical and public figures to those for whom it is not safe to live their authentic lives. Wherever they are on their journey, they are valued and valid. And whereas major medical organizations including the American Academy of Pedi pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association have affirmed the validity of transgender identities and
012support age appropriate gender affirming care as evidence-based medically necessary treatment that significantly improves health outcomes for transgender people. And whereas transgender youth face significantly higher rates of mental health challenges largely due to discrimination, rejection, and lack of affirmation, underscoring the critical importance of inclusive schools where transgender students can thrive with research demonstrating that transgender youth who feel supported in their identities show significantly improved academic, social, and emotional outcomes. And whereas transgender students deserve to learn in environments free from discrimination, harassment, bullying, and exclusion, and to have their names, pronouns, and identities honored. And whereas the Fairfax County School Board stands with and celebrates its transgender students, families, and staff, recognizing the urgency of its charge to foster a responsive, caring, and inclusive culture by reaffirming its commitment to policies that uphold the rights of well-being
013of transgender individuals, ensuring access to education and employment free from discrimination and grounded in respect. And whereas the Fairfax County School Board recognizes that learning and growth require ongoing reflection, dialogue, and partnership with students, families, staff, and community members to advance equity and understanding. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board proclaims March 31st, 2026 as Transgender Day of Visibility in Fairfax County Public Schools and encourages all to promote a caring culture of equity, inclusivity, and respect for transgender people, not only on this special day, but throughout the entire year as well. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Mr. FR. I call for I will call for a vote. All those in favor, Mr. FR, Mr. McDaniel, Miss Marin, Mr. Mavine, Miss St. John Cunning, Miss Lady, Mr.
014um Dannon, Mr. Moon, with Mr. Dunn and myself. And with Mr. Dunn and Dr. Anderson away from the table. Will the clerk please read the vote? >> It's 9002. The motion carries. >> Thank you so much. I would like to welcome all those here to support the transgender day of visibility proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of the das. I would like to welcome all those here in support of the disabil disability affirmation month proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of the Yes. I would like to welcome all those here in support of the music theater and the arts appreciation month proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of the dis. Madame Chair, that was our final photo.
015Agenda item 4.01, Virginia High School League and Academic Team Regional Sports Recognitions. The school board is very pleased to to recognize the recipients of winter 2026 FCPS VHSL state and regional championships tonight. Please note that we will also be recognizing one school for their fall 2025 VHSL championship win. Please stand when your team is recognized. After all the recognitions are complete, individual teams will be invited to have a photo with the board. The board would like to recognize the Robinson secondary girls indoor track and field team for winning the VHSL class 6 girls indoor track and field state championship. The board would also like to recognize principal Tracy Phillips, director of student activities Andrew Jimmo, and coach Luke Cho for their contributions to the team. And next for the fall 2025 recognition, the board would
016like to recognize the Lake Bradic Secondary boys cross country team for winning the VHSL class 6 boys cross country state championship. The board would also like to recognize principal Lindseay Karns, director of student activities Janice Bridgetette, and coaches Jason Switzer, John Ferguson, and Danny Howwick for their contributions to the team. The board would like to recognize the Langley High School boys swim and dive team for winning the VHSL class 6 boys swim and dive state championship. The board would also like to recognize principal Larry Straoud, director of student ser uh student activities Jeff Not and coaches Megan Overin, Sarah Clark, and Leanne Stevens for their contributions to the team. Yay Lang. So if you have a Westfield High School boys basketball players, please stand. The board would like to recognize the Westfield High School boys
017basketball team for winning the VSSSL class 6 boys basketball state championship. The board would also like to recognize acting principal Scott Sar, director of student activities Liza Bumgardner, and coaches Kevin Harris, Ephraim Hawkins, Gary Menderson, Vinnie Thora, and Chris Baron for their contributions to the team. The board would like to recognize the West Springfield rifle team for the winning the the PTOAC High School Rifle League regional championship. The board would also like to recognize principal Shannon Mthany, director of student activities Jenny Sabata and coaches Chris Corbett, Stacy Collins, Stephen Gaglano and uh or Dan Cole, Chris Chris Warl and Oscar um stars for their contribution to the team. Sharpshooters. The board would like to recognize the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology Scholastic Bowl team for winning the VHSL class 6 Scholastic Bowl
018state championship. The board would also like to recognize principal Michael Mai, director of student activities Leah Ki, and coach Julie Fu for their contributions to the team. Please stand. The board would like to invite the members of the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology Scholastic Bold team, school staff and supporters to please join the board for the dis. And then I ask my colleagues to stay put and let us have the rest of the pictures. The board would like to invite the members of the West Springfield Rifle team, school staff, and supporters to please join the board for a photo. The board would like to invite the Westfield High School boys basketball team, school staff, and supporters to please join the board for a photo. The board would like to invite the members
019of the Langley High School boys swim and dive team, school staff and supporters to please join the board for a photo. The board would like to invite the Lake Bradock Secondary boys cross country team, school staff, and supporters to please join the board for a photo. The board would like to invite the Robinson Secondary girls indoor track and field team school staff and supporters to please join the board for a photo. Madame Chair, that was our final photo. On behalf of the board, I would like to thank all of our students, coaches, principles, and parents who came out this evening. We are so proud of all of our FCPS students. Agenda item 5.01, community participation. The next order of business is community participation. We welcome all community members who are here and those who signed
020up to speak this evening. Additional information about signing up to provide comments at schoolboard regular business meetings and public hearings can be found on the schoolboard website at www.fcps.edu/schoolboard. During the sign up process, community members acknowledge that they were informed of the school board's expectations for proper decorum when providing comments. These expectations are also available online and with the printed agenda and meeting materials in the back of the room. We ask audience members to be respectful of one another. Shouting and outbursts will not be tolerated. Please hold your applause until the conclusion of a speaker's remarks. Audience members may not join speakers at the podium and should remain at their seats, including when recording video or taking photos. We are grateful to all of those who have come to speak with us today and thank
021you for your cooperation. School board members will be listening but not responding. Madame clerk, please call our first speaker. >> Cass Cayier. >> Cass Cayer. Megan O'Neal. >> Hello me. Members of the board, my name is Megan O'Neal. I'm a sophomore at Oaked Theater and I'm here to talk about the importance of expanding the performing arts department in FCPS. Theater has helped me grow in confidence and help me to navigate things in the real world like public speaking and working with a group efficiently in a short amount of time. Theater arts has helped kids get better academically than sports by improving their mental health and self-confidence. As a person who has done both theater and cheerleading, I can tell you that theater has created a more mentally positive space for both me and the rest
022of my department. Theater has shown me that I have a voice, that I deserve to be heard, and that my ideas matter and are valued. In fourth grade, we were meant to perform a musical for a music grade that unfortunately got cancelled due to co. If we are able to bring that back to elementary schools, it would develop a love for theater at a young age for more kids. As the rise of AI is taking over creativity and blocking off of these outlets of human innovation, we must take action to make sure the kids can learn to be creative without bots and with humans. Me and one of my closest friends, Phoenix Britain, who is also here tonight, want to be the next theater and chorus directors as we are both inspired by the current
023theater and chorus directors at Oakton High School, Miss Samantha Galagel and Mr. G D G D G D G D G D G D G D G D G D G D G D G D G D G D G D G D G D G D G D G D G Godas because of their belief in us to be our best selves and whatever we do and we want to push that love forward to the next generation of performing arts kids. Thank you for your time and consideration. Phoenix, Britain. Good evening, members of the board. My name is Phoenix Britain and I am a sophomore at Oakton High School. I am enrolled in technical theater at Oakton and I was enrolled in acting theater in middle school at Rachel Carson. When I was picking
024my courses for seventh grade, I was begging my mom to let me take acting as well as technical theater. And luckily for me, she said yes. First semester of seventh grade, I had acting theater one day as well as technical theater the other day. And it was the best as I got to see the teacher who got me into theater every day. That teacher was Mr. Josh Bickford. Mr. Bickford wanted me as one of the two stage managers for a musical and at that time I was unsure if I could do it as my mental health was deteriorating badly. But luckily he convinced me to go for one rehearsal and being in that warm, caring, fun and supportive environment saved my mental health. Mr. Harmon and Mr. Bickford both inspired me to be a theater
025teacher in the future so that I can give back. I want to give the next generation the confidence, skills, and a place to be themselves that I got. All of the theater spaces as well as the chorus room at Oakton are my homes away from home. The prop room is my sanctuary. And the people on my tech team are my classmates and they are my friends. They are pieces of my heart that I cannot imagine middle or high school without. Thank you for your time. me Tran. Miss Tran, we're trying to move you over. Could you please respond to the to the request that you're receiving from our tech team? Miss Tran, you may begin when you are ready. >> Hi, can you all hear me? >> Yes, please continue. >> Hello. Good evening everyone.
026My name is my tran and I am a parent. Thank you for the opportunity to present tonight. Today students have the privilege to take school devices home and access countless apps and tools risking exposure to age inappropriate content. I am concerned with Gmail, Google, Meet, YouTube, and the camera specifically because I've seen upper elementary students share personal files and photos with lower elementary students via their fcpschools.net that Gmail account and Google Slides on students schools Gmail account. When composing a new email in the two field or sharing a file on apps such as Google Slides, a student can enter a couple letters and any student with those letters in their name at the base school and specific teachers class or group email address outside of the B school will appear for the student to select
027and send a message. Gmail and YouTube are listed as favorite applications on students Google accounts and there are no options to remove them. The camera is also activated by default with no way to turn it off. I'd like to suggest that FCPS focus on lease privilege, cyber security, and privacy prior to issuing school devices to students. Switching to an opt-in approach. So teachers will need to request specific app apps to be activated versus the current process having parents ask the school school principal today to request specific apps to be deactivated per student or schoolwide. I'd like to request that FCPS send a survey to teachers to identify required apps to supplement learning at an age or grade appropriate screen time guidelines using data from objective sources not technology companies as I don't see a compelling
028reason for elementary school students to have access to camera, Gmail, me and the other um vulnerable applications available on their school Google account when they don't even know how to type or were the letters on the devices touch bad or keyboard. So I uh request and please consider changing to an opt-in approach for Nicole Woodward, Christina McCormack, Patty Ker. Hi, I'm speaking as the parent of a twice exceptional student. FCPS has committed to providing a safe and inclusive school environment for everyone and I truly appreciate the inclusion efforts of this school division. However, 2E autistic students tend to fall through the cracks. They routinely experience misunderstandings and overwhelm in the school environment. Our 2E kids need advanced instruction, access to enrichment, and predictable support. There is a real need for neurodiversity affirming autism training for
029all FCPS educators. I'd also like to talk a bit about universal design for learning and cursive instruction. UDL means designing lessons to be accessible to all learners. It means presenting lessons in various formats and modeling cursive use in the classroom. It means allowing choices of tools like sand trays, whiteboards, or adapted pens and pencils. It means giving meaningful assignments such as learning to read historical documents. UDL does not mean allowing students to choose between manuscript cursive or typing for their writing assignments before they've learned those skills. We aren't teaching them type and cursive is not being modeled or used in a meaningful way. We cannot expect our kids to choose cursive when they aren't seeing it used in the classroom. Currently, teachers don't have enough instruction time and Lexia is being overused. The 2024 Virginia
030writing standards require students to show grade level spelling skills when writing in cursive. You can't meet that standard without requiring students to use cursive in their writing assignments. Please consider dedicating at least one day a week to cursive instruction rather than using Lexia and other technology. Thank you for your advocacy and support for our students. Thomas Zinart. >> Good evening. Uh my name is Thomas Ziner and I'm a parent of two FCPS students and a volunteer with the Fairfax uh solar schools campaign. I'm here because I care deeply about our children's future and that future depends on the choices we make today. Uh solar panels are finally going up on some of our schools. That's really great news. Uh but right now FCPS has plans for solar on approximately 34 of its 199 schools and
031centers. Uh that leaves the vast majority of our buildings and our communities without the benefit solar can bring. With everything going on right now, energy prices are soaring. Locking in stable, lowcost solar power through purchase power agreements is a smart financial move for the district. School solar creates real hands-on learning opportunities for students, strengthens community resilience, and most critically helps us mitigate climate change. The windows closing. The commercial solar tax credit is being accelerated towards phase out. If we delay, we risk leaving savings and our solar capacity on the table. This board has the power to act before that window shuts. In 2021, uh the board made bold commitments. Carbon neutrality by 20 2040, a 50% emissions cut by 2030, an all electric bus fleet by 2035, net zero new buildings, and a transition to
032mostly renewable energy. Those commitments mean something. Solar on our schools is one of the clearest ways to honor them. Please act quickly and commit to installing more solar before the tax credits expire. Thank you, >> Vanessa Hall. >> Hi all. Um, hi, my name is Vanessa Hall. I'm an FCPS Pride co-leader and an FCPS mom and alum. I'm sorry there aren't as many of us normally, but we have thousands here in spirit. FCPS Pride appreciates your time and consideration for this transgender day of visibility proclamation. In Virginia, a new day has dawned. We're lucky to have both a Commonwealth and school district um that respects civil rights and human dignity. Federally, transgender people have lost the right to health care and jobs. In Kansas, transgender people have been stripped of driver's licenses without notice or
033recourse. Nebraska and Ohio have bathroom and health care bans. Also, violence and threats are at an all-time high. Locally, media like the Washington Times or Examiner feel emboldened to repeatedly spew hate and use demeaning language like alphabet people or trans mafia, which frankly disgusts me. In advance of this proclamation, WAL's Lario Oconor Show profiled hate speech and platformed an IWF activist who's openly mocked disabled students and lobbied against our own transgender students. Previously, Okconor and his co-host have used the Teslur. It's all frankly obscene. Such hateful rhetoric and anti-trans lobbying efforts reinforce why we need this day. We all must dare to be visible, to be loud and proud while people like them try to scare or shame the transgender community and all of us allies into hiding. In Fairfax, we're fortunate to have all
034of you and you to um protect and welcome all of us in the schools. No matter the legal threats, please actively resist and stand fast against the darkness and dark money and continue to be the steadfast ray of light in our lives and nation so that transgender youth and families can Dale Van Wagner No, keep up the good work. All right. All right. Good evening, guys. Uh, I'd like to tell you a story about a friend of mine, Mark, and his fourth grade son, Tim. Last summer, Tim went to a local overnight sports camp with all of his buddies. A great camp with great reviews. A week into the camp, Tim called home. He told Mark how great the camp was going. He also mentioned that they give out candy all the time, not just
035after dinner and not just as a treat. Candy for finishing drills, candy for staying focused, candy for participating, candy throughout the whole day. Another week goes by. Mark gets another check-in call from Tim. Mark asks about the candy. Tim says they still give it out all the time. I'm going to read you a text message I got from Mark about this whole thing. So, I did meet with the camp counselor a couple of times to talk about it, but it was really difficult to bring up because the entire reward system is built around the candy. My wife and I were horrified. I met with him several times because Tim was doing really poorly initially and it was because he has them eating 17 pieces of candy before lunch. So, I tried to ask for specifics.
036Maybe give them some fruit in the morning at least. I asked for them to have a sandwich or something more filling for lunch. It's insane. He didn't get it. Then I went to the camp director. The director then went to the counselor who was upset that I went over his head, but then so generously asked for me to meet with him directly with any food and candy questions to help find a mutually agreeable solution. I really appreciated his candidness, and the meeting was great in that it was finally out in the open. He admitted to using candy as a reward, which they were not supposed to do. And he said that me bringing it up was good for him because it made him go back to look at the candy rewards and make sure he's
037only using it when it's transformative or enhancing. Oh, wait. This isn't about candy. This is an actual text I got almost word for word about the massive amounts of online time the kids have in our schools and the massive amounts of effort it takes to pair it back even a little bit. We know too much candy is bad. We have a mountain mountain of evidence that too much on screen time is also bad. >> Katie Broomberg. >> All right. Good evening. I am here to address concerns from my colleagues about a decrease in theater enrollment and staffing across middle school theater programs. I taught theater at Anandale High School for eight years. I worked tirelessly to build that program. Yet, repeated destaffing forced me to leave a community I deeply cared about. My value as
038an educator felt reduced to enrollment numbers, a reality many theater teachers are facing right now. Now, at Robinson Secondary, I see what is possible with strong support, engaged administration, community ticket sales, and theater school connections. These resources have led to growing enrollment and expanded opportunities for Robinson students. But this is not the reality for many schools. It is crucial that we find a way to bridge this equity gap. At both schools, I was able to build personal connections with students, making a lasting impact on their success. Consistency in theater program leadership is the key to building and maintaining these safe, supportive environments. When teachers are asked to split staffing between schools, it makes it impossible for them to commit fully to either program. Barriers to students taking theater class include too many elective options, a
039push to take advanced or remedial academic courses, or a lack of awareness of the class and its benefits. We need theater opportunities at the elementary level to promote secondary options. Theater is also often treated as something kids can just do after school. This afterchool component, often involving hundreds of students, is not considered when staffing decisions are made. Is it possible to acknowledge afterchool theater participation numbers as part of staffing considerations? It feels like theater teachers are asked to do the impossible task of balancing their full-time 80 plus hour work weeks with finding time to recruit and fight for their jobs. I am pleading to you today to help provide pathways that make it feel a bit more possible. We need equal access to elementary theater outreach opportunities. Thank you all for the support you have
040provided our theater programs. The district warehouse and stipens have been invaluable to the success of our program since implementation. We truly are a district that values all arts disciplines and we hope we can continue that legacy. Shout out to Andrew Redmond, Lake Bradic Theater alum for the lights and sound this evening. Thank you, >> Deborah Warden. fired. I don't think I can say it as well as you. Um, my name is Deb Warden. I have been an FCPS parent for the past 18 years. My youngest, my third child, is a sophomore at Langley High School. I'm here to express my support and concern about the what's happening at the the Cooper Middle School theater program. I commend FCPS for proclaiming March the Music, Theater, and Arts Appreciation Month. But you need to do more to
041support and protect the middle school programs as they face decline in enrollment. They cannot exist without support from you in some creative fashion, whether it's what the previous speaker just mentioned, we need to find a way to keep these programs um and to protect the positions of these amazing teachers. Um, my kids all participated in performing arts throughout middle and high school. While at Cooper, all of my kids took theater class, performed in after school performances. Their experiences at in theater were the absolute highlight of their middle school experience. Theater gave them a safe place where they could be themselves. They learned to overcome fear, deal with disappointment, and relish in the provide in the pride of performing. All very important lifelong skills. Middle schoolers should be learning to embrace their creativity and discover what
042makes them unique. We need to do everything we possibly can to make sure that these middle school children have the opportunity to participate in theater. The the email that came out yesterday with Dr. Reed's statement to the board um last at the last meeting talking about how wonderful these middle school programs, the video that just came out in the email yesterday from the students saying certainly better than I can the value of middle school theater. But as the previous speaker mentioned, these teachers can't split time between schools and still have these dynamic after-school programs. It's just not physically possible. Um these teachers are amazing and they deserve absolutely everything we can do to support them. Thank you, >> Kirsten Dillard Scott. Good evening, members of the board. Thank you for allowing me to speak tonight.
043I used to have a manager that said, "Don't come to me with a problem unless you have a solution." So, here I go. My name is Kirsten Dillard Scott and I stand before you not only as the mom of a West PTOIC theater kid, but also a 20 plus year veteran of the field of technical theater. I also stand before you as a member of the strategic planning committee of the United States Institute of Theater Technology, where I am currently helping to reshape the organization that innovates our technical theater standards nationwide. With that in mind, I feel an element to why enrollment in theater middle school classes has become an issue is the lack of professional development support, funding, and resources for these teachers. Because of this, and because I care, I have personally dedicated
044in my spare time free lighting design services, free master classes, and free educational resources to schools in this region, some who you have mentioned here tonight. I started doing this because I know that once you introduce someone to something and if you can get them really excited about it, it will stay with them for a long time. And not every school can af can afford some of these services, but it's not permanently realistic because not everything in this world can be free. Now, while I understand there are some budgetary concerns and we have been hearing about this enrollment issue in middle school classes for some time now, I come with you with an idea. If Fairfax County Public Schools will work to dedicate funding resources to provide consistent professional development in school, master classes and
045funding for conferences and workshops for students and teachers, I feel that will create excitement around the program again and thus would come the arise of enrollment into middle school theater programs. Thank you, >> Helen Miller. Good evening. My name is Helen Miller and I'm the mother of three recent FCPS graduates. Tonight you celebrate the arts and FCPS with a proclamation supporting arts appreciation month. Dr. Ree's academic matters presentation says the arts in FCPS are fundamental to cultivating essential student services. It's oh sorry skills. Yesterday's FCPS this week email includes a terrific video in which middle schoolers themselves explained the value of the theater program. I was therefore alarmed when I heard that our fabulous Cooper Middle School program is in jeopardy because enrollment in the theater classes is low. Our amazing theater teacher has been
046at Cooper over 20 years and is a much beloved institution there. Two of my children took theater classes and also participated in the musicals. They found their people there as so many students do and those productions were some of the highlights of their middle school experience. Why then is our theater teacher likely to be destaffed next year? Because enrollment is lower and FCPS ex is strictly by the numbers. If this weren't bad enough, we're now hearing that fully 80% of middle school theater teachers have lower enrollment next year and are similarly in danger of being destaffed. With such a high number, this appears to be a systemic issue. In light of the celebration of the arts this week, I can't imagine that this was done on purpose. This is all distressing to families. It puts
047our beloved theater teachers at risk. And while some would have to split their time between schools, inevitably others would lose their jobs altogether. I hope you will make an exception to the numbers and back up your proclamations of the value of the arts and our students education. Continue these programs without change next year while investigating what happened. Trust with the community greatly eroded during the pandemic and has remained lower in the years since. It turns out that trust like theater program, Scott Perfumei. Good evening. I'm Scott Pumi and I'm currently the proud theater arts director of Hearnen High School. and I've been teaching in Fairfax County Public Schools for the last 30 years as a theater arts educator. I have the proud distinction of having students currently on Broadway, working in Hollywood, and most significantly
048right back here in FCPS as theater arts teachers themselves. My objective here today is to remind us all how important the arts are in teaching the whole child with my emphasis being on including well-funded programs of secondary theater in our middle and high schools as well as encouraging our leadership to begin funding elementary drama programs and hiring qualified theater teachers to work as specials in our K6 schools. Elements of the arts can be found in every one of the five pillars of The Portrait of a Graduate. As trained public speakers, our theater students are communicators. As members of the cast and ensemble, they are collaborators in the work with script analysis and memorization. They are creative thinkers in committing to a three-month rehearsal process to the final to performances. They show off their resiliency and
049goal- directed perseverance. And as they study worldclass dramatic literature within a diverse cast and crew of their peers, they put their ethical and global citizenship to work. Indeed, our theater students are exemplars of all that FCPS hopes for in graduating well-rounded scholars. So, how do we as the stakeholders of this county's educational mission ensure that theater and all the performing arts are included and integral to the daily work of our schools? We make sure that we have a full-time theater teacher in all 25 of our middle schools and 25 of our high schools, soon to be 26 this fall. We recruit and hire the finest quality educators from around the country and working with colleges and universities that train our future theater teachers. Finally, I want to recognize all the drive and the dedication and
050the passion that my theater colleagues bring to FCPS. My time left in this great county is coming to an end as I prepare to retire next school year. But I want to know that I left my school as a greater institution for having labored there. So, please join me in supporting not only our current theater professionals, but those that are coming in the future. Please play the video testimony for Panos Tatsanis. >> Hello and thank you for the opportunity to speak. FCPS is now a onetoone device system. Every student gets a laptop, takes it home daily, and uses it during school for almost every class. This started under FCPS on before COVID was expanded during virtual learning and then quietly stayed as a default after schools reopened. There was no real opportunity for families to
051revisit that decision after the pandemic and no meaningful alternative was provided for those who see more harm than benefit. Research shows this hurts learning. The 2022 PIA report found students distracted by devices in math class scored much lower. A meta analysis of nearly 50,000 students linked heavy device use to worse academic results. If each student has a laptop always present, attention drops. This is not surprising. You removed smartphones. That was the right direction. But now laptops have taken their place. Kids email each other constantly, watch non-educational YouTube videos, play games, listen to music, all during class. Parents asking for less device time. Here there is no opt out without disadvantage. Parents are not against all technology. We want guard rails and real choices. First, we need answers to these three specific questions. What were the
052original goals of the onetoone device program? What actual academic benefits have been measured in FCPS classrooms? What harms and distraction problems have teachers and parents found? These answers needs to be documented in a public report. Second, create a technology committee with parent community input plus research data to review device policies and recommend changes like family optouts, device light pilots, and tighter controls when technology is not needed. The board oversees the system. You should first prove to the community that the benefits of technology in the classroom outweigh the harms. If not, technology in the classroom needs to be reconsidered. Then give parents real choice. Stop making technology automatic default in every classroom. Thank you. >> Please play the video testimony of Nhal Jane. >> Good evening. My name is Nihal and I'm an IT professional and
053also a parent at Churchill Road Elementary School. Being close to technology myself, I am not anti-technology. However, I am also fully aware of its harms. Our classrooms are meant to be safe places where children's minds grow through human connection, play, and guided learning, but kids are spending multiple hours a day, tween averaging around 5 and 1/2 hours, and teens reporting about four and more hours daily. MRI studies have constantly shown associations between heavy screen exposure and reduced cortical thickness in brain regions that support language, attention, and empathy. a few areas that are critical in elementary schools. That matters because early brain architecture sets the foundation for students with special needs. These stakes are actually higher. Many rely on predictable routines, human cues, and social interactions. Excessive device use can worsen sleep, attention, and emotional regulation
054for children with ADHD, autism, and other learning differences. We must also be cognizant of the legal and ethical reality where tech companies and edtech platforms are under growing legal scrutiny for data practices and untested products used in schools. Parents and districts are suing these companies over privacy and undisclosed tracking. These lawsuits are a warning that children should not be treated as experimental subjects. Children are innocent and trust adults like us to protect them and hence we demand the below recommended changes. Limit daily recreational screen time in elementary grades to under one hour during school hours. Require independent peer-reviewed evidence of safety and learning benefit before any edtech AI adoption. Mandate strict students data privacy and opt- out rights. No collection of identifiable data without ex Madame Chair, that was our last public speaker. >> Thank
055you, Madam Clerk. Um, agenda item 6.01, student representative matters. I call on Miss McCun. >> Good afternoon, members of the board and community here with us today. Today, I would like to share the recommendations SACE presented to Dr. Reed today. Over the past several months, the superintendent's advisory council conducted research aligned with strate strategic plans goals one through five and presented a comprehensive set of recommendations to the superintendent. These recommendations were developed through studentled research, collaboration, and discussion with a focus on identifying practical, scalable solutions that build upon existing systems while directly addressing student needs. For goal one, they focus on student success and future readiness. The recommendation centered on expanding mentorship opportunities and strengthening awareness of academic and career pathways such as expanding mentorship opportunities for elementary students through programs such as NHS and
056FCPS SAC program. Increasing the number of pathway nights in sixth grade available to families, incorporating structured advisory lessons in middle school that clearly explain high school pathways and long-term career options. For goal two, they focus on safe and supportive schools. For goal two, focus on safe and supportive schools. The recommendation emphasized improving access to mental health resources and strengthening communication. They did this by creating school specific schooly folders with centralized mental health resources, increase the visibility and access of counselors, social workers, and psychologists, developing studentled communication pipelines, including social media contributions and takeovers, improving communication to families by providing clear information on how to access resources, particularly in times of crisis. For goal three, focus on academic growth and achievement. These recommendations aim to strengthen instructional practices and student support systems such as implementing a
057one skill at a time instructional framework to prom to promote mastery and clarity of a subject, standardizing small group instruction in elementary and middle schools, establishing quarterly academic check check-in advisory periods, and providing more structured opportunities for one-on-one conversations to review grades and connect students with resources. For goal four, focused on inclusion and engagement. The recommendations highlighted the importance of creating supportive and accessible opportunities for all students, such as developing mentorship programs specifically for multilingual learners, including crossgrade support, incorporating more hands-on learning and hands-on and engaging learning strategies to support diverse learners, dedicating advisory time during the school day for clubs and student activities, and exploring additional programs such as equestion opportunities based on student interest and feasibility. For goal five, focus on college, career, and life readiness. The recommendations aim to better connect students
058with real world opportunities and modern financial knowledge, including strengthening communication between students and alumni through existing FCPS platforms, establishing a speaker pipeline with local government officials, professionals, and businesses, updating the financial literacy curriculum to include digital finance topics such as fintech and online banking. I'm not sure if I said that right. re reintroducing the wise financial literary test as a benchmark for student preparedness by leveraging the existing structures and focusing on target improvements. These proposals offer actionable steps towards achieving the goals outlined in the strategic plan. I know I was definitely seeing things the board was already looking at at these presentations and I am so proud of all the work SACE has put over in the past few months. Everyone from the co-chairs to the participating members has such a depth of knowledge on
059these topics and the discussion showed that. I really hope those who are eligible in SEC continue next year and I know there's a lot of people running for my role next month and I know whoever comes SEC or not will be nothing short of amazing. I will be sharing the presentation with the board later tonight. Thank you. Agenda item 7.01 action item certification of closed meeting compliance. In order to comply with section 2.2-3712D 2-3712D of the Code of Virginia. It's necessary for the board to certify that since the Fairfax County School Board convened a closed meeting on March 26, 2026, to the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements, and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard,
060discussed, or considered by the board during the closed meeting. Do I have a motion, Miss Marin? Do I have a second? Mr. Moon. All those in favor, Mr. Fresh, Miss Marin, Mr. Meline, Miss St. John Cunning, Miss Lady, Mr. Dannon, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, and myself. All those opposed, all those abstaining. Mr. McDaniel. Will the clerk please read the vote? >> 101. The motion carries. >> Thank you. Agenda item 7.02, action item, confirmation of action taken in closed meeting. I call on Miss St. John Cunning for a motion. >> I move to deny the school reassignment appeal of a student who made multiple direct and indirect threats towards another student and to confirm the disciplinary decision of the decision superintendent according to terms and conditions discussed in close session. Is there Thank you,
061Mr. Moon. All those in favor Mr. FR uh Mr. Mavine, Miss St. John Cunning, Miss Lady, Mr. Danon, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, and myself. All those abstaining or opposed. All those abstaining. Uh, Mr. Mc McDaniel, and Miss Marin. Will the clerk please read the vote? >> 902. The motion carries. >> Thank you. I call on Miss St. John Cunning for a motion. I move to deny the school reassignment appeal of a student who was charged with an unlawful act in the community, one-count robbery with a weapon, and to confirm the disciplinary decision of the division superintendent. Second. >> Thank you, Mr. Fresh. Uh, all those in favor, Mr. Fresh, Miss Marin, Mr. Macke, Miss St. John Cunning, Miss Lady, Mr. Dannon, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, and myself. All those opposed, all
062those abstaining, Mr. McDaniel. Will the clerk please read the vote? >> 1001. The motion carries. >> Thank you. Agenda item 7.033, 033 strategic goal report two safe and supported or safe supported included and empowered I call on Dr. read for a presentation. Hello, Madame Chair and members of the board and all those watching at home. Uh we're excited to bring our goal 2 presentation uh this evening and we're going to be sharing some highlights. A reminder to those watching that the board has spent several hours already reviewing our goal two report at um a work session that was comprehensive and this work session was on March 3rd and it's also online if you want to have an opportunity to go back and uh review uh the conversation. So this evening I'll be providing some highlights
063from goal two um but the full report is posted on boards. A reminder that goal two is our um safe, supported, included and empowered goal and it focuses on the experiences we want our students to have in their journey along with us. As we look at the next slide, uh the particular um strategic priorities around school climate, there are four here even though there are six measures that fit under this broad theme, but tonight I'll be highlighting data related to these four items. school connectedness and belonging, attendance, discipline, and inclusion of students uh with disabilities. So, let's take a look at school connectedness and belonging. We know that when students feel connected, uh they're better able to um make use of their academic experience and their full uh well-rounded school experiences. So last spring, we
064launched a student experience survey to learn more about students perspectives and experiences. The majority of students responding to the survey felt a sense of belonging and reported positive relationships with their teachers and peers. Students reported especially high rates of feeling that teachers cared about them and that they trusted their teachers. And this is really, I think, a solid data point. Um this was the first time we put the student experience survey out I believe and it was in response to the board's request a year ago to collect data on student experiences from students. So during our work session we talked about some of the variation that we saw between student groups that responded to the survey and our team is continuing to look further into this data with a plan of better understanding what might
065be driving these differences. I want to share a few examples from our strategies that are focused on school connectedness. Our schools provide regular opportunities for students to strengthen their social and emotional skills. This year, we used insights from our SEAL screener to create resources for schools where we saw divisionwide areas of need. Schools also held listening sessions with students to co-create resources and co-create solutions based on school needs. um in their individual context. During the work session, we also discussed the importance of offering activities and afterschool programming for students, including the middle school after school program as an example, where we've seen growth in the percentages of students being served. Finally, all of our schools provide universal programming to main safe, maintain safe learning spaces, and to provide support and interventions when incidents of bullying,
066harassment, or hate speech occur. Let's take a look at regular attendance. at this point, our chronic absenteeism rates. We're so um we're actually very proud of our uh school staff, our family liaison, our principles, assistant principles, social workers, counselors, educators, um and our staff that are working so hard uh to address this attendance and chronic absenteeism uh issue. This rate actually, and I want to make sure folks at home hear this, this rate includes both excused and unexcused absences. So, when we leave to take a a vacation or something during school days, those count as excused absences and they become part of um our school's attendance or chronic absenteeism data potentially. But we are proud to note that um our measure is actually better continues to be better than the state and our adjoining uh
067region regional uh partners. So this has been an area of focus for our schools since we adopted our strategic plan and we do see the results as our rate continues to be better um and better. So we're very uh pleased with the overall rate. Having said that, this slide shows the chronic absenteeism over time and by some of our student groups. Last year, we met our overall annual target and many of our student groups saw substantial improvement from baseline. This continues to be a reflection of the uh very hard work um that our students and families put in. I also want to make a comment about this slide that there are some students in some student groups that really do have health concerns and have significant um health issues that require them to be absent
068and legitimately absent. So we want to make sure that we separate um our thinking around really the strong encouragement of students to be in school and balance that with the very real need that many of our students have to spend time addressing medical um needs that at times can be significant. Um highlights of our strategic actions in school year 2526. We've had three strategies really to continue to improve our rate. Um, and I want to highlight a few examples of these. We continue to communicate our attendance expectations so families know when it's okay to send their children to school and when it might be better to keep them home. For students missing school at higher rates, our school teams work with families to create student centered plans uh that support their consistent attendance and it
069may include connecting students with fam and families with health or mental health or other wraparound support services. When students have missed instruction as a result of frequent or extended absences, our schools support them by developing return to learn plans. Uh these facilitate a smooth transition back and a path to catch up academically. And they offer IPFIT, which I still am struggling to understand what that IPFIT stands for, but I will have I'll phone a friend, but IPFIT opportunities to reduce chronic absenteeism. Somebody know what IPFIT? Anyone want to Inperson flexible Oh, it's on the Okay. All right. The answer is right in front of me. In-person flexible instruction time. I don't know that that's what we've been calling it all year, has it? Okay. Never mind. All right. Ifit opportunities to reduce chronic absenteeism. You
070heard it here first. So, let's uh next let's take a look at limited consistent use of suspension. And I want to remind our community that we do want the use of suspension only in response to serious behaviors and ensure that these sanctions are applied consistently. Last year we had fewer students receive an out of school suspension overall. All student groups made progress and several groups met their annual targets. This progress has reduced the gap for some groups, but we continue to see um disparities and our focusing our ongoing work uh and disproportionality um in discipline. Uh and there'll be more. I know Dr. King's office has worked on restorative justice practices and aligning our discipline matrices. So, we continue uh to work on that as a goal. Again, we saw an overall decline in the
071percent of students with an inschool suspension and we continue to remain focused on addressing these disproportionalities that we see in this data as well. We have three strategies that we really want to amplify as we address these outcomes. First, we've been revising the SRNR and providing training to our administrators and teachers to ensure that we have clear and consistent expectations around student behavior and the appropriate use of consequences. This year, we standardized discipline practices across all schools, including monitoring and supporting schools that had disproportionate levels of discipline and schools uh logging very few referrals. when incidents do occur the uh we do support students to reduce additional or more serious disciplinary involvement. Lastly, let's take a look at our inclusion data for our students with disabilities. So, one of the things that uh we want
072to share is this pie chart which represents our estimated outcomes for last year on indicator five of the Virginia Department of Education's special education performance reports which examine inclusion data uh for students with disabilities. And in this chart, it shows that about 61% of our students with disabilities in kindergarten through age 21 spent 80% or more of their school day in an inclusive setting, which is shown um in dark blue. Um so that continues to be an area of growth for us. And um this inclusion data again is important as we look at uh the indicators that the uh Virginia Department of Education has on these matters. Uh as we look at this chart uh the chart summarizes our progress over time on these indicators uh particularly 5A through 5C which are represented on the
073chart as they relate to annual targets. The reason you see the little aqua anticipate progress is because the data has not been released yet. But this is based on our internal review of the data and our understanding of that system. We continue to make steady gains in the percent of students with disabilities who are educated in an inclusive setting and we are now continuing to meet the state's annual target um for indicator 5C. want to share the three strategies. Um and again I'm sharing the strategies because we've been asked what are the strategies? What are you doing to work on this data? Right? We're not just reporting the data but what are we actually uh providing in terms of strategies. So this uh year I want to share the three uh strategies that we've been
074using here which are that we have partnered with external consultants to implement a phased approach to this work. We're working with cohorts of schools to provide intensive training and support, including with scheduling and identifying opportunities to increase inclusion at each school. As a part of this work, we're focused on preparing every educator to provide inclusive instruction in their classroom. We've aligned teacher performance evaluations to the FCPS learning model and continue to provide learning for teachers and staff in the principles of the universal of universal design for learning as well as inclusive practices. Finally, we're communicate communicating our vision for inclusion with students, families, and the community and continuing to partner with our disability adv advisory and advocacy groups. So, some key takeaways. This year, we're seeing progress towards several of our goal two measures and
075acknowledge opportunities for continued growth. While we remain committed to creating a school environment where each and every one of our students does feel safe, supported, included, and empowered. So, Madam Chair, this concludes tonight's highlights of our goal to report and happy to take questions. >> Thank you, Dr. Reid. I call on Mr. Mavine for a motion. I move that the school board accepts the goal to strategic plan report for school year 202526. >> Is there a second? >> I second. >> Thank you. Miss St. John Cunning. Uh Mr. Mcabine, would you like to speak to your motion? >> Uh not at this time. >> Um Miss St. John Cunning, would you like to speak to your second? I just want to thank the staff for all the hard work that, you know, we see the
076statistics, we see the the numbers and they all look great, but what we don't see is all the work that that is done every day by every teacher to support our students. And I want to thank all of our staff that does that uh from central office on down to in the school building because the data shows that they're doing phenomenal work and that our students are also engaged in doing the work that they need to do. Thank you, Miss St. John Cunning. Uh, Mr. Fresh, >> so when I was in middle school, I remember being on uh at recess and for the first time hearing the word gay used as a slur, where I actually understood what was going on, right? I'd heard plenty of anti-LGBTQ slurs previously, but didn't really register what was
077going on. And it wasn't directed at me. But I will tell you the impact on somebody who knew it by that time that I was about as gay as a goose. Um was still it was as if I was the one being bullied. And I remember when we brought you in as superintendent, one of the reasons that I was excited was because I don't want you to feel old. 25 years ago, you served on a task force for the attorney general in Washington to help lead the legislation that led to Washington's first real hard look at solving bullying in public education. And so I read this report and it identifies rightly that LGBTQ kids have it worse off than their peers. But every report we've had for years has said that. Um, and so much
078of this report deals with how we are mitigating the damage of the bullying. And so little of this report has to do with what we're doing to stop it from happening in the first place. We mentioned that we have some stuff in our curriculum about it. That's good. We mentioned that we have restorative justice. That's good. But what are we actually doing to move the needle in the right direction? Especially as much of the culture outside of the building, the school building, is pushing in the opposite direction. And then you get to the chart that explains how we're doing and you see that gay and lesbian kids are twice as likely to be bullied than their straight counterparts in our schools. And that our transgender kids are three times as likely to be bullied than
079uh more than three times as likely to be bullied than non-transgender students, cisgendered kids. Um and that each one of those have gotten worse over the last school year than they were the school year before. How can we get a con comprehensive approach to the issue of bullying in our schools um that Washington saw when you were part of that task force so that we're addressing the issue. The number of times I've spoken or listened really at a GSA meeting and heard students say the same stuff I would have said if I was brave enough to be out when I was in high school where they say like, "Oh, people say this in the hallway, they say that in the hallway." It's not always malicious, but it's always hurtful. And so if that hasn't changed
080much except for societal acceptance, what can we actually do in our buildings to move the needle so that in a year when we get the next report on this, we're not seeing that still gay and lesbian kids are twice as likely, trans kids are more than three times likely, and the numbers are getting worse, not better. On the day that we proclaimed trans visibility day, no less. >> Yes, sir. I it's a it is a dilemma. Even if the overall numbers are down, the percentages continue to increase. I I hear the concern. I think as staff work harder and harder to create safe spaces for all children in our schools, even with the the rhetoric outside of our schools about many of our children, it's going to continue to require all of us to um
081to provide those safe spaces. So, let me um we will reconvene with staff. I think it's it's a conversation we actually had at the senior staff level as well. Um and I I think it does um I think coming back with uh some really uh clear thoughts on that would be important. So, let me come back um to the table when staff has a chance to talk about how within a school um that level of inclusion um creates a a space where we don't continue to hear the language that we do continue to hear. >> Last sentence, it's a lot easier to learn algebra in eighth grade if you're not worried about what they're saying about you on the school ground. >> Indeed. Yes, sir. >> Mr. Thank you. Um Dr. Reed, uh thank you
082for all you're doing for our school system. Um we've spoken previously about um spring sprouts and similar programs that are intended to um help to reduce the uh chronic abstentism rate. And my persistent concern has been that the programs like Spring Sprouts help to reduce the chronic absenteeism rate. Um so it's good from a school system perspective um reporting perspective, but it's not child- centric in the approach because even going to a springout program does not catch a child up for all the days that they've missed. Um, and we've talked previously about like literacy, right? If you've missed, let's say, a month of school, going to Springs may reduce the number of days you're absent because, you know, one day of spring brows can count as two or even three days, I think, for chronic
083absenteeism purposes, but it doesn't mean that child's back on track in terms of their their reading ability. So, I was wondering if you could describe some of the efforts, some of the programs that FCPS under your leadership has put in place or enhanced uh to make sure that as kids fall off track for whatever reason, it could be illness, it could be changing homes, um but especially low-income students, what are we doing to create uh pathways so they can get back on track? >> So, it's a great question, Mr. done and I you and I have talked about spring sprouts and other ifit uh strategies. One sort of um tangential benefit of spring sprouts was that we actually saw better attendance even after spring break, right? So it sort of kept students in that uh
084habit of doing school. But in terms of providing support, I think last month when we talked a bit about our walk to read program in our schools that uh we're seeing some of the greatest struggle to stay on grade level with literacy. It requires us to on a daily basis intervene with children that are not quite at grade level and to do it in small group with high um a high level of focus on the very specific skills students need to master. So I think um we've become a lot more strategic and the data around for example the walk to read strategy is really showing some promise. We've also added a program called ECRI, which is stands for I'm not good with my acronyms tonight. Uh, Miss Lemon, can you clarify what ECRI actually stands
085for, please? I think it's early. >> I will look it up. I do apologize because I say ECRI so much that I too it's early child core reading instruction. >> There you go. >> Thank you, Dr. Presidio. So it's a program we started two years ago now with two schools and it's very direct explicit um researched intervention uh for first grade it's K12 but for first grade we went from two schools to 10 and now we're 12 uh schools but it's showing tremendous promise. So as we look at research best practice strategies whether it's walk to read whether it's ECRI um utilizing benchmark now in a significant um way I think we're going to continue to see some uh serious benefit in terms of our reading and literacy performance. >> I was wondering if you
086could put more information in the Friday letter about ECRE because I'd like to learn more if possible. Yes. I also want to just raise um edu tutor which I know you're familiar with from your conversations with former Mount Vernon district representative Chris Mson um and that has um been deployed in other schools and other school districts but um as you know uh edu tutor has had a hard time kind of piercing the FCPS bureaucracy to expand to more schools and yet it's one of the more effective programs for helping especially lowincome children. So I was wondering if you can speak to any plans or thoughts you have about being able to expand the availability and and support for EduTTutor. >> Thank you. It's true Chris Almanson uh and the Edguttutor uh group has done some
087tremendous work. We know the power of high impact tutoring and I know there are some schools that are partnered with Edguttutor right now. Miss Lemon, do you recall? Are we expanding that or are we in the process of reviewing expansion? I know they were also recruiting more tutors, but >> we currently, I believe, have three schools that are participating, and we have found that it's worked best with some of our middle school students with algebra. >> So, are you planning to expand it at all? >> I think we are always interested in expanding high impact tutoring. So, I will check back in with Miss Almanson and um I know Whitman was one of the early schools. Um, nope. We discussed that, >> right? We I think right now it's at Poe and Westl and I
088believe a school in region one. I had to look up the third school, >> right? But we certainly would welcome the opportunity to expand. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yes, sir. >> Mr. Dannon. >> Good evening. Um, first I want to say I'm grateful. I I recognize listening to this and reading that that that this took countless hours from your team all the way down through every educator and every staff member in our schools. And I appreciate all the work that they've done because I recognize that um having heard from a lot of teachers that you get competing mandates, priorities, you've got a lot of stuff to balance um on top of of educating our kids. So um I want to ask a few questions tonight around uh inclusion for students with disabilities. Um I'm
089glad to see that um under your leadership that we've that we've prioritized uh inclusion. Um as I'm sure you you you recognize it does seem like the rate of increase is low. Um and I don't know if the state has the right target, but um I think the sense is that we should be higher than where we're at. Um is our goal to get to 100% inclusion for kids with disabilities or can you speak to that a little bit, please? >> Thank you, Mr. Dan. And I I've actually been asked that several times and that is not our goal. We know that special education really is a continuum of services. It shouldn't be a location. So, what we want to do is we want to make sure we're providing that continuum of services which are
090ultimately determined by an IEP team and um the students family along with staff. So there will always, I believe, be students that are going to require a more um self-contained setting for smaller instructional opportunities. However, we also recognize that many more of our students are able to very effectively uh navigate uh a less self-contained, right, a le a less restrictive environment. And we always want to, and I know our staff as well, we always want to provide that least restrictive environment uh so our students have the opportunity uh to be as fully included as possible. >> I appreciate that. Um I want to ask a little bit now about um screening to that end. So it's it's my understanding that it's been my experience personally that self-contained of and and this isn't I'll say this
091isn't done I know this isn't done out of any malice. Um, but I think that it's it's a system and it's a culture shift that we need. And it's been my experience that self-contained is often the default. And we um I had a kid about 10 years ago that I that I taught for about a year and really sweet kid and his parents came to us right before he started kindergarten and he said um are they're telling us that he needs to go into a self-contained classroom and my experience with this kid is that that would absolutely not be appropriate. And I was shocked at how much we all had to fight to get him into general education. So, um can you talk a little bit about you know um the other thing let me
092first point out the other thing is is if we if we if we and again as you recognize this if we segregate kids at the beginning of the year with the hope that we're going to get them into general education um that already sets them back because they're missing out on the hidden curriculum. They're missing out on all the norms and so forth. So um can you talk a little bit about kind of what the what the ideal screening process is for kids um as they enter kindergarten and are we meeting that expectation? So, another great question. I think that um we have heard parents at times report that it's exhausting, right? That the feeling is that um in some ways some children have to prove they're ready whereas other children simply enroll and go
093to kindergarten class. And that's one of the um I think that's one of the traditional barriers to having more inclusion is that uh that need to feel like not only are you parenting but you also have to then advocate for um just placement much less uh the experience. So, I I know that the team I attended an early childhood uh professional development even this week uh where we had um folks in talking about in particular our autism program pre uh prek and how the younger we're able to um have our neurode divergent and and neurotypical preschoolers together, how much can be learned around communication and around um social interactions and behaviors and so forth and how much progress can be made in such a short amount of time with very young children. So, I know
094Dr. Presidio's team has been working uh hard on that. Do you have anything you want to add, Dr. Presidio, about kind of how we're working on those kindergarten screening um options? Yeah, I think um I think what I would say I mean first of all one of the things that I really appreciate about our strategic plan is having you know goal two specifically about inclusion and inclusion is actually embedded in all five of our goals. Um and Dr. Reid I think has established a real strong vision for us and and a real moral compass to make sure that this is the priority of the work that we're doing um in our schools. So, one of the things that we've done is not just at the kindergarten process for screening, but we actually start screening um
095for students that may have disabilities at age two and provide services at that age, but our entire screening process, we're really revamping and re-evaluating what we do in our process to make sure that we're exhausting all of the opportunities to support students in an inclusive environment. So, we're working with national, actually international inclusion experts. Um, and one of the things that they're doing is reviewing every single one of our screening documents and IEP forms to make sure that we start with the presumption that students should be included in the general education setting and can be included in the general education setting if we provide the right supports and accommodations um to make sure that they have access to that setting. Now, again, as Dr. Reed said, there are going to be some students and some
096families based on the disabilities that they have that they may do better in a self-contained setting, but that is a small percentage of our students. The vast majority of our students we believe should be included in an inclusive setting. So, we're reviewing all of our processes, procedures with an external consultant, national expert. Um, and then we're also working to provide comprehensive professional development that's required for all school administrators, teachers, counselors, instructional assistants. Everybody who works with students in the schoolhouse is going to receive comprehensive training over the next several years in these uh new practices and procedures. >> That's a great segue. Gosh. Um well well before that, please keep us posted what you need from us, right? We really want to want to exceed what we've been doing. So, um, talking about training a
097little bit, I I keep hearing from from DEAD teachers that there just isn't enough support or training, um, working with kids with with disabilities. Um, so it sounds sounds like that that's been your experience and and you're working on that. Again, keep us posted what you need. Um, I also think sped chairs have a really important role and I spoke actually at that diet at the podium last year about the importance of retaining sped chairs. Um and uh what can you tell me a little bit about how much time I recognize they have a very important role I think in in not just admin work and and setting up IP meetings and so forth but actually training and mentoring teachers. So can you talk about as as a rough percentage how much time do you
098think sped chairs are spending training and mentoring teachers versus doing administrative work and and is that appropriate and and what what else do you need from us to prove that? >> So thank you Mr. down. And I think as with many topics, it probably ranges a little based on the context of the school. Um, but if I had to make a guess, I know Dr. Prescidio, uh, the instructional services team meets regularly um, with all of our special ed department chairs. So, what would you uh, say versus training versus sort of more administrative tasks? Yeah, I think I I'd probably want to collect a little bit more perspective before I would, you know, try to attribute a number to that. And I do think it varies based on um the staff in that particular building.
099So, if a special education chair works in a building where there are a lot of new teachers, first year teachers, um then that individual is going to spend a lot of time coaching, mentoring them, but also running IEP meetings, helping write IEPs, right? So, if you have a more veteran staff of teachers, there's going to be less of some of those more administrative roles and more opportunities for professional development and coaching. But when you have newer teachers, there's a lot of procedures in special education world. And my wife's a special education teacher, there's a lot that goes into supporting and coaching and mentoring the new teachers as well. >> I appreciate it. Appreciate all the work that your wife does. Um, I want to talk a little bit about um UDL was mentioned earlier. um
100how are we implementing this without reducing our standards? And I'll take it go back. >> So I think that universal design for learning is intended absolutely to not reduce standards. Right? The point is to maintain high expectations often requires high support. Um I often use the example of the stairs going into the building or the ramp going into the building after a snowstorm. And I can use snow now. I'm kind of getting past it. Um but universal design for learning says that um you would plow or shovel the ramp before the stairs. And often we shovel the stairs first, but if we shovel the ramp first, everyone can get in the building. So it doesn't change the expectation that we want everyone to get in the building. We maintain that expectation, but there's a a
101different path that we can move. So universal design for learning enables access to the curriculum and to the learning and it really deepens often and enriches um the conversation and what happens in the classroom. But I I appreciate the question >> Mr. Moon. Uh thank you madam chair. Uh thanks for the presentation again. I'll be supporting the motion because you have provided sufficient data information also strategies that you know we should be you know we are using and we should be using to meet our goals. With that said and also uh we have spent board spent large amount of time at the work session to discuss this. There are a couple of things I forgot to ask at the time maybe I should have done. Uh I missed a a Mr. Dana mentioned about video
102targets for inclusion and and uh just like he I wonder whether whether state targets do you know where those targets are coming from? Are they are they researchbased or or or you know I'm not sure I don't know if these are federally set by IDEIDA which is my suspicion. We had targets in my last state as well. Uh Dr. Presidio or you're shaking your head. So I think they are federally set. >> Uh if if let's say okay if they're federally set I I mean do I just automatically assume that they are legitimate valid and research game based targets? >> Well I I think we have to believe that there was something that generated these targets. >> If Dr. precedia could provide whether that is the case or it's just a number thrown out by
103a bureaucrat somewhere. I would love to know. >> Yeah, I would say that there's a really strong evidence base for inclusion in terms of the outcomes for students with disabilities learning in the general education setting. A sense of belonging, um a sense of academic performance increases uh are associated with inclusion, less discipline issues. Uh so the federal government has established basically goals for states to move towards more inclusion but the actual numbers are more calculated. >> Yes Dr. I don't I don't doubt about the first part and my question as to the actual number. >> Yeah the numbers are I'm not going to say arbitrary but they're more sent to have incremental increases at the state level to continue to raise the expectation for school divisions. Uh, same thing goes with actually a slide number
104seven dealing with slide number seven. Did I get that wrong? >> Maybe slide eight. >> I got that wrong. Slide number hold one second was about a survey data. Survey data. It's not it's a five. Uh I see different numbers right percentage right there about how our students answer their experience on the survey. For example, 81% feeling they belong at school and you know different numbers for other categories etc. uh the question that I have uh or difficulty that I have is I don't know how to interpret this when someone says 81% is that is it really good bad or does it have to be 100% or well that's impossible so >> so this >> hard hard to interpret those numbers whether I should be satisfied or never satisfied unless it's 100 >> well I
105I think that one could argue we would want every child to feel a sense of belonging and have positive peer relationships and positive teacher student relationships. So I think we're going to continue to work to make sure if it's it all possible that 100% of our students would be reflected in the data. Having said that, this is the first time we've done the survey. So this is really our baseline. So, I would hope next year that we would see an increase uh year-over-year uh in the positive percentage area. Um I don't know that uh was it Orsy that developed the survey, our um research group within the division. So I I feel that um that the data is accurate but to your point I you know it it just sits on its face at this
106point because it's >> if you could get a thoughtful response not that your response is not thoughtful but from as to uh since the other one who has developed the survey and you know sharing with us and what the survey data showed you know what you actually shooting for as question. >> Yes sir. >> One last question is has to do with absenteeism. I think I uh expressed my sentiment about this at the work session. Even though we may be may be doing better than other school districts with 11.9% you know to me almost 12% you know missing at least 18 days of a school whether excused unexcused that's still alarming to me alarming to me. And if you could also uh could uh you know because that includes both excused or unexcused. If you
107could >> you know segregate the data to show us if you were if you excluded all the excused absence what they would show. >> Yes sir. We'll check. >> Thank you Mr. Moon. Mr. McDaniel. >> Thank you. Um Mr. Danon somewhat took the wind out of my sales on his questions around inclusion, but kudos to you. Um, I was at the Ark breakfast this morning and I had a constituent come to me and there was some critiques around some inclusion programs at the West Springfield pyramid. So, I'll be handing those off to the very capable hands of either Mr. Dan, Miss Anderson, or Miss St. John Connie depending on which constituent that may be. But um teeing off of Mr. Frisch's comments around the the bullying rates uh of the LGBTQ community, are we tracking
108data on bullying rates on our immigrant community? >> I think we're tracking bullying rates period. So, um I'm looking at Dr. King to note. I I think part of part of the answer to the question is we don't track who is an immigrant versus who's not because that's not information um that we request. So we don't really have that level of information uh available to us. But we do track bullying data for all students. So we could um you know I could certainly have Dr. King provides some responsive documents. >> No, that's fair because obviously and it was alluded to in the conversation around the LGBTQ community um the national rhetoric and right now the national rhetoric around our immigrant population and community, our our neighbors and our friends um is just as salient. So
109if we're seeing spikes in trend data based on what available data we have, if we're seeing spikes or trends around that, we need to be very cognizant of that. um you there was some conversation around absenteeism rates and chronic absenteeism rates and I'm kind of wondering do we know if I mean do we have any way of kind of I guess not predicting but projecting chronic absenteeism based on certain actions that we can take or are there ways to clamp down on that or are there any best practice to clamp down on that? economy. I know we put a lot of work across the division the last couple of years around chronic absenteeism, but what is the data showing us with respect to that? >> So, I think that it's um there are seasons that
110are more predictive than others uh because it includes both excused and unexcused absences. There are certain times of the year families, for example, take vacation or perhaps leave to go um to events or um so those can be somewhat predicted. I think that um we have flu seasons, right, where we can predict certain um I'm coughing on Q, but I don't have the flu. Um where we can predict um more absences, right, when we have um flu season and that type of thing. Uh we've do put in strategies like double back busing in some cases to um make sure that we are um having students u attend school. I think the sometimes it's just the like when does the sun come up like there's darker days tend to I think sometimes um it's harder to
111get out the door for some students. Um I don't know if there any other predictive pieces. I do I do believe though I have an answer on the if we took excused and unexcused out. Um so if I could let Miss Neil share that then we could answer that question Mr. Moon um about the unexcused versus excused. >> Yes Dr. Reed. So when we looked at our students who were chronically absent last year um of all the absences um about 70% were excused and about 30% were unexcused. So does that mean out of OB? >> Hold on. I can put you on a go back. >> Yeah. So I think when you get down to predictive analytics, Mr. McDaniel, if 70% of the 11% are excused, the campaign of explaining why school's important is, you
112know, one of our biggest preventive measures. I think there are still families that don't understand that an excused absence still counts against the school or the division. And on the ex on the unexcused absent side of the house, um would an example of that be, you know, taking a day off or, you know, instead of going to an early release day, leaving early and just taking the entire day off, that would be an example of an excused absence. >> Well, if there was, it would be unexcused if there wasn't an excused reason to take the day off. Like there are um definitions of excused and unexcused absences. I think unexcused would be more likely as a parent, you think that your student at your little panda has gone to school, but indeed your little panda
113has chosen not to. Um, >> or if I said, you know, my little panda um, you know, we wanted to pull her out of school because we assumed that this day was a holiday. >> Well, that would probably be excused, right, as an absence. Actually, we're probably not going to go through all the um >> I was just curious as conversations continue to evolve around days on and days off, which this board is >> going to be getting into soon >> um with respect to calendar. But anyway, another topic, middle school, after school programs. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of maintaining that program and it hits on all the topics we're discussing tonight. um inclusion, you know, anti-bullying, engaging kids, social emotional learning. And that's an example of one of those programs that is
114a reasonable cost but a high impact. And as we continue to go through this budget conversation and my role as vice chair of the budget committee, I'm keeping that program first in front in my mind. And you know, the cost is the cost. We have to maintain that program. I've talked to constituents from teachers and administrators to parents to kids themselves to shop owners. Everybody in our community wants this program to be maintained and that drills right into this presentation tonight. So that's all my comments. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. McDaniel. Dr. Anderson. >> Um thank you. Just kind of picking up on um the conversation regarding chronic absenteeisms. just something struck me that I would love to learn a little bit more about um because I know we did some of that data
115dig um dive a few years ago. I would also wonder in terms of do we see more um absences whether it's excused or unexcused around um holidays that fall into in the middle of the week or um early release days. So if that's something you could procure, I would definitely love to um get that information. >> I think we have that data, Dr. Anderson, if we We can follow up on that. >> Oh, we can follow up. Yeah. >> Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. And just kind of reflecting back on, you know, what was shared earlier regarding um creating safe spaces for our students and ensuring that we have the same opportunities and access for our students. And I shared this at meeting managers earlier this week. Um we see this in terms of the belonging
116of students. And I would gander to say that if I'm if my kid is in the 19% that doesn't feel as if they belong, then it's a problem. Um 81% won't be enough because it all depends on your perspective and who's being impacted by it. Um, as I mentioned earlier this week during my meeting, manager's meeting, we have discrepancies in all places and safety and belonging and um, bullying and performance academically and inclusion and there's a lot of battles that have to be taken by various personnel whether it be parents or others to include that to ensure that their children have, you know, they're on the right side of that data set. Um but we can't legislate our way through some of these um expectations because our schools are microcosm of the community, good, bad,
117and ugly. And sometimes we do have staff that don't see our kids in the way we'd like for them to be seen. whether it's uh a a gender issue, whether it is a racial issue, whether it is a cognitive issue, I I just wonder how do we get to that place where we how do we attack those softer skills of compassion and and understanding? We could write a number of things. And I think an easy an easier place where you've seen some success with that is with algebra 1 and and um at the middle school level x number of kids you've got some data that you're going to look at and we're going to move kids. So we've been able to see that evidence of that effort. We've seen that impact very quickly but we're
118not seeing it in some other places. Um the data that Mr. Fris referred to it's very similar year in year out. the disproportionality data, it continue to stand year in year out. There's a lot of evidence of effort, but there's not an awful lot of evidence of impact because again, it requires a little bit more than the expectation to get people to see our kids differently. And I wonder how could we begin to tackle that piece, those softer skills that can't be dictated as easily. >> Yes, ma'am. So I think it depends on the data point we're looking at, right? I think that the uh for example the chronic absenteeism um the data in the aggregate demonstrates significant improvement. When you break the data down and look at different um groups within the data, it
119shows improvement but not um a completely closed gap. So I think that we're continuing to make progress. We're not there yet. I think some of the strategies that um are being implemented have not been implemented long enough to show the progress. I think about the uh disproportionality work Dr. King's team is doing, the cohorts of schools they've worked with, the new matrices they've developed. It's going to take a year or two to see the benefit of that work. Um, but I think it's solid work and it's work that's more aligned and more focused than it's ever been, I think, in that area. Uh, the training that's been done with administrators in the last two years around that topic is has been more focused um and strategic than it has been in quite a while. So
120I believe that when we are aligned with our purpose and our expectation and people have the training necessary, we will start to see um that progress accelerate. >> I'll take a go back, please. I think that was my time. >> Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Miss Marin. >> Yes. So this strategic plan was um set out by the prior board in uh July. thought well when you arrived July 2022 you arrived and it was such a great process and we worked through it and we had the strategic plan in 2023 and so here we are you know here seeing the fruits of that labor and knowing what's impactful over time and the strategies and we have to go ahead and I'm totally for it I am not suggesting we rethink our data collection but what I
121have come to realize is that things are different now than they were in 2023 like really different our you know employment our our federal ederal workforce has been dismantled. We have parents, you know, in different working situations. We have a different political environment. And I just find myself wondering like when I think about the themes we talked about tonight, um the middle school theater and other theater, uh the calendar, some of these things, what can we how how are we going to address these big things? And just like I'm aware through my own street data, so not the quantitative data, but through street data, more kids than ever are entering school disregulated. They might not have the um you know readiness for school that we would hope. Families need more support, especially with the employment
122issues. It's hard for parents to volunteer in PTAs. I I hear so often that PTAs can't get quorum. People just are not connecting in that way. And the technology is impacting kids more than we thought. So, you know what I'm wondering is when did the board and the superintendent have a conversation about the systemic adjustments that could alleviate some of the pressures? You know, more than one thing like, you know, the schedule of our secondary courses. We talk about theater. It breaks my heart that kids have to choose whether it's theater or music or band or chorus and and computers or a world language. I mean, that schedule is just it it really suffocates that opportunity. How could we adjust that? That's a big thing, right? that could probably alleviate a bunch of things. That's
123belonging and that's getting, you know, the kids involved in the arts. We know that helps grading and our student rep advocates for this all the time. There is not clarity still with grading and it's causing a lot of stress on our high school kids and it's hard for them to feel like calm because it's not clear. You know, the calendar, look, parents have voiced clearly that they need the school division to help by providing a stable calendar that prioritize five days a week of instruction. You know, we have to be able to listen and adjust our plans in the face of significant community needs. It's okay. That was 2023. We're basing our decisions. Things change and especially how does the strategic plan reflect the society altering work of AI because technology is bringing the kids
124in in a different mindset. So absolutely we have to monitor you know chronic absenteeism and you know we need to work towards inclusion and universal design for learning. Some of these bigger things I don't hear us talking about and I think they could solve some, you know, they are part of the solution and we can't just keep focusing on these four goals that we set three years ago. I think our April 24th retreat is a prime time to really talk about. Is there one of these things we really want to dig deep and and start to chip away at some solutions? >> Thank you, Miss Mayor. I'm going to go ahead and take a quick turn and then we've got some people that would like to go back. I think we need a Jeopardy for
125acronyms, like a a a game. I think that it would help like solidify all of them in my brain for sure because I have all the Army acronyms too and all the federal government ones. So, it becomes lots of the same ones over and over again. Um, the cool part is is that if you ask any kid in our school, they can tell you the definition of bullying. They know from from like first grade, they 100% understand what it is. And what I see happening more than anything is that I think our adults have forgotten what bullying looks like. So I hope that parents can kind of demonstrate the right behavior. Um I also would hope that our national leaders could do the same thing. Unfortunately, we're in short demand for that as well. Um
126if we are going to be in the process of disagregating data, because I like data just as much as the rest of us. um when we get to that um excused absences because of the amazing portal that we have now that we tell why kids are going to be gone and I know that it's self-reporting so I get it but I would love to know how many kiddos are out because of medical because I do think that even though we are at the t at the other side of co many of us are concerned about sending our kids including me I'm you know you're constantly as a parent trying to make that decision whether or not you send your kiddo And I know the division's doing a ton to try to help um make those
127decisions, but we've got pneumonia going around right now. We have bronchitis hitting hard everywhere. And I just worry that I think that's a little bit about what I see going on. I think that our chronic absentee rates are definitely headed in the right direction. Um but I always worry about that medical portion. So I would love when we're pulling since we're already going to be doing it. Um I would love to to know if we could how many of those are from um medical absences. So um that's all I had to say, but I'm gonna throw back to a few people. We're going to kick it off with Mr. Dan and Fo back. >> Thank you very much. Um I'll talk a couple minutes about a couple seconds about belonging and then get back to
128inclusion. But um I'm really grateful you've all started measuring this. Um, and I'm really glad that my colleague, Miss Maron, just brought up the effect of AI and and technology because I I've shared before that it's having the effect of of isolating and dividing people. And so, um, it's even more important obviously that we track this measure. Um, you know, I want to point out too as we look at the numbers that nationwide from what I've seen that the number is about 50% of kids feeling like they belong in school. Um, so 81% is really good. Um, I do want to take a moment just recognize that if we're talking about, you know, a class of 30 kids, though, 80% that's five or six kids that feel like they don't belong. Um, and I I
129I recognize this is not a knock. I recognize that it's very difficult work, but I I do want to lift that up that, you know, we we can't forget about those kids and and I know that we have an amazing school system that's pushing forward to get to 100% on that. Um, talking a little more about UDL, um, what opportunities are there for teachers to collaborate and share UDL resources with each other and specifically not just resources, but actual lesson plans and things like that, recognizing how busy teachers are? Um, you know, if I'm a 10th grade English teacher, um, how easy is it for me to get, uh, full-on lesson plans that I can implement in my my classroom? So, it's a great question and I know um in meeting with uh teachers that's
130often an ask, right? How do we share resources across the county if we're using the same tier one curriculum and um we want to differentiate materials? Of course, they're differentiated uniquely to the children within that classroom, but I do know that we've talked about some kind of repository. Um I do know that um CLTs, the collaborative learning teams uh are ways where grade level teams or content uh teams do connect to provide um shared work and goals. But uh Dr. Presidio, you want to talk a minute about sort of how what is our support for teachers to differentiate materials for UDL? >> Yeah, I think for UDL, a few things I would say. We're we're doing divisionwide professional development. So we've devoted a significant amount of time of division directed professional development to UDL. And
131we try to in those opportunities plan collaboratively with teachers. So it's not just something that's coming from central office staff, but highlighting teachers that are invested and expert experts in the work. So that's one way to showcase successes. Another thing that we're doing in our inclusion work is we have our schools working in three different phases. So instead of saying everybody's going to be on the same timeline to do this inclusion work because it's so intensive in terms of training and changes to systems, we started with a group of schools that is in their first year of implementation this year, the phase one schools, but those schools are already sharing practices, resources, hosting school visits from for staff from around the county to learn about what they're doing. And then we do summer curriculum development
132projects and instructional services as well. And what that work looks like is we bring in teachers and pay them to work to develop lessons and materials to be able to share with their colleagues. So there's a lot of different ways that we try to do that. I think it is challenging though because, you know, in a large school system, you're never going to be able to, you know, access all of the great things that are happening in schools. But we're trying to find opportunities for uh teachers to showcase what they're doing, share what they're doing with their colleagues, and facilitate that as best we can. So, if I'm a an 11th grade social studies teacher, how would I how would I get access to those resources if I'm if I'm not at one of those
133um for schools? >> Yeah. So, we I mean we curate those resources by content area and by grade level and instructional services and we put those together in what we call our planning and pacing guides. So, those have units and lesson plans that have been co-developed uh with central office staff and with uh like I said, teachers that work through summer curriculum development projects and those are all available through our learning management system. >> I want to ask Miss Neil also to just pop in with a little moment here. >> Yeah, I just want to add we also launched um micro credentials this year. Um, and so one of our my credentials is on universal design for learning. And so it's six modules that our teachers can sign up to take. Um, and one of
134those modules is focused in on lesson planning. >> Thank you. Um, little technical question here. Um, what is the data point that's being used for inclusion? Is it coming from students IPS or is it something else? >> I believe it would come from the IEPs, but um, I don't know if there's an additional data point. Uh, Dr. Prescidio. You're asking about the data that we shared tonight on the VDOE indicators. Yeah, that is derived from individual student IEPs and then aggregated up um till we ultimately get to the division reporting level. >> Yeah. >> Um I I appreciate it. I'll I'll just end with this. So, I'm I'm going to continue to push for inclusion. Um I'm really grateful that my colleague brought it up today as well. And I know my my predecessor, if
135she's watching, is hopefully proud of us for for continuing to push this. But um and I I think we have a shared agreement from everybody I've talked with that inclusion is great, but it only works if it's done right. And so um looking forward to continuing the conversation how we can do that. Thank you. >> Yes, sir. >> Excellent timing. Mr. Moon, >> just one quick follow up on the 70% on absenteeism. uh when you say 70% is that is that 70% of the universe of that absences right there uh excused is that what you meant or >> so so Mr. Of all the students who were chronically absent last year, 70% of those absences, so the universe of those absences were excused. And again, those are as reported. >> So, so okay, understand that,
136you know, if you just if we exclude those excused absences and just count unexcused absences toward absentism, it could go drastically down. It could be even zero. Thank you. I mean, that's what I want you to know. Thank you, >> Dr. Anderson. >> Thank you. Unfortunately, whether you're absent because you're excused or unexcused, it is still treated the same way. I think it's just more an internal structure. Um, just two last things. Um, one, just kind of circling back to the um, inclusion data. Again, I it's great work and it has to be done, but I've struggled and if you remember Dr. Presidio. We talked about this two years ago when those targets were set and I wondered how do you set up a target on things that are so individualized and you have different
137rotations of kids throughout the schools um you know year in year out. It just seems as if it kind of usurps a little bit the individualization part of the IEP. But that's just a wondering I wanted to share the question that I do have. I think it is slide number 12 if you could bring that up. Um, you did a very nice job, I believe, of sharing the strategies. Much appreciated. Um, definitely do a great job of sharing the data. What I'd like for you to talk to a little bit more if at all possible with the data that shows up on this page, this is the out of school suspensions. What are the root causes that you and your team have been able to um to find that resulted in the over representation of
138black students here and students with disabilities. So that would be Dr. King's uh team in terms of the disproportionality work. Thoughts on root causes? I know you guys have been meeting uh with principles and uh school-based staff. >> Dr. Reed, my team is preparing a report around the first semester discipline which encompasses this data and I'd like to add that piece to it. So, give us some thoughts after we review the data because I don't want to misspeak tonight. >> Okay, good enough. because I know we have strategies, but I'd like to get a better understanding of what got us here because that would allow me to evaluate whether the strategies are meeting the issue. >> Thank you. >> Okay, seeing no others, I'm going to go ahead and call for a vote on the
139motion which will shortly be on the screen. All those in favor, Mr. Fresh, Mr. McDaniel, Mr. Meline, Miss St. John Cunning, Miss Lady, Mr. Dannon, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, Miss Marin, and myself. That is unanimous for all board members. Thank you. Agenda item 7.04, action item, advanced academic AAP center at North Springfield Elementary School. I call on Mr. Dannon for a motion. Thank you very much. I move that the board accept the staff staff recommendation to open a new advanced academic center at North Springfield Elementary School starting with grade three in school year 2026 to 2027. I further move that the board accept staff's recommendation that the North Springfield AP center serve students eligible for full-time AAP from the following schools. Annadel Terrace, Bradock, North Springfield, Columbia, Mason Crest, and Wayne Oak Elementary
140Schools. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Mr. Dan, would you like to speak to your motion? >> Yes. Thank you very much. Um, first, I I'm excited that for this to be the first official motion I make on the board, and I I really want to start by thanking my colleague, Dr. Anderson, for all of your work on this. Um, I recognize that this has been a yearslong effort. and and and I also recognize that there's um other inequities and and challenges to deal with at North Springfield and in that area given the um break up of middle school um space issues and so forth. But um I think this is a great obviously a great step. Um as I shared last week, Anidel High School is a really
141excellent school and um I'm glad to play a very very small part in helping open up a full-time elementary AP center in that in the Anidale pyramid. Um, as I shared, the proposal recommends establishing a new full-time AP center at North Springfield um, beginning next year uh, to better align services within the pyramid. And, and I say this as a as a dad of a kid who is attending an AAP center out of his normal pyramid. Um, and it really it'll help reduce student transitions. It'll keep advanced learners with their peer cohorts as they progress to middle school. Um, and then these reduced transitions um, also mean less transportation for students, which is can save time and money. Um, and I know again this is going to help fix the issue whereby students need to
142jump around in and out of the Annadel pyramid um and promote uh more intact cohorts and have better educational outcomes. Um, I also want to add um as aside that having spoken with a with a number of educators and arts and and now the superintendent team that um our AAP materials are really great. People love them um and want to have access to them and if I'm correct they're they're open to everybody um uh in some fashion. So, um, I wanted to share that and again, I'm very grateful for all the work that's been done to this point. >> Dr. Anderson. >> Yes. Thank you. Um, firstly, I do want to say thank you to the community because that community, I remember back to 2019, um, before I was even on the board. This has
143been their advocacy for a middle school center and for an elementary center in their pyramid. Um, I'm glad that six years later, both of these things are well, I guess if we passed tonight, both of these things would have come to pass. And it was um really lovely to see at the community meetings that were held in February that parents were um the community members that came, it wasn't whether or not this should be done, it's whether or not their schools should be included. That was the advocacy. Um we did not see it here during the um um public hearing because no one came. Uh but the question was please make sure that you include our schools and for various reasons. Um I do want to say a huge thank you to the team that
144came to both of these meetings and did this in fairly short order. Um Dr. Prescidio, Dr. Boyd, Dr. Mahoney, uh Dr. and I know there's others um that came to those meetings that I might be missing, but I do also want to highlight the facilities team because they did all of the work with getting the data, ensuring that the space was available and doing that calculation not once, not twice, but multiple times. There were many, many, many scenarios. This was one of the the cases where the work behind the scenes on this was a lot. and it looks nice and clean and easy here, but I think that's due to the efforts of Dr. Prescidio and his team as well as the facilities folks. I also do want to say thank you to um the
145principal at North Springfield because she also had her team um come and present during those moments and it really gave a lot of comfort to the community that was there that their children will be well very very well taken care of. Um, if again this comes to pass, the Mason district will now have two elementary AAP centers and two middle school AAP centers in region six will have one middle school AP center and the Annadel pyramid will have one of each. Again, the proximity to the Bradock district with the back and forth really served as a huge barrier for our students. Um, and I think we will be um, very well served with this new center. And I can't thank enough the team for getting this done very, very, very quickly. This was something that
146was put on to their plate, their already full plate um, very recently and were able to get here to have a very thoughtful um, approach and I'm really looking forward to see how this impacts so many of our schools. This will hopefully as well reduce that path of students who go into Glasgow because once they get into that pyramid they prefer to stay um because we are now moving all of Mason Crest into PO. It makes it a very easy and seamless transition. There are so many positives that I could spend the next 10 minutes talking about that but I won't. But I do want to say thank you so much to Dr. Pilio and team. >> I just want to take a thank you Dr. Anderson but I just want to take a brief
147moment here. Um, first of all, the AART at North Springfield is a close personal friend of mine and she is absolutely thrilled about this. So, I am I know she will do an amazing job and I am super excited for her because she w is she was very very excited to hear that this was a possibility. Um, the other thing that I want to say is we need more we need to look at our other pyramids that don't have AAP centers so that we can keep kids with their cohorts as they're moving. So, as we look towards the middle school work that we're going to be talking about in a few weeks, I want us to continue to look for the connections in those in those um pyramids as well. So, I'm excited about this.
148Uh Mr. McDaniel. Nope. Okay. Seeing no others, we're going to go ahead and take a vote for the motion that's on the screen. All those in favor, that is Mr. Fr, Mr. McDaniel, Miss Marin, Mr. Mavine, Miss St. John Cunning, Miss Lady, Mr. Dannon, Mr. Done. Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, and myself. That is unanimous for all board members present. Agenda items 7.05, action item, motion regarding athletic facility naming rights. I call on Mr. McDaniel for a motion. I move that the school board direct superintendent to draft a proposal for pursuing naming rights opportunities for FCPS athletic facilities by July 2026 in accordance with schoolboard policy 8170 and that the proposal be discussed at a future school board work session. >> Do we have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Mr. McDaniel, would
149you like to speak to your motion? >> Um, I would. So, we know that we're in challenging fiscal environments and what this motion is designed to do is designed to take policy 8170 uh which was recently updated in October of 2025. Um, and it's to put that policy to use. Um, in my view, this is a low-risk, high yield, lowcost, high yield move that asks the superintendent her team to go back, take that policy and look at how we can potentially monetize our athletic facilities. And we already do that. If you go into a football field, for example, and pretty much, I think any stadium in this county, you're going to see signs all across the fences of corporate sponsors. um we're facing a pretty significant maintenance backlog and you know the revenue generated on
150this if there's any revenue generated on this could help to offset that. Uh my my staff uh at my request did some research and this is very common across K12 education systems across the country. But the one data point we have close to us here in Fairfax is in Arlington County where they received $10 million. $10 million to name one aquatics facility by a large corporation. $10 million is a lot of money. I want to remind everyone that we're spending right now out of operating cost $13.5 million on maintenance. So if we can put into place revenue streams that can free our operating dollars from maintenance um we can put that money into the classroom. And I think this is a part of a broader conversation in terms of revenue diversification. What I want to
151emphasize here is you know I was I was talking to someone earlier today and they were like well do you want to put patches on kids and things like that? Like no we're not turning things into NASCAR. Be very clear about that. What we're doing is we're basically saying, "Okay, to the people that would pay money to put a sign on the fence of a football field, would you pay more money to put a bigger sign on a football field?" That is it. So, I'm looking forward to the conversation and hopefully the passage of this motion and then ultimately in July of 26 reviewing this and trying to tackle and chip away at some of the maintenance backlog that we have. Thank you. >> Mr. Dun, would you like to speak to your second? Yes,
152thank you. Uh, when I was growing up, I played T-ball and, uh, I wasn't known as, you know, the Lions or the Tigers. I was known as Ben's Welding. It's because there was a local business called Ben's Welding and it sponsored our team. Uh, we wore the t-shirts proudly and we got to play T-ball because of Ben's Welding. That's why we had the uniforms. That's why we had the equipment. Um, and there was no objection at all because Ben's Welding was a perfectly legitimate business. And the nice thing is, uh, it built a connection between the local business community, right, and and and the sports teams. And I think too often in Fairfax County, uh, we keep an armslength relationship with local businesses. And uh we need to we need to bring them in. We
153need to bring them in because uh there's no reason to keep them at arms length in an era. I mean we we've all grown up. I'm I turned 50 years old the other day. I've been wearing Nike and other branded gear. Ocean Pacific. Do you remember that? Um for our entire lives, right? We are proud of our brands. We are all walking advertisements. We watch how many ads on our cell phones each day. and and so to think that schools can't, you know, engage in some kind of advertising whenever you go to any athletic or sports facility in this county, you'll see, you know, the boosters have all these advertisements all around from from their sponsors. So, so I'm not sure what the philosophical or ethical objection would be to uh leveraging similar types of
154relationships which could also be the foundation not just for uh money to improve our infrastructure which who has an objection to that? but could also be a foundation for expanding those partnerships to for example uh have apprenticeship programs, have money for our career and technical education where we get not just money but equipment and and volunteer time. Right? These are all part of natural um economic relationships that exist in almost every other state. Fairfax County seems to be the exception rather than the norm. And at a time when we have a $400 million deferred maintenance backlog, um we need to be we need to be smart. Uh PG County, just across the river, uh they uh allowed their deferred maintenance backlog to grow into literally billions and billions of dollars. We don't want to reach
155that crisis point, but our deferred maintenance backlog is growing 8% per year. If you compound that, we know interest is our friend when it comes to savings. it's not our friend when it comes to deferred maintenance. Uh so we need to bring in more revenue sources especially that don't involve raising property taxes. Right? So this all upside from my perspective and uh this motion doesn't uh take any direct action except to study it more closely and to build on potential partnership opportunities. So for all those reasons I thank um my colleague for bringing it forward and I'm uh enthusiastically supporting it. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Uh, Dr. Anderson, >> thank you. And this schoolboard meeting was brought to you by Nike. >> I don't know. There's opportunities. Um, I I'm not against this motion at
156all. I just want a little bit of clarity. Um, which is this is to bring back a plan to which the board will then respond and give feedback and then determine what the action moving forward could be. Is that correct? Yes. >> Thank you. Because I've had a couple of people like, "Oh my goodness, this is a thing." And I don't know the history upon which this has been founded in Fairfax County, but there's a couple of people in my community that have some questions that we are selling naming rights tonight. So, I want to make sure that they're clear. It is a plan upon which the board will review at some future date to make some determinations. Um and the only thing that I'd like to ask at for the consideration of this plan
157because we have you know disparities and inequities in a lot of other places whatever this ends up being this is going to be a collective pot not some individual school pot that that's what I would envision is this where well let me share it as a thought this is what I'd like for you to consider in the plan that this would be a collective pot rather some regional pyramid local kind of fund. I just wanted to make sure that that's um stated for the record. Um and I think that's it. Thank you, >> Mr. Mavine. >> Uh thanks. So I want to begin with a process question. So why is this coming to us at a regular board meeting as opposed to a forum? Schoolboard forums are where we bring motions for to bring items
158for a work session or >> if this is a procedural question then the reason is is because the policy was changed. So this is in direct correlation to the policy. >> Okay. I mean I I've never seen this handled this way before. I don't think this is how it should be done, but that's my personal problem. So um I'd be grateful for more clarity on that. Um so um this proposal um echoes of the past. So I think um in modern history and certainly Mr. Moon could speak to ancient history but in modern history I think the first time um this board looked at this was in 2009 um right after the uh great recession hit us right and so we looked at um park naming rights, school naming rights, all those kind of things
159back at that point. Um then um in the 2010s we looked at at this at least twice. Um we had several significant offers um to name stadiums. Um and I can't go into the details because they were close closed meeting discussions. Uh but um at that time the board decided not not to pursue this. Uh and um so there should be significant reports on the shelf about how to do this. So, I don't think it will take much work on staff's part to to bring us something to a future work session. Um, but I will say, you know, this will probably be the first time it's handled significantly in in the public. So, um, I'm certainly open to exploring this. I'm grateful to um, uh, Mr. McDaniel and Mr. done for bringing it forward. But
160again, I do have a process question and a a staff question just in terms of bringing things back from the past. Thanks, >> Mr. Moon. >> I don't want to talk about Asian times, but I can talk about a little more modern times 2009. Uh, thank you. Thank you. Uh yes at the time you know B spent many many hours discussing this particular naming policy naming policy we could not reach a consensus at the end of the day uh I'm sure superintendent can consult those you know documents somewhere stored maybe on the board somewhere uh and also I'm looking at the LT members upstairs there to see who might remember this Mr. Smith, Mr. Foster, Mr. procedure I think were there at the time when this was discussed that you know for example you know
161who can initiate this uh whether this is going to require community consent of the affected affected communities uh you know who's going to decide who's going to who's going to decide the amount and where the money will go and and then and then what can the money be used for and etc. All those we had really spent hours and hours and hours relatively debate but at the end of the day we could not reach a consensus. I am happy to look at this again and hope that we can reach a consensus this time around. Uh so I welcome another opportunity and thank you for bringing this motion. >> Mr. Fr. >> Thank you. I wasn't sure on how I'd move on this until uh Mr. McDaniel, Mr. done removed the language uh establishing the K
162McDaniel Matteo Dunn Memorial Badmitten Stadium. Uh so I'm appreciative that that's been removed. Um and I do appreciate the the thinking here to move this forward. I know that I think the last time this topic came up uh some of us heard from past board members who shared like Mr. Mave and Mr. Moon that uh the topic had had a lot of conversation previously. Um but it's a straightforward way of doing it. The governance manual talks about the different ways that board members can bring things forward and one of them is a forum, one of them is a motion, one of them is uh through the chair and vice chair at chair's meetings. So there's there's a specific section of the governance manual that speaks to that. And so I think it's unusual certainly to
163have something that uh directs um like superintendent action that isn't the result of of say a study or an analysis but it's not it's not outside the rules by any by any means and um we've certainly ended up there in the past as the part of discussions at the deis um you know I think the one concern that I would have in any of this is if we went overboard, but we can police ourselves. And if we get a sense that people are pushing for too much or that something has, you know, we we start hearing from families that it's gone too far or that some expansion of where we initially start seems like it's too much. Um, then we can always pull back. Right now, we're talking about athletic facilities. Um and so you
164know the policy itself is far more expansive than just uh athletic facilities. So um if there are concerns more broadly I think that policy probably has to be revisited again. I don't necessarily have those concerns. Somebody mentioned NASCAR. I would not even necessarily be upset about allowing uh uniforms to have patches on them or something. Uh maybe just one patch. Um, you know, whatever it takes to help defay the cost of these essential programs, um, I'm all in favor of. We talked a little bit this evening about the importance of middle school and high school theater arts and and, you know, performance arts. My my partner's teaching in three schools right now. And so anything we can do to bring extra money into these programs until the state steps up and meets its average, you
165know, commitment of funding. Um, I think we need to take advantage of this is one of those options. There are others and I'm working on something with Mr. Dunn right now that might bring additional resources. So there are different things that can be done to that end. Um, I appreciate the outside the box thinking and look forward to the superintendent bringing a proposal forward. Uh, and I I do hope that there are parameters around the types of institutions or entities or businesses that are permitted and and that we can vet that legally to ensure that uh we're not committing ourselves to anything that would reflect poorly on the school division. >> Thank you, Mr. Fresh. Um, Miss Lady, >> thank you. I appreciate the mover and seconder of this motion. And I think it makes
166great uh sense for us to look into revenue uh sources since we are just at the liberty of the state and our and our board of supervisors who um cares deeply about our public schools and and and certainly does their best but we need the state to do their part. So I think this is fantastic. someone as a three sport athlete in high school. Um, I think it's exciting, but I also am wondering if I think this every time I take off in a plane from Dallas that I the flight path goes right over Westfield High School and why can't we paint the top of that with an app, right? I mean, maybe there's an opportunity to expand this. So, if we're in a flight path, then we can, you know, maybe we can fund,
167we can we could even maybe a solar panel um um company might sponsor a roof for us. But anyway, uh I think this is great. Um and again, you know, obviously we need to be careful and and and work with legal around what we can do here and and which what what companies we might engage in some kind of relationship like this with, but um you know, I I think at this point we have to be nimble and creative around u finding money. So I appreciate uh my colleagues bringing this forward tonight. Thanks. >> Uh Mr. McDaniel for a go back. >> Well, Miss Lady spoke my love language as a pilot, which nobody knows I'm a pilot. Um, but I see rooftop ads all the time. So, possibilities, I suppose. Um, but I did
168neglect to thank Mr. Dunn for his collaboration and work on this in my original comment. So, thank you, Mr. Dunn, for that. Um, there's a concern that was raised by Dr. Randerson, which I'd agree with. think when the superintendent comes back, what I do not want to see and what I will not support when it ultimately comes back is certain schools or stadiums or facilities getting platinumplated services at the detriment of other schools in our county, but I will not support that. So, there has to be a way from the for the funding model as funds come in to figure out how to equitably distribute those funds. I completely agree with that. Um and and you know to to kind of tee off of some comments made in the 8170 policy there's a there's a
169part in here that says school names will reflect a welcoming respectful learning environment as outlined in our adopted one Fairfax policy. So I think this policy is good. I think is a great vehicle um for giving it right to the superintendent and saying go forth and do good and come back and we will then take action in July of 2026. So thank you for your support >> Mr. Dunn for a go back. I just want to mention that uh you know there are many school districts uh who have already engaged in this. Uh for example in Lowden Independence High School reached a deal with Prince Movers for the naming rights to its stadium and the deal was valued at 242,000 over 10 years. Um that's just one of many examples that you can find via
170Google Gemini or other AI devices. Um but I I think there are concerns that the public might have but they are readily resolved. I mean these are not new issues. Um you can exclude certain companies such as those involved in alcohol, tobacco, vaping, gambling from the scope of agreements. You can also include morality clauses so that if some company suddenly turns out to be engaging in fraud or other crimes that you can terminate the agreement and of course you can limit the term. You don't want to give permanent naming rights. You want to scope it five, 10, 20 years. Um and you know the value will be adjusted accordingly. But through that, through setting up those procedural safeguards, you can make sure that the school system is protected, right? And and narrow the scope. But
171if it's a welding company, that's a good candidate. I think that's just my vote. Anyhow, thank you. >> Okay, I have lots of lights still on and I don't know how many of those folks still want gobacks. Oh, look at Dr. Anderson. >> Yes, actually Mr. Dunn began to talk about some of the things I wanted to to talk about. what those parameters could potentially look like. Um, the only other question that I want to add into the mix for your consideration as you're developing this is who determines location? And by location, I don't mean, you know, where the scoreboard is located, but school X versus school Y. Is that dealer's choice or do we have a list of things that we will provide to whomever comes to us inquiring about this? Thank you. Thank
172you, Dr. Anderson. Seeing no others, we're going to go ahead and take a vote for the motion that is on the screen. All those in favor, Mr. FR, Mr. McDaniel, Miss Marin, Mr. Mavine, Miss St. John Cunning, Miss Lady, Mr. Dannon, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, and myself. That is unanimous for all board members. And we Nope, we're not. Agenda item 7.06, 06 Virginia School Board Association 2026 business honor role nominations. I call on Dr. Anderson for a motion. Um thank you. Um I move that the school board nominates Brightpot Pensky Automobile Automotive Group and Dreams Salon to the 2026 Virginia School Boards Association business honor role um which is to be awarded later this year. >> Is there a second? >> Second. Thank you, Miss Lady. Dr. Anderson, would you like to speak
173to your motion? >> Yes, briefly. I just wanted to take a moment to just highlight these two companies because we nominate um organizations and companies for what they provide for Fairfax County, whether or not they end up being awarded by VSBA. But it is our opportunity to highlight them and to celebrate their contributions to us. So, I just wanted to make sure that those companies were called out, you know, on record and not just through the consent agenda, just to really say thank you for their contributions to Fairfax County Public Schools. >> Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Miss Lady, would you like to speak your second? >> Uh, no. I think she did that quite eloquently. Thank you. >> Thank you. Seeing no others, I will go ahead and take a vote for the motion that
174Miss St. John Cunning, >> I'm sorry, my light was way over there. So, I just wanted to say that I'm very pleased to support um this motion because Dream Salons has done a wonderful job. And I know that I had the privilege of seeing their whole staff show up at Crestwood Elementary and give haircuts to little boys, each of who had their little appointment ticket and were in line to get it. Um and they partnered with um the the police department. So, it was the while the young men at Crestwood were waiting, the policemen were sitting there playing Uno with them and just building that rapport with the community. So, there was so much going on that was just wonderful. So, I'm very happy to support this because this is what bringing in businesses to
175our schools looks like and how they support our kids is amazing. And they're going to be doing girls at Lindbrook in the spring. >> Thank you. Seeing no others, we're going to go ahead and take a vote for the motion that's on the screen. All those in favor, Mr. Fr, Mr. McDaniel, Miss Marin, Mr. Meline, Miss St. John Cunning, Miss Lady, Mr. Dan, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Dr. Anderson, and myself. That is unanimous for all board members. And now we are going to take an honest to goodness 10-minute break. So, be back at 10:12. >> I didn't I didn't speak to a lot of things. I wanted to speak to you got to go to They were so cute. board members, please take your seats. Coming back together, I call on Dr. Reid for agenda
176item 8.01, academic matters. This evening, I'm excited to highlight the strategic role that our fine arts play in advancing student engagement, and academic rigor in Fairfax County Public Schools. Our fine arts program includes studies in the visual arts, theater arts, music, and dance across grades kindergarten through 12. These disciplines are integrated into our broader instructional framework and contribute meaningfully to students development of essential academic and durable skills. Here in FCPS, we believe that these fine arts are not peripheral offerings, but rather core components of a well-rounded education. In Fairfax, we believe that the arts are foundational, in fact, to developing the durable skills that our students need to thrive, particularly in today's world. Through visual and performing arts, students build creativity, crit critical thinking, problem solving skills, and persistence. Our commitment to early universal access
177ensures that every student, regardless of background, we're still Thank you. um has the opportunity to develop these competencies. Additionally, research consistently demonstrates that the arts participation strengthens literacy, numeracy, and executive functioning skills. In fact, often mathematics is uh viewed as the study of patterns and patterns um where they show up in art as well. So, our arts are both an academic discipline and a vehicle for broader student success. At the elementary level, we prioritize universal exposure to music and the visual arts. Every student participates, ensuring early access uh to structured arts instruction. And I say quite honestly, having um worked in other states, this is not always the norm to have the arts be a focus and accessible to every elementary uh child. Division supported initiatives such as instruments for all directly ensure equity of
178access for all of our young students. Additionally, our elementary students engage in rich experiential learning through annual music and art field trips as well as authentic performance and exhibition opportunities such as the all county coral festival and pyramid art shows. Summer enrichment opportunities extend learning beyond the school year as well. These early experiences build foundational skills, confidence, and artistic identity. At the secondary level, students pursue advanced art pathways, explore specialized interests, and participate in annual field trips as well. Secondary fine arts students have expanded opportunities for recognition beyond the classroom, including artifacts, cappies, musical performances, and competitions. In secondary arts classes, students learn to communicate complex ideas in their disciplines as well as documenting their creative processes in carefully curated portfolios. These portfolios reflect iterative cycles of critique, revision, and refinement, which are comparable to
179processes we find in research and development in other fields. Students also gain experience with industry standard tools, technologies, and software which strengthen their real world readiness. The durable skills developed, including creativity, critical thinking, and disciplined work habits benefit our students whether or not they pursue arts related careers. The fine arts also significantly expand access to advanced rigorous coursework within our high schools. Students have access to honors, advanced placement, international balora and dual enrollment opportunities across art disciplines. These courses are aligned to our honors framework and require engagement with extended standards, advanced repertoire, authentic assessments, and independent work. Currently, the data is on the board here. Currently, 33.8% 8% of high school students enrolled in fine arts courses participate also in weighted coursework which is an increase of 4% year-over-year. This growth reflects both strong student
180demand and expanded access. Fine arts directly advanced goal four of the strategic plan by increasing both availability of and enrollment in rigorous coursework. To illustrate the impact of these programs more directly, we will now hear from teachers and students in our advanced fine arts courses. Their reflections provide insight into how these experiences shape their academic growth, creative development, and future aspirations. So, Madame Clerk, if you would please uh roll tape. >> Academic and creative risk are the same. We employ the really the scientific method in the way that we approach our artwork. You test out some ideas. You give it a try. You fail. You reflect. You try again. You fail. You reflect. And then when you're happy with the process, then you show and you put it out there for people to see. People
181think about IB math, IB English. But IB dance. Well, how many students are interested in dance and would love that rigor in something that there's they're really interested in doing? So IB dance, IB art, IB theater, those type of classes offer that access. and prepare students for college and beyond just like any other subject matter. >> I am in IBM math and history and we do lots of research there and I wouldn't say that dance research wise it's any different. We have to always respect cultures and respect the dances they've made and these dances have a different meaning behind them. So you have to go and be super indepth with your proposals. If you don't get that assignment down academically, like you're not going to do as well in the class. And also the writing
182obviously you need to write a lot for your pieces. The way we have to do our digital portfolio too, that's like and because that helps with um like scholastic documentation for when you're do your college portfolios. I mean really I could use my digital portfolio as my college portfolio once I'm done with it. I think that they're really good for preparation for college classes in art. >> We start from year one with learning about dances and the why and then they start with learning globally into IB dance individually. What is your why? So that in an admission process is very helpful because they know that okay this student didn't just pull this out because they're trying to get in here. this is actually connected. They're actually connected to what they want to do. >> IB
183dance does specifically help me in being able to go in that process with combining psychology and therapy with dance. I've had a couple of schools who specifically saw that I was now a team captain of the dance team and I've been on it so long and they're interested of expanding and asking me more questions about dance and why I want to combine these two things and how it really like connects with each other. >> All of those things are 21st century skills. So again, even if they decide that they don't want to pursue dance as a career, they feel like they've still gotten something out of taking dance that they can use wherever they choose to go in life. The class really teaches personal commitment. It teaches time management. It teaches all the things that
184they're going to need to go off into the world if they wanted to start their own lawn mowing business. They'd know how to make their business card. They'd know how to create a image for it. they'd know how to go and talk about their work and receive feedback from people because that's part of our critique process. >> There always going to be due dates in everyday life, even after school. And learning how to take quality photos, how to submit professional statements about future work, >> measurements. >> Yeah, measurements, learning scaling and stuff like that. They're all useful everyday skills that you can just simply learn by being in art class. The dance studio has become a place where I can be myself. It's a basically a safe place for us where it doesn't feel uncomfortable
185to be vulnerable. So, um I'm joined this evening also by Mave Nash, Susan Silva, and Tara Taylor from our fine arts office. So, I appreciate them staying this evening uh to be a part of this presentation and also to provide any answers if um I need to phone a friend. So, in conclusion, following early universal exposure in elementary school, 65% of middle school students and 39% of high school students elect to continue in fine arts coursework. Students engage in authentic learning experiences and public performances that require preparation, discipline, and high standards of execution. These participation rates and outcomes demonstrate that students are choosing, challenging, meeting rigorous expectations and succeeding in advanced environments. As we continue to prioritize engagement and academic excellence across the division, fine arts programs are already contributing meaningfully to both goals. The
186evidence suggests these programs are fostering connection, sustaining commitment, and measurable achievement, which are outcomes aligned with our strategic plan. So, thank you, Madam Chair, and the board for our academic matters this evening. Thank you so much and thank you to our staff who hung around to get to this portion of the conversation. Uh Mr. Mavine. >> Great. Well, well, thank you to um uh Tara, Susan, and Mave for being here. We appreciate it sitting through these long meetings. Um so, for first question is um the slide stated that we've seen an uptick of 4% uh in the weighted arts classes. Um do we know what's causing that? That's a good development when I think we often hear that students are stretched for electives. >> So I think we have a theory here from uh Dr.
187Taylor or >> Dr. Silva, one of you come on up. >> We also put some honors weighted credit for our honors classes a couple years ago. It also increased that participation because students were getting a bump in some of their advanced arts coursework. Um, also the push for these advanced uh academic rigor has been a good push for us. But that's part of the reason that we also added those bumps or advocated for them is because our students wanted to have the opportunities to increase their rigor and their GPA in those studies. How are we similarly how are we seeing offerings around the county and things like IB dance, IB art, AP, you know, advanced art, those kind of things? >> How are we seeing them? >> Are are those opportunities expanding? Are they contracting
188uh at different schools? >> I I think what we heard also with middle school theater, we're having struggles sometimes with our elective offerings and enrollment in general across arts disciplines. So, I think the incentives with our students that like to be academically competitive, it's helpful to have these courses that are helping with their GPA are helping with their advanced um diplomas to then stay competitive as well as getting their arts high quality arts education. >> Great. Another question for you is um can you speak a little bit about how you're internationalizing our arts programs whether through IFA or other means? >> I'd like to welcome Mave to the podium. Um she's came to our office. She was actually my interim when I was out on maternity leave a couple years ago and then she stepped
189into the position of special um projects manager and runs the IFA program. She's done some incredible work with continuing the globalization and the global programs for IFA. Yeah, thank you so much for that question. Um, I'm happy to share. So, all of our curriculum uh have standards that are uh pertaining to global art. Um, and so um one effort that we are making to continue to expand that even outside of school uh during our summer arts enrichment camps in uh institute for the arts and elementary institute for the arts. We are working on introducing an international component. So, we are in the first stage of that plan. This summer, we're offering four new classes. A global arts survey, a global dance survey, a global theater survey, and a global music survey. Um, where students will
190be learning um Vietnamese water puppetry, um, Chinese traditional dance. Uh, and we are hoping to continue to expand that program to include opportunities for um, students to visit us from abroad and for our own students to study abroad as part of our summer enrichment camps. >> That's fabulous. Please invite us this summer to to see that that work ongoing. Um so a se separate issue is um all county chorus. So one question I've always had is why do not all of our elementary schools participate in all county chorus. This is something that should bring together all populations all all students and you know there are always a number of schools that are absent. >> That's a tough question Mr. Move. Um, I think we give the opportunities to teachers to participate as they see fit
191and we can continue to encourage all teachers to participate and help them find the ways to do so. >> Is it they just have too much on their plates and this is one one of the things so we need to think about >> or maybe various life reasons that particular year that might hinder them from doing it. They might be the only staff member at that school that can support it. They might have family demands. Right? So there are particular years or times that teachers are not able to participate in the work or the additional work to participate in that program. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> There may be way to pair pair schools so that >> students at multiple schools can work together to participate. >> Our elementary school teachers are also not currently
192compensated for the extra time that uh all county forest takes. >> Right. Yeah. So that's that's an issue. So thanks. Um I think last question for now is on um the Scholastic Awards. Um so uh earlier this year you shared with the board in a Friday letter um the the move away from Scholastic to um the new thing. Um and by the way we didn't get the invitation. So I'm sorry I was not there. I know a number of us weren't able to be there. Susan, you know, I would have been there if I could have been. Um but um can you speak a little bit about that transition and >> Right. I I will um I know Aaron Stratton was uh really central to that transition to move to something they now call artifacts
193uh which includes only Fairfax County uh students. I don't know if one of you have a more Susan. Yeah. >> Yeah. Unfortunately, um unfortunately with Scholastic we stepped away. there was a lot of um challenges with just the cyber security and so it was actually an opportunity for us to develop a program that really highlights what we do best in Fairfax County Public Schools and so we created our own program this year and it is aligned with our curriculum and the program of studies and everything that happens specifically in the art classrooms whereas Scholastic was also open to we were a regional affiliate as you know and so this just gave us an opportunity um to highlight what we do best that answer your question >> thank you >> Mr. Fresh >> thank you very
194good questions Mr. Exactly. Um, so one of the issues that I think has been present in a lot of these programs since the pandemic and to some extent before has been recruitment challenges. And there are a lot of different reasons that this happens. Some places you have strong programs from elementary through high school, so they kind of feed themselves and the reputations help. Sometimes a teacher who's been around for 20, 30 years leaves, retires, and things dwindle. And I've been thinking a lot about how we support teachers in that uh because they shouldn't be the victims of circumstance, right? Um and uh you know, I look at CTE for example, the tremendous care we go to to explain to parents the benefit. We have marketing campaigns around our CTE programs to convince parents that this
195is a great path for your kid. What can we do better to a support educators particularly those who uh are having recruiting challenges? the number of uh strings or choir directors etc that I hear basically you know going on the road to sell their wares at schools you know downstream from them in the hopes that these kids will arrive with an interest in their program you know you don't have a lot of other academic areas where that has to happen in order for you to keep your job what can we do to better support these educators in that work with best practices is off-the-shelf toolkits on how to do better recruiting, marketing from our communications department to families directly about the value of their kids being involved in uh choir and orchestra and band and
196drum and theater, all of the above, how it impacts the rest of their education. So even if you want your kid to be an engineer, it's really great if they're also learning to play an instrument, etc. >> So good questions. I think that there's a lot of pyramid work. I know many of you have attended pyramid uh performances where like all of the elementaryaries get together and then with the middle school so they start building those connections before uh class sign up. I know that different departments have communications teams embedded within them. Um instructional services I assume has some support for communications built into theart department. So I think the idea of maybe utilizing those uh people within ISD uh to create videos or create other uh communication I think those are all great ideas
197>> because at central office we know where these programs are struggling because we're looking at enrollment numbers and we know who is about to get the phone call about like hey how's their program go right so like we know who needs help do we help them without expecting them to reach out because they've got a million other things on their plate. And what can we do from a central location that doesn't further stress, you know, educators who are already stressed in just the general idea that these are programs that parents should be encouraging their kids to participate in? >> No, it's a great idea. I um Dr. Prescidio, thoughts on how centrally the arts department might u you know provide that level of support? Well, you're looking at the arts department in the auditorium right
198now. So, it's a small but mighty team who works incredibly hard to support every one of our uh instructors and the students in the program. And and we are trying to do our best there. But I I appreciate the line of questioning because we I do think have some opportunities to do more. One of the things that we're doing right now is partnering with our counseling department um to make sure that all the counselors and schools and our DSS's um are having conversations with parents and students about um all the positive reasons to actually uh take our courses. Um we've partnered uh again with uh our counseling department and teachers in the schools to try to create opportunities for students and families to come and see what some of these experiences actually look like. um
199so that they can hopefully make some authentic connections that way. I do think we need a more sophisticated marketing campaign though. We're not, you know, we're we're educators. That's not our strength. So, um we've got some room for improvement there for sure, particularly through social media and other means. So, that is something we're talking about. Uh but I think there's some untapped potential definitely with more direct marketing campaigns that way. >> Well, we've got a great communications team. I do have a couple really quick numbers questions. So on slide five, it says that there's been an increase in the advanced fine arts courses of 4%. Do we know if there's also been an increase in general fine arts participation? >> Not likely or we would have noted it, but I don't know if you have
200other data. >> I think right now we're struggling. We're we're struggling um across our arts disciplines. I I think to answer and to speak to what you're saying about recruitment. And one thing I would like to say that I I didn't say last week, I came to Fairfax County. I didn't grow up here, but I came here because of the incredible >> arts programs. And this was one of the few places in the United States I could become a theater teacher. I was a music kid growing up because we didn't have it. >> The school board over my 20 years here has been an incredible support in the value that you place in all of our arts. disciplines and you continue to represent that. So, thank you, Dr. Reid. You're one of the most supportive
201superintendents and she goes to all these shows and stays the whole darn time. So, we have incredible support with our district leadership in the arts. Right now, as I know many of you know, Robin being a DSS, Mr. Fris, your partner being in the arts, Mr. Moon and Ryan and all of you. Um there's many elective offerings that also have a lot of worth and then there's also a lot of pushes for academic rigor. So a lot of our performing arts teachers are finding that recruitment is becoming a big part in a lot of their job. Right? So I know with Dr. Presidio and Erin Stratton, our manager. We're looking at creative ways of how one we can centrally recruit like CT did such a great job of the open community meetings to increase the
202knowledge of all of our arts disciplines as well as creative ways for staffing. For an example, an idea discussed was possibly looking at our extracurricular programs that are not included in staffing for theater and how we might be able to make that a course option. I don't know if that's an option. It's just something we're thinking or to explore to find creative solutions. But there it right now it's hard for students to find room for all of the things and all of the things have value >> especially when they're getting pushed to do other things by a lot of external forces. And that 4% number is great. My big fear in all of it is one of the reasons that exists now is because it was a response to the other pressures of well my
203parents don't want me to take that because I can't get an extra GPA point. Right. Yes. >> So, if we know that it's grown by 4%, it'd be interesting to know if that has uh grown the program or not or if it's the same kids who are already in these fine arts classes who are just taking the advanced fine art classes. Um because we should want to see the overall number growing too, right? So, I think this is something I'm going to continue to focus on is what are we doing to support educators in the recruitment challenges. Um, and it'd be great to see some CTE style marketing around the benefits to the academic uh, you know, the the rigor that parents are after can be benefited from uh, these programs, too. >> And we're
204interested in the fine arts office and Aaron's doing a great job of getting that data. So, we're going to continue to work to provide all of you with that. But, thank you for your support. We really appreciate it. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Fresh. Uh, Mr. Moon. >> Uh, thank you. Thank you, Dr. Thank you Dr. Taylor. Uh I have a couple of questions. First of all, I'm going to start with the accessibility uh issue. A a especially for you know students who are interested in playing instruments but may not be able to afford to have their own instruments. I know that school system we lend instruments to students to be able to use but at the same time uh if my recollection is correct that we collect those instruments at the end of
205this career and those uh and so during those very precious summer time that students who do not have their own are unable to continue practicing or enjoying music with instruments of their choice. Is there a way for them to be able to continue using school systems instruments over summer? I know summer months may be you know time to refurbish repair and retune those instruments at the same time. Those are time where the students may have a more time to devote on music if they know instruments. Arena is the best resource or a music specialist on this, but I do know that they have worked in special circumstances with students who would like to retain those instruments. I'm sure that that's something that the team would continue to explore if that's a greater need. But I
206do not know how you know how widely that such opportunity existence of such opportunities known to students or with the with the families who are unable to provide their own instruments to their students. >> Right. And that and that instruments for all program is during the school year. I definitely think that our team in Katrina could look into options. >> I'm gonna go even further. I'm gonna go even one step further. >> Okay. uh you know my my own kids were fortunate to have their own private teachers to teach their instruments because I was not able to teach them at my home. Uh but there are many many students out there that who are unable to have have the similar opportunities have their own teachers to help them improve their skills. Do you think there's
207a way for us to help those students over summer especially I'm going back to the summer in a more you know reasonably more affordable way of doing it. >> Institute for the arts uh we have we are very proud to have brought back uh tuition support this summer. So we offer tiered tuition that supports students who qualify for free and reduced meals. Um we offer music classes. If a student wanted to, they could take a full day of four different music classes. And the camps do run 8:30 to 2, so it's a significant amount of time. Um, we have a beginner guitar class, a beginner keyboard class. We're going to be teaching a traditional uh Korean instrument this summer. Um, and then we have two uh sections of a class called Band Jam in which
208students bring their own instruments and they become part of a band and they rehearse together and then present something in the final showcase. For students who come to us and they don't have their instrument of choice, we help them procure that so that they can use it over the summer. >> Could you could you put all that information into writing and share with me and my staff? >> Yes. >> So that I can publicize >> those opportunities for community. One last question. This one probably goes to Dr. Taylor. >> Since uh Mr. be mentioned about or county chorus. Uh I've been going to county chorus for many many years. All wonderful every time is brings so much joy to me and I appreciate that and and however I don't know how you select the conductors.
209If you put for the last 30 years worth of conductors and see whether that pool of conductors is diverse. >> Well, that's a great question, Dr. Moon. >> Something for you to consider because I have not really noticed the diversity among conductors. >> That's a great question and Lauren Doff is our general music specialist who does such a great job at running that enormous event. I'll definitely ask her about that uh that question and we'll get you that information. Thank you. >> That's a great question. >> Miss Lady, >> thank you. Um perhaps my participation in sixth grade all county chorus all those years ago 40 plus is the reason that I have such a love for the arts. Um love IFA. Thank you for the shout out for IFA. Um, and I love how
210Fairfax County provides uh such such robust offerings in the fine and performing arts at our schools. But per the comments of our community members earlier this evening, we heard about declining enrollment in theater arts. Um, I believe the shift away from fine and performing arts is because parents favor what they consider academic electives. Many parents believe that a transcript full of traditional academics is the golden ticket to get into a good college. The reality is quite opposite. Admissions officers are looking for students with a deep sustained passion and the ability to see a project through from rehearsal to performance. Standardized testing data consistently shows that students involved in the arts outperform their peers on the SAT. On average, students who take four years of arts and music classes score nearly 100 points higher on the
211SAT than students with a half year or less. and the competitive edge. In a sea of high GPA, an applicant who has mastered a difficult conerto or curated a gallery show stands out as someone with discipline, focus, and a unique voice. So, it's been mentioned before, we did add waiting to several of our classes in the arts. Uh, and this did help create a competitive edge, if you will. Um, I'm here to say that we need to do more dual enrollment opportunities in our arts. Um, we must treat the arts with the same academic weight as our STEM courses. Uh, currently we do offer dual enrollment theater with Northern Virginia Community College allowing our students to earn college credit while honing their craft. But it's time to expand this. We need DE pathways for choir,
212band, orchestra, and the fine arts. If a student is performing at a collegiate level in our top tier symphonies or studios, they deserve the college credit to match. This move would signal to parents and students alike that the arts are not just extracurricular, they are rigorous academic pursuit. When we talk about the working world, we talk about skills employers are desperate for collaborative intelligence. In an orchestra, if you don't listen to your neighbor, the whole group fails. This is teamwork in its purest form. Resilience and feedback. An art critique or address rehearsal teaches students how to take constructive criticism and turn it into excellence. A skill many adults struggle with. I can't emphasize this enough. The collaboration and the ability to take constructive criticism. What happens in these classes is just off the charts. Uh,
213and I want to acknowledge all of our educators. Our art teachers aren't just instructors. They're mentors. They're conductors and curators who often work late into the night and through their weekends. For so many of our Fairfax County students, the band room, the Blackbox Theater, or the ceramic studio is their safe space. As we've talked about earlier, it's where they find their people. In an age where student mental health is a primary concern, the arts provide a community of belonging. It can quite literally be a lifeline. The arts not are not a break from learning. they are the heart of it. So you have my full support. I do believe that we need to especially in light of the new ways that our schools are being evaluated that we have a lot of students. Let me
214just finish um who would benefit from a dual-enrolled course and we will our metrics will look will be improved in many of our schools if we can offer that across the fine performing arts. So, um I can't I have the utmost support for the work you do and I hope parents are listening and I hope that honestly um if your kids lean in that direction, please lean with them and let them embrace it because it's fantastic and they will grow in so many ways as a result as a result of being in these classes. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Laney. Uh Miss Mayor. >> Yeah. So, um I already have my calendar booked for the last weekend of April and into May for the um musicals. It's unfortunate so many of them happen on
215the Thursday nights of board meetings. Honestly, it does create a a scheduling problem. So, here is um what I wanted to share. So, you know, if the intention is equity and access, then how specifically are we achieving that? How are we measuring the progress toward that? because I'm trying to reconcile how a school division offers innovative opportunities like IB and advanced theater while there are some schools that can't send their kids to all district chorus and how are these decisions reconciled with the equity lens and the budget lens? How was it decided to offer more advanced focused instruction for the older kids but not ensuring wide and quality inclusion for those younger kids like every school having a presence at the all district events? How are you actively looking at it that way? >> So
216I think the AP um dual enrollment and IB arts are you know courses that students are taking at high school. um the sixth grade chorus, all county chorus. I'm not entirely sure how that sits within the school day, but uh I don't know if one of you can explain that. >> Yeah. Well, and I think that's Go ahead. That's a problem. It shouldn't depend on the school. It should be if this is an equity thing, every kid, every school should have a presence at these districtwide events. This is how some schools get reputations for better or worse. It it starts with a lack of access. I also just want to share about instrumental. So, I was a band kid. I started playing piano second grade, private lessons, clarinet in fourth grade. I went all the
217way through. I I had the equivalent of an SAT test in in piano. Okay. Memorized 64 pages of classical music. >> Impressive. >> So, I love musical instruction. So, begrudgingly, my uh kid in fifth grade took trumpet and um or was it sixth grade? I think it was sixth grade. And he was like, it was like January or February. And I was like, are you getting lessons in school? No, he wasn't getting lessons at school. So, I'm like, wait a minute. Because I got lessons in school. Mr. Countance, shout out. He's still up on Long Island. But like, we had band, we had lessons. So, we're expecting kids who are fifth and sixth grade to just learn an instrument without instrumental instruction. And I didn't even I mean, again, I didn't realize it because I
218was like, of course, you're going to that is just so he didn't he quit. He quit seventh grade. Um, and he even the pyramid did a great job. They brought everyone in to like the the older kids played for the younger kids and ours is like, "Okay." He's like, "Okay, I'll I'll do it, mom." He didn't want to do it. So, all these things I think matter. And if we want to again it's this question of we're going to provide this very very best to a small group but could we do that other ways you mentioned dual approachment maybe it's the middle schools coming together to do that musical I I just can't get over if we're really going to talk about equity we have to address that there are some kids who are not
219getting a good enough foundation if at all to even set them up to continue and then we have these issues with we have under enrollment in theater and the arts and all these things. So, um, these are the questions like with goal two, I'm trying like how do we really make these decisions? We cannot fund everything. How do we do this better? >> And those are all one I I just really appreciate all those thoughts and your and your passion for the arts. Let me just say that. to the only thing that I can add to that as as not the music specialist that stands in front of you is that I do know for our arts programs, we are working with the school schedule, the school demands, the teacher, the particular teacher to cater
220those offerings to support as many students as we can while also giving student choice. >> I get it. It's not it's a systemic thing. Yes. So, bravo, pun intended. It's just that we need to do something different I think here. >> So yeah, it it is challenging even when we looked at the stipens and how we could redo the stipens to also then engage uniform expectations across the schools. So schools were all getting a musical or a play or certain experiences across the arts. It's challenging when you're looking at the particular school like Whitman, maybe the transportation, how they can participate in the after school activities or additional rehearsals depending on the discipline. So, it's looking working within those individual schools along with the wants of the community to then meet shared expectations which I
221think we can continue to try to do even better. >> Thank you, >> Miss St. John County. Um, so I think that the fact that we do have such a fabulous arts program and we can sit here and I don't want to because that's not the word. We can sit here and say about how we want to make what is already a great program and recognized throughout the country as great programming. How we can make it better is really a great opportunity for us. I think everybody on this board really supports the arts. I do. I I do want to just mention I mean I'm not going to ask you any questions, but I do just want to mention that we do have to have more marketing. And one of the things is that great
222art show you put together at the Wharton Arts Center where all of our teachers have their artwork displayed and we we have to market that. I mean that's just the work of our teachers that is highlighted and I think we need more community input to come there. I I want to shout out that I saw a a piece there and I that was ma that was made by an elementary school teacher and usually um you know it's the high schools that you're trying to get that vertical articulation but this elementary school teacher had a piece there called Threaded Truths. She worked at Crossfield Elementary and I immediately thought this this could go with Lewis this could go with Lewis High School. I connected them and she came and did a presentation to the leadership uh
223program students and they are now working on a project together with an elementary teacher from Crossfield that came in to talk to them about her project when they were celebrating John Lewis's birthday and it was a very um important social justice piece that she did. I know you guys know which piece I'm talking about. And I I'd love to see that cross pan pollination of um an art teacher coming to a leadership program talking about social justice. And I think that's one way we can it's one example of I'm sure many things that are happening out there. And these are the kind of things that we have to market. And now we have all these kids at Lewis that are learning from an elementary school art teacher wanting to do some art that they can
224incorporate into their social justice programming. So that's the kind of stuff that I think we need to celebrate and we need to get out there and thank you. Just thank you for all the work that you do, >> Mr. Dunn. >> Uh first of all, thank you for everything you do. Um, as a a aspiring actor when I was young, I got to be Charlie Bucket. Pretty cool. Um, I I think I think there's uh, you know, an obvious, you know, uh, source of the problems here. We had the pandemic, right? Pandemic wiped out an entire generation of students who might otherwise participate in uh, theater and band, etc. Um, but we know how valuable these programs are because, you know, theater teaches public speaking. It teaches social skills, right? Um, band and music give
225kids identities. You're part of a group, right? Uh, and it's a a positive group. Um, in addition, music and theater and everything, it's it reinforces all of the kind of parts of the brain that uh are part of STEM. So, um, and that's, you know, the careers of the future. So I I think one of the problems uh we have is that we don't invest at an early stage. Right? If you don't invest at the front end at the elementary school level, you're not going to get many students going into middle school. And we have two uh magnet schools, the only two magnet schools, Hunter Woods and um Bailey's. And they both are founded on the curriculum developed by um uh the Kendi Center for Changing Education through the arts. Uh we've had former SCPS
226teachers that have gone and found, you know, private businesses to teach what they call arts integration. And it's cheap. I looked into it for one of uh my schools. Um uh so on a system basis for you know investment of tens of thousands of dollars we could potentially you know make some of our elementary schools maybe one per pyramid you know uh arts integration uh magnet schools for those pyramids and then you know promote a whole pipeline all the way through middle school and high school and that would be you know revitalize these programs because we need numbers right I mean it's not this isn't we don't need to have Timothy Shalomé tell us like you know ballet and opera old fashion these these are still vital programs and valuable and valued valued by the
227community. Um the other thing I would suggest is that we consider partnerships with private businesses. There all these teachers out there teaching piano, guitar, you know, all kinds of musical instruments. Um why don't we bring them in? You know, we can make them adjunct teachers. Um and if we don't have the money to support them um in other countries they they you know allow teaching to happen during the school day you know as an elective. You may not get course credit for that but or an afterchool activity and and and to expose kids to more opportunities for music for theater for whatever. And those people get paid by the students not by us. It's just there there ways we can really partner with business and the private sector to be able to offer our students
228more and revitalize our programs along the way while broadening their perspectives, broadening their minds and and delivering that world-class education that is really the core mission of SCPS. So, um I look forward to furthering the conversation and and have more out of the box thinking about what we can do to to deliver on that. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Um, I'm going to take a brief turn and then Miss Lady needs to go back. Um, so when I taught at Kansas State for the engineering department, what I noticed more than any other students with any of my other classes was that they were my engineering students were more often artists and musicians because the line between the creativity needed in engineering and the creativity needed in other disciplines that are traditionally considered the
229arts is so fine. And so I mean that's really where the idea behind steam came from is that it's a push to move towards across. So I do think we can get there by pushing steam into all of our elementary schools as a point of entry to kind of get the creativity going related to how the arts can work. You know, we have great things going on in terms of making sure every kiddo gets music and and those types of things and opportunities for band and strings and all the things that happen in elementary schools. And I will never forget the recorders that came home the day before a snowstorm for my oldest. That was awesome. Um, the other thing that I would say is we have an entire that same kiddo is now in
230leadership and goes to events all the time in order to support the school. And so I do think that we have an entire group of kids out there that could serve as marketing for us. And we need to connect the dots more because I think that we have kids that are in all these sk that want to create the videos for us that want to do all these things. Let's use the strengths that we have to help the with the marketing campaign rather than have it just be something else that we feel that we have to put on our plate. And so I would love to get the student voice in this more um and have kids help recruit because it may not always just need to be um there's nothing necessar I know that
231the timelines don't always work but if you could figure out rehearsals that they could come with elementary kids for a short period of time you could get higher level kiddos um from the high schools involved with it doesn't always have to only be our teachers and so I would love to look for other opportunities Um, my parents were both um, thesbsians at Falls Church High School, which I grew up hearing all about all the time. Um, I was not. However, I was heavily involved in the arts in high school and digital. I had my own digital show when I was a senior. So, I am right in that with with what's going on now. And so, I saw the precursor of how that was all built around um, particularly with related to digital arts. and
232I'm just so impressed with the fact that we haven't given up. We're going to keep fighting to make sure that our kids see the engagement and I just want to encourage us to keep doing that. So, um I I think that you have the right board to focus on that for right now and I I can't wait to see where else we go. So, Miss Lady for a go back. >> Yeah, I didn't really ask a question. So, my question is can we look into dual enrollment in more of our classes? I understand what the requirements are in terms of um the 18 hours, but I just feel like if it it's important um for a number of reasons and one being the accreditation. So, can we can I get some sort of assurance that
233we will look into that? >> Yes, ma'am. I believe we will look into that. >> Thank you, Dr. E. Thank you, staff. Agenda item nine, consent agenda. Our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure. Robert's rules provide for a consent agenda listing several items for approval by 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. The consent agenda is on the items are on the screen. Are there any objections to the consent agenda? Hearing and seeing no objection, the consent agenda is approved. Agenda item 10, new business. The following are new business agenda items. There will be no
234vote on these items this evening, but action is scheduled at a future meeting. Agenda item 11, board committee reports. I call on Mr. McDaniel for a report of the comprehensive planning and development committee. >> Thank you. Thank you. At our last meeting, we moved forward a couple of policy items that were sent to the board for uh you know, board approval. We decided to defer some of those and to get more feedback from staff. Um but most importantly, and what I'm most excited about because as of 30 seconds ago from the consent agenda, we just passed our new community members on CPDC. So, uh, we unfortunately there was a slight scheduling snafu and the next meeting was mistakenly scheduled for spring break, but now our the the actual next meeting will be on April 13th.
235Thank you. >> Thank you. Agenda item 12, Superintendent Matters. I call on Dr. Reid for Superintendent Matters. >> Thank you, Chair Anderson. Given the lateness of the evening, I will um simply wish our community a joyful, renewing, refreshing spring break and um look forward to seeing students and staff coming back afterwards excited for a strong finish to the year. So, thank you. >> Agenda item 13, board matters. In accordance with the board's consensus due to the late hour, we're going to go ahead and skip this item for this evening. Agenda item 1401, convening a closed meeting. The board will now make a motion on March 26, 2026 to go into closed meeting to one, discuss personnel matters pursuant to section 2.2-3711A1 of the code of Virginia and consult with legal counsel regarding specific matters requiring
236the provision of legal advice by section council pursuant to section 2.2-3711 2-3711 A7 and A8 of the code of Virginia specifically personnel. Do I have a motion? Mr. FR. Do I have a second? Mr. Mavine. All those in favor? That is Mr. Fr, Mr. McDaniel, Miss Marin, Mr. Mavine, Miss St. John Cunning, Miss Lady, Mr. Dannon, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, and Dr. Anderson, and myself. That is unanimous for all board members. The regular meeting is now recessed at 11:06 p.m. and the board will meet in close session.