8/26/2025 - FCPS School Board Work Session

001The August 26, 2025 work session is called to order at 1:10 p.m. Mr. FR has has submitted a written request to attend this morning's meeting virtually due to a personal conflict. He has a workg group related commitment and is attending the meet this today's meeting from from home in the Prince in the Providence District, excuse me. Um, we are going to check his microphone in just a little bit. 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 August 26, 2025, to the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements. And only such public business matter matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed

002meeting were heard, discussed, or considered by the board during the closed meeting. Do I have a motion? Miss Marin, Mr. Mackle second. All those in favor? So, Miss Dixit, Miss St. John Cunning, Miss Seismore Heiser, Miss Lady, Miss Marin, Mr. Mavine, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, and myself with Mr. Fresh away from the table. I now call on Dr. Reed to kick us off with the boundary discussion. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. if we could put the uh PowerPoint up please Janet. So this afternoon I'm going to walk through a brief update of where we are on our current comprehensive school boundary review and um essentially we're going to start with the um PowerPoint which is up. Janet, can you move it to the next slide please? Thank you. So, just as a review, uh, for

003those watching perhaps, I know the board doesn't need the review, but for those watching who maybe haven't, uh, been a part of this conversation or are new to the community, want to remind our community that about a year ago in July of 2024, uh, the board approved policy 8130, uh, which did provide a mandate to review comprehensively our school boundaries every 5 years In July of 2025, which was last month, the board adopted revised language which which uh set a phasing plan for boundary adjustments at the middle, elementary, and secondary school levels. Janet, next slide, please. Thank you. Um the boundary review priorities, there are four of them and they're on the screen. They have not changed. Next slide, please. This is a reminder of the timeline. The red dotted line is where we are

004currently, which is nearing the end of August 2025. We've completed phase one of our community meetings and data collection as well as the analysis. The phase 2 community meetings um are uh planned. The part one were last spring. The analysis and scenario adjustments are occurring as we speak and our phase 2 community meetings will begin in October. In November, essentially the uh superintendent budget advisory committee will receive the community feedback and in December the superintendent will review the draft recommendations from the committee in preparation of bringing them to the board in January. So essentially from here forward we're still working on the revision of current maps and October we will be engaged in 12 community meetings. November the committee will wrestle with feedback from those meetings and December I will review the recommendations and prepare

005uh for January of 26 for the board review of the final recommendations. Next slide. Just a summary of some of the feedback. The boundary explorer tool has received more than 12,400 comments. Next slide. The phase one and phase 2 part one were the summary here would be 20 meetings have been held with close to 4,000 people in attendance and we received 3,400 comments. So this has been one of the more comprehensively attended and commented on uh bodies of work in the last several years. Next slide please. Um again uh the review committee includes two parents from each of the 24 pyramids as well as other school and departmentbased staff and representatives from county and local organizations and associations. Um the purpose of this committee is to synthesize all the feedback that comes back and make

006recommendations in November uh to the superintendent which will then be looked at and um I'll be providing some recommendation to the board in January of 26. Next slide. Uh the recap so far of this committee work is 11 meetings. Uh thus far we did have uh summer meetings as well where we reviewed feedback and I believe we are coming up next week uh to review academic programming and transportation in particular. Next slide. The website would be communications. So just again page views and videos. Um the website remains active and we remain committed to uh feedback after every superintendent advisory committee. Next page. Again, this is a continuation of communications. Uh there's been a significant amount of communication uh and many data points to support that. Next slide. So again, just a reminder about what's next.

007the committee uh priorities um and revised scenarios will be uh presented in October. The phase 2 part two meetings, the 12 hybrid community meetings will take place in October. And in amongst all of this, we'll be also addressing and evaluating the relationship between bell schedules, start time possibilities, and the new boundaries uh to see what we can align uh for the start of school in 26. Next slide. So feedback will continue to be analyzed uh and as I've mentioned earlier recommendations will be made uh to the superintendent uh by the end of November and then by January uh my recommendations will go to the board. Next slide. And that's it. So we wanted to make sure madam chair that we provided time for the board to provide any feedback at this point. Um but that's

008a a summary of where we are at this time. Would anyone like to kick us off? >> And we could put it back to the map with the red dotted line. >> Timeline's fine. Right there. Thank you, Miss Dixit, and then Dr. Anderson. So, uh, Dr. Reid, thank you for the presentation. Uh this is an incredible uh comprehensive work the division has taken. I wanted to ask about the inclusion of KA in this process and how it's going to impact the would that whether it's going to impact our timeline. So, I think the purchase of the new Western High School conversation that we're going to have next, bless you, will be important. Uh, if we if the board's desire is for it to be a traditional comprehensive high school for which we redraw boundaries, then

009we'll need to redraw boundaries to accommodate that. if the board ends up with more of a um magnet type program in some fashion that kids from Western High Schools or wherever we decide that that might land. If that becomes where we land, then that would not require redrawing boundaries. So, it'll really be determined by I think the genesis of our next conversation. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Dr. Anderson. >> Okay. Thank you. I was trying to find some of this language here in the policy and so bear with me. I'm not fully there. Um but I'm I'm speaking to the public engagement. You talked about in this timeline that there will be 12 meetings in October. Um, can you speak to how those meetings are going to be organized? Because the policy, I believe, said that

010public engagement shall occur in each affected school pyramid before changes are proposed and again after changes are proposed, but before any changes are finalized and voted upon by the board. I don't know if I see the engagement being as delineated as the policies requiring and what was shared with us just now. So thank you for the question. The 12 hybrid meetings will include each one of those meetings will include two pyramids uh because many of the possible adjustments spill over from one pyramid to another. So in the interest of providing a thoughtful uh conversation and feedback experience, we're going to be doing hybrid meetings uh 12 hybrid meetings in October. >> Right. I understand that. But I'm trying to understand how you are linking it with the language here that says the engagement shall occur

011in each of the affected pyramids whether it's one or two I think that still satisfies it before and after it it seems to articulate that there would be two sets um one before the changes are proposed but um I'm sorry and then again after change before any changes are finalized and voted upon. on by the board. So I I'm I'm I'm not seeing how this is sitting because we had originally just kind of the big region meetings, but it seems to be that the language is articulating two sets of pyramid meetings. Whether it's one or two, there's two sets. We only have one set here. We've done um two rounds of community meetings and I don't know if each every pyramid um I would have to go back to our notes maybe Donna do you

012know did were they both regions >> so two different organized by region meetings >> right we've had two sets of meetings organized by region um and I think that the two sets have been 12 separate meetings organized by region And so we that's essentially how we looked at this in terms of timing to get you um a recommendation by January. I I understand that. I'm just saying it's not consistent with what the language here says which is what the public is is expecting. So I would definitely invite you to take a look at page two because right now as proposed it it is not in alignment with the language of the boundary policy. >> Yeah. So we may need to add another 12 meetings after um October. So it may need to spill into November.

013I'm not sure yet as we look at this. We may to satisfy that if the six larger regional meetings um are not sufficient um having been done twice. We may have to do that. >> Well, I'm just going by the language that we've communicated because we know the community had been quite up in arms when this boundary policy was being written and so I know there's lots of eyes on it. So there's an expectation that if you are going to be impacted that you're going to have a pyramid conversation and again whether it's one or two pyramids I think it's you know irrelevant frankly because we do have those blurred um boundaries. It's not as clean in terms of pyramids but it's just that when do we go back with them with the final before

014the board votes. I wouldn't want for there to be any um any thinking in the public that we are not even following our own policy because we know that this has not been the process that a lot of people have found to be as um clear and um transparent as I think we would want them to believe. So I think that's a sticking point there. Um >> and that's the reason we're having this touch base today is if we want to make that adjustment to the timeline, we absolutely can do that today. >> I'm not requesting an adjustment to the timeline. I'm just requesting adherence to the policy. So that's my take there. Um the other thing that I wanted to raise um only because it has come up in our community quite a bit

015um I I want to hear a little bit more in terms of how the consultant is utilizing the umbrella um approach um and really um individualizing it for the different areas. I'll give you an example. For example, schools outside of the zone has become a hot topic. And I know in a lot of places it is an a very important thing. But in the Mason district, what ended up happening, the consultant was trying to deal with Bailey's Upper, which is a magnet school on Route 7 as a priority because it's outside of its boundary. It is always going to be outside of the boundary because of its makeup and structure. But prioritizing Bailey's upper prevented him from working on anything else because that was the driver. How are we taking some of these bigger um

016approaches and umbrellas, but really figuring out what is important in each of the areas because driving using Bailey's Upper as a driver for the Mason district does not even address the other issues in the Mason district and it's a solution to a problem that does not exist. So, I can't speak um to the other all of the challenges in the Mason district, but I do know that the uh region 2 team would have reviewed the feedback and provided feedback to the consultant in the most recent uh feedback iteration loop. So, it's my understanding that feedback's being synthesized and will result in some new um scenarios with regard to maps moving forward. >> I think that was my time. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Uh, Miss Seismarhiser, >> thank you. Um, a couple of questions. You mentioned

01712 meetings. That's community meetings, correct? How many meetings are there was at the committee meetings? >> The community meetings are the 12 community meetings. We've had 11 committee meetings so far, and it's expected that the committee members would also attend the community meetings. We have a meeting September 3rd and the 24th prior to the October sequence of meetings and then we're planning two meetings in November to review the October community meeting series feedback unless we um the board wishes to make an adjustment to add another 12 community meetings after that in which case we would meet in December and then I would just you know work through winter break to come up with the recommendations for you in January. >> Um that's helpful to know. One thing I think would be helpful is to have

018a map. We have the tool, right, that kind of shows little areas as you plug it in. Be helpful to have a bigger map where you have the current like let's say by region, right? Where you have the current layout and then you can overlay and see what all the changes are per region. So like as you said like it's hard to do one pyramid meeting because the changes bleed over from pyramid to pyramid. It would be helpful to have that bigger picture on a map as opposed to the tool which seems to make smaller changes. It's hard to get all of those interrelated changes in your head when it's peace meal that way. So that's the first thing I will say. Um with the start times, I I'm I agree with my colleague. I'm

019a firm believer in healthy start times. Um my concern is how are we going to get so we have a robust ability to look at healthy start times when we haven't looked Dr. read at the access to programming because when we look at start times, everything I saw from Prismatic was start times for just the your base school, but then you look at transportation times for students who are accessing programming outside of their base school, AAP centers or special education programs that traditionally have significantly longer transportation times. Have we been able to and we haven't looked at how our boundaries are going to impact that access to programming to make sure those students can access their programming close to their base school if not at their base school which then impacts transportation and start time.

020So how are we going to talk about all of those things in a way that isn't rushed in this compressed timeline? So, it is a compressed timeline and we are talking about programming and transportation at the September 3rd um advisory committee. >> I guess that I mean I I understand we're talking about it there, but that's a big thing to talk about transportation and program that we haven't gotten to yet. And what's the plan to make sure in that conversation there is conversation about programming and transportation for both base school and non-base school because everything I've seen so far in the consultant is really base school focused, right? And there's a population of students who may not be at their base school, >> right? I know the consultant has spoken to Dr. Prescidio about base

021school home school. We're not uh in this process changing the program locations at this time uh for base schools and special programs. So, um I think the transportation calculations include those current models and um I don't know if that's different or if there's been different information provided to the consultant. Dr. Prescidio, >> I'm just looking at prismatics report. I'm sorry. Go ahead. >> Well, no, I was just going to say we we've met with the consultant several times to explain kind of how the programming works just as Miss Seismoreheiser and Dr. Reid were saying. So they're they're aware of the special programming that pulls students out of uh their base schools and out of boundaries. I don't know what their analysis necessarily process is going to look like with that information, but we've met with

022them several times. Um they continue to follow up with questions. I just got actually an email question today from our consultant. So we're trying to partner with them and give them the support. I don't know what their analytical process looks like though. >> Thank I appreciate that and that's helpful. But I think that's where my concern is. Right. Several of our split feeders are caused by program placement where our AAP centers are. For example, I'll give you an example in my district. Robinson kids go to White Oaks for AAP. White Oaks feeds to Lake Bradock. Lake Bradock kids go to Keen Mill for AAP which feeds to West Springfield. You have two split feeders created right there by AAP center placement. So, and the same thing is with special education programming placement. They're often sent

023out of Pyramid. So this is a really important we can't leave out some of our students you know especially some of our most vulnerable who are going to different areas of programs out of the analysis especially when it creates some of these split feeder issues. So, I just want to make sure that there's time for the consultant to take these into account, especially the longer transportation rides that leads to twilight violations potentially or could lead to twilight violations if we're not addressing if you're sending if your kid is going out of pyramid or out of a base school, right? It takes a lot. I mean, having two kids who did that for many, many years for special ed and AAP centers, it took significantly longer the bus ride. So, I think it's important to to

024make sure that's being talked about. I I know it's being talked about. I also know that there's been a distinction between split feeders that are voluntary. In other words, a family chooses to go to an special ed, >> right? I'm talking about the AAP centers for a moment. If they're choosing to leave to go to the AAP center versus 15% of a school goes one place and 85% in another, that's not it's just by virtue of boundary. So, I know that the latter was the priority in the first round. Um, and I think that um it's something that's continuing to be evaluated. >> I'll take a go back because I think that was my time. >> Miss Marin. >> Okay. So, I appreciate the steadfast work done um to commit to this review, which as

025we know would be the first time in 40 years, and it's been an ambitious timeline and approach. However, it took us 40 years to get here and I know that I as one board member desire more than two months from presentation to changes to approving changes. So, you know, there needs to be time for us to have a thoughtful deliberation among the board. And while I appreciate the operational approach that the superintendent has done to get it all the work done, I mean, we've had deliberations for far less important things much longer. Um, I'm hearing my colleagues, I agree there's concern that these scenarios do not reflect critical input per criteria and lived experience. I know for Foxmill estill woods, the proposals propose kids going to far away schools, taking the bus when they used

026to walk. I can't move forward until all of those things are hashed out. And I just don't see how that is possible given the work the board has to do which includes an ambitious legislative and advocacy effort to continue to get the money after last year's budget disappointment. Um political quagmire that we we have to spend our time on unfortunately facilities which we are you know we are buying we bought a new high school. What are we going to do about that? I mean, these are just some of those big things. And um you know, what is the board's role in this at this point? Is it just to show up in November, hear the presentation, and then come back and decide what does our board want it to be? I um I think that

027and I think it's very important to talk about how transportation can work or can't. I'd like to know would there be even just a a semblance of are we gonna is this going to be phased in? Are we going to come with like she's as the superintendent going to present like a tiered approach like this year we might do this and then this year we might do that because right now it just feels like the whole thing and that does not seem reasonable to me. I think it's reasonable to say we can't phase everyone in and and maybe the transportation will work for everyone but like let's say it then. And you know, as far as middle school start times, yeah, continue to be on board with that. But again, how does this work? I

028mean, there's so many questions. So, I also want to reiterate that I have said from the start that I am not comfortable making changes without giving people the appropriate amount of time. And deciding in January or February that people have new schools to go to in August does not meet that that test for me. I'm very hardressed to do that. The last thing I'll point out is that policy 8130 references the regulation 2230. It's the process that when the board updates a policy, the superintendent is to update the regulation. This regulation has not been updated since March of 2022. So, if the regulation is what is guiding this work, it is defunct and it needs to be remedied because it references things that are not possible under our policy. Thank you, Miss Maron. Um, seeing

029no other placards right now except for gobacks, I'm going to go ahead and take a turn. Um, I think that we've been pretty clear since the beginning of this process, um, that we were not anticipating being able to fix every every problem that we found ourselves in. And I understand that we're we keep using the term 40 years, but I will tell you that for a very long time, we only changed boundaries when we built new schools. And now we've reached the rest the western end of the county as the kind of the wall of of how how much further we can continue to go out and we're we're where we are. So I would suggest that it took us a very long time to dig this hole that we're in in terms of our

030placement and the problems that have create been created over time. And I do not anticipate that we're going to fix every problem this goound. Like I think that we all need to be clear about the fact that these are iterative changes over time. That is the intention at least it was my intention when we were talking about the cyclical process. It was that was the intention of the cyclical process was being giving ourselves the window of being able to make those iterative changes over time. And so I am very interested to see where the maps come out. I think we absolutely should see what they say before we decide that we can't work within them. I also think that Janu January or February to August is an appropriate amount of time to give people if

031there's going to be a change. I believe that that the initial feedback that we received in the studies that we saw at the very beginning of this process suggested that as the timeline so I am in support of this. If you look at the the entire um plan of the work that we've done in addition, we've spent almost two years at this at this point. And so reaching the end, it does feel compressed because we're we're coming closer to the end of the process. And I think it's a natural thing to to kind of work within that. But the timeline hasn't changed. We haven't changed anything about what we were planning on doing. We have had discussions about what was counting for community meetings and all of those things all along the process. Um the

032thing that has changed is that we started talking about school start times and I do want to have that discussion because um so Dr. Reid I would ask you is it feasible right now to be able to do school start times and all of the phasing language that we just voted in? >> I believe that uh Mr. Muick's team, we've reviewed uh the start time proposals which really require us to compress our run times and with the phasing language uh for the um boundary work, I don't believe that it's possible to address start times and phasing because we're not able to compress the the bus runs sufficiently to do that. And I I would ask Mr. from Muick to comment directly to that because I know your team took a look at that. >> Yes,

033ma'am. No, you got it right. Um that is exactly it. It's just there's so much unknown with that phasing and the number of choices that are in there that it would, you know, if you just look at it right now without having any of those answers from families on where they're going to go. The the range of possibilities of where we would have to transport people is pretty huge and it would cause us to move that runtime, you know, wider instead of shortening it up like Dr. Reid said. So, It's just pretty tough to figure that out right now. >> And I am correct that that is only in the traditional way that we've handled phasing at other schools. Correct. That is not it's not necessarily true that the board would have to move forward

034with the exact same transportation patterns that we've moved that we've utilized because if this followed the student transfer process, um students would be responsible for for maintaining their own transportation to a school that wasn't their base school. Is that correct? I think the answer is yes. Um, sorry, I I wasn't 100% sure on the question. So, if they choose to go to a different school that's not their base school, they would have to provide their own transportation. Correct. >> It's been that's way I've seen it in our stuff in the past. So this is a way that we could solve the problem and be able to do both is if we followed the student transfer process by allowing students that choose to stay at their base school related to the phasing allowed them the same

035part of the student like if we followed the student transfer process that we already have in place. Then it would give people the ability to both choose to stay at a base to stay at their school related to the phasing question, but it would also allow us the ability to look at school start times. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Thank you. >> Okay, we're going to go to Miss Lady and then we'll hit some gobacks. >> Uh I just want to stay on this topic for a second. Uh thank you for bringing this up. Um Chair Anderson, uh because I think it's important. Um, I have struggled throughout the year with the reality of very much being for healthy start times for all of our kids, but also feeling sort of like, you know, we're stuck

036because of the amount of money it cost um to, you know, make the run times broader or whatever. Um, so I I think it's laying this on top of the boundary work. I think it's a it my preference would be um with the phasing to do it like a student transfer process um because I think it makes sense if you're going to choose to stay at a school because you're allowed to be phased in then you need to get yourself there because middle school healthy start times or not just middle school all healthy start times is a priority of mine. Uh and so I just want to make sure that my my community understands that my priority is a healthy start time and we can't do them both. So I would I would go for

037that for first because all the research medically, socially, emotionally, everything lends itself to that that should be our priority. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Lady. Uh Miss St. John Cunning. Um so I am also concerned about you know the same thing that my colleague just um spoke about but when we are looking at changing the times and looking at some of the data that we received uh in terms of 83% of middle schoolers and 84% of high schoolers do not provide babysitting for their siblings. 98% of middle schoolers and 82% of high schoolers do not have paying jobs outside the house. I I would like to have that information desegregated in terms of looking at title one schools to see the proportionality of how that that plays out. Um because we recognize that we

038are a large county and there are differences in different regions. And so um those statistics um might be reflective of the entire county but may look different if we're looking at specific areas. And so those are the things that concern me sometimes when we look at this these numbers. >> Thank you, Miss St. John Cunning. Um we're going to go to go back. Seeing no other firsttime folks around, um we're going to do two minutes for gobacks. So um Dr. Anderson, >> thank you. I just want to be clear, we don't have any decision points today. This is justformational and discussion. Correct. >> Well, yes. Yes. And if there are adjustments to the timeline or process that we've outlined, we want to make sure we hear those. And the board would uh if the board

039wants to direct a different uh set of meetings or direct a different um you know timeline in terms of bringing information to the board. That's certainly something in a work session that uh you've done in the past andor with next steps uh you know following the review because this is really before we're going to launch into um our next two meetings to prep for our October series. >> Okay. Thank you. Um just kind of speak to the first part that you just said. As far as I'm concerned in terms of the timeline and in terms of the sets of meetings, the board already gave that direction. it's in the policy. So, it's just a matter of are you going to be in compliance with that policy or not, at least from my perspective. So, I

040I'm not seeing the need to articulate something that has already been articulated. So, I will take a pause there since it's only one and a half minutes. Um, my other question to you is, um, I know we've talked about this before and we were too far out in order to predict a little bit where we would go with this, but are you anticipating a staggered um, implementation? Because we're not that far out, but are we close enough to be able to determine is it going to be any of the possibilities of the scenarios and the tool? Are we just going to do it all at once in 25 26 27 or do you anticipating staggering different areas of the county? What thoughts have there been to that end? >> I don't feel like I have

041enough information yet to speculate this afternoon on I think any of those are possibilities. >> That would be great. I I think this would be a thing that as soon as it's a it's a little clearer that we could start just signaling to the community what our intentions are with that because I know that's a conversation because if we're rolling in the middle school start times with a staggered implementation, what does that mean? Are we changing the start times for part of the county and not all of the county? It's like a chicken and the egg thing here. There's a lot to be thinking about and that's a piece that I think for me is still outstanding. Similarly to the Western High School I is that we need that decision to be made in order

042to determine how it's going to impact the boundary work. Is that accurate? >> I think it is accurate to determine the programming for the Western High School will determine the level of its inclusivity in the boundary work for sure. >> Okay. Thank you. Um and also grade six. I know it was your desire to include grade six students um at the elementary school across the division, but clearly there have been some obstacles to that. Do we have a stake in the ground in terms of that decision? >> We do not have a final decision made on that yet because we're not done with our analysis. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Um Miss Seismarheiser. Thank you. Um, Miss St. John Cunning kind of went the direction I wanted to go, but one

043thing I wanted to be careful with this with this survey percentage, right? It's it's not 90 something% of students, 90% of respondents to the survey and only 22,000 students responded to the survey. So, it's 90% of 22,000 students when we have 183,000 students, right? So I think the data as listed in the prismatic report when we just talk about percentages of students it's a little misleading right so I think it'd be helpful if we knew when we have 22,000 and change and that the exact number of students responding or I think it was like 39,000 parents responding I don't um 39 yeah parents responding it would be helpful if we could disagregate where they came from right like is it parents mostly from this area or that area like where are we hearing from same

044with students and then we should say out of the 22,000 students responding, 83% said that they don't take care of a ch sibling after school because I think I don't want to fall in the trap that I think we've talked about before on this board and on the previous board of you know I want to make sure we're listening to voices from across the county so we're getting a good a sense of this the needs of students and families across the county. So when we have 183,000 students and we've heard from 39,000 parents, caregivers, guardians, that's it's not a large percentage of our families we're hearing from, but that the So I would just stop there and say I think we need to get a better sense on the start times of our students needs

045after school. >> So thank you. And Mr. Muick, that was a prismatic survey. Am I recalling or >> Yes, ma'am. And >> so did they leave us any kind of data in terms of what parts of the county or to Miss Seismoreheiser's questions? Do we have any source data so we could disagregate it? >> No, I'd have to go back to them and and talk to them and I'm trying to remember some of the questions we asked in there if it was enough to disagregate it. I'd have to go back and take a look at it. >> Okay. Well, let's see if we can answer some of those questions. And my concern would just be that if we're going to rely on that in terms of start times, we want to make sure that we're

046getting a good sense, especially if there's areas that maybe there's less respondents than other areas of our county. That was my my big concern about that data. Again, I want I'm very much in favor of healthy start times. You know, I had so it's not that I just want to make sure we're not accidentally leaving making it more difficult on another group as we're doing this because it's a big change. Um to go back to the the boundary work. Um never mind. >> I'll put you on a go back. >> Thank you. Since my time was up, >> uh Miss Dixit, >> so I can't read uh your mind regarding the boundary work. My question is about >> so okay so my question is actually the timeline again u I believe um especially in my

047my district and if uh we decide to go as western high school as the regular transition traditional high school it's going to impact a lot of changes not just in high school level but also elementary and middle school I would like community to get some time and the reason I said the community reached out to me to me and said that the Western High School is not just going to impact the high school, it's going to impact the middle school and elementary because these kids go together in in the schools and uh they kind of follow that path. Um I'm also getting a lot of resistance from community members who are literally staying living a mile away from school high school and their schools being changed uh with the new boundary changes and there are

048my own residence where I live uh and I wonder that why why my kids went to the school like two schools far far from where they could have gone and no changes in that boundary not a single changes is in elementary, middle school or high school. So I'm I'm literally like thinking about this more and just want to listen more to the from the community member. And when I say this, I'm hearing from like Navy or Oakill, Chanteli or you know other community members. There are a lot of people who are not reaching out to us and we want to be uh the voice of entire community and um we need to do like better the sec um mismiser said that that we reach out to all the different classes and different areas of the

049county so we get our data. So I'll stop there. Thank you, Miss Dixit. Uh, Miss Marin. >> Okay. I I do want to point out that was ha what has changed since the start of this project is that the scenarios some of them presented are poorly done and that has eroded the trust of some members of the public in this process and until they are corrected to reflect the live experience and real um logistical issues that families would have to face I think we're going to be hardpressed to do this smoothly um I we've also changed we've also received data about change the start times that was not present when we kicked off this work in January 2024, which is when we kicked it off. Okay, it's been a year and a half. There's much

050data missing that would allow the board to make informed decisions such as what are the data if families need to transport their students to their new school? How many students is that? How does that impact other aspects such as kiss and ride, which we know is problematic? So, are we forcing more people to do kiss and ride and create transportation problems and pedestrian safety problems? What is the cost for the changes? Do we have the funds given the budget cuts already made? Where is this being funded out of? What is the process for assigning students? I cannot understate enough colleagues that the regulation is defunct. There is no plan of how the students will be assigned. If you look at the regulation, it is old. It does not align with our policy. I'm not saying

051this is easy, but receiving a less than 5 minute status update today with the only new information seemingly being that there are public meetings in October and the board is scheduled to make a decision in 4 months, that's not wise and does not instill public confidence. I'm not hearing that more data is forthcoming in the interim. I have not heard the superintendent talked about a scaffolded, you know, rolledout approach. Could we do something like let's take a scenario? I was over at Carson Middle School last night talking to a student. Three her friends are going to go to three different high schools than her and we just bought the school next door. What does that look like? Give us a scenario to make this real because this is very theoretical and we know that that's

052not going to go over well with our community. Miss Lady, so um I'm going to go back to healthy start times because I want to do this work with fidelity. Um, Mr. Mu, if I may, um, I would love to suggest that facilities create a very brief, straightforward s survey. Um, I would take the 183,000 to down to about 90,000 because I think we're talking 7 through 12th graders. Um, that I think need to be surveyed around sleep patterns, around whether they take care of siblings, and whether or not they have jobs. I don't think it's a big set of questions, and I think it can be deployed through advisory. They have advisory lessons. Everyone's in there. They all their computers. It can be deployed. It'll take them like 10 minutes. And I think that

053that data can be crunched pretty easily because there isn't really subjective in there, but we're just trying to get a sense to uh my colleagues points around who may have chosen to respond with the way it was deployed. Um and while I also care deeply about how our parents feel, um I think it's our students who are actually living it, right? It's their lived experience. And so I think that, you know, I would I would not necessarily go back and and and retarget parents because I think we would get a similar response as those who were on top of it would do it again. Um, but I would like to ask that maybe for us to be a quick turnaround. Is that something you think you can maybe do? >> Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. Thank

054you. That's my main thing. And then um I I do agree with lots of comments that are being made around um the problems that were in the current scenarios and uh the work so far with the boundary. Um my expectation is that the next iteration we see that these things that are were obvious um and some that may have been a little more subtle will absolutely be addressed. So I just wanted to share that's my expectation. Thank you, Miss Lady. Um, I'm going to go ahead and take my go back really fast. And what I would echo on to that Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Fresh. Go ahead. >> Um, yes. Um, a couple quick points to make. Um, first I echo uh colleagues concerns about um where we find ourselves in in so far as

055um the community's feedback about the various scenarios as I've indicated to members of province district's community over the last many months that there's this tension that we began this conversation with. one we have this B committee which is ostensively an internal committee that is doing initial work to come up with boundary ideas um and because we are being transparent in sharing all of that initial work um it's created a lot of confusion and that's the trade-off with being transparent. The confusion being that um each time we've rolled out a scenario, the public has seen it as the fully baked thing that is eminently going to be uh you know, in place and impacting their community instead of the beginning points of those conversations. And you know, it seemed like with Clockwork, every time Brack would

056meet and have a new um set of scenarios, we'd be having the exact same conversation uh because the community was under the impression that the board would be voting any minute on uh and obviously I'm using hyperbole, uh would be voting eminent, you know, very soon uh on these suggested changes. You know, many of the problems that I've identified in the scenarios are common in the boundary uh change process period. I remember, you know, one-off boundary changes that the board has pursued in the past where you'd go to a community meeting and the community would be kicking the tires on the suggestion. Um, and they'd elevate things that the school division had not identified. So, I expect that to be part of the process. What I don't think I've anticipated, um, is, uh, the level

057of fidelity to the schoolboard's policy not being where I would hope it would be. And so I took all of the feedback from members of my community, hundreds and hundreds of emails uh for various different uh scenarios um and consolidated that feedback and then uh you know tied it back to the various parts of our policy to provide B with an assessment of where my community is seeing problems uh or advantages to various suggested scenarios and to ensure that they have that feedback because I think as some of my colleagues have mentioned not everybody is reaching out. But I think Miss Dixs had mentioned this, not everybody's reaching out to Brack and the superintendent. So I wanted to ensure that all of that feedback is getting to the hands that it needs to so that

058hopefully and when the next scenarios come out, we actually see things that are better in line with the policy that take into consideration the feedback that they've received from the community. uh very real feedback from things on transportation uh for things like moving kids that live across the street from a school uh away from that school to another school just very basic things that you would hope would be captured um based on the feedback that's been received already and we're talking about feedback that's come in over many months so I think people are eager to see adjustments based on that feedback and obviously not every bit of feedback warrants a change in direction but I think a lot of it does so I'll be looking forward to seeing uh how that plays out in the

059in the weeks ahead. >> Thank you, Mr. Fr. Um I'm going to take my quick turn here. Um one of the things that I wanted to mention personally was that the the most significant community that I heard from related to school start times was actually elementary school parents. And so I I wholeheartedly want the student voice. I agree completely that we need to talk to them about what their constraints are and all the things so that we get the information that we need to make the decision, but I do not want to lose the parent voice in here because for particularly for elementary students um that along with the second group that I heard the most from was our teachers like our teacher moving start times for teachers is a is a significant undertaking and

060I do want to make sure that we have some visibility on on what's going on with that. So, I I'm very interested to see how we move forward from here. Um, I do think that while we I agree that there are some concerns that I've noted that I didn't expect to see on my maps when I went from for schools in my district, I also did the same thing that Mr. Fr did where I pulled all that feedback together and made sure that I got it to the superintendent. I do think that we are the people in our districts that understand the makeup of our districts the best and so I do think having the ability to be able to give that feedback is essential um while still allowing the process to continue the way

061that it's been going. So um I am I'm very eager to see what the next iterations of maps look like. Um and I will fully and completely acknowledge that we're not going to be able to make everybody happy here. Like the whole point of this is that we have changes that need to be made and that's going to make the changes uncomfortable and so we're just going to have to figure out how we can mitigate that change as much as humanly possible. Okay. So we are in the second round of gobacks. So we're going to start with Dr. Anderson. Um thank you. Just looking at some of the key dates that are identified in the documents for today. It says November December schoolboard votes on school start times. Um, are we going to speak about

062these scenarios now? Is it the scenarios that were emailed to us that were going to be voted upon that we're going to be vote Yeah. that we're going to vote on? Dr. Reid can't see. >> I'm not sure what you're reading from, but I the scenario recommendations are going to come to you as a board in January. Um and that's when the board will be voting on the recommendations. >> Um it's this document that says integration of boundary review and start times project plan. Um recommended key dates. It said December I'm sorry November December. >> Can you pass this down? >> Yeah. No, I think Mr. Smith's uh team put that together and I think this was a draft at trying to integrate start times into boundaries, but the actual boundary uh recommendations are going

063to come to the board in January and that's been consistent. I >> No, I'm speaking to the middle school start times. If you just take a look at what's highlighted on that document, we're not talking about the same thing >> and that would be for the recommendations coming to the board for start times. >> Right. That's in November, December. >> The boundary is coming in January. Correct. Right. So, November, December is the middle school start times. So, I'd like to speak about the Can we put up those scenarios that were going to be voted on in like two months? >> I don't know if those were posted for today's meeting. >> They were not. They were not posted for today's meeting and they I provided them uh to Dr. Reid and I think she provided

064to you all in a Friday letter and >> Right. But the public has not seen it. >> Right. That's I >> Yes, ma'am. >> So, working backwards a little bit because we know people will have a lot of feedback. When do we anticipate to have a work session in which those scenarios will be made public so that they could be a discussion and we could receive feedback? >> I would guess sometime between now and November. I don't uh I don't know when those would be scheduled, but I wanted to make sure that the board got at least a first glance at uh the team's work and could pro provide feedback and we might make adjustments even before a work session. Um I haven't heard feedback, but I'm sure we can get that scheduled >> because

065I thought we were going to talk about it here. That's why I didn't give any feedback. So I guess what I'm hearing is we're going to wait. I can give you internal feedback right now with what you've provided, but then we need to ensure that there's going to be a public discussion at some point before November, December when this voting is going to be happening. Is that accurate, Sandy? >> As far as I know, Dr. Anderson. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, and again, I I'd like for us to also couch how we're going to how we're going to use that feedback. I I'm I'm just thinking back to the the PO boundary the PO middle school saw time proposal which staff said was feasible costwise it was good we know it was good for kids

066that ended up kind of dying on the vine because of the teacher feedback that said no this would be a little bit too disruptive. How is that going to be used now? Because I anticipate we will get some of the same feedback from teachers. How are we going to couch that versus the need to do what is good for kids? >> So, my recollection of the middle school pilot in the Mason district was that it was not costneutral, Mr. Muick. Am I remembering that correctly? >> Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. You are. >> No, it's not accurate at all. Um, the Glasco was not costneutral. The PO was costneutral. Actually, it saved one bus. I know these things are in in and you know etched in my memory. >> Oh, Dr. Anderson is glad that was

067like the first iteration of the Mason pilot where we were we were unaware that we couldn't have um students that were impacted from different magisterial districts. >> And that first one was negative one bus and then once we took out North Springfield um which I think were was the issue it was still even. It was at zero. It was the Glasgow pilot that was over and not cost effective. >> So what I'm trying to stress here is when we have a good scenario that we know is good for kids, how are we going to treat >> that staff feedback which may um reflect what we received for the pole pilot? Because if it's disruptive last May, it's going to be disruptive next November. Again, I my recollection is that the PO pilot was not enacted

068because it involved students outside that magisterial district. Is that correct? It was not because of staff feedback. >> Yes, ma'am. The the first iteration had uh two elementary schools in the pyramid that were not part of the Mason district and so we fixed that. Then the second scenario also had students that were coming from uh like 41% from a different district. So we canceled that one. Then when we got to Glasco, that one was not cost-effective. And >> I I would definitely encourage everyone who's speaking on this to go back and take a look because again, this is etched in my memory. Not trying to be um >> combative, but this I know for a fact what it looks like and how it ended up being pulled. That second PO presentation, that proposal was good

069to go from a staff perspect perspective because I sat in you in your office for us to have that discussion initially, but the thing is there were quite a bit of concern about the teachers feedback on to a change in their schedule. And my question is how is that going to be um assumed in any scenarios moving forward? Is it going to be a driver? Is what how much of a consideration will that be? >> I can put you on another go back. >> Oh yes. Thank you. Sorry. >> Um Miss Marin, I did that backwards. Miss Seismheiser and then Miss Marin. >> I don't mind if Miss Mar wants to go or Okay, that's fine. Either one's fine with me. Um, a couple things. I'm not necessarily the suggestions or the comments that I'm

070making doesn't necessarily mean that I think we need to push the boundary timeline back. I just want to make sure that these things are thought about as we move forward. I think that question can't really be answered until we go through the next round of community meetings and the B meetings and see what comes out of that to see what's feasible. Right? So that's, you know, probably a November, December, January conversation. So, I just don't want to get to that point and go, "Wait a minute. We didn't talk about these things or these weren't brought up." And that's what I'm trying to bring these up for. I mean, I would be very uncomfortable if we get to that point and we haven't really fully discussed access to programming. I think that's a really I mean,

071we I was the chair of the bound of the governance committee when we did this and that was an important factor and I think it's a very complicated factor. So, my concern is the time to be able to do that. Um, I think it's important to make sure we take into account the transportation times. That's why I bring these up because they're it's important to have that. Um, one thing I wanted to say with the boundary is is there a PL we've got all these comments similar to what Miss Miss Anderson shared. I we did the same thing. We got a lot of comments. There are some things in the boundary initial scenarios which I would expect there to be. This is a huge project we haven't undertaken in 40 years. Holistic boundary. There's going

072to be in the first round issues that came up. That's why we had the community meetings. That's why, you know, those of us who know our districts the best say, "Wait a minute. This this is a quirk of this district or this is unique to this district. Let's make sure those are so what's what's the process to make sure the things that were that were brought up that are quirks to our district or mistakes clear mistakes that were made are incorporated in the next round of scenarios. I know I had turned a lot of detailed analysis and in my meeting with the boundary consultant was told, yes, these two things are clear mistakes. Is there a process that that's being compiled where there's clear mistakes being found? >> So, I think there have been a

073number of areas of focus that have been identified. The um consultant has those uh we're going to talk about those on the September 3rd and September 24th uh boundary advisory committees and trust that the maps that come out in October will be better. Um I think they will not be perfect, but they will be better than the first round. and this is a process. So I uh my expectation is that the feedback is incorporated to the degree that it's possible. I also think we run a danger um some of the feedback if in taken in totality we could land right back where we were when we started. Um but uh and still have schools that are not efficiently you know um >> I think I'm populated I guess for lack of a better term. >>

074Yeah. And I think I totally I think I'm more looking at clear mistakes like there's just things are omitted off the maps or lack of understanding about what a neighborhood is, right? Things as opposed to I mean as Miss Anderson said I think we're going to get a lot of feedback that we can't please everybody but when there's clear like we forgot to label a school on a map which happened in my district for example those I want to make sure are addressed. >> Yes ma'am. I think my hope is that those will get addressed. >> Thank you Miss Marin. >> Yikes. I don't want to hope for things. We have to have them addressed. I I'm very concerned at the cavalier approach to this conversation. There are several of us that are gravely concerned

075about the status of these maps, not including critical data. And it's not that the superintendent hopes to address it. It must be addressed. I also just want my colleagues to know what regulation 2230, which is still in practice, says, and I hope you all can hear. It's hard to hear what the the talking in the room, please, colleagues. Um, regulation 2230 says that a family can ask for a student transfer reasons childcare hardship. So, if a staff member wants to bring their child to K6, I know that's an accommodation now. Are we aware of that? How many people is that? Medical, emotional, or social adjustment. Gosh, that sounds familiar. People have asked for that, haven't they? Well, it's in the regulation right now that that is a valid reason to be placed in a school.

076um the high school curricular program going to a different school. I see this all the time in Haron. We got kids that want IB. They come to Langston for IB. They want to stay in South Lakes. They have no bus. What do they do? I thought this boundary review was going to address these things. Where is the discussion about the programs that are going to be involved in this decision-making? Are we expanding IB? Are we going to allow AP for all? What about the career centers? I don't have any sense of if that's even on the table, but it is a criteria in our policy that I don't hear us talking at all about. We're talking about addresses, siblings. The current regulation says a sibling can come along. So, that's what's standing right now. And

077again, the lack of urgency for the superintendent to have this updated is really chilling. And it just makes me more and more uncomfortable to move forward with this. I don't hear any talk about what's coming forward. And as one board member just said, we know the makeup of our districts the best. And yet, we have not been asked for input in any formal way. So, when are we going to have that discussion? Is it going to happen at a work session or is that all supposed to happen in January when we're also legislative we're doing our legislative work and our budget work and the capital improvement program? Those are my questions. I hope somebody else is interested in finding out those answers. >> Okay, we're going to go to Mr. McDaniel who for a first

078round and then we're going to come back to Miss Lady for uh go back number two. >> Thank you. And I I'll be quick. I mean, I appreciate the conversation. Um, so as we continue down this timeline for a potential uh implementation next fall, there's several things that could be happening all at once next fall. We could be potentially opening a a Western High School of some sort. We we will be opening a Western High School of some sort. We potentially could be moving start times and we're going to have boundaries being adjusted as well. Now, we're also looking at program distribution, which I agree with Miss Mirren's comments. That was something I was also very interested in because that is a root cause of some of the transportation problems. That is the other flip

079side of us doing boundaries. Um, all that to say, we need to be really careful about change management. And what I don't want to do is find us in a scenario next fall where even though the people sitting in this room know it's coming, the public at large may or may not know it's coming until here it is. So we need to have a very aggressive outreach plan. I don't which is to say the more meetings the more out the more outreach the more public input we can gather early on I'm would be supportive of. I'll defer to the superintendent on uh you know how what she would do for a timeline on that. Um but the more we get out there in front of the public on this the better it's going to be

080for us all. So that's all. >> Thank you Mr. McDaniel. Miss Lady. >> Yeah. To go back to my earlier comments. Uh thank you uh Chair Anderson for mentioning the elementary school parents. Yes. They're of utmost importance. I guess in my brain I'm thinking that I would never ever I don't think I don't plan to ever vote for an elementary school that ends later than the current I think 420. I don't want to push that. So my my brain was skewed to my thinking and I think most of the feedback that elementary didn't like was pushing that later. Um but their voice needs to be heard. And also Dr. Anderson to your question Dr. Dr. Anderson to your question around the faculty I think the big difference here is that when we were those scenarios

081were being brought to us the transfer process had ended and so these faculty did not have the opportunity to seek out positions that were posted as available within our system that would align with their family's needs in terms of timing and so based on the time that I'm seeing the faculty this will be well before that window and that should resolve that issue because there'll be some faculty that swap because the last time we did this when we switched middle and high. We did it in a timely fashion. I was at Chantilly at the time. We had some Chantilly folks go to middle. We had some middle come to Chantelli, but they found homes and it was really not a lot of consternation around that. So, I just wanted to make that that point. Um,

082and then I may have had one other, but I forgot it. Thanks. >> Thank you, Miss Lady. Um, I remembered it. Um, I totally agree with Miss Marin that this regulation needs to be updated because this is the driving work. It needs to be updated because I'm also I'm aware of that there are a lot of kids who have been allowed to student transfer for world language. It's not even in the regulation. So, the fact that it's ever happened is completely wrong. It's out of regulation, but it has happened. And so, we need to revisit this because this has become a game. And when I was a director of student services, it was a very frustrating game for me. I will be very frank. When I got the plethora, and I mean they were lots

083of them for social emotional transfer to Chantilly, you know, I would reach out to families and I would say, well, you know, who's the therapist you're working with? What's the treatment plan? And most of them had nothing. They basically went to their pediatrician. They found someone who would write them a letter. And here we were. And so I fought hard against those because don't really talk with me about a social emotional issue if you're not getting your kid the medical need that they also need to support what the school might be doing. So this needs to be re revisited soon. Thanks. >> Thank you, Miss Lady. Dr. Anderson. >> I mean, I could go on and on with the things I have on my list, but I know we're nearing time to move to the

084next topic, so I I'll just kind of make these last statements. uh very much u appreciated what Miss Marin had captured. We don't know whether or not sixth grade is going to go to middle schools across the rest of the county. We don't know how middle school start times is is going to be embedded in this. We need to gather more data. We need to put it in front of parents and community and and and staff. We do not know whether or not we're going to stagger the implementation, the roll out. Um there are so many unknowns and of course just adding to um whatever the regulation does not currently um state there are so many unknowns and it is August and we are on a fastmoving train yes that timeline has been out but

085some of these things should have been worked out a little bit I think by now. So, I I am I'm worried as well that this is not going to be received well um by the time we get to it to have a vote so that we have enough time for teachers to transfer if they need to. And thank you for that information um Miss Lady, that was very helpful. I think I I would like to see the the the list of when we could start checking off some of these other things that are precursors to this decision making that we're going to do. um uh that we're going to do in January. And that speaks to what Mr. McDaniel just talked about. What is that kind of change management? I almost seem I need a

086project management just to check off the things that are still outstanding and when those things will come to the community. And I appreciate your deference to um to the superintendent and making sure that we have all the timelines, but some of these have already been articulated in the policy and we're kind of skipped it. I I I don't want to lose the opportunity to adhere to what we already said in the policy, which now I feel like we're being asked to do something else. It's already been stated. So, I I'm excited for this to happen, but I'm seeing it really the runway is very, very short for these very, very important decisions. If we're going to tell parents you're responsible for transportation, that has to be communicated in the next month or two. So I

087Dr. Reid, I'd like to see whatever is whatever we need to check off from this conversation that you're hearing to prep us to be productive and effective and successful in January for the larger decision making. >> Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Um, Miss Dixit. >> So, um, yeah, thank you. Uh, Dr. Anderson, I would I actually wanted to um mention this that so there are a lot of communities who are voice we are not hearing and um I would like to hear from them. So I don't know if we can send surveys uh through parents or uh families resource center because I think we're hearing from the same community members or same group of people again and again but there are like people I I think from title one schools and maybe Hispanic community. We we

088need to reach out to a rather larger audience uh I think before we move forward. Um, and one thing I would just say and was watching this video from Steve Job when he was, you know, launching his Macintosh computer. He said, I can launch something next year, but it's going to be just as bad as the competition. He men's, you know, computer, but if we do it right, I need little extra time. And I what and I've I've heard this from like visionaries and leaders that you take more time to do something right than rather than going and then fixing fixing and not putting us putting a substandard product. So I I would just say we just do it right. Um if it takes a little bit longer that's okay. Thanks >> Miss St. John

089Cunning. Um, so look, this timeline was a timeline that the school board imposed on the superintendent. Okay? So she's coming to us with a report and saying, "I'm following your timeline that you imposed on us." The discussion now is, "Do we want to change that timeline?" Okay, she's following what we've asked her to do. All of us knew this was going to be a heavy lift and that it was not going to be easy. And we say that it's been 40 years since this has happened, but we really don't even have a record of that actually being a time that there was ever a comprehensive boundary change 40 years ago. There never may have been. So there's a lot of changes that do have to be made. Um, in the process of doing this work,

090things have come up. The Western High School, the start times, some of the maps that we looked at and we felt were not drawn accurately because of missing information. So now we're sitting here with the superintendent giving us a report saying, "This is where I am following your timeline." Now, the question that was just said about do you have to drive your kid to another school if they don't go to your base school, I don't know why that's an issue. That's always existed. If you do not go to your base school, you have to drive your kid. I don't know why we have to inform parents of that when that's always been the I mean, we're bringing up these if scenarios that we already know. So, let's look at the work. Let's look at this

091timeline is realistic or not. Let's as a board figure out, do we need the time? Do we need to extend it? do we need to consider all of these things? Um, I do want to say that having said all of that, I think there's been a tremendous amount of work that has been done. I think that we have tried to do as much outreach as possible. Do we always have communities that are as responsive as others? No. And that's incumbent on us to try to try to get some of those communities, particularly our immigrant and community and our socioeconomically underserved community. My time's up, but I think I've said everything I need to say. Thank you, Miss St. John Cunning. We are going to switch over to talk about the new Western High School location

092in just a second. We're going to get kick that off at 2:30. So, if everybody wants to take a quick break and come back, then we will kick off. discussion of the new Western High School site. Thank you uh clerks for pulling up the presentation. At this point, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Reid. Thank you. >> Oh, thank you, Miss Lady. Um I this afternoon we're going to talk about the new Western High School and I um want to begin by thanking the board for uh your vision and work in helping to support our acquisition of the high school. We were able to um acquire this after many years of looking for a solution to the Westside High School overcrowding. And I really appreciate the board's um vision to actually accomplish that

093at this point. And with uh the opportunity comes the responsibility. And the responsibility we're going to begin talking about today is the naming process. And then also uh following the naming process discussion uh a programming discussion which is how are we going to determine um the programming uh possibilities for the new high school. So I want to start with naming and let's go ahead and go to the next slide please. Whoever's got the slide clicker. Thank you. Um this uh school naming uh procedure is governed by policy and regulation 8170. It uh generally has uh a fairly straightforward outline for naming. Um I will go ahead and hit the next slide. This has been posted so primarily for the community also to review. What we look at in a naming timeline is that generally there's

094a planning principle and attendance areas established. Um and in this case we don't uh we look at about four to six weeks out from the beginning of a process and we look at uh public comment periods, public hearings, community meetings scheduled and so forth. Often this is facilitated at the region level by the regional assistant superintendent and the magisterial board member for that region. About 8 to 10 weeks out we have uh recommendations shared and then there's generally another one month public comment period that begins. We collect that feedback and our pattern has been within 10 to 12 weeks out from the start or essentially about three months out the school board will vote to take action on the determination of a school name. So it's a fairly straightforward uh process. I think the next

095slide is really just a discussion. So, um I just want to make sure that we know that this is a process uh that is outlined in policy and regulation and uh again looking forward to some feedback from the board this afternoon on how we would like to proceed. Um we have named an acting planning principal which is Dave Jaggels who will be our he's a retired um executive principal and former principal in the school division who has a lot of experience with high school programming and uh he will be the planning principal until we post the position of principal at some point and then begin to select a staff. that uh this part of the work session is really limited to the naming process and just any feedback if there is any uh because we'd

096like to kick that process off here in the coming days. So, thank you Miss Lady. >> Thank you Dr. Reid, Dr. Anderson. >> Um just very quickly, thank you. What region will this school be in or is this a little bit too early to tell? Is it >> Well, I think that's a great question, right? Right. I mean, I think there's a geographic uh region, but there's also the possibility that it depending on what type of programming the board selects that it uh could be region agnostic. So, it geographically I believe will sit in region >> three. >> No, I think it's fine. >> I have no idea beyond two and six. I don't know. >> It's actually like Dr. was saying could be one and five but mainly region uh region >> mainly region

097one >> okay >> and limit with region five so that will be something that like Dr. reset has to be uh established. >> Okay. So, um depending on the program, it could potentially be like TJ, which is not embedded in a region per se. >> It it >> because TJ is not embedded in the region. TJ's under you. >> That's correct. TJ, but not the other one. >> What's the other one? >> The one that we >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was just asking. I think that um it could be in a region, it could be in a western side only, it could be divisionwide. I think those are not answers we've answered yet. I think it's still an open conversation, which is why we're really initiating that this afternoon. >> Um thank you.

098And my next comment is regarding the planning principle. What are the duties of the planning principle? the planning principal. There's actually it's their essential duties are to begin planning for a new school. Um they're going to um be coordinating in this case directly with um Marty Smith who's going to oversee this project uh with the team at the table and um you know there variety of uh planning principal duties. There will be a committee that will be formed um that will be overseeing once the decisions made about program the staffing registration just all the things necessary to >> um begin to open a a new school in the division and it's been we looked it up uh recently it's been about 20 years since we've opened a high school in Fairfax County so it's been

099a while two decades uh it's a real opportunity at this time but uh planning principal is really pretty much what it sounds like. It's planning for a new school. >> Sure. I I just want to kind of toss in, you know, having worked in Lowden for a number of years and they open up schools every year and has every single year that I work there and I had the opportunity to also open a brand new school in Lowden County and it was great to be on the ground floor to be hired before anything was done. So that inaugural principal had the opportunity to really be the planning principal. I I would love if there's any consideration for that to be consolidated because it's an experience that really carries you through. I would hate for the

100program to be determined and it's planned by one person and then another person has to kind of come in and carry it out. Um which means that you would have to hire like right now because essentially when principles are hired for high schools in Lowden, they get a year to do the planning. Um but it's a great opportunity for them to be the opening principal as well of of the school. >> Yeah, I understand that and have opened schools in prior divisions which we usually had several years notice because we had to build the school and we're in a unique position where we're not building. We need to hit the ground running right now. if we're going to open this building in the fall of 26, which is why we wanted to go with someone

101who had, you know, significant experience to get us kickstarted. But for sure, we'll be looking to post the position shortly. >> Okay. Thank you. And regarding the naming, I mean, this seems to be pretty standard um based on what we've done before. I've had the opportunity to be part of now two, well, I guess all three of these. I didn't even think about lineer, but yes. Um, so thank you for bringing this in front of us. Um, in the community meeting that will be two weeks from notice. Here's also kind of my my question. Who is the community? Is it the regional community or potentially all of Fairfax as a community to help to um contribute to the naming? >> That's part of what we're going to be determining once we determine the program, which

102is the next conversation this afternoon. >> Okay. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Uh, Miss Marin, this is very exciting and I've only heard positive things from many different people about seizing this opportunity and it's very hard for a big bureaucracy to move quickly yet somehow it happened over the summer. So, thank you um Dr. Reid for your you and your team and the leadership and glad we have a new chief of facilities here. So, um this is a new experience for me as well. I think starting by talking about the naming misses a lot of important information that this board as a as a fiduciary you know overseer needs to discuss. Um you know the policy and reggg here I am again with the policy and the regulation. Um we should know what that is right

103we need to be sure that the school is is governed by the values that we set forth. Um, I actually don't have the number right in front of me, but I know the regulation from the last session can apply to this one, and we already know that that one's got a problem. Cost payment. I have been so excited to celebrate this, but it's there hasn't been a public announcement of this school that we even bought it. Um, I waited and waited and then I finally put some pictures up on Facebook and said, "Hey, we we bought this school." But while there's been news stories, there's not been a statement from the division saying how much it was, what exactly it cost. Uh certainly not provided to me to to um to share out. This really

104brings up a very important conversation about our bond and we are on the bond this year um for that for the election. And the bond as it stands has priorities that I don't think are priorities anymore. And I could tell you that people who support the bond are concerned about it as well. A lot's happened this year and the last time this bond, you know, this proposal for what is on this November bond was out there was before Western High School was even a twinkle in our eyes. So, we need to do our responsibility so that the board of supervisors knows that we know what we're doing with the money. Um, and finally, the capital improvement program. How does this impact the queue, the renovation queue? There's changes to this bond from what was proposed

105as the list for renovation in the capital improvement program. Now, we do know that we can use the bond money on different projects. We know that legally that is allowable and that's fine, but we also had talked about being committed to the renovation queue and there is a change now and we need to be upfront about that. So, I've, you know, I've asked about this beforehand, and I I am concerned that we're not talking about money on this big purchase. Uh, so I don't know what's prepared to discuss it now, but I would certainly love to hear other board members thoughts about revisiting the bond. And, um, but I will say on a way more positive note, I am so excited for the next part of the presentation. It is so exhilarating and the future

106forward work. So, I'm excited to get to that, but we have to do our our due diligence as as you know, the overseers of the money. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Mayor. Were you looking for any response from staff at the moment? >> I will happily take some if there's any clarification or information. >> Okay. >> Are we going to reconsider the bond? Will the purchase of the property be publicly announced by the school division? Um, is it within the current policy and regulation? Do we have to change the queue? So, we can certainly announce the purchase of the school. I feel like So, we can certainly do a a better job of announcing that. Um the Q I don't believe uh I think I put together an attached a document of where the

107funding for the school came from. I don't know. I think the Centerville High School uh place in the queue was uh is still at issue because of planning and per not planning but permitting to enable us to move forward uh with the FAR or the um density work and I don't know uh Mr. Gordon, do you have any kind of an update on where the negotiation for that uh work is because that's been a bit of a um a pickle that we've been caught in for Centerville to move forward. >> Uh ma'am, what I know understand the position to be is it is correct. You are correct. It is a FAR situation. Um Florida area ratio and so I think the county's perspective is um there's an interested uh in Cub Run and Sorry. Yeah.

108Well, I think there are a variety of issues. We proposed ways to mitigate this and the county has responded with, but we haven't reached agreement yet. So, right. So, I think uh that certainly can be discussed in the queue. Um and what was the third question? It was the Q, the announcement. Well, the bond is the bond going to remain the same with half just about half the bond on retrofitting net zero. >> Well, I think that's a discussion to be had if the board wants to continue the net zero initiatives. the retrofitting costs are significant and we laid those out in the current bond. And that again would be something that um we certainly could have a conversation about in terms of uh whether or not that continues to be a priority or a

109priority that would be ahead of other priorities, I guess, for lack of a better way to phrase that. >> Thank you, Mr. Dunn. I I wonder if um I I I I definitely support uh my colleagueu's suggestion for a public announcement. Um I think it shouldn't just involve the cost, but the savings. Uh savings were twice the purchase price. Uh so I think that's something to be emphasized at time that uh we're facing a a potential loss of federal funding. Um that we have been uh prudent from a uh fiscal responsibility perspective. Um I wondered if uh Dr. Do you have any perspective on naming conventions? What I see at the middle school level are um all of our middle schools are named after poets and writers, which I have no idea why that was

110put in place. Um it doesn't really make sense to me. Whereas at the high school level, it seems to be geographic based. Um Centerville, Hayfield, Hearnden, Mlan, etc. Um, so, uh, if if with the exception of Lewis and unless I'm missing any others, um, are do you >> Oh, Justice and Edison. There we go. We're as as a team teamwork makes a dream work. Um, so uh, you know, we seem generally to have geographic uh, based uh, names for high schools. Is that something you're in favor of continuing or do you have any thoughts as to conventions for middle school and high schools and whether those conventions should be established in policy or revisited? >> I think um I I don't know that I have an opinion on the naming conventions and you know whether

111to revisit those or not. I think some school divisions have very clear um guidelines for naming and some don't. And I I would want to examine whatever our traditions here are. And um I don't have a personal naming favorite at this point or a favorite convention at this time. >> Do you think that the high school name should depend on the programming that's selected? >> Um I I don't know that I would necessarily connect those. Um I it could, but it wouldn't need to. >> Okay. And and lastly, I'd just say since it was mentioned Cub Run, I I don't think there any circumstance we should give up Cub Run. That's too too uh valuable of an asset and we can't buy any more land in the county. So, thank you. >> Not seeing any

112other placards um except for I guess gobacks coming. Um I'll just take a quick one. Um I too am over the moon about the acquisition of uh the Western site. um and to the inquiry of a lot of constituents who wanted to be, you know, privy to conversations that may or may not have been taking place among this board other than um I just need the public to understand that when you're in a real estate transaction that that is confidential work because of the negotiations. So, I've tried to respond to my constituents who have asked about that. Um but um you know, this is an unbelievable site. We got it for an an amazing amount deal and when we when we do send out a post that maybe we can include some pictures and we'll

113talk about cost savings. Um and I think that all of our constituents around the entire county should be extremely proud of the fidiciary responsibility we exercised around this and how we were able to capitalize it when it came up. Um so I think we're to go backs and I'll go back to Miss Marin. Yeah, actually so as Mr. Dr. Nson said the last board we named three schools and before that was justice right and there is a history and it's a little passionate and so it would have been helpful for the board to be presented with that even if it wasn't perhaps all of the public you know um airing of things that happened but and there has been a model as was said that middle schools are named after poets or whoever and I

114remember during the naming that we did. People questioned why we were named why were names being named after people and given our our history with slavery and the Civil War here. It's a big issue and so I think actually the board needs to have more guidance. Um I did look up our policies uh 8170. I have not reviewed it just yet. It was updated in February 2020. But um do we want to name it after an individual living or dead? Do we want to name it after a region or like these are things that we should perhaps talk about? The other thing I'm thinking is so there's going to be two public meetings it seems between when we vote which is scheduled to be November. But we just also heard that there's going to be

11512 public meetings about boundaries. Never mind it's still back to school season and we have our regular meetings and closed meetings and work sessions and committee meetings. November is also extremely short with VSBA. We're going to do a lot of legislative advocacy. There's a lot going on and I think viewing these timelines peace meal is not doing justice to the amount of work that has to happen. Um I don't see the through line to this big, you know, the whole picture here. What are the names of all the other high schools? Should we just see them in a list? Right? Maybe we need to look at that or the middle school. I I just being told that this is a process that's going to happen does not inform me at all about what we're supposed

116to be doing and what we should be doing when we only get to do that here at the table together. Thank you, Miss Mayor. Uh Mr. Mackie, >> thanks. And um I just want to share my congratulations as well to uh the board members that brought this forward as well as the staff that had a very busy summer. I think the last time we had such a productive summer was when we built Bailey's Upper um in just a few months about a decade ago. So um we can do great things quickly if we set our minds to them. So, um, and I will say that I also, uh, participated in, um, uh, the Justice High School renaming and the first half of the Lewis High School renaming. Um, and these are these can be contentious

117processes. Uh, but I think um, those were renamings and this is naming a naming. So, it's a little less so. Um, but I think at the root of um, any naming is the community. So um it's really reaching out and making sure everyone has an opportunity to contribute um led by the region and um I look forward to um that process which will be be coming um quite soon. Um so one one question I have is just when we talk about um the western geography um there are a lot of issues at play but probably the one that's um foremost on many people's minds particularly those at this table um is Centerville High School. So, um, what kind of updates can you give us on, um, the Centerville High School situation? >> Yeah, thank you,

118Mr. Meline. Um, I'll have to turn to Mr. Gordon, because I think we have been in a holding pattern since last spring on Centerville High School at the last briefing we provided the board. We had done some initial planning and were not able to move forward with um, any permitting successfully to enable us to actually begin the work. But, Mr. Mr. Gordon, are there any updates to Centerville High School? >> Ma'am, I'm not tracking any additional updates other than we're still working through the the FAR process. >> That would be our current update, Mr. Meline. >> Okay. I mean, as everyone at this table knows, that was approved in several bonds ago and um >> it's uh it's an unfortunate situation. Um and please keep us posted if there's anything we can do on our

119end um and on the board of supervisors and to move. >> Yes, sir. >> Thank you, Dr. Anderson. >> Yes. Thank you. Actually, Mr. Mavine talked about touched on what I wanted to raise um which is Justice um Lewis and Lenir. All of those were renaming and not naming. And I I also want to point out that those renamings were really they were contentious for sure, but they were really to kind of right or wrong here in some ways. it was looking to take those Confederate names out and really focus on the communities that were harmed the most by those Confederate names. Um, but I I'm pulling a Miss Marin here just looking at the policy. We don't have a policy that speaks to naming. It speaks to renaming and how that has to be

120initiated by a board member. It talks about the sale of naming rights. So, I wonder if the governance chair might consider um putting this on the docket along with all of the other things on the docket just so we can just take care of this because there's no guidance on naming um because we come to it so infrequently. And just kind of a followup for Mr. Gordon when you said that we're still in process regarding Centerville the F work. Is this a different conversation from what has occurred before? Is this do we have reason to be optimistic that there might be some a different outcome? >> Ma'am, it's the same. I believe it to be the same uh conversation and I am optimistic. >> Okay. So, that's different from where we were a short year

121ago regarding the F and what needed to happen at Cernville in order to increase capacity there. >> I have heard nothing different than where we are. We're still negotiating with um whoever it is you're negotiating with at the county. I don't know of a new development. >> I'll save some of those questions for the second part because it will impact the um Western High School. >> Do you have some >> program discussions I think quite a bit. >> Oh, you have news? >> I don't have an update on that. I I wanted to provide clarity on the naming of new school facilities in the regulation 8170. The section three is of naming new school facilities. So it clearly >> it's not in the policy. It may be in the regulation, but the policy is what

122I'm looking at and it doesn't have any and this is our communication and it's silent regarding naming of new schools. But I'll hold my questions regarding Centerville for the second part. >> Thank you. Uh Miss St. John Cunning. Um, so I don't have the regulation in front of of of me, but Mr. Smith, can you just let us know what that regulation says for the naming of new schools like in a brief? >> It's attached >> certainly and and it's a both regulations are attached to the uh agenda. So it's a quite extensive regulation that outlines the naming of new school facilities within the regulation itself. Go ahead. I just the point that I wanted to make about I mean if there's a regulation and I'm sorry I missed it. I looked at the policy

123and not at the regulation. I think part of um doing this work and I and I understand everything about the renaming which I think you know was reflective of our values. But I also think that part of what we do as as board members is we also defer to our colleagues and look at defer to the magisterial um representative. uh as a whole we want our values to be reflected but this is also the com uh going back to what one of my colleagues said this is something that the community should decide uh where the building resides in and also give um you know some difference to the magisterial representative >> I would like to comment on what miss uh St. John Cunning said, I think the regulation speaks to that it is the prerogative

124and responsibility of the school board to name new schools. Um, and essentially it talks about the region working that which is connected to our conversation which is next, right? Um, in terms of how we're going to proceed with that depending on the type of programming uh being more traditional versus magnets. So I think after today we'll have a lot more clarity on where the board sort of seems to be. So we'll be able to be I hope thoughtful about initiating that process. I just also wanted to point out um really fast that section four of our policy on page one does outline what happens in a new facility. So it is already in the policy. So it actually references the regulation in that location as well. So I think both are already present in policy

125and regulation. >> Thank you Miss Dixit. >> Um so I was also going to uh mention this policy that it is does talk about naming of new school policy 8170.7 and it does talk about the um in section 4 and the school board member representing area in which a new school facility is. So it does mention new school facility. Um so and and how it's solicitation of names from the member of the community. Um as this sits u in SI district and if we go through the traditional route I would love to take that responsibility. Thank you. >> Thank you. Uh we're going to do go back. I'm going to start with Mr. Dunn. >> Uh thank you >> for crimes. >> My apologies Mr. Fr. I didn't see you. >> Thanks. I wanted to

126be the third board member to point out that policy 8170 section 4 details the process for uh naming new facilities. Uh um I actually wanted to reference the renaming of Mosaic from Mosby Woods because it's the last time we did this and um I think it's extremely important that Mystix is involved in this work because of how close to the community these conversations happen. I think obviously some of the renaming process will depend in part on um the direction the board takes with um uh the next conversation. Um but uh I think um you know when when you have a new school in a in a community um the magisterial member and the atlarge members can really serve a function of elevating the community's conversation. My recollection is that we had a few community meetings

127um during the mosaic renaming process um both to uh bring out suggestions and then also to uh take feedback when names were finally proposed by the superintendent uh before we ultimately moved on and voted for the name change. So, um I think that is the easy part of this conversation and the more difficult part is the next conversation and actually getting the school up and running. Thanks. >> Thank you. Now for gobacks back to Mr. Dunn. Thanks. >> Um I was wondering if uh Dr. Reed could clarify there's a generic start four to six weeks out, 8 to 10 weeks out, 10 to 12 weeks out, but uh it doesn't have specific months. Uh, so when do you envision starting this? Is is start today or start sometime in the spring? Just when is this

128naming process expected to launch? Taking note of my colleagues comments about we've got a lot of stuff going on right now. >> We do I think that um we left it as weeks out rather than putting months in. Uh really just to outline what the process was and that it's a roughly threemonth process. Um I think that the policy 8170 in that section 4 where it talks about um where the school facility is located. I think that um at such point as Miss Dixit who is the magisterial for the geographic location of the school is ready we would want to begin I think sooner than later so we can call the school by whatever name the board ends up approving it. So I I I don't know as I recall in the last the last

129naming I was a part of was um the Carter G. Woodson uh high school renaming and it seemed like there was a lot of work for the magisterial board member but not so much for the entire board. I know the entire board had decision- makingaking points but really the bulk of the work occurs at the magisterial level. So, I I would want to check in with Miss Dixit and see where she felt like if she want felt comfortable starting soon, we would um if there was a feeling we should wait a little bit, then I think that's fine, too. I think honestly the sooner the better uh so we can have the school named would probably be best. >> So, your preference would be sometime this fall. >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. um >> be

130my recommendation >> and I I just want to say we should be uh careful about how we seek big public input. Definitely seek it, but uh putting stuff on the internet has related has caused a lot of funny names to rise to the top like Bodie McBoatface and other famous examples. So we we definitely want to end up with a respectable name and not just a a hilarious one. So uh thank you >> Miss Marin. So, I feel like this is a theme and maybe it's because we're just coming back from recess, but we are all very busy people and I struggle to see how this board will be available for all of these expectations in the next two months. Um, you know, I I'm just this board needs to meet its duties as required

131by law and for what's best for our communities, but we need the superintendent's help to set us up to be valuable contributors to operational decisions. So a lot of people on this board have never gone through a naming change. So whether that's something you know the superintendent could say, "Hey chair, vice chair, let me make sure I inform or maybe you know veteran members talk to the like we just can't come in cold for these epic discussions and it's the first one after recess." Um I mean I've been at it all summer like many people but this is still a new discussion. I think it's also the board's responsibility to come to the discussions having reviewed relevant policy and regulation and while yes there is a policy it is six years old and we are

132supposed to review our policies every 5 years and currently the policy says that we have to bring to a forum topic doing a naming discussion that's what it says in our policy the school renaming a quest will be initiated through a board forum topic by at least one magisterial member and an atlarge member >> this is not renaming >> okay fine Sorry, my apologies. Regardless, it's not acceptable to be governing this school system with old policies. They do not represent any of our values right here at this table. And we should really be focused on that. And I know I sound like a, you know, it's just it's very hard for me to get excited about the interesting things when we're using defunct policies to guide us. And I would like the superintendent to have

133more of a partnership with us on that. And um I do have a question. When are we going to talk about the money? When are we going to talk about the bond? Is that this meeting? Are we going to have a talk talk discussion about next time? Um because we need we need to talk about that. So I would like some certainty on that please. But can we even change it at this point? I mean it's sent like I think the bond is a priority. So I think we needed to talk about the bond because of the timing. So Can I miss Mayor? >> I mean, I just happen to notice that our stellar budget office staff are here and yet there's zero information in any of these materials except for what? One thing about

134the bond. I I just don't get it. >> Well, if we're going to stay in order of the agenda, the next thing we're going to talk about is the program discussion around the new Western site. So seeing no other gobacks, I think, and I will say this, I'll take a turn on that. I do agree with you personally. I think get to green and is is a priority, but it is not a priority above the facilities that are falling down around us. And I agree with you that I think that needs to come off of the bond, but we'll come back to that conversation. Um, but to to just speak to it, I I think that it is a priority, but I don't think it's the number one priority given the condition of too many

135of our facilities. Um, and I including and I'll name it MLAN High School. Um, okay. I'm going to turn this back over to Dr. Reid for uh the new Western High School program discussion. >> Thank you, Miss Lady. If we can put up the PowerPoint on program discussion. So this afternoon I thought it would be helpful to begin not end but begin the conversation about what type of programming uh we might envision for this new western high school. So let's kick it to the next slide. I think in general we have a couple design options and this particular slide is really aimed at trying to get to the boundary impact of the possibilities. In other words, I think before us we have a fairly clear-cut uh fork in the road in terms of determining whether

136we want the Western High School to be a traditional uh comprehensive Fairfax County Public School high school. uh which is to say there's a body of curriculum and a particular schedule uh certain facility specs and that type of thing versus uh and also within inherent in the traditional uh definition would be that it would have its own school boundary. So, it's important to note that if we're talking about a traditional comprehensive high school, what we would need to do this fall is incorporate a new boundary or carve out a new boundary for this high school, which would affect the other uh western high schools and alleviate overcrowding, which has been for many, many years a topic of discussion. But the traditional implies a redrawing of a fixed boundary for that high school. On the right

137there's a magnet which is another possibility and there many many plausible magnet themes or types. We uh illustrated one such track in this presentation. There are many others we could illustrate if the board is interested in looking at other possible uh topics or themes. But the distinction here that's important is that a magnet school would not have a fixed boundary. And that's really the distinction on this slide. traditional has a fixed boundary. A magnet would not have a fixed boundary. Having said that, you could determine that a magnet school had a non-fixed area specific boundary, which is to say you it could be a lottery of just certain high schools. You could argue that if we're looking at alleviating overcrowding in the western high schools, perhaps the lottery only was available to students who were

138in those western high school boundaries. And you would still alleviate um overcrowding, although it would not be um it might not be at scale, right? It could be more from some school and less from another. We don't know yet based on what a lottery could look like. You could also go with a lottery for example of 80% of enrollment coming from overcrowded westside high schools and 20% the rest of the division or 7030 or 9010 or there are many possibilities right the slide is really a distinction fixed boundary flexible boundary next slide please. One of the things we thought would be a good idea is to kind of dive into the research uh and a big thank you to um our research and development, our ORS team, uh to look at some of the characteristics

139of what future ready schools and in particular future ready high schools might look like. And there's a lot of discussion right now about this topic honestly nationally with the advent of uh really an evolution in workplace uh topics and industries um across the nation across the world. So there's a lot of interesting workforce development conversation going on um and just rethinking a little bit what high school could look like. So uh next slide please. One of the this slide we captured because we really kind of wanted to take a look at the global priority areas if we're looking at uh the world that our graduates are going to be entering. And these in particular um are areas that our graduates are going to need to be able to navigate um as they pursue uh higher

140education jobs or the military uh when they leave us here in Fairfax County Public Schools. These are also examples of uh global priority areas that our county here in Fairfax County is working to be a national center for the development in these areas. And I I know that our Northern Virginia Tech Council has uh goals around um you know having businesses in these sectors uh settling and headquartering here in Fairfax County. as we know that these are global priority areas and Fairfax County has long been a leader um in you know really global and particularly national influence. Next slide please. So um the potential theme and again there's a statement at the bottom of these slides which say there are likely many options to contemplate. This is just a process conversation starter. So again the

141slides in this next these next couple slides would be possible themes if we were looking at pathways in a magnet type program which is again non-specific um boundary uh lines. So there variety of um opportunities uh in this case we're looking at aerospace science uh in part because of the proximity to Dallas uh and in also in part uh due to the high um workforce learning connections uh with aerospace industry uh possibilities. So next slide please. One of the things you would do if we were going to look at a um oh a magnet type school whether it's the arts whether it's aerospace whether it's AI uh machine science or machine learning data science whatever the theme one might look at I think it would be interesting to take that theme through the curricular areas

142that it might expand as well as the um other global priority areas. Um, you know, I know I was talking to Gotham yesterday and just talking about what an R&D influence or impact within a contemporary high school might look like. The research and development arm being research and development uh personnel from industry actually being a part of um the curriculum which would be very different for us here in Fairfax County. Um, but you could take almost any theme. I don't want to limit our conversation this afternoon to just aerospace, but we wanted to take an example and walk it through this just for your thinking. Next slide. Um, one of the things we looked at here is sort of a dual strategy. Um, we included a handout on this where uh we look at priorities

143and then a program and capacity strategy. And these really are just different ways of looking at how we might program a high school. And um again, this works in this particular slide, it would work for traditional or a theme-based uh program. So again, we purchased this building to alleviate overcrowding in the western high schools, right? So absolutely, we need that to be a goal of whatever we uh situate here. Next slide, please. other I tried to list some other options just looking at high school research there's obviously uh from one end of the continuum kind of a traditional and at the other end of the continuum more of a magnet there also you know options all along that continuum there's a traditional withmies of some sort um school within a school there's a traditional yet

144unique organizational framework and what I would talk about there as an example I've been asked a lot about that green box. Um I think about expeditionary learning which is a framework for approaching education even with traditional content but you can approach traditional content in unique ways. So there are variety of possibilities. I would also state that as we're looking at developing a program at a high school for the first time in 20 years, I want to make sure we're thoughtful about um inclusion in particular with our uh twice exceptional students as well. we have an opportunity to craft a design that takes our students into consideration from the beginning and I think that's a rare opportunity and I'm really excited that we have the opportunity to think through those um possibilities. Next slide please. So

145the possible program management or project management um and Mr. Done. This sort of answers your question in terms of some time frame possibilities. Uh looking at a naming process, we outlined a possibility of moving from perhaps October through December to end up with a board vote right before winter break. It's important that we identify magnet or traditional really by November. We don't need to determine what all the magnet possibilities, but we have to have a sense of that because if we're going to open the building in the fall of 26, we have to start registering students for it, which would be January to March. Really, we have to hire staff and then plan to open the school in the fall of 26. So, this is a backward plan at a very very high level. Next

146slide, please. And this would be my recommendation, and it's a fairly strong recommendation. Just having opened brand new high schools recently, not here, but in other divisions. It's very often customary to open a brand new high school for simply ninth and tth graders. And that's in part because you don't hit your capstone electives in your first year. It gives you some time to get those really planned and thought through. Um, also you don't have a lot of interest in kids who are becoming juniors or seniors wanting to switch high schools. Um, so I would recommend strongly that of course this is our planning year. Next year we would open for 9th and 10th graders only under this plan. In 2728 we would add a new 9th grade which would then result in a 9 through

14711. And in 2829 with the addition of the final ninth grade, we would have a full um enrollment with the first graduating class being June of 29, a year before our current strategic plan is up. So I think this was our last slide, but I could be wrong. Um yes, it is. So um I again I want to clarify that the purpose of today's discussion and it is sort of a welcome back from the recess and I know it's hard to just jump right into this but the sooner this is kind of the soonest honestly we could begin this conversation. We didn't take ownership of this property until two weeks ago. So, we're within two weeks of um owning the property and I think talking about how we're going to name it and what type

148of program I really want staff to listen to you as a board and kind of your conversation and thoughts as we begin to put together a more detailed plan forward. So, um, Madam Chair, that's our presentation and Miss Lady, uh, and we're all looking forward to, you know, being leaning into this and really providing the best program possible for our Fairfax County students. >> Thank you, Dr. Reid. Uh, we're going to get started with Mr. Dunn, followed by Miss Anderson. >> Uh, Dr. Reid, uh, we look to you as our leader. Uh do you have a recommendation uh comprehensive versus magnet? And if magnet, what percentage? Because there's so many options. It's almost infinite. We only have so much time based on this time frame you've provided. So is there a way you can narrow

149it down to what you think uh are good options to consider? >> Well, it's a great question. I I think that um I think this is an opportunity that doesn't come along very often. I think that in speaking with colleagues around the country, the opportunity to create something that's cutting edge, which is what Fairfax is known for. We've built our reputation on being the division that um is out there in terms of learning and we're facing 22nd century challenges coming up. I my my recommendation would be that we look at the global priority areas that we've outlined and really be thoughtful about some type of a magnet program that's limited to our westside high schools in some way because I know we've made that commitment that this be to alleviate westside high schools. That would

150be my first recommendation. if we can't get there and we're at a place where having a fixed boundary um is a you know more desirable I would still hope that we could include something beyond a very traditional curriculum because I feel like our our young people are going to face a very different future than what we've planned for over the last many years and this is an opportunity to to work with industry partners and create something that's um that honestly many of our students and families have been asking for in terms of a um a deep dive into some of these uh global priority work areas >> and and do you have a recommendation within the theme areas you've identified given the proximity to Dallas airport aviation for example or the various tech companies AI

151>> so I think if you go back to the global area slide um one of the things we I think could be very thoughtful about is I think we could provide a high school that actually includes pathways in all of those areas. Um which and I talked to Dr. Prescidio as well about the real need um and this is where it sort of bleeds into the conversation for program access that we talked about with boundaries. It also illustrates a real need to think about how do we integrate some of these topics into ourmies that are across the county and not just have these topics available in one high school in one part of the county but how how does data science how does aerospace aviation AI how do these topics actually become more alive in

152other parts of our county as well so I think that um there's a larger conversation to be had in looking at that. We're also looking at workforce development options. We're looking at uh the national focus right now on AI. Uh so I think having that be a part of the curriculum across the board is going to be critical. Um but I think we could match all of these uh pathways within the site. Now a question that's come up, can we match those in some of kind of an academy approach to be shared by other high schools? Maybe. You know, I think that's all to be determined and that's part of the conversation we're gonna have here. Um, so I think that's my answer at this time. >> What start with easy questions? >> I'd like

153to understand the cost, right? Cost of a comprehensive general high school versus cost of magnet lottery, the different options because we're facing a potential loss of federal funding. We're facing a constrained budget environment. It's very important for us to not pick blindly, but to pick with a sense of does it cost more than a general comprehensive high school. Not that we won't pay that cost, but to understand that and make an informed decision. >> It would be my expectation, Mr. Dunn, that it would not cost more. I don't think we have that luxury right now. I do know that there are variety of companies, and Mr. Seth is here too that are looking to partner u with schools on a variety of these topics. And I think that again starting with ninth and tth graders

154and our preemptive coursework as we would begin a school gives us another yearish to um firm up those partners. Mr. Seth, do you feel comfortable sharing some of the partnership possibilities? In fact, we've already begun one very recently that I think is very exciting >> in the broad sense. There's been opportunities in the past. Uh Microsoft famously had a school with Philadelphia that'd open up. Uh this is a little while ago. Um Amazon certainly has investments in future engineering program where they bring in resources into a building. So any of those opportunities, especially in the Nova area, we have plenty of headquarters from these companies who are willing to potentially invest in opportunities to build those programming with resources and sharing of cost in some ways. Would it be possible to do an industry RFI

155or meetings with CEOs? I know you've done a big state of the school speech. Uh reach out to some of those CEOs to see are, you know, get a sense of the market, right? Uh what the demand is and whether they might be willing, as Mr. Sethy says, to contribute funding not just on a short term, but on a sustained basis. >> So, yes, sir. I I think that's one of the things we're working on right now. This school just happens to be an opportunity because it's a bit of a blank slate, right? it's an opportunity or a pallet to begin to fill in. Um we in looking at uh just a variety of options, we're talking about actually in October an initiative that we're going to be talking a little bit more with the

156board here very shortly, but meeting the moment is kind of how we're characterizing it and it's meeting the moment in our future forward thinking in particular with AI. And um so we're con going to be convening a think tank of industry uh leaders to really be thoughtful about what that could look like here since we in Northern Virginia are a tech hub for the nation. So absolutely I think that's something we can put together. >> Uh the design of the school is a little bit different and and some of that is baked into the concrete. It's very differently designed than than our traditional schools. So can you talk a little bit about how that might factor into your recommendations? the board or consideration of programming. >> So I think the there are going to be

157some remodel needs given that it was um a school that housed both elementary and secondary students. The two adjacent buildings on the campus provide us um space also for classrooms and labs. We have two unfinished office buildings with um I'm trying to remember 4,000 square feet each. >> 15,000 total. 30,000 square feet. Sorry, I don't know where I got the four. Um but uh oh, four total floors because we've looked at two floors and two floors >> and 7,000 roughly 7,000 per floor. >> Right. So, and those are completely non constructed right now. So, uh those are opportunities whatever we determine or decide. They can be traditional classrooms, they can be labs, they can be combinations thereof. Um but, uh you know, the design of the building. So that's wonderful, right? We can design it

158from however we wish. I think other aspects of the building will need some design and some of those we already have outdoor classrooms on site. Um and the cafeteria, all of the furnishings have come with the school and all the um options for the type of scratch cooking we're wanting to do. So I think there will be structural adjustments um for sure. So, I'm very excited about this uh school, but what I note uh what you said is a magnet school limited to the western high schools, which I appreciate. That makes sense. It's at the farthest end of the county that you can go. Um but we don't have a magnet school on the eastern end of the county. And we just recently had an FCPS staff member come out to one of my high

159schools, uh that's also heavily attended by Franconia students and speak incredibly disparagingly about Route One schools. And and that's not a one-time thing. that happens frequently in recent years. And and so what I'm seeking is geographic equity. If we're going to set up a magnet school on the western side of the county, that's great. My question is when are we going to set up a magnet school on the eastern side of the county so that every student attending this school system um will have equitable equal access to fantastic programming. It doesn't have to be the same programming, right? Doesn't have to be aviation here, aviation there, AI here, AI there. But um I I do want to make sure that uh we are uh approaching this from a school system perspective and not simply continuing

160to benefit the western half of the county which historically has received a disproportionate share in recent decades uh from FCPS in the county. >> So great question. Um I think that's part of my um ask when we talked about upgrading our academy options across the county. I don't know when we'll Our CIP doesn't include a new building um in the eastern is route one eastern or northern eastern. Okay. >> Um in eastern part of the county um but I think we can look at high schools where we have space or locations where we have space. Um Dr. King, you had your hand up or you were what are your thoughts? agree with you about >> I'm just nodding because I agree with you about updating across the county with the same kind of programming that

161would make it equitable. >> It would make it more equitable. But I and I also want to acknowledge we have the Bradock district which doesn't have access to themies, right? Noies at all. So, we've got sort of pockets of um yeah, we have pockets of the division that really do need um equitable access to programming obviously. Um so, it's point well taken and I I think to your point, Mr. D, we may need to take the global priority areas and also look at some other areas and then think about what does a five-year plan look like to have these located and maybe delivered differently. Maybe they're delivered synchronously online if they don't have a classroom or maybe they're delivered um in, you know, six week mini inter session classes. There are a lot of ways

162to gain access, but we're going to have to be really intentional to do that. >> I I I note that Montgomery County uh is looking at through a global lens at their entire county and access. So certainly um addressing the needs in Bradock as well as the eastern half of the county. Uh, I just ask that we we look at this continuously through a global lens. Um, and a five-year plan is a great approach and not just through a school or and one district lens. Thank you. >> Thank you, uh, Miss Anderson and then Mr. Fr. >> Um, I don't want to repeat anything that my colleagues have said. I do know that this is a particularly uh, it's an interesting makeup of a school for those of us have who have been out to

163see it. Um and it definitely the space itself is going to take a little bit of work to make sure that it works within the system. Um do you think the existing bar the existing setup of the school is a barrier to success for the for having this be a traditional high school? >> I don't think so. Um I don't think it is. I think there's some features some of the quiet spaces the smaller collaboration rooms that I would be sorry to see taken out. uh because I think there's a space for that structure. It's a it's probably our newest built school of any of our schools in the division. Honestly, it's only nine years old. So, when I look at some of the features they've included, they've been thoughtful about some contemporary instructional framework

164ideas that I think would they're going to push our thinking about how we could use those spaces for um secondary education. So I I don't think there's I don't see it as a barrier. I really don't. >> Okay. Um the other question that I had for you is do you see this if we're going to focus Western if we're going to focus this this area and I and I do fully and completely understand that the reason that this school has been in the CIP as long as it is has been is because the western portion of the county is overcrowded and we need to we need to create space. I guess my question is if we had this be a magnet school that would also potentially allow TJ to continue to be a magnet school

165in the eastern part of the county or I mean if you're looking at the county kind of split um would it be possible that it actually increases capacity at both or the ability to participate at both schools. So it means that more more students from the eastern and southern part of the county or you know wherever we draw the line um different pyramids could would be available to go to TJ because I I don't think that we're going to exactly mimic um pro you know programming but I do think that there's a certain amount of overlap that could be occurring between these two schools and so I just wonder whether or not it would open up more opportunity for everyone. I think that the programming likely will look pretty different between TJ and what we're

166referring to here with >> more I think it'll just be different. But I think the fact that students might choose this uh who might otherwise have thought about choosing TJ might open up more spots just by the virtue of some students are going to maybe make a choice to go to this program for a variety of reasons that may open up more spaces just by virtue of how many people would be in a lottery for TJ. >> Okay. Um because I do love the idea of our our kids having more opportunity to decide which which schools and I know a significant number of kids that are not interested in necessarily the programming at TJ that could potentially be interested in this type particularly if we are able to go to a little bit more of

167a steam model because I kne I do know the school has a significant arts arts area that could be focused on as well. And so I do know that we might hit kids that might not necessarily be solely interested in TJ um as this would be another opportunity for them. So I would I would definitely understand that we would be opening up opportunity to reduce capacity on the western side of the county. I do not think that this eliminates the need to renovate schools as we move forward just because I do know if you look at the end of the renovation queue right now. A significant portion of those schools are in the western portion of the county just as the cyclical nature of all of this occurs. Um so I would very much be

168interested in in figuring out how to make all that possible. So >> thank you Mr. Fr. >> Thank you. Um, little known fact, I grew up uh in the shadow of Howard Hughes. Um, not literally. He's much much older than I am. Um, but, um, Howard Hughes Aviation Company was right down the road from my high school and my high school was an uh, included inside of it. It was a comprehensive school and inside of it was also an aerospace science magnet. Um and so um I certainly see a value uh in multiple different ways in uh approaching um industry and others to partner with us in offering services in our school in this new in this new school. Um, but I do uh worry that I don't want to get too far a field

169from where the um original intention behind a new western high school originated and and why um it initially appeared in our bonds um was to help relieve capacity issues. And those capacity issues uh on that side of the county trickle down in a lot of interesting ways. Um, one of the interesting things that has always been a part of the conversation is that if we bring in a new West High School, uh, to relieve capacity concerns at Centerville, for example, um, that could relieve capacity, uh, constraints as far away as Oakton High School. And so, this is something that members of my community have been watching and waiting to hear about for a long time. And so as the conversation proceeds, um my advocacy will be that we try and find a way to maximize

170capacity relief while also um building out something special here. Uh I think you can have a magnet inside of a comprehensive school and uh apart from um and um I don't expect us to launch everything as it's going to be on the first day. Uh, and so I'm fine with the idea of, you know, building on a a multi-year plan uh that envisions a future where we offer these great academic enrichment opportunities uh with an eye towards the future economy um even if it's not fully formed in those first few years. So, I look forward to having further conversations with my colleagues and with the superintendent on this subject um and hope that um you know in addition to these these great academic opportunities um that we're also keeping an eye on the opportunities for

171capacity relief uh that this uh presents to us. So, >> could you put this slide with all the types of school options, the different color boxes? Just >> I'm I'm having trouble hearing. >> Thank you, Mr. Fish. Uh Dr. Ree was asking for a different slide to be uh shown on the screen. >> Yeah. And and I appreciate uh this part of the presentation. Um, and you know, um, I don't I don't see a traditional with a magnet in there, but you know, I think it's a, you know, in some to some extent a a matter of the words we use. Um, uh, what I do know is that I am, uh, much more supportive of a concept that includes uh, a traditional school with it. >> Thank you, Dr. Anderson. >> Um, thank you.

172I'm actually very glad to follow what Mr. Fr um just shared. Um again, no dog in this fight at all. I am way yonder. I am over here. So, the trickle down will not be happening into the Mason district. But I do know that I've sat here meeting after meeting year after year listening to the concerns in the Western High Schools. And I am not seeing that Centerville is going to be addressed in a way that's going to allow us to expand it. and the conversation around the acquisition of the site has been to provide relief to the western schools. So for me that too has to be a huge component of what happens here. Having said that, this is exciting. It's exciting to have a new site. It's exciting to build from the ground

173up. It's exciting to to to create a new program that's going to better position our students to be more competitive. So I'd like to have my cake and eat it, too. So I I would lo I would love to see a um a structure that relieves the overcrowding and provides it exciting work that um is being articulated here and to see how we could trickle down some of that um some of that exciting curriculum into our other schools who won't have the opportunity because of many reasons many of them valid to travel to this new site. Um because access to programming continuously is a conversation that we've had before the policy policy during the boundary policy even now. I would hate for us to create one more niche that is only accessible because of of

174where you're located. If there's some spaces to bring and you mentioned a few Dr. Reid um off the top of the of your head to bring some of this wonderful programming to other places. I think that would be a wonderful wonderful thing to do. Um, a question that I do have is where is the community in terms of the programming piece? Is that just a board conversation and decision? Are we going to at some point bring some things out to the community for their feedback? Again, no dog in the fight at all, but just questions and wonderings that I have. >> I think that uh we certainly could engage in a process. I think the conversation starts here and I if you're all in a particular of a particular mind, then that sort of sets

175the course in terms of how we might interact uh and with which community, right? If it's going to be the boundaried community that we're planning, that's a different conversation than like the Western High Schools, which is different than the division. So, just wanted to get a feel for where you as a board were this afternoon first. >> Sure, that makes perfect sense. And the other thing that I'd like to understand a little bit better is um just the convergence of the timeline of this work and the timeline of the boundary work. it seems a little bit hard for me to kind of follow what needs to come first to inform the other part. So, if there could be a document that takes both of those under consideration and just maybe overlaying the two processes, that

176would be very helpful. And I'll just say one more thing because I won't need any more go back again. I'm way over here. Um, but this is an a very exciting opportunity as well. Um my my last thing is when we're talking about net zero again not sure if this is the the space if you had a recommendation in terms of the retrofitting being that we are in a tight financial landscape I know she's writing >> I was doing integrate processes into one form >> no it's fine I I'm happy to repeat if you had a recommendation from a staffing perspective and you know seeing what all the dollars are and what they're not regarding the net zero work um with retrofitting um some of the schools and >> well obviously you know with all

177due respect the board has um you know direction on the table for us to pursue net zero period full stop. So that's what staff have been working under the assumption of doing. Um and obviously in the bond here we've put 111 million towards net zero to previously approved projects. Um if the board didn't have that direction obviously with staff we're going to follow the direction. If the board, if you're asking my opinion, absent that direction, I feel like we have a significant number of renovation needs. And honestly, like we have a list of 29 elevators right now that we're scrambling to make sure they work. Um, I I just feel like we are our renovation cycle's gone from 27 to over 40 years. Um, I I feel like if I if you were asking me,

178I think I would probably prioritize getting some of the major projects done first. Having said that, I I don't know how you go back and once the project's done, you can't go back and net zero them either. So, I think it's a it's a value statement um that's going to that the board's going to have to wrestle with. But again, if I had to look at $111 million and all the list in the queue we've got, I probably would go in a different direction. >> Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Uh, next, Miss Dix, followed by Mr. Macke. >> So, I'm going to pick up from what you just said. >> Let me just clarify. I apolog $440,000 a bus and a diesel bus is a Andy left but I think like 125,000. We cannot without federal

179grants or some sort of support afford to pay 440,000 four times the cost for a bus. We just I can't justify that in our budget times right now. So, I say that to say that if you extrapolate that into buildings, if we're not getting some grant support, I think it's hard to it's hard to make those expenses. So, I just want to comment on that. >> Thank you, Dr. Reed. Um actually I was just going to say the same thing that um right now with the tightening budget and our buildings falling apart I think that use of the facil the money for maintaining the updating the facilities uh more important and it's I know it's very hard to do retrofitting um of a building once it's done you would you agree to that >> yes

180correct so I think it's going to cause additional uh expense we have just spent $150 million purchasing the school and and I would I would just uh think we should it's in good condition let's move on and with the minor adjustments I guess which is needed for programming but I'm coming back to this um how which kind of programming option it should have um the the crowding in S Chantley High School uh Centerville and Westville is up also at capacity and some other schools um I would really like this to uh be uh traditional school probably with just you know a couple of extra programming which will cause it like a magnet and you have listed really good ideas here all great ideas to be included in our programming and I'm just thinking maybe we

181can add some more some of these program in our academics like machine learning data science GMU professor head of the department uh Dr. Motu he's been asking that we should he wants to collaborate with uh with FCPS for data science program many times uh and we have started already offering it to many of the high school the data science uh program um the other programs can be also just like Dr. Anderson this was saying can be start started in different different high school maybe one program at a time but for this school I would just because it's near to the airport also aerospace aviation and AI AI is everybody's talking about AI it's a talk of the town is the future I think that would be a really cool uh place I would like to

182see the school have some programming around it and definitely um would like this to be again students from Western High School be participating because that's where we are seeing uh we did not just buy this building or this school just because it was beautiful and we had we we had to scramble for money and there was a reason we did it. So I would really like to support the the the community who who's who needs the most and they're looking forward to this space to be used. Um but I definitely like the idea of all the different principles. So I wanted to ask you would it be possible for having this as not a traditional school but school limited to a district I should say but then also open up the academy portion of that

183or programming portion for the western high school that you just said western site of high school and and bring some students for a aviation program and uh maybe AI programs. >> Yes ma'am. So I what I think I hear you saying is a traditionalish high school that will have um its own boundaries with the integration ofmies along the lines of some of these global priority uh areas that could be accessed by other western high school students as a sort of an academy kind of idea. I I can certainly take that back to the team and you know we can work on what would be possible with that for sure. >> And uh just speaking of that schools how you know for me TJ is Eastern school uh it take 45 minutes for somebody from Sandraville

184to go to TJ and and kids on the bus spend more than hour and a half sometimes more than hour not hour and a half but it is still a long time to commute to TJ. So, uh, yeah, like, uh, Miss Sanderson was saying, maybe some of our western side high school student may prefer to go to this school and then maybe there'll be more spots open at TJ for student from the other that side of I guess county. So, might be that option. But, uh, again, uh, really excited. I want to just say that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity we have and um we are the board which made it happen and under your leadership too and we really want to make it right and make it uh right by our

185community and our students. Thank you. >> Thank you um Mr. Mavine followed by Mr. McDaniel. >> So it it's rare that we have the opportunity to innovate in a really tangible way. Um, and don't get me wrong, there's innovation going on every day in the system, but the last time I can recall this board um, really innovating was with the portrait of a graduate, right, which and that was 12 years ago where we really acted as futurists. We looked ahead to see what our students would need in to be successful in the future. Um, and we we've made that a reality. Um, but this is really again kind of a tangible, palpable opportunity to to do that same work. um and staff has done um great visioning work um and through ORS um uh and

186we have a great list up here. Um I would be remiss if I didn't point to um other options that could be considered. For example, a humanities um school which uh our dear friends at the Fairfax Federation have been advocating for for years. Um an art school, a leadership school along the lines of Maggie Walker and Richmond. So there are there are lots of different opportunities that all of which are not um explored up here. Um but Dr. Reid, the first thing I would want to ask you is um in the work of Orsie and your team um have you seen models um of or when we look to the future, which of these models have not been implemented? Obviously, we've heard of the Howard Hughes School and aviationmies elsewhere, but uh what has not

187been done? Um, I think that there are iterations of all of these and um, honestly, contemporary high schools are looking very different than traditional high schools. Um, and I I think all of these topics are being explored across the nation. Um, I think quantum is the most interesting to me uh, in terms of uh, the sensor technology that's coming out. I don't think we've seen a quantum school or program, but I think that it can certainly um I like that these could be paired with a very thoughtful arts program and humanities program. I think none of these exist outside of our humanity. So, I there has to be a way to pair that. Um but there there just so many uh I think what's probably not out there yet, Mr. Melbine is sort of the

188ability to access school differently like 24/7 365 days a year, right? Like I think that's our next frontier is how we use time, not just what we put in the confines of the time we have. And so when I think about our next frontier, that's what I think about is not just the content, but how does and how do we show it, right? like the mastery transcript where it's um actual visual evidence of our best work that really really takes that metacognition that all of us need to do on a regular basis to another level. And so I think that's where I look at the future. And lastly, I'll say these topics need to be accessible for our very youngest children. And when I think about our young young uh children in elementary school who

189are so very curious um that would be an area that I would also think about is how do these get um more infused and we're making a lot of progress in that front but that's another area frontier if you will. >> Yeah. Well, that's great and very helpful. And you know, my colleagues will um recognize the fact that this school has a very unique physical plant, physical structure um that is uh conducive to pods and uh organizing learning in a very different way. Um and so that's just another reason I don't think we'd want to give up um on the opportunity to do something unique here. Um uh I would identify myself with u Miss Dixit's comments. I do I think almost everyone is is advocating the same thing to do something special but within

190a traditional comprehensive model. Um and I would just remind my colleagues and others that whatever we do with this school it's inherently going to reduce or relieve capacity issues elsewhere. It doesn't happen in a vacuum. So um anyway it's it's good news no matter what we do. Thanks. >> Thank you Mr. Mavine. Mr. McDaniel. >> Thanks. I Yes. Ditto. Ditto all around. Um I I'll add my voice. It It needs to be a western boundary traditional high school. I I I have a hard time. We talked about the funding challenges that we're having. I have a hard time spending 150 plus million dollars on, you know, something that's not targeted towards bound capacity relief in the west. When boards pass, the division has very consistently stated that western capacity relief is a priority. Um, so

191I would echo all the comments in support of that. Um, something Mr. Dunn said really jumped out and I'm glad he brought it up because another concern that I have of of would have had of making this a magnet program. It's an equity issue. I mean, especi I' I've toured schools all across the county and there is not equity in program access. There's just not. Um, so I I do think that there needs to be something special done in this at this school, but there needs to be special things done in all of our schools. And this presentation is a template for how we get there divisionwide. That's where I really want to see things going. Um, so I'll be supporting this as a as a regular, you know, boundaried high school um to provide

192that cap that capacity relief in the west. And this is a roadmap towards advanced programming divisionwide, I think. Thank you, Miss Marin. >> Yes. And Miss Clerk, if you could please put up slide nine, I'd appreciate it. Of the um the current one, the current um presentation. Thank you. So, you know, Dr. Reed, I was thinking about when you arrived three years ago in the strategic planning process. You put the previous board through and you led us through that and it was very deliberate and we had scheduled time and we engaged and we emerged with the strategic plan and maybe you knew where we were headed but at least we got to feel that ownership. When I look at this schedule it's about the naming process. It doesn't tell me after today what is the

193next step for the board to continue this discussion to make an informed decision about programming. That's going to need to include the costs for the renovations of the different types of programs presented. We're going to need to know because as beautiful as this building is, we know that it's outfitted a certain way. Are things going to be renovated? Which option is going to require what? We've got to know those price tags well before November. Um, is there an option to build new space eventually? It's on acreage. Is that an option short-term or long-term? It's also adjacent to Rachel Carson Middle School which has a lot of acreage. Are we even are you even considering repurposing any of that or is there an alternative where this opens differently like and again with the costs and none

194of that is clear to me and I don't I don't see when we're going to be updated on that and for us to deliberate. um you had mentioned about the bond. So you said if if you're asking me I'd go in a different direction. We are asking you I'm literally asking you what you would put in this bond. And I don't think that this current board has has been given due diligence because you all don't know the history of that net zero thing. And I could tell you now what it was was Carl Frush and I passion about net zero. We the board passed it at the time and then it went nowhere. And it turned out that the previous superintendent and staff, it seems, so I understand, did not enforce it. But you can't

195retrofit net zero. You just can't. So the fact that it's still on here and you're saying, Dr. Reid, that you would go in a different direction, please tell us because I, as much as I want to be environmentally sustainable, retrofitting is not going to get us there and it's not our priority. Now, I need to know what to change it to. I had the questions about the Q and the bond and the CIP. >> So, thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I think um my recommendation if we could get Centerville moving uh with the permitting would be to utilize the money and the bond that we're setting aside for net zero to support getting moving on Centerville on the renovation. Having said that, we've been working on the permitting, I want to say, for over a

196year and are making zero progress. So, I hesitate, right, to make that recommendation, but we could I could go back to the team and say if we truly are not going to use this money to go back and look at net zero and we don't think Centerville is moving, then what's next in the queue? And I'm happy to come back to you with a recommendation. So, so just to summarize, are you saying that Centerville High School renovation is not moving forward because Fairfax County is not issuing the permitting? >> I am saying that it's not moving forward because we don't have a permit. And I think we are on the school division side. I know Janice before she left was working with somebody in the planning department which Eric has picked up that work and

197we've not been able to come to agreement and absent an agreement and absent a permit we can't begin the renovation work. Well, that's disappointing to hear. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Seismahiser. >> Thank you and my apologies for having to step out for a minute. Um, a couple things. I just wanted to clarify some of the comments that I heard today. I think it's really important that we have equity of access around the county and this is a really exciting opportunity. It's a once in a generation opportunity we have here and I think we need to take advantage of it. I think um we've had overcrowding issues. I would defer to my magisterial colleague on that side as we often do to our magisterial colleagues in terms of addressing the needs of our district.

198I also think I agree with my colleague that this is an opportunity to be creative and to be future focused and as things are rapidly changing to be able to provide our students the skills and opportunities to meet the needs of as you said the 21st century and maybe the 22nd the 22nd century. Just to be clear though on the eastern side four sorry three of the four high schools have some sort of academy program. Edison has an academy program. Lewis has a Lewis Academy and West PTOIC has a has a regular academy. So there are and the only other high school there is Mount Vernon. In Bradock we have none. In Bradock we have two of the three two of the three physically located high schools in Bradock are secondary schools. My kids went

199to secondary school. I love it. However, it is inequitable from a facility standpoint. There is one set of facilities for two schools. one gym, one track, one field, often one cafeteria, one theater. It makes it very difficult to have equity. Whereas in a standalone middle school, you have a full set of facilities. In a standalone high school, you have a full set of facilities. And we have no conversation about how to address that inequity. So I would very strongly if we have an academy program with a traditional I would very strongly be against limiting to the western high school because there is such inequity to the Bradock district right and I and I don't there isn't an academy program nearby we don't have three out of our four schools with an academy program in Bradock

200we have none so I do think that whatever if we have some sort of specialty programming it needs to be open to everybody if we have some capacity relief as well I think and I know Drainsville has similar issues there's no academy program in Jainsville also so I don't need to seek my colleague but that's my understanding also um there's obviously different areas have different needs and we should address the different needs of different areas but that is an area that is a need in Bradock and we're not talking about that so having said that um I think I don't think we should lose this opportunity to do something that sets our kids up for success in the future right and what I see I don't think siloing something one way or the other is

201the right way to go. Right? The skills that I see students need are the AI skills. You and I have talked about this quite a bit. The AI adjacent skills, right? How to use AI as a tool to improve productivity is not necessarily how to create generative AI models, but how to actually use it. Data science is part of it. Business process analy is part of it. I think steam needs to be done because we've often talked about and I many companies I talk about critical thinking, communication, teamwork that comes a lot from arts work and doing team projects. I think if we can create an academy model that encompasses many of the things that you're talking about with those skills and I'll take a go back also that's what I would strongly urge you

202to do. I'll defer to my colleague in terms of comprehensive versus not versus magnet. I think that you know your district better but we've got to set our kids up for success. I'll I'll take a go back. Sorry. >> Thank you Miss S. John Cunning. >> Um thank you and ditto to a lot of what my colleagues have said. Um Dr. Reed, can you differentiate the difference between a traditional academy and a school within a school? That was on slide eight. >> All right, if we can go back to slide Thank you. That was quick. Thanks. Um I think that a traditional withmies would generally have uh and this is my understanding ismies are a bit new um but a new to me but traditional withmies would be you've got programs that often juniors and

203seniors lottery I guess there's some type of process they can explain it you probably know it that kids can come in for a couple hours and then go back to their base school right um or they could be at their base school and go the academy and then go back to their base school classes. But it it offers other students from other schools access. A school within a school would be like if we placed aerospace as a school within a school, for example, at the new school, you would start as a ninth grader uh beginning a thread of coursework that would often be four years of coursework with a cohort of students. So you're really a school within a school if that makes sense. So I've seen that for a variety of it's for the

204arts, right? You can have a school within a school where you essentially are a cohort of students that tend to go with your cohorted friends or whoever. Not they don't have to be friends, but your cohorted classmates for four years. Uh because you're on a path, you're in really your own little school. It just happens to be at a school. Um, and then you can take it, it's not even listed up here, but you can take it to a more extreme. You know, Gates did a lot of research around this. The Julia Richmond Academy, for example, in New York had multiple small schools in a particular site. So, they would have perhaps five differentmies that were all four-year school programs, but they happen to share a site. And that's often um a model you'll see

205in larger urban areas, right? You might have three or four schools within schools that are their own schools. you're a nodding in Houston. I mean that a lot of because there's a lot of research that says that small schools you you tend to know children in their work better um and often can be more successful. In some of our very large schools kids can become anonymous and not necessarily be known or have their work known or get the attention they might otherwise get. So, I don't know if that answers your question, but a school within a school is often a four-year path, >> like a magnet within a traditional school kind of because, >> right, but it doesn't have to be a magnet in the sense that it could still be within only that boundary.

206You could still draw it, but it's children that >> and want that experience. >> So, say that in if they're in that path, that little school within a school, would they still be taking classes with the general that's not >> with the larger school? >> Sure, that's okay. >> They could. I I think for example aerospace there's a four-year program where they actually build the plane at the end of four years they've built a plane right so they're certainly taking some courses as a cohort over four years but then certainly have electives that they although most of the electives would probably be within their chosen path but they could take other courses if they wanted to their humanities and that type of thing >> so I >> yeah it wouldn't just be novels about planes

207>> no other I think that's that's a helpful distinction. Um, you know, I I always speak about equity because that's important and we do speak about the eastern part of the county and I would like to say the southeastern part of the county as one of my colleagues says, I'm almost in Maryland. So, um, you know, the and the decision we have before us is what we're going to do with this school, which does not disregard any of the comments that any of my other colleagues have made, which I completely agree with, that we should strive for this to happen in all schools. And we have to have this programming available in all geographic areas. And we have to look at the twice exceptional. We also have to look at the socioeconomically um um uh

208disadvantaged to make sure that they all have access to this programming. Uh I think sometime we're excited. I'm excited about this program, the school, these possibilities. But when we get excited about something very conscientiously all of us think about, well, what about other areas? and we amplify everything when really right now the decision before us is this and we have to hyperfocus on this and use this as a springboard to maybe bring programming to other parts of the area to other parts of the county uh and to look at other program options because I know one of my colleagues as well as I would be very interested in arts you know and something like this because we're very supportive of the arts medical and health um if we're talking about AI we can look at

209the green industry because boy that uses a lot of water and do we need need innovation to save our water supply you know so I think there's a lot of possibilities here that we can look at and you know and I appreciate what you brought to us um but I do think that community input is important and I do think that we have to not lose sight of the fact that this was to first and foremost alleviate overcrowding. So I would definitely support um the the concept of a community a school a community school with maybemies or school within a school with community input. Um but we have to look at what the decision is in front of us because it's an opportunity and everything else that was brought up absolutely 100%. But we can't

210do everything right now. this is what we have to focus on. >> Thank you. Um I'm going to take my turn before we start gobacks. Uh I first want to thank staff for all the hard work uh that you put in. Having to this facility to me it was crystal clear. It's not set up like a traditional high school. So hear me out. The future focused idea is phenomenal. Having worked at TJ, I think what my colleagues and I'd be happy to work with people to explain this, but it's such a unique experience because you're building up to your senior tech lab or your internship experience as a TJ student. And when you go back and look at the pathways we're talking about here, this is tremendous opportunity. I'm nervous about a traditional high school

211because of losing partnering funding. Okay, we're talking a lot about the workforce. We're talking a lot about what we have in terms of companies, technology companies around us. If we're going to put in this type of lab, we need to output students with these skill sets. And so, having said that, I'm I I I'm fine restricting enrollment predominantly to the Western schools, having worked at Chantilly for years and watched us grow and grow and grow. Um, but I think there's other innovative innovative ways to also address overcrowding like we've never discussed here like When I first worked, I worked at Jameswood High School in in Winchester. They had an 8 period day. Some kids started at 7:30, some kids started at 9:00 and then some kids were done at whatever that time would be later,

212and some kids were done closer to five. But adding that extra period, at least on the ends, you had fewer kids. But anyhow, um, we have to be creative. But I I I think that I I really want to capitalize on funding because funding is our problem. we have fidiciary responsibility and we don't have any money. Um, and we need to push that out to folks more to understand how underfunded we are for facilities versus our school districts that are surrounding us and our revenue sources. So, I that's my fear. Uh, I I can live with a school within a school, but I think people need to understand how pathways work. Um, that you're scaffolding up to this senior research or to building a plane by by the fourth year. also think we need to

213take in account financially a traditional high school. This school right now while there is acorage I agree no tennis courts, no baseball field, no softball field, no football. I mean there there's a field there but there's no, you know, um >> lights and goalposts. Thank you for the that goalpost. Um but I also see potential for from an equity perspective for other things that are already built into it. Like early childhood is fantastic. We have there's a preschool in there with its own drop off. I would love to see early childhood as an academy program. I would also love to see in what's the in the office building that we could bring HVAC to this side of the county or electricity and some of those other programs that we have to go all the way

214to West PTOAC to get um also having said that depending upon the clientele of the the school dance theater and arts because of the spaces that are phenomenal. Um, and the last thing I'm going to say is having worked at Chantilly, there were so many programs that were in our academy that as they got popular, they became school classes offered at Chantelli High School and not not no longer in the academy and not just Chantelli, but at every high school. So, there's several examples of STEM engineering and courses that over time became standard at all of our schools. So, this can be the, you know, leading way. We need to continue with that. We have a lot of work to do ourmies to make them more career pathway type things. And I'll I'll I'll stop

215there and maybe take a turn later, but um we're going to start gobacks and first on my list is Mr. Fr. >> Thank you. Um just to pick up a little bit off where Miss Lady was going, uh you know, there are obviously amenities at the school that are needed in order for it to be fully comprehensive. I understand that. I think that's why uh depending on the path that's taken, we need like a multi-year plan of how we're getting from point A to point B. Um, in terms of netzero ready schools, um, I would hate for us to walk away from those commitments based on a a tiny portion of a portion of a work session when the way that we got to those goals was a multi-year uh, joint board venture with the

216board of supervisors that included members of the community from across Fairfax County, including students and advocates. Uh that resulted in the unanimous adoption of the joint environmental task force goals by the board of supervisors uh and by the school board um and has been reratified over and over again in our adoptions of CIPs and budgets uh these many years later. And as Miss Mariner noted, um, one of the first things that this new board did, uh, in adopting the CIP in 2024, uh, was correct previous mistakes that had us, uh, moving forward with projects that were not net zero ready by ensuring that future products projects going forward would be net zero ready. So before the train leaves the station to abandon that work, the many years of work that went into that, um I

217think we need to maybe pause on that conversation and if it's going to to uh result in some kind of action, we need a much deeper conversation than has been provided in this board uh work session. Um certainly uh something with presentations and data and everything else. Um, so, um, I just wanted to put that out there because a lot of people did a lot of work to get us to this point. Um, and, uh, you know, I would hate to see us walk away from it, um, without fully vetting, uh, that decision. >> Thank you, Mr. Fish. Mr. Dunn, >> thank you. Um, I just wanted to start with, um, TJ is not the magnet school for the eastern half of the county. I want to state that very explicitly. From the Mount Vernon

218district, there was until the changes single digits less than 10 students in the entire Mount Vernon district that attended TJ. So that is not a magnet high school for my magisterial district. Um and and I don't think that we have discussed today a testing regime or admissions process similar to TJ. And I I hope we're not going to put that on the table. But uh if we are considering them equivalents, let's make sure we're we're looking at uh applesto apples comparison. Um in addition, TJ is a governor school admitting people from neighboring counties. Is that something we're talking about with the Western High School? I just want to make sure I understand the parameters of what we're talking about here. And I do appreciate the point made by my colleague, keep our eye on the

219money, uh just as Miss Marin always says. Uh so anything we can do to keep that money and on a sustained basis. I am cognizant that there are some billionaires out there who committed to fund certain schools for low-income students cut off funding and all those students are high and dry now. So we have to be careful about relying on uh generosity that might be fleeting. Um and finally on net zero net zero um I appreciate the fact I' I've done a lot of work in the utility sector. I think we have to take a step back say what are our objectives and if the objective is to uh help save the environment protect the environment in the most cost effective way net zero is not it and I'll come back to the board with

220more research on that but um that is a very costly approach that if you talk to anyone in the utility sector they'll tell you there are better ways to achieve that especially as a large organization like our school division thank you >> thank you Mr. done. Miss Seismore, >> thank you. Um, a couple things I, you know, when we talk about a school within a school, I with pots my Kolan and Prince William, which is a performing arts magnet school within a comprehensive high school and the people who go to the Kan performing arts magnet school start there as freshmen and stay there all the way through seniors and access that curriculum along with a comprehensive curriculum. That to me sounds like a great option potentially for this school if it if it fits because

221you can help alleviate the overcrowding and again I would defer to my my magisterial colleague on that while offering a more comprehensive pathway for some of this 22nd century learning that I think is is you and I have talked many times. So that's something that I I would really would love to explore as an option to um you know we need to I think having I I can't who said it socializing some of these options with the community actually I think might make a lot of sense. Maybe there's community meetings on the western side to say I can't f said it has said it and miss Dr. Anderson. So, I I think that's a really good idea because I think we didn't really know all the possibilities, right, until we saw this. And I think

222that's a great thing to get the community input on what the possibilities are and see what they want for that area. They're the ones living with the overcrowding as well. Obviously, we want to make sure we take care of our funding stream. I did have a question. When we talk about partnerships with industry, Dr. Reid, over the years, I have brought different options of partnerships with industries, and I'll be honest, it hasn't gone many places, and you and I have talked about the stying of some of that. So, what processes are we going to put in place internally to make sure those are successful? >> Well, you know, I think that our partnerships um are critical, right? We partner with our families. Uh we partner with our community and our business uh leaders. I think

223that uh as the years evolve, so too our practices have to evolve. So I think there was a time in Fairfax where there were a lot more partnerships. Um I know Marty we talked about the Wallace Foundation in terms of our leadership work and that we partnered for years until what 2017ish >> it was about 2015 >> 2015ish and now we're trying to reconnect and make sure we reup some of these partnerships. So I I think we do have the bones for that and for whatever reason maybe it was co I'm not sure but um we've not had as many recently but I we definitely have a push to get back on that uh get that train back on the tracks. >> I would just encourage for that's a a big piece of what we're

224trying to do here that we make sure we have a tight infrastructure internally for that before we go down that path. Um just based on my experience over the last five years around trying to connect with different partners. Um I I love this idea of this 22nd century curriculum around AI and AI adjacent jobs you know and again data science and all that can be embedded we got we can't lose by the way the humanity skills because once we have AI usage the editing of text right and the and the critical analysis of text and you have to have the core foundation in writing so I think you create a comprehensive curriculum around AI in data science at the central I just want to make sure we're not focusing just on the tech side because

225I think that's going to be a huge loss for our students in And the steam side I think is important. >> Yes ma'am. I couldn't agree more. >> Miss Maron. >> Okay. Do jokes. Well, I appreciate Mr. Fris talking about the multi-year initiative that was the joint environmental commission policy. I know it was, but you know, it really shouldn't take many years for Fairfax County to decide that implementing sustainable practices is worth it. And while at the time I thought it was, you know, I think it was probably the second board meeting of this board that approved that. So I dare say maybe we all weren't up to speed. Things change. And I agree with what Mr. Dunn said is that there are far more ways to be environmentally sustainable than to do net zero.

226Um, and I hate to say it, but there's many things that the board has asked the superintendent to do that haven't been done. And I'm not criticizing. I should preface this by saying Dr. Reed, you have done more for the school division than I can even fathom anyone ever. And the stuff you're doing is is so advanced sometimes. I think maybe it's just a little too far out for us. And that's funny saying me because people say that about me all the time, but like we got to revisit these decisions. That decision was made in January 2024 in a very different environment. You know, we've been through a budget cut. We're in a political whatever it is, you know. Um, so I I dare say that the CIP policies that we're operating under are making

227us not being as environmentally sustainable as we can. And I do want to make sure that our new facilities director has the language from the January 24 motion that lists the policies that governance tried to review this year. But it's a big animal. And so when we take this plus the boundaries, it's just a lot. Um, and I think one of the questions was like what's the multi-year vision and plan for this? like how do we it's not just the grade levels but I mean Miss Lady is right it has these facilities for early childhood. I've asked are those going to be ripped out? I mean they're really nice. Um you know I also think it's really important to know the difference between a magnet and a governor's school. Is this something we would want

228to be a governor school? What's that trajectory? So it's fine if it's no, but like I I don't know. It's a chance to get revenue for tuition. So anyway, what's the board's role at this point? But I feel like I need more info. >> Thank you, Miss Dixit for go back. >> I just wanted to add uh very seriously that we are talking about AI, not A1 sauce. >> Thank you. That's it. Okay, not seeing any other placards or hands. I'm going to take a go back. Um, I think that one of the things we have to do too is think 20-year plan 20-year plan around AAP. Now that we have, you know, algebra 1 with fidelity in all our middle schools, some in in our in sixth grade and some of our elementary schools,

229this this idea that we need AAP centers, I think is going to simmer down. I think that all of our middle schools should be AP centers because most of them have local level to do it. Um, and we also have to make sure that what what's happening pro with the programming of that is done with fidelity. Uh, and perhaps even our elementary schools can all be that. We spend a tremendous amount of time and energy and money on transporting kids which creates split feeders which creates some of the problem conversations from a social emotional perspective. Um, and then to to the point of community input, you know, I'm just going to throw this out there, but I I my thinking is this that I I absolutely would be welcome to community input, but I would

230prefer to see something and I don't know if we can do it in terms of um security um but if there was a way to do some type of open house at the western site um and only folks who actually go through um you know a structured tour um then prior to exiting can complete a survey regarding what we should do with the high school. But to never walk in it and not see the space and make a determination, I think it's just short-sighted. And so I am open to community um involvement, although we're also on a short clock, right? Because we've got to make some decisions. So that's just an idea I had that I thought that I would sort of vet here. um because it is I mean the the robotics labs, the

231the science labs, I mean the way they're designed um are far superior to what we currently have in traditional high schools. So, um I think that that lends itself more towards a magnet or or a magnet within a school that's got some traditional attendees. Uh I see Miss Seismarheiser's placard up, so I'll It's your turn. >> No, just very quick. I love your idea of of seeing the school first because it is a very different facility but in just I want to build on that really quickly. I thought of it maybe if we could create a video that shows a sort of how you know real estate agents do for houses right it won't be as good as touring it but it might help the community see the school a little bit better without having

232to go tour it. Um it's just I don't know if that's going to help or not but it's just an idea that I had of how do we help the community see what the facilities look like without having to go tour it. I also think it might be hard to do a survey and I totally appreciate we have limited time but it might be hard to do a survey without understanding the options because I know we sat here and had a lot of questions about what is a school within a school versus a magnet. So I I don't know I'll leave that in your capable hands but I'm just trying to think of how can we use maybe an AI tool to create a video of what the school looks like or a model of

233what the school looks like kind of like the AI drones of my car that shows when I'm parking where I am. But I'm just wondering if we can use some of the tools we're talking about to create some information for the community to see what it looks like. Just my thought. All right. Not seeing any placards or hands. I believe we're adjourned at 4:35.