6/17/2025 - FCPS School Board Work Session

001No comment. Okay. So, the June 17, 2025 work session is called to order at 12:16 p.m. Mr. FR has submitted a written request to uh attend this morning's meeting virtually due to a medical conflict. Mr. Fr is located at his home in the Providence District. Mr. FR, please check your audio and visual. You're not on. Well, I wouldn't be on screen if I were down. Mr. Fr, I don't think he can hear us. Mr. Mine, we need just a minute. Tech's having some issues. Okay, while we're doing that, board members, you were sent the script, so please make sure that look at your email. Mr. First, can you hear us? Mr. Fr. can you hear us? Should we come back to the um admission? If you want to go ahead and vote in all three,

002so that way they're just on the record voted in. Great. Okay. So, Mr. Dunn has also submitted a written request to attend this morning meeting virtually due to a medical conflict. Mr. Dunn is located in Mount Vernon, Virginia. Miss Dixit has submitted a written request to attend this morning's meeting virtually due to medical reasons. Miss Dixit is located in Centerville, Virginia. Mr. Fresh, if you're there, can you test your mic? Okay. In order to comply with section 2.2, Mr. Mine, we actually need a vote on Mixit and Oh, yes, please. Um, Mr. Dunn. Yes. All those in favor of having our three colleagues join virtually. I see. Um, Dr. Anderson, Melvin, uh, St. John Cunning Rajna um uh Marin McDaniel it's well u lady and moon okay thank you none opposed so moving on to

003closed meetings compliance certification in order to comply with section 2.23712D 22 3712D of the code of Virginia is necessary for the board to certify that since the Fairfax County School Board convened a closed meeting on June 17th, 2025. To the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard, discussed or considered by the board during the closed meeting. Do I have a motion? Moved. Uh move second. Lady, all those in favor? Unanimous. Thanks. Um, okay. So, close motion number one. I call on Mr. McDano for a motion. Can someone share it with him? It's not in the sheets. It's on the crypt. I move that the chair of the school board

004be authorized to execute on behalf of the board the contract for assistant superintendent region one. Is there a second? I second. All those in favor. That is unanimous. Uh madame clerk, please announce the vote. Votes unanimous and carries. Yeah. Uh motion number two. I call on Miss Marin for a motion. I move that the chair of the school board be authorized to execute on behalf of the board the contract for the chief of facilities services and capital programs. There a second. Uh second. Okay. All those in favor that is unanimous as well. Miss Madame Clerk, please announce the vote. The vote is 90 and is unanimous and carries. Wonderful. Thank you all. So, moving on to our OG annual report and risk assessment and audit topics. I now call on Auditor General Esther Co for

005presentation on the FY24 OAG annual report and FY26 risk assessment and audit topics. Thank you Mr. Mlevin. So good afternoon everyone. Um thank you again for the opportunity to present today and before we start I would like to introduce my team member today we have Luke uh who is one of our senior auditor and we also have Mktar who is one of our hourly auditor within the office. So um today we have two items to cover and um the first one is about fiscal year 24 office of auditor general the o a annual report and we also have our next year audit plan. Um it's interesting to use the term next year is actually next year fiscal year is only 13 days away. Um so we will go through kind of what the audit committee

006and my office proposed with the whole school board about the topics and um it is also our first time to combine these two presentations together and um I believe that it will provide the board with more of the necessary look back about what our office has accomplished and also looking forward about what are the necessary audits to cover. And you may have a questions for me. So how about the current year fiscal year 25? So with that the audit committee has been working tirelessly throughout the fiscal year to oversees the work of of uh my office and I would like to especially thank Mr. Mloin as a chair and also the audit committee members who we meet almost every single month to go through a lot of the audit topics. So really appreciate for your

007time. So um before we dive into the uh topics today um I would like to say a little bit about the current fiscal year 25 and we are proud to say that we have completed all the audit work approved by the board. Um with the only exception is the local school activity fund audit as of year end and we cannot really complete that audit until after the year end. Um so that is the only one thing that is open and I would also like to take this opportunity and I know Dr. Reed just walked away but um I really appreciate for her leadership throughout the year to collaborate with my office so that it allow an objective evaluation of the system processes but at the same time allow for a collaborative approach to work together

008to improve. So with that we are going to start um to talk about the last year OAG annual report for fiscal year 24. That's what I meant. Um before I kind of go through the details I would like to kind of remind especially those who are watching today work sessions that um the office of auditor general o reports directly to the school board. Um and also per our audit charter policy 1105 that my office has unrestricted access to all school division information which is relevant to the areas under review and I would like to start with that because it is very important in order for a effective and efficient audit function to work. So I really appreciate the school board to allow that to happen so that there is a direct line of reporting from

009my office to you all and within this independent structures and access it allow the office to carry out the mission effectively. So what is our mission? Our mission is to determine whether the ongoing processes at FCPS Fairfax County Public Schools are adequately designed, functioned effectively and efficiently and be fully accountable to our citizens. And then we achieve this mission via the four pillars of work. The first one is risk assessment. Second is internal audit. The third piece is fraud waste and abuse inquiries. And the fourth piece is outreach and education. And I'm I'm sorry clerk that I have been jumping back and forth. It may be difficult to follow on the report. But with that then we can now go to page four which start with the OAG value. Um and I I believe that

010this is the core of why we are here today. So is the so what component right? So what is OAG offer to FCPS? And when you started looking at you know how we capture our value added services um this table demonstrated to you all that that our office operate more efficiently compared to a lot of the other school district internal audit shops. And at the time when we prepared this report, we the latest data data set that we have is per the uh council of great city schools. The data was back in like based upon 22. Uh we literally just received some new newer data and then we can reflect upon that for our new kind of like upcoming annual report. But as you can see, OAG has been working uh more effectively than other

011school district internal audit shops in terms of number of auditors per budget, number of auditors per students enrolled and then also the percentage of the audit plan completed and also the percentage of recommendations accepted by management. And then moving on to page five, it included some other measurements of um OAG value and which include that uh some of the surveys that we conducted on our stakeholders um which is on page five of the report. And um we we love to hear back from our internal stakeholders, right? whether the audits provide them with a um overall value like increase like they they learn something new from the audits, whether the proposed audit recommendations are feasible to implement or not. Uh throughout the process, do we communicate uh with them about and specifically of about the findings

012and recommendations? um do we have entrance and exit meetings so that they know what is the expectation for the audit and what is the kind of like the key uh audit outcome. So we got a 100% from the eight audit surveys that we were able to collect and then at the same time we also um if we can scroll down a little bit more down that we were able to complete all the audits on time as well. And then for the fraud, waste and abuse inquiries, we have received almost 80 situations during fiscal year 24. And we have conducted preliminary reviews on all of them. And what preliminary reviews mean is that we have um review every situation that um put come to our attention and then we re reviewed each one of them according

013to policy 1107 which is the policy about frauds and abuse as well as the regulation 1410 which govern how we conduct the review and then I know that that um we have discussed with the school board a little bit about the returns on investments ments and I believe that what we saw on the screen is the qualitative analysis about the return on investment about our office and we do understand that especially nowadays with the budget is a little bit um uh tighter then it is more important to look also at the financial aspect about how much maybe we could potentially saved or avoided because of be because of our office or the audit. So we are constantly looking into that and then I would like to talk a little bit more about that in the

014second part of the presentation about the fiscal year 26 audit plan. So with that moving on to uh page six that is started with our first pillar of work which is risk assessment and um because we are going to talk about the upcoming year risk assessment I would save I would like to save most of the discussion when it take place in the next session but then we we do um try to collect many different like feedback right from of course from the school board from the audit committee and and also as well as from the leadership ship team and also from our our our employees within the system. During FY24, we have collected 100 I believe 100 employees feedback and then we will talk more about the FY26 process in a little bit. And

015then uh going on for the fiscal year 25, I talked about that already. so that we can I think we can go over to page eight which is the um third pillar of work which is the fraud, ways and abuse and Luke will help us to talk a little bit more about the internal audit work in a little bit. um for fraud ways and abuse. Like I said before, we have received um 79 cases in uh last year. And then we also include a breakdown of the cases here as well. So that you can see the dynamics about the types of concerns that we received um including you know documentation, use of assess, residency etc. And then page nine and 10 of the report cover our last pillar of work which is the outreach and

016education. If we can uh go down a little bit more of on the report. So for um outreach and education which is listed on page nine and 10. Um so um and again I I I cannot um help but say this that the audibus and thank you to you all to help us to promote this is our periodical and we have reached almost 5,000 subscriptions back in November of 24 and thank you so very much for collaborating with us to share it with your constituents so people know about this kind of like regular updates that we make to you know public and also to our staff employ uh to our employees. And then uh we also keep on updating our OAG website. So if we can go a little bit down more on this report

017and we also continues to provide a lot of training and education. Um so um during last year you know we provided training um since we are certified by the national association of state boards of accountancy we provide training about like uh furer and foyer working very closely together with the division council and then we also provide a training about see something say something so to encourage people to report concerns and I also want to uh thank leadership again um they allowed us, you know, to present at last year leadership kickoff so that we can talk about the Paris Olympic and it seems that it happened a long time ago. Um, but we were able to use the P AIS to link it back to audits. Um so as you can see um that we talk

018talks about the key findings from audit from school audits and they are P purchasing processes A activities they are related to the athletics and also the collection of cash right and the R is reconciliations I is irregularities in timekeeping and S is sufficient documentation with doing that we are hoping that we can continuously talk to the to the uh school base administrators to bring it like at the front at the front of them because I know that they are bombarded with a lot of different priorities so that they know that you know making sure we are a good steward of financial um transactions are equally important and then we also hosted a uh DMV auditor group with by OAG uh uh that we have like about 20 auditors that we meet uh with in the

019DC, Maryland and Virginia area that we can exchange change you know and benchmark um and and exchange ideas about audit. So with that I would like to transition to Luke to talk a little bit more about the internal audit and the audits that we conducted last year with the key result and then we are moving on to page 11. Thank you. So the like Esther mentioned we completed our FY24 audit plan in October of 2024. Uh we're now currently on the FY25 plan, but for 24 Yes. Okay. So for FY24, the performance audits that we completed were food and nutrition services where we identified two moderate risk findings and one low-risk finding. Uh these findings highlighted internal control weaknesses, a lack of benchmarking and identified key performance indicators and needed updates to regulations. Uh we

020also completed the facilities maintenance audit where we identified one high-risisk finding and four moderate risk findings. These highlighted internal control deficiencies, deferred completion of um pre preventive maintenance work orders, a lack of benchmarking and key performance indicators, and inefficient information systems, and a lack of oversight over compliance. Uh for the grants performance audit, we identified one moderate risk finding that highlighted non-compliance with FCPS grant requirements. Uh specifically, four grants totaling $26,000 were not fully compliant with FCPS grant requirements. For the IT systems access audit, this audit uh was exempt from disclosure due to uh per Virginia code um because it touched on information systems uh technical information that could leave us vulnerable. And lastly, the local school activity funds for the year ending June 30th, 2024. We did not identify any findings, though we did

021note the existence of risks related to current cash receipt processes. Uh, additional information on these audits. Uh, the scopes, objectives, and the results are pages 11 through 14. And these reports are also publicly available on board docs as well. We also completed continuous monitoring procedures for non-appropriated and appropriated transactions at schools where we analyzed data extracted from various financial systems and reviewed supporting documentation for those on a quarterly basis. And we also reviewed time and attendance data extracted from my time, which is the timekeeping system for FCPS, and as well as local and non-local travel expenses that were captured in the online travel application with no notable uh items of concern identified from any of the continuous monitoring procedures. for business process audits. Those allow us to conduct additional detailed testing at schools with issues

022um identified through continuous monitoring as well as recent turnover in positions like principal or finance tech or administrative assistance um or at the request of legion region leadership uh school principles um or financial services. The majority of those findings were low risk. We did have two schools that had a moderate risk finding related to the completion of the financial management report reconciliations. And we had one school with a moderate risk finding where payment was made to FCPS personnel that should have gone through the proper payroll process. So when completing these performance audits, we make recommendations for management to consider and we follow up on a quarterly basis to determine if the corrective actions that they have stated have been put in place to address the identified issues within the findings. Some audits with outstanding recommendations

023are detailed on page 16. And with that, that's a summary of our FY24 audit plan results. So I'll let Esther wrap up. Sure. So I think um with that we can you know turn to the other presentation um and then um and then we can discuss both presentations together. But last but not least on the annual report um that um our audit clients will of course see us during the audit but they will also see us uh afterwards too because we follow up upon all the recommendations um throughout the process and this year we have been you know working very closely um with Dr. Reed team and also Marty Smith has been helping us um you know to making sure that recommendations can be obtained. So thank you for that. So with that we can

024switch to uh the second presentation and um while the clock is bringing that up and I maybe I can uh start talking um so that we can be more efficient use of our time. So I would actually like to start uh on uh slide four of this presentation because we already talked about the mission kind of like objective already. So um I do a little bit of lead in about risk assessment in the first presentation. So on this slide you can see how we do how we did risk assessment in the upcoming year. So um we identify uh audit topics and this year we have short list identified 47 audit topics um and in a team of uh seven auditors is just impossible as you can imagine for us to do all the 47. So

025we prioritize the audit um audit topics through step two here. Um first of all we examined benchmarking data and we have uh collected 21 internal audit departments all across the nations uh to see what they are looking at and then we also solicit feedback from you all and also the audit committee members and I am so glad to say that we collect feedback from all of you 14 out of 14 meaning 12 schoolboard members plus the two audit committee city um community members. So I'm really thankful for that. And then we also um get feedback collect collected feedback from our employees do interviews and survey and then after we collect all this data points we analyze them via the financial reputational uh etc risk and then to really come up with what we proposed. So

026with that on slide five it shows kind of our result. So maybe we can pause for a second here. Um here is the result that we collected from uh the the next slide slide five. Oh thank you. Thank you. So here you can see the schoolboard and audit committee members results and listed by um kind of what is our our call to be the primary. primary meaning that they will be the topics that we will be looking at during f fiscal year 26 and then secondary will be in in the next two to three years long term is after uh maybe like in a four to five years time. So um as you can see that the yellow highlights are those that with majority of interest by the schoolboard and audit committee members and then

027the slide afterwards is the key outcomes. So the key engagements that we propose to look at are four of them which include health care claims management, hourly employee structure and stipens together as one uh human resources related topic and number three is school and office safety and number four are contracts related audits and um we will be talking a little bit more about the what within each topic in a little bit and then uh we do have one carryover engagement Like I explained before, we cannot really audit something before the year end happened. So that would be the local school activity funds audit and then we will continue in an annual basis to look at the business process audits, continuous monitoring and also the upcoming year local school activity funds audit. So with that we

028can go on to talk about the key metrics of each topic which is on the following page. So here is a kind of like a uh report card right to summarize kind of the key considerations that we used when we come up with this primary topics. Um it include the internal stakeholders. It included whether those topics were identified through benchmarking or not as well as the financial indicators or other information and then also the support or the uh the recommendation from the school board and also the recommendations from employees and then the slide afterwards is um kind of some verbalized outcome. Right? As you can see that stipens originally was listed as a separate audit topic but because of the um lack of a better word popularity or the support from the schoolboard and from

029the employees we combined the stipens into the hourly employee structure topic and become one topic and then um there may be some wonderings hey why some of the topics get a high counts and uh office of auditor general is not looking into them next year is because of the following reason listed on the slide. And I would like to highlight that for the career and technical education program programs we um will continue to include the components of you know catch collections or the process of how uh we handle for example the um the auto auto technology programs as part of our business process audit and continuous monitoring. So we will continue looking at the CTE program and then it will be combined as part of the school audits and then the next slide will uh

030share with you all about the timing of when each of these audits will take place and then the focus uh going on uh on slide 10 through the end we'll be talking about the what within each topic. So we can go to slide 10 and I think a lot of you are the uh expert already with the uh local school activity funds audit because I feel like that I talk about this audit every single year. Um it is uh a rec requirements by the code of Virginia that we uh looked at it annually. So why don't we go to the second one which also is uh kind of our regular audits because we are a K12 um business education. So I do really believe that schools are all always priority number one. So the business

031process audits will allow us um to kind of go into the school to look that the um to evaluate their financial processes to to see whether um the transactions are reasonable and likely there is no fraud waste and abuse and then like I mentioned before the CTE career technical and education uh transactions will be part of the scope. And moving on to item number three which is the health care claims management. Um as FCPS is a selfinsured has self-insured employee health insurance plans we do think that that it is very important for us to monitor how well our office of benefit services is managing the expenditures that we incurred. So this is one of the audit that will be focusing on that and at the same time we will also look at the contracts that

032we have to see whether we are in compliance with the terms and conditions as well to the extent possible that our office can do and for this audit we will not you know go to like let's say Sigma we will not go to you know um Etna to conduct claims audit because that's not our expertise but we will be looking at how the office of benefits services is managing those expenditures incurred. So um so with that um we will move on to slide number 13 which is the hourly employee structures and stipens. Um as you can see the objective um for this audit we will include to look at whether those two functions hourly and stipens are properly authorized and utilized across FCPS. And then uh for hourly we will include the temporary assignments for

033exam and non-exam employees. And then stipens will also include a athletic and academic supplement stipen for temporary assignments etc. So moving on five is local school activity funds. Since we go over the scope already we can skip over that and then we can move on to the school and office safety which is six. Um for this audit, our scope will be focusing on um reviewing the FCPS safety and security requirements including ongoing risk assessment, monitoring, communication and training. We will be also do site visit as well. We will go over to the schools to to to check if those security protocols are working out effectively. We will also select sample contracts and review their compliance and accountability. And in the interest of time, I will just go through a little bit faster so that we

034can save time for discussion. And then um slide seven is specific contracts. And we do know that contract monitoring is really important and I know that the school board see this as equally important as well. And for this audit, we would like to focus on two particular departments. One is the department of special services. The other one is the department of um instructional services department who has spent you know a lot of money on you know um purchasing instruction materials etc. And so we want to focus on those contracts that are managing by these two departments to ensure that they are following the contract's terms and conditions. And the number eight is continuous monitoring. We will continue to do that which is meaning that that we will look at the entirety of transactions incurred particularly

035for schools in a quarterly basis. So with the hope that we can find anything that which may not go right earlier um detect situations detect uh irregular irregularities earlier so that to prevent you know challenges from happening. And then um maybe this may be the one of the last thing I would like to highlight is on slide 18. Um every 3 years our office need to be audited by someone else too. So we will continue to do external peer review that uh where we are working with the association of local um government um auditors that they will send a team in to audit how OAG is doing our audit and then uh of course that that uh the audit committee and the school board will be the first to hear the result and per our

036review from last time we got the highest possible rating um is equivalent to an A I believe that we we got passed with no management letter comments from them and we don't need a retake fortunately. Okay. So with that I think we can go to the next step which is on slide 20 which we have the discussion here today and then we would have um the schoolboard approval on July 10th and um and and last but not least I just want to thank you each one of you to be with the journey with OAG and I know that here we use a lot of acry so when I prepare for the presentation today I'm thinking about oag can also stand for one amazing group so thank you for working with us in this one amazing

037group. Together we are all in the group together. Um and super thankful for the schoolboard continuous support so that together we can be fully accountable to our Fairfax citizens. So thank you. Thank you General Co. and thank you Luke and Mktar for for being here as well. I also want to thank our our audit committee members this year Mr. Moon, Miss Lady and Miss St. John Cunning for a um very productive and expeditious uh year. So, uh, we will move forward with questions. We're going to take about 20 minutes. Um, so, Dr. Anderson, thank you to the one amazing group. Um, I like that very much. Um, and thank you as well, Esther. You, the work that you do has been so tremendous over the last, um, five years that some of us have been

038on the board. It's always been very stellar. So, I appreciate that. Couple of quick questions. um the previous um presentation where you talked about the the um the surveys I guess that you did you receive eight responses how is it selected as to who participates in those post audit surveys may I respond okay so um thank you for the question um Dr. Anderson. So we send a post survey to all audits um groups that we audited and then we will follow up with them two times and sometimes of course we don't get a response from them. So this year we got eight responses and then the questions that we ask is more like yes or no because sometime it can be um challenging for an audit like being audited right but we want to make

039sure that that hey have we done you know um uh uh the the entrance meeting so that you know the uh the uh expectation and so on and so forth. So we did reach out to all the audits um pro uh like departments or schools that we audited during that year. So that would include all of the schools um for whom local activity funds were audited. Um that is not is only for business process audits. I apologize. And it's a good good catch. I'm just trying to get a gauge of um the robustness of the response rate. Um if you sent out I don't know how many you receive eight back is what percentage. Oh I see. I see. Thank you. Thank you for the question. So I think that we can actually do a

040quick math. Um, if we looked at the uh audits that we completed, I think we listed it on page 11. One, two, three. So, we have done about like 20 like a little bit less than short of 20 audits. Um, so then we got eight. Okay. No, that is that actually not bad at all. Thank you. Um, one of the audits that you talked about with the second presentation is the healthcare claim management. You said your focus would be um on how the benefits office manages it, manages the claims. I I think and please correct me if I'm wrong, anyone, there were a lot of external concerns perhaps with the vendor itself, but that won't be what you cover. So my wondering is if you find that um the benefits office has been appropriate with

041its processes, how do we satisfy some of the external concerns that have come around this topic? So um I would say yes and no. Um and if I may elaborate a little bit is that when we say that we will we will audit how the office of benefit services managing the contract right with Sigma and also uh with Etna who has our dental plan. So we will check whether like do they meet with them regularly? Do they study the trends of the uh expenditure the medical expenditures incurred? Um so we will see whether there is adequate due diligence that internally we do and and and not just you know approving the invoices that we receive from them. There are you know qualitative um understanding continuous discussion with the vendors but in terms of the services

042that the level like the quality of services that the vendors are providing to our beneficiaries that would not be part of the scope. So that wouldn't necessarily be able to speak to um the concerns that have been raised to many of us over the last couple of years over this switch because it's just going to evaluate processes not necessarily um satisfaction of Okay. Um and so we'll need to have another space to do that. Um thank you. You also started to speak about you also started to speak about um the followup that you do and I appreciate that. Does the followup um is it applicable to findings or just risk ratings or I'm sorry to just findings or risk ratings as well? Yes. Uh thank you for the question. So it will be applied to

043All findings the with the only exception. So for all the findings about our performance audit meaning like the um the process audits. So we follow up on every single findings for food and nutrition services for example. And then the only exception is with the school business process audits or generally business process audits. We follow up only on the high and moderate risk and we do not follow up on the low risk. And there's a rationale behind is because we already do them throughout the continuous monitoring and local school activity fund audit already. So we don't want to have too much burdens on school. So we f focus mainly on the moderate and high risk for business process audits. But that's a great question. So I I I would like to distinguish that. Does it make

044sense to you? It does. It does. Thank you so much for clarifying. Um and lastly a few years ago, this just remind um you had some findings regarding um booster funds, athletic funds. Um, there were some findings that there were some recommendations made to the processes. I would love an update. It doesn't have to be right now because I didn't prepare you for that, but seeing some of the information here reminded me of it. I would like to get an update as to what changes, and maybe this is more of a Dr. Reid question. um what changes were made regarding the findings that the auditor general um came up with regarding um athletic booster funding at our at our schools. I will have to check with Mr. Horn and get back to you. No, absolutely.

045It's not a now question at all. It's just something that just came to mind as I'm looking at this. Um and the other thing No, I think I'll stop you. Thank you. Great. Uh, Miss Marin. Yes, thank you. I actually was going to ask a question similar to Dr. Anderson about um the healthc care claims. So, I it seems like it's not exactly what we were going for, but I I do also note that I haven't had a lot of input from the community that there are claims that are being, you know, not processed as such. So, perhaps it's been settled. But I'll still look forward to seeing how what's happening on our end. the business process audits. So, um I was actually just reviewing materials that the superintendent had given us for her annual

046evaluation and you know there's some huge gains in some of the processes in terms of reducing time like onboarding time and um uh there was another another big few data points. So I'm just wondering if you'll be able to capture those kinds of things and even see like over time how efficiencies have increased because those are really important and compelling data. And thank you uh Miss Marin and um and and thank you also you know for the innovative ideas too right like that we continues to audit the same thing but it's really good to to to to verbalize it right what is the gain to the to the division so um we we haven't really think from that aspect and that's what I I think for the return on investment right that can be one

047component that we should start capturing in our um upcoming report we you have showed you know trends of kind of findings what we received in the past and what we have now to show that there is a down downward trend of some of the findings um so and and we can totally you know definitely share with the school board and incorporated them as part of the any report going forward. Okay, thank you. Yeah, anything that shows how we're increasing efficiencies will be really helpful. The other thing related to the career tech education transactions does that mean looking at the online system that is generally hosted by the adult uh community ed is it that platform? Um not quite. is more so we will focus on the uh for for now auto technology piece where we

048have the uh career and tech technical education like helping the students to learn how to do that you know that that that um transitional services going forward. So during that that the the the teachers right for example they have received you know orders or or requests from community members or from us who may bring a car over there and and and and money is involved right and then also inventories are involved. So whenever assets are involved it also increase the the level of risk. So we would like to you know keep that in our radar during the regular school audits. Got it. Yes. I had wanted to use one of themies to fix a dent in my car, but it was too late in the season. So, um, anyway, I tried. Okay. Thank you so

049much. Great, Miss St. John Honey. So, um, I I saw that and and when you mentioned the auto for uh, CTE, is that the only part of career and technical education that you're looking at? Because there are other programs like the vet program that in involves money not the animal vet I should say. Um so are you looking at all of them? Um for uh as a start we started to look into that mercia like this year fiscal year 25 on autotag only because they are migrating from one system to another system. But we can certainly consider you know the other you know uh programs that we have involving fun uh monetary uh money um that because they are subject to the same level of risk. So thank you for that recommendations and we can

050certainly in consider that. Yeah and it's I mean we also have the the cafes you know they're there which I mean they're all wonderful. I just we just want to make sure that they're doing everything in the right way because that really helps the programming. Um it helps sustain the programming. Definitely. Thank you. Great. Okay. Well, seeing no further questions, thank you so much for um for the presentation and for the uh fantastic work this year. We look forward to continuing to engage in the year to come. I appreciate everyone. Thank you. Thank you. going to move on to the annual reports for the Foundation for Applied Technical Education, FATE, and PreK and Early Head Start Parent Policy Committee annual reports. Um, I'm really thrilled and excited to invite Fate and for them to present

051their annual report and I'm looking forward to go to go see your new property, the open house. We're coming. So, we will be we have a a PE meeting. We have a PE meeting. So, we will be there late, but we're going to try to do the PE meeting very quickly, precisely so we could be there. That'd be great. We'd love to have you all. It's fantastic. Well, um I'm pleased to be back again. My name is Ed Johnson. I'm the president of FAIDE. Um I have been on the board for I do this I think a lot of you probably remember me. I do this most times. I've been on the board for probably 20 years now. Uh I was in the construction technology program in high school and I went to Oakton High

052School product Fairfax County Public Schools uh my entire life and um we are back to share all of the great news that we hopefully usually have with you all. Uh we us we love being here because we you get insight from others that don't live it dayto-day like we do but you guys see everything else from around the county. So ways that we can improve questions you guys have opportunities for us that we can get more engaged based on what it is that we do. We'd love to hear from you guys while we're here. So um Craig and I are going to do a little good cop bad cop here throughout this. So we'll let him flip through the slides as we go. But what's that? You want to hop in there? Yeah, real quick.

053I just want to myself as well. I'm Craig Lewis. I'm the uh senior manager for trade and industrial education and the liaison to to Fate as well. So I oversee all the industrial classes in the county and then I work with Ed and all the board to make sure all all the things FATE does gets to our students. Sorry, I thought you guys knew Craig. Not yet. Not yet. I'm working on it. Uh well again thank you guys. You want to you want to flip to the first slide here? So this is a quick highlight um of what we've done or what we're doing right now. As probably most of you know, we really have two primary programs and then a variety of things that we do outside of that. Construction technologies and then our

054student auto sales program. Beyond that, generally speaking, we generate funds from those two programs that we use in a variety of different ways. Whether it be grants to various schools that fall within what is really our mandate in the CTE space or ultimately we use them for scholarships, entrepreneurship projects, so on and so forth. And so those programs were always trying to grow, always looking for new ideas, and we'll talk about that a little bit as we go forward. But from a high level perspective, last year we sold lot 12 in our current site, which is our second site even from the 70s, which is great. We sold for $1.25 million. We have five more homes left to complete here beyond the one that we're working on right now. Um you guys hopefully will mostly

055come and see the finished product of that tomorrow soon to be on the market and we'll talk about it at the end of the presentation but given the fact that we're coming towards from a real estate perspective towards the end of our life at this site given the time we'll need we'll quickly hit on our needs going forward to move the program to a new site probably somewhere in the early 2030s and so we probably got somewhere between five to seven years left on this site before we need to do that. So we'll hit on that at the end. Um, I'm not going to go through every single one of the numbers here except for the fact that I think we've updated student auto sales uh towards the end of the year. And so we're

056now at $250,000 in total sales for this year. Of that, about that number, $187,000 has gone back to schools uh with the balance of the funds being used at the fate level to administer the program and then turn around and take those profits and put them into what else you see here on the screen. So, residential construction Uh most of you are probably familiar with the site. Um we provide opportunities for students to learn effectively everything about the home building business on the site from pre-construction when they are doing bidding and contracting for the actual subcontractors that will work sidebyside with them on the site to ultimately learning on a standalone basis and side by side with various contractors that come and do work with them. are uh some of which supervisor Moon or board

057member Moon I know you've been here for a long time and have seen the evolution of this program in particular. We when I was in the program built a house almost 100% by studentr run labor only and so it took us three to four years to build a home. I came on site when we first started when we were in Tyson's and we were digging the foundation. The day that I left we had framed the entire house ourselves and they were coming to swing roof trusses. The downside of that is the students just don't get the opportunity to see the full building process. And so about 10 years or 15 years ago or so, we transitioned the process to bring on more subcontractor labor to really solve two problems. One is to allow students to

058see the entire aspect of what the home construction process would be. But two, ultimately allow the students to understand what it means if they leave this program, go into the trades, what the expectation is. How quickly do you need to move? what is the expectation for quality and what is the demand in the market today. And so many of the subcontractors you see on the screen right now came out and did full module educational support with the students. The balance of the subcontractors on top of that and some of these are other opportunities that are outside of the subs that have worked on site. Clark instruction being one of them. But for the balance of them, they are still working sidebyside with the students. When the electrician is there, the students get an education program

059with them. When the mechanical sub is there, they get an education program with them. And so it has really turned into a partnership with a variety of subcontractors that has helped us be able to do that. And so going forward that will certainly continue to be a part of our model as we transition to the next site. But it has really been beneficial for students and it's allowed them to get a far greater understanding of the business if they so choose to advance into the business out of school. No. And as I just mentioned there, our partnerships with these vendors has been, you know, very positive with our students. they they have done a tremendous amount of work on there and they've gained a lot of uh understanding of the profession but also have built

060relations with the with the companies um to the point where they you know the companies are looking for our students to come work for them which is highly beneficial for us um over the past two years uh Bruce Morrow the instructor there and myself knew to the program both of us knew to the program last year our emphasis has been making sure that the education is there for as well so their OSHA 10 training their NCCR which is national consortium of construction education research gets them some certifications which are industry industry credentials. They go right into the field and and and start with a leg up. Um you know we're only trying to foster and build those relationship with our vendors so that we can provide better opportunities for our students and makes them aware

061of the entire process of building a house. Uh student auto sales again a long-standing program. It is in 13 locations 13 locations uh from among the audit tech programs and as we mentioned before $250,000 in sales 187 back to the program. Um this program is one that I feel has been very consistent for a long time. The ability to grow in this is really only by volume of donations and volume of quality cars that come out. So the school systems or the school programs have been very good. Many of them have been great adopters of this. They found the benefit and the profits that come back into their program. So, they're they're not going to administration for funds. They're able to do things inside the classroom that other programs aren't able to do. And a

062lot of teachers take a lot of pride in that. The students have taken a lot of pride in that as well. Um it almost becomes kind of a club and with itself for these programs because the students understand that they can take the monetary benefit of what's coming back and improve what they're doing in the classroom. And so, we really enjoyed doing this. Um the but again the way to grow this for us is a little bit of luck. You know we we have to get good quality cars. In some years we get a lot of donations but a lot of them aren't roadw worthy and so they end up doing 50 break jobs on them and then they get taken to the scrap. So we we do have to do some degree some consistency

063in total sales but how we get there and how we go about it is a little bit different. So happy answer any questions later about that. But this is one where we kind of are on a bit of cruise control with that program. uh program enhancement grants. This is something we started as a board house myself maybe 15 years ago and it was really as a result of the success we had early on with entrepreneurship realized that our mission was not just supporting the couple of programs that we've had a partnership with Fairfax County to run over the last several years but to support CTE as a whole. If we go back to the beginning of fate, it was really put together to be able to train the trades and bring more people into the

064trades as a whole. What the trades mean has certainly changed over the last 50 plus years, but ultimately the grant program has allowed us to take what is kind of new age CTE and support those programs in a way that we wouldn't otherwise have the ability to do have and our inability to really participate in their programs beyond a monetary reason. And so we have done a great job I think of expanding that program. I would say thanks to all the staff that works for us. We've gone from having a couple applications a year to this year I think we had 30. And so the word has finally gotten out that we are here and willing and able to help. Obviously we don't have unlimited funds but those programs that we can support we try

065to do every year. If we can't support a program and there's a reason why we provide feedback and hope that they come back and apply again. Um, for example, several of the programs that applied this year, we're asking for funds from a program standpoint that weren't actually able to be spent this year if they were successful in receiving those funds. So, we're trying to stack people up as much as we can to be successful and get those dollars to them when they can use them. Um, but we've been incredibly proud of this program and hope to continue to grow it as well. And some of the highlights of that are are shown on here, but um if you're familiar with Aaron King over at Edison Academy, he just recently had a a highlight of his

066arcade that he produced uh for the county. He was able to to pitch us and pitch fate uh for some funding and we were able to provide him some funding so he could create that enrichment uh endeavor for his students. Um and it was very it was highlighted throughout the county and local outlets and everything like that which was pretty amazing. our newly um built welding lab. You know, they they had a large uh request for some funding to you know develop uh supplies and materials for that class which is highly uh they consume a high amount of materials for that. So we were able to provide fate was able to provide that for them. Um and then they were able to get I think it was about three or four students brand new to

067the program brand new welding to get AWS American Welding Society credentials at the end of it in their first year of it. Um and then some others uh the hospitality courses they were able to go take some tours of some places in Oldtown. I think it was um Indigo Hotel, El Porto uh restaurant and from that two of the three two out of two students were given uh summer apprenticeships um with those with those organizations. So these these supports that we're giving students are directly impacting them and you can see the outcome right away with what the students are are getting and what they're producing. So it's it's really beneficial. Um entrepreneurship falls into a similar bucket. Um we have for a long time supported market days for those primarily go to New York put

068together a business model generate a wear and then ultimately come back and sell that wear in the classroom. This outside of that the entrepreneurship participation with fate has ebbed and flowed over the years. We were just chatting about it beforehand. This is one of the areas where we'd love to have new ideas from the schools. Um today I would say pretty consistently we support market days each year which is probably a 100% of that number that's shown right now. Um every year they meet or exceed their number and all the money comes back to fate. So it's a very easy program to support. Um but in past years we've supported a variety of studentrun programs or businesses where it's become an investment not just a grant. So that's that entrepreneurship aspect that I know has

069grown significantly from a school system perspective. We'd love to participate in more. So, u more outreach from our perspective certainly is warranted and any ideas that come from your guys perspective down would be very welcome. Scholarships. Uh this has been around the entire time we've done this. Um I I did not know the number on the screen, but we've given out over $350,000 in scholarships over our existence. Each year we find that the applications at least in the last 10 years in quality and number have continued to grow and grow, which is much like some of our other programs that we just chatted about. We have to balance financially how much money we can provide every single year among those various needs. This year we provided seven scholarships of $13,000. We have various support coming

070in to some degree for some of those scholarships. So, some are directly applied from funds that we receive that are restricted for that purpose and some come from general funds from fate. But it's something we're surely most proud of every year as part of the is directly applied. Students are going to college, they get academic scholarships, apprentichip scholarships to help them with their getting right into the industry and becoming on their way to become a journeyman. Um and then tool scholarships. Um giving them a leg up so that they have a whole uh set of tools as they enter their apprenticeship or go right into the workforce um is super valuable to them. Um because these tools are expensive. Um these programs are expensive. So giving them any sort of support is is what we

071want to do. And we're always looking for I I'll put a plug. We're always looking for um support from outside vendors or who want to solicit. I just had a meeting with the Milwaukee Tools uh and trying to see how they could support our programs and provide even more funding for scholarships and and develop always looking for that. Then in closing phase three, our usual plug. So, uh, last couple of years, and I mentioned it up front, um, we are in search of more property. We, we know the rules have changed a lot since we received property from you all before. Uh, I think what we have today was a fractured school site when Fairfax County Parkway came through that property. And so we are, as I said, probably five to six, seven years away

072from needing a new site for us. And I'm sure it's not completely foreign to you all from a zoning perspective. Things take time. And so identifying a site, having control of a site, reszoning the site, receiving a site plan, and then getting to a point of infrastructure so that we are ready to actually build a home when those students are ready to transition is about the right timeline. So, we have started some meaningful outreach to the uh board of supervisors and we are starting to advance some of those conversations. I would I would be willing to bet in the coming months. We hope some of that from their perspective flows down to you guys. We'd love to meet with you all individually. If you have any ideas uh to date, because of where we understand,

073a lot of the land has been dedicated. It seems to be more controlled by the board of supervisors and it is by the school board at this point. But we are open to any and all ideas. We know Fairfax County has changed a lot since the early 2000s when we last identified a site. There's certainly less land. The sites that are available are smaller and the sites that are available are more complicated. Um, so we have a fantastic board that has expertise in every arena of real estate and so we're able to digest those and pretty quickly out if we can or can't do something for the program on those sites. Partnership and support you guys. That is all we have for today. Um, Mr. Moon, thank you for the presentation. I always enjoy presentation

074by fate. Uh, with that said, uh, on slide number eight, I see preferral characteristics including town houses. Have we have you we ever built town houses from a fate perspective? Yes, we have never. We've actually we've had two sites over 50 years and it has all been single homes. all been single homes because when you know it's a good to see our you know students learning from a ground up and building houses with a value exceeding $1 million may not go much in Belfast County still that's a lot of money for high school kids to see but at the same time I also want to have would love to see high school students a working on a houses with little more moderate price range rather than all multi-million dollar projects. I think we're going to

075end up in that position. I think with the size of sites and our need to not move sites every one to two years logistically is almost impossible for us. So we we have spent a fair bit of time talking about what are the different types of housing we can and can't do. I mean we have to be just as honest with ourselves about the things we can't do. Uh town homes is certainly something that we believe we can get our hands around from logistics perspective. the sites get tighter. How we build homes is different than a home builder, but there's certainly opportunities to do that. And I think we're going to have to bend ourselves to the reality of Fairfax County today. Not just to the price point perspective, which we certainly think is an

076advantage, not just for the students, but also for the community as a whole. We know that the next time we go through a resoning, it's not going to be as easy as it was 25 years ago. So, we're going to have to think about these aspects as we go through it. But, we certainly appreciate the point because it's something we're focused on. Okay. So I'm going to go one step further even uh from loaning perspective that that you know builders do not always build from ground up. They may purchase existing homes and then do major repairs or minor repairs and turn it around and sell them. Is that something is there something that our students can also learn from then those models as well? That would that'd be a very challenging business model for us

077because to date and I think continuing into the future, we're unable to buy a site at market. We can't continue the program on a sustainability basis by purchasing land or purchasing a home and then trying to create a profit. And so this renovations alone are is a challenging business just to start with. Moving a site from year to year is a challenging business for us. But if we had to purchase a home, renovate it and try to sell it, the sustainability of the program would be very very different. What about one last question, what about working with private developers and ask them to provide our student learning opportunities at their sites? They're already working on for what purpose? For the for the entirety of the program or for entire program or part of the program?

078Yeah. So the challenge is a lot of these home builders, they build very very quickly. they build at very tight margins and so even if we were able to do that we'd be on a job site for 12 to 24 months and they'd have to dedicate some meaningful resources. That's there's certainly an opportunity there. I think those are many of those things along with a whole list of others. We've said if we get to a point and there will be a point in the future if it's not this site and maybe the next or the next we're going to run out of land in Fairfax County and so at some point what do we do? And we've talked about how do we take funds potentially at some point in the future and expand carpentry programs

079in various and ultimately start to build modular housing or other things of that nature. There's plenty of challenges associated with that industry right now. But we've talked about a lot of these things that we are going to have to live with some reality at some point that we won't continue land to be able to do this. So for the time being, we're trying to figure out if we can solve the problem somewhere in the realm of how we've been doing things to date. But if we're forced in that position, we're going to have to find other ways to your point of view. Okay. Thank you, Mr. McDaniel followed by Miss Marin. The question speaking of like property, what type of property are you looking for? Well, ideally land. Sure. But so raw land, not not

080buying existing assets or anything of the nature from a reasonzoning perspective. as long as we have comprehensive plan or supervisors. I don't think that's really the challenge. I mean, most land in Fairfax County is not zoned for its ultimate use anymore. And so, it's it's really about finding a piece of property that is buildable and is within the within where we can access from a school perspective, but that is almost our only limitation. Is there a certain density that you're looking for? I mean, where No, it just has to be enough that we don't have to move the program from time to time. So, for example, if we were in an area of the county where we could only build two units an acre, having a oneacre site doesn't do a lot. But if we

081were in an area of the county that allowed 12 to 16 units an acre for town homes on a twoacre site, that does something for us. So, it's really about what kind of density we can achieve and how long we can keep the program there and in place. Gotcha. And do you guys I assume it's probably safe to say you only focus on the construction part, the actual building of Okay. So, you don't demolish things. We As a professional in the real estate business, we demol we demolish things all the time. So if there is a piece of property you have where we need to demolish some use, that doesn't that doesn't bother me at all. So there is. So yes. Okay. As long as we're not buying a piece of property where we have

082to deal with tenency and the like. If there's if there's vacant property and where we need to demolish, that's the least of my concerns from the logistics we need. We'll talk after that's all. Thank you. If I It feels like we're leading towards an idea here, but I'm happy. Maybe. Maybe. Miss Marin. Yeah. Thanks. I've been a fan of this program since I visited it the first year, I I really encourage the group to think of new ways of doing things because the constant asking for more like seeking more land like there's not. But what there is a ton of is commercial buildings. So what I don't get is the allegiance to soup to nuts construction when that's just not available. And I yet am to have a kid from Madison or South Lakes um

083Marshall any of those kids cross the entire county to get there. And I haven't seen anything change. So I I'd really encourage you to look at So what can a kid do in commercial electrical, plumbing, drywall, construction, carpentry? What is it? Is it just that they're not digging? Are they not bringing it to market? Like there's got to be an evolution because and I don't see anywhere in in the numbers here how many students. It was 25 the last time I knew. Is that still where it's at? Yeah. And that and that is really Go ahead. you you speak to that then I I'll answer your first question is yeah we're bound by the state regulations what we can have in a residential class we have one residential construction program which is uh 20 students

084that we can have seen yeah so the cost per pupil of that is got to be enormous and I you know realize the um generous funding that fate brings but we have a lot of people that want to work in construction and it's booming in Reston and there's also a ton of commercial real estate sitting I drive by it every single day So, and then if you want to do even if you want to look for land, but certainly for commercial real estate, I mean, it's the board of supervisors all day long. Get get their buy in and then let us know because we have no authority over the space, the zoning, the planning, the timeline. And I guess, you know, my frustration is just that it's a great program and I've seen it expand

085zero. Well, so from an expansion standpoint, given the current site that we have and the limitations we have, not just from an regulatory perspective, but also from a teacher and staffing perspective, we just wouldn't be able to do more programs without that. And I think to your earlier comment, really what you're talking about is training less of business. And so if we get to a point of training, it will be through partnerships with other groups. fate will never be in a position as a nonprofit board to purchase a commercial property, have the students renovate it, and sell that commercial property. As we just talked about a little bit with the homes, it's very, very challenging from an economic perspective to make that work. But if we can partner with folks in the industry that can

086provide those opportunities for high school students on their job sites, which we already are starting to do to some degree, particularly with summer programs and the like, we can do more of that and educate more students in that manner. It just won't be a self- sustaining program because there won't be dollars generated out of the back end. So, to some degree, we h we we kind of push pull between those two, right? No, thank you for explaining it. And it's not that the residential has to go away, but I'd love to know how many students have gone through the program are working in real estate and have a career or working in construction. What are those numbers? Because if there's one student out of 20 or 40 or, you know, 60 every 3 years, I

087bet we could train a lot more students in carpentry and get them going. And you know, I guess the other So those are the data points. Um, and again, the funding is I mean, you're absolutely right to bring up the funding, but does the real estate need to be the most important component when we know that we have needs for all these other skills? I totally agree. The the challenge for if we were part of the school system or relied on funding from the school system to grow it and we had that capacity available, we could based on our balance sheet and the funding we have available, it will drive quickly if it's only a one-way street. If dollars are not coming back into the program, no, I get it. But we still have auto

088and I mean I guess I just haven't seen any evolution of what's the plan and given that the land is not plentiful that's where I keep coming back to if land was plentiful I'd be like okay keep going but that that's why we're here six years out if we find that three years out we're unable to have a solution that provides more land and allows us to be self sustainable we're going to have to match that reality at some point and it may not maybe it's this round it may be the next round it may be the next one but your point is a good one. Uh we're going to have to deal with that at some point in the future. And as we've talked about, what we've been trying to figure out is even

089at a a broader scale, right? If we were go into themies and be able to do module housing or the like and we can help take some of our dollars, not just to build the homes, but improve the school logistics to be able to do it. For example, very few schools in the county have the height limitations and the door limitations to get a product like that in and out of the academy. So, like we've talked about a lot of these things and so I think right now what we're trying to figure out is where are the dollars best suited? Are we at a inflection point where we need to make that transition because once we do it's very hard to come back. I mean one when I first heard this about this program I

090was trying to figure out if homebuilders in Vienna could set up a site a staging site and have students come in that you know and then you've got OSHA okay fine but like what are some of those creative solutions then to make it work? um you know and and your value of being a partner in the community could be going to Clark Construction or to you know those other can going to hit that's right in Reston and saying hey can we partner and you know that could be super valuable in expanding this yeah and that we agree with I mean you guys have been working on that a lot from a program partnership yeah I think we've been trying to develop those partnerships and figure out where our inroads are with them and trying to

091make them aware of our program and what our limitations are and what we need moving moving forward so that we can actually progress that I think we're in that beginning stages of it and me and this new me being new to the role was a year and a half ago and new teacher working with the board and understanding the scope of what we can do with the board that is something that we have been thinking about because he we don't find land in the next two to three years then what and we have to come up with that solution right away so we are starting that on the on the small scale right now but that might get ramped up if need be but to your point on the periphery we can certainly be doing

092both and so if there's an ability to leverage the partnerships that we have today which we certainly started to do to create opportunities for even students outside of our programs altogether. Um so I'll take a a turn following along those lines. Um I know that um the board of supervisors has projects. I know that you know um you know affordable housing projects that are coming up. I mean is that and is is there some way we can work with them for some of those pro projects and whoever is bidding on those projects make that part of their profers that they they cooperate and partner with us so that our students can do that is I don't know enough about the industry to know if that's a possibility. Um yes and no. So, similar answer to

093the question before, which is these certainly aren't in a capacity to do affordable housing projects or the like. Many affordable housing developers, I don't want to get too far into the weeds, but they are economically driven still, mostly not nonprofits. And so, they still need to, particularly for most of these projects that are working off of LITC credits, they ultimately need to buy, develop, and deliver in a very short amount of time to be able to receive those credits. So there are some limitations logistically there. But I think what you're talking about is a similar thing to the prior comment which is can we take industry partners and provide opportunities for students through those industry partners even if it doesn't mean it's the core business of fate. The the answer to that is absolutely. So

094if there are other students that aren't participating in a fate construction program but want to get interested in construction who are in carpentry today, who are in mechanical engineering today or who are in electrical today. if they'd like to get out on a job site and participate in programs, Clark Construction is doing that right now with us and we certainly can engage others from our relationship perspective to do so. Okay. And then my other question that I was going to ask in terms of your donations for cars and you say that you know that kind of es and flows depending how do you go about advertising for those donations? Um to be honest with you a lot of it's word by word of mouth. Um it's been such an established program. Um Lyman Rose, who

095is our dealer at Marshall High School, he is constantly getting barrage with, you know, people who program. Um I can I can see on a weekly basis, we probably get, you know, seven to 10 donated cars coming in through through the people who just had heard about the program. We do advertising at the schools. We have banners up at some of the football stadiums. We have um uh two wraps cars that go from school to school, get sit out in the front lot sometimes um so that people can see you know that this as a program. Um um we have some social media that goes out um but um we haven't had any lack of donations coming into our program. Um the number I just talked to uh Lyman today I think we had over

096it here where I wrote it here. um 215 donations come in this year, which is a pretty pretty high amount. And he he he's pretty he accepts anything. Um um you know, the kids have an opportunity to work on it and do something to it. He he accepts it. Um whether it then gets scrapped afterwards or not, but um donations are are plentiful. And we just um made connections with uh EMA, Metropolitan Washington Airport, airport authority. Um and they want to donate cars to us as well, and we did in the past got some from them. Um, we've had other dealerships abandoned cars that are in their lots that people flee the country and never come back for their car. These the ones that they want to donate might be their actual service trucks they

097use. So we might actually get some last parking lot. So the donations are are plentiful. Um, and through whatever advertising we're doing now, we're just trying and we're going to try to make sure that increases as we move forward. I think what I was identifying earlier is the quality of those cars eb and flow. So we get a lot of cars that come in, but ultimately how many of those cars are able to be repaired and put back on the road and can go through sales versus how many get 50 brake jobs can get scratched is really where we see the um I if we had 500 cars come in a year, we may be able to get more quality cars, but Lyman would be so inundated he'd just be sending 300 cars a year

098to the scrapyard and they'd never see the school system. Right. And and I think the point that I was getting to was the quality cars that you could then get, you know, a good return for for the work that was done. And of obviously the experience of doing a a break job on a car you're going to scrap is is as valuable, but if you could get the higher quality cars to get get some more return. Uh I agree. I I definitely agree with you there. Um you know, some of the cars that come in have 200,000 miles on it. Some of them come in 250,000. Some of them have an engine an engine that blew up and we have to try and figure out is this is this worth it. Um and then there

099are some limitations. Uh we have talked to some dealerships who you know potentially want to donate cars but then there are some limitations which I don't know the whole ins and out of but I've talked to lineman about how we can then resell them if if we're able to resell them potentially. Um but the dealership has a lot of restrictions on what you can and can't do. We have to follow those Virginia uh dealership restrictions on that. Um, but we're always looking for the quality cars of of of what out there. And he does a we we now have one thing that we have in instituted this year is Carfax as well. So, we're able to pull all the carfacts and understand what that car has gone through. And we've actually identified at least 10

100cars that have been um uh I don't know what term is, but they're not able we're not able to resell them because they are um total total. Thank you. They've been total. I should have known that, but yes. So then these people want to donate them, but we're like we can't do anything. So then we scrap them and we have a we have a working relationship with a a scrapper Willow Springs who comes and gets the cars uh for free and then and then and then and takes them and he get provides us some of the scrap money for that. So we even get some money from the scraps that that we get. Uh and then another question that I have is cars are becoming much more electronic like little spaceships now. How does that

101impact your programming and and are the kids being trained for that or do we have training? Are we moving towards that? So we are moving towards that slowly. The state puts out the requirements in which we have to follow through the um CT resource or VOE of the requirements and EV vehicles are becoming more prominent in there and EV training. I have a I'm sending a couple teachers over the summer to do some EV training uh to make sure that they understand the what you know how to how to repair those and what they need to look for. The other part of that is the safety factor for the kids, right? The kids have to be we have to put it make sure they're safe and they don't do things that are because there is

102another danger factor to be associated with that. So once our our teachers are getting trained uh Nova's reached out about some trainings as well that they want to get our teachers involved in. Um and then as the competencies and the and the curriculum changes, we're changing our our focus as well. But it is a slow process. Uh while we see more EV vehicles out on the market now and that's the trend, we're still dealing with more of you know traditional vehicles at this point. And the things that are donated are traditional vehicles that have been, you know, 1998 and 2017. We're not getting the 2025 Teslas coming in at this point. Maybe eventually. I I don't see any more placards, but I would like Oh, do you I'm I'm sorry. You're You're behind my water

103bottle. So, I hit it. Just a really quick question. I appreciate everything you do and I love especially the the the hands-on training for the students in both the auto and and the home building. I'm just wondering as I was sitting here listening on the home side of things, you know, with some of the newer ordinances around accessible dwelling units and ADUs, is there space for partnering with people who want to build some of those in their backyards to bring in some students to help with that or partner with the builders that are building that? I just feel like there's there's a a thing here with a public private partnership to provide some of these um opportunities for the students. We've chatted through that as a result of what I was just mentioning earlier on

104modular and mobile housing. Yeah. A lot of the success in that space setting aside zoning. Zoning's become in every jurisdiction. Oh yeah. Even though they've introduced the concept, it's become very challenging to kind of figure out the right way to accomplish it. And so they there's different rules from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but a lot of the success in that space has been around modularized housing and offsite and deliver it. And so we have certainly chatted about that. It is certainly going to be I think a growing industry as zoning gets a little bit more flexible and figures out how to not just allow it but encourage it. Yeah. Um but it is something that we certainly can do if we were to do one of the program chatting about where we start to expand within

105the schools that we can do. That is certainly something we've chatted about. Great. Thank you. I appreciate it. So now seeing no more placards, I do want to give you the opportunity to explain a little bit about the open house or anything else you'd like to inform us before we end the session. Sure. So tomorrow afternoon uh we have an open house for uh the Fairfax community. When I say Fairfax, I mean local school Fairfax community. Um so school boards, supervisors, uh staff, uh you're all more than welcome to come out to our site at 7430 Foundation Way in Springfield. Um the open house is running from 1 to 4 tomorrow. It is a there is no set program. It is a true kind of come in take a look at what the kids in

106have done and uh see the the beautiful home that is uh going to Will the students be there? Uh the students will be coming and going as well. Um summer schedule it was hard to track down all of them to come but we will have some students there. Um there might be some local media presence there as well. Uh some board of supervisors have uh responded um to to be at the site. Some board obviously board members from fate will be there as well as our um instructor of the program um and and other affairs um personnel. So yes, 1 to 4 tomorrow. Uh should we I was just there this morning. Uh the stager has it all uh set up is getting it all set up right now. Uh it's it's beautiful. We had

107it all clean. So come on out. I have some refreshments for you all. So, you know, if you want some Wegmans, come on out and uh see the house uh and uh enjoy yourself and and and get to hear from some of the students and we can talk about the program. You can see our next site is currently under works right now. So, we have the the whole and he helical peers going in. Uh we can discuss that while you're there. So, you can see uh what what we're doing moving forward with the program too. So, 1 to 4 tomorrow um will be our open house. Well, thank you for the presentation and thank you for being here. You guys appreciate it. Head Start Parent Policy Committee for the presentation of their annual report. Thank

108you for being here and we're eager to hear about the little ones. Thank you all so much for having us. Uh my name is Ari Rua and I am the chair of the parent policy committee um for the pre-K and early Head Start programs. um lucky enough to be joined by Cynthia Kobe Rojas, our vice chair. Katie Mahaney, our secretary. Um and we're also joined in the audience by Jonathan Kby, our parliamentarian over there in the back. Um we are also joined by our prek and early Head Start senior manager, January Tekash up here with us and uh Katie Spalding, who was sitting in the audience um over there. Good afternoon everyone. A little bit about our parent policy committee. This year, we met quarterly for in-person meetings. The agenda included information about the program

109budget and updates from staff. At each meeting, we had networking opportunities with other parents at and team building activities. Our children were also able to network and participate with their friends to build social skills. They received a bilingual story book at each meeting and that went along with the activities. We were also joined by our community partners who shared information and resources for our families. At our final meeting of the year, we were fortunate enough to be served dinner by our food and nutrition services and families gave feedback on the new menu items that will be served to our students next year. This year, we added a new parent conversation portion to each PPC meeting. We discussed important topics to help give feedback to improve communication and family engagement within the preK and EHS program.

110This feedback is being used to make updates to the website and to parent resources for next school year. The best part of this experience was getting to meet the program staff and get to know the people who are working behind the scenes on improving the program. hearing what feedback they needed from us and how we can work together in a partnership. I'm so appreciative that all the students in the preK and EHS program are in good hands. It truly takes a village to support all of our children. It was reassuring that the program staff was there to hear us. Even if a family shared critical feedback, it was empowering for our parents to be heard. From this experience, we have built confidence to advocate for our children. This led me to recently reach out to

111my principal after kindergarten orientation to work with her on enhancing the experience for our prek families next year. Uh throughout the school year, the all preK and early Head Start parents had the pleasure and opportunity to serve on the parent policy committee uh by being elected as an executive board member, serving as a regional representative, serving as a policy council representative with Rafex County um or attending PPC meetings or school-based parent center meetings. In addition to the parents who participated on the committee, we had three community representatives who shared information and resources for other for our families. Uh we were lucky enough to also have members from the health department, Anthem Healthkeepers, and the Northern Virginia Family Services be part of our our um program. Five of our parents also attended the policy council meetings

112with Fairfax County government where we received budget training and overviews of grant financials as well as approved the hiring of new staff. Um here you can see this is our chart um with our executive board and the policy council representatives. You've already met those of us that are up here with you today. Um, unfortunately, Alexandra Pittz, our PPC treasurer and policy council representative and the secretary, could not attend today. Um, we also have our three additional policy council representatives, Nicole Tapia, the um, who also serves as a policy council treasurer. Um, soal Garcia and Carla Oralana. Though it doesn't include every PPSC regional representative and parents who contributed to our comm committee this year. Every parent who attended contributed to our effort and we thank them greatly for all their work. Our children were some

113of the many children who were served by the FCPS prek and early head start program which provides highquality preschool education and comp comprehensive services for students who are identified as having economic and educational risk factors. The purpose is to provide a strong start and develop kindergarten readiness skills, including academic and social emotional skills. During the school year, 2024 2025, the prek program had 132 classrooms serving up to 2,246 students. The number of prek slots is 134 more than la the previous school year with an additional 175 slots being planned for the next school year. Adding more slots personally impacted our family. I'm a military wife who recently wrote relocated to Fairfax County with my family and we applied a year ago this spring and were put on a wait list for the program for several

114months. Finally, in July, we were told that a spot had opened after being very worried we wouldn't get one. Uh we were in a new a nearby school and now my daughter is overprepared for kindergarten. She knows all her numbers and letters and she even has an Elsa story book that she reads to us every night. We found this program very beneficial that we would like to recommend to continue to expand the program for more families to help prepare students for school. The preK and EHS program serves as a diverse serves a diverse population of students including students who are found eligible based on income and other risk factors. The top chart shows the family income for students attending the program this year. The bottom two charts show information about the percentages of multilingual learners

115and students with disabilities. 68% of students in the program have a family income of less than 130% of the federal p poverty level with another 19 below 200%. Which shows the majority of our students come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. 18% of our students have been identified as having developmental delays or disabilities. The percentage includes the students who already had IEPs prior to entering the program as well as those identified during the program year. 82% of our preK and Early Head Start students come from a multilingual home. This school year, students have 49 home languages other than English. Spanish is the most common language with Arabic and Amharic, Dari, and Erdo also having large populations. For our students, preK offers a languagerich environment that provides experience to develop and practice English prior to the kindergarten year.

116So, as part of the federal Head Start and Virginia preschool initiatives, grants require that the PreK and Early Head Start program provides comprehensive services to children and their families. Some of these services include um eligibility, enrollment and attendance support, family services and connecting to resources in the community, health and nutrition including mental health education and assessment support and support to support for students disabilities and developmental delays. Um I was one of the few of the families that didn't know that this program existed at all. Um I was also unfortunately one of the first group of parents that went through um a layoff in corporate America when I was expecting my son at seven eight months of gestation. So we actually had to we had our daughter that was in an academic learning center that was

117bilingual and we provided an education for her that was of high caliber um for us. And so one of the things that had to go once we once I got laid off was we had to make financial cuts and that meant removing our daughter from that academic learning center. Um and we moved specifically to Fairfax County. I'm from Arlington County and we specifically moved to Fairfax County to give her um the best education possible. So to have to remove her from an area that she is accustomed to that is structured that she thrives in and not have a space for her not be able to afford a space for her to be in and continue as she's in this cusp of four and five to go to kindergarten. Um we really had to wait for

118a miracle and that's exactly what happened with um child. So through Child Find Services, we were able to find this program and apply very smoothly and were we were approved pretty quickly to be able to have her attend um Bonnie Bray in Burke. So um we've not only has this been a blessing, but we've noticed that the transition from the academic learning center that was bilingual going into Fairfax County Public Schools uh prek program was very smooth for her and it was something that she continued to thrive at. And not only was she doing the same work, if not better, than the academic learning center that we had her in, but we also noticed that she had a lot of um social and emotional skills that she had picked up over a small time period

119within the first couple of weeks in school. She had the language to be able to express herself and to say how she's feeling and discuss big feelings. And um we're very very proud of her for that. Here are some of the highlights of the comprehensive services for the school year 2024 2025. Uh transportation starting in 2425 there is now a feeder site identified for every base school in FCPS to get bus transportation. All of the students now have access to the bus which is wonderful. Education completion of all Virginia quality birthto five VQB5 requirements updating curriculum for new standards. comprehensive training for teachers on new liter literacy curriculum including letters and he training uh increase supporting for children with disabilities was supported by increasing in inclusion classrooms and practices and we supported 180 enrolled students

120through the child find referral pro process. Uh the mental health was expanded um through excuse me expanding early childhood mental health consultation model to build adult capacity to support our students so the teachers are able to support their students properly with mental health which is wonderful again uh family engagement we supported school readiness and transition to kindergarten through family center meetings virtual information sessions and ready Rosie the prek and ehs program makes an impact on kindergarten readiness including academic skills and social emotional skills. You can see from this preliminary data this year's Virginia kindergarten readiness program EMAS and vows that preK students have made growth in math concepts and beginning liter literacy skills such as letter identification and beginning sounds. My daughter is proof in the pudding. the spring. In the spring, students are expected

121to do more and harder tasks for each developmental band. But in all areas, more students were on target in the growing and strong bands for kindergarten skills. The exposure to a strong curriculum in the preK and EHS program impacts students and families. Myself, with my older child, who's 16 now, I had to get other resources to help him prepare for kindergarten because they didn't emphasize liter literacy in his daycare preschool he attended. I see a huge difference in my daughter now who's more than ready to begin kindergarten and enjoys learning immensely. The prek and ehs program is required to maintain a weight list of eligible students to be able to fill slots if a student leaves and also to measure unmet need. You can see from the chart that even though the number of preK

122slots has grown, so has the number of students on the wait list. The preK program prioritizes four-year-olds to receive a preK experience before kindergarten. So, not all three-year-old applications are even processed. This past year, approximately 1,300 three-year-old applications were held to be processed for the following upcoming school year. Last year, my daughter was on the wait list as a three-year-old, but because we applied and she was on the wait list, we were able to get a spot for her as a four-year-old the following year. So, about that. So, the map in front of you is the percentage of students who enter kindergarten without a pre-K experience at all in each of the high school pyramids. Um, the dark green shows areas where over 30% of the students have not had the opportunity to go to

123preschool before kindergarten. The medium green colors are 20 to 29% of students who did not have a pre-K experience at all. And the program staff use this data to recommend where the program can continue to expand their classrooms. Each year, the parent policy committee puts forward recommendations to the school board on how to best support the prek and early head start program into the future. Here are the recommendations for this year. Our first recommendation is prioritize maintaining the prek and early head start program classes and services regardless of federal and state funding cuts. It is important for parents to have peace of mind that their prek program will continue to be available to students in Fairfax County into the future. We have seen how important it is for children as the as the foundation for

124their education and development. Our second recommendation is include prek students in the staffing formula for school-based staff including time to teach and school-based mental health. I have been fortunate to have a principal at our daughter's school who has included the prek program as much as possible in school community events. Though not all students who attend each prek classroom are base school students, they are all FCPS students and will go on to kindergarten at our schools. Currently, prek students are not in the staffing formula for art, music, and PE. or in their numbers for mental health support. So even at a great school like ours where they try to include our youngest learners, our daughter only had specials on a monthly basis. At least they got some introduction, but prek is their first opportunity to go

125to school and it is important to have these enrichment opportunities early even for our preschoolers at every school. For our third and final recommendation, we ask you to continue to fund the expansion for the prek program to allow access to our families, increase inclusion opportunities, and improve kindergarten readiness. The prek program set students up for success in kindergarten, paving the success in school and life. All students should have access across Fairfax County. There should be no wait list. Every student should have an opportunity at preK. We greatly appreciate the opportunity um to present these recommendations before you today. Um our parent policy committee strongly feels that they really will make all the difference in making this program and the students more successful um this year and beyond. So, we're very grateful for you all. Um

126thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for your presentation. Um, at this time I now invite board members to ask any clarifying questions or to provide comments and we'll start with uh Dr. Ricardi Anderson followed by Miss Marin. Thank you um Miss um Sanja Kunning. Thank you all so much for being here and for your very good report. It is much appreciated. I I was just hoping for a little bit more clarification on the weight list and you did a good job of already parsing out for me the three-year-olds and the four-year-olds. Um so this number, this 474, this only um reflects four year olds that are on the weight list. So the weight list is vastly underrepresented here by another 2600 kids roughly to include the third graders. Is that

127accurate? So sorry, the third third graders. No, we don't want third graders in preschool. No, no, thank you. I think they do best in third grade. Three-year-olds. So, at some schools, we do process three-year-olds. It really depends on the number of applications per school and the number of slots available at that school. At some schools, we know that we have more than enough four-year-old applications to be able to fill all the slots with the weight list of 20 to 30 students that we may have on the weight list already at that school. In those schools, we choose or we do not process the three-year-old applications just due to um we know they get a letter that says that they will be processed for next year or if space becomes available to save resources. Thank you.

128But overall, that weight list number is vastly underrepresented. There's typically 13 to,400 over the past few years, three-year-olds who have applied to the program whose applications were not processed due to space limitations at those schools. Um the majority of those are four year olds on that on the wait list on Okay. Thank you. Um the other piece that I was curious about I I'm not necessarily clear if this is a question for you or for Dr. Prescidio and Dr. Reed um you know from serving on Skipped with Marcia. It makes me wonder what is the collaboration or what are the uh possibilities for potential collaboration with the county because I know they're working on some specific programs to expand um prek, but we also have that continuing discussion on what does how do we define

129prek? So, I'm I'm wondering what um collaborations have you had? Do you have any input? I I just want to know more about that with the county staff. And I don't know if this is a Dr. Prescidio question either. I don't know where. Oh, he's over there. Well, let me see if I can offer a few comments and then if anybody on the committee has anything to add, I'd certainly welcome that. So, uh for folks that don't know, um the skip the successful child and youth policy team, um Dr. Anderson and Miss St. John Cunning serve on uh that with me. And one of the areas of emphasis is around early childhood education. And the county is currently in the process of developing uh equitable uh early childhood um strategic plan. And one of the

130things that we advocated uh really strongly for was inclusion of expansion of prek as part of that plan because the county as many of you know administer uh child care services and other uh early childhood services but we largely in FCPS run the preschool program. So, we were fortunate enough to have the county agree as one of the strategic goals to include expansion of access to preschool as well as to other early childhood options. Uh so, we're really happy, we're really excited about that. Um and we look forward to continuing to partner with them to look for any available funding stream to increase the number um of slots that we would be able to uh serve in terms of uh students and families in Fairfax County. If I can add, we also work closely with

131our partners um in ECPS um with both the Virginia Preschool Initiative grant and the Head Start and Early Head Start grants. So, we collaborate um and we share weight lists. We um collaborate to make sure that um we meet the state requirement that Head Start spots are filled first before we fill our Virginia Preschool Initiative spots. So there's a strong collaboration between the county and ourselves and making sure that all students have access to um a pre-k experience before they enter kindergarten. Okay. Thank you. I I'll have a comment on that, but I see I have very little time left and I want to ask my next question um which is regarding um the integration of preschool students into the K5 program. Dr. Reid, what is the expectation currently that our that you have for

132our schools on that? So, thank you, Dr. Anderson. I know we're working on inclusion for preK um actually preK through K12. Um so, Dr. Prescidio, I know has been working with the early childhood team on that and perhaps you could share how many new inclusive classrooms we've opened and the trajectory of that work. Yeah, I mean, I think first I would say I just want to thank the board and Dr. read for the last two budgets that have been passed to actually allow us to expand the number of preschool classrooms in the county. We've expanded by over 20 classrooms in the last two years, which is great. Um, and all of the classrooms that we're opening now, we're trying our very best to open those in an inclusion model where all students, regardless of IEP

133status or disability, uh, can learn together in the same classroom. And in fact, this school year, the team, the early childhood team, did a great job of converting some of our legacy classrooms into inclusion classrooms. And I think we added like 42 inclusion uh preschool classrooms this school year alone. Um and that was really a lot of work by the early childhood office in partnership with our schools, our principles um to really remodel and really reinvision what those learning experiences could look like. So, it's our goal, as Dr. Reed said uh in the next several years uh to really move to a full inclusion model um K through uh 12. I appreciate that, but I don't think I was clear about my question. Sorry, that's great information, but not quite landing. It's really speaking to

134the discussion regarding having access to music and PE, the specials. Do we have an expectation around that for the prek classes? Because they tend to be kind of standalone programs. I don't believe we do have an expectation right now. We're uh really trying to pull together monies from any possible locations simply to add preschool classes. And I I don't know that we have at this time the resources to um connect to those uh services unless they're available on site. um if a you know if the staffing uh that a particular school has enables that I think it certainly would be desirable but I I don't believe that's the expectation based on our current budget situation and do you have well I'm sorry I would just add because that's 100% correct but I do want to

135acknowledge the work that our preschool teachers do to embed art and music as part of the program. Um, so we work with them to provide materials and resources and I mean they're some of our most dedicated and creative teachers that we have in the school system. So they work hard to do that. Thank you. And just the last piece, if we were to follow up on this recommendation, any ballpark on what the cost could be to have this recommendation come to life? Well, since each school had to reduce staff based on the divisor, right, on the current budget and the department, the central program supports said to be reduced by 3%. I I would have to we could calculate that number, right, by the number of classes, times, schools, and so forth. We can certainly

136calculate that number. I don't currently, though, and Miss Burden's not here. I don't Oh, Miss Burden just arrived. Miss Burton is here. I don't uh especially with Miss Burton being here as I think about um how much budget uh to put there and we could calculate it. I just don't know what that would cost. I don't necessarily calculation. I just wanted to get a sense of what is the ask here because I see that as the number two recommendation and the number one um recommendation. It seems to be like the perfect storm of challenge uh because of our budget climate. So, you know, I agree with Dr. Prescidio that a lot of our preschool teachers, I mean, it's hard to do preschool without music and art, right? That's kind of the cornerstone. We sing and

137draw and learn together, right, at that those young ages. So, and when I think about adding um those two recommendations, I we certainly could cost those out budget-wise. Miss Marin, followed by Mr. McDaniel. Hi there. It's a shame that our K12 system doesn't actually have early childhood align because this is like the best part to me and that's where I started my career. So, thank you so much. And I want to put a plug in because I I hope you can consider this as a trial run because where we can really use your help as advocates is in the fall when we start to advocate to the general assembly and then in January when they're in session because there's a whole report that we are trying to elevate and share the data on that's showing

138that we're chronically underfunded and you are all advocates and experts in this and we really could use your your help. So, um, I've already made a note to make sure we reach out to you, but know that like your stories and your experience matters, but we got to take it to the state. Um, and certainly we try with the county, but you know, and actually I was furiously looking up like is Montgomery County, Maryland's any better, and I don't think it is. And I was thought for sure like some other places, I mean, it's just such a sad state of affairs, but um, this this is called the JARK report from the state and it shows where we can um, increase funding, especially title one. So, um there's a roadmap there. So, I just um

139hope that you'll stay engaged and I thank you and um we we support you. We just got to get it funded. So, thank you so much, Mr. McDaniel. I just want to add one more thing. I think preschool's like some of the most important work we do in this country. Like, it just is. And that's why this board has been so committed to setting aside money even when money's been tight. And I just want to remind our community that the recent uh research on this is that if we took 1% of our military budget nationally, we could fund universal prek for every child in this country. And I think we need to really be thinking about that not just as a Fairfax school division but as an entire Commonwealth and country because if our children

140can arrive at school better ready to learn it makes all of our achievement gaps just I think much more uh it just erases many of them. So anyhow and I guess Mr. S can I just say one more thing? I forgot to credit Dr. read at like ekking in classroom by classroom like dozens of kids by like that's the and it's ludicrous that this is how we have to do it but it's not unique but you know I'm literally looking at the data to get to that hundred um what is it the uh just said 132 classes like so we're trying but it's we got to get more money Mr. McDaniel, followed by Miss Seismoreheiser. Thank you. Um I think I'm probably the only one that's currently paying. I don't know, Ryan, what your kids

141situation is about. Yeah. So we we are okay. So yeah, I would love to have universal prek. I will write whatever tax check I need to to make that happen because I'm already paying for it um for my my two kids. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We Yeah. So, um I guess my question is on the map on slide um whatever slide the map is on second to last, third to last. If you were to take the full weight list and break it out in this kind of heat map type shaded format that you've done, would it be distributed about the same as what we're seeing right there with the lack of experience? Um no the weight list and this map don't coincide. Um there are pockets where we have large number of weight lists

142and then surprisingly there will be areas where like along the route one corridor for example sometimes we will have schools where we're seeing a higher percentage of students who um aren't accessing a prek experience but we may not have as high of a weight list um in that area. And there's a variety of parent needs in different communities, a variety of um other factors that may pay into that. We do look at our weight list every year to try to give the very best recommendations, but we do know there are pockets on this map where our schools are very compacted and we um you will continue to recommend additional places to to meet the needs at those schools where we have the consistently large weight list. And this year with the additional funding that was

143provided, we were able to um greatly reduce some of those impacted areas, but we're still we'll still keep recommending. Gotcha. So I guess my question when I enrolled my my daughter, I was asked to provide the preschool information for those I mean we we see here that there are clearly pockets where there are a lot of people that don't have their kids experience as you phrased it. Do we survey them and ask them why? We have not on that um FCPS form that's standard in the registration um in the past. I know that there was a team working on getting additional information. Um I don't have an update on exactly what that information is. So we can provide that information. Sure. Because I mean if if it's not you know it could be money, right?

144It could be money. It could be social factors. It could be lack of access to a, you know, a private or public facility. I know the private facilities sometimes have weight lists. Um, it could be our own brickandmortar capacity issues. So, it just I think as we're talking, this has just been a problem. It seems like as long as long as I've been observing these things, this has been a chronic issue and it just seems like, you know, we talk about it, but really getting at the heart of what's what that data is showing in terms of what the driving force. Um, and do we I mean, if we were to even do universal prek, let's say we just had the magic pot of money, do we even do we know if we even have

145the brickandmortar capacity to do it in our buildings? I I wouldn't think so. Maybe. I don't know. Well, I Okay, it's a maybe. Well, I do think we have more capacity. Um, we part of how do I say this? there there are sort of non-traditional areas of capacity, but I I do think that there are some shared spaces as well um with the county that we have contemplated, but we do have some brick and mortar, but they would have to be updated probably. There would need to be resources put in. Um, yeah, it just seems like some creative problem solving that probably needs to break the traditional model of maybe K12 delivery of, you know, you come to the public school and, you know, that's where you go and and it is what it is.

146Um, because we do, I mean, there are some private institutions that have weight lists. There are some that are that don't have weight lists. And it's if you could find those pockets where you have that capacity and figure out some type of funding model for those who maybe be on the edge for being able to affordability with a sliding scale type fee structure. Um you know not suggesting I hesitate not suggesting the voucher word but some type of model where those who need a little bit of financial help to be able to afford it can get it which would then free up the total access to the free program from a capacity perspective. Um, I don't know if that's been looked at or not, but just wanted to throw it out there because like I

147said, this seems like we've been talking about this for a very long time. Can I just add very quickly as well? Um, we have seen the weight list continue to grow even though, um, you all have done a great job of continuing to support the expansion. More students are now eligible for the prek program through the Virginia preschool initiative as well. And as um communities are seeing that they are eligible, people want to take participate. So that is some of the increase we have as we've increased capacity. You think that's because there are more kids in Fairfax County? Because I think that sort of our cohort birth rate predictions aren't necessarily increasing or is it just more families becoming aware of it or like when you think because you've done the research this year more

148we are seeing more students who are now eligible who would not have been found eligible before due to about two years ago um the Virginia preschool initiative um has categorically made eligible any student who has an IEP. So, it's not that there are more children. There's not more children, but more of the children are qualifying. More of the children are qualified. And currently, we save uh far more students who have IEPs in Fairfax County Public Schools, and they're all eligible for VPR at this point. I see you have strategically placed your sign in between our water bottles. So, Miss Seismore Heiser, you're next. trying my friend trying um thank you very much and thank you for this report. I think I appreciate you every year kind of hearing and and lifting up the importance of

149preschool and the data around it as well. Um you know it is just the data is so clear on the benefit of early childhood education for long-term outcomes and it it actually saves money in the long term in terms of interventions. So there is so many good reasons for it's one of the reasons it was it was its own goal, you know, strong start prek in the strategic plan that we did a couple years ago. Um so I really appreciate this and it's always a frustration I think for the funding of prek um and the funding models for it. So I I think the first thing I just wanted to say as I'm hearing the conversations, you know, and Dr. the point you made about 1% of the military budget. But as we're getting into

150the legislative package and as we're working with our um you know our partners, right, and our advocates around these if we can come up with one pagers that have some of those things targeted federal, targeted at state, target at localities, you know, to help our advocates also understand and also with the data that shows when you have strong prek, here's cost savings down the road, right? and here is better outcomes and all of I think if we can do that it's really helpful for all of us to make that case for people because that's a very powerful data point right but there's a lot of those I think you know if you spend this much and so that's the first thing I want to put out there as we're building into the legislative and we're

151talking to our partners similar to how we've had you know conversations about our facilities funding realities I think we need to have a conversation around prek funding because I hear from the community a lot the importance of prek but I don't know if they fully understand all the nuances and and realities and challenges challenges of how to expand it. So that's the first sort of ask I'd have Dr. Rita view as we're building out the comms around advocacy. Um the other ask I would have as I appreciate you mentioning inclusive preschool because that also has so much data around then having inclusive educational environments in school which has a lot of data itself around better social emotional and academic outcomes for everybody. You know I have to go back and ask Dr. to read. We've

152had a lot of conversations about the actual inclusion models we're using in prek and there's still a lot of what I would not consider actual datadriven inclusion models, right? you know, we're going to take its child from here. And so, I just would love to get an update on where we are on actually having true inclusive models. And I think maybe, you know, even getting better understanding what is within FCPS the definition of an inclusive classroom versus inclusive opportunities because I think those two things are getting conflated, right? We actually had a You can pause my time, please. We actually had quite a conversation yesterday morning about this topic about it's not inclusion to come in for morning meeting and then go back to a self-contained classroom that it's about authentically being a part of

153the classroom and I we did bring several folks through uh folks who work in the field um in particular around inclusion of our children with autism this spring and I I think our definition is evolving uh but there's becoming I think a very clear understanding that um you know it's not just at lunch meal time snack time um how do I want to say uh recess or morning meeting but this it's a really an authentic um involved connected inclusion in preschool. So I I know Dr. Prescidio we talked yesterday and the team we were talking it in the context of twice exceptional students yesterday morning but I think it fits here as well. Um, so you want to take a stab at it? Yeah. I mean, I think I guess the technical definition would kind

154of go back to the VDOE definition of having students with IEPs in the general education setting more than 50% of the day, right? Um, so that's kind of the baseline that we're operating from. If if we're not meeting that standard, then it's not an inclusive classroom or it's not an inclusive learning environment for the student with an IEP. Um, we have a couple different models that we're using right now because of this legacy kind of system that we built where we had separate self-contained special education early childhood and general education early childhood or pre-K classrooms. And because of of that oftent times we placed classrooms, pre-K classrooms in a school where we didn't have both programs in the same school. So it makes inclusion harder. So what we're doing right now is using a variety

155of different models to meet that definition and that standard of inclusion. The optimal model is the dually certified teacher who has uh the certification in early childhood special education which is required to serve those kids IEP needs um if they don't have an additional case manager with them. We don't have a lot of those teachers with that dual certification. But that's really the optimal model. The next best model is the itinerant model where the general education teacher has a mixture of students typically developing students and students with IEPs providing the instruction and a special education case manager pushes in to support and co-e and provide services in the general education classroom. The next model we have is a paired classroom model um where we pair classrooms together and push um it's basically an offshoot of

156the itinerate model but we push special education service delivery into those two classrooms. The fourth model that we have um is basically a general education teacher that has a smaller number of special education students in the classroom but again serviced by a special education case manager. Um the problem with that model is we don't have enough general education classrooms to get to inclusion for the students in our separate self-contained programs. So we're trying to use a variety of different models to retrofit, if you will, this legacy system where we created classrooms in schools that don't have both uh special education and general education. We've also been working with the facilities office to see how we can obviously moving forward make better decisions about how we site new classrooms, but also to see if we can

157move some programs around so that we've got general education students that can be paired with our special education programs in an inclusive model. So, that's probably a long- winded answer, but it's a variety of different models to try to get to that full inclusion model of at least 50% of the day. But for us, we really want students in their full day uh services in the general education setting. Thank you for that that thorough explanation. And I and I'd be curious, Dr. Rian, I know we had kind of the similar conversation several months ago, right? So I'd be curious to see what has changed, especially since we brought in some of the folks around preschool inclusion. you know, I understand the challenges of what our previous models are and I would maybe say as we're

158doing our boundary work that access to programming and may I take a go back I don't if there's anyone else should I take one now? Yeah. So um whether that access to programming includes prek an inclusive prek because I know that that factor hasn't been touched yet um in terms of program placement and then how are we also going to retrofit and I I bring this up as important because I would love in all those and I understand the challenges of how things have been placed in the legacy right but I don't think any of those models unless they fit at minimum the VDOE model and if I recall indicator six is actually the preschool inclusion and we have not passed that either just like we haven't passed indicator 5 for like 20 years. So

159I I think I hesitate to continue to try to retrofit old models that have failed the indicators for 20 years as opposed to really trying to use our boundary work and some of the consultants we brought in to really recreate new models because if we continue with the old models, we're never going to get there just with the challenges of where it's at. Right. Right. Um I don't think any of the models that Dr. Presidio mentioned if they don't lead to that minimum 50% number should be included in the conversation right we can still retrofit and try to do the best we can but it's not meeting a baseline standard so then it gets confusing I think right as to whether we're actually offering inclusive preschool or not and we can say hey this is

160our retrofit of what we can do but the ones that actually meet our criteria for what inclusion should be is this right I think Um, I know that we uh have a plan under development right now in terms of what that model should look like that Nancy was thoughtful I think about and I've got to check in with the team where that is. Uh, but really you're right. I mean, there's some things that are better just constructed from the ground up rather than remodeled. and um particularly in areas where we don't have a lot of classrooms that those models need to come self-contained and not require multiple models on the same site because we don't have the space. Um so I I will check back in with the team and provide a Friday letter update

161to be responsive to your question. Yeah, that would be great. And if there are suggestions of moving forward, you know, how we're retrofitting, but how we're moving forward, that would be really helpful to have in that Friday letter. Yes, ma'am. Great. And thank you doc Dr. Presidio for that long explanation. I I know it's a challenge, but we've got to rip the band-aid off and do it. Yeah, I we've got to figure out how to do that. Just to clarify, I mean, I I 100% agree with everything that you said. And the models that I described meet that minimum threshold and go well beyond the minimum threshold of more than 50% of the day. The retrofitting language that I was using is trying to retrofit how our programs have been isolated, if you will, right?

162And so that's the part that we're trying to reconstruct and redesign. But you're 100% right. We haven't been meeting the targets and the new models that we offer obviously have to be able to do that and they have to be something that's scalable across the school division so that we can do this rapidly and not take 10 years to do it. So thank you. And I al also get I appreciate you saying that those models are sorry that's helpful information. I also just one last thing I'll put out is that I do worry a little bit about how I'm almost done. I do worry a little bit about how we are um is it one student going in for 50% is it two students because from the perspective of that student you're leaving the class

163you know into the class you may not know. So I think we need to be very careful to make sure it's set up for success so our students don't feel isolated and and sort of put upon. So, if I could just real briefly, I know you're short on time, so another excellent point. So, we're using the natural proportions model, kind of working with our consultants that if 15% of the students in the school have IEPs, 15% of the students in the classroom should have IEPs, right? So, we're trying to use that natural proportions model, one or two students, it's it's not going to be successful for those students. Thank you. And thank you for the extra time. Uh Dr. Anderson for a go back. Yes, thank you. I just wanted to offer a comment based

164on the question that was asked regarding do we have space? I I know and realizing that the needs differ based on where you are in the county. Um but the results are also very different. An example that I've used is way no elementary because they've had such a high number of students requiring preschool they've had to move the entire fifth grade outside. That's not the right answer either. So we still need to continue to battle that issue. And we have similar um challenges at Glen Forest and in Parklon where again the needs are great but then the infrastructure is not present to be able to handle it which is why leveraging whatever we can do with the county in a way that meets our standard must be the way to go because they're growing. We

165just need to get to that space where their preschool education and our preschool education a little bit better aligned because right now I I think there's a big chasm between you sit in the in those conversations. there's a big chasm between um I think expectations and so we're not fully able to take advantage of what potentially could be seats and that's the piece that we need a lot of your advocacies around because our schools are brimming especially the ones where there's greater need. Um thank you. I'll I'll take a turn. First of all, thank you for the presentation. I really appreciate it and this is a big part of where my heart is. Being in elementary school most of the time and seeing the work that our Head Start and preschool teachers do is just

166amazing. And every year seeing that little gingerbread man come around trying to not be eaten is just adorable. Um so and I I just want to comment on a couple of the things that you said. Uh which is what this program is all about is not just advocating. It's not just supporting our kids but supporting our parents where you talked one of one of you said this has given me confidence to advocate for my children and that's exactly what we need and it's not just advocating for your specific children but as some board members have have mentioned please help us advocate for the funding so that this can expand. Um, I was very pleased to hear that you went from Arlington to FCPS uh because of Child Find and that you knew this was the

167best place for your child and also very pleased to hear about not just the academic piece but the social emotional piece where she's learning to advocate for herself. So that was very um that was music to I believe everybody's ears sitting here. Um, and I think what it really gets down to, um, is universal preschool and making sure that we do it. And I know that in New Mexico, they made that commitment as a state and that's one of the poorest states in our nation. And they made that commitment and they're seeing the results where that investment is paying off. And so I think, you know, it would behoove us to look at that model and start looking for that um, seeing how we could do that. Uh I just want to I did just

168to respond to one of my schoolboard um colleagues. I think that sometimes access is limited because there are certain families that feel that if they take advantage of this service they might be targeted uh due to their status. Um and so and also for some of our families some of the requirements where you need to have two dental appointment for your for your ch for your child in order to qualify. I mean, sometimes those are barriers for some of our families. Not just the affordability, but even getting your kid to that. I mean, a one a year physical is one thing, but making sure that you have to have two dental, you know, appointments within the year can be barriers for our families. So, just because I've helped a lot of people fill out these

169forms and know what the issues can sometimes be. Uh, but I think everybody on this board is very supportive of this program and we really will reach out to you to help us advocate for for funding because that's unfortunately that's what it comes down to is money. And I do think the boundary work will help us. I think that if we could even move some of those sixth graders into middle schools, then you've got a whole grade that's out of that building and uh then we have open classrooms. So thank you very much and we will now take a brief no a five minute break yeah everybody we're now moving to the discussion of the budget portion of of the process so um what I will start we just put a very very brief just

170as a to frame the conversation. This is um this budget process this year was was difficult as there were many competing priorities and un and an uncertain fiscal outlook kind of intersected here. So the the conditions led to some very tough budget decisions in a variety of areas including some tough budget decisions on funding levels for FCPS. So clearly we're at a crossroads and I've had many conversations with many of you about that with student needs increasing demands on our workforce continue to intensify and unprecedented fiscal pressures at the same time that we are being asked to do more to prepare our students for a complex future and we recognize the board of supervisors have their own pressures taxpayer fatigue is real and there's need for investment in many areas from conversations with colleagues what's

171come to be recognized is that we are really one county one Fairfax and one community and to that there's been conversation about how can we work best together for the best of Fairfax County knowing that our schools are foundational to the county's strengths as centers of learning community and economic and employment engines. So after conversations from several of you and conversations have come up, I know a lot of us want to kind of make a plan for our budget process for next year to be more collaborative to try to work more closely with the board of supervisors more often as allies joining together to best serve the needs and interests of our joint Fairfax County community. So with that, what I'd like to do is just a very quick review of what our current budget

172development process was this year. And thank you to the budget team, Lee and Matthew and Alice, for putting this together for us. Just so to frame the conversation of what our process was this year. And then uh once we go through the slides, as we're going through them, I'd like you all just to kind of think about how what would you like to happen that's the same or different for the next year regarding the process? What do you want to avoid in the process? What information do you need to be prepared for next year's upcoming budget development work? And how often or how do you think we should be more collaborative with the board of supervisors? what does that look like to you? So, just some things to think about. You can of course talk

173to anything you'd like during your time. So, with that, I just wanted to briefly outline and these are posted on board docs, these slides as well for people to read. But the budget development process is a collaborative process involving many stakeholders. Um, it is grounded in our strategic plan which guides the work of FCPS through 2030 with the four pillars being the foundation of our work and providing a framework for how we allocate resources. The budget planning process includes seeking guidance from schoolboard members on priorities. The superintendent works closely with the school board, the leadership team, collective bargaining units, and the community and the county executive to gather needs and present the needs of the division. Next slide, please, Janet. Thank you. Per Virginia's code, the superintendent is mandated to prepare a budget with an

174estimate of the amount of money deemed to be needed to support the school division. This is commonly referred to as a needs-based budget. So by so the superintendent works hard to prepare a needs-based budget that incorporates schoolboard guidance and is in alignment with the strategic plan goals. Next slide, please, Janet. So here is again, this is on board docs as well. a little bit hard to read, but here is a current budget development calendar. And you can see FCPS's meetings, the joint meetings for the county, public hearings. This is what our our the calendar we used this last year and what had which been based on our calendars in previous years looks like. So for that to frame the conversation, what I'd like to do is open the floor for my colleagues just to talk

175about again just to reframe how can we be find a way that's more and better collaborative with the county in a way that serves one Fairfax and recognizing the importance of schools to our economy and to our future as well as um finds a way to be more collaborative earlier in the process. So having said that, I will um start with Miss Lady followed by Mr. Moon. Thank you. Um yeah, I think the uh the most important and the priority is collaboration with the board of supervisors around programming. Um, I think it would be prudent on our part to um be very uh invested in uh at least bringing our own counterparts um but perhaps also as a group closer to the programming that's needed. Um as I sat through committee reports on Saturday, I

176was wishing the board of supervisors were in the room. um because it's evident where we're falling short um in lots of areas, but it's it's economics and uh I think that uh you know enlightening them, helping them uh better understand the needs uh and the costs uh what it takes to to provide the education expected from our our constituents and our community. That's essential. Um and the other thing I want to say is that um in terms of the the budget calendar on February 18 um after this collaboration um after education and and and and hopefully journeying on the same page around what we need to do for our schools um they will provide us with um it looks like on the 18th uh they'll release their advertised budget. Um, if at that time it's

177it it's uh it's not uh able to match our ask, um, I don't want to wait around till May 6 to talk about cuts. Um the biggest thing for me is I I felt like we uh didn't engage with the 150 million shortfall uh in a timely fashion and and I tried to do my best to educate my colleagues on how staffing works at elementary schools. But if people don't fully understand, while the AARTs and the sped uh elementary sped chairs were able to advocate for themselves, as were lots of other people at the budget hearing that went on for about six hours, all the people who actually got deaffed in the process never had a voice at the table um because of this board's decision to force every elementary school to spend 1.0 to

178make both those positions full-time. Um, we've lost EMERTS, we've lost counselors that were traded for, we've lost steam classrooms, we've lost, you know, I could go on and on and on. Um, there's a cost to that. So, we also need to make sure we're educated on how staffing models work. Um, because the majority of our budget is staffing um, and then staffing leads to student teacher ratios. So, that's the main thing that I wanted to talk about. Um so that we are very transparent to our public, very transparent to our uh teaching faculties, all of our staff in the system. Um that in order for us to get to whatever number is in their proposed budget um if it were to come to fruition at markup day that this is what the cuts would look

179like. Thank you. Thank and just to clarify, this is last year's calendar. We don't have this year's yet, but I just wanted to make sure similar time frames. No, I understand. I just wanted to make sure that was clear to the public. Um, Mr. Moon followed by Dr. Anderson. I guess this is rather an unfair question to Dr. Reid. uh with about 90% of our budget going into paying for people unless you start with reducing number of positions to begin with a collective bargaining already done for the next couple of years already included then where do we start and there are other things that that we have no other choice but to expend the money. such as utilities and fuel costs and insurance and contractual obligations and other things that without paying for which the

180school system will not be able to operate. So there is a very little wiggle room unless we go into either compensation or number of positions to begin with and you are under statutory obligations I guess along with the school board to present needs-based budget to the governing body. So how do you think we will be different from we will be different next year from this year? I think that's a good question. other than other than what's been suggested by a mis lady that which I totally agree that we need to if we want to if we have to address you know bottom line we're going to have to have that conversation earlier than waiting until May time frame I think what's different is if you'll recall we didn't begin collective bargaining until the fall last

181year and didn't complete that until I believe November which left very little time again to create that needsbased budget. We had the programs obviously, but then we had to import the new collective bargaining agreement into that. And this year we're not collectively bargaining with the large uh group. We're still collectively bargaining with one of our groups. Um but that will be different. I also think that um we know years two and three of our current agreement uh with FEU and you're right if we're 90% people then we're going to have to look at programs and people if we anticipate not being fully funded again. I mean we'll get we'll get fiscal forecast very rough fiscal forecast in November time frame at the joint meeting we get both county side you know perhaps a school side

182as well uh but that's very rough fiscal for forecast and no matter what the fiscal forecast may be then you are required to present a need needs based you know budget how would you reconcile that if you know that fiscal forecast looks is pretty gloomy and but still got to present these based and we already have collected bargaining done well we're you know we've faced turbulent financial times before in this country uh with regard to budgets um so I think at the time we see whatever the fiscal forecast will be we'll have to look at that and reconcile that with the commitments we have um as well as the rising and escalating costs of different services. We run a very large bus fleet, for example. Um, and it's um our um food and nutrition, custodial

183maintenance, all of the services we provide have escalating costs as do our contractual obligations for salary for all employees in the school division. So, it's going to require, I think, some artful collaboration uh with the county staff, and I know the county staff is committed to having some joint committees on how we can maybe streamline a couple of our major topic areas. So, I look forward to maybe appreciating some types of savings uh through strong collaboration with our county partners. Let me let me let me coitate on what you have just stated. So I'm going to ask her to go back a little bit later on. I'll put you on a go back list. Mr. Moon. Uh Dr. Anderson. Thank you. Um, one of the things that I do want to say because I I

184said this before and I miss lady also raised this is a continuing opportunity to educate the board of supervisors with whatever happens in their world and its impact on our world. Um, an example that I can bring up is the middle school after school programming. um just removing that as an option from their funding sources impacted um um VIP summer camp which were already funded. But again, not knowing those implications, I I think put us in a very it just put us in a pickle. And so I'm hoping that there's reception to um having these conversations kind of a little bit ahead. And I know it's a big ask and it's not an ask that we control, but just trying to poke and prod as much as possible. What are you thinking? Let's make sure

185that we allow you to walk into your decision- making eyes wide open. So, I think that education piece is key, not just with um us and our counterparts, which is key, but also you and your counterpart. Hopefully, we could get a little bit tighter in that collaboration. Um the second thing that I want to support is the timing. Also, Miss Lady raised this. I I I do think that we need to be different in our timing. Um when we do have the mark, not the markup, the initial um allocation from the board of supervisors. I think we need to take that as what it potentially could be and be prepared for that. While these don't necessarily have to be um well, I guess they would have to be because people have to know how they're

186impacted, the the schedule that we had this year just really made it difficult for there to be impactful feedback from the school board. I I felt very much like a passenger. You know, the decision was happening and we were just kind of on the on the sidelines when the budget is our is one of our primary work. setting the budget is one of the most important things that the school board does in addition to um hiring the superintendent. Um so I'd like for that to be reviewed a little bit. Um and I'm not sure how to deal with this next piece because also I we didn't have much of um participation in what the collective bargaining agreement was and I don't know how to reconcile that. I I just want to be clear. I just

187know with a second um unit coming on, we don't want to repeat that cycle where it was kind of too late to pull it back and we weren't sure how to make things happen. Again, it's just something that didn't really work fully in my opinion, but I don't know how to reconcile that. Um but I would love to hear any thoughts that you have. Um but I I I really want to emphasize and echo what um Miss Lady had shared. If we know what is it that they have said said let's kind of have a plan so that we don't have two days between markup and their um approval and then we have so little time to be thoughtfully responsive. We were responsive because you have to be but I don't think it was as

188um strategic and intentional as it potentially could have been. Thank you Mr. Dunn followed by Miss Marin. Mr. D, we can't hear you. Can you hear me now? Uh, a little bit, but it's very soft. Okay. I I wanted to ask about um the process for um determining uh potential budget cuts because uh historically uh the budget cuts uh for example under superintendent Karen Garza were articulated a list of possible budget cuts were uh articulated to the public at the beginning of budget season. Um and then this year it came very late. Um and it was caused a lot of shock, a lot of trauma to to people who learned they might be destaffed um long after the transfer deadline. Um will there be greater consideration uh provided uh to articulating on the front end

189of the process what might happen if the uh budget is not fully funded uh by the county and the state? Do you want to respond to that, Mr. Dud? Yes. So, I think that given that we are not doing um as major, we're almost complete actually with collective bargaining with our current group that we're bargaining with. I believe that uh this fall at the beginning of budget season, we'll certainly be able to provide um much more I think information around the possibility of program cuts uh dependent on budget. I'm I'm sorry. Uh can you clarify because it's it's my understanding that uh you know in the collective bargaining discussions I've had this past year that there wasn't bargaining over the there was a bargaining over the amount of the cut but not of the specific

190programs or or positions that would be cut. So, um, will there be greater insight provide to the public so that, you know, if if the public has, you know, budget cuts they strongly oppose or strongly support, they can articulate their support andor opposition throughout the budget process rather than simply kind of at the tail end. I believe there will be u because we're in a different part of the cycle this year. Um, yes, I believe the answer to your question is yes. Great. um in terms of um you know operational efficiencies and I I hate to use that word because uh I I don't think it properly describes um uh the situation but um when I look at other school divisions across the country when they come under extreme budget pressure and that may be

191something we confront in in the months and years to come. uh they sometimes look to consolidate uh schools uh close smaller schools and consolidate them into into larger schools simply to uh reduce the cost of operating so many separate standalone schools. Um I obviously there are difficulties with that, but is that something that you know uh in the future that you might look to uh to reduce some some operating costs um associated with operating so many different schools and I believe we have 199 across the county. So thank you for that question. I you know I think depending on the significance of the potential budget shortfall a number of topics will be on the table that we might not otherwise be discussing in a um more predictable budget time. Uh but it's not something I

192would look to as a first uh choice to look at uh closing neighborhood schools. I think neighborhood schools are often the strength of a community and we just had a presentation around uh preschool needing more space. So I think that we still have the capacity and possibility of making sure that our schools um are living breathing centers uh for learning for our community. So that wouldn't be where I would start but it's certainly a topic area we can explore if that's a topic area the board would wish to explore. I I I certainly don't think that's anything anyone on the board is advocating for. But, you know, this year we we increased class sizes for the first time, I think, since the great recession. And I don't think we want to go back to to

193that tool in the toolbox anytime soon. Um, but I think it's important for the public to understand to the extent that, you know, we do face budget constraints, what are the the full range of options on the table. Um and and and certainly the the pros and cons of fully funding versus not. Thank you, Mr. Dunn, Miss Marin, followed by Miss Anderson. Okay. I really appreciate having this conversation because it's on my mind like every day and um even just in the conversation so far I've sort of reframed what you know I'm trying to pitch and you know for me it just keeps coming down to how do we create time to do the work and we can't just do it two by two. Um I mean I am always in favor of doing the

194work publicly and we did ask the board of supervisors to meet and um I think you know when I look at this schedule of what we've done in the past I I don't want to repeat this schedule. I mean at a very basic we cannot adopt our board two days after the county executive releasing his. I mean that's just got to stop. um you know so how like perhaps one task is to think about you know what what could what would be the ideal schedule let's like throw this out and like knowing we have to keep some dates to meet the you know certain deadlines but like what would be our preferred future um I know in talking with um Mr. Alorn you know yesterday um you know we talked about having you know more

195joint conversations and sooner so you know there is interest in that and so you know we have two task force that are starting the one on facilities and the one on technology and I don't know if budget is a task force thing I mean whatever the board of supervisors wants to you know would be more comfortable but you know I think having a joint you know a schedule a cadence of joint meetings would be good so here's the things that I'm I'm thinking What I would love to see is that I'd like to work together to obtain the same knowledge regarding where this county's public resources are financially. You know, no more us and them, schools and county, because so often it's intertwined. Um, I think this involves a remarkable amount of data gathering though.

196And so, Mr. Smith, I'm going to maybe look at you and Miss Burton because again like I even just looking at the superintendent's evaluation her her documents it's showing increased efficiencies. It's showing, you know, reduction in um learning gaps. Those are, you know, there are costs. I mean, maybe not. I want to put together the data that shows how much it costs us to do things. And just like if it's delays to get a zoning approval, that's going to cost us X dollars. We've started to elevate this with the CIP work. But I think that it starts with us all getting on the same page. And then I think to Miss Lady and Dr. Anderson's point informing the board of supervisors as to what happens, you know, when c certain things are cut and also

197I think it would be really eye opening to have a budget that shows what would happen if our taxpayers didn't kick in that extra half a billion dollars and what if they didn't kick in that additional half a billion dollars. Let's make a budget that shows this is what it would look like if we just funded based on what the state gave us. But so one thing is inform. The second thing is can we make a plan to improve the business processes that cross entities, the zoning, the um community use, the school age child care, like that alone could be maybe a good entry point because we both have questions and there's a lot of money, you know, going back and forth. And then finally, find new solutions and partnerships, especially regarding the maintenance of

198our public school buildings, including the commercial space. Sorry. Do you want to finish my Mr. Anderson followed by Miss St. John Cunning? I appreciate the conversation today. I think that having these discussions ahead of time is are going to help frame our work next year. I have a couple of questions. Um, looking at the timeline specifically, how many of the dates are actually connected in the CBA, Dr. Reid? So, I know that we likely are are locked in by certain things that are in the CBA because we won't be able to have those full conversations until the county actually So, some of it is, am I correct that some of it is dependent on the county's timeline? Some of our dates are fully dependent on the county's timeline in order for us. So, if we

199don't in the absolute worst case scenario, if we didn't have the full transfer that we needed to meet the CBA next year, that is going to we wouldn't be able to actually open the CBA until we 100% knew that from the county. Correct. That's my understanding. That's correct. Okay. So, some of the dates that we have are written in stone and other ones are ours. So, I think that it's important to understand the difference between those two. So as we move forward towards our plan for the next year, I think understanding fully where we can move things up and where our dates are kind of hard hard set um is going to be a particularly important thing. Um as we're talking here, I am actually making notes about things because I've heard a lot a

200lot from different board members about the interest of having more wholesome discussions particularly related to the budget because I agree with Dr. Anderson that this is a significant aspect of the work that we do and so we want to make sure that we're kind of capturing those discussions and it doesn't necessarily all look like this right so some of them are going to look like our conversations that we've started to have about procurement what which absolutely impact impact budget so I think that looking at budget as a bigger bigger discussion I think is going to be helpful for us here um and then the other thing is we had some success uccess. It was a tiny little bit of success, but it was success related to JARK this year. That can be the roadmap for

201how to get the state to to pitch in more money. Hopefully, every cent of which is outside the LCI, but but we'll take what we can get. And so I think that it's important for us to kind of look at the Jark and focus on what we're going to look at next year and what we're going to go after next year so that we're not in the same doop because I think as we've all seen throwing the all of the recommendations at once um is an overwhelming thing for our state legislators. So I think that looking at ways that we can target our approach and target our advocacy I think will be particularly important as we move forward here. So, um, I am taking careful notes and I'm looking forward to having more conversations. Thank

202you, Miss St. John Cunning. So looking at the schedule which begins in November, I think it's important for us to take advantage of the time from August to November to invite our colleagues on the board of supervisors and our colleagues at the state level and invite them to come to our schools because I really think that if they see it, they will get it. And sometimes people are so far removed from from what's happening down in the trenches that they don't get it. And my colleague just talked about understanding the staffing formula that I believe some of our own board members really don't understand and how that impact works. So we need to become subject matter experts. I know I have invited people to come to schools and they need to see some of the

203some of the work that is not just done in general ed. They need to see the specialized programming that we have. They need to go to Key Center and see the amazing work that's happening there. They need to go to Bryant and see how we have we're graduating students that thought they wouldn't graduate. And we're also providing parenting classes for young mothers. We need to highlight our programs that work with some of our toughest kids. I think sometimes we put the best face forward, which is amazing and wonderful, but sometimes some of our legislators and some of our board of supervisors don't see the work that we're doing with some of our toughest kids and we're getting success. So I think that maybe the soft work, the relationship building is having people come to our

204schools and see that that work is being done and that it's being done successfully, but also when they see, you know, there's this incredible teacher and it's obvious that she could use more support. I think that's how we can also encourage our funders to understand what we do and to help provide funding for us. And I you know just going back to yes the budget is the biggest thing we work work on. This year was a very very extremely unique sit situation and we had success because we did have collective bargaining and that was huge and I really still say that within 48 hours there was a miracle that was produced because even though we didn't have as much input as some of us would like I think that the least damage was done by

205the decisions that were made and I really appreciate that. Thank you. Um, seeing no other placards up for initial turn, I'll take a brief turn and then we'll go to gobacks. So, a couple things I've been trying to take some notes. I probably didn't capture everything that was said, but I I'm happy to share these with folks as to what people are saying. A couple things I'm thinking about before we got here. Um, you know, we do a legislative package that focuses on the state and federal and I really think that we perhaps need to do a local maybe not a package, right? But we need to do starting this summer an explanation you the key points of what are some great things because of our investment in public education that's going on the gap

206closing that I think one of my colleagues talked about all of these things but also as my other colleague talked about what are the needs and why does it cost this much money and what is going on and you know we talked about 90% of our budget is staff and we have pieces of these and lots of even the facilities funding I know Miss Marin did a really good job pulling some of that together for the CIP this year and you have a lot of that in some of the powerpoints you've pulled together. But how do we have for us almost a board packet Dr. So then when we're during our meetings with individual board of supervisors, we have a board packet we can go off of and we have a board packet we can

207use. I have sort of talking points I use when I meet with the community that lays out our facilities funding and I'm just going to give a kudos to Miss Marin because a lot of the stuff she put together I've been using in my community meetings. But how do we get your staff over the summer, your budget staff, maybe your instructional staff to combine with your um comm staff to put together a a community packet so when we go to talk to the community, whether it's a PTA meeting or whether you talk to the community, we all have a consistent packet of just trying to build this education because I think that's the biggest thing that was missing is that chances for educating what is the current state realities and why it costs this much

208money and what all of this is because then that's how we lose the narrative of and we have this narrative of bloated and out of touch right so I think you know and I think if we want to add earlier means the board of supervisors I think we we should have that but that's some when I talk individually to my counterparts they're like oh that's really helpful to hear about this challenge or why this is and I agree I think then once we have that board packet we can then invite for school visits but we'll have specific things to talk about with that board packet at school visits that we all can can talk about while we're also showing the unique things in our districts or unique programs. But without that, we're all kind of

209reinventing the wheel and trying to figure out I mean collective bargaining the first year collective bargaining is always a challenging year for a budget. It's a great year and it's a great thing that we did, but it's also a challenging year when it comes to budget, right? What can be moved in our budget process and what can't be moved in our budget process should be a part of that board packet, right? So, when people say, "Why don't you do this earlier?" Well, this piece can be and this piece can't be. I think that fiscal forecast meeting, if we're not going to do one earlier, Dr. Reed, that fiscal forecast meeting, and I said it to you before, that should be a state of our schools meeting for our side. We don't have a fiscal forecast

210we need to give, right? because we don't have any revenue generating power. But we can say sort of this board packet we can summarize it. Here's what why are here's the why of what we're asking. You start with that and then it's easier to go into the ask. I'll put myself on a go back. All right. Um I I will start with Mr. Moon followed by Miss Marin. When I say that I would need to coitate on what Dr. had just stated there was referring I was referring to uh uh what Dr. was saying about maybe consolidation of services. Was there services between us and the county? Was there any particular services you are contemplating about consolidating with? I was referring to the joint committees that were discussed during the budget process that were going

211to be established between the I believe uh county and school division. Do you know when that is going to be established and do the work? I I do not. No sir. I do not. Okay. because your budget work is starting right now for the next year and if that has not been even established I don't know how meaningful the a work of that joint committee will be on your establishing in next year's budget at this point uh I'm not saying that it's not worth exploring uh uh you know work of that joint committee uh but just reminded me of some of the things that long long ago prior boards did to consolidate some of the services or the county side and that which didn't go too far uh because when it came down to actually

212consolidating uh they both sides realized that there wasn't going to be that much savings because both sides were each side was large consolidating really did not realize it did not materialize much savings so uh with that aside I mean we could who knows you know this time around we could do better than last time we did. But with with that said, I have something else on my mind which I have now just forgotten. So, uh I'm going to have to be put on go back. I have two board members who haven't spoken yet. So, I'm going to go to them and then I'll go back to the go back. So, I'll start with Mr. Fresh, then Mr. Mclavine. Thank you. Um, excuse me. So on the question of joint committees, um there's an IT committee

213and a facilities committee uh that were to begin work after this budget process uh concluded and uh I can follow up with uh the chairman Mccay about that that was started as a result of a a board matter for them. Um, I'd like to begin, you know, looking at next year. I think it would be wise for us to send a um a letter to the our colleagues in the general assembly kind of identifying our ask to them. I know we have the legislative program. Um, but that is devoid of the context of the budget really. Um, and I'd like us to send a specific budget ask to them. uh obviously JARK centric but um something specific that explains how this will impact our budget and why it must be done this year. Um in

214terms of other changes I'd like to see happen, um the calendar the board's voting on for uh next school year is pretty bare bones. It has the regular meetings, the work sessions, and closed meetings. What it does not have are budget committee meetings, public hearings, etc. And that's by design uh because we want to leave the latitude for the next chair and vice chair and the next budget chair and budget vice chair to work together to um best align uh the calendar that was presented earlier from last year uh in the year ahead. Um, and I'd like to see us make the most use out of that process to ensure that where we've selected different things uh are there for optimal impact. Um, I'd also like to see board members get more comfortable in their

215post collective bargaining roles as board members. Um, I think we could all uh do well to um, you know, stick to the rules and understand that we're not the negotiators uh, and that we could provide our guidance in advance of negotiations uh, that we shouldn't be cutting deals behind the scenes or any of the other stuff that we've all uh, been advised. And that's not to say other people were doing them. I'm just saying we need to get uh, you know, this is something that's being reported on uh, that in Virginia collective bargaining is new. So, uh, people are still growing into the roles. And then finally, um, I'd like us to think about what collaboration looks like in the short term and in the long term. I don't think we're going to get everything

216we want out of being more collaborative in the first year of this attempt. So, I'd like to think of it in, you know, two stages, like what do we want this year for sure, and what are the longer term goals? And finally, uh, you know, I hope that board members are having active regular conversations with their, you know, specific board of supervisor members, uh, as best they're able to. I know it's not possible for everybody. Um, because that's the first step of keeping the door open. Uh, that's just my general topline thinking. Um, I appreciate I guess the buzzer must have gone off a while ago. I'm seeing my timer says zero. I apologize. It just went off, Mr. Fish. um Mr. Mlevie and then we'll go back to go backs. Uh thank you. So

217you know I appreciate the opportunity to have this conversation. Um but I would I would agree with uh Mr. FR that I don't think uh much will come of it in the first year and I'm also not very optimistic in the out years anything will come of it. Um that doesn't mean we don't try but we just have to be realistic. Um, and what you know, one of my number one priorities has always been bond funding, and I don't think we've had a very honest conversation ever with the board of supervisors about that. And, um, you know, obviously all of us want to maintain a AAA bond rating, but, um, you know, I don't think we've been, uh, as um, as strong as we could be as a county when when approaching our our bond

218ceiling. So I want to have that that conversation at some point. I also appreciated the um you know remarks about our joint committees on IT and facilities. Um I've also talked with Dr. Reid about the importance of engaging with the board on um transportation issues. Um and um you know those don't all have budget implications, right? It's about transportation safety. Um, we've seen uh obviously over the years we've had efforts from from stop armed cameras to to um cameras in front of schools and other things um that I don't feel like we've been fully at the table uh to uh as part of those discussions. Um, but also I'm very concerned about the the rising um deaths in our county as a result of traffic violence or traffic um uh incidents uh and what we

219could be doing jointly um to combat that. Um and I'll leave it there. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Mavine, Miss Mayor, and followed by Dr. Anderson. And these are for gobacks. So, I too am suffering from being tired, which is why I asked that this conversation not be at the end of this long day. I mean, and so I apologize for being cranky, Miss Marheiser. I I think when I think about collective bargaining, I don't think it was a failure. I think it was a success. The failure was in how it was communicated and the expectation of, you know, the school board, the county board for it to go a certain way. What I'm hearing people talk about is a few things. one is well I kind of like drew a little diagram but if we

220started with the JARK advocacy that seems like a pretty good way to start and say can we get together and be on the same page as this can we do things like have the same language in our legislative agendas can we go down to Richmond at the same time um can we make sure that you know if we know this title one issue is coming up can we make sure that they know about that so that's a big thing they can advocate for and then we could plan for that on our side right and Then um but the other thing is informing the board about I think the operation funding situation and then like Mr. Mave said the facilities. So what if we could develop like our our own team agenda like okay for this

221month we're going to make sure that all of us hit these points with each supervisor and that's going to be um the bond right and let's get the data together that way right because we can't control how they you know um communicate amongst the other or not just like you know we have our challenges and strengths but I've also been thinking about what if we after key meetings or decisions some we figure out a way to send over like a package or an email that's like Hey, or like we just did the CIP work session. We want to make sure that you saw this data because I don't know if they're watching or like, hey, just want to make sure you saw the superintendent's presentation about this. I think we could be more intentional. Um,

222and then the idea of bringing them into our schools, right? Maybe we make this like we make them tangible things so each of us can say, "Okay, I know I have to make an appointment to go and do this or I have to make an email to make sure my supervisor has this." Um, and maybe that's part of the legislative work. Um, and I'll stop there so I'm not cranky, but I would take another go back. Thank you, Miss Marin. And I'll put another go back. Um, and Dr. Anderson, thank you. Um, this is a question actually for Miss Burden. Given our fiscal year, by when does the board have to adopt its budget? within a couple of weeks of the appropriation being identified by the county. So, we don't have a set time. We

223just have to be responsive to their time. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, most of our budget calendar kind of works backwards from their appropriation based on what's required uh in May and then we have a couple of weeks after they appropriate. It's in Virginia code. If you give me a second, I'll look it up. Sure. Sure. Sure. you can go ahead and do that because I'm just wondering like how do we buy ourselves time and on the back end and because I I kept wondering with this past budget cycle could we have approved the budget the meeting after and what I think I'm hearing is not necessarily since we are kind of tied to this timetable. Um well I think it I think the the issue is that we have to adopt the budget in a

224certain time frame after they appropriate but we also have to get teacher um contracts sit sit put forth and so there's just a really small window to adopt the budget because of those two competing things but I I can I can get that. No, absolut Well, that's very helpful to know even without the exact date because I think that speaks to the original advocacy for us to be planning earlier on for the worst case scenario um as early as possible. And the worst case scenario is we don't need the worst case scenario. Uh but we just need to make sure we have that plan. And also another thing that I I want to be sure to uplift um because I I remember in our conversations um in one of our joint meetings with the board

225of supervisors on the budget, not the fiscal forecast, the the second one I think that happened what it was badly timed which whatever it happened but we were talking about and Kyle was talking about the savings that we have um we have found here um in terms of how we have sent our belt that has to be a lot more explicit. It was just very o it was very um high level and it was just easy to gloss over. And what I think that raised was were more questions from the board of supervisors in terms of well where did this $800 million come from over the last 10 years. What did that look like? I think if we could articulate that because let's be clear and um Miss Anderson um shared maybe it was Rasha

226who shared it earlier. board of supervisors, they have multiple um stakeholders, you know, they have fire, they have homeowners, they have all kinds of folks that they're trying to balance. But if we are showing that we've already tightened our belt very clearly and explicitly, I think that will go a long way. So the more ex um the more specific we could be in some of those examples, the better we will be served. The overall 800 million over 10 years, frankly, it doesn't even land well on me because I don't know what that means. Dr. Anderson May 15th. They have to appropriate by May 15th and unless the state's budget process is delayed and then the the rule is 30 days after the state adopts its budget. Okay. So, there's a little bit of wiggle room.

227Thank you. I'll take a go back at this time. Mr. Moon, followed by Miss Merritt. Uh, thank you. Uh, this is something that Dr. Anderson also alluded to is uh you know whenever county executive presents his budget he starts with cost cutting measures that he's going to be instituting starch always starts with that uh just to trying to prove to public and also tell us that they are fiscally prudent that's what they are doing we do the same but I think we need to make it more explicit more clear to everybody in the world. We are doing the same thing if not better. So with that in mind, uh have we Dr. Reed, I'm asking you uh have you ever considered for us something called jerobased budgeting? Is that is that is that we something

228we may not be calling it based budgeting but we you already do that uh by department by department by program by program to see what you are spending or what you are contemplating spending is starting from the scratch. Yes sir. That zerobased budgeting is obviously a budget building strategy. It's also when you're looking um as the Baldridge work expects us to do uh to begin to deconstruct uh a budget to think about how to reconstruct it. I certainly have experience with zerobased budgeting and as we asked our departments to cut 3%. Uh we began nibbling at zerobased budgeting. I expect that this year we're going to be um taking a look at that in a again as we face uh budget challenges and that's certainly um an area that I have a great deal of

229experience in other divisions doing. So happy to share in that exercise. And I think uh Miss Burton uh it's not just the zerobased budgeting, but it's also position control uh documents and monitoring. In Fairfax County Public Schools, we have sort of unique practices around trades, position trades, and um a lot of um autonomy in departments and schools and sites uh for managing funds, which is a good thing because we want decisions made closest to the work. And it's something that we're going to have to be thoughtful about as we both construct a budget for this year and then monitor it throughout the year. you know doc Dr. is that is something that I would like to suggest you know for you to consider you know doing it honestly. I realized that that may require a

230lot of work on the part of everybody involved and and and something that I want to share with you is in the past uh administration I mean superintendent's office even the school boards were not always receptive to that receptive to that but you know keeping in mind uh what some of the things that we are some of us at least are hearing directly from our funding authority members and the funding authority that next year's budget may be even tougher than this year. Whether that's true or not, I think we need to be prepared to look at all our our line item to make sure that we are we will be able to say to them and public that we have done all our due diligence. Yes sir. Thank you Mr. M. Miss Marin followed by

231Dr. Anderson. Okay. If I could interject, I just wanted to make clear that we are we do zerobased budgeting at the schools. We don't just add on, we take new enrollment and we rerun all the numbers again from a zerobased. And of course, most of our funding is at the schools. Um the departments, we roll over their existing budgets and reduce anything that's one-time funds, you know, those kinds of things. But the the schools the school-based funding we absolutely start at a zero base. May I have just 15 seconds? Just as long as you don't need to go go that'll be done in a 15 second. Thank you. Thank you for pointing that. I think it is it is beh departments and that's where we already do that. Thank you Mr. Miss Marin followed by

232Dr. Anderson. Okay. I I'm just wondering if we could if we think about our work schedule ahead and I'm looking at our meetings and and this has come up as we've gotten more into the strategic plan which is giving us way more information than we ever had and the executive limitations. How do we continue to lift ourselves up to this, you know, the the highest board level we can and be the do the things that only the 12 of us can do? And so what tradeoffs are we willing to make? You know, we've talked about the student rights responsibility, not having two and two or three meetings about that. You know, maybe we can come to some agreements around what we're willing to take off of our usual agendas so we can make time to

233either go have these meetings or talk together to say, "Yeah, what should we, you know, this month focus on, you know, in educating or, you know, making the time." I just feel like more and more for me the value is in talking with all the different people and but that means that we have to change how we do our work and so when I look at the proposed schedule well one all day work session I mean again I'm I'm pretty tired and this is not how our kids work or teachers work all day long like this how can we sort of think about setting ourselves up for success is it a different budget committee organization is it more than two people is it meeting bi-weekly is it the committees you you know, like right now,

234I don't think our meeting structure sets us up to be able to do this next level work. Um, is it having more robust committees where some of us can trust the others to do the work and carry the load? Um, but we have to be willing to give up some of that. You know, I'd love to hear what people think because what what we make time for will get done. Um, and I I already see the work cuz that's kind of how my brain works. But, um, you know, when when do we do this work and who's doing it and what else is going to, you know, we just can't do everything. I think we can leverage the legislative work as a twofur with the state and then better partnership with the board of supervisors.

235Could we focus on that as a new way to do this? Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Yes. just super fast. The only thing that I'm asking is in the construction of the budget schedule next year for us to go to the very end of the timetable that we have in order to give ourselves plenty of time and also to leave enough time for us to be able to be responsive to the public hearing feedback because we also had that as a little bit of a struggle. um what we do not want to convey to the public is that the decision is made and the public meeting is preuncter and so having time in order to respond to that is going to be important as well in the construction of the schedule. Thank you. Thank you, Mr.

236Mack. Then I'll take a quick turn. Oh, that's all right. Um I'll just take a quick turn in listening to everybody. Here's what my advocacy would be. One, I agree with my colleague. I think we should look I think some of us have talked about the calendar the SRNR there's different pieces that I think could be is more operational that we could pull back for our work on um so I think as we do the whoever the chair vice chair budget chair I think that's a really important piece too and Dr. I've been saying this to you for a long time in a lot of different areas, but we are in and have been in an era of tough budgets, which is I think new to our community, to our staff. Um, and there's a

237lot of education and planning that needs to be done around that, right? I think we've just gotten used to, you know, not having to think about really tough budget things. So I think we need to dig deep with a perspective taking lens you know on what information do we need to be able to put out there for example the zerobased budgeting I'm glad Mr. Moon asked that question, right, that the schools do the bald. How do we put it together in a cohesive informational story this summer into so that way when we or into the early part of next year perhaps tied to the calendar, tied to the meetings you do, tied to the meetings we do with a packet of suggestions for us because we've and for our community because people love their individual

238schools and tied into recognizing what are the needs of our county. How does this tie into the overall county picture and plan and their challenges too so we can look at it as one system while of course lifting up the information about the schools. But I don't think people are in this mindset right now. And I think we need to get people in the mindset of what it is that we do, what it is that our challenges are, why what it is that our budgeting process is, why do we need the money that we do, what value does it bring to everybody, not just our families, and how can we systematically get that information out to our partners, to our advocates, and to our board and other key and you so we all are educating

239and informing in a consistent way that I think is critical and the calendar as I'll stop, but I would love to whoever's in leadership or in these positions work that plan out so we can present that to the board when things start up. Yeah, I'll speak to Beth Fazolei and make sure the team is working on that like starting tomorrow. Thank you. I see no other hands or placards up. So, we'll move on. Did you have it? Move on from this portion. I think it's Miss Anderson's taking over the next portion of our meeting. Yes. So, we have one more section that we're hoping to get a high level brief about what's going on with boundaries right now just to as an update to the board. So, I'm going to give us another five minutes

240just to get switched over. Um, stretch, grab caffeine if you need it, and we'll get going. that the rest of our colleagues can join us in the room. Um, so Dr. Reid, turn it over to you, ma'am. Okay. I don't need the photo on me, Janet. You can No, you can put it on somebody else. That's great. On the slide. What? Never mind. Oh, well, thank you, Janet. Anyhow, um this afternoon really um this is more so Well, that's interesting. Um I know this is more so a just a really quick review. I'm not going to go over every slide because I don't believe there's a slide you haven't already seen. It's really more an opportunity to share where we are and then uh listen to any questions that you might have. I think we've

241got a couple of the uh boundary advisory committee members here. Um so let me just uh go through the slides and really then have an opportunity for a conversation. Yes. Well, that's kind of I just the team want, you know, sometimes our community uh checks in to see what's posted and I want to make sure that there's ample material posted, but I don't know that we need to discuss each slide. So, just a reminder that last July, although it seems like a decade ago, it was really just um almost a year ago, uh boundary policy 8130 was approved. Um as part of the commitment, we're undergoing this comprehensive review honestly for the first time in four decades. So next slide please. Uh these were the challenges that brought this to the table. Next slide please.

242And these were the four priorities the policy outlines which really serve as filters for the work we're doing. Next slide please. This I want to linger here just a moment. The calendar for the review process was updated um as a result of community input. and the community input. If you recall, the original calendar had the first round of community input meetings during the summer and we heard from a number of our constituents, parents, families, and staff that people want a break over the summer. And it didn't feel like an uh genuine and authentic um engagement process um if we were going to do that when many families wouldn't be here. So, we did move up the community review process by about six weeks. Uh, which means that now I believe Monday evening, the 23rd will

243be our first meeting as an advisory committee to review all of the feedback on the first round of maps that were provided to the community. I want to acknowledge for community members watching and also to you as a board, there are a number of situations in the very drafty draft maps that are better understood today and will be resolved um and discussed uh at the meeting on the 23rd. And I think as we see the next iteration of maps as they evolve, we should see um tighter and tighter um boundary lines matching data. But I did want to acknowledge that the boundary review we did um move this up so that we were not trying to connect with families in the middle of the summer. But the advisory committee is continuing our work throughout the

244summer. So I appreciate the steadfast and stalwart uh efforts of that committee. They've really put in a lot of time and will continue to do so. reminder that this fall we'll be doing another round of community meetings bringing uh forth uh less drafty drafts and there will still be um an opportunity after that round for refinement and um review prior to my bringing you recommendations in January of 2026. So next slide please. Again, the this is just a little bit of data. We held 28 meetings, and I think that's probably why I know that I've not had a night at home before 9:00 in the last several months. Uh, but we've held 28 meetings with close to 4,000 uh community members attending uh be it virtually or in person. Next slide, please. uh we had

245three scenarios and I think if you've uh all of you have been at at least one of these meetings and maybe more so you've seen this explained. Next slide please. Uh again these are simply uh sort of um definitions of the terms. Uh next slide please. Uh and next slide. Uh next slide. We can just zip through these cohorts one, two, and three. As board members you've seen all of these. Uh, next slide, please. And next slide. And next slide. And next. And why don't we back up? There we go. So, the red dotted line shows where we are today. So, it's the same map or same chart I showed you earlier, but the red line kind of we're about little over halfway through. Um I also think what's interesting is as the community explores

246different um topic areas related to boundaries which is to say there were some communities were split feeders I think we had a strong predisposition to not having split feeders in some cases we have uh community members saying you know what given all the pros and cons of that maybe split feedering isn't the worst after all right so we're just I think really getting to the base of having a conversation around um competing interests perhaps as a way to frame that and I think there'll be more conversations about that also I think we're learning that more than one thing can be right at a time and that's okay too but it just adds to the complexity of the decision making but anyhow this chart gives you red dotted line here we are we're in the middle

247of phase two data analysis and scenario updates or we're right at the beginning of that section uh next slide Please. The explorer maps on the website again were designed by um a group that through consulting worked with so that uh we've collected quite a bit of feedback on these. They are on our website. Next slide. Uh the boundary review communications. These are uh the communications and the uh numbers related to those. And big props to our team that continues to work very hard both on the website and collecting minutes and distributing those. Next slide please. Uh this is a continu continuation. Um next slide. And this talks a little bit about the advisory committee. Again uh from January to May we've had nine meetings with three additional meetings scheduled. Uh one of those being this

248coming Monday through September. Uh and again this committee's feedback uh was not incorporated in the original drafty drafts because we compressed the timeline by a number of weeks. Next slide. Uh this is really what's next. Uh we're looking continuing to look at these um topic areas. I will say what was added this spring is start time considerations. And as we begin to or really um began to look at middle school start time and what's possible and we were asked to look at is it better to do those separately together um you know sequentially or in parallel. Uh we really feel like that's a topic area we need to integrate into this conversation and so that's something that's part of our thinking right now. Next slide please. Um, the other piece that's new that we didn't

249anticipate when we began this work plan is that we have now uh the board has approved a purchase and sale agreement for a new Western High School site. And so the topic of how that fits into this conversation clearly is going to be something we need to integrate into this process which we could not have foreseen um a year ago when we began this process. But it it's a new uh uh piece of information which clearly will require discussion not just with the board um but also with the community in terms of the possible use for that site. So I think that's it Janet unless there's another slide. Um, oh, for sure. The new feedback, all of the feedback that was collected at those six meetings will be made available uh to the advisory committee

250and we'll be looking at that on Monday evening. And uh next slide. That's it. So happy to really engage for the next little less than an hour in conversation uh feedback. I also would like to pose the uh idea and I've heard from a number of you uh that perhaps regular updates about boundaries might be something that would be helpful much like we do strategic plan updates at each well once a month for board meetings or academic matters where we do a short update. certainly willing to put something like that together and would appreciate some direction from the board about what you would want as part of that or the cadence that would be helpful or if you think it's a good idea at all. So I again think that I'm here this afternoon just

251trying to make sure we keep this process as thoughtful and collaborative as possible. So thank you. Okay, so I wanted to give a lay of the land. We have a hard stop at 5:30. Um, and so we are going to have the conversation as long as we need to, but we're going to start with Dr. Anderson. I'll try to be very fast just speaking to the last thing that you just shared. I think that's really important to do and I want to throw in my advocacy for those regular updates because I do believe that the board needs to have a space to be the representatives that we are to bring the things that are being risen to that are u being brought to us. Um because right now it it it felt I'll just be

252honest with you kind of embarrassing to be in that Timberland meeting and had to say to to the folks I see what you see. I I you know the person who is on the committee knows better than I do. And I I don't think that should be exactly it. I I don't think we need to run the process but we need to be way better informed of what is happening and have a space to raise questions. So that's one. Secondly, I am very very very very glad to hear what you just mentioned regarding what are what has been articulated as division um priorities. Should I stop? Can you I need to have some of my seconds be restored. Um I I know what has been um articulated as division priorities may not necessarily work everywhere.

253Two things can be true at the same time because the focus on fixing out of boundary schools has impacted my community in a significant way. And I'll just name it because I know people are looking for that. Bailey's Upper which is a magnet school located on a highway. No one will ever walk to Bailey's Upper. But yet the focus to fix Bailey's Upper meant that they did not do anything at Park Lawn and nothing with Glasgow which were which was supposed to be a part of this. But if the c if the um consultant is thinking I have to fix the out of boundary schools first and that's kind of the priority and everything else is secondary then we're going to land where we have landed which is a very unhappy Mason district community. So

254I I'm glad to hear that and I would love to see how that continues to play out. The other piece that I want to make sure that we provide is again we want to be fully transparent with what we're doing. When the data is provided, it has to be done with and without the modulars. Right now, it is only provided uh our CIP shows with and without modular. And I think any information regarding capacity needs to follow that same format because what has been provided is with modulars and it was hard to absorb that park lawn is fine at 86% capacity with 30 outdoor buildings. So, we have to make sure we have that information. Um, also a couple of things that were asked from community that I want to raise here is when the

255information is provided, are we going to also provide the FRM? Because there are some schools that are concerned about losing their Title One status and there are some schools that are concerned about losing students that um are that diversify their schools. Um, as well as transportation studies, there were questions that were asked as to when those would be available. It was my guess that we're not anywhere close to that yet because we don't have very very specific um scenarios which will be articulated in those pyramid meetings that are to come as per the boundary policy. So I'll pause to hear you respond to that. So yes ma'am uh you're correct that the transportation studies require very specific boundaries for them to run the study. Um I know they've done distances um as part of the

256conversation, but once we get I think the next round of maps, those transportation studies will be done. Um as far as the modular conversation, um Donna is here taking notes. We certainly can pass that along um to the consultant. uh the distinction between modulars and trailers and the way in which our CIP has traditionally reported those um I think is part of a broader conversation but certainly within the context of the boundary work um we can take a look at that and I don't know if there was a third point you were making oh there were lots of points I'm trying to be fast and just take one turn and my next point is grade six middle schools I know that was part of the conversation update please stop my time yes ma'am Um I

257I think the early map to look at the early map to look at the plausibility of that did not indicate that at this time we could do that divisionwide. It looked like in some areas there was the possibility we could do that and it would be um as we move forward with the next iteration of maps. I think that where it is possible um I think it's certainly something I'll consider um recommending. And I just had like one last question with my last two seconds. When the board is to make decisions, do you anticipate having just one big plan that we are going to be responding to or will there be this is a section? You know, maybe we might accept one section and not the other. I don't know if you're there yet, but

258it's a question. I think it's a open question for me as well, just given the scale of the division. I think that the point of doing a holistic review is to have one plan because for better or worse every time it's kind of kind of feel like I'm in my element uh with chemistry which is to say anything that happens in one part of the county really does impact things that happen in other parts of the county. So I I think it's like more likely than not that there will be maybe one or more than one large scenarios with sort of different um how do I say different uh choose your adventure in a couple different areas potentially with one or two options but I think the point of doing this holistically is to look

259at the entire county. Miss Seismarhiser, thank you. And I appreciate um the chance to sort of talk about this. I would very much appreciate I think a maybe every two months, once every two months update. I'm not sure what the right cadence is in terms of the I think it's kind of depends on how fast decisions are being made or changes are being made to what's being presented, but I agree. I found that my um the one of the people that represents my district knew a lot more than I did on some of these issues. And the reason I knew about some of these issues is just because I've lived in this district for so long, I was able to say, "Oh, yeah, I used to because I used to do this, I know about

260this." So, I I agree. Um, I think one of the things I think it's important to look at, right, is, you know, we grappled with a lot of this when we did our policy and we came to we didn't have a one through 10 in order priority criteria, but it was a shall framework, right? There was four things that shall be prioritized and was that access to programming, transportation, capacity, right? and um bring community connection, keeping neighborhoods and um students together. And then there was a whole May framework or things that could be looked at. And one of the things in that May framework was reliance on temporary classrooms and modulars. That might be why it wasn't prioritized. But I do wonder if there's space to look at those May frameworks as well when we're

261working on this. Um I do recognize that first we need to get to that access to programming and transportation. That's a huge one. And I get you can't really look at transportation that have something to look at for transportation. Having said that, um I do think it is really important to look at program placement and split feeders, right? Because split feeders aren't just because neighborhoods are split. Sometimes they're split because of where students are having to go access a particular program, whether it's advanced academic centers or special education programs or other programs. And I think it's important to look at that piece of it. Um, I appreciated the chance to sort of lift up two what were I believe mistakes in my district that are going to be corrected because one was the school wasn't

262labeled and the other just it wasn't updated the way it was intended to be. But the one piece that I noticed is that the what came out of the conversation was it seemed like the the definition of neighborhood was based potentially on some outdated data or outdated information, right? in terms of our school assignment groupings. I can't remember the exact acronym for it, but some of those may not have been updated for 30 years. And that's led to another problem in my district where it wasn't understood that this neighborhood was actually a neighborhood. So, I'm wondering as we move into the next round whether we can look at the data sources for some of the decisions to make sure that they're a little more up to-date on what we're doing. And that's I know that's

263the consultant, not you, but I'm just sort of lifting up some of the things that I'm I'm hearing um as we move forward. And then I would love to get a sense of that access to programming because I am concerned that that's not being taken into account and also what programs are already at a school. So I know there's some thoughts of moving some students into one of my schools that has a lot of special ed programming. So they may not have I don't know how well that's taken into account the capacity numbers, but I want to make sure that it is so we're not unintentionally overcrowding a school because of the programs that are there. I know my time is up so I may take a go back. Um, Mr. Mavine, thanks. So, um,

264I appreciate all the work that's gone into this, um, and the efforts you're you're undertaking, um, on the communications front. Um, for me, that's been the biggest challenge as as one board member. Um, and I'm seeking guidance from your you and your team on on how to handle it. Um, so obviously it's it's different for Magisero members versus at large members, but I assume Mr. Moon is getting um just as many communications as I am from around the county. Um there's no way I can reply to all of those with any um any knowledge. Um so uh do you have advice to us on where to direct those? Should we send them to Donna? Should we Is there another central repository? Because I want our constituents to feel heard. Um but a response from me

265would amount to nothing, right? Thank you, Mr. Mavine. I I think that the community knows that obviously you care a great deal about uh how this process is going and um I think forwarding those I've uh provided Donna as a point of contact because if we have points of contact in multiple departments things are going to get lost and balls will get dropped. So, Donna is the repository for all incoming information and then will be that point of contact for the consultant team and just uh how how would that look mechanically? Should we be forwarding everything to Donna or Yes. Okay. Yes, sir. That would be apologies in advance, Donna, because that's a lot. And I mean, you'd be getting it from three at large members. Um but I can't think of a better way

266to deal with it. No. some of the responses um we should see fewer and fewer notes um as we're resolving or meeting with communities, but uh having one person look at all of them also provides an opportunity to see a theme. for example, uh if there's a particular neighborhood, and a lot of our neighborhoods have been great about just coming together and sharing group emails where they've uh or in the community meetings, we've had a chance to sit down and look at maps they've drawn and make sense of what they're talking about. So, I think we're able to resolve things um and minimally get those moved forward to the consultant in a way that is usable quickly. And then just uh last question is on um obviously we're we're undergoing a transition in our um

267uh facilities leadership. How do you think that will impact the process if at all? Well, I think that our new chief of facilities is going to have to come up to speed very quickly. I do know the team works hard uh and so it'll be a matter of integrating into the team that's been providing data for the consultants. But um as with any transition, it'll create I think some challenges, but I believe we'll be able to work through them. We have a strong team uh that's been working with the consultant in terms of providing data and um so I think I think we're going to be okay. It's it's a little challenging, but we'll be okay. Mr. Moon, I just want to inform Donna not and ask Donna not to be disappointed if she she

268doesn't see many of emails from my office because you know my staff, you know, can handle at least some of them by themselves. And please also if you're seeing a theme, please reach out to Donna um give me a copy on those kind of theme emails and we'll try to um draft a communication that you could use. Sometimes it's the same question and that communication with links to new information on the website might be helpful for you Miss Marin and then Mr. fresh. Okay. Um I am eager to see the program input. I can't recall the exact phrase, but when we're talking about the real instructional programs, that's where I really want to see um what's going to be mitigated. I agree about the trailers and the modulars. It's kind of like, you know, if

269you own a home and the basement doesn't count towards your square footage, but like it really does because it's your living space. It's like it's there, but we're not really counting. So, how do we really make it work in part of the considerations? because a whole grade level in a trailer doesn't mean the school is not at capacity. I think that's really important like we should figure that out and make a decision. I do agree with the regular updates and I'm actually thinking more and more not only about our work plan and this gets to the budget but how are we being prepared to make these decisions? Are there things that we should be reading or some kind of training or like what if we backtrack from January 26 whether it's just your updates are

270getting more fast and furious or are there things that we really should be paying more attention to or I'm thinking like case studies I I don't know but I'd like to other than the policy what are there other resources that we might be equipped with? So that's my ask. I don't know and that's it. Mr. Fresh and then Miss St. John Cunning. Thank you. Excuse me. Um I guess my first question is kind of a looking backwards. Um are there plans in the works for uh a holistic review? um well not holistic review but a look back on this process um so that we can refine it for future uh use because who knows who's going to be in the division in five years when this happens again. I do think one of the things

271Mr. Fish that's been very important is the use of the chart that's up right now and how we're creating if you will um a story map uh an action map uh because I think that there are best practices around uh cyclical reviews and iterative processes that are authentic. Um, so I do think we're trying to capture this uh to make sure it won't need to be in this depth every 5 years, but certainly an opportunity to review uh to have pyramid level uh representation I think is important. I think there are many pieces that um are critically important and perhaps tools we haven't used to date that we're going to find to be very helpful for future work. I think you'd also get plenty of feedback from board members and others if uh asked to

272opine about things that could go differently. Um one question I have although it's not in the um boundary policy itself uh except perhaps in uh community cohesion um there are various changes that move title one students either you know kids who go to title one elementaryaries out of uh the high schools they attend um which may result in that high school not having any elementary schools that feed it that are title one or uh wealthier neighborhoods being moved out of title one schools. How will those issues be considered and addressed by the committee and and the consultant? So, at this point, those issues haven't been discussed as an entire group because really we're focused on the four filters of the policy. Um the access to programming, um capacity issues and so forth. So I think

273um that's a question yet to be determined. Um and then in terms of you know what you just said kind of indicates one of the problems that we've had which is they roll out a scenario um and it has other impacts. Uh how are we assessing the impact of these trade-offs? So, in my community, perhaps it's a school is zoned outside of where it's located, so they've moved it, which then creates a ricochet effect of other changes downstream. How are they judging whether one of those is worth if the juice is worth the squeeze? I think at this point looking at the filter and uh Janet if you can go to the slide that has the four filters from the policy essentially the working rules which are being applied are wh there we go are

274these four and those are the four filters by which the data is being currently filtered to draw maps. So, um I would say that uh if we're going to add uh title one uh you know, how do we want to say title one um qualifications or if we're going to add those types of filters, we certainly can, but that hasn't been in the first round of map iterations. I think I'm just trying to get towards what's coming as opposed to, you know, looking back. Um, and not only on the title one question or the whatnot, but also if, for example, we're looking at capacity and removing a split feeder pushes one of the schools up in capacity above the um overcrowded number. Uh, how are we judging to move that forward versus maybe deciding that

275that split feeder isn't what needs to be addressed? So, I think that's something the committee is going to need to wrestle with. That becomes sort of more fine-tuning. Um, and we probably all have an opinion and it may not be the same, I think, on that, but that'll be something that the committee will wrestle with and I'll keep the board updated on as to how the committee um is leaning on those topics. Picking up a little bit where Miss Seismore Heiser left off. How is programming going to be addressed when you consider, you know, one of the things I've heard most often from various communities is they're not, you know, the maps are out and I don't know what this means for the AAP center or what have you. Is my kid going somewhere else?

276Um, will that all be part of this uh next phase of of understanding the overall impact of proposed changes? Yes, sir, it will. And I at this time there's no plan to move the AAP centers. So it's really going to be how they're adjust how communities are adjusted in terms of attending which ones. But there isn't a plan on the table at this time to move those out of from one building to another. Yeah, I don't think people are necessarily concerned about moving it from one building to another. They're worried about where they're going to be moved or not. Um uh on the additionally um do you anticipate that the underlying data driving these changes will be shared in future uh parts of this process? Yes sir for sure. And then uh can you speak

277a little bit about the responsiveness to community feedback? Um whether folks are receiving acknowledgements of their communications and responses to specific questions. I think to the degree possible, um, and we've had some folks in and out and a little bit of a leadership change in facilities, but to the degree possible, I think people are getting a response, but not necessarily a direct answer yet. The response might be your feedback is being included in feedback provided to the consultant, but until the committee wrestles with the feedback, there really isn't an answer other than thank you and please continue to provide the feedback. even for questions that are not necessarily about Mr. Fresh, that was your time. Can I go ahead and put go back? Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Um, Miss St. John Cunning, thank you.

278Um, so first of all, I'd like to say thank you for all the work you've done and for all the work the advisory committee has done. And I know that we have to be responsive to constituents. And there are competing forces. You know, one constituent will say, "I want this," while the other one will say, "I don't want that." And it just kind of, you know, neutralizes everything. So, we know that this process we're not going to be able to please all of the people and that we're going to go for the greater good. And that's why we're doing it in a holistic way. Um, my question is this. Uh, I know that the advisory committee has been working really hard on this and I've been approached by a few members saying that they feel

279some board members are working against what they're doing. Is that information something that you would relay to us or to specific board members? because our advisory committee members, a lot of them are volunteers and the last thing I want them to do is to feel that their work is not valued and that we are working against anything that they're doing or has that come up in your ad in the meetings with advisory committee members? So, I think that right now the advisory committee is leaning into probably the more um sort of more feedback time because we've now gotten the feedback um I believe it's going to be sent out this week to advisory committee members and um which is from all those community meetings. So, the first time we're going to get back together will

280be Monday night the 23rd. We've not been together as a committee for a little bit because we've had graduations and end of year and all of that. So, this will be the first time we've looked at all the feedback. We're going to be dividing into very likely uh regions to have groups really look at the maps that they're most familiar with and then provide feedback to the consultant about a redrawing of those maps. I think that there are a lot of perspectives as I mentioned in my overview that our community members have, different communities, different neighborhoods, likely different board members and different advisory committee members. And at the end of the day, it's going to be my responsibility to make sure that we have a space for really authentic conversation um and bringing concerns to

281the table because I think we're all truly focused on doing what's best for our kids and it's just we don't all agree on the same way to get there. Um and uh but I know that's where that's where we want to be. So, I I think we'll make sure that in within our process that everyone's ideas um are at least looked at, reviewed, discussed, and there will be some that'll move forward and others that will not likely as a result of those conversations. Thank you. I think the updates would would help um us as board members. Um, I know that I have told constituents that we very purposely decided to not do it ourselves because I know that we might have competing interests and I didn't want us as a board to be, you know,

282Miss Anderson's district is very close to mine and what might be in in beneficial to hers might not be to mine and that would not serve either of us. Um, so I appreciate that we've decided to do it this way to somewhat not get into a battle amongst ourselves and to do something that holistically is best for everyone. Um, I just want to make sure that our advisory committee members don't feel we're working against what their their their work and those updates would help us. I think I appreciate that, Miss St. John Cunning and I I I believe that our advisory committee knows that everybody each board member uh community member wants what's best and so um I will reiterate that and our um we're going to have to filter like I said a lot

283of feedback and information and I know everyone's trying to help and um we'll get there. Again, I want to thank you and the advisory committee members because they're doing a lot of work and for the school staff team that has been supporting all the meetings. It's been a lot and the the I very much so appreciate that. Thank you for noting that, Miss St. John Cunning. Mr. Dunn, uh thank you. Um first I I appreciate my colleagues question. Uh I think there's a question that I've encountered which is what is the proper role of the of the B member the boundary review advisory committee member because I've had a couple who uh from one high school pyramid who I don't think show up to many of the meetings or or uh don't don't do very

284much outside of attending the advisory committee meetings. And then there another couple from a different high school pyramid who are organizing their own meetings going out into the community um and you know being ambassadors uh in a very expansive way and so I'm trying to understand you know what is your vision Dr. to read for the proper role of boundary review advisory committee meetings. Is there is a role and responsibility limited to coming to your B meetings and providing input as randomly selected community members or do you have an expectation and a desire that they actually go out and represent FCPS and the committee uh to the broader community? Thank you for the question, Mr. Dunn. I think um our first advisory committee meeting we discussed the responsibilities I mean minimally with having an email

285address and being named on the website and at that first meeting we had several people not feel comfortable with having their names on a website so stepped back from the role and we um then went through a selection process to replace them. I think that um as we've commenced this work and as we continue it to be fair I believe people want to be part of that advisory committee to have access to information and help make decisions that are going to improve our school division. And I think people are more and less comfortable dealing with conflict um and dealing with difficult conversations. And so I think that uh one of the things I want to make sure that I provide our advisory committee members with are the the tools and the information um to really

286be able to be effective resources because I think there is an iterative effect. In other words, the communities would obviously provide them input and then in turn they would provide that input to the committee and then take the committee's input back to the community. And so I think that, you know, my expectation is just that the process that we discussed be honored and that people are thoughtful about what they're bringing and what they're taking back to their communities. So I I don't think um any two members are going to be the same because many of them are volunteers, but I think they really want what's best for the division. I've not uh heard or felt that anyone was there to in some way not uh be supportive of what's best for kids. Um so you've

287articulated three scenarios in these slides. You know, the attendance lens, the split feeders, and the and the rebalancing. Um, are these the only three objectives or should I understand that there might be additional objectives that might be added over the course of the summer uh before uh October? Mr. Dunn, it's possible. One of the things I need to look at is, you know, there are thousands of pieces of feedback. If there is a strong pattern of feedback that leans in another topic area, it's certainly something we'll need to explore. I have not personally sat down to read all of that feedback yet. I will before Monday night, but um it's possible. Yes, sir. Um where where do we stand with the evaluation of the grade 6 through 8 uh for middle schools? Uh I think

288that was one of the first items discussed by the boundary review advisory committee, but I haven't seen it in the in this presentation or or other things. So where does that kind of fit into this uh comprehensive school boundary review? So the committee hasn't really discussed it much other than to say that was one of the very first scenarios we drew. And we drew it as one of the very first scenarios for a couple reasons. One as practice to take all the data and actually populate a scenario and two because again I've talked about instructionally feeling like that is the most sound grade band to go six through eight. What was clear from the initial map is it's not currently possible based on all of the locations of uh students basically when we ran the

289data and our facilities. I think that it's a longer term plan if we're looking at that divisionwide. It would require us utilizing some buildings differently um and perhaps more upheaval than I would anticipate for this process in its very first time in 40 years. However, if there are spaces in the division where it is possible without um the significant disruption or cost, I certainly won't hesitate to consider recommending that. um given that uh the the the scenarios presented um in the past few weeks uh were not I mean there's a footnote on the slide seven saying they weren't formally uh endorsed or recommended by the boundary review advisory committee um that the maps that will be presented in in uh October will be much more detailed at a much more granular level and presumably will

290have been uh reviewed and endorsed uh in some measure by the boundary review advisory committee. Um, is it still realistic to expect the school board to vote to approve the recommended package in January? Because if if you're having, let's say, 24 high school meetings in October in a month of only 31 days, unless you're kind of doing two meetings per night for, you know, 12 nights in a row, I'm I'm not sure how you how you get through that month with 24 high school meetings. Um and uh and if there is push back from the community to the more detailed granular maps, it doesn't leave a lot of time for you to kind of adjudicate and maybe present a revised version two to the community uh in the November December time frame when we have

291Thanksgiving in December. So I'm I'm just trying to figure out if we should anticipate that January schoolboard vote being pushed uh back a little bit. So I think those are good questions and I I think it is an ambitious timeline. Uh recall that we would only go back to the pyramids that we are planning to affect or that a boundary in that pyramid would be moved. Um which is likely many of them. I can't speak tonight or this afternoon if it's going to be all of them. I don't I don't know that yet. Um, I think fundamentally for me it's more important to do this well um than it is I don't want to be in a situation where we're feeling rushed. On the other hand, um I still, you know, endeavor to try to

292keep the timeline the board has set uh because uh it was January 26 that the expectation is that I come back to you with a recommendation. Um what about trailers? Um we have 900 classrooms and trailers and modulars. And is there an opportunity through this comprehensive school boundary review to achieve a significant reduction in the number of trailers? And I'm being specific as to trailers, not talking about modulars at all. Hey Mr. Dunn, that was your time. So I can put you on a go back. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So I'm going to take a very quick turn and then we're going to go to go backs understanding that we do have a hard at 5:30. So, we will probably go to one minute gobacks just to to keep things moving for today. I am

293hopeful that I don't need one as well. Um, the first thing that I wanted to say is that I have a question from Miss Dixit to share is that um she and I both have some folks that are very close to their existing high school that according to the drafted maps that we have have been moved. And so the first question that I had for you is do we know that there are some mistakes in the existing maps that are going to need to be fixed in this next iteration? Yes, ma'am. I believe there are. Okay. So, um I don't know that those are the ones you're specifically speaking about, but I do know that there were some errors based on um a misunderstanding around neighborhood lines. Okay. So, if we have students that are

294a mile away from their closest high school that have now been moved away from that high school, we should bring that to the attention of of you and Donna. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. Um I I would strongly advocate for us to have joint meetings with maybe schools that share a line that have been changed as we move forward just to keep the process moving forward. I do understand that that's a concern. Um, I do I have also been very clear with folks when I've been talking to communities about the fact that we are not likely to fix all of the problems that we have right now. This was a problem that that was created over 50 plus years. Um, it's not something that we're going to be able to get out of with one

295minimal change that we're trying to maintain as many of of uh communities as possible. So, at some point, are you going to be able to come back to us and talk about how we're going to change things slowly over time? So, it would similar to the budget conversation. It's kind of give communities a heads up that we're not fixing it this time, but we recognize that it's a concern that kind of goes against what's in the policy. So, if you're referring to the possibility of phasing being part of my recommendation, I think it's very likely that uh that'll be part of the conversation that I'll be coming back to the board with in January. I also mean things like when we're talking about the percentage of split feeders. Um things like what you were talking

296about where we identified something that is technically against what the policy says, but we've acknowledged that either a community is asking for us to to keep something status quo and it could be that it's not in this iteration of changes, but it could be something that's further on down the road. Is that a possibility? Yes, ma'am. I think the one of the keys to the board's thoughtfulness around five-year looks at this is we're not going to resolve every boundary concern in the county in January of 2026. It's not realistic to expect that. I think what we want to do is comb the county and make as many adjustments as are reasonable and feasible to improve the four filtered areas with the understanding that there will be more work to do. The other thing that I

297wanted to ask, thank you for that. Um, the other thing that I wanted to ask about is right now I think that it would be helpful for you once we determine how we're going to be able to use the feedback, how that we come back to the community and explain how it's being done. My concern here is the same concern that I always have with these things. The people that have the most time and bandwidth to put the their energy into this are the loudest voices and they have the loudest feedback. And so I don't I think that it would be problematic for us only to rely on those things when we know that there are issues in other communities. They may not have the time and space to be advocating or you know that

298that those communities also have a right to have those those things fixed within their community as well despite the fact that they haven't been able to spend the time to organize and have marches into schools and things like that. Um so I just I just want to put that out there. And then the other thing is that I I absolutely want to talk um to what Mr. Fris was talking about that we need some sort of afteraction report related to this so that we can codify because five years is just a far enough apart that you're going to have a new board um and all of those things new you know potentially new staff involved and so we want to make sure that we can kind of learn the lessons that we've learned from here.

299So absolutely. Okay. So now we're going to hit as many go backs as we can. Um we're going to start with Miss Seismoreheiser and then go to Mr. Fr. Thank you. I'll try to be quick. Um I think it's important and as we're talking about this I know the consultant in the community meetings I went to mentioned these four mentioned the but I don't think they really or I don't think there's a good understanding the community of all the things we grappled with in that the policy right I don't think that shall has come up of these other things that we thought about because I think that would help frame some of the conversations if they know look this is a bucket of priorities this is what this means I can't tell you the number

300of times people ask me what does access to programming mean right and when I explain it they're like oh okay that makes sense right and then also what is so there's a common basis of understanding of what the shall framework was supposed to be how these other things that people are bringing up were thought about and our priorities for example the modulars and trailers but we split it into these are the things that we think are the most important the board did and these are the other things that are important that can be considered I I think if that helps with the common framing where we start with I also Maybe the advisory committee members could send common updates to the board members that they could then share those as well, but there isn't anything

301coming out of those advisory committee meetings specifically about scenarios that would be helpful to share and what they're thinking. I know my time is up, so I'll stop there. So we do um you know collect key takeaways at the end of those meetings and um those are shared with the community the very next morning was our commitment or the very next day. Uh you get them ahead of the community but not by much because we do send it the next day. Uh but I think as we begin to make decisions there'll be more um sort of narrative around recommendations. So I I take your point. Uh Miss or Dr. Anderson. Yes, thank you. I just wanted to um to share my advocacy is not to add more drivers or filters. I think you as you've

302talked about it onto that list of those four, but it's just to provide the calculation like what happens when we do these things? What happens with our FRM? What happens with the modulars? I think that just offers a different perspective, but it doesn't necessarily need to drive um the work. We just need to see the impact of the work on those components. And my last thing is uh we also talked about the Addendale pyramid not having an AP center which was going to be looked at in this work. Is that still an ongoing conversation? Yes, ma'am. In fact, I have um a timeline and plan ready to roll. In fact, I can send it this evening. I would be so excited to see that. Yay. you. Yes, ma'am. It's the team. Uh they put together

303a a timeline and uh I can get it to you this evening. Super duper. And then you talked about this a little bit, but I I don't know if I captured it well. How will the middle school start times be incorporated? Like where does this fit in the grand scheme of things of discussion? Well, you know, it's been a an an abundant opportunity here to do this foundry process and I think with the spring have sprung new possibilities. One being uh where do start times fit. Uh but we have a segment obviously we have a commitment to healthy start times. We know those benefit our adolescence in particular. So we're trying to make sure we integrate whatever those plans are and Mr. Muick and his team are working on those in house right now for

304the fall of 2026 potentially and your consideration as a board uh in January of 2026 because I know that for me and for many parents really January is when we make arrangements by then for the next year. So we want to come to the board with some recommendations on that topic by January and that coincides with this topic. So the degree to which these intersect is very important. Um, so we're going to need to look at how the boundary adjustments match up with um start times and so that work will be integrated as well as as I mentioned earlier the opportunity to purchase a westside um high school site from uh with the financial uh you know realities right now and having this uh really opportunity sort of just arise again will also be something

305that uh we have to integrate into our thinking that we didn't think about a year ago when we were setting this work plan. Miss Marin and then Mr. Dunn. Okay. So, um Madam Clerk, would you mind pulling up slide um is it 19 that has the review process with the phase, please? Or the other one does the same. So, just to get super clear, January 2026, it the the boundary change approval process is showing up starting like November, December. And is the vision that you have, Dr. Reed, that the board is approving some changes in January to go into effect for the fall? Yes, ma'am. Okay. So, I'm just envisioning, you know, getting a document and a presentation and then is it two weeks? Is it four weeks? Like when we think about our schedule

306that we're planning, you know, what time are we going to need? Are we going to need the public hearings? Um I also am wondering, do you expect that it will perhaps say like, okay, this would be for fall 26 and this will be for fall 27 and fall 28. I predict that's likely, but I until the committee really takes a hard look at that, I can't say for sure today, but I think some type of phasing is likely going to be part of the recommendation. And will the recommendation include the budgetary component of this? Is there a budgetary component to these changes? Because it will be hard to do that when we're just starting the budget process. Well, ideally it should help our budget, right? Because it should make our transportation a bit more efficient

307and perhaps enable us to staff um more efficiently. So, ideally, it should help our budget. If we do this and it ends up costing us more, I don't think we'll have done the work in a way that is perhaps the most thoughtful. Okay. Okay. Mr. Dunn and then Miss St. John Cunning. Uh, could we include within the analysis being done this summer a significant reduction or significant percentage reduction in the number of trailers in the county? Yes, sir. We could. What would you need to do that? I What would I need to do that? I think it's it um I suppose the board as a body would have to make that direction because right now the board as a body has directed those four um priority areas which I think trailers could be subsumed under

308them but they I think we're left in a may versus shall um but it's certainly I think an implied uh benefit that we have fewer trailers and would you view a a reduction in the number of trailers as as a net positive for the school system. Yes, sir. Um do you have uh any thoughts on how what we can do as schoolboard members to best prepare the community for the October meetings um and to ensure that they get involved and have their voices heard? Well, I think the schoolboard advisory committee members for each community are going to be key and um I think that making sure that they are comfortable in each pyramid being part of that conversation. I also have uh parent vision groups that have membership from all schools in the county. I'll

309be encouraging them uh to have people come out to uh share their feedback. I think once we post uh new maps online, I would encourage community members to comment on those. Uh I know that the PTA uh the FCC PTA is represented on the advisory committee and would encourage all PTA groups uh to really uh be part of the conversation. So I think the more eyes on the plans and the more feedback, the better the plans will be. Could you do the analysis with and without modulars? I'm sorry. Could you repeat that again? Could you do the analysis showing the percentages or number of students at each school with and without modulars? Modulars or trailers? I I'm I'm talking about modulars because modulars are count as interior space. So, could you do the analysis as

310Miss Ander Dr. was stating um I have Riverside which is 126% without modulars 89% roughly with modulars. Could you show the student enrollment at a school with and without modulars if modulars are in place at that school? I well I think any data is possible. I think we have to go back to the CIP and how that's drafted as well though. And I think the definition of um capacity includes modulars. It doesn't exclude them. But I again I don't draft the CIP personally, but I think the CIP includes modulars as part of capacity. It shows it both ways, but it it does show it both ways. So it'd be great if this analysis could also show it both ways. So if the information already exists Oh, you're talking about the new maps. Oh, I I'm

311talking about the analysis done as part of the school boundary review. Can we as part of the analysis show with and without modulars just like the CIP does? I I'm sure if that's a direction the board wants, I'm I'm sure we could make that happen. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Uh Miss Jun Cunning and Mr. Moon's going to bring it home. Okay. I I'll be very quick uh because I just want to reiterate what one of my colleagues said about the loudest voices not being representative of all the voices. And I just did some quick math here and actually took the lowest number of the compreh you had several numbers here about boundary communications and we had 145,262 parents that went or people that went into the comp comprehensive boundary review landing page

312and of all the languages we only had 313. And I I I just want us to be cognizant of that. And I know we're all trying to do good work and just not let the loudest organized voices drown out the better good for all of those voices that sometimes for a lot of reasons can't speak. Um I know that that's one of the reasons that I was motivated to be on that board on this board to be a voice for some of those that ha have a a difficult time either attending the meetings accessing the information even though we do a lot of good work putting it out there. Um, that's a big difference and so I know that the work should reflect that. Yes, ma'am. Mr. Moon, I just want to note that I

313concur with the statement made by uh Marcia Jang just walking away. Uh, how do we hear how do we hear a non loud voices? That's one thing. But secondly, I wanted to comment and also ask you uh Dr. Reed about the cost implication. I could easily I could easily see a for the near future for the first few years depending upon how we do the phasing in or grandfathering it could cost more and then cost could go down uh in the long term depending on how we phase it and budget will obviously be a conversation with regard to phasing right so I think that's a valid point I think the Um, we may have scenarios of phasing, right? Budget neutral phasing scenario and a budget impact scenario. I there's going to be um a lot

314of data to look at in a very complex set of um not just conditions but possible solutions. Oh, thank you. Since I still got 21 seconds, uh the budget neutral phasing in I haven't really seen neutral phasing in in the past. So, good luck to you. Yes, sir. Okay, seeing no others, with five minutes to spare, we are done for today. Thank you guys for all the great work and thank you to Dr. Reed and her staff.