5/31/25 - Advisory Committee Annual Summit

001microphone. Good morning everyone. Uh welcome to the first ever Fairfax County School Board Community Advisory Committee Summit. Um for those who are not aware, every year for many many years, uh the school board has uh received reports from its advisory committees at work sessions. And uh in the last two years the board's undertaken a process of refining our approach with the community uh advisory committees and that included creating these summits. And so today we will be having summits with four of our committees and having a group lunchon in between so that members can commune with board members and staff um and uh get to know each other and um you know continue their important work together. Other changes that are worth noting as we're receiving these reports from our committees um are the process that

002uh reports are responded to has changed as well. So after the report is submitted to the school board um the school division uh will respond to the committee as follows. First there'll be a written response. The staff liaison in coordination with the schoolboard liaison during the year the report was prepared shall submit a written response and a plan of action to the committee and the school board no later than the end of the first quarter of the next school year. So we will be expecting that for this committee before the end of the next uh the first quarter of next school year. uh the there will be a committee update where the staff liaison shall update the committee on any progress at its December or January meeting following the reports submission. So next December or

003January, this committee and other committees should expect a report back from staff on anything that has uh progressed. There will also be a board update. Uh the schoolboard liaison will stay in regular contact with the staff liaison and update the school board on progress toward achieving the report's recommendations. And there will be ongoing tracking with the staff liaison being responsible for maintaining an ongoing record of actions taken in response to report recommendations broken down by year and follow-up shall be reviewed with the committee during the second and third or third quarter uh of each school year. So in the latter half of every school year there'll be an opportunity to review progress to date on these reports. One of the reasons that we took this approach was that there were concerns over many years that

004the reports would come into the board. They might get a written response, but then the committees weren't sure of what would happen after that. So now we have a clear uh feedback cycle uh from staff and board and committee uh to monitor this important work. Um and I'm going to hand it over to Dr. Anderson for our first committee today. And I appreciate uh everybody being here, my colleagues who will be joining us throughout the morning and uh not only leaders of these committees but also the membership who are here joining us as well. Uh Dr. Anderson. All right. Good morning. Thank you so much. Um just to kind of um piggyback on what Mr. Fish said, "I'm very excited about the new process um because I know there's been frustration since our time on

005the board from both um committee members and board members regarding what happens after this year-long work and in some committees maybe two years comes before us and the perceived lack of action. Um we've had committees who year over year have made the same recommendation because there has been very little response to it. And so we want to be sure that we are honoring your time and your work because this is a significant investment that you're making to support our um community in Fairfax County Public Schools. So ensuring that there's a clear and timely feedback loop I think does the work of recognizing your efforts. So very excited for this new development. Um I also would like to introduce um am I introducing? Oh, okay. Um, I'm sorry. No, that's right. Um, I I would also

006like to introduce our um representatives from the ACE committee, the adult community education advisory committee, which I have had the pleasure of being its liaison for four years now. I believe it's been a very long-standing relationship. Um so without any further ado I will introduce you all and I know that you also will be sharing um who is not in the room and the rationale why. So I will turn that over to you. Um looking forward to hearing your presentation as things put up are placed on the screen. All right. Thank you. Um, I'm Brian Thorson, uh, the vice chair of the ACE AC advisory committee. Um, so we had, uh, as you can see on the screen, uh, we had planned for myself, sorry, um, we had planned for myself and Sebastian, uh, Palowski

007to do the presentation. Sebastian um, is not able to be with us today. So, so it'll just be me doing the uh doing the presentation. Um before we get started, um I did want to on behalf of the committee, um want to thank the school board for this idea of the summit and allowing all of us to get together and interact with with the school board members. Uh we thought it's a great idea. Uh there's actually uh four other uh people from the committee that are in the audience. Um, you know, Darcy, Payton, Helen, and Susan, and and of course, Paul Steiner is here. Um, so plenty of people to uh to talk to uh if you have an opportunity to um you know, get more information about ACE today. All right. First, um Holly

008Hazard is our uh our committee um chair and uh unfortunately she because of a previously scheduled travel commitment can't be here today. Um I know she was actually uh pretty disappointed when the when the schedule came out and you know this conflict was evident. So, uh, but anyway, she does send her regrets and her greetings to, uh, to everybody on the on the board and everybody else here who knows her. Um, also want to thank, uh, Karen Williams, who is the staff liaison. She also couldn't be here today. Um, Paul Steiner and rest of the a staff. Um, I thought, um, we had, um, a great year. Uh the staff was incredibly helpful. Uh we had lots of u you know lots of ace folks coming into the committee meetings and doing briefings. So um

009uh so I I I enjoyed the the year uh working on the committee. Um, we did uh take the time to go and perform a an assessment of the past recommendations uh back to 2017 uh just to get an idea. There there were several new new members on the committee today uh this year. So we did do uh this assessment and uh I did want to point out that um based on the assessment we saw that um many of the recommendations that had been made uh were acted upon by the a staff of the school board um and and worked on and closed. Um so based on that and uh you know our experience this year uh just like to say that uh that I think that there the committee thinks that there's a a

010really good solid working relationship between uh the advisory committee and and the staff. So um let's see uh the rest of the slide is just the subcommittees and the folks that were on the subcommittees. Um we were asked uh to give just a brief u introduction or overview of uh of um what the committee kind of u advocates for. Uh so there's three components um that uh that we've been uh dealing with this year. One is the uh adult and community education uh organization. Um it turns out that um uh that ACE is one of the largest um um non um non- collegiate ed education and training providers in the country. Um, of course it provides uh career credentiing and learning for u FCPS students uh FCPS graduates um and the larger Fairfax community and

011of course with some of the online courses u you know ACE reaches beyond Fairfax County. What they provide is uh skilled trade apprentichips. So these are things like um um plumbing, HVAC, um electrical and construction courses. Uh they provide business and IT courses, things like accounting, bookkeeping, um wedding planning is in there. um uh programming classes, networking, uh system administration, uh those type of IT services. Uh there's health and medical which includes things like uh EMT, um nurse, dental, medical, pharmacy, veterinary aid courses, physical therapists, phabbotomy, things of that nature. Uh there's also the adult enrichment which is the uh culinary classes, literary arts classes, um mind body wellness classes, and then uh the driver education behind the wheel program. Um and approximately uh 9,100 registrations per year to kind of give you an idea

012of the size. um it's not necessarily students because students could be registered for more than one class during the year. Uh the second component is adult ESOL and so that is English learning for um focusing on employee readiness and digital literacy. Uh the the um the adult Esau teaches to six proficiency levels and there are about 1,400 students per term. And finally, the third part is the Fairfax County Adult High School. And so there's two tracks here. One is the diploma track uh which allows students that didn't graduate uh in the normal time period an option to uh to get a get a diploma an actual diploma. And then there's the high school uh equivalency track uh which focuses on adult basic education and then GED test prep. Um, and so there's about 850 students

013per year in that um in uh the adult high school program. All right, just quickly uh we are very excited about this slide. This is the new ACE um website. Um this was actually uh started as a recommendation from the committee in 2022 to replace the the legacy system. Uh the school board agreed uh provided some one-time funding um to make this happen. a staff went out, found a vendor, um got a contract in place, and this uh this website um is operational, currently operational, just came up um uh this p this year. Um not all of the uh not all of the courses are on there yet, but uh it is up taking and taking registrations. Um and we are m migrating to that course with the se or excuse we are migrating to

014the new website with seasonality of courses. Obviously we're a lot of our courses operate on a semester schedule and so we will have more courses added as we go into summer and then fall semesters. All right. So this is this is going to be a big tool for ACE moving forward. Um it is a it's quite a step up from the old legacy system. Um uh we hope that uh there'll be a lot of uh data analytics that'll be able to be performed um now so that ACE can better understand what the the students needs are. Um and so we'll uh we'll we'll see this a little more in one of the recommendations. All right. Our our charge this year was to explore how to create greater integration between ACE programs, the K through2 system,

015and the broader Fairfax community, focusing on career and technical education to create a greater pipeline of students into ACE. All right. Our response to that is um um to basically the first step in this would be to we think to create just a an improved connectivity between ACE and uh and FCPS and the adult uh and the adult community. you know, sometimes uh ACE may be this thing off to the side and uh not everybody knows what what's going on there. So, so the focus of uh of the work and the recommendations is to create uh greater connectivity into FCPS to some of the areas that uh we think uh could uh could benefit a from ACE and that ACE could benefit uh uh from being better connected into. All right. So the rest of

016the presentation uh is going to be the recommendations. So again, we have this new website in place. Um and we think that there's a much more detailed way to to connect with with the student community. Um and so what we want to do and our recommendation first recommendation here is to uh develop um a strategic business plan for ACE uh focusing on marketing technology and and communications and also to make sure that uh it's aligned with the FCPS strategic plan. Um so our thinking right now uh there's several focus areas of this plan. One would be to um modernize the marketing and communications uh that ACE does um and to leverage some datadriven insights from the new website to help guide our the marketing communications effort. um the tool itself is is big and so

017there's uh there's a lot of learning I think that's going to go on along with u with using it. Um so uh part of the plan will be how to optimize the the technology and and the website uh going forward. think um that we'll be able to do some uh resource planning um and and this tool might help out with the budgeting. Uh the plan also envisions performance tracking of some key metrics and um and uh also it's going to feed the u the marketing uh campaigns that I think ACE is is going to be doing in the future. Um uh the or ACE already has a um um a contract with a company called RMR uh for marketing support. Um I think with a new tool in place, RMR and ACE are going to

018be launching some new marketing plans here coming up. Um what our requested action here is uh basically of the school board um requesting that um whatever assistance is needed uh can be provided so that ACE can get uh hooked up with the department of strategy planning and learning uh to collaborate on this plan. All right. Our next recommendation is uh um uh is an economic model study. Um I I mean everybody here knows that investing in education can bring very substantial economic and social benefits to the community. And what we want to do um what we think is a good idea is to actually uh do a formal economic study of how ACE uh connects with the Fairfax County community uh and how the uh the community benefits. Uh so we would like to try

019to uh quantify economic impact of you know ACE producing what they produce right more high school graduates improved English language speakers apprenticeships um and that uh in that nature um and also take a look at the the ripple effects uh as a result of um you know the increased education uh levels in in the at the end we would u really like to be able to present to the school board a very uh indepth um um assessment of um of ACE and how important uh ACE is uh to the Fairfax community. Uh a requested action of the school board here is just to endorse the idea of the study. Uh the a staff is ready to um you know figure out what it what it would like to see in the study and to figure

020out ways to uh to obtain this study. All right. Next. Um so as we've seen with uh of course with social media uh short form videos are a good way to connect with uh with today's student population. Um, and so our recommendation here is to uh spend some time and create more uh promotional videos uh highlighting ACE programs and offerings and then get these videos distributed uh to the Fairfax County community. This is of course an attempt to directly connect ACE with the with the uh FCPS students and and also the adult community students. Um uh the hope would be to uh get people's attention uh get them to get to the website and start looking at what's uh what's available. Um again we think that RMR uh will be helpful in this endeavor to

021uh uh to get the communications rolling and how to how to reach out to the target audience. Uh here our requested action is for the ACE staff to uh connect with the uh FCPS office of communications uh to coordinate video production and and distribution. All right. So the videos of course um are ACE communicating to its target audience. Um, we would like to see a two-way connection develop. Uh, well, I shouldn't say develop, but a two-way connection being more improved uh between ACE and the student population. Um, so we would like to hear from the student population. And the idea here is to develop a an electronic survey and get that out to uh FCPS uh junior and senior high students. um and their parents and guardians and try to get uh better connected and

022get a better understanding of what some of these students um are are thinking and what they believe their needs are with respect to continuing education. Um for uh for this one, our a requested action is uh for ACE to get assistance from FCPS staff to help uh develop the survey um identify the population and conduct uh the actual survey. And then um our last uh recommendation um um what we think is um would be very helpful is to increase the awareness of the ACE programs and the ACE offerings um by getting ACE staff directly connected to certain FCPS uh personnel. So, I know that me personally being on the committee this year, we've had a lot of people come in from the various ACE programs and give us presentations and talk about um you know,

023what they what they offer and what they uh you know, what their part of of this organization is. And so it would be great if um if um certain FCPS personnel could get those same briefings and could be connected to uh to the ACE staff the way the the committee was. And so the recommendation here is to uh for the ACE staff to establish a recurring streamlined method for largecale communication of ACE program to uh to the ACE staff. Uh and particularly we would be targeting the FCPS uh personnel that provide guidance to FCPS high school students. So, guidance counselors and anybody else that that talks to um to the uh FCPS students and and is going to provide suggestions, mentoring, guidance on, you know, what to do once they graduate. Um our uh requested

024action here is that um that the a staff develop a communications plan and then coordinate with FCPS to uh to facilitate this largescale communications. Now, um you know, the the ACE staff does this on a on a smaller scale like Paul and and his team will go out to uh to high schools and talk about uh about ACE. Uh so, so there is that connection already. Uh we want to see it um at a larger scale and be able to get um just get people together and be able to have these uh program people talk to talk to the folks that will be talking to the high school students. All right. So that concludes the presentation. Um we did make this presentation intentionally short so that there would be time for uh questions. Um so

025thank you for your attention. Thank you very much Brian. Um I see some placards have gone up and before we start calling on colleagues to to talk I do want to bring attention to page 11 of the full report where you provided the crosswalk across recommendations from starting 2017. that's very helpful in terms of providing some grounding and some context to um AC's journey in this advisory role um over the last uh many years. So thank you for doing that work. I know it was quite a bit of an undertaking um and we will start with Mr. Mavine. Wonderful. Thank you and thank you for the presentation for being here um despite um the challenges you had getting other folks here. Um so there was uh a lot of com um discussion of marketing which

026I think uh over the years has been a um we've spent hours at this um work table uh discussing that. Um one thing that did not appear uh in the presentation was the booklet. Uh can you give which is you know the mailer right? Can you give us a status update on on where that stands? Uh so the we call it the catalog okay and it it's a catalog because it has listing of pro of courses and when they meet it's very specific currently we're producing what I would call a brochure which is higher level and um actually in interactions uh with the committee and discussion on uh resources um we're pursuing a brochure with the assistance of uh communications Um, and that actually helps my staff out. Um, and it's an excellent resource that

027we can utilize uh when communications is able to assist us with this. So, we will have a smaller brochure uh that is published soon. And that when I say publish that's going to be local going out uh with some uh within FCPS and other government uh entities that we can easily deliver to and also um going out to previous uh customers where we have their address on a database. So that we would call that a subscription model. the larger catalog um is expensive to publish and we are looking at our expenses and how many times a year is it worth it to publish that catalog. Five years ago, um, we would publish four times a year. And I and I and I found that publishing four times a year actually drove our business. And it

028and it wasn't a good business model because if I'm a senior that's graduating and I'm interested in electrical courses. Five years ago, I would tell you, well, look for our catalog that's going to come to you the in in August. And we've changed our business model where courses for the fall and the summer are available now. You can register now. There's no waiting. Uh so the the new website is helping us do that. Um but with the expense of the catalog um we're just looking at how many times a year we publish. I do anticipate publishing in the fall because that catalog has the biggest effect and impact and also society. I think you get into August and September, a lot of individuals are thinking about going back to uh school. And so I do

029believe we will move forward with that and have a full publication in the fall. And then possibly another publication in uh uh let's say end of first semester, end of second semester. So winter is what we would call that. Um but we are looking at options for print media. We know that print media works on numerous levels, but uh the catalog that goes out to every home in Fairfax is great. It's expensive, but it's great. How many times a year do we do that? Do we convert to a subscriptionbased model for students that have taken our classes within the past three years? The parks catalog uh has a system that is more of a subscription-based uh system where it's someone who's taken a class in the last three years. So, we're looking at all of

030those options, but we will be producing uh print media in the future, and I would like to produce a full catalog that goes out to all of Fairfax in the fall. Great. Well, I appreciate you going through all of that. Um, I like the idea of the the brochure. Um I do think you know and we've had this discussion many times over many years and you you will be the best judge of this but um the catalog is as you know is expensive. It's a big undertaking um to mail it to everyone. Um you know I would like to see us move more in the direction of sending the brochure to everyone. Um but that's just me um just to save save costs and point people to the new um website uh which which is

031great. Um the second and and I I just add on the marketing point that I strongly endorse the the use of videos and social media to get the word out. I think um as you know that's where where our community is. Um secondly um on the connectivity piece which was this recommendation I think that's great. Um I think there are classes courses in our schools um that our community would love to take that we don't offer through ACE um at least I don't think we do. um primarily a tied to themies um things like fashion marketing music composition technical theater auto tech I don't know to what extent that's incorporated into ACE um but I think uh when people are exposed when the broader community is exposed to what our schools actually offer I think

032there would be a lot of interest in kind of those um sexier programs right um not that ACE isn't sexy as it is but um uh I would love to that that to be part of this conversation Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Meline. Mr. Fr. Thank you. I'm going to pick up a little bit where Mr. Mavine left off about the catalog. Um, I think a lot of work has been done to minimize I'd like to go even further on minimizing the use of the catalog. Um, if only because technology makes it so much easier to reach people at a fraction of the cost. today. For example, if somebody visits the ACE website, we could be remarketing to those people so that when they leave, they're getting ads for ACE or the program that they were

033looking at on ACE, right? If they're looking at a certain class on the website, that class should follow them the same way that the sneakers I looked at on Amazon follow me for the rest of my life. um uh you know if somebody is on the email list or the uh mailing list because they've subscribed those people are also reachable through anonymized uh digital advertising. Um about how much do we spend collectively in a calendar year on the catalog itself production staff time mailing etc. Uh thank you for your question on your first point of um marketing that follows you after you visit the site. The good news is the new website um we have an add-on which we are still learning uh we're working with our marketing uh company on that and our our

034marketing team. We're learning the system but we will have that type of uh technology in place where if you look at a course in uh plumbing, you'll get a a follow-up uh advertisement or a follow-up email on plumbing. Um so we h we have that in the works. It's um my my staff has just got to learn it and you know we want everything now but we got to go through and make sure that we do it correctly. So we are working on that and we're very excited about that in the future. As far as the large catalog that goes out to every home in uh Fairfax uh that generally costs between $110 to $150,000 uh a pop in printing and distribution. Um and the staff time for design is that done in house? The

035staff time is it is done in house. Um and it it takes one staff person I would say a month to assemble everything maybe a little bit less. that staff person is doing some other uh you know they are supporting other course other uh administrative items that are uh coming together in the uh in the office and as we you know publish new courses um but yeah I would say uh it's going to take about one staff person a month of time we also you know it is a team approach there are some things that are done program specialists will obviously curate courses is highlight different things, make recommendations, provide media via Canva and other things, but uh I would say a month for our staff person is a fair estimate. And and here's why

036I still think we want to mail something. And I agree with Ryan that we should be mailing the pamphlet or the uh brochure because it is a mechanism for getting them to come to the website to get pixelled for remarketing so that we can follow them around and in, you know, encourage them softly to sign up for the classes. The other thing I would say is that if you go back and look at five years of class registrance, you should be able to build pretty good demographic profiles of the types of people who are interested in the things that we offer by what they're interested in. And then you should be able to do digital advertising well below the budget of $150,000 a year targeting people who have not signed up for our classes with

037information about the classes that their demographics seem to indicate they might be interested in. So there's, you know, I we have made a big shift over the last 5 years in how we approach the marketing of this. And I think there's still a lot of room for stepping into, you know, the way that marketing typically happens today. Um, that doesn't include the catalog, right? One person gets a catalog, they throw it away, that's the last contact they get until the next catalog versus they get the brochure, they go to the website, now we are serving them ads encouraging them to sign up or we are following them based on um the likelihood that they would sign up. I do have a couple questions about the broader report recommendations on the three-year execution plan. Do you

038have any specific milestones or deliverables um that you'd like to see for the strategic plan that uh for marketing, technology, and communications? Um other than the focus areas that I talked about, um nothing uh further than that. Um but that would certainly be a part of putting the plan together. And then on the economic model study, are there any outcomes that you're looking for for the study? It strikes me as something probably inspired this idea. Is it modeled after something else that you've seen elsewhere or that the committee's seen elsewhere? So really what inspired the idea was just um everybody knows that ACE is providing a good a good service but we don't know we don't know how good it is and and um you know the quite frankly the thought was well if people

039knew better what the economic impact was then that might be helpful in you know in in budgeting thoughts uh going forward for sure. So uh so that's really what what the inspiration is. Um you know there are um I know Holly had been had been in communication with uh with a couple people about um you know what what this this uh uh study could be. I mean yeah there's a lot showing bang for our buck I mean is important. Yeah, particularly with people talking about this budget frequently, right? Uh the last thing I want to leave you with, uh I know quite a bit about digital advertising and when we talk about needing to do something on a specific platform, we're missing the mark. It isn't about being on social media. It isn't about the

040size of the video or what have you. It's about reaching the audience wherever they happen to be, regardless of the medium, regardless of the venue. So, it shouldn't be thought of as we need social media ads. No, we need ads that reach people where they are, regardless of where they're going. Uh, it isn't a 30-se secondond video or a 15-second video. It is whatever content is suitable for the platform that they're consuming on. Um, happy to put you on a goat. I don't need one, but I appreciate it. Um, thank you. Thank you for your work, Mr. Moon. Oh, thank you, Dr. Anderson. Uh, thank you for the presentation. And I want to echo Dr. Anderson's comment about a providing information related to a prior year's recommendations and where we are working on those recommendation

041was very helpful and I'm glad to see that I think I saw something similar in all the advisory committee's report as well which was very refreshing uh as as a as a longtime board member so appreciate that and I following up some of the comments and questions country to cataloges and brochures and reaching out to uh right demographic etc. uh I'm feeling somewhat of a generational gap here uh you know between myself and my younger colleagues on the board that I really look forward to getting at least if you know even if it is once a year that real catalog because that reminds me of what I wanted to do with some of the courses that that I forgot to register for and I had interest in you know number of years ago I took

042some courses race and I you know went through that instead of going through I think there was that's my preferred method of doing it and I may not be the only one in the community when our community gets older and older I know even the older folks do have a are you probably much more s techs savvy than I am but there may be others who may prefer to flip through pages so keep that in mind brochure wise brochure is a good idea and I was thinking about whether we can work with county park authority to uh ask them to give us a page where we can put our our brochure our brochure and then save some money why not it's all taxpayers money and then and then just provide simple information uh with a

043QR code right there so that they can lead to a a website. Yes, we do currently. Um, uh, they provide us, I believe, a half page or a quarter of a page. We provide them a half page and a and a quarter of a page. Um, but it's just an advertisement. It does not get into anything specific. It does have a QR. Um, so we currently do that with um the catalog that goes out with parks and also catalog and brochures or whatever. But I think it serves two purposes. Trying to reach the demographic you want to reach and continue marketing us. But also sharing information with the community about what you are offering. So even for those who might not have ever thought about uh you know a a learning being educated on certain

044things could get interested in doing so. So so it's not just a repeat customers but the new customers that we might want to tap into. I know I'm running out of time here. Have you ever looked into a a AC as budget whether it's a self- sustaining and because number of years ago there was one of the issues whether we want to make ACES self sustaining programs or uh we didn't look too much at at budgeting this year. Um I know that that has come up uh in the past. Um um I think there was um an audit done in uh by the uh uh by Fairfax County, the uh the audit uh organization. Um so there uh I guess I I think right that the result of that audit was that there was no

045um there was no expectation at that point that the uh that the organization be self- sustaining. Um, I do know that uh that some of the grant money that that comes in from um uh like the adult education family literacy uh act uh you know they have programs that are that are funded uh and and grant money comes into ACE through there and I think also there's a integrated English language and civics education program that grant money comes through there. Um the for those uh for ACE to be able to get those grants though there has to be um matching funding uh you know from the local district. So, you know, if if ACE went completely self- sustained, then, you know, it'd be a double hit. You know, no transfer from the school operating fund,

046but then they also would not be able to get the uh uh you know, the grant money from those two programs. Thank you. I'm out of time. And thank you for your service, Mr. Thorenson. Thank you, Mr. Moon. Miss St. John Cunning. Thank you. Thank you for this presentation. Um I kind of am along with Mr. Moon. I enjoy getting the catalog and looking at it. Um and I'm going to one of the things that you said is that everybody knows uh ACE is providing a good service. Uh but my question that I think we're kind of dancing around here is does everybody know about ACE? And um I know that I have also taken ACE courses and I've uh taken what I guess you would call the adult enrichment courses. I've seen that those

047have declined in the catalog and I know that I did know one teacher and that part of it they said was compensation. Can you address that? Um so in terms of teacher compensation um our teachers uh we do work to make sure that they are compensated um along FCPS guidelines uh with the pay bands that are outlined by human resources. Um and we want to make sure that they are compensated uh well so that they are happy and that they're uh willing to come back and and either share their professional knowledge and skill or share their passion in an enrichment course and and bring that to others. Um so it is something that we are constantly looking at. Um you know postcoid the amount of in-person classes and really it's the amount of in-person teachers

048we we've struggled with that. um finding someone who is willing to come in and share their passion or share their professional knowledge with uh with students that are interested. So we are working to build back. We have hired more teachers um in enrichment in an apprenticeship and uh business and IT. Um we are frequently recruiting. Um we have uh positions posted uh currently on the the human resources website under other professional opportunities and then we're also we we take resumes through uh ACE jobs at fcps.edu. Um so we will look at that compensation. I want to make sure that our teachers are compensated well and um I have not gotten any feedback from individuals that have you know left or they're considering leaving because of compensation but like I said we do want to make

049sure that they are compensated well and um our pay bands will receive uh the increase that will come uh July 1 and so our teachers will also uh you know feel the effects of that in terms of their compensation. Um so in terms of what is that percentage of adult enrichment programming versus um and when I'm talking about adult I'm not talking about well what is the percentage of the adult enrichment type of programming do you know like what you categorize as adult enrichment I what I'm what I'm getting at is there are people like Mr. Moon and I that would be sitting at home that knew nothing about ACE got the catalog and said, "Oh, wow. This is a great cooking course. I've always wanted to learn how to, you know, cook Italian food

050and they're going to be teaching Italian at the same time." So, those are the kind of programs I'm talking about. In terms of overall percentage, um, I wouldn't be able to I I I don't have that information quickly and easily accessible. Um, in terms of enrollments, um, I can I can tell you, uh, via my spreadsheet here. Um, it's going to take me a minute to bring it up, but, um, I can tell you what we had in terms of enrollments for enrichment. course we have had some discussion during the year on really the the effect of COVID and um on ACE and I mean what it it seems like one of the one of the big issues that ACE is facing now is just that uh CO has really um decimated some of the

051it's the virtual you know the ver you know everything went virtual and people started to say oh you know I can do this I can do this online right and I mean if you go out online I mean there's there's a bazillion cooking classes that uh that you can take and people that you know will show you how to how to cook and so I think that I I think just the idea of being able to do things virtually now um versus before co there's been an impact on the on the course registrations as well. To give you uh to give you the the numbers um end of fiscal year last year um we had about 1,200 enrollments in uh adult enrichment courses. This includes um culinary uh you know other courses, knitting, things like

052that. And then also our foreign and sign courses, our language courses. Um those are under our enrichment category. So at the end of fiscal year 24, we had uh uh about 1,200. Right. So I'm going to move on. Well, I'm just going to make one comment about this in terms of those adult enrichment programs and how we're talking about people getting to know it and maybe marketing to senior living communities like Greens. I mean, I know I could get you guys to come in to speak to Greensp Springs, the Greensp Springs community in my district, and they would be all over it. And uh I I know that online is available, but sometimes what this offers is building community. And I think that a lot of communities, a lot of people are looking for that,

053and that's the added benefit. Um, I'm going to move on to uh your recommendation five to increase awareness uh with certain staff um in FCPS. What staff personnel have you identified that those that you would like to strengthen? Um well, the one that that comes immediately to mind would be Brian, your microphone, please. Thank you. Um the one that comes immediately to mind would be the the guidance counselors. Um like Paul when you go out to to visit high schools um you know who are the ones that you talk to? I also believe the the career and um the career office um was also part of that discussion as well as the counselors. So we um we work with uh college and career counselors at high school levels. Um Bob Sergeant is our ACE outreach

054specialist and he has a very good relationship with college and career counselors. Um, we also work with student counselors a lot obviously because they uh, you know, having one-on-one conversations with students uh, in addition to the college and career counselors. And I think the area that we maybe want to work into is just increase awareness um, to get into uh, let's say the um, the discussions between teachers and students. Um, just increasing the awareness because uh, I'm not in front of the student that might be a potential a student. And so I want to do my best to spread the message to that FCPS uh teacher um or counselor that is going to have that one-on-one discussion with that student. So when the student says, "I'm interested in X, the the teacher or the career

055counselor or the student counselor says, you know what, I have this information here or I I have a presentation coming up with Mr. Sergeant or Mr. Steiner. I think you should come to that." Um so that's that's really I would say our next level is the uh teachers and then also um we're pretty well known in the high schools. I think we are working into uh the middle schools also where there's discussions on uh career opportunities are happening. uh also um so I would like to suggest that you broaden your scope and include include parent leaison and it broadens your scope that it's not just student to student uh you know FCPS personnel to student but it's also FCPS personnel to families because a lot of those families could benefit from it and they have

056the language capabilities to deal with those families which brings me to my next question how much of this information is available in our seven major languages Um, so we do work with the translation office. Um, and uh I frequently get calls from them when they uh have a a parent or a student that needs something translated. Um, the good news is the new website uh does have uh the the translation capability. So that should be easily accessed in different languages. Um and then when we do have uh items go out um we often look at making sure that they are in multiple languages and language accessible or we um provide the information to find the translation services uh to assist with that. Thank you. I would recommend that you get in touch with family and

057school partnerships because a lot of your family liaison could get this message out to families where you would have parents that could take advantage of this programming as well as their students. Um, thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you, Miss St. John Cunning. Miss Dixit, thank you. Um thank you for the presentation. Um it's a it's a really good work for the community but I sometimes think about the the placement here. Um we are K12 education right mostly and obviously we cater to some adult uh students too but um the committee name itself is adult and community education. So I feel like it's coming from Fairfax County Public School. um are it is maybe the right message needs to be communicated to get to better more audience audience. I feel like maybe if

058it's sitting under Fairfax County government um it would be a more um more of an appropriate place for this committee um this work I shouldn't say committee uh but I I did want to ask that there are a lot of courses they're in IT and business and I you know those are very interesting I looked at the opportunities available for signups but a lot of people like everybody's saying that people don't know about them and I was wondering wondering if we are communicating to our high school students. Um and I know this is one of your recommendation but like CTE like uh are are we doing any direct interface with the CTE uh students enrolled right now? Uh yes, we are. Um I work closely with my uh CTE partners. I'm a former CTE teacher

059and administrator. Um so we communicate very well. Um several of our ACE instructors are also uh CTE teachers. So teachers at uh the high school during the day will teach the adult students in the evening. I would actually say that's like the best connection because that really helps spread the word. But we are working to make more and more inroads with our CTE students because we find that um students that have been in a CTE class or an academy class uh they they have a heightened awareness. They understand. So if they go through a dental technician program in the academy, um they have an awareness that we offer phabbotomy or we offer EKG or we offer EMT and that we're also easily accessible. So we've we've made some really good inroads with CTE, but we're

060always working to make more and improve. Um yeah, maybe it's not going to the parents. I meant to say like the students and the parents because I my son was in the academy CTE program but he he did the cyber security um course and got the certification for that from the fifth county academy but he did not know I guess it was maybe he didn't look up that he could do further his certification coming to ACE now he's he's not 18 years old but I know there's a waiver to do it and they can still participate. So I I think there is a missed opportunity there. um even though they probably it's going to CTE department but going directly to the students I I guess and the families of the students hey you have you're

061enrolled in this course but after this course even if there's no other course in FCPS but ACE can you know offer you those courses like that messaging is not it was not given to us at least um another thing I was saying looking at the new site was looking really interesting I just bot um and there's a search feature but is a way to add a chatbot for like a people say I'm looking for this course and use some of these uh new like generative uh AI uh features to enhance that experience of on finding the right course for them and like if somebody says I have done this course can you suggest what should be my next course and that feature I know it's not easy but there are a lot of uh advances

062in technologies happened last few years that we can utilize that. Um so we are looking at uh a chat feature. I would like to add that feature um just because in in terms of the marketplace I bought my last iPhone via chat from Verizon. So um I know how powerful that is. And then we do have staff members that could man that chatbot during the day from uh 9 to5. And so uh I would like to add that. um we're just learning the system and and questioning the the modality of how we can do that operate within FCPS policy and make that happen. But I do think that that is something that we can um bring to bear on the marketplace very soon. I I I really would like to do that and so along

063with learning the website and adding all of these new features um that is one of the items we would like to add and provide as a as a service to uh the community. That's great. Uh some AI courses addition on the IT section would be great um also to um enhance that and uh thank you for this. I'm really impressed with the work we are doing here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Dixit. I'll go ahead and take my turn. Um it appears that given the comments that have been provided by the board, um this was the right charge because we continue to need to expand the reach of ACE and to also articulate to the community the things that our students participate in that are ACE. As a parent, I did not know

064that the summer when a student takes the summer financial literacy course online that is it's administered by ACE. I didn't learn this until my own child went through it. um behind the wheel um opportunities a lot there's a lot of connections but it's kind of masked and it's not clear um that ACE is involved in some of those activities that impact our students directly. Um one of the things that I wanted to add regarding Miss St. John's um comment St. John Cunning's comments and questions about um compensation um I do know that Mr. Solomon worked with many of the teachers who are not FCPS teachers um in the past year because they were very distraught with not having the opportunity for benefits. Um and these are folks who essentially almost they carry what would be

065considered a full-time load. And so that has has impact and I know there's been some creative solutions um to address the short term but in the long term that will continue to be an issue because not all of our um not all of the safe um ACE instructors are teachers throughout the day. So I I want to be sure that that's placed in this conversation. um as well as the compensation. Um whenever there's an increase in staff compensation, it is definitely celebrated and it is definitely extended to ACE staff as well. What does not happen and as much as ACE attempts uh Mr. moon to be a self- sustaining because I think that's been the goal. Um the grants notwithstanding. Um it's impossible to keep up with the increases in compensation which um is welcome

066but there's again I've been on ACE for past four years. There's always this consternation of where is this compensation going to come from? Um the two and 3% of years past has caused a lot of concern. This 6% is giving the team a lot of concernation. Dr. read um because it has to be budgeted into a very tight landscape and so I want to be sure that we have some conversations about that. I'm very glad to to see that some of my comments have been asked by colleagues regarding um the brochure. I I do think we do have a subsection of our community that having that physical document is going to be the starter and making sure that whatever we're sending whether it be virtual or in um or um physical is translated so that

067there could be greater access to it and I also had questions about direct marketing to students. I I definitely see an opportunity to perhaps do that more. Um, you know, students have Schooly. I, you know, as a parent, I have Schooly and I see some of the things that schools post in order to, uh, make parents and students aware. And I wonder if you all have the same access. Uh in terms of marketing directly to students, um we are working to make sure that what we market and how we proceed is compliant with FCPS policy. Um so the answer is I would always want to market to more students. However, um I want to make sure that um you know, for example, if posters go out and they're posted, I know that uh they have

068to go through an approval process at the school level generally. Um so uh we want to make sure that we we follow those procedures or are sensitive to those procedures as we move forward with that marketing. So we are working with um various FCPS offices and departments just to make sure that one we can market and spread the message effectively uh to our high school students and our middle school students. Um but also we are sensitive to those policies and making sure that we um are are following all of the policies and rules. You know it it wouldn't make any sense to send a hundred posters uh to a high school and they're you know they don't get posted because we didn't send them to the right person for approval. So we are working uh

069with schools and staff on that. Sure. And I was not talking about physical documents. I was just talking about postings in schooly which would cost nothing. it would require very little in terms of transport of materials. Um but my time is up and um without objection we'll go ahead and have a 90 second followup for um second for gorounds for go backs go rounds. Oh my goodness, Miss um St. John Cunning. So yes, I do know that you do have a really good connection between CTE and the high school CTE and um ACE. If you could just explain that. I I specifically I know that Mr. Wolf does both from Edison. If you could explain that so the rest of our my colleagues understand how that works and how a lot of the students are

070positioned to follow on and take those classes to get their final you know certifications to move forward. Um so with apprenticeship um we utilize uh curriculum from the national center for construction education and research and this aligns with the curriculum that is provided at the academy level in uh apprenticeship courses or apprenticeable trade courses in the academy. Um and so what happens is a student in uh an electrical course or an HVAC course, they actually complete steps, they gain hours, and then they can continue those hours after they graduate and they uh come to us. So if a student completes electrical one or electrical 2, they would start with adult and community education and electrical 3 or at their appropriate level. Um, so that's something that we've worked really hard on and um it is

071a it's a direct link um that uh allows students to to really advance in their career and continue their education have a plan that will take them you know from when they enter the academy to I'm going to be a licensed uh electrician or a licensed HVAC technician. in health and medical fields. We are working to provide more complimentary um certifications. So a student could come to uh uh an academy and get dental technician or get EMT but then also um come to us and get uh another medical credential perhaps EKG technician or a phabbotomy technician or or add-ons uh that they could add to their certifications that they uh achieved at the academy level. Thank you. Could you please also explain how sometimes the way the system works, some of those students get um

072compensated by the company that eventually hires them so that even though they pay for the academy course, they get compensated because I think that's a really important That's a great question. Um thank you for asking that. So many of our apprentichip students are uh compensated by their employer and and honestly this is one of one of the best kept secrets about apprenticeship. um you can become a licensed trades person and not have any student debt and have all of the expenses paid for by your employer. Um so, uh my nephew is currently doing this. All right? He's in plumbing and so he um works for a plumbing company. um he lets them know that he'd like to pursue these courses and uh the plumbing company actually pays us uh via purchase order or they go

073on our website and they pay via credit card and so my nephew does not come out of pocket. This is more common than not. Most of our apprenticeship students u are essentially on scholarship through this apprenticeship program. Um if students come to us and they're they're not in that situation, we find that they take levels maybe one, maybe two, they will find employment and we try we tell them make sure you find the right employment that provides that tuition benefit. Um so that is uh an an excellent part of the Virginia apprenticeship program where u many I would say close to all apprentices that study with us are uh uh paid for by their employer. Thank you. Um, and just in closing, thank you for all of the work that you have done. Thank you

074to my colleagues for all their very thoughtful comments. Um, I I think it's safe to say that if ACE grows, we all benefit because again looking as to how we can reduce the impact on the operating funds um to sustain this very um important um provision as well as um an extension to the community I think would be important. And speaking to one of your recommendations, um, quantifying the impact of ACE would be paramount because it helps tells the story. Um, the very things that are being articulated right now somewhat anecdotally, but not really if they were quantified in and codified on on a document that would really make it uh much easier to determine the impact of ACE. Um, again, when once ACE does better, we all do better. And I think we will

075close here given I don't see any other placards. Um, thank you again for all of the work. We appreciate it and we look forward to the staff responses. And maybe we could add Dr. Reid a quick question regarding the schooly access. Um, because I find it a little odd that they would not be able to at least just place some things there for students to be able to to see that's available the same way that we do for CTE. Yes, ma'am. I think we can take care of that. Outstanding. Um, so it is now 11:17. Let's say 5 minutes just so we could allow for some transition. I believe MSAOC is next. Thank you all for coming and thank you to ACE members in the audience. So 11:25 All right, Mr. Chair, we're set to

076uh resume. If we could please come back to order, everybody. We'd like to get started, so we need to keep it down. All right, for those just joining us, um, as I said at the top of our first session, we're doing things a little differently this year thanks to our new community advisory committee uh, operating manual. Uh as you know we used to have work sessions in the evening during the week for these conversations typically attended by just the chair and another person from the committee for the presentations and now we are doing these summits where we invite everybody from the committee not only to present but then also to fellowship with us over lunch in between sessions uh so that we can continue to have the conversation and um partner together. Um as a

077reminder, we have a new process for the disposition of reports from committees. Now um the committees will receive uh the staff leaison in coordination with the schoolboard liaison during the year the report was prepared will submit a written response in plan of action to the committee and school board no later than the end of the first quarter of the next school year. So that's the end of the next quarter of next school year. Um and then the staff leaison shall update the committee on any progress at its December or January meeting following the report submission. So next December January the committee should be getting a report back from staff on where things stand based on this report. The schoolboard liaison will stay in regular contact with the staff leaison and update the school board on

078progress toward achieving the report's recommendations or planning for those recommendations. And then finally, the staff liaison will provide ongoing tracking and will be responsible for maintaining uh a record of actions taken in response to the report recommendations broken out by year. This follow-up shall be reviewed with the committee during the second or third quarter of each school year. And those measures were put in place to address a long-standing um room for growth critique of our committee process uh where it was felt that reports would be created, offered with recommendations and then there wouldn't be a clear path for um checking in on those recommendations and where they stand. So with that, I will turn it over to Miss St. John Cunning who is our liaison to MSAOC. Miss St. John Cunning. So thank you. Um,

079first of all, I want to thank um the Minority Student Achievement Oversight Committee that I used to know as MSA. Um, it is I'm I'm not sure how many times the name has changed. I was a member a long time ago as a community member. Uh, and I believe this is one of our longest uh lasting advisory committees. Um, so I know that the work you're doing is um important and part and vital to our community and I really appreciate all the work that you have done uh to get us to this point. Um, so without further ado, I'm just going to turn it over and I want to really take just a personal point of privilege and thank Mr. Kenny White for serving as my representative. uh he was going to retire and I

080was able to convince him to stay on. So I really appreciate that. Um and I'll turn it over right now to um the co-chairs um Mr. Bisera, Miss Craig, and Miss Nelson. Uh yes, good uh good morning. Um I think it's morning. Uh yes, morning. Uh Dr. Reed, school board members, thank you for having us again. Thank you for taking a weekend time, something new and something different. uh hopefully uh um better outcomes I guess in terms of participation. I'm going to just quickly let the the ladies introduce themselves. I am George Bisera, one of the co-chairs this year. This is the way MSAOC works is we have two co-chairs, a second year co-chair, first year co-chair and a chair in waiting. Uh traditionally, as you can imagine, we've never uh we don't have a

081department. So, it's kind of really impossible for one person to know everything that that our charge usually entails. Um, but yes, with that said, uh, I'm the second year co-chair and, uh, just a point of privilege. I'm just going back to what Mr. Moon and Mr. Mackov has always known me before when I first started with suits. Uh, so I know it's been a while. Uh, you guys became family, so I dress down way a lot. And, uh, so, but with with that said, I pass it over to the ladies to my right. Good morning. My name is Kia Craig and I am a co-chair with George and I disagree George, you know about nine ten of everything. You very well informed. Um, good morning everybody and thank you all for being here with us

082today. Good morning everybody. I'm Juliana Nelson. I think I am the newbie of this environment and when I was nominated as the co-chair in training, I didn't expect to have the honor to speak to um this fantastic and impressive group of people that actually supported my children's education through and through. Thank you for the honor. Appreciate it. And with that said before I start on with our slide presentation uh and I know board I mentioned and appreciate your time here today and I hope also to with the same token that uh I know we're hungry I know we have time limits today but hopefully our time does not uh get truncated uh for our presentation that our committee has worked on for the whole year just like every other advisory committee. Uh but with that

083said I also like to start with the most important thing that we always do is our membership. Uh we can't we can't do that without the people in the room on a monthly basis. Uh I would I'm going to go around and and not group up the folks, but so you know who is with us. Uh if you're a school board member representative from MSAOC, if you could please stand up. [Music] [Applause] Okay, with that said, then the next group is our community representative and organization. Uh folks, if you can if you could stand up and I'm one of them. [Applause] So, and last definitely not least uh by far is our staff representative. We've always at MSAOC have get that collaboration with all three parts. who've always wanted to come to the board, not

084giving false data, false conclusions, but at the same time, uh, not repetitive work. Uh, but our staff representatives, you guys can stand up. And with that said, we'll get to the meat of our Oh, oh, my There you go. Uh, and our student representative. And I and I know we usually don't do this, but I uh uh the person who will be standing up, he's been two years. He's been awesome. And uh so if you could stand up. There you go. Now we'll get into the meat of our presentation, which I'll let uh the ladies present. And I start with Miss K. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Uh charge for this year is on the slide above. Uh this is no surprise to you all. This is the similar charge as last year. Uh last year is

085more the first year of the strategic plan. This year is obviously more of a accountability piece that that we envisioned. Um but you can read on the screen ahead and uh and I think this also mirrored up by not coincidence what the SAC did with their recommendations of their goals. Right? So uh kudos to that too. The system is looking from the from not just the adult side but from the student science. So with that said again I will pass over to Miss Craig. [Music] Good morning again. Um we focused on we will be focusing on our subcommittee work and this subcommittee for pillar A focusing on learning environment. They looked at social and emotional learning also known as SEAL. We love a good acronym and it's fundamental um as it is fundamental to the

086learning process. And so SEAL or the social emotional learning screener or survey data for elementary students shows a significant gap regarding student sense of belonging, self-management, relationship skills, and other SEAL areas um for multilingual and for black students. So to ensure a positive climate, a positive school climate and a diverse population, we must elevate student voice to identify the steps that must be taken to create an optimal learning environment for each student by establishing strong social and emotional well-beings. Schools can then develop stronger academic, socially active, and confident learners who are college and career ready. The MSAOC found that many FCPS elementary schools do not currently have anCCL curriculum or framework in place. And so we recommend that the chief academic office implements a standardized K through6CAL program curriculum. Next, also for pillar A, part

087of social and emotional learning is promoting a sense of belonging in the school. So, the screener data for students in middle school and high school showed similar gaps in belonging and other areas measured for black students and multilingual learners. Including students in leadership opportunities adds to the sense of feeling included in a school, especially for students from minoritized groups. While leadership opportunities for middle and high school students may seem to be abundant, we found that they are inconsistent across schools, they may not be accessible to all students and do not necessarily elevate student voice and agency. As a result, the MSAOC recommends that the chief of schools collaborates with the chief academic office to expand secondary leadership opportunities. Next up, Miss Nelson will now continue with pillar B. So, as you notice, pillar A closed

088with leadership opportunities, and that was really the central point we focused on with pillar B. And we were very lucky to have our student representative being the lead of this pillar and from his experience and from all the data we were able to collect, we built these recommendations. So data from the 2024 Fairfax Youth Survey showed that declining access to leadership opportunity affects students interest along with our ability to be vocal and active citizens in our community. In trying to find data on student leadership, we realized that there was no standardized framework allowing to capture data sets essentials to assess and provide insight into opportunities presented to students. There is a real need for consistency across schools in leadership opportunities for minority students. If you don't see leaders like yourself, you don't think you can

089take leadership roles. If we need to we need to see the data and the stories behind the data to encourage more students for from underrepresented groups. For this reason, we recommend that the office of the chief of schools develop a systemwise data collection tool as a baseline to analyze and identify crucial access and equity gaps. Now transitioning to our recommendation for partnership again student focus student leadership opportunities. Students leadership experiences cultivate critical communication decisions making and advocacy skills contributing to the long-term academic and career success. When marginalized students are excluded from these opportunities, it reinforces existing disparities in access to power, representation, and most importantly, it shuts down voices within the school system and beyond. The division's erratic implementation of liverin programs creates systemic barriers for marginalized students to participate in key areas such as

090transportation, time of day, and accurate dissemination of interpretation services. The Lewis leadership program stands out as a shining example of how to provide outreach to underserved students and develop leadership skills. This program, which was designed jointly by students, school staff, and community members, serves as a model of student voice and agency in learning. We recommend that the chief of schools collaborates with the chief academic office to develop a curriculum for all schools to foster leadership skills and to create more programs like the Lewis leadership program at additional schools. With this, I yield back to the next recommendation. Thank you. or pillar C um focusing on workforce more specifically focusing on staff retention. Studies show that diverse and inclusive learning environments boost student engagement and outcomes. Staff also benefit from a diverse working environment. FCPS has

091succeeded admiraally this year in recruiting diverse employees and most peer groups for which FCPS collects data, specifically Asian, black, African-American, Hispanic or Latino, the percentage of active employees in these categories have increased. However, the news on teacher retention in these historically underrepresented communities isn't as encouraging. While we're hiring teachers from diverse communities, those teachers aren't staying. To better understand the picture of staff retention, we evaluated existing data on peer group demographics. Who's being hired? Who's leaving associations and affinity groups contribute to employees sense of belonging? And also understanding and addressing the educational needs of students from similar backgrounds. So in speaking with these groups, we found that some teachers may leave because of school environments that do not feel safe or responsive, nor do they reliably value and support staff voices and feedback. So to

092improve working conditions for staff from minoritized groups, we recommend enhanced collaboration and resource sharing between human resources and the chief equity office. This collaboration could work to resolve workplace issues, expand professional learning on cultural competence, outreach to underrepresented groups, and full support for affinity groups and associations. Additionally, the monthly separation reports for both fiscal year 2024, fiscal year 2025, black and Hispanic or Latino group peer groups left FCPS at disproportionately higher rates. These reports did not show specific staff roles, but we do advocate for HR to disagregate the data so that we can get at the cause of these employees leaving at higher rates. We also know that it is vitally important for students to see teachers who reflect their diversity and the diversity of their communities. There are many school-based leadership roles that a

093teacher might take on which provide opportunities for leadership development and create job satisfaction. However, these roles are designated at the school level and there is not currently a process to collect the data on who is offered these roles. An example would be a department lead um at secondary schools or a team lead. The MSAOC recommends that HR creates and implements a process to find out who gets these school level opportunities for leadership. Next up, pillar D. George. Uh yes, pillar D. Um as a states equity, excellence and accountability. Uh before mentioning these recommendations, I forgot to mention earlier that this is probably our most important pillar in terms of the environment we live in. MSOC is definitely um encouraging the route that the system and Dr. Reed is going with in this area of equity.

094Uh hard conversations, but at the same time, you have the fortitude to speak what our community wants. Well, with that said, the recommendations for this year for this pillar are pretty straightforward for the different part the two different recommendations. Basically, the first one says where are they doing it well in terms of participation for getting the algebra one uh for students uh Hispanic and African-Americans to get the particip participation rate uh higher than to get these kids into a room by 8th grade. But with that said also is not just the participation but also in subsequent years is also the success just not who's participating in but how are they doing it is just not check the box especially with the system going to with Dr. reach saying in the future for algebra 2 in

095high school. If we're already out re reaching out for the goal of algebra 2 trig in high school for rec for graduation, we're not even done with the algebra one piece and that still has to be accomplished but applaud the effort where the system wants to go in the next few years. Uh this um this the second one has to do more with an outreach in terms of maybe the communication shop with our family leaison with our uh MSOC parent handbook is to have our communities uh to know about the information uh as one of our members put galvanize this this area and how to uh proceed forward. Um and with that uh that's our our end of our presentation but in terms of I like to thank some folks that I had earlier uh

096to all the presenters. I think we're blessed here at MSAOC and with Dr. Reid and Lenor leadership team um our super uh superintendent leaison as the board voted several years ago were the only advisory committee with two LT members leadership team members and that's uh uh for many years about more than near 15 years Dr. Presidio and uh and and Dr. King the chief equity officer uh as our superintendent less on with that said our presenters this year that are here in the room or maybe listening uh Miss Hall uh Mr. Solomon Miss Samsky uh Marcy Neil and Candace Hudson came twice uh we listened to you Dr. to read about presenting goal four. We added that to our uh into our agenda and so we had them back. Uh Miss Marie Lemon and Dr.

097Maria Goenova and Dr. De Deborah March obviously folks from the Lewis Academy. So you can mention that uh where some of our recommendations came from. Uh and uh before I move on also to to extend to the drains of community with Miss Lady if she's listening um to Mr. Moon and to Mr. Mavine our condolences in the passing of Janie Strauss um in terms of how this lady first personally great to talk with hard conversations. We might not have always agreed, but if we appreciated the effort and for our membership, um, Miss Strauss is the one who put Judy Howard on MSAOC. Hard conversations, but she was willing to put a person who was a parent, a minority, an employee on MSAOC. and and when she got more entrenched into the system with her roles

098understood she had to step back she appointed her husband Ted Howard. So in terms of our membership that's how how much she made those hard decisions and a lot of people like to know a lot of one one Fairfax the successful TR youth policy team is the she was one of the first school board members assigned uh that and Miss Dar Kofax too so with Kathy Hun supervisor Kathy Hun so we appreciated her but she's done what she did and some of her uh things won't be not fully understood and recognized until further down the road her. So for Miss Lady, if you can send that back to your community, we really do appreciate her life in celebration of what she had done on this earth. Thank you. And we're here for some questions. Thank

099you so much for that recognition. Um first up, um Mr. um well, I can't Kyle just drew a blank. Mr. Kyle, I just drew a blank. It's It's your cute little daughter. I told uh I said she's the model board member because she's being quiet and she's just coloring. The model school board member. Um question going back to the staff retention slides 11 and 12. Can I just get some feedback from HR about I just kind of assumed that when we did separation we were looking at data and I would think that you know demographic data would be part of that. So, can we just get some a response to that? Absolutely. No, and it's a really good question. Uh, the employee separation report shows employee composition and employee separations as a total. But as

100part of the recommendation that MSAOC shared, it currently does not disagregate separations by job category. So, think teacher, assistant principal, principal, etc. And then further, it doesn't show that disagregation by subgroup. So, that's part of the challenge. It shows a total total. And in some of those different employee categories, we may have higher representation than in others. Okay. So, can we do that? Can we drill down farther? It sounds like that's what they're asking for. So, not only can we, but is there utility in drilling down further with this data like the recommendation is? We absolutely can. And I think it starts by looking at the composition by subgroup. So in other words, all of the different job categories that we have, teachers, counselors, assistant, principles, and then looking at that by subgroup in terms

101of how many active employees there are. And then yes, we can look at separations. Okay, great. Thank you. Could I could I add something to that? Uh do I point my question to you, chair, or do I point to Miss uh Miss Cunning? Oh, I'm so sorry. I add something. Sure. Okay. Uh so in that recommendation what Mr. Solomon said and Mr. McDaniel as you pointed out which I don't want to be lost in the conversation here is the reason we're asking for this it is how are you building your bench? How you how is this data not being collected and I'm not for not not bad or good reasons when a school makes a decision who is the lead at that school right those are things HR has never collected not no mal intense

102but that can answer the question of how are we building that bench how are we retaining how is our system doing with biases discrimination in general right and that's I think the heart of of our of our request in this Thank you. Um, Mr. Fr. Thank you and thank you for all the work that went into this. I'm going to steer clear of some of the workforce questions that I might normally have because I think we might want to share this with our collective bargaining partners and see how their membership wants to advocate on some of it. Obviously, I agree with Mr. McDaniel that there are certain things that we should probably be tracking uh because it'll be informative of hiring practices and and outreach efforts and everything else. So, I I appreciate that being

103brought up. I think that's a an essential seemingly easy fix. Um in terms of leadership programs and um this this is I think in this year's report the thing that interests me most. What barriers do you see for underrepresented students participating in student leadership at the secondary level? Um, and I'm thinking about what can change for next year even though we're at the end of this year. How can we address that in a way that impacts next year? because I I don't think it's feasible necessarily that we're going to stand up a offshoot of um Lewis Academy at this school or that school in three months or whatever. But if we're noticing a lack of representation in our student leadership programs at various schools, what can we be doing immediately? What communication could be had

104with staff to begin addressing that now for next year? What we strongly realized was the fact that the data that we had available was like you know the SCCL data that was showing that a lot of students were currently not identifying with their environment and therefore if you don't identify your environment you will not feel comfortable with the ambition to lead it and so at this point focusing on language behind leadership opportunities that don't speak to acknowledge, hey, come to this program because you're a leader, but more come to this program to become a leader and focusing on like as you saw in our recommendations, really core aspects that will be useful to them beyond just their academic timeline. program management. It's gives you the ability to take the situation from A to B and

105really encompasses the skill that will cover a leader and that will make them comfortable outside of the school system. So switching the narrative more from come to this program if you're a leader into come to this program to become a leader and to grow the crucial skills we identified as components for it. Does that answer your question? I mean, it does in part. You know, if you continue to do the same things that you've always done, you'll always get the same results. And if we continue to talk about things the way that we've always talked about them, things won't change either, right? So, I I think that that's accurate that um in order to communicate to the right people, you have to communicate in a way that they're going to hear you um and feel

106like they're welcome as well. So, I appreciate that. And in the private world, I've seen that in the way that people hire, right? like uh the way that one presents a job description. If you're not getting the pool of talent that you're looking for, then you're not presenting it in a way that's going to achieve that talent pool. The same thing applies here. So, I appreciate that recommendation and and something I'll be watching for staff to follow up on. Um let's see here. I think that might be it for me for now and I might have a go back. Thank you. Um, and I'm going to go to Mr. Meline. And that's why I couldn't think of Mr. McDaniel because I had the two Macs right next to each other and I wanted to say

107Meline and I knew it wasn't Melb. But your turn, Mr. Meline. Well, thank you so much and thank you, um, George for your remarks about Janie. Um, you know, it's, uh, her loss is certainly being felt in many ways and her support of MSCO MSOC over the years was certainly pronounced. So, thank you for that. Um uh turning to the points um that uh Mr. Fr off on, you know, the the school board um this year, as you were aware, has um rebirthed our student leadership um development program and George, I know you're very familiar with that program because your son was in the first class back in 2012, right? Um, so it's all gone come full circle and one of the things that you know we had I think and Kevin who's not here

108can correct me but I think we had more than 100 applicants to that program. Um, just which just shows that there is um, uh, a strong desire among our students to have kind of that leadership experience. Um, and one of the things I was pleased to see is that I think at least twothirds of our participants were people of color this year. So, and that's that's traditionally been the case. So, um, anyway, that's just one additional leadership opportunity out there. Um, but I do want to, um, kind of probe you a little bit on how you want these, um, additional school-based, uh, leadership opportunities, um, to look like. Obviously, we have SACE, SGA, class office. Um, some schools have principal um, advisory council type positions. Um, some I don't think all schools have leadership classes.

109Um my my concern with leadership classes has always been that you know we don't have enough space in our our schedules as students to um uh to fit that in as an additional elective. And what often happens is you they end up housing the the students who are already in the leadership you know SGA class office and whatnot. So, are we looking at something like um an eighth period at TJ where you know you just open up an opportunity for more people to participate? I know you've mentioned Lewis Leadership um academy um obviously that was established with a specific purpose, specific geographic area uh with a specific namesake um and I don't obviously there it requires central office support and things like that. Um, so anyway, I just raise all that to try and get

110a better sense of what you're looking for. Yeah, not an easy uh question. Uh, I I think you kind of cled over what the issue is though. Is an inventory where we're at now, right? You you've been around and you know this era very well. I think we have to get a baseline. what is the composition of your SA uh SGAA every type of leadership in in this school system see where we're at the same time it's all siloed we all talked you know student leader here student leader here and I'm going to steal some thunder from my daughter why isn't there a student congress conference every year where you get leaders different groups with student leaders that come in religious groups they could be affinity groups they can be the human rights commission at

111the county right All these things come together. Everyone has their thing. The Lewis Academy, right, as one area program has worked there. But in terms of your question, we didn't answer that question with Mr. Frisch's question because Mr. Frisch's question was what can we do now? Right. One thing is overall our our recommendation would be the curriculum to make that SGA class, leadership class at a school more structured. It isn't just you just come there and you volunteer at a thousand events or you come after school this is your SGA or uh to the next level at the superintendent student advisory council. One thing that could be done there is just like Dr. Reed you've done a great job with their family vision group was that intentionality is I am not getting the parents at

112the PTSA meeting. Now the next step is maybe to extend it to your students and to each school the 24 high school the alternative schools let's I forget them is to uh intentionality of what composition you want there because like um just said I think that stuck out when we had our conversations and creating our report is it isn't a recognition of the student leaders that's who you get maybe the focus should be developing our student leaders and I I think that's what the Lewis Academy intrinsically does, but that that's not going to work everywhere. It has to be within and that community understanding. So to your answer, what that's the overall goal as a curriculum, more structure, more focus, more intentionality. Like I tell the board of supervisors, when you do a committee, a

113task force, don't sign up the same folks. Let the community groups commute with the group and let them be questioned who they represent the community and then the elected leaders pick and choose who they really know is the community demographics. So that that's one aspect, but it's it's not an easy fix overnight. Well, George, thank you for that. And I think the um I would love absolutely love to see a a survey of, you know, what actually exists in every school just so we know what we're working with, right? Um and the other the last piece I'll add is just, you know, anecdotally, and you know, this is this is not a bad thing. I think it's a success it's a success story. Um but if you look countywide at our SGA SACE um class

114office um they they have become very heavily um women um and that's uh you know you go to graduations you see uh it's all female class officers which is a great thing but I do worry about um our young men as well. So we we want to make sure that we have that gender diversity as well. One last point. Uh, one thing that the subcommittee did, uh, state is, uh, the realities that multilingual, uh, language learners and special education students do not see those opportunities, see that they become leaders. So, I don't want to just what the recommendations at a general overview say, but that specific community says, uh, if they don't feel that, if they, how can I say that? Calling out my daughter again. I she went today the other day with do

115to Dr. reads uh boundary and she said this fun in a fun way but it's it's her reality is she says oh it's my SGA class here tonight but let that stink in sick in when she sees from her eyes who's here from a region of the county that she knows also and it's not being represented there. I would like to take us back to the recommendation. The first one really speaks to the lack of data. You cannot find your data points if you don't have a framework and a framework at this stage can be very like you know light and and I'll say forgiving and then gradually as the process refineses and we get more data then we can do a little more targeting and then we can really zone in through the years.

116But for a starting point, it was really surprising not to find any data. And from my world, when you have no data, it speaks volume to what you're missing. So, it's actually louder in in our perspective. And and we got very excited throughout this effort. But we're lucky to already have a model that we can look loosely pick from and create that framework and see what the key points we which are the key points we can start collecting data from and build and grow our students with. Thank you. Uh Miss Dixit. Yes. She was Yes, she was first. Okay. Thank you so much. It was a very good presentation. I really like all the suggestions made and uh I just want to you know make sure that we follow through these things right like that's

117really good looks good on the paper but actually in practicality how much is are we doing it and that's uh something I would like to take seriously from anything coming from our advisory committees um that we follow through and take action items on that. So I like how you have separated um the each office responsible for each of the suggestions and u and that would be something Dr. read can you know look at and and just take up with that specific department to kind of see the implementation but I I did understand uh why leadership is important um as myself as a person of color I sometime I don't see as myself I have a seat at the table or I could be the voice um and just knowing that even though after doing business

118for so many years and and doing a lot of things I still did not think I deserve the school board office. So this is real. So for our students, it's also very real. So I just want to say that it just makes me emotional. Sorry. Okay. Well, we'll take a break from Miss Dixit and um Miss Rajna, Miss I'm sorry, Miss Seiswa War followed by Mr. Moon. Thank you. And I just want to pick up what my colleague left off with. Um I'm a very capable, very well- educated woman of color and I never saw any leader who looked like me. There was I never saw a South Asian leader. I think it's very sad actually that it took till 2020 to have the first Asian-American woman on this school board and that was me

119and now we have the second. like I think it's a really sad statement, you know, um, in our county and I think it's a um, so I'm just going to put that out there and I think that what Miss Dix was bring there's an empowerment and there's a you belong here part of that, you know, when you're teaching leadership, right? I think it's even stepping back and saying we're going to teach you how to be a leader, but we're also going to like show from day one that we believe you all are leaders and should be leaders and because if you don't see yourself reflected, right? I will tell you I learned that I could do this in fifth grade, but I was never encouraged after that when my teacher had a save the whales

120campaign. Seriously. And we all wrote letters and I remember thinking, "Wow, I didn't know I could save a whale." Right? And but like that's a little bit of empowerment of like you can do something but it's then never said you should go run or you should go be a leader because it's just not seen. And so I think that's a really important point. So I want to make a couple points around I love your idea of the Lewis Academy, right? But also what can we do now? So the first thought I kind of came to my mind is middle school, right? Because Mr. Mlean is right. There's a lot of pressure on classes in in the high school level, but middle school seems like the perfect breeding ground for that leadership, right? They're learning to

121be teens and and young adults anyway because you're making that transition from elementary to middle school. We have a middle school after school program for at least another year. And I think that would be a great place to embed, we've talked about speech and debate, right? But great place to embed leadership empowerment, leadership skills, how to be a leader. So then when they're going into high school, they've already kind of been exposed to that. And we have eighth grade civics and what a great unit or section of eighth grade civics to talk about how to be a leader, talk about seeing yourself reflected in your leaders and all the things. So if you had like, you know, a multi-pronged at middle school as a starting point. I'm not saying it's an ending point between the

122afterchool program and the civics class, I think that's where I would recommend putting our efforts around this prong. Not that there aren't other places, of course, but I think as a starting point, that's what I would love to see. I also I agree with you, the SGA class. I in fact at some schools they almost tell you you can't be an SJA if you're not in the leadership class which I think is really problematic for students who for whatever reason may not have an extra class period are special ed students or multilingual students right that's a huge barrier when they are taking other classes or maybe not encouraged to be in that class I don't think it should be a barrier to being an SGA by having to take a class I think that's a

123real problem to be perfectly honest I'm not saying the class isn't good but that barrier should not be there So those are the two things. I have more but I give it just my last 10 seconds. I really appreciate all your hard work and your time. Thank you for this report. I can quickly comment. Uh Mr. Dix, how you feel? I think Ryan and Mr. Moon have known me for a while. I get emotional. Uh what I found this year out of our subcommittees a theme of our students saying where do we see ourselves as leaders and the adults saying on the staff side how can I get up here there's no program and if you do a program other parts of society says why are we creating a separate thing for them. Then the

124time that we're in, we demolish those things. I'm speaking nothing new here to you, Mr. Moon, right? You've advocated for this every ask and every year or so. The numbers, it's just about numbers, right? It's also people. So when you see a students now, current student feeling that and you see a staff feeling that, that's our society right now. That's just the realities. On a personal note, when I first started here, who do you think I looked to to talk to? Maybe Mrs. Hone. There is no Hispanic. When I advocated for the board of supervisor for so many years, who did I turn to? Miss Kathy Hudgens. because that was the I get outreach to. Thank you for sharing that. Mr. Dix, would you like to continue? Um, yeah. I just want to continue on

125the same track. I think the leadership opportunity is really in our schools and I I I feel like a portrait of a graduate is basically encompensate all that. I was recently at a school where the uh English Esau students were m doing their pogs presentation. It was at uh Franklin Middle School and and they were incredible. They they hit every aspect of POGs um different pillars and talked about excellent communicators, collaborators and I just saw that leadership quality building into them um naturally as as a part of that. So I I just know that there are opportunity exist. We just have to use them more and more especially in our ESOL classes, multilingual classes and also uh these students should be uh who are have and a teacher spark some sparks in this some student

126some students are natural leaders they don't know it but they have that that spark in them and and teacher is like the best person to see see that spark and maybe say you know this student can go to uh you know other the leadership committee or something at the school level. Um and uh I I just I know there are um FCP is doing really good job with um building that confidence in students but it has to be across the board in all our schools. So but I was very inspired to see that was happening in our schools. Um thank you. And lastly I will say that um Shark Tank was also one of the things I saw and um this built so much confidence in students is pitching their business ideas or any ideas

127and it doesn't have to go to full circle like starting a business but then they coming up together with an idea and then pitching it to the and that was another thing I saw at Franklin Middle School that students are doing that in their civic class and doing uh business presentation to their fellow students and to the teachers and and u um so great work is happening and and just um impressed to see that but I I I do understand that it doesn't go to every student of our school so we need work to do. Thank you. Like speaking here we all realize that like you know there's a lot of leaders but the ones we see are the ones that are able to take that leap and speak out and show it. So when

128you mention like you know at the middle school the opportunity to give them the opportunity to learn how to speak up to understand that hey you have an accent but you can still be heard because that is what refrains a lot of folks from when you hear leadership you will be speaking representing being in front of people and that is the piece they shut down each and every time because they feel they look funny they speak funny and that is why the data was so crucial it's rooted there you have so many brilliant students, but it's only the one that have been able to be to test that leap and speak out that you will see and say, "Oh, he's a leader." There's so many untold leaders. So, maybe the campaign should be bring out

129your leader. So, just a thought from a girl with an accent. Thank you for that, U Mr. Moon. Uh, thank you. And I do not want to get emotional. Uh Mr. Baser, you and I go back many years, quarter century. Uh I remember you being in your suit. Uh you look good. You still look the same from 25 years ago. Miss uh you know, uh you talked about a the leadership. Leadership is not just in student government or local government, state government etc. But leadership can also that leadership opportunities for everybody and should be equally applicable to all the programs we have within FCPS. Someone mentioned about multilingual learners uh not having opportunity to step up. they don't and they need to be encouraged to step up. A a one of the programs that I

130remember which I found quite moving was a one particular high school offering programs musicals and plays for multilingual learners. You know a lot of times you do you do you know students go through auditions auditions for musicals and plays. If you are multilingual learners you're just starting to learn the new language chance of you passing the audition is going to be very low that doesn't mean that particular student does not have gift or talent in music or acting just a language just happens to be a barrier. I still speak funny, don't I? With a funny accent, even after 50 years, 50, this is my 51st year of living in the US. But why couldn't he create more opportunities for those multilingual learners and special educ all other students? I was going to talk about algebra

131one but but I'm spending my time on this one because we've been several board members were talking about this now I'm going to go algebra one by eight and let me ask you this question Mr. Shar uh maybe this one is something the board will discuss I should bring up when we talk about academic goals is as we encouraged more and more students to take eligible one by eighth grade and you are asking your recommendation seven is identifying schools where less than 75% more or less it's supposed to be less than more scale other ones. Sure. Sure. If you start focusing putting students to eligible one by eight, you if you're just focusing on middle schools, it may be too late. It may be too late. You got to start from elementary. So you got

132to prepare students to be ready to be able to take a higher level math when they get to middle school by 8th grade. just wanted to have your thoughts and comments on I'm sorry I was more talking general when when I said that but it's obviously as you all are I consider graduate students through know this FCPS world yes obviously it starts at elementary how do you ramp that up how do you get the prek how do you get early education then to the identification process maybe look at identification process and then ramping up you know you know, your your strategies, your one of us are advocy for our parents, right? We that was one of our recommendations. How do we get them involved? But yes, like you said, it has to start the elementary

133years. But um that's where the the analysis come. I I can give you the example Walt Whitman, right? We were there the other day and and he mentioned the participary participation rate, right? that that so what they're doing I don't know if that's the answer but at least it's a start but was 85%. And so that's I can say on terms of the education side, strategy side, I would say maybe start there as a base. I'm not an educator. I'm a statistician by trade. Um but yeah, that's answer your question on on on that end. Thank you. Um so I I will take a turn and first of all this is an emotional issue. It was an emotional issue 33 years ago, 60 years ago, 100 years ago. Um, and it's sad that it still

134is. Um, and I really respect and admire the work of this committee because we do talk a lot about data, which is critical, but there's a lot of heart in this committee, too, because these committee members feel what our students feel. And we know that academics are critical, but if a student doesn't feel comfortable, that in and of itself is a personal barrier. And if they're not feeling comfortable because of who they are, because they're otherred for whatever reason, that's something we have to address. Um, so I'm going to the uh SEAL learning environment and your recommendations there and ask you how would you foresee that being implemented in the schools? Your recommendations both for elementary and you're talking about establishing a curriculum for both that is consistent, but how would you foresee that being

135implemented? Thank goodness we have support in the room to address that. Um, we have members from that subcommittee. And you can step up to a mic for pillar A. [Laughter] mic. Thank you, Mr. Shaw. I'm going to fumble through this because this this means so I'm going to say we owe you a little bit more granularity on this but it we we started with you know having the curriculum that's what we we we we ask for and I'm not sure if we can do it for every you how broadly we can do it. But what we asked for was to to implement the curriculum. Once we have implemented the curriculum, we ask that we we develop the metrics to to track. And I'm hoping now I'm I'm answering, you know, your your question, but it

136starts with with implementing the curriculum because we found that there are there's a lack of the the curriculum. So, I'm hope I'm I'm on point with with what you ask, but I I'm going to take we owe you more because um Jason is our subject matter expert. I came on this committee to learn from them. The others I knew, but this one, but they what they have forgotten I am still trying to learn. start with the curriculum and um you know track it as we we implement and so on see how it's to add to to add to Bob missing con Oh thank you good afternoon uh we focused on the elementary school level you know as a secondary and middle school principal We very much wanted to consider for future years the secondary level.

137Uh but principal concerns from middle school and from high school is fitting it in time-wise. We already feel like there's such great commitments um and we're finding it really difficult to get through that cell uh time and you know the constraints that we have. So we said, okay, let's focus on a stronger foundation at the elementary school levels now, but we definitely want to consider in future years in the committee of looking at middle school and high school. We recognize as growth points. Um so we'd love to partner uh with any of our you know teams to see how we could more strategically do that um to ensure that our students uh are receiving that curriculum base. to to add to that that also is uh another reason they put the recommendation is uh I

138think this is nothing new to you all as a body now it's a matter of fact of choosing it and moving forward but from our understanding the choosing part is the one that's being debated right so this is more of recommendation this is we prefer to move on in the system on top of that uh uh what Monica had said is so we also met with Mr. Mukai this year my we asked Mr. Dr. Pon you know to meet the new principal at TJ and to see just to get a just a sense in a in a in a relationship that MSOC has has done for several principles uh of what that school represents. But one other thing he said and it just doesn't pertain to elementary but this is where we get into the

139high school end is their students not feeling wanted or in place or at the right situation. So if that type of ch a student is feeling that then it just trickles down to where that started from from what any type of student you can think of right because if you're using that school as a symbol they're also having the issues of of belonging at that school. Thank you. Um, I also want to go and actually ask um um Mr. Solomon, in terms of separation and desegregating that data, when you're looking at separation, does that also include um our custodians or um food service workers? That's an excellent question. The current monthly separation report includes all employees. Uh, and it's not broken down, I'm sorry, the second page is broken down by those categories, custodians, uh,

140teachers, and everyone else. Yes. But the portion of the report that includes all of our separations is an aggregate of all employees. Okay. Um, the reason I raised that is that's where I can see maybe some disproportionality. Um, the other thing I would like for you to address and uh speak to is something that I know we've worked with with our affinity groups and a pilot project that was started um in an effort to take into consideration some of our undermployed minority um uh employees and to try to give them the opportunity to to to achieve and to and to grow. Um could you please speak to the Avonza program? Absolutely. Uh so one of the things that was crystal clear to us is that across the nation approximately 8% of people are undermployed and

141what that means is they have skills to do higher level work but due to barriers to entry barriers to access and things of that nature they're not performing that higher level work. uh in our context for teachers, we have incredible instructional assistants, substitute teachers, custodians, and people in a variety of different positions, community members who have bachelor's degrees, but who don't hold teaching licenses in the state of Virginia. Um, and what that means is they could be incredible, amazing teachers, but because they don't hold that license, they're not able to be in that pos they're not able to be in that role or in that position. So we actually are working to pay for and we are paying for 100 undermployed staff members and community members to obtain lensure through I teach an alternative route

142to lensure um so that they're able to move from that underemployed status again as an instructional assistant a substitute teacher custodian community member whatever the case is to a full-time classroom teaching position for the 2526 school year. And in addition to that, we've also explored a ton of other alternative pathways that give people access to the profession and really remove those barriers so that people have an opportunity to obtain lensure. Some of those include the one-year local eligibility license, which in the state of Virginia, the superintendent and board chair have the authority to sign. And essentially what that means is for somebody who holds a bachelor's degree, who's interested in teaching, who's demonstrated a history and a track record of success working with students, but once again doesn't hold that Virginia teaching license and needs

143time to obtain lensure, they have the ability to do so. They have the ability to teach for one year within compliance within Virginia while they're working on obtaining lensure requirements. Thank you. I I know it's a pilot program but you know based on the conversation that we've had here I would really be interested in as you move forward collecting the data uh of the people participating in the program and I'm just speaking with from personal experience that I've worked in schools where there have been IAS or custodians that actually not only have teaching licenses in their countries or masters or even PhDs and they're overqualified but because of a language barrier or because of uh not having a teachers license in Virginia, they're not teaching. And so I I really applaud this program because I've

144worked with amazing people that are being underutilized. And it's not only that they have the expertise in their country, they also have the cultural competency to reach our students. Um, so, um, I'm not sure how well known this pilot program is, but I really champion it and I want I'd love to see the data of how we the people that are involved, how we move them forward. Just one one last thing if we're moving on. Um, I'd like to applaud Mr. Fris, Miss Anderson, and Mr. We're moving in the direction of where our recommendations are going to go. That's the phase two next to that's something new. So, we're looking eager to that because I uh I'm going to have that question as well. Great George. Now what what right and I and I appreciate

145you addressing that and and what the govern uh public engagement committee your early discussions of maybe a forum you know or or what have you but as long as you discuss that is to really have for all advisory committees that finalization of recommendations even if it is a no we can't do that for x y or z reason but leave it in open-ended over many years Mr. you as as you know we've had this discussion and from your representatives who said the same thing to you is what happened to it. So I applaud you all for for that next step and also to as you're having that discussion as a board about the the student representative to the school board as we've had Wesley and others over the years uh that discussion to minority right

146or in terms of representatives it's hard to have one person as a student rep for a whole county you have three at large members representing a county but you expect one student to represent the whole county so just food for thought to expand it and especially what harm does it do if they don't even have a vote. Thank you. So, um, seeing no other placards, uh, obviously we won't have go backs, but I do want to thank all the work the committee has done. And I really want to thank how many of our committee members showed up here today on a Saturday and of course our staff. That shows the commitment that you have to our community. And we talk about um, I heard this and I really like this. we talk about minority or

147underserved students and I had heard like don't say that anymore say systematically undervalued uh population and I really love that. So um the work that you do is not only hard work and like I said before it's also heart work and um that hard work is what we have to get to to our kids uh to our community so that they do not feel systematically undervalued and see that they are true valuable contri contributors to our community our school community and our community overall. So, thank you so much for your time throughout the entire year and for this presentation. We will break for lunch. Yes. So, lunch is going to be served in the cafe. If individuals could follow board members because board members, the cafe is at the front of gate house when you

148come in through the front doors. Chair fresh, if you can lead the way. Thank you. Board members will reconvene at 1 pm. Board members, please return to your seats. All right. As a reminder, um we're doing things a little differently this year. So, we have uh these summits now uh with the lunch in between so that everybody can get to know each other and uh share ideas more. Um we're reminding for every session that we have a different way of processing the annual reports now after they presented to the board. Uh the staff liaison in coordination with the schoolboard liaison during the year the report was prepared will submit a written response and a plan of action to the committee and the school board no later than the end of the first quarter of the

149next school year. And the staff liaison will update the committee on any progress at its December or January meeting following the report submission. So next December, January, um the schoolboard liaison will stay in regular contact with the staff liaison and update the school board on progress toward achieving the reports recommendations um or making progress on them. Um and the staff liaison shall be responsible for maintaining an ongoing record of actions taken in response to the report recommendations broken down by year. The follow-up shall be reviewed with the committee during the second or third quarter of each school year. And this was in an effort to close the loop that we were in with many committees where we would receive detailed reports and recommendations and then uh there might be a response from staff and that

150would leave it there and we'd never um have any followthrough or finishing of that cycle. So we're hopeful that this will create the change we're all looking for. With that, I will turn it over to Mr. Dunn. Uh well, I am so pleased to to be here on this uh beautiful Saturday. uh and uh and thank uh FPAC for all of his hard work this year. I'd like to introduce uh Katie Herman uh the chair and um and Kathy Ozek the the vice chair. [Music] Great. Thank you so much for having us this afternoon. Again, my name is Katie Herman. I am the chair of the facilities planning advisory council or FPAC and I'm joined here today by Kathy Hosk who is the FPAC vice chair and the Mount Vernon district representative. Uh as always

151we are thankful for your invitation to come and share our work from the past year with you all. We've had a busy year and we're looking forward to sharing um our highlights with you all here and I'm gonna try to get through these slides because we're all in the post lunch slump. So, uh bear with me for a few minutes here and then obviously we look forward to the question and answer portion of the meeting. So, let's see here. For our agenda, we're going to reintroduce to you all all of our FPAC members and then we'll remind you of how our annual report is organized this year. Um then we'll discuss the items that we researched through our annual charge and discuss the resulting recommendations and then at the end we we can chat about

152our annual charge for next year. Here is a list of our 13 members. Hopefully, you've had a chance to meet with your designated FPAC member this year, but if you haven't, uh I hope you find some time maybe over the summer to reconnect with your uh with your member and uh have some helpful conversations. So the organization of our report uh includes an executive summary and a list of our 17 recommendations for the school board's consideration. And then um the majority of our report is focused on a summary of our meetings, the meetings that we had throughout the year. um outreach that we uh observed or were part of um a summary of our membership and some suggestions for our next year memo topics or our annual charge. And then the meat of our report

153is actually a memo for each of our um I'm sorry in the appendix we have a memo for each of our topic areas that we researched over the last year. So this was our annual charge for this year's report. As you've heard from other committees, uh this is our guide and light for the year of topics that we researched and speakers that we invited to our meetings. Um FPAC decided in the fall to focus on particular details of these topics based on feedback from our speakers at our meetings or feedback received during CPDC meetings. All of our topics, except for the updates to the FPAC charter, had a goal of identifying additional ways the FCPS could save money during school renovation or new construction projects. With the current climate of the local economy being what

154it is, it seemed to us to be a good idea to focus on this component for these topics. For the next few slides, I've listed the recommendations that FPAC has for the school board for our topic areas. Um but I'm not going to read through them individually. However, I will summarize them each for each slide. Um so for our first memo topic was actually um a revisioning of portions of our FPAC charter. So this item was identified by FPAC at the end of last year. Um, when we were here this time last year, the concept behind this was a re a realization the FCAP, I'm sorry, FPAC could better serve the school board by delivering recommendations and information in different intervals in order to be more responsive, which we felt would be would be better

155than us holding information until the end of the year to share with the school board. Providing various memos to the schoolboard throughout the school year can provide more up-to-date information regarding topics that are current that are current and of interest to the school board. So FPAC also took the opportunity to review the list of matters with within the purview of FPAC for study in the charter which was also discussed across several FPAC meetings and FPAC finalized the proposed edits to the charter in February for the board's conver uh consideration. After a recent governance committee meeting in the spring, FPAC was instructed that we should migrate from having two sec two separate documents, a charter and bylaws to just a set of bylaws. So, FPAC plans to transfer the proposed information in the memo included in

156our report to the charter um sorry from the charter to the bylaws in this upcoming fall. So um another memo topic we had was the construction of cost reduction strategies. So we tackled this topic with a premise of that the existing schoolboard policy 828 8258 recommends a 20 to 25 year cycle of m major renovations. This aligns with industry best practices and is consistent with FPAC recommendations. As the bond supplied funds remain static and construction costs continue to increase both due to market increases and how construction projects are planned and executed, the current time between major renovations has increased to 41 years. This creates significant pressure to reduce the cost of school construction with the goal of complying with policy 8528 and providing the worldclass schools that FCPS strives for. With almost 200 schools, FCPS

157essentially needs to renovate 10 schools per year in order to keep up with policy 8258 with construction costs needing to be reduced by at least 30 million per project. With all of this information in mind, FPAC focused our research on the possible renovation strategies that could help achieve this reduction. They are listed here on this slide um related to prioritizing boundary adjustments um and a pilot to um consider a few approaches for swing spaces that could help save money and time. Um, our next memo topic item um comes from some direction from and back in January when CPDC requested the FPAC prepare a memo to provide additional analysis and input to the school board due to the newness of FCPS's interest in the complexity of P3 alternative construction finance methods prior to making a decision

158by the board on this topic. So, FPAC was asked to review a costbenefit analysis study that was prepared by an outside consultant and then also staff's response. and FPAC found that the P3 study provided an excellent springboard to further staff and the schoolboard work on the use of P3s as an additional tool to address items like the length of school renovation timelines and the growing backlog of capital maintenance needs during a time of increasing construction and financing costs. Like staff's finding in this study, FPAC sees that the P3 study as only a starting point and notes significant resources must be invested up front to fully explore multiple facets of P3s prior to moving forward with this financing mechanism. For our memo, we grouped our recommendations into three buckets. Near-term mean um intermediate and long-term recommendation

159actions. The first two recommendations on the screen are recommended to occur within the first six months of an agreement to start going down the path of a P3 procurement pro process. Items three and four are intermediate actions which can be done within one year and then items five and six on the screen are recommended actions for beyond one year in the future. Um, our memo also includes many more details on interim actions that could be taken to achieve what you're seeing on the slide 1 through six there. Um, another memo topic we had was uh focusing on proposed changes to the FCPS policy 8240 regarding construction maintenance services bids, contracts, bonds, and conflict of interest. This topic was of interest to FPAC because of the other related discussions and the research ongoing related to P3

160procurement and the other construction cost recommend reduction strategies. Our two recommendations for this policy are that FPAC have an opportunity to review the redline version of the policy and provide input to it and if this is of interest to the board. Um, we also recommend that FPAC hire a consultant that could help assist with developing new procurement pro processes and strategies for implementation. All righty. And this is our last one. Our last memo topic um is related to um permitting strategies and the cost um efficiency and effectiveness of of as such. Um, we used the Brookfield Elementary School renovation project as a case study for the assessment of the permitting process. Um, we have been following this renovation project for a few years and we're interested to examine the permitting process for this particular project.

161Again, as a theme for our year continued to be heavily focused on cost reductions, efficient and effective permitting plays a critical role in reducing project delays. As you can see from the recommendations on the screen, some of these recommendations are a recognition of what FCPS staff and county staff have already committed to do. And we are highly supportive of the achievements made by both staff teams to date. We have two recommendations, number five and six. One of which or numbers five and six to continue that path forward. One of which is focused on additional ways to encourage contractors to take ownership on their end for the schedule of permitting activities. And this is my last slide. Um here we present uh some possible ideas for memo topics in the next school year. Um, before we

162kind of dive into this, I did want to acknowledge Kathy Hosek for all the additional work she did on behalf of FPAC through her participation in the superintendent's boundary review advisory committee. This was an additional commitment that Kathy agreed to be part of and we appreciate her dedication to FPAC, but also to the superintendent's boundary review advisory committee. Thank you, Kathy. Um, so we're happy to discuss any of the items here today that are listed um of things that you all would like us to consider working on. Um, we did vet these in our May meeting that we had last or earlier this month and um are happy to have more conversation about them. And uh lastly before I close, I just wanted to also thank FCPS staff for their assistance and support this year.

163Specifically, Jessica Gillis, Brandon Zadi, and Kevin Jackson were um instrumental in helping us with so many logistics and support behind the scenes. I'm not sure we would have had such a successful year without them. So, thank you to staff. Um, with that, I'd like to call on uh, Cherish. Thank you very much, excuse me, for the presentation and all the work that went into it. Want to zero in on two things. One from this year's report and one looking forward for next year. Um, one of the things that we hear as we have these conversations about boundaries frequently is build capacity, build capacity, build capacity. Obviously building is not going to solve our uh capacity issues alone, right? It's not an efficient way of doing it certainly. How would you recommend based on the work

164that you all have done around reviewing timeliness of our ability to react to situations that need addressing? Are there changes that should be made when balancing the need for increased capacity versus adjustments in school zones? Sure. I'll I'll take a stab at that one and then I'll I'll pass it off to Kathy to see if she has any additional thoughts. I mean, first of all, I would say that we're supportive of all the back behind the-scenes work that goes into student um projections that are included in the CIP annually. I think that staff does a really nice job pulling that information together and that obviously they're using that as a means to help understand how students um either join or exit FCPS and what that means for our capacities in our schools. In terms of

165planning for the future, I I we do acknowledge that in some of our buildings certainly need to have sure potential extra space included or available. Um and you know from a uh a long-term planning perspective understanding where growth is expected to continue in the county in particular areas where Fairfax County and the board of supervisors are encouraging growth in particular areas. Those might be areas where um targeted physical square footage capacity could be um meaningful and helpful for the future. Um, so that's one particular strategy, but it gets a little difficult, right, when we're using those as the drivers behind capacity enhancements because it could hurt equity between, you know, the popularity of neighborhoods being moved into. You know, our attendance has been, you know, slightly increasing. Uh, not certainly at pace it has in

166the years past. Um, but that's not to say that other certain neighborhoods aren't having big booms in populations, right? And you mentioned uh how we address capacity. I know Jess Gillis is here. Um you know they've looked back at years past of their projections and they're pretty darn accurate in terms of their projections because they've stayed on top of ensuring that they're always knowledgeable about where the kids are coming from. Right? We didn't used to count apartments and condos and town homes the same way that we do now because the old thinking was these are not producing children into our schools. We know that's not true. So, they've adjusted over time to stay accurate. I guess my question is, um, a 5-year outlook is not enough time to actually build a renovation, you know, in

167a in an efficient way, right? Because you're going to have a queue. What is the balance? I do think when you have a renovation, you probably should put some capacity in there, but it's not the solution to major capacity crunches at schools across the county. How do you measure the need for that versus other approaches? Because what we hear frequently is what you should be doing is just adding to schools and that's just never going to get us there, right? Yeah. And so we acknowledge that in um our memo which is attachment number two for uh cost construction reduction strategies where we actually recommend boundary adjustments are a means to hopefully um right sizing student population and capacity to the size of the building. That that could definitely be a prioritized driver moving forward. And

168to your point, we haven't looked down in the details of what you're asking regarding. Um, but would be happy to have future conversations about that or or add that to a potential list of memo topics for next year. I don't know if Kathy had anything to um I just have one thing to add. Um, the reason why I have been focused on the boundaries for so long, for instance, the Mount Vernon region has had most of the schools renovated to the current capacity that they are. The boundaries haven't been looked at in our region really in 40 years. So, were those kids even at the right school when we built them to keep them there? So, I'm a little saddened that we I feel like we're a little behind on that just because and I

169don't know other areas of the county might also have that piece. And if there's a certain school that's maybe under I feel like programming, which is not FPAC's perview, but could, you know, like do we put a program here that will naturally pull people in? I think that's something to look at, too. And I don't know that that's something EPAC would do, but I feel like that's another piece of the puzzle. Sure. Right. And it can also create weird things down the road where okay now this school is super over capacity because we have a program there. So you never know what you're stepping into. I do have a question about the future. I had a great conversation with uh my FPAC rep uh Priuswami about uh virtual power plants. Um, and when I think

170about our lack of funding as a school system, one of the things that becomes more difficult is achieving our jet goals because while it does save us money, we've saved hund00 million over the last 15 years because of our environmental work. Um, it costs sometimes more upfront to make that progress. And as I understand it, virtual power plants could play a important component in our ability to reach those goals in the future. I wonder if you could explain for folks who are not familiar with, you know, the bigger picture about what that would mean for us and why it's worth exploring next year. Well, I mean, Priya is certainly a member on our FPAC committee that um has a lot more um specialized experience and knowledge in that um in this concept. So, we have

171talked about it as a potential item. It's an item that is up for board consideration. um we did not discuss it as a group in much detail over the past year. You know, we were focused on our current um annual charge. Um but it is certainly something that's on the list for consideration and does have the potential that you know if done correctly with some ups upfront investment could um provide FCPS some cost savings down the road and it could fit very neatly into the jet goals that we've already approved and adopted as a school system. So I very much encourage at least some look at that knowing that it may be a couple years before we're able to make steps or strides in that direction, but it's nonetheless very important and would have a

172big impact on all of our facilities. So I appreciate all of the work that's gone into this year's report and the forward-looking nature of the work that's being done for next year. Uh seeing no other placards, uh I'll take a turn. Uh so I I think uh there on the list of possible topics for next year is a CIP process between FCPS and Fairfax County. Um does that uh include uh potential exploration of collocation of facilities because that's something other places do quite a bit of. Um but you know we tend to build separately and that can mean we're building twice rather than building once and you know bearing all the costs ourselves rather than sharing costs uh with the county or frankly even with the state if the state has any interest in building

173particular facilities in our area. Um sure I can speak to that. Um, I do know that when we're talking about building new builds, the county is very um adamant about not doing a single-use building. Like when they do uh the new police station in Lorton also has an animal shelter, like it's a dual use building. I've I've often wondered why the schools and the county don't partner more on that because I feel like especially with like a sack or a child care issue and I know the Lorton Community Center also has some sack um spaces there. So I I would love for EPAC to look at that. Um I also know that um I believe there is some kind of joint CIP conversation happening. Um, Chairman McCay told me that he and Chair FR are

174maybe making some meetings and to make that happen and I, as an FPAC member, would love to support that work. Um, so if you want to advise us on how we can help with that, but yeah, to your point, I do agree. I think just in the future making spaces, the schools are already used almost 247, right? they have all this community use and how do we get the county to own the part that's the community use more right and I feel like that's an avenue which is also maybe one of our topics the community use piece right so I would love to investigate that more yeah I agree with what Kathy mentioned here in in that um there may be other opportunities for um shared knowledge between the county and FCPS PS I know

175that you know there's quite a bit of collaboration already ongoing between these two entities. Um but just you know sharing lessons learned about procurement processes. um working together on projects may um allow for some cost savings also down the road of only having to procure one type of contract for a project as compared to doing it at a separate doing you know having separate projects and so I I know that we're um FCPS is already making very good progress on you know implementing new procurement methodologies like uh design build and construction management at risk and um FPC has done some important work in that respect uh in the past year or two. Um but I and and I know we're doing a facilities condition assessment which will take probably another 18 months to to uh

176be completed. But in the meantime, it might be interesting to explore the first um bullet on your list. uh you know looking at um other school divisions for what they do for infrastructure backlogs and deferred maintenance backlogs and how we can address those most effectively perhaps in concert with um third parties for example virtual power plants you often partner with third parties who come in and kind of manage that bring in investment dollars and you know uh reap savings by uh or or earn their money by the savings that you accumulate. So um in a similar sense maybe there are third parties out there who help with deferred maintenance or infrastructure backlogs and how we can deal with that in the most cost-effective manner. Just my two cents. Uh I see Miss Seismore Heiser. Thank

177you. And I sorry sorry about that. She learned to move it before I turn it on. Um, thank you again for all your hard work and this and your long dedication to FPAC. I know we've talked several times and we've talked a little bit too. So, I really appreciate this and I appreciate, you know, we're at this tipping point with our facilities which I know you've been raising for a long time with funding and just realities where the bond dollars go, the cost of construction. Um, so I know it's been appreciated to have FPAC, you know, talk about some of the different design and build methodologies so we can sort of look, you know, try to diversify what we're doing as well. Um, a couple things that I would like to it would be great

178to kind of see as I've gone out to the community and talked to the community. I've shared some of the statistics that um came up during our CIP, you know, in terms of how much per square foot we spend on facilities, what the amount of our deferred maintenance is, things like that. I think it might be helpful perhaps a as we're at this tipping point and especially as we're in this boundary review work to have maybe FPAC do a state of facilities or reality of facilities kind of report right because I think I you know I think Mr. Fish is perhaps kind of alluding to this and I don't want to put words in your mouth, right? But to help the community understand that, you know, we can't build our way out of the realities

179of facilities, right? And we can certainly look and we should and we are in the process of looking at a variety of construction methodologies and procurement methodologies to be as effective and efficient and as possible. But I think we we in this room understand the realities, but I'm not sure how well our community does. And so when it comes to the bond being passed, right, or understanding why the boundary view is the point that we're I've been talking about in community meetings, but I I wonder as we're looking at these procurement methodologies, for example, swing spaces, something it kind of hit me with swing spaces in the recommendations kind of leaped the way it came across to me leaped past the pros and cons of swing spaces and went to how can we do swing

180spaces, right? But I think from a parent perspective, if we're looking at a swing space that may not be close to where my kid's school is, that may come across as very negative, right? And so I think I always think like how do we get community buy in for some of these difficult things we're doing. So before we go to the how can we look at swing spaces, I think we need to have a pros and cons of swing spaces, right? And then a howto because we've got to, you know, we are public servants in charge of public funds. We've got to make sure our public is is understanding and and brought along with us or it could create a lot of unintended consequences. So, I would love to see something in your report about

181pros and cons of swing spaces in terms of the impact on education and on communities, right? Especially we have communities where there may be more walkers to school and it may actually have a significant impact on those communities or child care. So, I think from a design and build perspective or from a construction timeline perspective, swing spaces can make sense. But from an overall school experience perspective, I think that needs to be taken into account. So that's something I wanted to lift up of and I'll take go back if I could finish my sentence. I think getting a state of reality of facilities to help us get that community buyin would be really helpful to us. And and I want to thank you for that comment because as I'm doing the boundary work and I'm

182about to be on the bond committee again, so I'm going to do that work again. I have to remember that not everybody has been doing this for a decade like me. And I have to at one of the boundary meetings someone said I was talking blah blah blah and he goes wait what's an attendance island and I thought oh so I had to step back and explain that. So I think that's a very good point that you raise and I think that we should all in our work be cognizant that I mean you guys are in this every day and you understand most of what we're saying but the general public at the boundary meetings too there's just so much that they don't know and the education really helps calm the understanding like it helps

183them get to where we need them to get to do the work right so thank you for that not seeing other comments So, Miss Eismerheiser, continue. My goback was just going to I did it again. You think I would learn? Um, my goback was going to be when you have your list of recommendations of what to look at for next year. I would find it extremely helpful from your deputy knowledge, the long time you've worked and from your committee to have a report for the public to help bring them to that point because as we're exploring some of these great suggestions you've brought along right over the years and we're doing the boundary work that I know Miss Hosk you've been advocating for for for a long time and as we're looking at say these

184different construction methodologies you know and then the other thing it would just be really helpful to have that that we could then use not just from what we're signing but from what our committee of experts is saying as well. So you know whatever you all come up with and then the other thing I wanted to talk to you mentioned the 2232 process and the permitting issues I would love to lift that up as an important thing to study next year because part of I think um and I think this goes back to a lot of us on the board has stated this and board supervisors of working towards better and sooner and more often collaboration next year. I think um Mr. Mr. Dunn and I are the two um liaison of the planning commission, the

185education committee, the planning commission and this is something we've been talking about and I think the committee is going to be working on but I think building understanding on both our boards and the community of while we want to make sure we maintain the integrity of the permitting process, right? So it's they can make sure that they're actually doing the work they're supposed to do to issue the permits, the impact it may have in the unique position schools are, right? Like we're not a new entity coming in to build something, right? And so I think having FPAC really look at that and making recommendations around how to better collaborate and how to better build understanding on both boards. I mean I even think about the stadium bathrooms. I know there's a whole bunch of permitting

186issues around the stadium bathrooms and the community really wanted them and we're struggling to understand some of the reasons and again I'm not saying we don't need to have a thorough permitting process but I think building understanding on how that can impact I know the 2232 process change I think and Dr. have to recre me if I'm getting the numbers right or miss it wrong, but I think it took our construction delayed it by like 12 months I believe 12 to 18 months on some of our construction permitting. Is that correct? It is correct that we were experiencing significant delays and at a 6% cost escalation annually for project work. It really does affect our budget. Yeah. And I'm I'm really glad that the planning commission education committee and we and our staff are working

187very collaboratively to address some of these things. But again, I think the public building that understanding and then building some solutions from you all. So that would be the two things I would lift up for next year is kind of a state of facilities, the why and then the 2230 and permitting process more broadly. Thank you. Are there any other comments that uh Oh, sorry, Miss St. John. Thank you. um looking at the boundary adjustments and the solving capacity challenges did you all I mean is something that you take into consideration even though we're looking at maybe decreased enrollment increases in programming needs and how the spaces are filled the reason I asked that question is I and I'm not going to name a school but I specifically know when school is labeled as under

188capacity when I know very full well that it's not under capacity because of the increase increased needs of small group sessions with multilingual learning teachers or with special need teachers or even with social emotional learning. And so those spaces have to be um be used in separate ways. And so even though it's listed as under capacity, I know that it's not under capacity because the capacity to provide the special programs is filling up those spaces even though the numbers aren't there. If that makes sense. So when you look at that, do you take that into consideration? We have are you talking boundary advisory committee or FPAC because FPAC doesn't really do that work directly. So the boundary advisory committee, we haven't gotten into that much detail yet. Um we we truncated our timeline, right? So

189we haven't gotten way into the weeds yet, but I know the school you're talking about and I will be looking at that with that lens now that you've brought it up. Um, and that's good insight to other schools that on paper may look under but are over and may even require a site visit to see why does this reflect as over. What programs do you have? Because when we're looking at building and remodeling and how the spaces are being used, um, again going back to what Miss Seismore Heiser was saying, I think we have to educate the public as to how the spaces are being used. And so it may look like we have a lower number of students here, but we have a higher number of students that are are receiving multilingual services or

190they're receiving special education or there are some schools that are now uh creating um uh calming rooms. And so that quote unquote calming room can look like a classroom but is because of the population is being used for something else. That that is just as important. And that's the point that I was trying to get to, right? That when we look at the spaces, we reflect how they actually are being used. And that could be a school by school basis. It's not the same across the school. Okay. Thanks for that comment. Uh with that uh I'll bring the discussion to a close and I want to thank Katie and uh oh sorry one the only the only go back right you're like Indiana Jones with the hat just right right yeah thank you and I

191think just in listening to my colleague speak here about programs I'm wondering as you're looking at a state of facilities report if you could talk about the impact of program placement, but also and this may not be an F-pack look, but like the realities of program placement and access, right? That there's there are certain times where there are some parts of the county that have a lot less access to programming than others in a variety of different ways. I I don't that's that may be beyond an FPACK thing, but I think um I know when I do my community meetings and I talk to folks about the different criteria in our boundary policy, the one that people are most confused by is access to programming. And the way I've been describing it to folks in

192from boundary ways is say look, we have all sorts of program across the county. We want to make sure that students from across the county can access these programs in a way that's as close to their home school or their pyramid, their community essentially as possible, especially for those programs that are needed. Right? So I said, for example, you don't want to look at capacity of a school just based on the geography and then leave out a student who might need a specialized special ed program or AAP or, you know, whatever. and then all a sudden you're trying to place those programs, they're being sent three, four to different pyramids or you know multiple schools down the road and that's that access to programming piece and that's actually something I haven't it's a question I

193have with our boundary consultant is I haven't heard that piece in our current boundary work to make sure that the kids can stay in their pyramid. So for that connections and continuity I haven't heard that being talked about. So something I don't know how exactly that would work in your report, but I think it's important to mention that when we talk about community, it's for all students and sending certain students out of their pyramid or away from their community has a huge impact for a long time and that needs to be considered when we're looking at facilities planning. So last thing I want to bring up, I promise that's the last one. Maybe. Yeah, I mean I I will say that we can take a look at that again this fall in terms of our

194future draft of our bylaws because right now our charter does say that the impact of program placement on capacity is within FPAC's purview but that configurations of how those programs are being distributed is not part of something that FPAC has traditionally been look been asked to look at. So when we go back through the the bylaws, we can take a further examination on that. I think I would look I don't know if this way I would interpret is I think I'm looking at more of an impact question. You okay? Then more of an impact question, right? The impact of and then the impact of not being mindful about it. Like I don't think looking at what programs are placed at that seems to see more of an instructional operational decision. But the impact of not

195being mindful about keeping that connection piece is is where I would potentially look at it. But I don't I think you know but that's I'm looking at an impact perspective from you all. Right. An impact statement of how they're done now that can help inform the work as we move forward. Thank you. Thank you. I'm watching Miss Seismarheiser to see if she reaches for a placard again. All right. Uh, with that, uh, no further questions and, uh, thank you Katie and Kathy for your time today. We'll take a break until 2:10 for the transition. All right, good afternoon and welcome back. This will be our last uh presentation for the day, career and technical education. Um I'm going to go ahead and turn things over to Irv and Whitney. let them kick it off and

196then we'll open the floor for questions. All right, there we are. So, good afternoon. Thank you very much for inviting us and we know we are standing between you and gardening or whatever else you might do on this. That's what I have to do. So, I can't be long here. Or I could just take my time. Yeah. No, not a good idea. I'm Am I Varonei, current chair of career and technical education uh advisory uh uh committee um and a pleasure to to be here and share with you uh our recommendations and findings for this uh for this year. And together with me will be our director coordinator for CT programs, Miss Whiting Kettle, Dr. Kedage, and also Miss Glazer as well for CCCR. So, thank you both for uh for being here. So, I

197guess I get to move this uh my vice chair Christy Beloua unfortunately was unable to to be here today but she was certainly very much a part of us putting this uh together. So in collaboration with key stakeholders, we are here as our committee chart shows to ensure equitable awareness, access and participation in all CT programs to ensure greater awareness of career readiness options provided by CT programs and with a new emphasis on exposure to virtual hybrid workplaces, workforce trends, and growing leadership skills. Uh we'll be looking at changing that uh charge for the coming year, but this is the charge that we had this year. And by stakeholders, we mean a wide variety of stakeholders, not only parents and students and teachers and staff, but our elected officials. So what you see there are

198two of our visits to themies. One was to Marshall High School on the left there with chairman of board of supervisors Jeff McCay and the right when we're at West Ptoic Academy and their supervisor Dan Stor from Mount Vernon. They are stakeholders because they do a number of things, not the least of which is they have access to funds. So the more that we can get them involved in our our uh programs for them to appreciate they like going around the better it's uh it is going to be uh for us. So they do accept this. They come they ask questions. I'm hopeful that it impacts them in terms of how they're going to look at it when budgets have uh have uh have come up. So that's what we try and do, invite them.

199And we've had many of you as well come. We've had state senators and uh delegates as well. So we'll continue to do that in the coming year. We have a a long a wide list of committee members, some of whom were appointed by several of you here. And it's so important that each of you appoint a member because they are serve as the eyes and ears for you. They're the ones that can tell us how you maybe want to us to look at some projects. Um, but they're also the ones to share with you what those outcomes are. So, we hope that that is continuing during the year uh as opposed to this being the first time that you might hear some of this. So, we appreciate you those of you that have appointed members.

200We also have a wide variety of business and industry representatives um as well from different parts of um the private and the nonprofit sector as well. So before we start with our committee activities here, we do want to just mention that uh in your report you have our assessment and updates for 23 and 24. Uh we don't have a slide for that, but I just want to make sure because uh chairman FR had mentioned this in terms of having this process of uh of reviews. Um last year we had asked you that we wanted to increase partnerships. We've done that in a modest basis. We've asked to have more staffing for transportation resources. that did not take place. We asked to use costbenefit analyses somewhat more. That's a continuing process. We asked you to fund

201two work basis learning positions. Unfortunately, they were not funded. We asked for tools for uh career planning. That's going along well. We wanted to broaden our academic advising. That has gone well. And also, we wanted to have CT curriculum reviews for math and sciences. That is pending. So we're hitting maybe batting about 400 500 there which is not bad in baseball but could be a little bit better here. But at least we do had those accomplishments so that way we can assess how well we did last year. Our committee activities continue as we've had before. It's a wide range of activities. We highlight all the programs and it's a tremendous list that Whitney gives us uh each meeting what the students are are doing. We certainly engage with business partner experiences with CTE. we highlight

202them. We'll invite them to be our speakers. Uh we have school board updates. Uh Miss Dixit has been our leazison this year and she our staff have been able to update us um um on the school board how it impacts us. As I mentioned, we've gone around to differentmies to look at the various CT programs and we discuss their new programs, new courses that will be coming up. The process is not takes a while. uh always wish you could be faster, but we try and do that and anticipate where um some of the the the careers may be to try and match those with new courses. And we of course support student activities events. Many of us are asked to go and help out such as being judges at the future business leadership, others. That's

203been a a great great activity to do. I commend you all if you can just to see what those students are doing. Uh it's very inspiring um for them. And then of course we have recommendations that process begins uh in mid year and we continue through that. Uh this year we had uh we scheduled extra virtual meeting just so we could uh talk some more um uh about that because that is quite important uh uh to us. So these are among the things that we have done and I think it's a good range of activities that we have done so we can be aware of the needs of our students and as well aware of the resources that are available to us. So with that let me start with our recommendations. Before I do start

204with the first one, I do want to mention and in your um um report, we had mentioned that all of our recommendations are very much stemming from the FCPS strategic plan for 2330. Uh specifically in two goals, equitable, three goals are uh equitable and creating skills and in terms of accessibility. So all of these four recommendations will tie into one or more of those goals from the strategic plan for 23 and 30. So our first uh uh recommendation is looking at middle school career exploration. Research shows and in your uh report you have at the back of that in appendix D a report put together by Forest magazine based on research that middle schoolers in fact begin to think about their careers. So we're not waiting until 9th grade or 10th grade. And as I

205think it was I think Mr. Moon have mentioned in terms of when we should be doing algebra, waiting to the eighth and nth grade um is not necessary because the research shows that in fact middle schoolers are thinking about uh careers in in some areas. Um so we list we would like to therefore as a result list uh the career investigations course as a standard elective option in every middle and secondary school catalog beginning 2627 and explore the feasibility of making career investigations mandatory for our middle schoolers beginning in 2728. This is a costneutral um recommendation. Uh but it really will satisfy the needs for middle schoolers and their parents that we begin to explore these things at that point rather than waiting until we get to um high school. Part of this is also

206to to encourage more focus from principles to require career development activities at the middle school um level. The principles are very important at that at that point. they have a lot in terms of directing how their school will be. We would like this to become a priority so that their sixth graders uh seventh, seventh and eighth graders will be able to look at these things and this recommendation would I think enable that to take place. Last year we talked about supply and demand and being able to meet student demand. We have I think some 60,000 students who have taken one or more courses. that's approximately a third of the of the enrollment that you have. Um, but they're not always in the right places. So, what we would like to do as our recommendation to

207try and better meet student demand is to staff CT instructors in specific specialty programs such as automotive, culinary, JR or to ROC centrally and open space to these programs to nearby high schools to ensure more access to high demand classes. So examples may be is that if uh staffing is um is individual school-based, you may have a resource allocated but the program may not be there. How do we get that resource to um to be able to uh to go to the right uh the right school? So this is also relatively costneutral. There is some aspect here in terms of transportation of costs. But the idea is if there's a demand in a in a in a school, how can we meet that demand if in fact there's a position that is um um available

208elsewhere. So essentially this moves we're recommending to move to central staffing for these programs. We certainly would like to have a a feasibility study if if we need to but we can have that information available now that can utilize all the high schools beyond themies for specialty programs as well to meet social student demand. Both these again are trying to increase demand to meet the supply. I can speak for this personally in terms of uh my son who went to Chantellih culinary and he was very fortunate to be able to get in there. How many students like him wanted that um but were unable to because we just couldn't staff those facilities properly. And by the way, he is certainly living the dream of uh of culinary students. and he now he and his wife

209own their own business a cafe and store up in Vermont and he stays in touch with chef D with Chef Double Day on a regular basis was an instructor some 20 years ago. So that's the impression that made and we're just very thankful that he was able to get in that program. We would like to make that available to as many other students as possible. And thirdly, a recommendation that uh came from Miss Dixit to create a CT hub to share work-based learning opportunities with all students. We would like to offer virtual resources through the CT hub to be able to bridge the gap between our school and professional world to expand work-based uh learning programs um uh that we think will help. So these are the areas again to try and help us meet

210the student demand that we have in so many of these uh programs. As an aside um and we mentioned this a little bit in our report as well, the increasing amount of students graduating from high school, moving toward career fields and a decreasing amount of those on the average moving toward college programs. So we that demand if anything is going to continue to grow. How can we at FCPS um help um meet as much of that demand as possible? Going to a third recommendation, career and technical standard or organizations are required as part of Perkins grants and we asked to consider providing equity and pay for CT instructors by providing activity stipens for CTSO sponsors. This has been a a topic we've discussed before. So, just so we're all on the same page, um we

211don't offer those activity stipens currently to those teachers who are engaged in CTSO who are their sponsors. As a result, the time that they are spending in those programs is purely on their own time. When they're unable to uh for for financial reasons, that reduces the amount of hours. And those students that we have in our programs need those hours. If they don't have those hours, they aren't able to finish the work that they do and that puts them in a very difficult um situation. There is a cost factor to this. It is considerable. We certainly understand the current budgetary situation that we have here. But our our program certainly can benefit by that. And again, if increasing amount of our students are going toward career technical fields after high school, this is a service

212that they deserve to be able to have. and the teachers who are working in those programs certainly deserve that support in terms of these stipens from uh from FCPS. Our last recommendation, we've talked about financial constraints um what we can have and you have all a very difficult situation and we constantly when we talk to our elected officials in Fairfax as well as Richmond, we certainly stress that uh as much it is that we can but nonetheless those have limits and um we will continue to work on them. What we would like to be able to do is to reach out more into the local community. We live in a very prosperous county. Thank goodness for for us. We do well. We have a large amount of foundations in this area. And we would like

213to do is be able to assist SCTTE Act in terms of working with Educate Fairfax and requesting your support that SeaTac have a representative on that committee. What would the benefits of that be? we will be able to speak on behalf of all the CT programs um uh that we have offer that type of experience and and awareness that we as whoever that CTC representative may be. We think that may uh uh enable them to to see more where those needs are and part of that may be to be able to look at modify current programs they have in reaching out to the business community. Um we think that will be a benefit to them. We think we add a voice that will be constructive uh uh to them and thereby we would join others

214several of you are on the board here um Mr. Moon and Mr. Smith and Dr. read and um there are others from various industries, medical, communications and banking. We would like to expand that range. We think that will be a benefit to educate Fairfax to have a representative CTE advisory committee on there. And as I mentioned, Fairfax is planning for resources. In fact, we have some 230 foundations based in Fairfax. Foundations that are there to donate monies and resources. Uh we have assets of some $2 billion in Fairfax County. We have some 17 Fortune 10000 companies, 10 of Fortune 500. Many of them already have existing relationships with those schools. The best example, of course, is Thomas Jefferson, who has extraordinary amount of one-on-one relationships, but many of our other schools have that as well.

215So if you have a good school with some individuals who can contact the the business community, they can take advantage of that. We think that should be expanded as much as is um uh possible to be able to to do. Other resource that could help us would be Northern Virginia Community College and their resources as well. So by us asking to be your support to sit on educate Fairfax board we I think we'll be helping them and if we can then we'll helping them FCPS as well as helping uh CTE as well. We look forward to next year we'll have new leadership uh we'll reown as chair for the next year and we have two new vice chairs who will be joining us Marissa Alabam and Paul Fibberger. Um and uh this will be new.

216We normally had one vice chair. Someone said anything that says we can't have two. No. So, we have now have two. And um that will be very helpful. Uh there we will have a modified charge uh as well that we'll we'll be reviewing when the new CT um members are there. Um and again, we we do appreciate all of your support to making sure that you have a representative for you so that we can they can be your eyes and ears. As I have said, we appreciate this very much and we're certainly very much open to questions and again, thank you for your support. Okay, thank you. And uh I only saw one name go up, Miss Anderson. I I would like to thank you for the work that you guys have done. I've had

217the opportunity to visit with you at many and visit many of the CTE sites this year and it's been um seeing the work that's going on from with our students is awesome. Um, I was going to, the question that I have is specific to the career investigations. I was not aware that this was a course that we offer. Um, is it a year-long class? Yeah, it's actually new this year, middle school course. It's a semester course and any endorsement can teach it. So, we had um roughly seven schools try and run it this year. I think three or four were successful in creating a section and we expect more next year. Um so just moving it from an optional course offering to a standard course offering is what the committee discussed. Okay. Because I know

218that we we put a lot on our middle school plate in terms of getting kids ready to or determining what they're interested in. Um I think that I'm hesitant to make anything a requirement. However, I am wondering whether or not there are components of the class that could be incorporated into um some of the advisory type time that the middle schoolers have. I I also know that that's a a pretty tight block as well, but it would be um a really cool idea to maybe give the precursor to that as part of it. Um just give kids an opportunity to see what the course would offer as a way to encourage participation. Okay, thank you uh Mr. Moon. Uh thank you for the presentation and thank you for the many uh recommendations that uh I

219as one board member should give a little more a a you know time and and thought to uh a you know hopefully asking my colleagues to have a chance to discuss beyond just one hour we have uh today a one of the recommendations uh deals with you know providing more locations perhaps at the more locations for our CT program so that can be more easily accessible obviously uh that's not only the staffing issues but also sometimes depending upon the programs as a facility needs and requiring a lot of investments. uh have you looked into that at what could potentially be added to where or you that's beyond your capacity otherwise your communist capacity and asking school system to look into that. This has been discussed uh I think ever since I've been on the uh

220committee uh in terms of where can we find resources that are available to us that are being either underutilized or not being utilized at all. Um there has been some progress in that and perhaps you could tell us more about what other directions we can do but maybe also challenges that we have in those spaces. Um obviously there's a an intense renovation cost to add brand new programs. So that's usually prohibitive. Um we have been working with partners and potential facilities. We're actively looking for ways or grant funders to help us find spaces to take our students to for um increasing the access to some of those programs. A lot of this discussion centered around for example auto tech is at 13 schools. It's our either our first or second most requested class. 13 schools

221have auto tech in the building. Only two of those aremies. So if you happen to go to a school that has auto techch, one of those 13, you have a much higher chance of getting into that class than if you happen to go to a school who does not, because then you only have the one academy that you could access. So looking for ways to spread out the access to the facilities we already have was most of that discussion. I see. I see. If I may add, but it is also true that and those programs we have, they tend to be full. So what do we do with students who still want to get in but those programs that are open? Whether there could be some other arrangements I think is what you're also suggesting

222as as well. Um I was at the I2I um conference where there were some 500 or 600 uh wonderful uh students who were looking at career advice and I talked to some of the companies who were there. So there are companies like plumbing companies that could look at making more of their facilities available, but there are costs to that. Even if they're donating that, there are costs to that and other challenges to be able to do that. So I think there is more potentially in the business community uh that could offer that, but it's more than just a facility that we would need as well. Okay. Uh I wanted to start with that question because yesterday I happened to be attending uh firefighting graduation event at firehouse. Uh but one thing that I should have

223remembered was that there is only one location for us to provide that and I saw students coming all the way down from Westport and Edison. Just think about the distance they have to travel to. uh West Ox Road New York Government Center that's that's that's a quite a hike and there was you know students were coming because they wanted to take this class that you know investing almost like what five hours every other day for a whole year and and wanted to do that. So I was just thinking that I mean is it possible for us to find alternate location any another location closer to will there be schools are so that's something that I'm giving to a superintendent you know potentially take a look whether there's a because I also heard that yesterday when

224I asked there's a state code requirement limiting number of students who can take to 20 is that per site or per school division per year or per site because okay per site so if you potentially if you have another site they can accommodate you know more students than I know yesterday we didn't even have 20 uh we had 18 graduating I don't know there was anyone missing the graduation yesterday 18 but distance could be certainly a factor are. Yeah, absolutely. That that program is um incredibly unique in that they are going through the full fire academy program. So, the location at the fire academy is pretty critical. They they literally run into a burning building through that program. Um and they would would be happy to show you how they do that. They're always looking

225for patients to ride in the ambulance with them and all their their their simulations that they do throughout the year. Um, but that one is pretty unique and we have um a rigorous process that the fire academy makes them go through over the summer to get into the program. So, we often start out with maybe 25 students who want to commit to that and then this year we ended up with 18 who made it through and could schedule and could pass the physical and medical and all of the things um included. it is quite a a commitment for those kids, especially the ones coming from a long distance because they are there 12 to 5 every other day. So, they have to really make that choice. Um, but that is is certainly a really unique

226specialized program, a bit more of an extreme example than some of our others. Okay, thank you. Uh since I still have 12 seconds left, let me ask a quick question about that may be a unique but something less unique is we have all theademies where we have a waiting list of students and we not able to accommodate their needs. Are we limiting our students ability opportunity to pursue their uh their studies because we are limiting them versus should they focus on trying to accommodate their desire to study certain things. That's I think two different approach. What if what if somehow we could get companies in the hospitality industry who are looking for qualified workers um and and some of these students would like to work for them potentially after high school. As I mentioned again,

227increasing amount of our graduates are moving toward career fields and a decreasing amount of our graduates going toward college. What can we do for that group that is growing? Could we find a company, a hotel chain or some other to say, "We'll offer a facility for your students." That presents some issues because it's outside. What if we have someone to say, "I'll build you a facility, something." But all that costs money and the ability to go out there. But I think in many of these when I visited and you've visited some of these and you guys have visited as well, you can see these classes are full. What can we do to put more classes classes in there whether it's on-site or off-site is something we've we have talked about but that demand is definitely

228there and to me if the data is showing that our students are more and more interested in that we need to find a creative way to be able to do that so we agree with you very much sir thank you agreed okay thank you and Mr. done. You see an opportunity to uh in terms of expanding our partnerships with industry to uh obtain funding from industry to set up new CTE programs or to uh make sure that we have I I know we received some donations of equipment, but it seems like there's an opportunity to expand those partnerships more if we put more of an emphasis on that. Can we expand those? In terms of a company industry support, I think we can, which is why we get asked if if we could have a

229a position on the educate fairfax board. In terms of new courses, that's a different matter because that has to go through a process to be able to do so. So, for instance, we haven't talked about artificial intelligence though all of you are. Should should we do more in that area? Well, we'd have to see if there are existing courses or what it will take on that. But if there were, I would think there'd be a lot of support from industry in terms of of helping and training. Whether it has to be facilities that can be virtual, I'm not I'm not sure. But I think we do have to ask industry more to support what we have and to see where we can provide those resources in those fields. When you've all visited themies, you can

230see how full they are. the HVAC, the IT, those the medical sciences, the the medical health field, all of them are there and there, as I said, there are these partnerships like in Nova does help. Could they do more? Potentially, but where would we also put those students? So, the more that we'd like to do, the more demand there is to find those facilities and locations where that can actually be done. Can you elaborate on your recommendation to establish kind of central CTE hubs or areas uh you mentioned in your recommendations? So going back to auto tech I think was the best example from that discussion is if say for instance South Lakes has auto tech um Hearnden does not. So, if it became a hub for the closest nearby school, you don't increase the

231amount of students who can take the course because the facilities are the facilities and the classes are capped at 20 per section regardless of who accesses them, but you spread out the equity of that access across the schools who don't have their own program. So, that was that discussion, increasing the numbers of students who can get into programs, increasing programs just in general. Um, we've looked at really working on the base group of courses that exist at every high school, helping high schools to think about programs they can bring in that don't need a renovation. Um, but then really actively seeking partners who might be willing to let us use their facilities or willing to fund renovation costs or or find spaces for us. Thank you, Miss Seismore. Thank you and again thank you as

232always for these recommendations and um you know it's it's always so difficult I think to get your recommendations because many of us I think all all of us really believe in career and technical education as to your point right there are fewer kids going to college and more kids going to skil trade and in terms of great career paths there's some really good career paths and yet we always bump into the facilities and staffing and certifications right and so it's this it's like yes yes yes and how do we get there right and so we've been talking a lot in on our facility side around creative ways right creative contracting I'm wondering if um to pick up on the con the conversation about partnering with industries I wonder if we have we done more partners

233with community colleges because I think they can in some ways be a little more nimble in creating new courses right like you mentioned um some of the AI right but like there's a growing career field and data center technicians, right? And and that's a a growing area that we could that I don't think is a collegebound career per se, but there's a skilled technician. What are those careers of the future that you know there's wind farm technician right now as a growing field. So, and in some ways community colleges can be kind of nimble, right? And we have a dual certification programs, but there seems to be a natural partnership there. I'm glad I I love your idea of being on the educate fairfax board because when I was the educate fairfax leaison I talked

234a lot with them and there there's a hunger in the community in the um with our corporations and companies around here to partner with schools and bring that expertise but there's someone who needs and Dr. You and I have talked about this many times who kind of needs to be that project manager bridge to make it happen, right? And I think that's a great but I'm wondering if we're looking at potentially diversifying what we do in CTE. So one of the things the colleges started to do is micro credentiing like our little credentials right so I wonder if there's a way to do some sort of micro credentiing or you know dipping helping students dip their toes into thing partner with an industry do like a Saturday class or a series of Saturday classes right

235maybe the industry even offers their spaces it's not it's not going to address the problems of access but it creates a new form for students who don't want to give up an elective or give up you the travel time but they're get themselves dipped into And if you partner with either a skilled trades industry or other industry, they have internship programs and apprenticeship programs and things like that as well, but you get students a little knowledgeable, a little interested in connecting them with those communities or those organizations, the the skilled trades organizations, unions, all those things. I just feel like there's a whole area that we could do that would expand access and knowledge and a little bit of around um CTE with these micro credentials that would get a little more access to folks

236in a ways that it's going to be difficult. I mean, we're our budget situation is where it is now, right? It's going to be very hard to build some of these new facilities. But I think if you do a micro credential, you could even open up like the schools that have auto tech and do an auto techch microcredential on a Saturday class and partner with some industry to come in and teach them. It's just I'm just trying to be creative on how you can expand access to CTE because otherwise I feel like every year we have the same Yes. Yes. And right and I'm I'm trying to think that might be something to explore for next year. I don't know if they exist but I know college is exploring microcredentiing in other ways to to

237reach out to non-traditional students. So just a thought if that's available whether we can certainly I have no idea if it is. I'm just trying to how do I get this to more students? And if I may, I won't need to go back. Just one thing. I love the middle school career exploration. And earlier today, we talked about leadership with MSAOC and and an idea came up doing leadership. And I wonder if we can kind of combine those, right? It's like leadership. Like I don't know what we call it, but I don't know how many students would take a career exploration class, but if we couch in a way that is sort of these career skills and exploration, we might have more students take it. I don't need to go back since I basically took

238it. So I I appreciate that very much and and those are things we should look at to be able to do. Um again, I appreciate your comments in terms of educate Fairfax. So to be clear, what we're asking here is your support that there be a position there be a seat for CATC. I am not aware fully how those processes work, but I I mentioned to you who's currently on there and that we could be a benefit. I don't know whether we should be the ones to ask or whether it be the school board on our behalf since we are an advisory committee to you whether you may be able to ask but if if somewhere we could work on that together with you then I think some of these things we're talking about u

239we can try to work to together but I think that's a key part uh to it we've acknowledged the budgetary limitations that we have but there is there that Fairfax the county the community has those opportunities and with that we can help do that. So next year when we come back we actually will have progressed. Thank you. All right. Thank you. And a quick question. The stipens. Dr. Reid, did we did did I see something or am I making this up? But you put out some information on the CTSO stipens that they're referring to. We are um I've asked Miss Burden to have an opportunity to review the CTE budget because that's where the stipens will need to come from. So we um haven't had a chance to do that yet, but we certainly can.

240Okay, great. Thank you. And seeing no Oh, one more Mr. Moon. So one quick question annual comment about a CEC wanting to have a representation on the board of educ. I happen to be a school board leaison to the educ so I so I can bring that up but uh is having someone with a CT background more important? Which one is that is that more important than just having someone from you or is it the other way around? Having someone who is involved as part of the CT advisory committee listening to their experiences visiting themies that is the experience that we think would be of benefit to if they were on that board to have those discussions with them. We've had Dr. Henry come and address us and and I've met others who are on

241the uh the committee. But having us there um I think brings out a kind of experience and it's someone who's attending those meetings regularly, someone who is talking to all of you on a regular basis, someone who's attending the FBLA and other kind of meetings. That is the experience that we think would be a benefit if that person were on the board. Okay. Perhaps, you know, you and I need to have offline convers on this one because uh the SK Fairfax has just uh accepted a a admitted I guess due board members and one of the board members due board members has deep CT background. So whether whether that's not enough or are you looking for more representation from with a CTE background? I mean he's not a member I don't think that person is

242a member of your your your advisory committee but has a deep CT background. That's what that person does for a living. Okay. I'm not sure that okay we can I I appreciate like to talk to. Thank you. Yes sir. Okay. And now saying no others uh we are at 10 till adjourned. Thank you. Thank you all very much.