001[Music] heat heat board members please take your seats the time is 7:02 p.m and this June 12th 2025 regular meeting of the Fairfax County School Board will now come to order please stand for the pledge of allegiance followed by a moment of silence and a performance of the national anthem by Tristan Farmer a Fairfax High School student i pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one nation andice for all oh say can you see by the dawn early light what so proudly we held at the twilight lights last gleaming whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight or the ramp parts we watched were so gallently streaming and the rockets red glare the bombs bursting in air gave proof to the night that our flag
002was still there oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave for the land of the free and the home of the brave [Applause] can we get one more round of applause for that incredibly talented student agenda item 2.02 announcements if you would like to review a copy of the meeting agenda please see the back of the auditorium to obtain copies of any items or supporting materials being discussed tonight please reference the QR code on the agenda or visit fcps.edu/boards tonight's meeting is being broadcast on channel 99 and livereamed on YouTube and our website at fcps.edu/livestream tonight's meeting is also being broadcast in Spanish on YouTube at youtube.comfcps and espanol the Fairfax County School Board would like to take a moment to welcome the following individuals who have joined us for tonight's meeting virginia Senator
003Saddam Salem [Music] and I'm not sure if everybody's here but I have a list so uh Virginia delegates Karen Keys Gamara a former school board member [Applause] Virginia Delegate Dan Helmer [Applause] Virginia Delegate Holly Seabolde Virginia Delegate Paul Kriezac Kate Hanley the former Providence District School Board member supervisor and chair of the board of supervisors jeff McCay chairman of the board of supervisors james Walenshaw Bradock District Supervisor rodney Lusk Franconia District Supervisor [Applause] carolyn Pitches City of Fairfax School Board Chair Amit Hickman City of Fairfax School Board Vice Chair Billy Bates Fairfax City Council member [Applause] Sandra Allen Town of Vienna Council Member [Applause] Northern Virginia Soil and Water Conservation District Board Members Dana Baracat and uh Rhonda Bitterly [Applause] Mark Emery former school board member at Stu Gibson former school board member Hunter Mill
004District phil Najolski Iikner former schoolboard member Providence District and Matt Mullen Manto Citizens Association President agenda item 2.03 03 honoring Megan Sant the 54th student representative to the school board [Applause] i call on Mr frisch for proclamation thank you whereas Megan Sant has enthusiastically served as the 54th student representative to the Fairfax County School Board Miss Sant's tenure for the 2024 25 school year included the beginning of important countywide initiatives like the comprehensive boundary review cell phone policy revisions and commitment to ensure excellence equity and opportunity for every student and whereas Miss Sant has never wavered in her commitment to the students of Fairfax County Public Schools and her duties as the student representative she's excelled at seeking student engagement and feedback attended meetings and special functions all around the county and across the Commonwealth
005and helping to support the reinvigorated student leadership development program and whereas Miss Sant has been a powerful advocate for deepening student engagement with the school board uplifting student voice and policy conversations on school safety academic recovery increasing equity and mental health uh resources and access to career and technical uh education courses and organizations she created the secondary voices advisory committee a student-led forum to seek feedback and improvements in portrait of a graduate implementation in classrooms and has contributed instructive and insightful observations from the student perspective to discussions on issues before the board and whereas at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology Miss Sant has maintained academic excellence while enrolled in rigorous advanced placement classes and completing her senior research through TJ's mentorship program conducting research at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown
006University focused on how muscle tissue adapts to spaceflight conditions and whereas during her time in FCPS Miss Sant has served as Virginia Technology Student Association State Vice President Girl Scout Ambassador on the National Capital Board of Directors intern for NASA and the National Institute of Health explainer at the Air and Space Museum Civil Air Patrol Captain member of the Spanish Honor Society Hack TJ TJ Texravaganza and student member of the American Society for Space and Gravitational Research arch among others megan has also the recipient of the Virginia Schoolboard Association's Exhibitors Scholarship the Virginia Technology Student Association George R wilcox scholarship and an Air Force ROC full tuition scholarship now therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board extends its highest commendation with deepest gratitude for the service of student representative to the school
007board Megan Sant during the 20242 school year expresses its sincere appreciation for her contributions and leadership and extends its best wishes for her in her studies at Harvard University next year is there a second i second miss Anderson i will call for the vote all those in favor please raise your hands miss St john Cunning Miss Lady Mr moon Mr dunn Mr fr Miss Anderson Mr mcdaniel Dr anderson Mr mlavine Miss Dixit Miss Marin and myself that is unanimous madam clerk will you please read the vote i already did it for you but it is unanimous the motion carries congratulations congratulations agenda Agenda item ah Miss Sant you have an opportunity to make some remarks i apologize [Music] good evening everyone thank you is not enough to express the gratitude that I have for you
008all just a year ago when I was elected to this board I was excited but I have to admit very scared to say that this role comes with a big responsibility would be an understatement what I didn't expect though was how blown away I would be by the students I met by the relationships that I built with all of you and the growth that I'd experienced along the way from meeting with the regional superintendent and talking with the student leaders and the superintendent advisory council to attending the general assembly's delegations prehering to sitting in on budget discussions with the board of supervisors to experiencing the food show and the student leadership development program and panels with the IT department and magic of the Cappy's program i could go on about how incredible the opportunities we
009have here in FCPSR reflecting on the decisions that we've made with grading and cell phones and portrait of a graduate school safety boundaries um the list goes on the work that we do in this county the work that you make all possible is truly transformative but if I had to choose one word to describe the skill that it takes to serve on this board it would be resilience this past year I learned what it meant to sit on the other side of the DAS i saw the time the thought and the heart that went into every proclamation every discussion and every vote it reshaped the way that I approached decisions helping me consider perspectives I hadn't before timelines I hadn't accounted for and ripple effects I hadn't imagined i'm inspired by each and every one
010of you and what we did when we had a setback how we got up and how we moved forward we are living in an historic time and how we show up how we lead matters more than ever you've shown me that when we elevate student voice center community voice and lead with transparency no matter how bad the situation may be we build something even more important than policy we build belonging that changes systems and it changed me to Dr reid the leadership team and all of the central office staff thank you your support the conversations we'd have all the small questions I asked when everyone else knew the answer to them that meant more to me than you know to Miss Setllo Mr jackson Miss Brown and Miss Wonderland and everyone in the clerk's office
011thank you for on boarding me and supporting me with such kindness and care to the familiar faces in the audience who show show up each and every meeting thank you thank you for your advocacy in FCPS and always being a familiar face I could look at to my family especially my parents thank you for turning for tuning into every late night meeting even when I said I would be home at a certain time and supporting every wild schedule I proposed and to this board thank you not just for the support but the trust that you had in me and the trust that you had in me to support the voice of the students walking across that graduation stage yesterday shaking each of your hands and even taking a selfie on stage this board has become
012my second family i am so proud to have served as the student member on this board and to have had the privilege to learn from each of you and share so many student experiences like many families when I joined FCPS as a kindergartener we were told that FCPS was the place to be and now as an FCPS graduate I truly can say that FCPS is the place to be thank you so much for letting me be a small part of that thank you Miss Sant agenda item 2.04 honoring James Butland the 2025 Laura Ashley Piper Scholarship recipient proclamation i call in Miss Marin for a proclamation okay I got to regain my composure okay whereas Jame Butland has remained consistently committed to excellence in academics community service athletics and student leadership responsibilities throughout his years
013at South Lake High School and whereas James has shown great potential for continued academic success by maintaining a 4.393 gradepoint average and sustaining the honor role throughout his high school career and working towards his international baloria diploma and whereas during his time at South Lakes High School he has demonstrated maturity responsibility and determination and has supported and advocated for improving the quality of life increasing awareness and ensuring access to resources with for persons with amputations and limb differences and whereas James has contributed to his community by being an engaged member of the Young Men's Service League facilitating friendships building leaderships and promoting outreach understanding and support for those who are in need and whereas through his overall excellence in academics and activities including athletic success in basketball baseball and golf and enthusiasm for STEM writing
014and skiing he in every way personifies the characteristics and ideals to which Laura Ashley Piper adhered now therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board awards the Laura Ashley Piper Scholarship to James Butland in memory of Lieutenant Piper and in recognition of both their drive determination and dedication to excellence now therefore be it further resolved that the Fairfax County School Board expresses its gratitude to Educate Fairfax and Apple Federal Credit Union for their continued partnership and part and contributions to our student awards is there a second second all those in favor miss Marin Miss Dixon Mr mavine Dr anderson Mr mcdaniel Miss Anderson Missheiser Mr dunn Mr moon Miss Lady Miss St john Cunning and myself that is unanimous congratulations i'm going to make a deal with everybody let's applaud after each proclamation
015and not in between every comment that's made it'll make things move a little bit more quickly agenda item 2.05 mr fresh we have to vote no Mr but where is he there he is all right Mr butland please take the podium and and offer your remarks thank you Miss Maron first off I'd like to thank the school board for your constant support and for this honor it is clear that Laura Ashley Piper sorry it's clear that Laura Ashley Piper was a clear community leader athletic competitor and uh she served our community and gave the sorry and gave the ultimate sacrifice to our community is honored to accept the Laura Ashley Piper scholarship in her memory and thank you for everything thank you sir agenda item 2.05 honoring Sonia Faizi the 2025 school board character award
016recipient proclamation i call on Miss St john Cunning for a proclamation whereas the schoolboard character award established in 2001 by student representatives to the school board Chris Giovali recognizes one FCPS 11th through 12th grade student who demonstrates a continuous record of high morals strong integrity and good character award recipients exhibit characteristics such as respect responsibility honesty compassion justice and generosity and whereas Sonia Faizi a rising 12th grade student at Hayfield Secondary School is a resilient student who has overcome personal hardships is known as a compassionate leader and is a source of inspiration for her fellow students and whereas Sonia works hard to balance work and school in order to pursue her goal of being the first in her family to attend college in the United States and she demonstrates an unwavering sense of gratitude and
017purpose which drives her to support her family and her fellow students and where Sonia is a mentor with a focus on supporting other first generation students from refugee and immigrant backgrounds through the national young adult leadership council she also volunteers her time as a math tutor and a front desk desk assistant at the Franconia Recreation Center which she credits as helping her engage further in her community and where Sonia brings a unique perspective to the classroom and her peers and she's a fierce advocate who stands up for equal rights supporting both her own personal goal of bringing her family to the United States and speaking out about her experience as a young woman af in Afghanistan and where Sonia's overall excellence in academics activities and her community she is she in every way personifies the
018characteristics and ideals to which the schoolboard character award embodies now therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board awards the 2025 School Board Character Award to Sonia Faizi who demonstrates a continuous record of high morals strong integrity and good character so as to be a role model for students in Fairfax County Public Schools now therefore be it further resolved that the Fairfax County School Board expresses its gratitude to Educate Fairfax and Apple Federal Credit Union for their continued partnership and contributions to our student awards is there a second second mr mavine all those in favor miss Marin Miss Dixit Mr mavine Dr anderson Mr mcdaniel Miss Anderson Miss Seismore Mr dunn Mr moon Miss Lady Miss St john Cunning and myself that is unanimous the proclamation carries congratulations [Applause] fool me once shame
019on me fool me twice can't be fooled again i would like to call uh Sonia Faizi to the podium to make remarks before the board hello everyone good evening thank you for you all schoolboard members um I'm honored to be there as a school board award tonight uh for me character means being myself being uh doing right thing and respecting everyone uh also stay positive in the hard situation and also uh I learned from my my journey wasn't easy it has not been easy i learned that kindness respect honesty and stay in positive can open any door for everyone and also I learned that help um it cannot help only myself it can help everyone my family my community and where I'm going to be in future for this I want to thank you my
020aunt she always have been helping me since I moved here from Afghanistan without my parents she was the one helping me and only she asked me three thing she asked me work hard have a and be good character for my kid she has two kid i have two cousin and she only asked me that she never asked me to pay anything any expensive and she wanted to be a good character for them and logically I thought I can if I work hard I can have a is how I'm going to be a good character for the kid just I was myself and then today tonight in front of all of you I have I'm receiving the good character award tonight and I want to say thank you for people who helped me through this journey
021maggie my friend my mentor Zara they are here and especially my aunt thank you Amma for everything you have done for me thank you you all we are also joined this evening by former school board member from Bradic Megan McLaclin welcome agenda item 2.07 Immigrant Heritage Month Proclamation i call on this marin for a proclamation whereas the United States promises to be a land in which all are created and treated fairly with equal access to opportunity and America has long been a safe haven for those seeking refuge from economic and humanitarian crises a better life and a peaceful future and whereas generations of immigrants from every corner of the globe have built our country's economy and helped mold the unique character of our nation and county the courage and entrepreneurial innovation of immigrants has generated
022millions of jobs across Virginia and led societal achievements across every major industry including education healthcare public service law engineering construction caregiving manufacturing service agriculture and countless others and whereas immigrants have provided the United States with varied and unique social and cultural influences fundamentally enriching the extraordinary fabric of our nation and whereas despite these countless contributions the role of immigrants in building and developing our nation has frequently been overlooked and undervalued throughout our history and continuing to the present day it is important to shed light on the valuable role generations of immigrants have had across our county and our country and whereas immigrants have been tireless leaders not only in securing their own rights and access to equal opportunity but have also campaigned to create a fairer and more just society for all Americans and whereas
023Fairfax County Public Schools commemorates World Refugee Day on June 20th 2025 and recognizes the courage and humanity of the millions forced to flee violence persecution and war we honor the generosity of our communities in welcoming refugees and the bravery and dedication of humanitarian workers who provide life-saving assistance often in challenging and dangerous conditions now therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board does hereby proclaim June 2025 as immigrant heritage month and encourages all community members to embrace the significant contributions of our immigrant population is there a second as an immigrant myself I am proud to second this Sonia and Fairfax County everything is possible and that's we are proud to be in Fairfax County thank you Miss Dixit all those in favor Miss Marin Miss Dixit Mr mcavine Dr anderson Mr mcdaniel Miss
024Anderson Miss Seismarheiser Mr dunn Mr moon Miss Lady Miss St john Cunning and myself that is unanimous the proclamation carries congratulations agenda item 2.07 Caribbean Heritage Month Proclamation i call on Miss St john Cunning for a proclamation whereas June was designated as National Caribbean American Heritage Month in 2006 to promote the rich culture and heritage of the Caribbean-American people and their contribution to the history and culture of the United States and whereas National Caribbean American Heritage Month spearheaded and championed by Dr claire Nelson the first Jamaican woman to earn a doctorate degree in an engineering discipline and a founding member of the Institute of Caribbean Studies has been celebrated across the nation since 2000 and whereas Caribbean individuals are some of the most ethnically diverse in the world and are a fusion of of indigenous
025African European and Asian descent and the Caribbean also called the West Indies is made up of more than 700 islands reefs and caves which are organized into 30 territories including 13 sovereign nations antigua and Barbudo Bahamas Barbados Kuba Dominica Republic Granada Haiti Jamaica St lucia St kits and Neas St vincent and the Grenardines and Trinidad and Tobago and whereas the Caribbean despora in the United States is compromised of over 8.5 million individuals either born in the Caribbean or of Caribbean ancestry with the majority of Caribbean immigrants in the United States migrating primarily from five countries Kuba the Dominican Republic Jamaica Haiti and Trinidad and Tobago and whereas the Caribbean had been at the center of a heinous crime against humanity induced by the transatlantic slave trade as approximately 40% of enslaved Africans were shipped to
026the Caribbean islands which in the 17th century surpassed Brazil as a principal market for enslaved labor and whereas Fairfax County Public Schools celebrates the rich diversity and honors the many contributions of immigrants of Caribbean heritage to our nation from Jean Batist Point Savile I don't know his name and Haiti who established what would become Chicago to US Senator to US Secretary of State General Coen Powell from Jamaica and the honorable Charlie Schislam of Gionese and Baja descent the first black woman to run as candidate for the president of the United States of America and former Vice President Kamala Harris of Jamaican descent among many others now therefore be it resolve that the Fairfax County School Board does hereby proclaim June 2025 as Caribbean Heritage Month in the celebration and recognition of the many contributions of
027Caribbean Americans who have made our society is there a second as a proud Caribbean American I second thank you Dr anderson all those in favor Miss Marin Miss Dixit Mr mcavine Dr anderson Mr mcdaniel Miss Anderson Miss Seismore Mr dunn Mr moon Miss Lady Miss Jun Cunning and myself that is unanimous the proclamation carries congratulations agenda item 2.08 Junth Proclamation i call on Mr moon for a proclamation thank you Mr chairman whereas the month of June is the time that our nation recognizes Junth as the holiday that celebrates emancipation day the day in history when the last slaves in the Union were freed and whereas the day marks the time period where African-Americans of Texas received notice from President Lincoln that slavery had been abolished a declaration that was codified in the 13th Amendment of
028the Constitution of the United States of America america and June 19th also marks the day that African-Americans in the southern states exercise independence from those who benefited from their labors in the founding of this nation and whereas the journey of African-Americans represents both great achievements and great hardship our county realize in the the injustices of the African-American journey who historically and in the present day have not been treated equally under the law and the pain and anguish developed from generations of systemic racism that impacts our students families staff and communities and we as the educational institutions of this nation including Fairfax County Public Schools has a particular responsibility to recognize the painful realities of our history and to make sure that our curriculum reflects these realities and we as by working with the community as
029one fair facts the school board is committed to implementing actionable items to improve policies and procedures to improve access to opportunities to ensure that students families and staff do not experience inequities in Fairfax County Public Schools and whereas we value diversity and are united in our opposition to racism and hate we stand in solidarity with our African-American students educators staff and their families now therefore be reserved that Fairfest County School Board hereby proclaims June 19 2025 as a Junth a day to commemorate and emphasize a collective call to action against injustices of any kind is there a second i second all right all those in favor Miss Marin Miss Dixit Mr mcavine Dr anderson Mr mcdaniel Miss Anderson Miss Eismore Mr dunn Mr moon Miss Lady Miss Ajunk Cunning and myself that is unanimous the
030proclamation passes congratulations [Applause] 2.09 Honoring Congressman Gerald E jerry Connelly proclamation i call on Mr fresh for a proclamation thank you before I begin I'd like to recognize Smitty Connelly the congressman's wife and Caitlyn Connelly his daughter who have joined us this evening [Applause] whereas Congressman Gerald E jerry Connelly served our community for more than three decades from his time as Mantoous Citizen Association President Providence District Supervisor and Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors to his distinguished tenure in the United States House of Representatives representing Virginia's 11th Congressional District with distinction since 2009 and whereas Congressman Connelly was a steadfast champion for Fairfax County Public Schools throughout his career recognizing that investing in students educators and schools is essential to building a stronger future for our community and whereas Congressman Connelly was a
031tireless advocate for increased federal education funding school renovation projects and providing services for students most in need including full day kindergarten help for atrisisk youth and historic federal aid to address pandemic related student learning loss and whereas Congressman Conny's legacy is visible daily in Fairfax County in classrooms where opportunity is alive and well in programs that uplift children and families and in the green spaces and affordable housing he helped establish and whereas during his time in county government Congressman Connelly led initiatives to expand afterchool programs to all Fairfax County middle schools reduce gang violence promote renewable energy and advance infrastructure investments that supported school communities efforts that helped earn Fairfax County recognition as a best-managed county and whereas Congressman Connelly became an early defender of students rights to access diverse and inclusive educational materials when
032he opposed efforts to ban books from school libraries nearly a quarter of a century ago particularly those depicting the lived experiences of marginalized communities and whereas during his time in the US House of Representatives Congressman Connelly secured critical federal funding for Northern Virginia transportation infrastructure including the Fairfax County Parkway Rail to Dallas and Metro system improving daily life for educators students and families alike and whereas Congressman Connelly also distinguished himself nationally and internationally serving as ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform where he defended public education and the pillars of American democracy from attacks from within he also was a leading voice for democratic values and international cooperation as president of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO Parliamentary Assembly and whereas Congressman Connelly authored and passed major legislation to modernize government
033and support civil servants including the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act and the Land Management Workforce Flexibility Act and the Telework Enhancement Act reforms that have strengthened federal operations and whereas Congressman Conny's signature wit wisdom and laughter taught those of us who work in public service that leadership must be grounded in purpose and carried out with joy and his council friendship and example have shaped generations of civic leaders in Fairfax County and beyond now therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board honors the legacy of Congressman Gerald E jerry Connelly and celebrates his enduring dedication to the nation he served so faithfully and his unwavering commitment to Fairfax County Public Schools and our community which defined his work his life's work is there a second second miss Seismoreheiser i'll call for the vote
034all in favor miss Marin Miss Dixit Mr meline Dr anderson Mr mcdaniel Mr fr Miss Seismore Mr dunn Mr moon Miss Lady and Miss St john Cunning Cunning and myself that's unanimous for all present [Applause] thank you and we're nearing the end of proclamations and then photos i promise 2.0 2.10 wow honoring Jane Strauss's proclamation i call in Miss Lady for a proclamation thank you Chairman Fr uh I also would like to recognize Victoria Hayes who's in the audience daughter of Janie and I believe maybe Jeremy her husband and Maddie her daughter is here who just graduated from Fairfax High School and Becky Melanie sorry and Melanie thank you whereas we celebrate the life and service of Janie of Jane Janie Strauss her devotion including 26 years on the Fairfax County School Board was tireless
035as an advocate of our public school system to provide all children with a world-class education building a solid foundation and the skills for a successful future and whereas Mrs strauss was the first appointed a school board at large member 1991 to 1993 and served as the elected drainsville board member from 96 to 2019 she was the board chair three times and vice chair twice in 2018 she received the Virginia School Boards Association's Advocate for Education Award for her leadership commitment and contribution to public education impacting the Commonwealth of Virginia and our region and whereas during her time on the school board she welcomed two new Drainsville schools Coven Run Elementary School and Coats Elementary School implemented full day kindergarten later start times for high schools extended advanced academic programs including the AAP center at Cooper
036Middle School developed one-on-one technology programs and made critical difficult budget decisions during recessions and whereas Mrs strauss with a master of arts and teaching from Harvard Graduate School of Education spent over 35 years in education as a former elementary and preschool teacher and president of the Franklin Sherman PTA and the Fairfax County Council of PTAs and whereas Mrs strauss countless hours of loving dedication and work on the Cappies a student-driven program for high school theater and journalism students brought benefits to all of our schools all of our schools students across the country and the community she led the cappies after her husband Bill Strauss passed away in 2007 and the program now has 12 active chapters in seven states and two cities in Canada and whereas her dedication included a deep community involvement with the
037MLAN project for the arts healthy families Fairfax and numerous education and youth affairs committees in 2021 she was named the Drainsville District's Lady Fairfax and MLAN High School's theater program named the dress their dressing rooms Janie Strauss dressing rooms in her honor now therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board and our community mourn the loss of Janie Strauss as a youth and community champion benefiting our students staff families in Fairfax County by expanding opportunities for every student especially through her tireless work as Drainsville schoolboard member and her love of student theater and journalism is there a second second Mr moon all those in favor miss Marin Miss Dixit Mr mavine Dr anderson Mr mr mcdaniel Miss Anderson Miss Seismore Mr dunn Mr moon Miss Lady Miss St john Cunning and myself that
038is unanimous the motion carries congratulations [Applause] agenda item 2.11 gun violence awareness wear orange day i call on Mr moon for a proclamation thank you Mr chairman where June 6 2025 was n national gun violence awareness day also known as well orange day and June 6 through 8 2025 was well orange weekend and whereas students first organized National Gun Violence Awareness Day to memorialize the 2013 death of their friend and gun violence victim 15year-old Hadia Pendleton and to commemorate her death they ask us to stand up speak out and wear orange the car hunters wear in the woods to protect themselves and others and whereas firearms are leading cause of death for children and teens in United States and every year nearly 3,500 children and teens die in gun related incidents and approximately 3 million
039are exposed to gun violence and exposure to gun violence has long lasting impacts on the safety and well-being of our youth whereas in 2024 there were 219 incidents of gunfire on school grounds resulting in 59 deaths and 163 injuries nationally and every student and STEM member deserves a safe educational environment and sadly the threat of gun violence for them has grown across the country and real as an estimated one in three American children live in a home with access to firearms and improperly stored weapons have contributed to school shootings suicides and the death of a family members and nearly 40% of parents with a firearm in the home wrongly believe their children don't know where their gun is stored and the Fairfest County Public Schools is committed to preventing gun violence by providing resources and
040reminding families of secure firearm storage practices now therefore be reserved that Fairfest County School Board recognizes June 6 2025 as a national gun violence awareness day to raise awareness of these issues and the importance of preventing and eliminating gun violence in our schools and communities is there a second mr dunn second mr dunn for the second all those in favor Miss Mayor and Mystics Mr makov Dr anderson Mr mcdaniel Miss Anderson Miss Seismore Heisner Mr dunn Mr moon Miss Lady Miss St john Cunning and myself the motion carries that is unanimous [Applause] section 2.12 LGBTQIA plus Pride Month Proclamation i call in Miss Lady for a proclamation whereas June marks the anniversary of the first LGBTQIA plus pride parade over 50 years ago which served as a call to collective action just one year after
041the Stonewall riots where LGBTQIA plus people especially queer youth and transgender women resisted pervasive police harassment and violence during early morning bar raid in New York City and whereas the decades since have been one of struggle and triumph for the LGBTQIA plus community despite increased understanding and legal protections LGBTQIA plus youth still face many challenges including the threat of their legal rights and protections being revoked across the country without accepting families schools and communities they are far more likely to attempt suicide or experience homelessness and whereas recent studies show most LGBTQIA plus middle and high school students in Virginia say they have been verbally harassed because of their sexual orientation and often heard negative remarks about transgender people in school additionally middle and high school students of Virginia report experiencing physical assaults because of their
042LGBTQIA plus status students of color are disproportionately impacted by anti-LGBTQIA plus hostility with large percentages of Latinx and black LGBTQIA plus middle and high school students experiencing bullying and whereas now more than ever with LGBTQIA plus people especially transgender and gender expansive youth are being attacked verbally and in lawmaking the Ferris County B board stands with and celebrates its LGBTQIA plus students families and staff the school board recognizes the urgency of its charge to foster a responsive caring and inclusive culture where LGBTQIA plus students are affirmed and see their identities reflected in instructional curriculum school programs and school library offerings it further commits to advancing policies that protect LGBTQIA plus students and staff and enhance their experience in Fairfax County Public Schools and whereas the Fairfax County School Board appreciates the many contributions made by
043its LGBTQIA plus students families and staff to the vibrancy of the broader school community Fairfax County has a richly diverse LGBTQIA plus population that includes people from all walks of life who should be able to live without fear of prejudice discrimination harassment or violence physical or political now therefore be it resolved the Fairfax County School Board on behalf of the students families and the staff of Fairfax County Public Schools proclaims that June June 2025 is LGBTQI plus Pride Month in the spirit of one Fairfax the Fairfax County School Board urges all to respect and honor our diverse LGBTQIA plus community and to build a culture of inclusivity and equity not only during LGBTQIA plus Pride Month but every day throughout the entire year as well is there a second second i will Mr fresh i
044will call for the vote miss Marin Miss Dixit Mr mavine Dr anderson Mr mcdaniel Mr fresh Miss St john Miss Seismarheiser uh Mr dunn Mr moon Miss Lady and Miss St john Cunning and myself that's unanimous for all present [Applause] all right we're going to move on to photos i would like to welcome our student representative Megan Swant and her family and all those who are here to support her for a photo at the front of the deis if you are a student who is also here for a photo for your scholarship please make your way to the clerk's desk so that you are ready to come in and take a photo and then we will move on to the other proclamation starting with Congressman Connelly i would like to welcome James Butland his family
045and his friends who are here in support of the honoring James Butland the 2025 Laura Ashley Piper Scholarship recipient proclamation to please join the board for a photo i would like to welcome Sonia Fizy her family and all those here in support of the honoring Sonia Fizy the 2025 schoolboard character award recipient proclamation to please join the board for a photo the next photo will after that will be for Congressman Connelly i would like to welcome the family and of Jerry Connelly and all those here in support of the honoring Congressman Gerald E jerry Connelly proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of the dis and the pro photo after that will be the photo honoring uh Jane uh Janie Strauss i would like to welcome the family of Janie
046Strauss and all those here in support of the honoring Jane Strauss proclamation to please join the board for a photo the next photo after that will be the immigrant heritage month proclamation photo i would like to welcome all those here in support of the immigrant heritage month proclamation to please join the board for a photo and the next photo after that will be for Junth i would like to welcome all those here in support of the immigrant heritage month proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of the dis i would like to welcome all those here in support of the Junth proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of the Yes I would like to welcome all those here in support of the Caribbean Heritage
047Month proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of the dis i would like to welcome all those here in support of the LGBTQIA plus pride month proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of the dis and then I would like to welcome all those here in support of the gun violence awareness proclamation to please join the board for the front of the dis board members please return to your seats they're coming all right now we can move to our very patient athletes agenda item 2.13 Virginia High School League and Team Spring 2025 recognitions the school board is very pleased to recognize the recipients of the spring 2025 FCPS VHSL state and regional championships tonight please stand when your team is recognized after all recognitions are
048completed individual teams will be invited to have a photo with the board at the deis the board would like to recognize the Chantelli High School debate team for being awarded the VHSL class 6 debate state championship the board would also like to recognize principal Amy Goodllo director of student activities Brendan Shapiro and debate coach Barbara Clardy for their contributions to the team [Applause] the board would like to recognize the Chantley High School Esport League of Legends team for winning the VHSL spring as Esport League for Legend Tournament Championship the board would like also like to recognize principal Amy Goodallow director of student service Brendan Shapiro and coach James Culla for their contribution to the team the board would like to recognize the rec uh the Frost Middle School girls track team for winning the Fairfax
049County Public Schools Middle School girls track championship the board would also like to recognize principal Anthony Harris after school specialist Deborah Metsler Mezer excuse me uh head coach Craig Davis and coaches Greg Winslow Caitlyn Lot Meredith Marque Marqueis excuse me uh for their contributions to the team the board would like to recognize the Robinson Secondary School boys crew team for winning the VASR Division 2 boys trophy points championship the board would also like to recognize principal Tracy Phillips director of student activities Andy Jimmo Coach Matthew Petty for their contributions to the team the board would like to recognize the Robinson Secondary School's girls crew team for winning the VAS Division 2 girls trophy points championship the board will also like to recognize principal Tracy Phillips director of student activities Andy Jimmo and coach Phil Vargas
050for their contributions to the team congratulations [Applause] the board would like to recognize the Robinson Secondary School Rifle Team for winning the PTOIC High School Rifle League regional championship the board would also like to recognize principal Tracy Phillips director of student activities and Andy Jimmo and Coach James Miller for their contributions to the team the board would like to recognize Robinson Secondary School Boys Middle School tracked team for winning Fairfax County Public Schools Middle School Boys Track Championship the board would also like to recognize principal Trace Phillips after school specialist Courtney Mole head coach Kelly Kavanagh and coaches Mark Brown Isabelle Spra and Tita Lopez for their contributions to the team [Applause] the board would like to recognize the South County High School girls outdoor track team for winning the VHSL class 6 girls outdoor
051track and field state championship the board would also like to recognize principal Samuel Koselba director of student activities Martin Wooten head coach Maurice Hutton and assistant coach Joshua Robinson for their contributions to the team [Applause] the board would like to recognize the Woodson High School esports Rocket League team for winning the VHSL spring esport Rocket League tournament championship the board would also like to recognize principal Kevin Grea director of student activities Blair Smith and coaches Jimmy Shu and Michael Cookandal for their contributions to the team before we continue I gave the Frost Middle School girls track team a fake coach uh so there is no Greg Winslow uh George Winslow I apologize wherever Greg is I'm sure he's fantastic the board would like to invite the members of the Chantelli High School debate team school
052staff and supporters to join the board for a photo at the deis and I ask my colleagues to remain in front while we work through all the photos the board would like to invite the Frost Middle School girls track team school staff and supporters to please join the board for a photo all right the board would like to invite the members of the Chantelli High School Esports League of Legends team school staff and supporters to please join the board for a photo [Applause] the board would like to invite the Robinson Secondary School boys crew team school staff and supporters to please join the board for a photo the board would like to invite the Robinson Secondary School Girls Crew Team school staff and supporters to please join the board for a photo the board would
053like to invite the Robinson Secondary School rifle team school staff and supporters to please join the board for a photo the board would like to invite the Robinson Secondary School Middle School boys track team school staff and supporters to please join the board for a photo the board would like to invite the South County High School Girls Track Team school staff and supporters to please join the board for a photo the board would like to invite the Woodson High School Esports Rocket League team school staff and supporters to please join the board for a photo that is Mr chair that's our last photo get in our seat we got to do on behalf of the board I would like to thank all of our students coaches principals and parents who and caregivers who joined us
054this evening for the recognition of these amazing achievements and student uh athletes we're so proud of our FCPS students agenda item 3.01 community participation the next order of business is community participation we welcome all community members who are here and those who signed up to speak this evening additional information about signing up to provide comments at schoolboard regular business meetings and public hearings can be found on the schoolboard's website at fcps.edu/schoolboard during the sign up process community members acknowledged that they were informed of the school board's expectations for proper decorum when providing comments these expectations are available online and with the printed agenda and meeting materials in the back of the room we ask the audience members to be respectful of one another shouting and outbursts will not be tolerated please hold your applause until
055the conclusion of a speaker's remarks audience members may not join speakers at the podium and should remain at their seats including when recording video or taking photos we're grateful for those who have come to speak to us today and thank you for your cooperation school board members will be listening but not responding madame clerk please call the first speaker shria Gooby hello everyone my name is Shria Gubby and I'm a rising junior at Langley High School a critical issue in the school district today is moving for more sustainability in terms of electricity i appreciate all the efforts the school board and leaders of the community have pushed for in the past few years the recent solar panel contracts within more than 20 schools is a great step forward for more climate resiliency still we need
056more efforts to electrify schools these efforts alone aren't enough to achieve the goals that FCPS have ambitiously envisioned for the next few years there are a few reasons for this for one FCPS continues to consume large amounts of fossil fuels for example in 2023 FCPS school buses use more than 2 million gallons of diesel fuel diesel fueled vehicles are major sources of harmful pollutants and emissions and account for 21% of overall emissions secondly implementing solar panels and more sustainabil electrification efforts can have significant cost savings for example recently SCP has achieved $und00 million in savings if we continue in this climate conscious track we will see more money saved lastly electrifying schools helps FCPS do its part for climate change efforts these actions significantly reduce the carbon footprint of schools as the more we replace
057things such as appliances and buses with electricity the fewer carbon emissions will exist as FCPS continues to grow in terms of student population and schools the electrification efforts we make today can have an immense impact on climate change and cost savings when we strip out fossil fuelpowered infrastructure and replace it with sustainable electrification efforts we can make a clean energy future for FCPS students thank you [Applause] Naria Shat good evening my name is Naja Shutv and I'm a rising junior at Falls Church High School i'm here today to urge you to take further steps to electrify FCPS for the sake of the climate and our health i greatly appreciate the steps taken to approve the solar contract for many schools and this is a vital accomplishment but we need to keep going in light of
058the recent threats to the inflation reduction act federal leaders cannot be relied on to take initiative for the climate we need local leaders like each of you to step up and take more action for the health of our students and staff and communities for the long-term savings that this will bring to the school district and for our planet funding cannot be the reason we don't make progress with this issue when the schoolboard adopted the goals of the joint environmental task force the IRA did not yet exist so while losing it would complicate the electrification process it is not a reason to abandon these goals funding options include passing municipal bonds and securing grants and utility rebates we can also follow Lowden County's example of using money invested from private companies that get paid back over
059time with the money saved all of the funding options aside we don't need to pay for this all at once we can phase in electric equipment and buildings as the old ones need to be replaced i noticed on your agenda tonight items about the replacement of boilers at a couple of schools i'm not sure what kind of equipment you're replacing them with but it would be great if you installed efficient electric heat pumps instead of new boilers that also run on fossil fuels schools are supposed to prepare students for the future and climate change is one of the most critical issues affecting my future so please continue to be examples for school districts across the country in school electrification thank you bert Stewart Uh good evening everybody uh my name is Bart Stewart uh while
060I am on FPAC I am not here today to speak on behalf of EPAC uh just as a Glasgow parent um I got two things i'll try and speak fast so sorry about that uh as I hope you guys remember uh Glasgow is in the middle of a uh boundary review process because without the modulars it is at 117% program capacity so you can imagine my surprise when I went to the boundary review meeting and learned that none of the scenarios resulted in a reduction of students at Glasgow and two resulted in more students at Glasgow that's because the consultants are using the with modular program capacity in their analysis not only does this ignore many of the existing capacity issues it will also continue the cycle of building expensive building additions that sap our
061renovation budgets to solve that I would like to request the board pass a formal motion directing FCPS staff to use the without modulars program capacity in their analysis um number two was on limiting d disruption uh limiting disruption in the process is very important um the July 18th 2024 meeting had a motion to direct um that it it be a f phased approach based on how the process is going um I think that motion needs to be revisited uh right now they're attempting to limit disruption by making minimal boundary changes uh this will lead to more band-aids on top of the dozens that have been implemented over the last 40 years by allowing a phased implementation we can minimize disruption to current students while giving the consultants more flexibility to actually make a real comprehensive
062study amanda Campbell Good evening i am speaking tonight for the last time as president of Fairfax County SEPTA though I'll still be involved dr reid was hired around the same time that I took office and from the first time we met she made her support of SEPTA clear dr reid thank you for your support and your partnership schoolboard members thank you also especially those with whom I've had a the opportunity to collaborate for a few years now special education families are rarely the loudest families in the room and that requires that our elected officials be willing to learn from and engage with our community thank you one of our advocacy wins is the inclusion of disability disagregation in the most recent Fairfax County Youth Survey the data from this report however is incredibly alarming 46.7%
063of students with disabilities reported feeling persistent hopelessness or sadness compared to 13.8% of their non-disabled peers 21.2% of students with disabilities reported considering suicide compared to 2.9% of their non-disabled peers and 8.2% reported attempting suicide compared to 1.1% of their non-disabled peers our students with disabilities are in crisis how will FCPS use this data to better support them i also ask you to review the literacy data from screeners this year only 22.8% 8% of students with disabilities that participated in the middle school I Ready screeners this year met the winter screening benchmarks breaking it down by service level 48.7% of students receiving special education services for less than half their day met the winter screening benchmark while only 11% of students receiving services for more than half of their day met the benchmark both social
064emotionally and academically our students with disabilities need more support the unprecedented attacks on the US Department of Education Medicaid and the ongoing concern for how IDA will be funded and enforced leave our families with disabilities filled with anxiety we need our local Christina McCormack hello again good evening um my name is Chris McCormack i am still a co-chair of FCPS Pride a board member of the Transgender Education Association and uh most importantly a parent of two FCPS students um we wanted to share with you tonight FCPS Pride spent all weekend at World Pride and it was amazing and I wanted tonight to share our experiences with you because you need to hear the things that we were told and and the the the joy that was in our booth um our booth was never empty
065we probably spoke with hundreds of current and former uh students families staff as well as a lot of folks from neighboring school districts that wondered why their school districts weren't there um so we were told repeatedly "Thank you for being here." Over and over "Thank you for being here." And thank you FCPS for advocating for your LGBTQIA students we were the only organization at World Pride advocating for and with a school district the only one so we're incredibly proud of that that says something about the work that we're doing together with you all um it's something to be very proud of i can't adequately express to you how it felt to see students and families enter our booth and light up um and they shared with us their stories their successes and told us how
066very important that affirming school environment has been in their lives um it was a wonderful beautiful weekend and we want you to all know that and to never doubt that continuing to fight for the rights of our students and staff is not only vital but joyous so thank you for your support of LGBTQ plus students this year in the face of tremendous pressure we know that pressure is probably going to worsen uh but as Bayard Rustin once said we need in every community a group of angelic troublemakers that's us so we look forward to continuing our work with you thank you Vanessa Hall so I am the other co-leader of FCPS Pride and it turns out Chris just took my speech so I'll do my best um I wanted to say that I wanted to
067say thank you that students were supported educated and graduated this year i'm talking about all of our students that is a testimony to all of the hard work that you all do and that all of FCPS does from Gate House to each individual school um I've heard some critics say that proclamations are done just for the sake of appearances but we know that's not true especially when it feels like the world's on fire democracy is threatened and civil rights are being denied to be honest right now pride proclamations feel very personal when the governor the president and VHSL deny trans students the right to play sports or use the bathroom or when one's very existence as a trans or immigrant student is denied so we really need this your Pride Proclamation reminds us that we
068all deserve to be welcomed and safe in our schools like you we at FCPS Pride work to ensure that students staff and families feel safe supported and welcomed in our community at Pride celebrations this weekend we did meet hundreds of Fairfax County students families and staff who have seriously appreciated how you are fighting for their rights at World Pride students told me that they feel welcome and ready to learn at FCPS they're free from the daily harassment that older alumni experienced especially older alumni from my era um where gay slur when gay slurs were common and misgendering was actually a bully's tool of choice parents especially expressed thanks for your hard work to improve the climate and even appreciated protections by the SRNR and I'm about to go over my time so happy Pride Month
069y'all and by y'all we appreciate that you do mean you all thank you sorry Taylor good evening my name is Sarah Taylor i'm a product of Fairfax County Public Schools a parent of students in Fairfax County and for 15 years I've been a special education teacher with Fairfax County for the past eight years I've been the lead special education teacher at Mountain View ALC and AIM two weeks ago we were notified that ALC's were being shut down and AIM would no longer exist in the manner it has for almost 20 years the ALC and AIM program serve some of the neediest children in our county we teach mentor and love children who have been told they can no longer attend other schools due to unfortunate choices they've made two weeks ago we were told that
070ALC's were being absorbed by the alternative high schools and staff was changing in the the AIM program our lead teacher's role was being eliminated later myself and eight of my co-workers were destaffed although we are one campus the staffing of Mountain View High School was never considered when Dstaffs were made the alignment with Bryant AIM was also not considered when Dstaffs were made to our program the timing of this left us with six work days to find a job or to be placed without choice due to budgeting and staffing concerns there are no similar jobs available in the county i don't teach at Mountain View ALC and AIM because I'm forced to i teach there because my passion is working with the kids that everyone else has turned their back on i will be clear
071i fear for the safety and security of remaining staff and students based on changes being made i fear that making this last minute hasty decision does not allow enough planning time to effectively meet the needs of our students like we have in the past recently we watched six students from AIM graduate most of those students were over the age of 18 most of them had spent time in various alternative school environments including Mountain View High School and the Juvenile Detention Center those children came to us having never passed an so at AIM were able to work with them and reach those kids in ways that have never been done aim takes students who have committed the most egregious offenses we put in place measures to make a safe environment for both students and staff due
072to that work we've seen success that should be blasted all over this county without the support of our staff these students would be less likely to go on to become productive stacy Wickline i'm a retired teacher from the AIM program fcps senior leadership is operating under erroneous information regarding the Mountain View AI2 program and I'd like to set that record straight first AIM is not just for grades 11 and 12 it has always served grades 7 through 12 it's not a detail it's a defining feature second we are not monitors we are educators the statement that AIM students are monitored by a lead teacher IAS and security attendants is simply wrong every classroom has a certified teacher we teach English math social studies science we have special ed and ELLL support ias assist staff and
073students and ensure there are two teachers in each classroom for the safety and security of all we work to heal broken children we model compassion respect and offer the promise of redemption and success for every student who comes through our doors we do not need security guards and we are not money pits third our work extends far beyond AIM over the years AIM staff were called on to help both the high school and the ALC programs we stepped in when others couldn't get students to pass their coursework SOS work keys or the wise test we did the work of two other programs while serving our own students and now leadership says that quote AMD staffs will only occur where high school staff can serve in the same capacity i disagree vehemently we are not interchangeable
074this work takes experience flexibility and complete commitment to each other and our students leadership's claim that students will receive the same or better services with fewer staff is not just unrealistic it is disingenuous cutting staff while promising no loss or even improvement in quality logic doesn't hold anywhere not in hospitals nursing homes military and most certainly not in schools before these cuts Mountain View had something exceptionally rare an exceptional staff who showed up every day to work with the children no one else in this county could handle they did it with love please play the video testimony submitted by Robert Riby good evening friends this is Robert Rigby a veteran teacher in Fairfax County Public Schools i've been going to the LGBTQ Pride Festival in DC since these whiskers since before these whiskers were gray
075and this brow was unfurred this year was among the most joyful for me with reunions with former students all grown up and parents and staff and teachers who came by our FCPS Pride booth but it was also the festival with the most security I've ever seen metal detectors fences uh private security three police departments um it was so secure because our community is under threat um of of violence um as are many other communities communities being snatched up from the streets and and deported and families separated it's terrible um tonight you are honoring many of those communities not only LGBTQIA plus folk but Caribbean people uh and ArabAmericans religious minorities and immigrants uh and I thank you for that it's important for those communities under duress to be unified uh and you help us with
076that with your proclamation and and Dr reid and the school board um I would ask that those who disagree with us so vehemently um who even would take away our rights that you not dehumanize and demonize people because that leads only to hate and that's not good for us and it's not good for you i heard um immigrant people and protesters called animals by our leader on the TV this morning that's terrible don't do that folks and we won't do it um we must stay united as a community if this nation and our school system are to survive thank you Chair Fresh that's our last public speaker thank you just have to get to the right part agenda item 4.01 student representative matters i call in Miss Sant first I just wanted to say thank
077you uh my heart is so full um so thank you so much um and this is my second to last meeting so I'm going to get straight to business so speaking of student voice over the past couple weeks I've received letters from students at Hayfield Secondary School as part of their senior government projects and these letters are addressing real issues that students are facing every day and ones that I wanted to bring to the board's attention as well so I'm just going to highlight three but I would love to share the rest of them with you as well because they're all important they all highlight different experience that they faced so one student wrote about the need for clearer and more accessible policies around excused absences for mental health days she cited CDC's 2023 youth
078risk behavior survey which reported that 40% of high school students felt persistent sadness or hopelessness we've also seen similar trends in FCPS's own youth survey data especially the spike in sixth grade that Dr dr reed has previously shared and yes while these numbers might show slight improvement over the years and while we do have several mental health resources students still navigate high pressure environments where their mental health often comes second to their attendance record yes Virginia law does allow excused absences for mental health but implementation is up to each county district and while we do have return tolearn an FCPS program designed to support students who are out for extended periods of time due to mental health challenges that doesn't necessarily help students who need just a day so what about mental health days what
079are the guidelines in FCPS the messaging across our schools is inconsistent and the awareness that students have about whether they can take this is limited as this student put it in her letter students should not be forced to choose between their mental health and their attendance record we need to ensure that students and families clearly understand what support exists and how to access it another letter came from a first generation senior focused on how FCPS can better prepare students for life after graduation especially those who may be first in their family to attend college or um join the workforce she was discussing the senior experience or the senior internship program that happens at some high schools during fourth quarter once AP exams are over and she also referenced Arlington County as well as some schools
080in FCPS that can use that time to volunteer intern or work part-time and we've actually had FCPS students who do also shadow in central office and help support local businesses while getting that work experience but the thing is that access isn't consistent at Hayfield and other high schools students are still required to attend school full-time through the last day even when most of their graduation requirements are complete the student who wrote this letter shared that she had found a volunteer opportunity at a local dental clinic but she turned it down because her school didn't offer that internship program offering a senior experience opportunity universally to all our high schools regardless of the schedule or resources is a chance to explore future pathways in a meaningful way and so I wonder how we can further expand
081that to other high schools the last letter that I wanted to highlight was written by a student involved in robotics and he went on and on about how First Robotics impacted him and the other elementary schools in his area he talked about how some schools lack the resources to start or maintain first robotics teams and this extends to other activities as well as we've seen this school year debate chess um crew etc due to the high costs for equipment travel and registration and so when I was thinking about his letter while we really do not have the flexibility to fully fund any more afterchool programs right now there are existing high schools like H h Hearnden Chantelli and Oakton who've stepped in to mentor those younger students so last year in the summertime actually H
082hearnden High School hosted a robotics camp for Clear View Elementary which expanded access in a title one community and so I'm wondering if that's a kind of model that we can build on if we can find a way to lean into our high school volunteers our community volunteers in ways that they can organize camps or other activities um and close that opportunity gap without having to rely on extra funding and we already have so many passionate students and alumni ready to give back um from STE STEM initiatives to Textrav to all of the events that we have in all of our newsletters that promote ways that students want to give back um so that's something that I wanted to put out there and then with that student um uh student representative applications to a community
083advisory committee for the next school year which our new student rep Faith is leading are now open um so if there is an issue if you're a student and you're interested in getting involved with one of these committees rising 9th through 12th graders can apply and information can be found with your school's college and career specialist and on board docs after this meeting um and then lastly I got to attend the Cappy's gala a couple weeks ago which was super duper cool um I also got to give an award to one of my friends who won the award so that was awesome um and watch so many of my friends graduations um it's just been such an amazing time to see all of the excellence in FCPS and to graduate um so I'm just so
084so grateful [Applause] all right agenda item 5.01 action item certification of closed meeting compliance since we need to return to the closed meeting we will return to this agenda item after the conclusion of the closed meeting agenda item 5.02 action item confirmation of action taken in closed meeting i call on Miss Anderson for a motion i move to deny the school reassignment appeal of a student who participated in a group assault on another student at school and to confirm the disciplinary disciplinary decision of the division superintendent is there a second second Miss Lady all those in favor miss Marin Mr macke Dr anderson Miss Anderson Mr done mr moon Miss Lady Miss St john Cunning and myself all those opposed abstensions miss Dixit Mr mcdaniel Miss Seismore Heiser will the clerk read the vote that's
085903 the motion carries thank you i call on Miss Lady for a motion i move that the probationary employee number one identified in closed session be dismissed at the conclusion of the 24-25 school year and their contracts and her and the contract will not be renewed for the 2526 school year thank you is there a second i second all those in favor miss Marin Miss Dixit Mr mavine Mr mcdaniel Miss Anderson Miss Seismoreheiser Mr dunn Mr moon Miss Lady Miss St john Cutting and myself uh opposed abstensions dr anderson the motion carries excuse me i call on Miss Lady for a motion i move that the probationary employee number two identified in close session be dismissed at the conclusion of the 2425 school year and their contract will not be renewed for the 25 to
08626 school year is there a second i second miss Dixit all those in favor miss Marin Miss Dixit Mr mr mcdaniel Miss Seismore Heiser Mr dunn Miss Lady Miss St john Cunning and myself all those opposed abstensions Mr mackin Dr anderson Miss Anderson Mr moon the motion carries i call on Miss Lady for a motion i move that the proationary employees number three and number four identified in closed session be dismissed at the conclusion of the 2425 school year and their contracts will not be renewed for the 2526 school year is there a second i second thank you all those in favor Marin Mix Mr mcvine Dr anderson Mr mcdaniel Miss Anderson Miss Eismerheiser Mr dunn Mr moon Miss Lady Miss H john cutting it myself that is unanimous the motion carries i call on
087Miss Anderson for a motion i move that the chair of the school board be authorized to execute on behalf of the board the contract for assistant superintendent instructional services department is there a second second all those in favor miss Marin Miss Dixit Mr mcdaniel Miss Anderson Miss Seismarhiser Mr dunn Miss Lady Miss St john Cunning and myself all those opposed dr anderson abstensions mr mine Mr moon the motion carries all right agenda item 5.01 action item financial year 2025 revised budget i call on Miss Seismore Heiser for a motion i move that the school board approve a onetime bonus to eligible employees as detailed an agenda item on board docs totaling 31.4 million of which 19.7 million is provided by the state government and 11.7 million is provided by FCPS's available fiscal year 2025 year-end
088savings is there a second i second miss Anderson Miss Eismerheiser would you like to speak to your motion yes just briefly um we were very grateful that the state were was able to give us nearly $20 million to give a one-time bonus to our uh our employees and as we were not able to do the the 7% raise that was initially in the FEU initial collective bargaining agreement hopefully this will um help provide a little bit to our really hardworking employees and since it's a one-time cost we were able to use our year-end savings which is a one-time bucket of funds to help fill the gap between what the state provides us and what we need additionally because of the SOQs and the way the the funding formulas from the state works so these are
089not able to be used for recurring funds or recurring costs year after year they're just a one-time bucket but I am really glad that we're able to dip into our onetime bucket along with the state to give a thousand bonus to all of our hardworking staff so thank you thank you Miss Seismoreheiser miss Anderson would you like to speak to your second um I won't reiterate anything that's already been said but I just really want to say thank you to Dr reed and the staff that were able to figure out how to make this possible so that we didn't leave any funding from the state on the table and that we can do everything possible to support our staff so thank you thank you Miss uh Anderson Miss Marin yes so I support this i
090just think that it's really crucial that the motion be a lot more detailed and I know um amidst the many graduations and year and celebrations I was able to speak with some of you and you expressed support for being more focused or more detailed on this motion and thank you chair for trying to work that out but I think we just ran out of time so um I'd like to propose an alternate motion but um chairman if you have suggestions on how to go about doing that because we didn't get to finish that conversation I welcome that but I do have the proposed language which is what I shared previously so I suppose I'll pause and see if you could clarify i hesitate but we're going to take a fivem minute recess stay close [Music]
091all right recess is over come back to your seats board members please return to your seats miss Marin I'll restore all your time i can put you after the next speaker if you'd like no I just would like to the the language is up on the board so again chair if the motion just to clarify we had a different motion earlier so am I correct that per rules I can swatch swap out this motion and I don't need to actually ask for a substitute motion that's already been done well I see that now but that had been my question so okay your question is as long as it's done before the meeting begins which it was then it's within Robert's rules so it's already been done and it's already been made by Miss Seismore okay
092that's great but it's clear that not all of the board members know that um so let me go ahead and speak to it more fully is that um it's important for the public to know two things one is that when the state says it gives us money for a bonus it is not the amount that we need it's not even half and we have to put in over half to obtain that money on the table from the state and the second thing is our motion should be more clear than just this is what we're doing as stated in the agenda especially for something like this when it's important to again reiterate and educate that we are paying a lot to be able to draw down this money and this is exactly what we are allocating
093you know for a budget for an amendment we really need to be as clear as possible and I hope that we as a board can talk further about how our motions get prepared because I couldn't quite recall and I want to know who's making motions so that we can be as articulate as possible so um I will support this motion and thanks for making it Misser thank you Miss Marin dr anderson thank you um I I think Miss Marin started to speak about the one of the points that I wanted to make which is the fact that the com the part of this thousands to employees what it cost this division that has to really be articulated upfront because whenever the state makes claims that they will be providing a raise percentage to um teachers
094or this kind of bonus it gets really lost that the cost to FCPS is significant um and that has to be handled with local dollars so that's the first thing and I think the more we can articulate that the clearer it is because I think sometimes there's not a lot of understanding in the public um secondly Dr reed this is more of a question to you um this does say onetime bonus to eligible employees i want to be sure that we're being clear um to folks who may be watching um because we need to make sure that they understand who this would not be applicable to so thank you Dr anderson we I know our finance team uh went through uh a thorough review of staff to mirror prior uh one-time bonus practices and I
095believe we have Matthew Norton Ellis Widgetton here would one of you clarify please how we're defining eligible employees for the purposes of this bonus sure so for the thousand bonus it would be full-time contracted and what we refer to as hourly contracted employees which includes bus drivers family liaison as well as our food service workers so it's not our temporary hourly workers would get a $1,000 bonus um we are prrating it for part-time employees so if you're less than a 1.0 it's going to be prrated by your FTE so if you're 0.5 it would be 0.5 times you know a,000 which is $500 thank you that is very helpful just one additional clarification the temporary employees um would that mean substitutes is that the only group that fall into that falls into that category i'm
096sorry I'm having a hard time seeing you sorry um yeah that Yeah it it's not the only but substitutes are um temporary employees um there's about 12,000 temporary employees um that this would fall under but I also wanted to kind of point out too that of the 12,000 about half of them only work about five hours on average per week so um 50% about 4,100 work between 5 and 17 hours so you know that's 84% of our employees who temporary employee hourly employees that are working um less than 17 hours on average per week thank you that's very helpful and these employees fall um across obviously many many different employee groups that's correct okay thank you so much and I I I'm very appreciative of the accommodation for our part-time employees to have that be
097um commensurate with their hours thank you Dr anderson i'll take a turn really quickly um just to put a finer point even finer on the point that Miss Marin made that Dr anderson uh clarified I'll further clarify when we talk about having to contribute a significant amount of the money to access the money from the state it's more than 80 cents on the dollar that we have to contribute as taxpayers in Fairfax County to get less than 20 cents on the dollar back for the payraises that are typically you know uh announced by the general assembly so we very much appreciate that money but it's very difficult for us to access and at times the legislature has made it so that you can access uh the funds without having to put money forward which has
098been very helpful for school divisions like Fairfax County where we have to make a significant outlay in order to access it so I'll be voting for this bonus and appreciate all the staff's work on it i know it wasn't the easiest thing to figure out so thank you Mr dunn i can't say enough how much I oppose this motion uh I have stood with our employees from the very beginning advocating for uh the union to get the full 7% that was promised to them in the fall but two weeks ago I stood before the school board and I asked for $5.2 million so kids are safe in our middle schools and high schools and I was told by the sponsors of this motion and many of my colleagues on the school board that we didn't
099have the money we didn't have the money but now we found more than twice that in fact uh some of the people on the school board who want to spend this money on a one-time bonus wanted to indefinitely postpone my budget amendments to make sure our kids are safe i find that reprehensible i find that unacceptable i find I can't even begin to fathom how morally you can justify this motion compared to my motions um you don't have to pass my motions you can do it any which way anyone can bring any motion and I'll vote for it but I'm going to focus on safety and security because that's got to come first that's got to come first if we have money for this we have money for that thank you Mr dunn miss Dixit
100uh I'm going to support this motion uh because uh teachers did not get what they need they were promised um due to short budget shortfall this will be some relief for them um but I also want to find money for our for next year uh we definitely want to support our safety and security um in our schools so um that's something I would like to continue on that path so but at at this point I'll support this motion thank you Miss Dixit miss Marin just a question um are operational staff included in this as eligible um Dr reid yes ma'am as long as they meet the eligible um hourly and contracted levels absolutely okay thank you and my understanding is because this is year- end it's onetime money and we wouldn't want to create salary
101increases with one-time money which is why this is an appropriate way to use the funds versus encumbering an expectation that it would recur so I do think that is the difference and um I hope we can pass this thank you Mr mayor and Mr moon uh thank you Mr chairman i don't want to redebate what we should have debated at the budget adoption but uh Dr reed if we do not give this bonus then basically we're not getting the benefit of what is state what state is providing to us to the tune of $20 million we have to return the money yes sir that's correct 19.7 million of the dollars that we're utilizing here would go back to the state if we don't match it to provide the bonuses so uh uh in as much
102as I understand I understand indignation on the part of board member representing Moran district on the point he was making I don't want to return $20 million to Richmond so I'm supporting the motion thank you Mr moon i'll remind members to direct their comments to the chair miss Anderson the only thing that I want to say here is that this is one opportunity that we have to actually get outside of the fact that we're restricted by how much we receive back from the state this is 63% that's coming from the state directly so I see this is an opportunity for us to be able to provide a bonus that we would not otherwise be able to provide because of the fact that the state funding comes back at such a low percentage so I don't
103I and I fully understand the fact that this is end ofear money that would be a one-time use so I fully support this in every way shape or shape possible and I hope that it will be able to provide some some spark of joy for our staff at the end of the year so I absolutely support this thank you Miss Anderson miss Seismore yeah I thank you i just wanted to say you know I think we we talk a lot about the need for funding we we've talked a lot about JARK and there's still a lot of work to be done at the state level and I know they're they're working on it but when we're getting nearly $20 million specifically for teacher funding it it's really hard to walk away and say "No never
104mind." Because there's lots of other very important things that we want to do um and and I I think we all agree that we want to make sure our students are well educated and safe and supported and there's many many programs that we could do but in this particular case we have a one-time funding from the state that if we don't use specifically for this we lose it and that's $20 million and I personally don't want to tell say to teachers hey I wasn't willing to do this because there's other things we want to do i think they're all important and it's difficult when you don't have the budgets that you um and we're all dealing with this with shortfalls and issues with budgets and you have to make tough decisions but I personally can't
105leave $20 million on the table when that could be used along with year-end one-time bucket fundings to support our teachers and give them a hopefully a nice bonus at the end of the year so I'm supported thank you Miss Seismore Heiser miss St john Cutting so I also want to say that um there's a lot of issues and programs that we we would want to use year-end money for but when we're offered $20 million and it's a use it or lose it I don't think we can afford to lose it and the other thing I would like to add and reiterate that I've said before we need to keep our excellent staff here and this we weren't able to provide them the raise that we wanted and any other thing that we can use money
106for would never replace the importance of having qualified staff in our buildings including safety and security the best safety and security measure we have are our staff and our personnel that deal with our kids that help them with their mental health issues that assure that we don't get to a point where we have violence so I fully support this as a small way to compensate our staff thank you Miss Seismarheiser miss Santunning I'm sorry miss Swan go ahead um yes very quick um especially in the high school level our teachers have been through a lot this year from having to adjust to the new grading scales to all of the uncertainty that we've had around funding to the raises that we were going to get them and then when we had that hearing all of
107the teachers that came out in support of their programs so I think that this is a very very easy yes if I could vote thank you Miss Sant uh Dr anderson thank you just a couple of quick things um one and I I can't believe I missed this but the fact that the bulk of this is coming from the state that seems to be unusual and not typical of what we normally get can you speak to that a little bit because our portion tends to be as doc um Mr fris described which is close to 80% this seems to be a little bit heavier on the state side that seems to be it is yeah thank you Dr anderson uh Miss Wiggington um so what the state did was they just based the cost of
108a $1,000 payment on the number of SOQ funded positions that the state says that we have so that's a little more than about 18,000 funded positions so that's not at all to mean that that's what we are required to have but it's just the minimum number based on their estimates and their formulas um and so since they did $1,000 per SOQ funded positions it's a,000 times 18,000 if you will and then they also include the FICA portion as part of the allocation so that's why in this case it comes up to a little bit more than 63% mr fish is absolutely right that we on average usually only get about 20% of the state when it comes to their other compensation supplements that they give us so when the state says even in this year
109they funded like 3% of the compensation supplement that usually works out to be about 20% of our costs okay thank you so this means that all of the instructional staff will be eligible for this the operational staff as Miss Marin asked administrative staff will will also be able to benefit that's correct and as well as central office and leadership staff that's correct okay um I it's I I definitely understand the quandry i definitely understand the issues and I wish that these were untethered dollars um but I we have to take advantage of these dollars and I will be supporting the motion for that reason um and my last question Dr reid this is 11 uh 11 point something I can't remember the million um what is it that you're anticipating we might recoup with year-end
110dollars because I know we've had some years and these were the years where we were not able to secure um substitutes and we had a lot of vacancies where we've had upwards of hund00 million and um year end funds those days are over um but what number are we circling around potentially that we'll be hearing out hearing about next month so we're definitely not around the 100 million mark because we have filled many more positions um this past year i know we've uh run some estimates and I I don't know that I want to speculate on what it is at this time um but I can certainly provide you something in the Friday letter right i just want to make sure we'll be covered we will be covered there's no question we'll be covered okay
111thank you thank you Dr anderson we'll go to a vote for the motion on the screen all those in favor Miss Marin Miss Dix Mr mcvine Dr anderson Mr mcdaniel Miss Anderson Missheiser Mr moon Miss Lady Miss St john Cunning and myself all those opposed mr dunn the motion carries agenda item 5.04 award of contract baseball and multi-purpose stadium lighting replacement at Hearnen Middle School i call on Miss Dixit for a motion i move that the school board award the contract of the baseball and multi-purpose stadium sports lighting replacement at Hernand Middle School to Musco Sports Lighting LLC in the total amount of $59,453 and0 and authorize the division superintendent or the chief operating officer to execute deliver administer the contract on behalf of the school board is there a second i second miss St
112john Cunning would you like to speak to your motion Miss Dixit uh no thank you miss St john Cunning would you like to speak to your second no thank you Mr dunn thank you um I'd like to understand uh how this contract came about um the information I received states that it was uh established as a rider to a cooperative source contract um but when it comes to lighting we have many lighting projects across the county and we only have one company that appears to be performing these projects but when we look at construction renovation projects and we get multiple bids we see that there's high variation in bids sometimes as much as 150% from the lowest bid to the highest uh sometimes the disparity is greater and so um I'm trying to figure out
113why we only have one one entity uh performing all of these projects rather than you know receiving competitive bids on a project by project basis so thank you Mr don i um it looks like at this point the response to this was the original 7.04 that's correct so the Musco is the sole vendor on the contract um and the source well contract was competitively solicited um and where and when possible competitive bids are sought depending on the project u we also know that competitive bids elongate the process it creates a much longer runway to getting to the project um and I will share that the award is utilizing a contract that was competitively solicited uh Fairfax County uh which I think is our county not necessarily Fairfax County Public Schools established this agreement as a
114writer to a cooperative source contract which was competitively solicited the agreement was awarded on September 13 2023 with an additional term through June 16 2027 which includes three optional one-year renewal periods um so that's that would be the answer to the questions you've provided so um my my understanding uh from my uh Google search is that source contract is not a FCPS contract it's a independent contract that we can leverage as we've leveraged for um other other con other efforts that we have underway um but what I don't understand is uh why would Musco Musco this company uh be the sole company we're utilizing for all stadium lighting projects um you know while source well may certainly exist um have we done any analysis at all to say they are the most cost effective they
115they will perform this at the highest best level um for the lowest price um and when we when we engage in cooperative procurement efforts like this we don't really get that data so we and so I'm trying to see has there been any market research have we talked to neighboring school systems to see how they do it um because the amounts involved here you know add up to millions of dollars over time and uh if we got lower bids that would potentially free up money to do more more lighting projects uh rather than just one at a time one per year which is the current uh you know funding allocation yes sir I understand i um my understanding is we are getting the most coste effective but um Miss Pratt do you have uh a
116response maybe more specific i will try to assist although these procurements do not come through my office they are handled by the chief of facilities and capital programs um but generally speaking we use source contracts in my office as well um I'm sure that there was some type of uh pricing analysis based on prior uh projects that sort of lent the office to uh decide that this was in our best interest to move forward with this competitively awarded cooperative contract uh if if I may just follow up for when you when your office has used source well and I understand this is not your office's contract what pricing analysis do you what are the data sets you use to compare the services through source well compared to services through a competitive open open and and
117uh open competition yeah I think you I think you were touching on them earlier we look at prior projects prior spend prior year spend um we look at what our surrounding jurisdictions are doing we look at the national cooperatives to see generally they have pretty high volume pricing that many school districts use we're a large district so sometimes we feel like we can garner a better price uh depending on what the commodity is i think time is also a factor uh but but yes we do a pricing analysis among other things okay thank you i appreciate it thank you Mr dunn miss Dixon sorry so I wanted to bring it to everyone attention just like Mr dun said this is a cooperative agreement uh federal government uses this all the time uh similar agreements like
118GSA and then other states have this I believe is a state contract going to the website and they do a lot of uh rigorous pricing uh competitive um and then the vendors are selected in a particular contract and then you work it is of like a schedule so I believe this is a cooperative agreement is used I my only question is that is it like a commercial offthe-shelf type of pricing which we're using or is it a um per project pricing so I'm going to defer to Mr muick and technically the procurement for these projects comes through Mr muick's office the um office of the chief operating officer mr muick yes ma'am i I'll have to get back to Miss Dixon on that if it's a per project or a or a set price on
119that and what I would say to you uh to Mr done as well is that we the procurement team uses a combination of you know sometimes they use the the cooperative contracts like this to ride on them knowing that that organization has done a competitive bid and sometimes we do our own competitive sealed bids it's just a matter of managing workload in uh in the workforce right and so we have other entities that are riding on our contracts as well and they trust us that we did the competitive bid up front getting the best price so I think it's kind of how we help each other out to manage you know big workload thank you yes sir yeah and I just think uh this is from the Minnesota government uh so it's a state contract
120so it's not a commercial contract thanks thank you Miss Dixit dr anderson um yes thank you you said the writer Dr reid was which year um the writer was let me just pull it back up here again um the writer which was competitively solicited the agreement was awarded on September 13 2023 with an additional term that runs through June 16th of 2027 and includes three optional one-year renewals following that thank you the reason why I asked again this is not my world i'm getting quite an education from the conversation here but if we are um kind of piggybacking on a writer that exists and it occurred and that um was in place a few years ago which would probably include some of the rigorous evaluations that was just that was just discussed how do we
121uh account for any changes that have happened in the market between the initial um installation of that writer to now how do we capture that the best deal is still being had yes ma'am it's a great question Mr muick your team um must have a process for that um yes ma'am but I I'll have to get back on answer on that one as well sorry do you know that that was my only question because I think that would give some um confidence to the fact that we are this is still good and current and the most bang for our buck so that would be an important thing to perhaps include moving forward thank you Dr anderson i'm going to take a turn um I'm just going to on a hunch to try and answer Dr
122anderson's question based on everything that we've seen in contracting for our facilities over the years that we're probably saving money by using a writing a writer from 23 than using one that's done again in 25 at current rates i mean would that be a safe assumption to make i don't want to speculate this evening i want to make sure when I agree that I have my facts in front of me so I want to I think it's certainly intuitive but I want to make sure we've got the facts for you thank you so much Miss Lady yeah I appreciate the conversation and perhaps in a work session we can get trained a little bit more on procurement and writers and things like that but this is my community in H hearnden and we need these
123lights and we need to vote on this because we have a long agenda we have to go back to close so I appreciate the questions i want to make sure we exercise our fidiciary responsibility here but at the same time um I we need to vote this through because this is Hearnden and they need the lights thank you thank you Miss Lady Mr dunn sorry I lost my train of thought with my colleagues so uh I I I just wanted to say um if we could get some analysis in a Friday letter just comparing you know more pricing analysis more information on how these determinations are made and the type of pricing analysis that's done to use cooperative rather than full and open run by FCPS that would be very useful just for recent procurements
124whether it's lighting or or other um chillers or or other you know infrastructure that we address yes sir i I'm trying to an analysis between what we're planning to spend for the Hearnen project and no not necessarily for Hearnen but just in in the past um it was mentioned that there has been pricing analysis comparing cooperative procurement vehicles versus doing a full and open and looking at you know the type of data that's available from neighboring counties just a little bit more wholesome written explanation would be helpful so that we can have insight into how these procurement decisions are made and have some confidence that they are you know most cost-effective um from a from an operating budget perspective yes sir thank you Mr dunn we will go to a vote for the motion that
125is on the screen all those in favor Miss Marin Miss Dixit Mr mavine Dr anderson Mr mcdaniel Miss Anderson Miss Seismarheiser Mr dunn Mr moon Miss Lady Miss St john Cunning and myself that is unanimous the motion carries herd has lights i don't think they're that fast all right agenda item 5.05 action item Soul Source amendment Levi Ray and Shupe Inc erfc Retirement Benefit and Payroll System i call on Mr mcdaniel for a motion move that the school board approve the amendment for the RFC retirement benefit and payroll system and authorize the division superintendent or the director of the office of procurement services to execute deliver and administer the contract on behalf of the school board is there a second second mr moon would you like to speak to your motion Mr mcdaniel no thank
126you mr moon would you like to speak to your second no sir thank you Mr dunn uh yes so this contract was originally competed in 2006 and with this extension it will be uh 20 years since it was competed um so I just if if I have the right actually let me correct that it was originally competed in 2013 and with this extension it'll be 13 years since it was competed so can you provide a little context for um why this contract has not been computed or won't be computed uh 13 years since its inception yes sir um this evening we have the executive director of the ERFC Miss O'Neal that uh came to the meeting um the new executive director um welcome and congratulations yes so she um will be able to answer those
127questions Mr dunn so um Miss O'Neal sure thanks for uh thanks for the welcome um happy to answer the questions i'm over here sorry sorry i can stand up but I'm really tall you don't want me to stand up um I'm happy to answer the questions i have been on staff with the RFC for 5 years um in many capacities and I can tell you that the platform that we use um we lovingly call LRS uh that vendor that we're speaking of we are in our ending our first year of our strategic plan and so as part of that strategic plan plan we are looking at that vendor um and so that's why we asked for a year extension at this time I can tell you that uh it is a very complicated decision uh
128a lot of it is based upon on the things that we have built out complexitywise um we would lose if we went to another vendor would be one of the big things and so just in the past year we built out an online retirement um the drop program um a lot of other you know things that we would lose complexity-wise if we went to another vendor but we are aware of the uh the cost involved in this um and I have again been a part of uh ERFC for five years and I've been very aware that we have not gone out for RFP and it again is in our current strategic plan to look at that just in my experience when you have government purpose-built software you know you get version 1.0 but then you
129have to fully fund the development of version 2.0 and version 3.0 you know whereas if you use commercial off-the-shelf technology C's uh software you know uh Microsoft products or any number of vendors uh then they're continuing to add features over time and you just have to pay for a license right so you might lose some functionality that's particularized but you might get other functionalities that actually result in a more uh diverse array of um services or or or features that you don't have in your current products So um I I appreciate the context that this um 20 year old product uh might not be you know be approved for another 20 years and and you'll be doing that analysis so I appreciate that and thank you thank you Mr dun miss Mayor yeah um so
130I was aware that this the previous and another maybe five items were pulled from consent on very last notice in the past we've we talked about um trying to figure out like are there some that have to be determined tonight or can we wait because it's it's been a long the time it's tough to have these discussions like was just mentioned about the Hearnen lights to have these deep discussions about procurement if there's a common thread perhaps that can be talked to but I just really find it it's it's tough to work like this when things get pulled off at the very last minute and um I love the discussion let's schedule let's schedule a work session but it's really not I I think the best use of everyone's time to do all of this
131hours you know before and then do it here so we have asked in the past Dr read you know are there contracts that could be um further you know done the next meeting do we have to approve all these because we still have four or five more to go and it's 9:20 and we're returning to closed and all of us have been to many fun graduations and it's been a long time a long week i have not checked with staff if they all need to be done tonight i didn't know they were going to be pulled until this morning so I was trying to find answers to provide answers to the questions uh today so that we could be responsive this evening i appreciate that and as always you are so responsive Dr reid but
132I don't think it's um reasonable to expect you and your staff to turn around in a matter of hours to respond to questions we have to do things in a more timely formatted matter because this is not productive and we're wasting a lot of resources just doing this whole thing so um perhaps we can schedule a work session about procurement but um yep thank you for answering i'll take a turn um this feels like a very similar conversation that we were having with procurement about the school division's payroll uh process and the complicated way that we had to unwind the system that we'd been using for eons in FCPS and now we're on our path towards implementing the new system it's going to take a while um but uh I think it's it was worth
133the effort and it's good to hear that this is part of the strategic plan um and that uh uh that this is actively being looked at uh and that that's why there's just a one-year extension um you know I'm certain when we looked at our payroll system previously before we made the wise decision to transition uh systems for the school division um we were approving extensions that had long outlived their use because of the necessity to have all the things that were in place um and that were put in place to uh decrease the likelihood that many more staff members might have to be doing something that could be automated so uh I appreciate the the effort here Miss Marin sorry um I would like to propose a motion to suspend the rules so that
134we can combine uh agenda items 5.0 through 5.9 into one motion that can be spoken to all right that is not a debatable motion uh but I will explain that that requires a twothirds vote and then board members would be able to speak to all of the uh motions at once and have one vote as opposed to doing them individually it's not debatable is there a second second mr mcdaniel all those in favor miss Marin Miss Dixit Mr mcdaniel Miss Anderson Miss Seismoreheiser uh Miss uh Lady Miss St john Cunning and myself all those opposed mr mlavine Dr anderson Mr moon Mr dunn the motion carries if I'm not mistaken yes that was a two-thirds vote so thank you all right so we are uh picking this up as one motion for all of them
135and people can speak to them everybody gets two turns if they'd like mr dunn okay yes sir uh Dr reid um so we we see in some of these uh contracts that there are only one bidder received for for some of them and uh this is a common refrain we've seen in multiple contracts over time over the past year and a half uh why why is that i mean we're one of the largest school systems in the country the federal government has no problem getting many many bids for their contracts um it seems to suggest that there's some problem in the way we we uh bid out uh goods and services uh and when there is a lack of competition it means we're likely overpaying uh it means we're paying more than we should and
136uh while we may want to consolidate these contracts into one uh every dollar counts because every dollar spent on this that's more than we should means there's less money for teacher pay or uh other priorities of the school system so can you uh explain if there's been any analysis or ongoing initiative to examine potential defects in our procurement system so that we can maximize competition and receive uh more offerers more bids uh for goods and services that we're seeking to support our teachers and our students so a number of these um are unique uh programmatic uh contracts because they're often a continuation of contracts that we've previously been uh working with uh for example um I think Senova is one of the examples in um explanation in terms of 7.09 9 and it's the most
137comprehensive and universally compatible ecosystem in educational settings it's a proprietary wireless system that works across hearing aid brands integrated colear implant solutions and a single ecosystem covering mild to profound hearing loss so it's something we're uh proposing specifically uh for um assist of technology support and I think that we have done a great deal of research that's one small example we're looking at um touchscreens we're looking at visitor management system our visitor management and school alert systems are all part of these uh pieces and there it's often um because of our size there are vendors who are not able uh to bid or choose not to bid um and sometimes also our program requirements may limit responsive vendors due to the compatibility with our existing systems um because sometimes if you know if it has
138to if systems have to bridge into systems we have because of our again size it's sometimes difficult to go with a program that won't integrate with something we currently already have um or our infrastructure um I would also like Miss Pratt to just comment on our procurement practices because I know they've recently been reviewed yeah thank you for the question uh I think you know to provide maybe a little bit of additional context the contracts that the board sees are very nuanced you the board sees consultant contracts over $200,000 for approval at a regular meeting as well as soul source contracts for uh over $200,000 and so if you think about those services and the fact and the nature of a soul source the complexity and nuance of those is is unique um kind of
139adding to that um sometimes and in our efforts to reduce the number of soul source contracts we have competed things that were historically sleources and therefore the number of vendors who are responding to those solicitations is low or maybe none um you know we as I as written in in in the response earlier today we do reach out to vendors who we know through our e- procurement portal have downloaded a copy of the solicitation to find out why they didn't they opted not to um respond to our solicitation um we also because we had some time this afternoon and your questions came in early today which was really helpful for us um I we ran a report to look at the data in the last five years we've done about 260 solicitations and 2% have
140yielded zero proposals and one yielded 37 so we've got you know we do have data we do look at it i think it's a great question and and I frankly I'm glad that I was able to get the data do you have an average i can get you one i have I have the spreadsheet but I don't know what it is right now that do you do you feel that uh based on your review of the spreadsheet that most receive more than one proposal that you're at least getting two or three proposals per solicitation yeah so of of the 255 actually uh 24 had one submission 24 had two submissions 42 had three and I kind of started grouping them because they became cumbersome uh 20% or 52 solicitations had six to 10 submissions and
141how does it compared to surrounding school divisions have you shared data with Arlington with Alexandria with Laden with Prince William with Mount McGomery County we have not but we will is that formally underway or just that we're talking about it right now we touch base once or twice a year the the per the purchasing agents or directors of procurement in the school districts i have a recurring call with Prince William um used to be monthly but we haven't been able to connect lately but but yes we we will make a concerted effort to kind of look at this data specifically as well as like we did when we were looking at our sole source numbers several years ago that that'd be super because we have a wavy guide for teacher salaries and lots of things
142i mean to the extent we can you know benefit from best practice lessons learned i will Mr n I also want to say we've cut back on our number of soul source contracts significantly if I don't know it's one of the eels where we actually graph that but do you have that off the top of your head i know we've really worked hard on that we have we're in singledigit new soul source contracts each year and that's just over the last year and a half oh dating back to 2014 I believe where we had 50 or 60 new soul sources in a year and what does the trend look like over the last year and a half i I think it's pretty static but we can certainly get you that data in a Friday letter
143that would be great sure and uh Dr reed how how does the procurement at FCPS compared to your previous school divisions that you would say that the Virginia expectations for procurement are quite different um and um perhaps more time inensive can you elaborate i think that um in elaborating I we the processes were much less cumbersome in my prior state now is that cumbersomeness required by law or is that cumbersomeness uh just bureaucracy or bureaucratic protocols established over time i think it's a mixed bag i think some things are statutory here some are policy so is there an effort to streamline the uh non-legallymandated uh bureaucratic process i believe that uh the policies were recently reviewed by the board um and adjusted probably Miss Pratt in 202 yeah so so some of the bureaucracy comes
144from schoolboard policies rather than just practices and regulations at the superintendent operational level i would prefer to draft a memo to you on a Friday letter on that topic i'd be happy to receive that thank you thank you Mr dunn i'll take a turn in 2022 we took a painstaking review of the um contracting policies of the school division um because we wanted to address the sole source contracts and at what level is the board approving contracts we increased many we we created new thresholds of types of contracts that we would review that previous boards had never reviewed we also in many cases lowered the threshold for the board's consideration of contracts so something that used to be at $1 figure and wouldn't have been reviewed would be reviewed in the future so there's a
145lot more board oversight over contracts than there previous was and I know Dr reid won't say it but I will there have been efforts in past years for by board members uh who wanted to review every contract every single toilet paper etc and so um you know I think the the hardest part of getting that policy right was finding the place where it was a suitable place to say and beneath that we're going to have to trust that the person we are uh you know entrusting the school division with and then oversees all the people in procurement and contracting and division council's office are doing right by uh the board's policy and then when they're not we have the executive limitations and the annual evaluation of the superintendent to make sure that uh that is
146course corrected um but we've significantly increased the number of contracts that we're approving as a board um and significantly decreased the number of soul source contracts that are being initiated uh in this school division and I think that's really great progress so thank you everybody for being a part of that seeing no others we will go to a vote for the remaining um consent items that were pulled off for action mr first we've highlighted what the motion is that they'll be voting on to make sure since that language is different the motion for combined items that the school board approve agenda items 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 and 5.09 as they are detailed on board docs all those in favor Miss Marin Miss Dixit Mr mlane Dr anderson Mr uh Daniel Miss Anderson Miss Eismerheiser uh
147Mr moon Miss Lady Miss St st john Honey and myself all those opposed abstensions mr dunn the motion carries thank you agenda item 5.10 action item acquisition of Western High School property i call on Miss Anderson for a motion i move that the school board approve the acquisition of the Western High School property and authorize the division superintendent or her designate to execute and deliver the purchase agreement to the property owner McLaren Road Property Owner LLC make all payments when due under the purchase agreement to complete the acquisition of the Western High School property including payments of the amount required to be deposited into escrow and execute such other documents as may be necessary and advisable and as approved by council to complete the acquisition described above is there a second second Mr dunn miss
148Anderson would you like to speak to your motion i am very grateful that we were able to move forward on this because I think that it is a unique opportunity to be able to capture a a school property that is almost complete and so I think that it offers a a elegant solution to a problem that we have been grappling with um for a very long time trying to figure out a location for a western high school so I am thrilled to be able to move this thank you Miss Anderson mr dunn would you like to speak to your second yes thank you go ahead uh I'm honored to join with my colleagues tonight to approve the historic purchase of a private high school which will achieve a longstanding objective to establish a western high
149school and ensure sufficient capacity to meet the needs of our growing population in western Fairfax County this purchase represents a smart and strategic investment in the future of our school system it also represents a fiscally responsible investment from a taxpayer perspective fcps estimates that it would cost approximately $450 million to acquire sufficient land for a new high school campus and to construct a new high school from scratch by contrast with this purchase FCPS is acquiring for $150 million 35 acres of property in a region where land is in scarce supply and a modern award-winning school campus with three gymnasiums and indoor mr dunn I'm sorry to interrupt we're going to have to take a fiveminut uh recess we'll be right back [Music] [Music] all right board members please return to your seats [Music] you have
150to refresh just admit you were wrong board members please return to your seats all right sorry about that mr dunn will restore 30 seconds of your uh your time so that you can begin again thank you um by contrast with this purchase FCPS is acquiring for $150 million 35 acres of property in a region where land is in scarce supply and a modern award-winning school campus with three gymnasiums an indoor Olympic swimming pool and state-of-the-art athletic and performing arts facilities this represents a total savings of $300 million let me say that again $300 million which can be allocated to accelerate necessary renovation projects across the county including in the Mount Vernon district through this strategic investment we can liberate hundreds of millions of dollars to address the 42-year renovation queue and address our infrastructure and
151maintenance backlogs i'm very proud to have originated and advocated for this initiative over the past few months when I read in February 2025 that the private high school was closing I recognized it as a once- in a generation opportunity to acquire a premier property for a cost-effective price i'm extremely grateful and humbled to be part of a school board that embraces change and supports strategic initiatives like this one i'm also extremely grateful for the extraordinary leadership of Dr dr michelle Reid who together with chief of facility services and capital programs Janice Samansky and division council John Foster and their teams made this happen as the kids say she understood the assignment and she delivered for our school system in a way that will have generational impacts in this initiative we have acted with the unity
152of purpose and vision that is characteristic of the bestrun organizations in the world i'm excited by the promise of this new high school it's a blank slate upon which we can meet the demands of our globalized economy and the current demands of our school system together with my colleagues we have achieved a transformational investment that will be felt for generations of students thank you thank you Mr dun miss Dixit i'm very excited about this uh offer and uh this new acquisition we are planning to do uh this school definitely solves the problem in a lot of my district and my colleague uh Miss Anderson and uh Miss Maron and I I believe others too and I I once I got an email from an constituent about this uh school uh being available and the closing
153of the school I immediately acted upon it and got in touch with Dr reid and her staff uh it was an amazing uh teamwork and I would say that I appreciate all the support for from my uh colleagues to make this uh happen and the school will be in the district where it needs the most and and also being supported by all of you it means a lot thank you so much thank you Miss Dixit Dr anderson yes thank you a couple of things i I know from I know from being on the board um with Miss Picarski the discussions regarding the overcrowding and needing a Western High School has been long-standing and probably before her and so this was a great opportunity to be able to have this literally fall in our lap and
154I do want to give um quite a good amount of kudos to both Mr done and Miss um Dixit because they were watching and they were able to bring um this information to the rest of us on the board in order to get us to this point um I I just want to highlight some of the things that are listed here um just for the public who are not watching board docks in terms of this property having um amenities that include two amphitheaters style outdoor classrooms robotics and ceramics laboratories state-of-the-art performing arts and athletic facilities multiple cafeteria and dining areas and two administrative buildings of 15,000 square ft eight each so it's not only just the school building but there are so also some out buildings um that will be utilized in very creative ways
155to support our students um this was a great opportunity and um I'm glad that we were able to exercise the flexibility to achieve this so thank you again Mr dunn i know you also did a lot of leg work in order to get us to this point um and thank you to all of the staff who really moved exponentially i do want to also share some kudos to Miss Smensky um in terms of all of the work that required to be done in a very very very tight period in order to actualize that i know she's not here but I'm looking over there just kind of symbolically for um just to thank her for her efforts so I'm glad to be able to support this effort and really looking forward to the relief to the
156western part of the division so that we can start to tick off some of the other overcrowding issues we have elsewhere thank you Dr anderson mr mcdaniel um I was reading a board action item earlier today from June or July of 2010 and there was discussion at that board meeting about the Western adjustment and the need for a Western High School site um sometimes in in government it can be painful and things can take a long time but if this vote tonight in this site you know if there was ever any proof and ever any evidence that you really do need to take your time and make very careful thoughtful decisions um this opportunity falling into our lap um I think goes a long way to proving that and I know it's been a long
157time coming for the western part of Fairfax County but what I want to emphasize is adding capacity to the west or adding capacity to the east or the north or the south adding any capacity into our system will have positive benefits for kids across the entire division no matter physically where the school sits so uh Miss Dixit thank you for playing host to this site in the Sully district uh but as a countywide member I'm looking forward to seeing the ripple effects of positivity throughout the entire division thank you Mr mcdaniel i'll take a turn um so a little context uh the last school board I think we voted in two CIPs uh this is something that Dr anderson mentioned uh two CIPs to you know supercharge our effort to go find property go find
158a suitable space for Western High School and the difficulty of finding that space cannot be under uh understated it was very difficult uh we'd see something we'd do some analysis and then it wouldn't work out let alone the cost of buying property and then building on property and so uh I'm grateful that staff worked very very diligently and very quietly behind the scenes to get this done um you know making sure that this once in a generation opportunity was not squandered um and just to show you how much of an impact this can have on our school division in addition to hosting great programming on the western side of the the county um the Western High School has always been envisioned as an opportunity to relieve crowding in very interesting ways so you know I
159have students all the way from Sully District uh attending Oakton High School for example um and um you know this the Western High School has always been seen as a relief valve for some of that interesting uh interplay between uh the high schools and attendance zones so I'm excited there's a lot left to be done i I thought about asking Dr reed about some of that but I I think we have a uh a long night ahead of us um lots of decisions have to be made um but uh this is a great first step in ensuring that this Western High School comes to fruition um and I'm excited to to be there when we cut the ribbon miss Seismore just briefly I would just want to thank staff for all their hard work in
160um in finding and the work that they've done and thank you Miss Dixit for all your work as well i know you're hosting senior district thank you to um everybody for all the work they've done bill thank you thank you Miss Seismarheiser mr moon Mr chairman I wish I could support this motion unfortunately from my perspective there are a lot of unanswered questions and so tonight I'll be abstaining thank you Mr moon miss Lady yeah I just want to uplift this uh opportunity um it's I'm over the moon as someone who worked at Chantley High School for 15 years um and we turned everything possible into a classroom um we took out locker bays and built classrooms uh we took out any type of teacher workroom to make a classroom uh we added trailers in
161addition to having a modular and so this is going to bring relief to that um very grateful um for information brought to us uh when this uh property was uh coming available uh and grateful to my colleagues on the board for their leadership um uh especially Mr dunn and and Miss Dixon for their leadership and working with facilities to bring this to fruition so uh very excited and uh absolutely will be supporting this motion thank you Miss Lady miss St junk cutting for a goback um I'd also like to thank um the leadership team that did a lot of work with this and Miss Dixet is very humble in terms of the work that she put into this and so I just wanted to thank her for a lot of the work that she also
162put in um and I'm very excited about the possibility of what this can mean in terms of reducing overcrowding throughout our entire district because once you move and shift it affects the entire district so thank you very much Miss Dixit for all the work you did and for your humility thank you Miss St john Cunning all those in favor of the motion on the screen Miss Dixit Mr meline Dr anderson Mr mcdaniel Miss Anderson Mr dunn Miss Lady Miss St dun Cunning and myself all those opposed abstensions miss Marin Miss Seismoreheiser Mr moon the motion carries congratulations all right agenda item 6.01 academic matters i call on Dr reed for academic matters so good evening board this evening I am thrilled to have an opportunity to share information about our AP courses international balorate uh
163courses AP being advanced placement and our dual enrollment courses so let's go ahead and go to the next slide please again a reminder that this is uh today's presentation is work that is particularly connected to goals three and four uh academic growth and excellence and equitable access and opportunity um additionally one of the reasons we're bringing this to you this evening is that uh performance in advanced coursework is heavily weighted in the high school readiness portion of the new VDOE school performance and support framework uh for school accreditation so I want to just take a moment and remind the board and those watching what the benefits are for participation in advanced coursework it does help students develop uh college level skills and academic confidence and really post-secary uh skills and academic confidence uh whether it's
164college uh trade school or other types of training or going right into the workplace it really supports um those skills that'll be necessary for success and these benefits are true across all uh student groups tying together our commitment again to equity and excellence in FCPS so let's take a look at some of the data and when we think about this in response to our commitments uh in the strategic plan which as you can see we began this work in earnest uh at the spring um or actually looking at 2022 2023 2024 and our estimated because those are uh what students signed up for to take this year uh you can see that we've added in the last um several years of the of our work with the strategic plan we've added 10,000 more AP exams
165uh in 2025 than were completed in 2022 that is a huge data point and what I'm really proud to say is even though we've added 10,000 exams our passing rate consistently remains high so what we're looking at is that access and opportunity is really what's necessary and that our students are performing very well as they have access and opportunity to these courses in addition to the AP and IB coursework enrollment and dual enrollment continues to expand and again that's been a goal and you can take a look at uh from 2022 through the enrollment uh projections um the number of dual enrollment classes taken in 2022 were close to 5,000 4,977 and those registered for dual enrollment as of May 29th this year we have 12,120 which is really um almost three times the amount
166of dual enrollment courses in the last several years um and students as we continue to raise the numbers um the grades continue to um be solid as well we don't we want to make sure we always calibrate increased numbers and um making sure that our performance remains traditionally high as they do here in Fairfax County Public Schools all dual enrollment classes also just as a reminder have a 1.0 GPA bump just as our AP and IB courses do and our primary college partner in these dual enrollment courses is Northern Virginia Community College however we also have courses available through James Madison and other college partners um and I will add that dual enrollment coursework taken through NOVA has no tuition costs for students or families um whereas courses from JMU and other colleges do have
167a tuition rate but it is discounted so um if we look at the next slide there are a number of strategies that uh Fairfax County Public Schools has partnered with um on projects to actually expand access to these course offerings what you can see um on this chart is for example we've added um opportunities for AP human geography to be taken at both 9th and 10th grade ap pre-calculus is a brand new course that's been offered for a year now and we were thrilled um it was uh first offered at MLAN High School where you can see 96% of the students scored a three or higher in the first year that course was offered which is amazing um the IP IB career related program has um three more high schools participating Marshall Edison and Lewis
168which add up to a total of five including Mount Vernon and South Lakes so the dual enrollment continues to expand uh we have a new partnership with MRy Mount University for the coming year and you can see the continuing partnerships on the screen there is also an incentive for teachers to earn their credentials by taking graduate graduate level courses with support from the VDOE dual enrollment tuition reimbursement grant finally as you know we had a work session this spring with the ABL um staff and this was Dr howard Bell and Dr steven Garing which was part of our goal four report where we looked at patterns of academically intense course taking patterns knowing that the intensity of a student's course was the highest predictor of success in post-secary education so when we think of all
169the topics we talk about um for particular high schools it's the um academic press of that course schedule that's so critical and a reminder of the partnership as we move forward we're going to be expanding that partnership to our middle schools because what we want to do is look at that arc of course taking patterns from 7th through 12th grade uh because we know students don't just wake up in ninth grade um with solid plans those have to be put into place uh prior to arriving in high school so we're excited about this partnership in the future and as they say this is academic matters Mr chair so I'm happy to um answer any questions about our AP IB and dual enrollment topic areas thank you so much we'll start with Miss Lady thank you
170um I love this report uh it's very exciting uh knowing the transition we uh went through years ago to open enrollment into our advanced coursework uh and then eventually moving that down to our middle school so um I I'm hoping I I'm not sure uh if I I I I appreciate the the committee report for advanced academics and some of the things they highlighted most importantly when we start doing 7 through 12 planning and course with preparation with kids creating six-year plans and not waiting till high school is a big determinant of whether they're taking advanced coursework the things I mostly want to touch on is I'm curious to know um because of the credentiing issue that we have with Northern Virginia Community College uh it's my understanding that the Virginia Community College system does
171not have the rigid credentiing that NOVA has um that perhaps in other parts of our state that they were not there was you didn't have to have the 18 hours at the graduate level work in the subject matter is that is that true i'm going to defer to Dr prescidio so the question is does NOVA have a different threshold than Tidewater or Pont or Richard thank you Miss Lady Mr miss Lady that's an excellent question I appreciate it i don't have the exact answer for that but um depending on the accrediting institution um that's the group that would set the requirements for teacher lure so I do know for example in surrounding states like West Virginia I believe and Maryland they're not subject um to the same master's degree or master's degree plus 18 credits
172in the content area i think all of the Virginia State Community Colleges are subject to the same standards through the same accrediting um agency but I'll double check on that and get an update for the board okay because I thought I had heard that perhaps our our counterpart the superintendent in Lowden County had come from Virginia Beach and Virginia Beach had a different credentiing than NOVA but maybe I'm making that up but if we can check on that that would be great just because it is it is one of the best community colleges in the country um but the barrier to access is the credentiing so the work that we're doing to help teachers access that is fantastic but we actually are behind many other states um your your previous state Washington O Ohio West
173Virginia in that a lot of students who are especially who come from economically disadvantaged situations who are actually finishing associates degree um through in their high school course uh acrew so that's the big thing and as you as you showed in the chart um you know we've gone from around 5,000 students taking a DE class in 2022 to over 12,000 next year um I don't know where we are and I know we're in a tight budget but I don't know what we're doing in staff support for that um I I'm just you don't need to answer the question but I hope that we're paying attention to the fact that we we we're not waterboarding one or two people who've been managing this for years when we've tripled the work so that's just the the the
174point I want to uplift but uh this is fantastic work um and it is our goal to help ensure that all of our kids access at least one AP IB or dual enroll class before they graduate from high school um because they're capable and and and we can get them uh through that uh and it'll certainly prepare them for for future work so thank you for this yes ma'am thank you Miss Lady Dr anderson um thank you so much this is also very exciting work um and I appreciate um outlining the strategies that kind of led to the successes and the increase of the assessments of both um API and of course the dual enrollment participation um can you speak a little bit I think this is slide six the IB related programs um that
175that have just been expanded to Marshall Edison and Lewis um do those lead to IB assessments or is that a little bit of a different um provision so the IB schools that have added the career related program as an option it's a CP um which actually combines the course from the IB diploma program with more specific coursework through which students combine their career interests with academic and practical skills um so um they've had IB's had this option for a while and I think these schools have just chosen to add it it's like a they used to call it the um career related the capstone career but Dr prescidio do you want to clarify um what that maybe means more specifically here in Fairfax County given that they've now just come on to that yeah no
176thank you i mean I think you actually summarized it um quite well i don't have a lot to add but um it is integrated into the IB core content so you can think about like economics uh IB courses uh business management courses when students add this component where when the school offers this then they get those career related learning standards those workplace readiness skills um and they can graduate with the ID IB diploma and the career related certificate which is helpful to them but they're they're still subject to the same internal and external assessment requirements okay thank you just so I could better get a better understanding because this is a little bit not in my wheel wellhouse um those CP classes while are enriching not are not necessarily standalone it would not add to
177the number of assessments that students are taking that are outlined in previous slides so is that correct yeah it doesn't add to the number of assessments that a student needs to take for the diploma thank you um and also the AP human geography course um that you talked about here that were added to um three high schools are these these same high schools Marshall Lewis and Edison or these other high schools i believe those are added to all high schools it's not just three right the AP human geography is being made available um I think they were piloted um at three schools but they're going to be available at any high school is my understanding moving forward no you're 100% correct because that's the second bullet because in the 2526 school year it should be
178expanded to all AP schools that is that accurate or is it Yes sir yes ma'am it is accurate thank you so I I know there's always the dance and I've listened to Miss um Lady talk about this quite a bit when we're introducing new courses what falls off because we only have so many kids that can be slotted in so many places um were there just courses that we've retired or we will just let fall by the wayside by attrition based on student interest at these sites well I think that AP human geography across the United States is generally it was designed as a ninth grade course and so having the opportunity to offer it to ninth graders is really what's um I think new about that and it's the same as AP environmental science
179it's generally in many parts of the country taken as a ninth grade course um but I would um Dr presidio is there a a course that this is going to replace at 9th or 10th grade that you're aware of given the content of this course basically competing with other social studies courses I don't see that it would eliminate other courses entirely from schools it it might reduce the number of sections of particular courses that that might be offered at other schools but I don't think it's going to eliminate other courses okay thank you um given that we were I think at least three of us were at the college day that the NAACP put together just this last um weekend and I made my kid go to every table um because that's the thing to
180do he was very excited um but what came up as we were having conversation and of course they knew who you know I was um some schools were were asking how do we partner with FCPS in order to help with teacher accreditation in order to to do some of the things that have been outlined here with dual enrollment if you could share that process at some point just so we can articulate with some of the folks who are in that room um I think that would be appreciated um whoever the contact person is for that um and my last comment is the partnership with ABL here you're discussing what the partnership will assist FCPS to do but we've already begun can you speak to current impact of that partnership yes ma'am we did already begin
181that work this year and that we had a work session this spring uh that really has already begun to map um our course taking patterns across the school division and um that's the data we looked at in the work session our high school principles uh have really um I'm just really proud of the work and the energy and passion that they've um applied to this uh because really that's a significant piece of gold for is our risk or our um high rigor course taking patterns for high school um our high school principles are working uh with Miss Neil's office in particular uh to make sure that registrations this year and I think that goes to the registration data I shared with you this evening that students are being counseledled um to think about taking that
182next most rigorous course uh and we're also looking at some duplication where we have some courses that seem to um maybe cycle um in ways that uh could be amended so that students have an opportunity to um accelerate some of their course taking patterns as well so I I think that next year uh we're going to evaluate um each high school this year for this fall has had goals that they've set around this work and perhaps Dr pon could talk a little bit about that what our high school principles have done setting goals with the ABL work and this year our plan is to bring middle school uh staff on board because there are some areas where it really requires that planning to begin in middle school and for middle school staff to see the
183arc of um academic progress through content areas math and then science and literature and so forth is really a powerful tool so Dr dr pon do you want to talk a minute about what high school principles are planning this year with that work so we have been uh looking at the master schedule which uh this is what at this point what we have been looking at uh looking at uh every single student and how we going to support them to make sure that they uh are right on track with the classes that they supposed to be uh taking when you take a look at the uh ABL the analytical part you see uh gaps that we could have in the past that we didn't have the data uh present uh having that right now this
184is going to help us for us to put the students on advanced classes which will mean that some students will end by having their uh advanced diploma as well i think one thing Dr anderson that's not directly ABL related but I shared recently with the board is our light bulb student uh data dashboards where we're looking at students academic data their so scores their um achievement on um internal assessments common assessments because we know what the predictive data points are what we call leading indicators and making sure we're having personal contact with each of those students and their families to say based on your data your student achievement data you we know you can be successful in this next most rigorous course and just making that very deliberate and focused effort I think is going
185to be uh it's going to yield a very different uh level of achievement for our students across the board thank you i have one follow-up question but I thought I heard the ringer so I'll take a go back please thank you Dr anderson mr moby uh thank you and I I too want to commend um the expansion of access to these many new programs from dual enrollment to human geography and pre-calculus um a question on the career related program so I've always known this as the career certificate but what um based on your and Dr presidio's description it sounds like this new program is not separate to the diploma but it's an add-on is that correct so it is confusing and I think you're making an important distinction a student could earn the career related
186certificate and not earn the full diploma uh because maybe they didn't complete all of the required higher level standard level courses or maybe they didn't achieve the uh assessment scores that they needed to achieve uh but it's intended to be integrated into the coursework that students are doing in the diploma program but it's possible that you could achieve one or the other or both okay got it thanks that's helpful um so going to uh back to the pass rates the 72.5% figure um it would be nice to see a disagregation between AP and IB pass rates as opposed to lumping them together um and the other thing that I'd be interested in seeing is how that compares to national and global uh pass rates um I I just don't know i have no comparison so
187I don't I don't know what 72.5% means um and I assume you don't have that data now um the last thing I would say is that um you know several of us through graduation season um have been discussing um the u unfortunate lack of expansion of our primary years program um and um I think you know we're current we currently sit at two schools but if we want to see our test taking and course taking expand at at higher levels we're going to have to increase that vertical articulation and I know it's expensive um but um I think this is this is a priority for at least some of us and maybe more uh so we'd like to look to see how we can expand that in the future yes sir and what's interesting and
188you know this is that the expansion of MYP and um IB is can be driven from a division but the expansion or the development of the PYP has to come from the school it's the a ground up right versus uh top down so I think that that's going to um require some thoughtful work too in terms of particularly those pyramids that have IV high schools um having conversations with those elementary schools uh about the benefits so that they would come to the space where they say this is what we would like to do um because that process is a little different PYP versus my but I think you're right I mean once you begin that um that sequence It's much more powerful and I think it you would have probably more IB diplomas as well
189so thank you thank you Mr mavine miss Seismoreheiser thank you and thank you for this great presentation i'm really excited about this work and and I agree that this is some very seinal work we've talked about the importance of helping our students access advanced academics and AP and IB for future success so I I love this work i love the AL work that you talked about in slide seven and some of the course taking pattern works i know we've talked about it and you've mentioned it in work sessions as well um a couple of questions on that slide it says that they're going to monitor access to these classes and I'm wondering if you could elaborate a little bit about like what that monitoring looks like like what are they looking for we're pulling actual
190master schedule data like how many students are enrolled in courses we pulled that this spring for the registrations because too often we set goals and then we wait till the next year to measure those goals and by that time students are registered and they're in classes right it's too late to do that work uh so both in our algebra and eighth grade work as well as this work what we're really trying to do is back up and use leading indicators which are things we could still do something about in terms of monitoring registrations but uh Miss Neil might be able to add a little bit to what that monitoring might look like once the school year starts i I think you hit the nail on the head Dr reed the ability for us to see
191in real time as students are registering where are their opportunities where do we need to encourage more students as new students are registering making sure that we're not leaving students out of the conversation of where they can take that rigor and take that stretch uh one of the shifts we are making in our um school school improvement planning which is monitored on a quarterly basis is to shift that high school focus to look at those rigorous course taking patterns and to align with some of the changes that are happening at the state so just really making sure we're positioning our schools that this this is a part of their ongoing monitoring work that they do thank you and is that monitoring work happening at the middle schools in terms of accessing honors classes because it's
192sometimes by the time they get to high school right like they may not have the foundations to be ready for some of that coursework so and I know this is new so it may be that may be down the road but that was a question I had yeah so certainly as Dr reed shared we're already looking at that for our algebra 1 in the middle school and then we'll be expanding that work this coming year with ABL at the middle school level also great and then when you look at those patterns are you going to be disagregating by school by demographic groups um to get a sense of beyond just you know in a region geographically but you know if there's some gaps in different groups accessing these classes yeah so each of our schools
193gets their own individualized report that disagregates by student group so that when they are setting their own plan for themselves it's very tailored and specific to that school site and their specific needs great thing and I think this is really important work i would just put out to you that I think there are some access issues that happen earlier on in elementary school and I'm thinking particularly of our multilingual students and our twice exceptional students where they may be put on a path that is more focused on the deficits than on the strengths and then it's very hard by the time they get to even middle school and high school to get off that path right and I think there may also be some access issues in terms of you know who we think should
194be in these classes right and so I I maybe down the road I know this is really looking at data and that's and we need to be data driven and start there but down the road it might be good to look at some of these other access barriers you I don't want language or ability or other things to be barriers to something that somebody can do um and I also make sure that we identify the students early and have them in the classes where they can achieve academically at their potential at an early age so then they have the foundational skills to be able to do this in high school because the barriers sometimes get created very early on i'll just leave one thing when you start looking at that access point i think a
195really important point down the road to look at is third grade because in third grade is when the students first take the SOS and sometimes there are shifts in where students are placed and I'm thinking specifically multilingual and twice exceptional students based on those SOS in third grade because at that point it doesn't count against the student right it only impacts the schools so just as you're looking down the road take a look at that shift and what happens from second to third grade yes ma'am thank you thank you Miss Seismore Heiser miss Dixit thank you Dr reid i'm just going to keep it very short uh my comments because I know we are going to have a long meeting i'm really excited with the presentation and the increase in the um IB and AB
196i have I have students my kids did all of these and I can save this much how much money can you save in college by doing DE courses it's amazing and I I'm seeing that in my own household so I would encourage this to be more expanded and given to as many student possible especially those who cannot afford four years of college uh and then because of the tuition high prices so um you know kudos to that and I I wish all our high schoolers um graduate with associate degree at least that should be uh kind of the goal where we should go to and hopefully uh the one data point I would probably reach out to you later about was uh how many of these uh IB enrollments have been uh students from uh
197different backgrounds or um Hispanic students or other socioeconomic groups and that way I can see that how what more work we have to do there yes ma'am thank you thank you Miss Dixit mr dunn um I I'd like to ask a little bit more about uh your comments about the primary years about that that uh it has to come from the school like the ground up versus top down for the middle school and high school can you elaborate on that i didn't quite follow yes sir the a division for example could say we're going to take a middle school and we want to convert it or re um reimagine it as an school and we wouldn't necessarily you would still want to have everybody who is in the middle school faculty and um leadership would
198want to do that I mean of course you would want them to want to do that regardless but the um international balorate the program requires the elementary um elementary the primary years program to actually be a ground up like a request from the school to uh be considered to then the division would come around at the school's request which is different than my that the division can request it and the school can join it so I think I'm saying that correctly but Dr presidio do you want to amplify that at all or I don't at least that's the pure standpoint in other divisions I've been in maybe FCPS is different in that way but I don't think so i think that's what IB requires yeah I I think you know the probably the distinction between
199the elementary and the middle school and high school secondary that that Dr is getting at is at the secondary schools you could implement something um that might not be schoolwide but in the elementary school the program is schoolwide so everybody has to be on board all of the staff have to be trained whereas at the secondary level you could start with a particular grade level you could start with a particular subset of teachers to get the training and it eases the implementation burdens but at the elementary level um you really do need to move schoolwide which takes that that school level commitment have you uh given any thought to uh encouraging or I guess educating elementary school principles and IB pyramids about the opportunity um and seeing if there is potential interest there is a
200significant budget impact uh to doing a PYP program because you need a an a coordinator at the school all teachers have to be trained in IB um it's a significant financial outlay uh since I've been here I have not been part of that conversation i don't know if that's preceded my being here um that would be something that would come out of your office i think well because of the budgetary implications obviously you know the board would obviously need to be involved in those conversations we've talked about it at different times in my tenure here um and there has been interest on the part of different schools and different um you know community members have advocated for the program but to Dr reed's point um you really do need to budget for it proactively because
201of the staffing costs and then the ongoing professional development costs so you know we can implement the program is whether or not we can budget for the program uh it I think there we we've talked in the past about that there's a lot of misunderstanding or lack of information that parents may have about IB i mean certainly in the international domain it's very well known but it seems in Fairfax County there's often a der of understanding about what IB is and the benefit it offers and um and even the opportunities to uh have higher chances of getting into desirable universities um is there any uh discussion about um a communications initiative to kind of market the IB program and explain it to parents and in um IB pyramids so that they understand the value so
202my understanding is that IB schools do you know talk about their IB programs i don't know what the systemic approaches perhaps Dr presidio the I don't know is there a systemic I think that's more what you're more so what you're asking is is there a systemic yeah I mean our our schools do you know the the typical kinds of you know family information nights about the programs obviously schools that have the programs uh have a lot of you know activities where students are presenting their work um and that's true at the different levels whether it's elementary middle or high u but that's predominantly you know communicating with the families that are enrolled in in those particular boundary areas what we've not done um is more of an information campaign divisionwide to promote the programs and
203build understanding for communities um that are not boundary for a particular IB school so that could be a potential growth area for us um I do know too that different states um incentivize IB uh around the country trying to remember a number of states pro uh do provide an automatic admission into universities uh if you have an ID I IB diploma from their state and I'm trying to remember I know Texas did at one time I want to say maybe one of the Carolinas and I don't know if that's still current but there were and um maybe in the current budget times people are not doing that as much but traditionally some states have incentivized IV diplomas by providing uh direct admission Um on slide four you have uh data about AP and IB uh
204I was wondering if you might in a Friday letter kind of break out AP versus IB just so we can see the growth rate of IB compared to AP and also provide a breakdown uh by high school pyramid so that we can just uh do a comparison uh going to high school graduations some high schools have a large number of IP diplomas others have less um and I'd love to just kind of see that data for transparency but uh have you also thought of or or has there been any discussion of trying to ensure greater consistency of IB outcomes ac across the system given the variation that exists between high school pyramids IB consistency of IB outcomes at the taking diplomas or or pursuing C coursework seems like some high schools have a high number
205of IP diplomas others have a low number of IP diplomas for example i don't know what kind of data that's being collected about that right now so you're talking about an IB school and their number of diplomas because some of our IB schools are larger schools and smaller schools but so that's really the percentage of the graduates that have the IB diploma that you're likely requesting we could certainly present that in a Friday letter upcoming yes sir we can do that that would be great and can can you talk a little bit about the IB career program that you have described on slide six sure we can amplify that a bit that program's been around for a while i think what we were what I was sharing is that we've got three high schools that
206are now adding it um but it's been around I think since 200 maybe 15 maybe even it's been around quite a little while uh at least within the last decade so uh do you want to describe it a little bit more in detail Dr prescidio i think we covered it a little bit but I think could amplify it yeah again the idea uh with that particular program is to take a look at you know the coursework that students are already um enrolling in again I'll give the example of uh IB business or IB business management or IB econ for example um and try to build in career related learning skills uh aligned and associated with uh those particular courses to give students the opportunity to have some real world application and understanding of how they
207could use that particular disciplinary knowledge uh for future careers um and if they complete you know the required coursework then they're able to earn actually a certificate um demonstrating their career related learning competence in that particular field um and that helps them obviously uh along with the IB diploma be more competitive in the college admissions process and more importantly it gives them exposure to what future career opportunities might look like and helps them make determinations if that's something that they're interested in pursuing more in college or not thank you thank you Mr dunn Mr moon thank you Mr chairman i I am a lot of my questions and comments have been already asked concept by my fellow fellow board members uh just adding to a one Mr mr don has already asked to include in
208the Friday letter it doesn't have to be right away it doesn't have to come in tomorrow morning but uh you know hopefully I wanting to see how we are failing compared to nationwide data uh because I've read articles about at least for the AP test wise there has been a growth nationwide it's not just us so I just want to see whether we are doing even better than you know national growth and also a in the same article I read that that there's been a re a calibration of the scores as well that you know just like our grades might have inflated that there's a inflation of a scores of AP test as well so if you could you know provide such information that'll be helpful so provide information on whether we think there's been
209inflation on the just want to see you know nationwide data on AP test a number of a AP exams taken nationwide and also a passing percentage sure yes sir since 2022 since we are we'll be comparing 22 to 24 data thank you Mr moon Miss Lady um I appreciate my colleagues interest in comparing us nationally and internationally um I just want to make sure people understand how rare it is to have open enrollment in my years working as a director and even still when I present at the National Association for College Admissions Counseling conferences the second I talk about open enrollment when my session is done people chase me down around the entire conference center to find out how we got this policy passed and I just want to uplift that because if you're going
210to compare us you're not comparing apples to apples because the majority of schools in this country especially paying customer private schools make a determination about whether or not you can take an AP class or an IB class and we have open enrollment and so uh I did a quick Google search and uh although it only comes up for 2020 the na the national average for AP exams was 71% we're at 72 or we were around 72 in the same year um we want to be better we're significantly better when you take into account the fact that it's the majority of schools who do not have open enrollment and it's the minority of schools that do i just want people to make sure they keep that in mind okay this is not common practice around the
211country to have open enrollment so while I want to look at comparisons because we want to be the best I believe we are the best in the work that we're doing um so I just don't want to lose sight of data points and how we have how we interpreted data points um thank you thank you Miss Lady Miss St john Cunning that is why I love having you on the board because you always bring us new information and open our eyes to what the reality is down in the ground and I I appreciate the experience you've had and that you continue to have with high school students um I also don't want to belabor the point but I do want to just talk about the fact that I have spoken with people at Lewis and
212Edison and they are extremely excited about the IB career related program and when I walk into a school and I talk to staff and they're excited about it I know the kids are going to be excited about it uh the other thing I want to say is that also at both of those schools students that have been very excited about dual enrollment and one particular young lady that graduated last year but graduated and had already finished her um associates degree through der dual enrollment and some of her own um taking extra courses and that is significantly important for uh our socioeconomically disadvantaged uh population so for me when I go in and I see that and we sit here and we talk about data points and we talk about all this but when you're down
213on the ground in the schools talking to students and teachers and you see the excitement that's what it's all about so thank you for this thank you thank you Miss St john Cunning Miss Sant yes thank you for this presentation i've seen this through my four years of high school like we didn't like the new course offerings this year but one thing that I did want to mention was also online campus and being able to promote the DE and the AP courses through online campus as well i was part of online campus my past two years um I got an AP credit I got a DE credit the teachers there are awesome they're accredited they're amazing but I don't think that students know enough about it that if an AP course isn't offered at their
214school or they don't have a DE course or there's a specific course that they don't have that they can do online campus so I'd say adding to those strategies maybe one of them can be just promoting online campus more at the beginning of the school year um it is a tough load there is more work that students have to take along with their classes at school but I think it's also of course definitely um a path worth considering yeah thanks Miss Swant thank you Miss Sant miss Marin yeah I just wanted to point out you know the superintendent you send us a Friday letter and that's like a catch-all but I'm concerned that we're asking for things and then all these things go into this letter and that's time that you're spending away from other
215full board directives and we have a process for this in the work session where we do next steps and we agree or don't and I'm just getting concerned that every time somebody asks a question it's time that you're spending and we just don't have that kind of time to be asking and so I would love for us to consider how we either do that kind of collection in a regular meeting because with so many things going on if we ask the superintendent to respond you know all the time it's something's going to give so um you know it's clear we need to talk more about IB and do enrollment all these things but we also have a work session about the strategic goal plan or the those things so for consideration thank you Miss Marin
216Dr dr anderson for a go back yes thank you very quickly I I'm glad that you raised the issue of the light bulb data because I think that's really exciting information and just being able to infuse that during these um presentations would be a very helpful thing and it will just I I think really show the community that we are really looking at data in a in a different way than we haven't before um one of the things that you talked about before when we were talking about what is happening what are we seeing with the able work um you discussed the principles are setting goals and Dr pon thank you for offering that for me that is a short leap to what I've talked about during goal four I believe or five regarding setting
217a division goal for um the advanced work because all of this IB all of these assessments that we're tracking that are increasing the number of assessments that kids are taking and IB and AP you know all of the things that are here lead to the advanced coursework and if principles are setting goals and targets I I think it's again a very short leap to having a divisionwide target i'd love to kind of hear your thoughts on that well I think we do have a divisionwide target to increase access to advanced coursework at high school um and we're working very hard towards that target and we're clearly making progress on that target but we didn't have a target in the we have the overall target we just don't have the annual goals of of any shape
218and this is what I've talked about probably three times now because if we have principles that are setting this and their SIP the SIP follows what we want to have accomplished in the larger picture and I just didn't see that happening um and I I think that's it that I wanted to share i mean this is really good information and we know what gets monitored gets done and if principles are monitoring divisionwide we should be doing the same yes ma'am and we are monitoring high school course taking patterns to increase advanced course taking thank you Dr anderson mr dun for a go back St john Cunning for a go back all these lights just went off across the day the night that the but our lights went on from that presentation so thank you very
219much Dr reid yes sir we will move on to agenda item 6.02 strategic plan update dr reed thank you Chairman Fr uh this evening um it's my uh pleasure to talk a little bit about goal two and um this of course uh is our safe supported included and empowered goal and we're looking at positive school climates and how our schools are fostering a sense of inclusion and belonging for our students so when we think about uh the quote on the screen uh highlight it really highlights the profound impact a sense of belonging uh can have on our students and I think we talked about that tonight with a couple of the proclamations that you shared with our community and that sense of belonging uh has tangible positive results um improved attendance enhanced academic success a
220greater self-belief and a higher uh graduation rate so when we think about fostering a sense of belonging as part of our divisionwide expectations um elementary schools currently have morning meeting and closing circles and middle and high school have responsive advisory meetings um so we're really trying to make sure that we're fostering that sense of belonging across the entire division uh some of the things I'd like to showcase this evening uh Stenwood Elementary School has hive families um which kind of mirror the language around beehives um and tonight we're going to take a look at some of these examples hernand Middle School cultivates connections with belonging project mentoring uh program that pairs adult mentors with students and finally our Annandale High School promotes uh inclusivity through its peer-to-peer best buddies mentoring program so at this time
221madame clerk if you could please pay play the video [Music] goal two of our strategic plan centers on the belief that every child deserves to feel a true sense of belonging at school by fostering inclusive supportive environments schools help students thrive both academically and emotionally through efforts like mentoring programs that build strong peer and adult connections to promote a strong sense of belonging Stenwood Elementary home of the Stingers has created Hive families that bring together students from multiple grade levels we know that students are available to learn when they feel safe and supported at school and the people at school know them um so we wanted to put this together so that every single student at school has access to a trusted adult toward the beginning of the year it was more about getting to
222know each other and we've played different cooperative games together so lots of different activities where those older students can take a leadership role today we're doing an activity where we come together and share how we learn best and fill out a collective piece of art i'm in sixth grade and like there's kindergarteners there and see like what they're learning and what they're doing during the day i think the staff that like the teachers that are doing the high family with us are pretty awesome they're so nice and kind hernand Middle School has grown its mentoring program to include more than 100 active mentor mentee pairs having a mentor helps students feel like they belong because it's a person that they can talk to whether that's for problem solving or goal setting so I decided to
223become a mentor because I have four children and they've grown up and I felt like I could give back to a different generation it helps you open up much more I'll say and communicating skills get better the sense of belonging as a student especially uh when you come from another background which I see majority of students here is I feel that connection myself it feels really nice to have someone like that that cares about me and gives me the best advice that they can for me so I can grow and be a better person through its best buddies program Anendale High School has created inclusive opportunities for students of all abilities i just really like seeing the impact of how like our kids are known and get to make those peer relationships with others our
224kids with special needs they have a place of belonging and they get to build these friendships i think it brings us together and shows the diversity and how many different people there are and many different backgrounds and everyone who is a part of and has a different culture being buddies is helping out and and working together i think Anenddale High School is a really diverse community and we're always trying to get like all the different perspectives and all the different lives people live at Anendelle and just being able to kind of like join everything together and work with two different groups is really fun that sense of belonging piece is critical for our students feel seen my school cares about me suddenly it's not just school it's home best Buddies is beautiful the tins the
225gingerbread house yeah that one's really cool go Adams yes go Adams excellence equity and opportunity so I'll be presenting our final 2425 update to the board on our July 17th schoolboard meeting and that is our strategic planning update mr chair thank you Dr reid miss Seismore you have that look because you know what's coming and I'm going to be kind thank you it's late um I I love the programs i'm going to say inclusion is not just best buddies i really wish we would stop saying helping out that in itself is patronizing just is i appreciate all of the together conversations but if we're going to truly be inclusive we have to watch how we say and talk about inclusion and so I I'm just going to put it out there that I say this
226again the best buddies program is not open to the cat a students and they are also segregated they can join as buddies but as as the as the peers i think we need to recognize the continuum and I think we need to recognize the other spaces we can include inclusion and belonging i will say in my school visits and and I've talked to Dr pon and I've talked to others there's good work being done and I'm sure there's great work being done and I've seen some of that but there is a lot of work around our mindsets and and you know I have had conversation after conversation with you about that and Dr pon and I've talked about that as well and I I do not want to see another video about helping out unless
227they're doing something together to help out somebody something else and I've talked about it would be great to have as if you want to do this if you want to have a best buddies there's nothing wrong with doing social activities together absolutely right but it's doing social activities together and if we're going to do that perhaps we could do like a key club Best Buddies and I've we've talked about this before where we pick a community organization to support a nonprofit right and do something good do a community service project together we cannot have inclusion if we talk about helping out one group of students that way when they're supposed to be peers unless they truly and I think you understand what I'm saying it's not that students shouldn't help each other out but when
228you presume a Best Buddies program is about helping somebody else there's a presumption there correct i I will stop thank you all right thank you Miss Seismoreheiser and thank you Dr reed okay thank you agenda item seven consent agenda our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure Robert's rules provide for a consent agenda listing several items for approval by the board by a single motion many items listed have gone through board review and documentation has been provided to all board members and the public in advance items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member prior to the meeting the consent agenda is on the screen hold on one second mr fresh sorry Mr jackson stepped away and his computer is locked so I need like two minutes to get it up
229technically it's on a screen all right now we're ready the consent agenda items are on the screen is there any objection to approving the consent agenda hearing and seeing no objection the consent agenda is approved agenda item eight new business the following are new business agenda items there will not be a vote on these items this evening but action is scheduled at a future meeting agenda item nine board committee reports i call on Miss Lady for a report from governance it's a quick report we have our next meeting on Monday at 10:00 a.m grateful to my colleague Miss Baron who's going to chair it uh in my absence since I will be taking care of uh caretaking for someone with uh mental disability um but I will be present in the meeting for quorum and
230we're going to cover some of the policies we haven't gotten to um and the agenda is already posted so uh tune in it'll be exciting thanks thank you Miss Lady agenda item 10 superintendent matters thank you Chairman Frush um I think that uh I will limit my comments this evening to just wishing all of our graduates um a big hearty congratulations and also all of the staff uh across the entire division and all of uh your unique roles uh for your part in launching these young people uh it's been a tremendous graduation season i want to thank those board members uh who uh also attended and community members it was an incredible season uh last night u also with our uh honors evening honoring some of our best uh staff members was an incredible event
231big props to our HR department and community and office of communications and tech support to bring just a wonderful evening to life and then lastly just again a big congratulations to all our Cappy's nominees uh those that were nominated those that won our Cappy's critics who spent countless hours um it just was another amazing evening which showed the um really just the amazing uh young people and staff in this community so thank you Chairman FR thank you at this time we will recess to return to closed session and we will return when we are complete we will have audio when we return all right we were going to un recess and we will go to Miss St john Cunning for board matters thank you as we celebrate immigrant heritage month let us remember that unless
232we are or can claim an indigenous heritage we are all immigrants or descendants of immigrants we are what makes the fabric of America each of us is an individual thread woven into that fabric the result is a tapestry that is equally as strong as it is beautiful precisely because each of thread is unique in my 26-year career as a family liaison I have worked with thousands of immigrant families i have and continue to witness the resilience and dedication of students and families who have overcome challenges to build better lives for themselves and their children always with a steadfast commitment to education i could speak about the countless famous immigrants who have contributed to our country but instead I'll speak about the critical contributions made every day in our schools by our own immigrant community and
233although I'll mention some names know they represent countless others from custodian Jessica Cruz who keeps our school sparkling to Wifford Mensah who feeds our students to Miss Abbott an instructional assistant and Desiree Desilva a sixth grade teacher who instruct our students to Paola Ces a school office manager and finally to Meg Turken a family liaison who works with our families all immigrants from countries all over our globe dr michelle Reid immigrated from Germany and chief of schools Dr pona immigrated from Honduras my schoolboard colleagues Sema Dixit Rajna Seismore Heheiser Dr ricardi Anderson Il Yong Moon who immigrated from India Haiti and Korea respectively i myself am the daughter of the of the American Southwest who can trace my indigenous and European roots back 17 generations before this land was part of the United States i
234grew up on the US Mexico border with my feet firmly planted in two cultures and that is the beauty of being an immigrant or from an immigrant family one of our arms can extend to embrace where we came from while the other can extend to embrace where we are and come together to hold both in our hearts we are equally as proud of the culture traditions and languages we came from as we are from the one we belong to now our children grow up eating hot dogs on the 4th of July while our tables are also set with salsa tacos Srirachi kimchi samosas hummus and German potato salad the United States has and always will be a country of immigrants where threads continue to be woven into a strong vibrant and beautiful tapestry as we
235continue to build an inclusive and welcoming environment in FCPS we must remember that diversity is not only something to be celebrated it is our greatest strength thank you Miss St john Cunning mr dunn uh congratulations to Mount Vernon District's class of 2025 graduates it was truly an honor to attend your graduations and celebrate the culmination of your hard work and perseverance uh congratulations also to Dr lelle Williams who was recently named the new principal at Woodley Hills Elementary School i would like to thank uh principal Sharon Aldridge for her 20 years of service at Woodley and I look forward to working with Dr williams in this new role special congratulations to South County Middle School Principal Justin Simmons for being named the 2025 outstanding new principal of the year and a big shout out to
236Quander Road sped chair Raquel Joiner for earning the 2025 outstanding school-based professional employee award last night we're so proud of the difference you both make uh congratulations to West PTOAC High School student Norah Wild who was selected to the prestigious University of Virginia Sorenson Institutees high school leader program uh several Mount Vernon district teams and student athletes have recently won district and regional championships as well as state titles please uh check out my newsletter and social media uh for more information but we're looking forward to watching the West PTOIC boys lacrosse uh who are playing the state finals uh tomorrow in Richmond um thank you to Gunson Soccer Club and the US Soccer Foundation for sponsoring soccer mini pitches at Riverside Elementary and Woodley Hills Elementary uh and thank you to all of the constituents
237who are um actively supporting uh their students or people in their community uh to ensure that they have a strong pathway to college to a career or to uh other uh pursuits have a great night thank you Mr dunn miss Seismarheiser just very briefly um I appreciate Mr mr chair I appreciate my colleagues words about immigrant heritage month and I wanted just to say a very personal story um my parents immigrated from India as part of as part of the first um group after the restrictions on immigration were loosened and um I remember being a child in preschool and not speaking any English and being very scared and alone and isolated i remember growing up as a child and trying to bridge two cultures and helping my parents understand what the American school culture is
238and trying to also understand my heritage growing up in a country different than where they did but the thing I'm going to tell you about immigrants that are so amazing to this country is how much immigration immigrants bring when I got married for the first time in 1995 and I had an Indian wedding I had Hannah the Mandy on my hands that a lot of people know what it is now you see henna at the beaches and things well when I got married a week later walking to a coffee shop or a grocery store people asked me what why my hands were diseased my young cousins who were in elementary school were not allowed to go on their field trip because their teachers thought their hands were diseased and they thought they had some communicable
239disease they never heard of because they were those people but now now we all celebrate Bollywood dances now we get henna tattoos and think they're beautiful now neighborhoods celebrate Holi which is such a fun holiday of of the the festival of colors my heritage like the heritage of all of our immigrants and all of us made this country brighter not just from the colors of Holi not just from the beautiful henna but just from the enrichment that the that it brought and this country made my family better my dad loved this country so much he became a 49er fan a San Francisco Giants fan and the 4th of July was his favorite holiday that's what immigration does for this country and that's what this country should do in embracing immigrants it's a happy immigration heritage
240month thank you Miss Seismore Heiser the board will recess to close session heat heat [Music] [Music]