5/6/2025 - FCPS School Board Work Session

001[Music] All right, everybody. In order to comply with section 2.2-3712D 2-3712D of the Code of Virginia, it's necessary for the board to certify that since the Fairfax County School Board convened a closed meeting on May 6, 2025, to the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convened at the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered by the board during the closed meeting. Do I have a motion? Miss Lady, do I have a second? Mr. Moon. All those in favor? Dr. Anderson, Mr. Mcavine, Miss Marin, Mr. McDaniel, Miss Anderson, Miss Lady, Miss Dixit, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, and myself. That's unanimous for board members at the table. I will turn this over to Miss Lady, and

002Miss Dixit for the meeting management. Thank you, Chairman Fr. Uh, and I'm going to turn this over to Dr. Prescidio and his team for uh presentation. All right. Uh well, it's almost good afternoon. It's 12:01 it looks like. So, um I know you had a very busy day with a lot of items on the agenda. So, I'm going to try to go through the content here relatively quickly. And I know Oh, thank you. We've got it up on the screen now. So, um I know that there's probably going to be a number of questions and discussion that we need to have. So, I'll do my best to kind of uh breeze through here as quickly as I can, but we're very excited and happy to be here with you today to present the recommendations from

003the secondary grading committee. Committee, as you know, has been working really hard um on this work for a number of months. So, our goal today or the objectives are to share the committee's recommendation, tell you a little bit about the rationale uh that supports those recommendations um including the data and the uh information that we collected in our interviews and focus groups that we conducted. And then obviously um what we're asking for Thank you. Thank you. Uh what we're asking for from the board today if we could get it is consensus on moving forward with the recommendations. If we're not able to do that, that's fine. U but if we are, that will allow us to move forward with uh implementing some professional learning um that would occur during the summer to get uh everyone

004uh prepared to implement the updated uh regulation requirements as quickly as possible. So before we jump in, I just want to introduce for our community, I'm joined by Noel Klinko, our assistant superintendent of instructional services, and Michael Gillespie, our senior manager uh in the curriculum office. And Michael's done a tremendous amount of work supporting uh the committee for two years now in this process. So we really appreciate everything that he's done. Um if it's possible to get the presentation on this screen, it would be great. If not, it's okay. So while we're waiting for the slides, I'm going to keep going. Um, just as a reminder to the community, we uh have been doing a lot of work around grading as a school division. The board in particular has been doing a tremendous amount of

005work. Um, beginning back in uh July of 2024, the board uh convened uh a discussion about their intentions to update uh policy 2418 to be um more clear, provide uh uh more guidance to our schools and to make sure that we're consistent in our practices across the division. That work was followed by a work session in August where we shared committee uh updates and recommendations from school year 2324 and then governance had six meetings on grading um from the late summer through October followed by another work session in November and then ultimately the adoption of the updated policy in December. So a lot of work has gone into this from the board. Um following that work in December, we were able to reconvene the secondary grading committee in January and we had most of the

006members continue from the previous year from 23-24 and the committee was provided a charge by Dr. Reid to look at developing language for a regulation to accompany the policy that would provide the necessary guidance to schools to implement our practices consistently from school to school. So those areas uh that we looked at uh included consistency in gradebook type, gradebook waiting, reassessment practices, the number of minimum uh assignments that are required to be graded every quarter, and then looking at homework as a separate category uh of this of a student's grade. Additionally, uh the committee looked at the follow-on motions that the board approved in December of 2024, looking at uh alternative ways to enhance the reporting of student work habits that would be separate from a student's grade and also looking at ways to increase

007effectiveness and efficiency in the technical systems um that we're using for grade reporting. So, just real briefly again, I do want to acknowledge the work of the grading committee. We had 35 individuals who served on this committee uh most of them for two years. They did a tremendous amount of work uh each year. This year they met six times from January to March. did a tremendous amount of work uh looking at data, looking at uh stakeholder feedback um and really uh I think being very very thoughtful about how to take all of the input across different groups whether it's the perspectives of teachers, administrators, uh students or parents. And they did a tremendous job with that. So we really appreciate it. And the committee of course was made up of administrators, teachers, uh students and

008parents. And we're grateful for all of their contributions. Um, as I mentioned, the committee was provided at that formal charge uh from Dr. Reid um and worked very diligently to develop recommendations in each of those areas, which I'll share with you in just a second. But another thing that they did, which I really appreciated, was gave a lot of time and attention and thought about how we could successfully implement any of these new practices. So, they've provided some recommendations around professional learning that would be required as well. And as I mentioned, they did a great job trying to balance competing viewpoints sometimes across different groups. So the data that we collected um was significant um and it really started with a look at comparing grade data from school year 23 24 to school year 24-25

009where we had implemented some of the changes. Now given the timing of when the committee met, we could only look at quarter 1 and quarter two data. Um, so there's that one limitation there. We also looked at significant survey data. And one of the things that we did a little bit differently with this survey instead of just offering a broad survey across uh different groups where you know sometimes you get a low response rate and you don't really know who's represented in the sample. We worked instead to come up with a random sampling methodology uh working with our office of research and strategic improvement. And that random sampling methodology allowed us to actually create a representative sample for the survey. So we were able to sample when we think about students by grade level. What

010particular grade were they in 9th, 10th, 11th or 12th? Um we were able to sample if they had any special learning characteristics, multilingual, uh students with disabilities. And then for teachers, we were able to create a representative uh population sample by content area. Um and we think that that really allowed us to create certainly more generalizable results when we look at the survey results um than often what we have in the past. We also held 17 different focus groups uh with a variety of uh members again in our community from uh different viewpoints and perspectives to really round out the quantitative data that we had collected from the survey and then we also collected direct feedback from our principal associations. So overall um there's a lot of information I would say in the report itself

011um from the survey and from the focus groups but overall just for uh our purposes this morning when we look at the grade data uh we saw very little change uh from school year 23 to uh 2425. So for example when we look at A's and Fs the grade distribution was relatively stable. We saw slight increases in A's um of less than 1% uh and slight uh decreases in Fs of less than 1%. So I think both of those things are positive trends, but that's a really small number. Of course, the other thing that we looked at was to see if that general uh trend held true across different groups of students. So um you know the general population, how did that compared to multilingual learner students in terms of grade out outcomes? How did

012that compare to students with disabilities? And again, very very little variability there. We didn't see anything when we looked at A's and Fs in that quarter 2 data um that was more than half a percentage point really. And then finally, um the survey results though, as I've already mentioned, we do see different results uh based on uh the different groups that an individual might be in. And I think the biggest one that I really want to call out and illustrate on this slide is that when we looked at our reassessment policy, for example, uh 74% of our students and 64% of our parents uh and families viewed the reassessment to 100% as a positive, but 56% of our staff viewed it negatively. So again, depending on the group that you're a member of, oftentimes the

013survey results uh were quite different. So the committee had to balance all of that along with the research um and along with the information that we collected in focus groups to develop their recommendations. So very briefly uh just a high level view of the research again similar to what we talked about last year uh when we presented uh we did review uh all the relevant research on grading uh that was available to us and you know historically though as we've shared before the research on secondary grading really does show a high degree of variability um across schools across classrooms across uh uh teacher practice and division practice. So it's very difficult I think in the research base to draw a lot of valid conclusions about an evidence base on the particular areas that we're interested

014in. So when we think about for example reassessment practice when we think about the number of minimum assignments when we think about gradebook type or gradebook waiting there's not a lot of research um on those topics. There was one recent study on reassessment um that I do want to point out and we'll talk about that when we get to the reassessment recommendation. But other than that, um, we do not have as much relevant research available to us as we would like. So, let's jump into the committee recommendations. And the first area that we looked at um was gradebook type. So, the updated policy 2418 requires us to use a consistent gradebook type um across our schools. And you can see here that the recommendation uh from the committee was to move to the rolling grade

015book, but not until school year 2627. The committee recommended that we use school year 2526 to make sure that everybody is trained sufficiently um and has the support and resources and time that they need to make the shift uh to the rolling grade book. And I think that's a really wise recommendation because we know previously when sometimes uh we've seen some of our school communities make more sudden changes to grading practices, it's been quite disruptive to the community and cause confusion for uh some students, parents, and staff. So in terms of the rationale uh for this particular recommendation um the folks that uh looked at the current use of rolling gradebook in terms of who's currently using it and pointing out benefits from that group um the rolling gradebook really does allow for more flexibility

016both in reassessment practices as well as course design. So rolling gradebook again differs from traditional gradebook in that the the gradebook is open from the first day of school until the last day of school. A traditional quarterly gradebook closes each quarter and then a student's grade is average from quarter to quarter over the course of the semester or over the course of the full year. And most of our secondary courses are fullyear courses. But with a rolling gradebook, students can go back and demonstrate mastery on a particular learning standard or skill that maybe they started in the first quarter, but they didn't quite master it yet, but by the third quarter, they've mastered it, and they can get credit for that um continuation of working towards mastery. So, it provides more flexibility, more support for

017student learning. Additionally, when um the committee looked at this, you can see that most of our schools are using the rolling grade book. 66% of our high schools use the rolling gradebook exclusively as of today. And when we include middle schools in that, 63% of our middle schools and high schools use the rolling gradebook in at least some capacity. That means there might be a school where some teachers use rolling gradebook in that school and others use the quarterly gradebook. So again because of the flexibility and because of the high use of current use of the rolling grade book um the committee is recommending implementation for 2627. The next area that we looked at was uh grade waiting. So 2418 policy 2418 does require consistent waiting with a balanced and fair approach between formative and

018sumitive categories. So again, for folks in the community, when we're talking about summitative uh tasks, we're talking about those assignments, those tasks that might be um at the end of a learning unit, at the end of a quarter, at the end of a school year, for example. Um as opposed to formative tasks where students have the opportunity to continue to practice uh their learning and to get feedback from their teachers. So the summitives are kind of the culminating activity and the formatives are processoriented and practiceoriented. So the committee here recommended maintaining the current district gradebook waiting of 70% summitive and 30% formative. And again you can see the committee percentages at the bottom of each of these slides. So this was 93% concurrence on this. And you know in terms of the rationale um we

019have seen that the consistency of parents and students reporting that they understand their students grades has increased significantly. And in fact when we surveyed um the different groups only 9% of our students 12% of parents and 19% of staff reported that our current waiting of 70 summitive 30 formative is not working well for them. So again the vast majority are reporting that 7030 is working well for them right now. We did look um on this particular recommendation to see uh if there was any interest with our department chairs and administrators in differentiating the category waiting by content area. So for example, maybe you have 7030 in the core content areas. Maybe you have 8020 in the elective areas or the fine arts or CTE areas. However, in discussion uh with our department chairs and administrators,

020we were not able to reach any consensus on what um a standardization might look like in different content areas. There was a lot of disagreement about what that might look like. And given the fact that the policy calls for fair and balanced and consistent waiting, uh the committee ultimately recommended that all teachers uh use the 7030 waiting. Okay. So the next recommendation was around homework and policy 2418 was updated of course to really promote the importance of consistent use of homework as uh regular opportunities for student practice. And the committee looked at this and did recommend maintaining our current homework practices uh which currently allow teachers to use the formative category that 30% of a student's weight uh to provide homework grades. Um the considerations really around this was looking at the data about current

021use around homework. Um you can see at the supporting evidence there that when we look at our youth survey results almost uh 92% of our students secondary students report having daily homework. Um, and you can see the amount ranges uh all the way up to, you know, daily homework of over half of our students at the eighth grade saying they spend more than an hour a day on homework to twothirds of our students at the 12th grade saying they spend more than an hour a day on homework. And when we processed this through with our staff and focus groups and at the committee, there was a lot of disagreement about creating a separate category for homework uh for waiting homework. And I think the main reason or one of the main reasons for that was

022the concern about having to grade homework and the workload that would be associated with that. So again, committee recommended maintaining our current practices. Now, I want to point out though that um the committee again has been uh fantastic in terms of their dedication to this work, but some members of senior leadership of course have had other conversations with community members um outside of the committee process and have had conversations um really through the entire process of the board's development of policy 2418. And when we looked at the homework recommendation from the committee, our senior leadership team felt that we really needed to establish a set category for homework waiting. And that we thought that the best way to do that would be to establish homework waiting uh category at 10% of a student's grade. And

023the reason for that is while students are reporting consistent uh homework right now, we're not at 100% of those experiences. Um and I shared that data just a minute ago how it varies kind of from you know 50% to to twothirds over uh grade 8 through grade 12 that have uh consistently reporting homework. So with the belief uh around our increased focus on academic rigor in all the areas of our strategic plan the research around consistent homework and practice supporting student learning uh our senior leadership team felt strongly that we should wait it at 10% of a student's grade. Now, if we do that and if the board accepts that alternative recommendation, that obviously is going to impact the category waiting because currently homework is part of that 30% formative grade. So, if we take

024homework, make it a separate 10% that's going to impact our summitive percentage and our formative percentage. So, the second alternative recommendation that you see here would be to change the category waiting to 60% summitative, 30% formative, and 10% homework. And when we look at the board's guidance in policy 20418 that creates an expectation for a fair and balanced approach between the formative and sumitive categories 6040 basically is getting us I think better balance than 7030. So that's how our senior leadership team uh developed that recommendation as an alternative to the committee. Okay. The next area is around reassessment. So, policy 2418 um also requires consistent reassessment practices that would provide students one opportunity uh to reassess for each summitive assessment that they take. And you can see that the committee's recommendation here is to maintain

025the current practice uh which allows students to earn up to 100% credit on those reassessments that they complete. Now, just as a reminder, before a student completes a reassessment, we do have requirements that they take um action to ensure that they have done additional work before a teacher provides them with a reassessment opportunity. So, that might look like test corrections, additional uh homework assignments that need to be completed to prepare for that reassessment. So, when we look at um the feedback on this particular recommendation though, again, what you'll notice is that there was obviously a difference of opinion on this particular recommendation across the different groups in our uh school system. So for example, our students and uh family members were very clear um that the change to 100% this year was a very positive

026change that lowered stress levels for them increased their motivation both on the original assessments and on reassessments. So we see that very clearly in the survey data as well as the focus groups that we ran. However, I also want to be very clear that we heard loudly uh and strongly from our teachers that they did not view the change to 100% reassessment positively and largely that was due to increased workload. So 51% of our teachers said that they had a significant increase in workload with reassessment to 100%. Ultimately um well I should point out there is the the bullet point about the study that I mentioned earlier around reassessment and this is a relatively new study. Um so this particular study looked at math uh performance at the secondary level and studied the impact of

027a reassessment policy allowing up to 100%. and found that student learning growth um was increased between 36 to 45% uh when uh students were allowed to reassess to 100% in those math classes. So ultimately taking all of this into consideration uh the committee felt like our current practice was manageable recognizing this the teacher workload issues they felt it was manageable if we provided very clear guidance and support to our teachers about practices for reassessment that could address workload and I want to share a few of those ideas with you next. So really to that end around uh reducing teacher workload, the committee recommended professional learning on uh specific practices to alleviate those concerns like the ones that you see here. So for example, focusing reassessments on the specific standards or skills that students had not

028mastered. So instead of let's just pretend you gave a 50 um question test. Instead of reassessing another 50 questions, maybe students only uh were struggling with 10 of the questions, you could create a smaller reassessment of 10 questions on those topics that students hadn't mastered, saving time in the grading process. Obviously, there's still workload associated with reassessment, but that starts to mitigate that somewhat. Additionally, when we hear from teachers that sometimes students want to reassess where they had like a a 95 and they want to get that 100, well, there might only be one or two questions that a a student would need to retake. And you might actually be able to do that in a conversation with the student, or you might be able to do that in a simple test correction. Maybe a

029student made um a calculation error on a a math exam. Um but giving that student an opportunity to redo that um one item um certainly would be a lot less work than asking them to retest on every one of the concepts from the original test and have to grade that again. Additionally, we know that it's difficult to find time to do the reassessment, but when we use that learning seminar time built into the schedule and when uh we work to really try to utilize time in class for reassessments, um that can reduce some of the workload issues as well. So the committee was felt very strongly again that uh if we continue with the 100% reassessment policy, we certainly want to make resources and training available to staff on some strategies to uh address workload

030concerns. All right, just a couple more here. Uh the number of assignments was the next area that we looked at. Uh I think this one is pretty straightforward. There was very positive feedback on the move to a minimum number of assignments that would be graded each quarter from 9 to 7. We implemented that change last year. So the committee is recommending maintaining that. Uh it's seven assignments this year and we had 100% consensus from the committee on that recommendation. And then as I mentioned um the committee had uh really I think thoughtful feedback on the need for quality professional development. Um, and to that end, you can see that we've already started to work on development of professional learning that could start to take place at the end of this school year, during the summer,

031and next school year in all of these different areas. Um now the one thing that I want to mention on this slide that's that last bullet point in red that's very important is with these recommendations as we move forward with implementation uh we are suggesting senior leadership team is suggesting that we delay middle school implementation of any changes. Um so middle schools would not be working on these changes in school year 2526 and our middle schools as you all know are involved in a lot of new initiatives right now. You can think about the work in the strategic plan around middle school algebra that they're doing. Um the work that they're continuing to do around the Virginia literacy act. Um they're going to be implementing new social studies curriculum and materials. There's just a lot

032of things that are happening um in our middle schools right now um that we believe it would be better to pause implementation at the middle school level for next uh school year. Okay. Very quickly, I just want to share a few updates on those follow-on motions that the board approved in December. Uh the first was to look at our technology systems to see if we could create more effective and efficient ways to communicate um grades uh to our students, to our families, and to save time for our teachers. So, we have already begun work in instructional services uh working with the IT team. I think there were some folks from IT here with us uh earlier. And we're working on some short-term and long-term solutions that you see on this slide. Um, a couple examples

033would be really trying to standardize some of the gradebook settings so teachers don't need to spend a lot of time setting up their gradebook as well as looking at ways to share information more effectively from our student information system in schooly our learning management system because we know people sometimes are looking for information in different systems and having that uh coherence we think would support a lot of the understanding um of grades that has created some confusion uh previously. I apologize I didn't advance that slide earlier for you. So, those are the technical changes that we're looking at. The second area that there was a follow-on motion for was around uh reporting work habits and the request was to make sure that we could look at a a different way to provide quality comments on

034the report card uh around students work habits. So, we're in the process right now of working to revise our current report card comments to align more closely with portrait of a graduate. That was one of the things that uh the governance committee asked us to do and to be more descriptive um and have more frequency information in the comments so that um a parent or family member could really understand to what extent a student is exhibiting or not exhibiting those work habits. So, we're going to continue to work on this, but I wanted to share just a few examples of what that might look like. Um so, for example, here you can see at the top of the slide some of our current report card comments. um you might uh see a needs to be

035prepared for class that a teacher might give a student or shows inconsistent effort. Um I think to some extent this is a little vague and open to interpretation certainly not aligned to portrait of a graduate. So you can see when we think about our portrait of a graduate uh attribute and goal around being goal- directed and uh resilient. We might revise some of these comments as you see on the slide here. for example, they manage their time and resources to accomplish their academic goals or they're still developing their time management skills. So, you can see we're attempting to align some of these work habits to Portrait of a Graduate and be more developmental in nature. There's a few other examples here um that really look at kind of the frequency that a student might demonstrate

036one of their work habits. So, you can see here we're talking about um are they demonstrating work habits necessary to maximize their learning. So you can see we would uh be able for example to report that a student is consistently doing that, usually doing that, occasionally doing that or seldomly doing that. And I think that would give uh parents and family members more information about how their students are currently doing. All right. And then the final um follow-on motion was around updates to our transcripts and school profiles. So for our transcript, uh the board asked us to make sure that we had the online campus noted on a student's uh transcript as well asmies noted on their transcript. And then at the profile, making sure um that our school profiles for all of our schools

037include information about how students uh can enroll uh in online campus and academy classes. and we think that's going to make it much clearer for colleges and universities that are trying to evaluate uh student transcripts across our 26 high schools. So, we're in the process of making those edits with it and those will be in place uh and updated for uh school year 2526. So just in terms of proposed next steps, um after we get direction from the board, we'll uh continue to build out the specific regulation language that will help with the implementation of each of the uh policies that we've discussed here today and uh we'll continue to work on developing those professional learning experiences uh to start in early June and continue throughout the year. The last slide uh that's in your

038slide deck just provides a summary uh chart of all of the different recommendations that we looked at. Um it provides the committee recommendation as well as the alternative uh staff recommendation. So with that, uh Miss Lady, I'll turn it back over to you for board discussion. Thank you. Um and I when we get started, I think we're going to do three minutes and if we have go backs, we're going to drop that to two. Um hopefully we can be concise and articulate and I will start with uh Miss Seismarheiser. Thank you and and thank you to all your hard work and the hard work of the committee and the hard work of the grading of the governance committee on the grading policy before that. So I appreciate all of that. I know this has been

039a long journey. Um so I appreciate that. A couple things on some of the recommendations. Um you know I think some of this work is good. A consistent grade book. We always said we didn't care which one necessarily which gradebook as long as there's consistency. Um I am a little concerned about not doing it at the middle school level. But um the two things I really wanted to focus on was one on the reassessments. I appreciate the alternate recommendation of the 603010. While the governance committee didn't prescribe any numbers because we didn't want to get into operations. It was pretty clear from the conversations we had that 7030 was we'd heard a lot of concerns about it. Um, one of the things I'm surprised in reassessments that we didn't really talk about across content areas

040because in the policy we did say consistency across content areas and something I heard significantly about was 70% you know summitive might work in a math class but it's maybe hard to do in a ceramics class right and what I've anidoly heard is in some of our music and arts classes it's actually getting kids to drop out of those classes because there's such a heavy focus on assessments and not as much on playing and performance which is a higher part of those classes. So I I am surprised a little bit the lack of content. Um I can support the 603010. I know I can also support a 6040 if we have a statement saying that consistent and regular homework will be you know part of the formative assessments. You know no less than 5% up

041to 10%. I could support that, but I think it should be also for all students unless contraindicated by a 504 and IEP plan because there is I would love to have seen some data on homework across class types because I think that's where the breakdown necessarily is. So, a lot of good points. I maybe working backwards a little bit and I was rushing through the slides. So um we did think about homework and differentiation for homework quite a bit and we've started to prepare some uh guidance and examples for for schools around that. The first thing that I would say is and I want to be really clear because I think staff had concerns about the workload associated with grading. We think that there are ways to assign homework where the grading is going to

042be relatively minimal. So, for example, some of the uh content areas you just shared, perhaps in a music class, students might submit a practice log um and provide evidence that they had been practicing. Well, the teacher's going to know if they've been practicing or not just by listening to them play, right? So, that's pretty easy to grade. It's kind of a yes or no. Similarly, even in a math class where students might be doing daily, well, we would hope the students would be doing daily uh math problems for practice, um teachers wouldn't have to grade those. they could just check to see if students are actually completing them. So, we're working on ways to minimize homework. Uh we're also working on ways to make sure, and this is part of the professional learning that I

043ski skimmed over quickly as well, to really make sure that teachers are thinking about supports and accommodations for our special populations and ways that they can modify um assessments as well as homework assignments to support students with uh differentiated learning needs. So, that will be part of uh what we would focus on as well. And then you were asking about differentiation across the content areas uh for grade. Okay. With all due respect, Dr. Presidio, I I think maybe I wasn't clear in what I said. I wasn't talking about homework in terms of grading homework or the workload of homework. I was talking about the 70% focus on assess on summitative and the issues that has across content areas and on the in on the on and on making sure that homework is assigned across different

044classes not necessarily differentiation in that obviously all those are important but those were not the points I was trying to make. Yeah I I apologize I was working backwards and I was trying to get to the 7030 one. So if we go back in the slides maybe Noel can take us back. There was one bullet point on there and again I mentioned it briefly. Um we did have discussion as part of the committee about differentiating uh grade waiting across content areas. We absolutely did that. Um we found a lot of different thoughts and opinions about what those weights should be and we did not have agreement even within particular content areas like a CTE or an arts area. So that doesn't mean that we couldn't do it. We could certainly differentiate across content areas. the

045work of the committee, we did not come to any consensus even with within those departments of what that grade waiting should look like. So, unfortunately, that's kind of where we ended up with that. We were afraid it was just going to end add more inconsistency from uh student experience to student experience. I mean, I appreciate that. I just I kind of wish a lot of your examples that you use were math-based examples around the grading or I mean, I kept hearing math. In math, you can do reassessments and only these questions you might have gotten wrong. And I would have loved more conversation about how does that apply in English? How does it apply in a music class? How does that apply in ceramics? I think math is the easiest way to to break it

046down. So I just this is a comment. I don't need a response back yet, but I want to make another comment. Um, in terms of the homework, I think we have to specify consistent and regular and a specific percentage, whether it's part of the formative or a separate number. I think that's super important. The reassessment is I wanted to get to really quickly before my time is up. Um, when you say up to 100%, you're saying reassessment when the score is anything less than 100% they can reassess because that is a concern that I've heard from a lot. And the question is, is it better to do a reassessment at like 85% that takes some of the workload concern off while still allowing the students to demonstrate mastery? A B is still above average. So

047that's something I want to throw out there is that I'm not sure 100% makes a lot of sense. I know my time's up, so let's keep going back. Yeah. So you characterized the current policy correctly. a student can reassess if they earn less than 100% and receive up to 100% credit. Um the committee as I mentioned uh spent a lot of time on this one because that's where we had the most variance across uh different uh groups in terms of opinions about what to do. you know, we looked at a number of different things, including the guiding principles and policy 2418 um that really speak to, you know, supporting con um students uh throughout their learning journey to continue their learning, providing maximum support for them to maximize their learning. Um and we looked at

048different, you know, examples like you just mentioned, 90%, 80%. Um, ultimately I think you know looking at percentages like that just seemed arbitrary to the to the committee because you're telling a student at that point that if you earn less than 90% for example, you can't continue your learning and everything else we're telling our students is we want them to continue their learning and we want to award them credit for the learning that they've done. So we definitely understand the workload issues associated with the 100% and that's why we were trying to offer suggestions and supports that we would develop. But this is a really difficult one because again people have really strong opinions uh depending on their uh perspective and their role in the organization. Thank you Miss Mayor. Yes. So I am seeing

049this through many lenses. One is governance, one as schoolboard member, one as parent of a high school student. So what I'm wondering is like what's the big picture here Dr. Reid because we've talked about homework is important and I think the board as a whole has generally been supportive of it and I support it but how is separating 10% from the summitive the way to go. How is that adding to the effort to get students to mastery and not just completion and checking off that box that the whole grading policy was trying to get us away from? So I think uh homework is critically important and I would bet if we drill down on the actual students doing homework the percentage from the youth survey uh those students would generally be um in a more

050rigorous track and so we want to embed those skills younger. Uh I don't know that 10% is a magic percentage but I do think that we need to send a clear message that homework is part of the disciplined approach to learning. uh it could be practice at home. It doesn't need to be graded. Um I think Dr. Prescidio and the team are looking at a lot of options uh to delineate how, you know, if I'm in a chamber orchestra, just practicing would be sufficient. Do I turn in a practice log, right? Which is what professional musicians do. They practice. They don't just show up to class and play. Um, if you're in theater, I mean, across the board, there is something that happens outside of that face-toface instructional time. I think the purpose of sort

051of I'd be happy to um set it into uh the formative setting. It's not really summitative, right? It is formative because you're developing and getting feedback on a regular basis. So, I I don't think you could put it into the summitive weight. So that would require you to add some percentage to the formative. Maybe it's not 10, maybe it's 65, 35. Um, but I just think we need to send that clear message and apology if if I mix up formative summitative. But I guess, you know, if we're giving students homework, but it's not graded, but then 10% of their grade is homework. So how can you not grade it if it's 10% of their grade? So I fully agree that the students need to do homework. And I can picture my sixth grader with his

052trumpet log, you know, and so he turns that in. And you know, I've heard the gamut of things that students who want to do the homework will do it. Some students, and maybe the parents will help them, you know, check the boxes and that's not going to help them with instruction. I'm aware of some practices where in high schools now, some of the staff are already using that 10% that's part of that 7030 split and does that reach the mark? Um, I'm just again I'm wondering like does this 10% get us to what again we were trying to get away from completion like yes I've done the thing I've done the log versus oh I'm actually a better player or I've done and I'm not I'm not so convinced and when I see that the

053committee didn't support that by and large it really gives me a lot of pause. So, um, but I think too, um, in a a combined way, you know, the tying this all together to how students are instructed, and I don't believe my clock is running. If someone wants to put that on, thanks. Um, I apologize for my voice. the um timing of the implementation and the professional development like what I think the vision is is to really focus on the instruction being the driver and so like the grades and the homework are the you know the byproduct of learning learning well and so um you know when it comes to algebra it seems like a good time to make sure that our teachers are learning how to do the grading for algebra I'm not saying

054it needs to be fully implemented but I actually think that this seems like a good time I think overall my big things are this. There's a lot of stuff coming at our teachers. I'm okay to have it be implemented in 2627. It's not clear in this presentation if you're suggesting everything happen in 2627. There was some mention of middle school being held off and some of 26. So that could be clarified please. But um overall and I again experienced this the grades the parents are getting the grade book. I get an email every week that tells me how my student is doing and I will tell you it sends my family into a whirlwind every time because the grades fluctuate and because some teachers are putting things in at one date and some have ultimately

055what are the grades as a communicator to the students and the families and the training that and the communication that's going to go to families. I think putting the the portrait of a graduate skills in the report card is great. I like that a lot. That was a big component of our governance committee conversation. But I guess I'm not I'd like to know more about the technology pieces and how because it students are still getting trapped in well this teacher says I can retake and this one says I can't and if we're going to wait for another year how do we keep our students from this constant confusion and having to check all the different ways that teachers do this and where students really stand in their learning. I'll stop there because my voice sounds

056terrible. I'm sorry to say and certainly welcome Dr. to read on any of this as well. But just to your last points, you know, the idea with the technical systems is to make them easier to navigate and easier to use so that parents and students know where to find the information and get the best information and that we reduce any workload on teachers. So for example, if we standardize the gradebook setup, those aren't for teachers. They don't need to do that work, which oftentimes can be tedious. However, if a teacher doesn't input the information in a timely manner, then a student and a parent won't know the up-to-date information um about their students progress in the class. So, what's the number of days that we currently have in regulation for teachers to update their grade

057book? Seven. So, right now the current policy is that teachers have seven days to input the grades into the grade book. Um, I'm sure that doesn't happen all the time. Um, but that's not a policy issue problem because we already have that. That's an implementation issue problem that we need to work with our staff and our principles and our region teams on. So, you know, I I think the other issue that you raised which is similarly is an implementation issue problem is around reassessment. The current policy is students can have one reassessment attempt for every summitive assessment. That's the policy this year. That's was the policy in the past. So if that's not happening again in a particular school or classroom, it's not a policy issue. It's an implementation issue that we would need to

058work on a little bit differently. Thanks. I'll just say I would love to see grading approached like we approached chronic absenteeism where it was very specific and we knew what the the work was to get those kids back in school. There were very specific communications. There were specific people charged with the roll out. There were metrics and to my knowledge, our teachers have not been thoroughly trained in schooly in using it and then teaching kids. That's just such a huge missing component because I'll tell you, my lovely daughter will tell me the teacher didn't upload that grade and here I am six days after the test. Really, there's we're not making helping parents be learners, but it just needs more like strategic Yeah. doing. Yeah. No, I appreciate that and I think we can do

059better with that. This slide is kind of the first attempt to show some of the things just on the technical systems that we want to standardize and improve that I think will help and obviously there's training that needs to be associated with all of these things. Right? So, reinforcing the expectations um around the practices that we've just discussed um reinforcing the expectation around how often you need to how many days you have before you need to grade the assignment and enter the information into the system. So all of those things would be part of that work that we're doing. And you can see from some of these technical enhancements, we think working with the vendor, we could get better reports about what's happening at a school. So for example, how long has it been since

060assignments were in the grade book before they were graded? Can we get individual and aggregate information on that? And if there are schools that are outliers that it's taking them much longer, then we need to support those schools with strategies to expedite their assessment. So that is part of what we're trying to do in this technical section here. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Thank you. I'm going to just start with the um number of assignments which are at seven. Is that inclusive of sumitives, formatives? Yes, seven graded assignments. A minimum, not a maximum, a minimum of seven graded assignments per quarter. So this would essentially sit outside of the homework bucket if that were to be a separate category. Yes. Um our current policy is seven, right? So we changed that last year to take effect

061for 2425. Previously it had been nine. So we've always had a minimum number of assignments for decades. So all right. Um I'd like to talk about homework and kind of give my feedback there. I I'm a huge I know I've talked to you about this ad nauseium, Dr. Reid. I I do believe that having homework is preparation because we do have to do things outside of the instructional setting. Whether or not it lives in the um formative or its own category, I think I'm fairly ambivalent about. But I am I did have to question why wasn't that part of the formative. So I think when you think about what homework is, it's practice. So it is a formative right type of task that a student would complete. And again as Dr. Reid said we're happy

062to move the 10% into the 30% and make it 6040 or 65 35. We could do whatever the board has consensus around. The reason we started with the 60 3010 was to illustrate that if we're going to require homework be part of the students grade. We wanted to make sure that that was really clear and people could see that. But again, the way that it's currently recommended by staff, if you can go to the staff recommendation slide, 60 summitive, 30 formative, 10 homework, it basically is 60 summitive, 40 formative. So, and again, that's not a hill for me to die on at all. I'm just happy we've moved away from the 9010 that some of us seems to be harder to utilize um because quarterly you provide a grade, you close it, you move on.

063A rolling grade book is actually more work because you do have to go back and have that replacement grade and it's a per if that's what's chosen and that's what's provided. It is the perfect partner to the reassessment up to 100%. because they do go together. Because if you have a rolling grade book and this child, let's say September, did not do well on that assessment and has no opportunity to make it up, they continue to carry that burden throughout the entire year and everything else could be stellar. And so I I want to make sure that that's shared. And also, I want to say this, you know, the reassessment, I know there's been a lot of concerns that it's unfair, you know, somebody's going to, you know, leaprog me. I had a 95, they

064reassessed, they went to 100. We are all in unique situations and we could think of a number of different instances, even Dr. Reid, where we have sent you back to do new work. Yes, ma'am. We did not say we're going to minus 10 because it's new work. We just accepted it for what it was at that time. And we have to apply the same approach to our kids. Um because that's how it works in the real world. It's not you turn in a subpar report and that's it. you go and you make it better and you bring it back and that's what counts. And I'd like for us to begin to apply the same thing to our students. Um the what was my other question? Oh, work habits. I am very very very excited about

065this section. Um, I I'm very excited about it because I think it just gives more information to parents because we need to know how to better support our kids. When you get that little report card and it says that one three sentence thing, it's I mean threeword thing or nothing at all and the grade may not be satisfactory or maybe it is. Either way, you do not know how to better support your child. So unpacking that a little bit, what guidance will there be around the usage of the work guidance statements that you're working on? It's a great question. We haven't reached a conclusion on that point yet. Um, so we're going to be working with uh a group of teachers and administrators over the summer to develop that guidance. That would be part of

066the regulation. Um, but if we're going to go to all the trouble of, you know, changing all of the work habits, we're going to need to use those and I have an expectation that they're used to some extent, but we haven't reached a conclusion on that yet. All right. Thank you. I'll take go back. Thank you, Miss Anderson. Hi there. Um, okay. Okay. So, I'm not going to rehash all the things that I've already talked to you guys about, but I did I also am a little surprised that we ended up at the rolling grade book. Um, can I ask when we're talking standardsbased grading, which I re recognize many of these things are aligned with, did standardsbased grading start in the college classroom? No, I I really don't think so. Um, what I'll say

067is there's more variability in college grading than there is in secondary grading. You don't have to tell me that. I fully and completely understand. I guess the reason that I'm asking is this is set up more on a semester system where you actually are giving a semester long grade where you can reassess things that happened at the beginning because it makes sense that the student would be working through it. I have I for the same reasons as Dr. Anderson brought up. I have significant concerns that we have a kiddo that particularly as they're getting to like seventh grade when they're first in this as a new thing they can get a significantly lower grade than maybe they've earned the rest of the year and they get locked in because so unless we are doing a

068significant amount of retraining of our staff members. I think we are going to continue to be in this realm where you either have kids that are gaming the system so that they aren't doing much work the last quarter or they get locked into very low grades that follow them throughout the entire year. And so I am concerned about this. I also will say that I think we're doing this the wrong way. I think that the piloting and the in the trying something out new has to happen in the middle school where we don't have as high stakes for our students because trying things out with high schoolers has a significant impact on their grade point averages which has a very real world application that is coming very soon for many of them and so I

069am extremely concerned as being one of those students that actually had the rug pulled out from underneath me when we added the plus minus system when I was in high school that significantly changed the grade point average when the rest of the world hadn't caught up with us yet. And so I am concerned. I actually think that testing this out in middle school as a way to retrain and actually get K people on track makes far more sense than moving it into high school where the stakes are higher. So that's the first thing that I wanted to say. Um the other thing is I strongly believe that any formative assignment that is due the next class period is homework and the student has to figure out when to get that assignment completed. And so I

070do not think that we necessarily need to. I agree with the 6040 split, but I don't necessarily think that we need to set a specific percentage. And based on the feedback that we received from the high school principles, they're also saying the same thing. The percentage could be hard to reach. It could be, you know, we're still going to have to assign some grade. It's likely going to be a participation grade based on quizzes at the start of class or whatever it is to determine whether or not reading was done in an English class or things like that. And so I would very much like to see us kind of move away from a prescriptive approach in that in that place. I think that this is also a place that that staff can gain back

071some autonomy in what they're doing as well. So giving a student a formative assignment that is due the next class period is homework and we just have to give them the opportunity to to use utilize those executive functioning skills. So Okay. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Um, uh, Mr. Prescidio, can you, uh, clarify whether there's actually ever been an analysis of, uh, the grading within FCPS, uh, to determine whether there is great inflation or no grade inflation? Well, I mean, we've done different things. I think the comment was raised here about grade inflation um was within the context of looking at the comparison between 2324 and 2425 quarter 1 and quarter 2 grades to see how grades may have increased or decreased in 2425 as compared to 2324 and we saw little to no variability. So

072I don't know that I would term that as grade inflation. It's comparing the grading the impact of the policy changes from 23 24 on students grades. Um we have run analysis to look at across schools the percentage of students that might be earning a particular GPA or particular grades um to compare across schools to see if there's variability and there is variability but um we've never done like a a formal grade inflation study before. Those are the two major things that I would probably say are as close to that as we've done. Uh because I've I've read in news reports that something like 90% of students at Harvard get A's, right? And it's not that all students should get A's at at every educational institution. Normally, I mean, I grew up with a bell curve,

073right? Certain number of A's, certain number of C's, certain number of Fs. Um and so I I would be interested just in seeing that study you mentioned about um the variability of GPA across schools. Um and that that may affect college prospects, right? If there is inconsistency. So um has there been any effort to standardize kind of the the bell curve across schools? Well, we really have moved away, not just in Fairfax, but in education in general, the idea that a grade should be used to sort students in a particular class or school. Um, as opposed to maximizing every student's opportunity to really fully optimize their learning, right? Um, so I I would say certainly we can look at trying to and are with these recommendations trying to standardize consistent practices from school to school.

074So, for example, when you think about reassessment, before the grading committee formed, we had some schools or some teachers in a school that would allow a student to reassess up to 100%. We had others that would cap it at 80%. Well, that's an inconsistency that impacts a student's GPA, that impacts their college prospects, that impacts a lot of other things, right? So in terms of trying to flatten the variability curve, um it's really these recommendations that we're looking at in terms of the grade weights, the reassessment policies, uh the homework components, and trying to standardize the individual practices within a teacher's approach to grading. Um can you talk about uh the rolling grade book and how that works in practice? Yeah. So the big concept with a rolling gradebook again and what differentiates it from

075a traditional grade book is the the grades are not locked at the end of a quarter. So in a traditional grade book at the end of first quarter, at the end of nine weeks, your grade is locked. You got a B first quarter. Second quarter, you got a C. If it was a semester class, you add those together and you got a B. A rolling grade book, the gradebook is open from the first day until the last day. And the current information that a student or a parent might look at, let's say in quarter 2, tells them their current status in terms of performance in that class. So let's say, for example, a student at quarter 2 has a C in a class, and they haven't taken advantage of reassessment opportunities yet. They have an

076opportunity to demonstrate information from quarter 1 because it's not locked in the grade book. they could go back and reassess something from quarter 1 if they didn't already do that in quarter 1 and that could raise their grade. More importantly, teachers that operate on a rowing gradebook traditionally think about kind of the ways that you scaffold in information and you the way that you scaffold in student skill development in terms of the content mastery and the skills in a particular class. So for example, if a student isn't performing well in a particular standard at quarter two, by the time you get to quarter 4, they might be performing higher at that standard and their grade can be raised. But on a traditional grade book, their grade is just going to be averaged alto together. So

077it's it's open as opposed to being closed at each quarter is one of the main differences. Uh, in general, I'll just say in my family's experience, um, and and those of my constituents, the rolling grade book has been much hated in my community. Um, it was much hated by my children. Um, I think it resulted in them getting worse grades uh, overall despite uh, increased effort and, um, it seemed to almost penalize uh, students because you could never get past a bad grade you got early in the year. it you carried that forward with you throughout the year rather than being able to get a fresh start each quarter. Um that was our experience. That's certainly the experience of many parents I speak with. Um but I also wanted to ask about um uh whether

078the reassessment and the rolling grade book creates more work because you mentioned that you can demonstrate mastery in a subsequent quarter, right? Um, if you if you get a bad grade in quarter 1 and then you're quarter four and you got a C earlier and now you want to get an A, that requires a teacher to create basically a new test or some new assignment for that student. Isn't that right? Yeah. So, that's what I was trying to speak a little bit as I was racing through the slides is that definitely reassessment is a workload issue, right? So when the committee was developing their recommendations and I think this is true just in general about work in in the education administrative field is that we're always trying to balance teacher workload issues and be very

079sensitive to those along with the best practices that are going to optimize student learning. So reassessment we know benefits student learning. We we see that in our data from students from parents. We see the research study that that uh just came out quantifying the impact and the effect of that. But we also know that reassessment we're hearing from our staff causes more workload. So our goal would be is to provide examples, resources, and training to help minimize that workload. So again, instead of having to complete an entire reassessment, design an entire new test for a student, if a student mastered 80% of that test, you're just going to reassess them on the 20% that they didn't already master. And that reduces the amount of time it takes to create a new assessment, it reduces the

080amount of time it takes to grade that assessment. It might be when we hear about these examples where a student just missed one or two problems. It could be something that again a teacher in a quick conversation might be able to do a check for understanding or a student maybe made a calculation error. They could just do a test correction instead of having to do a whole new re reassignment or reassessment. So I know that that doesn't completely solve the problem because reassessment is more work. Um, but it starts to mitigate the impact of the workload with with reassessment and that's what we really want to focus on. No matter what the percentage is, whether it's 100% or 90%, we still want to do that work anyway. So the reassessment and the rolling grade book

081are inextricably intertwined essentially. Is that right? No. Um, I think even on the traditional grade book, teachers currently are required to provide a reassessment opportunity to a student. One one reassessment opportunity per summitive assignment. However, in a rolling gradebook, you have more flexibility to reassess something from a previous quarter if the student wanted to do that and do the work to demonstrate that they've mastered that content now. Whereas on a traditional gradebook, you can only do it within a quarter. Okay. Uh so if it was not a rolling grade book, then the reassessment would be limited to the same quarter in which the uh the test was taken. That's correct. Okay. So um I I do not support a rolling grade book. I also do not support assessment reassessments up to 100. If someone gets

082a 99 an A+ the onepoint uh difference is may help them get to validictorian but it simply imposes more work on the teacher. And so I strongly believe we need to be teacher centered in our approach because teachers are already overburdened. And so I would prefer to set the reassessment level at 70. Um because a C is still a passing grade. Um and kids need to learn, you know, you get a C, you have an assessment within the quarter. Um and not force teachers to go back six months and figure out how they can do a reassessment that is punitive to teachers and causes teachers to leave our system. Mr. Moon. Uh with all due respect to Mr. Dunn has just stated about reassessment of 70%. I don't I don't believe in a reassessment and

083bringing in a 100% to a student's grade. I mean I don't because uh I don't want to disincentivize a students uh not taking the first assessment uh seriously uh you know every assessment needs to be uh really considered as important as any other. So uh but however at the same time I believe in uh the reason behind the reassessment is giving students an opportunity you know might have had a bad day and and and and a second chance to prove that he or she has really learned the stuff or even improved upon uh what he or she might not have mastered enough. So 100% I don't believe in giving reassessment as a tool to learn more. Yes. uh whether I will go for somewhere like uh 93 why 93 because that's the beginning point of

084someone able to get an A you know give a give that incentive with rolling grade book uh let me let me ask you this question first on the rolling grade book so in in in the rolling grade book situation Is it possible for a student who might have gotten for example CC CC first through three quarter first three quarters and then in the fourth quarter done really hard worked really hard remastered the work you know mastered you know work that was supposed to be done first quarter through third quarter be able to put an A because the student has really demonstrated having learned all that was required to be learned at the A level. So technically that is possible. I would say it's probably pretty rare that a student would go three quarters at the

085C level and then be able to do all the work in the final quarter to raise that to an A level. But it is technically possible. And in in that hypothetical, what that does is it rewards the effort that that student put in to mastering that content. And you cannot reward the student for their work in a similar fashion in a traditional grade book. So with that in mind, I will support the rolling grade the book. Uh with the homework homework, you know, homework not every homework has to be checked for everything by teachers. It could be whether somebody complete the work or not or it could be a spot check. If there were like a 10 questions, teacher could check number seven out of those 10 and see whether students done it right. There

086was a formative assessment can be given and I will support to the extent of giving 10% as a separate category to uh to make a point to a students and the public that we are going to consider this an important aspect of a student's growth in learning. Thank you. Mr. Fr. Thanks. Um, start with just a general question from like the 50,000 foot level. Are there any significant changes with the recommendations that we're receiving today as a result of the policy that the board adopted last year? Well, all of the recommendations that the committee developed were in response to the updated policy. So I tried to enumerate that on each of the recommendation slides. So yeah, so we looked at not just the policy requirement but also the guiding principles in the policy to really

087try to understand the board's thinking. So like one of the guiding principles is the promotion of continuous engagement and student learning. So sure all of these recommendations are developed from the board's updates to the policy. And were these recommendations the things that were going to be recommended before we engaged in the policy work? No. Um, remember we had the recommendations from 2324. We brought those forward last year. Um, and I think the first conversation that the board had, there was some disagreement across board members about, for example, the grade waiting category, the gradebook type, um, the reassessment policy. Um so the board did the work to update the policy to provide clarity of expectation but within each of these areas that you see on this chart. The board did not say for example the gradebook

088type needs to be rolling or traditional. It said it needs to be consistent right and ask the committee to go back think about it more deeply um for an additional year and with additional stakeholder engagement with additional data analysis consider the recommendations and and that's the committee worked really hard to do that. Now, I'm not discounting the work of the committee probably, right? But I don't see much of a change from the changes that were implemented last year, correct? Or any change. Um, what's it? Yeah, the gradebook type as as Miss Clemenco is pointing out was the major one. Yeah. Yeah. And homework. And that was before the board had changed its policy. No, that was after the board had changed the policy. I believe the board picked up the work of the policy based

089on what we what many people saw as changes that were preceding the policy work. So that's I think you're correct. But just in terms of the timeline again remember so the board updated the policy started that work in July of 2024 finished that work in December of 2024. Throughout that entire period of time, the grading committee was suspended and we didn't pick up the work again until January 2025. Right. But there were changes communicated to schools for this school year. 100%. And that's what I'm getting at is that there's no significant difference between that and where we've ended up here. Well, again, the the biggest the two biggest ones are gradebook type because we did not require a gradebook type to be consistent from classroom to classroom. So, this recommendation in response to the updated

090policy language that says we have to have a consistent gradebook type would be to do the rolling grade book. And then homework we didn't have um as part of the grading committee's work last year. That was new work this year. But the other ones are essentially the same as um what the committee recommended for 2324. All right. Um it was commented that the work that is done for each class in or out of school could be considered homework since you know students are taking it and and figuring out a path of getting it done. How do we ensure that that type of expectation is consistent for all students including the ones that typically don't get that type of work? Well, I think that was why um our senior leadership team looking at the committee recommendations

091recommended actually having a set category weight for homework um because we do know right now from the data that I that I shared that students are reporting daily homework but it's not 100% that are reporting that and there's variability across the grade bands. So to get consistency the first place that we need to start is clarity of policy expectations. So that was why senior leadership team was recommending that separate homework waiting category. Generally speaking, I'd be supportive of something that indicates u some commitment to to homework. I'd be open to interpretations of what the word homework means. Uh I just want consistent application and I want every student to have an an opportunity uh to to meet those expectations. The other thing I would say is that I would be in favor of limiting retakes

092um perhaps to one and uh setting a threshold at 85%. I know that some board members have been talking about those two things and I'd be supportive of that if there's a consensus being taken today. Um, generally speaking, uh, I really appreciate the work, uh, of my colleagues on the policy, of the committee, and and staff for working on this. And I'm hopeful that we can get to a point where we're not changing this in a year or two years or three years, and that we sit with what we've what has been determined for a while. Uh, so that we're not constantly moving the football for people. And that's my only sports reference for the year. Thank you. Well, it was apt and appreciated by our schools. I can tell you that because they would

093like consistency of expectations. So, Miss Dixit, so I just like to emphasize on reassessment. Um, we I mean, personally, I do not uh believe we should go up to 100%. um we can for preparing the students for college is the intent in higher education and they do not get that that reassessment for and um I think that flexibility is we're doing disservice to the students um I'm okay with up to 80% um as which is which is still good but uh it's not giving them the chance of like keep working and working and getting their grade up and the it's hard for teachers too uh for for doing the reassessments. Um so um I'm going to strongly advocate for uh doing the reassessments only up to 80% u the max in you know 90 but

094not 100%. Miss St. Sean Cunning. So in terms of the reassessments and I don't know if you can gather this data if this data exists of what grade are kids on or what and then what like what is the number that they're at and what are they trying to get? Do you know like like is it this is my concern that that there are students that are high performers and then maybe through you know pre peer pressure their pressure parents pressure they're just trying to go for the higher grade not necessarily because they need it because there's that pressure and I know that working with kids in schools that mental health issue which sometimes is self-imposed is something that concerns me that that reach to perfection. Um, and so I don't know if we have

095the data. Is it a kid that has gotten a grade that is 50% and is trying to get up to, you know, hopefully 80 or whatever, or is it a kid that is at 80% and wants to get the 100%. And like I think if we saw that we could figure out, it would be easier for us to figure out. And my concern and I've always said a kid is not an number or a grade. I think that we get lost in all of that and so my concern is some of the mental health impacts of these kids striving for perfection. Yeah, I think that's a great question. Unfortunately, we can't centrally really collect that information and it's going to vary probably classroom to classroom in terms of what students are asking to do. I

096I would just say from my own perspective though, I wouldn't want to minimize the student who's maybe at an 80% wanting to get to 100%. Because a student who's doing that probably is doing that for a lot of different reasons. Some to maximize their learning and make sure that they really do know the content so that they can carry on to the next course and the sequence of their studies. But when you think about the competitiveness of college admissions right now, um the difference between a B in a class and an A in a class on a transcript makes a difference for students that are applying to selective colleges. And many of our students in Fairfax County are applying to selective colleges. So, I just think we need to keep that in mind. Um, when

097we think about the reasons and motivations that students have for trying to achieve certain standards, it's going to depend on the student and what their individual situation is and what their post-secary goals are and I don't want to minimize that, but I also don't want to minimize the other aspect. Of of course not. I appreciate it. Thank you. Um, seeing no other placards, I'm going to take a turn and then we're going to break for lunch and do go backs um because food's here. So, I'm going to be as quick as possible. I'm going to start by saying I cannot agree with reassessment up to 100%. Uh, Lowden County Public Schools is currently at 80 and when the student reassesses, they can only earn up to an 80. That is exactly the same pro policy

098they have in Arlington County. I'm still hoping to get a text back about Prince William and Manasses. Um, but I've checked with people that's what they have. And Lowden County's school board just rewrote the policy and it's going to drop to a 70 next year. I don't grade inflation. When you show me on page whatever page at page 35 of the report that 51.5% of the grades issued at the high school level this year at first quarter were A's and 62.7% at the middle school level were A's. We got grade inflation. Okay. I don't want a bell curve. I want all students to succeed. All right. Um, that's huge. That's important to me. But I need to be clear. We can't be doing reassessment because the workload, when you go back to slide 8, I

099believe it's 56% of staff viewed the reassessment policy negatively. And then when you look at the um um report, I think it was 52% significant increase in workload and 23% a slight increase. So 75% of our teachers saw an increase in workload because of reassessment. Um, it's a problem. Homework. I like 6040. I would like it to be up to 10%. But I would like to be required to be assigned. Okay, we need to be habit forming and it needs to start in younger years. Um the other thing I want to talk about is um there are lots of studies for example published in the journal of educational assessment Brookhart at all 2022 found that grading reforms often result in inflated grades that do not correspond to actual student learning. When schools eliminate zeros or

100allow unlimited retakes without structured intervention, students may earn passing grades without mastering essential content. Um, effects on student motivation. In a 2023 report by the Thomas F. Forom Institute, researchers concluded that policies minimizing consequences for missed assignments or poor performance inadvertently reduce student motiv motivation. The study found that students districts with strict late work policies and minimum grading thresholds demonstrated greater responsibility and time management skills over time. While some students benefit from additional chances, too much leniency can remove the urgency to succeed. I can go on with more studies. I appreciate in your report that all of your studies lean the other direction, but there is a lot of research that also says that reassessing up to 100% is not best practice. Um, so you know, and and I I'm going to share this. I've

101shared this with other people because I don't need a response. I did talk to 11 board members and I heard from Mr. Moon this morning. He doesn't agree with 100 up to 100% either. And so we're going to have to come to a consensus of what that number might look like. Um, but quickly what I'm going to share is an idea I did talk with several of you about uh that I still like personally, but I don't think we're ready for it. And that is if you're in a standard course that's unweighted, I'm I'm happy for you to reassess up to 100%. That's why we created some of these practices is we wanted kids to want to learn. If you're in an honors course or something that gets a.5 weight, you can reassess up to

10290%. because you get a 0.5 bump in your GPA. And if you're in an AP, IB or dual enroll class, you can reassess up to 80% because you get a 1.0 in your GPA. The workload is the number of our advanced learners who are retaking when they have a 92, a 94, a 95, or an 88 and trying to get a better a higher A and it's not properly preparing our kids for college. So, I'll stop there. I'm out of time. We'll do a recess. Hopefully, we can eat pretty quickly and come back and do go backs and then we've got to get to CIP. So, thank you. I mean, I'd like to say 25 uh if we can do it. a time and we have a lot to get to with CIP. I'm going

103to try and do a little bit of consensus um gathering and then there are a few items I don't think we're going to get to consensus on. So, we will send out a Google doc. But I feel like um I didn't hear a lot of conversation around number of assignments. So can I get consensus with the raise of hand? Are people comfortable what with what the committee has proposed with the minimum number of assignments? Okay, that's unas for those in the room. Great book waiting. we did have conversation um because that's also tied to homework and so I you know I can I I see three options that'll be in a Google doc so listen so hopefully you understand them the first one is uh Google I'm going to create a Google doc it's not

104okay we we we can try but we're not going to get into discussion so if we can't get there we're going to go Um, what I heard from most people, I think, was 603010 or a 6040 with homework being up up to 10% in the 40. So, who would like a 603010? You just give me your sense, Mr. Moon. That's a 603010. Okay. 603010. I think I saw three. Um, a 60. Well, let me qualify my 60 40 up to 10. They still need to be assigning homework consistent consistent for all for all students, right? We need to be assigning homework. So within that isn't it needs to be written in the regulation that you will assign homework. It can be assessed up to 10%. So, let's go back. 60 I'm sorry. 60 30 10

105same hands. Three 60 40 up to 10%. With the homework assigned. Okay, that looks like consensus. So, it looks like we're at 6040 up to 10% homework has to be assigned. Okay, so that takes care of that two of those gradebook type because we would be delayed. Well, first of all, gradebook type, even though it's still going to be a delayed implementation for the gradebook type, do we have consist consensus on rolling gradebook? Who's comfortable with the rolling gradebook a year from now with training this year at high schools only? Okay. I mean, it looks like consensus. Um, but maybe people need to have more discussion on that. So, uh, do that again. If you're comfortable with what did I just say? Rolling grade book training this year implementation the following year. Raise your hand.

106So one, two, three, four. Yeah, it's the same thing. I just rewarded it. So it's so I see four. Misser, raise your hand down. Okay. And so those people who prefer more discussion around grade book before we pick. All right. So that's inconsistent. So, we're going to have to we have to come back to that. I want more discussion. Yeah, more discussion. Um, and then finally, reassessment. Um, I heard consensus that nobody can nobody can work with up to 100%. Um, I've heard as low as 70, as high as 90. So, well, that's going to be part two. Okay. Um, part one of reassessment is, do we have consensus around a number? Um, and I think that what I heard the most was 85 or 90. So, I'm going to start with 85. Who's comfortable

107with up to 85%. I'm not going below 85. Let's go the other way around. Okay. Start with up to 90. Okay. Okay. Start with up to 90. 93. Up to 93. 83, which is the bottom of the bottom of the Okay, I see I see two hands. Up to an 85. Up to a 90. One, two, you voted twice, so now you're down a little bit. I got you. One, two, three, four. Okay. Up to an 85. That's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. up to an 80. All right, I think we're at an 85. That was where the consensus was. The next question is, and I think this one is a little tougher. Again, articulating what Lowden and Arlington do is they are up to an 80. And when you take the

108reassessment, you can only earn up to an 80. Isn't that what you just did? No, we said you can reassess up to an 85. We didn't see what you could get to. That's the second part. If your score was 85, 85 or below, you can reassess. We're now talking, we're now talking about what you can earn in that reassessment. Again, Louden and Arlington, you can only get up to that threshold, which is 80. I see three opt I've heard three options from people. You can reassess and you can get up to 100. You can reassess, take the average of the reassessment and the first test, but it can't go below your original score or you can only reassess up to the 85, which is the threshold. Right? So my first question is, how many people

109support the reassessment allowing the student to earn up to 100%. Okay, I see four. How many people are comfortable with an average of the second score and the first score, but it cannot go below the original score? I'm sorry, Miss Miss um lady, we're adding new things that we never discussed, and this makes me really uncomfortable because it's really arbitrary. We had all of this work done by the committee, then senior leadership looked at it. I I'm very uncomfortable with the new things that were not up for discussion or greater understanding. Well, we're going to get stuck on this. So, I don't know what to do because we're out of time. So, um I'm just saying that I was going to share the three things that people have shared with me and see where the

110consensus was. Yes, we have not discussed this part of it. I agree with you. What people have shared it have shared with you, but we have people who are actually educators who have done this work. I can go out and come up with all kinds of things on a lot of different things, but if I'm not an expert in that field, I think it warrants a little bit of conversation, a little bit of feedback from staff. I'm just really concerned that we're doing this. So, let me ask a little bit arbitrarily. Okay, I hear that because I hear your frustration of you're firm in what you want to have happen is what I'm hearing. Um, and so I'm just going to finish the consensus gathering. I'm just curious to know how many people would want

111that reassessment only to be up to the threshold of 85%. Okay, that's four. And then who would want the average of the two, not to allow it to go below the original score? I could live with that, too. So, that's four. Okay, we're not gonna we're not gonna maybe five. We're not going to get to consensus. I just don't know when we're going to talk about it. So, um, we'll table this for now because we we have to get to CIP. Um, because we don't have time for everybody to speak to it. Like, let me just hang on a second. Are people comfortable if we send this particular discussion back to Dr. Reid to then come back to us and we can also do a next steps talk related to this. Okay, Miss Marin. Yeah,

112I think um I just think we need another discussion about this and you know the gradebook type to Dr. Anderson's point, we never sused out a 6040 10. The options presented to us was 60 3010 or 7030. So this is way too important to feel like I'm at an auction, you know, making decisions. So um I think it needs to have a very I think too the challenge Dr. Reed is you you've presented us with two recommendations are I am not the educational expert that's you. So, you know, I I find we're in this space a lot where you give us these options, but so I think it needs to be tightened up and very clear what you want our input on and what is not up for discussion and what is actually going to

113be implemented next year and the year after. So I do think this happens from time to time where a committee is going to come in and make recommendations that senior leadership will adjust because those are recommendations and those committees are told they're not making policy. They're not drafting regulation, but we wanted you to see what the recommendation the committee came to, but I was providing you one recommendation. That's the far right. So and that's what um Dr. Prescidio provided. I think the the clear message is that there's not a comfort with 100% for the retakes and we can take that back and um I can provide I'll meet with staff and we'll come back with a proposal for you or a recommendation that is not to 100%. Uh and then we can have a discussion

114on that piece moving forward. Thank you. And then we're going to adjourn. But I'm going to say one thing. We have canled every evening work session. This is the second time I've been a meeting manager and I have gotten the short end of the stick on the amount of time needed for the discussion. I'm going to leave it at that because I need to honor and get to CIP because we're half an hour late. Thank you. Uh, so school board members, if you can come back to the table. Uh, I think Carl's missing. Kyle's missing. But we have we have Kevin, we have quorum. Yes. Okay. Uh well, I'm I'm really excited to uh get started here today. Uh and are we recording? We got all that. Okay. I'm really excited to get started here

115today. Um this is the culmination of uh almost a year and a half of work by uh facilities and outside consultants and FPAC. And there's a lot of content here today. Um we have three subjects that we'll be discussing today. So just to make it uh simplest uh we'll be uh having slides about the first part then discussion slides about the second part then discussion and slides about the third part then discussion because we we're kind of chunking this because they're three very different subjects. Um because we have a lot of content to get through, we'll be doing our initial uh questions. Two minutes to start with one minute gobacks. Um I did provide by email and there are hard copies have been provided to you one pagers for the first two subjects that we'll

116be discussing today. Um, what unites these three subjects is that it's all about building cheaper and building faster because we've all been through the CIP work session a few months ago where we have uh great facility needs uh that vastly exceed the amount of our financial resources, our limited school bond funding, which is $230 million every year. So, we need to look for alternative ways to be more efficient with our dollars, to be fiscally responsible, and to make better use of our facilities. Um, and also to reduce our construction time frames because we have a 42-year renovation cycle that we need to get down to, uh, the recommended, uh, 20 to 25 years. So, uh, really excited to talk about this. Uh, the initial two subjects will be looking for informal um, schoolboard consensus and

117the third one as well. Um for this first subject specifically what we're looking for uh in terms of outcomes is to obtain schoolboard consensus to proceed with the revision of policy 8240 which is currently pending before the governance uh to allow the use of design build and construction management at risk to new uh procurement methodologies new to FCPS not new to the world and also to obtain schoolboard consensus to incorporate design build and construction management at risk. risk as options and future RFPs were appropriate. So, I'll circle back to those at the end of the discussion. Uh so, with that, I'll turn over to Dr. Reed to introduce staff. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. And this afternoon, we have uh as Mr. Dunn mentioned, several very meaty topics. So, I think we should just get started.

118Um I'm pleased to have uh Miss Samansky here um to introduce her team and introduce the work. So, thank you, Miss Samsky. Thank you, Dr. Dr. Reed and good afternoon to the board and thank you for having me here today. As Dr. Reed mentioned, my name is Janice Samansky, chief of facility services and capital programs. And with me today, I have Jessica Gillis and Scott Eshbach, leaders on the facilities team. Today, we're going to cover a summary presentation on three capital improvement program related topics, starting with some background information, followed by alternative project delivery methods, swing spaces, and then public private partnerships. So before we dive in, I do want to share some background information on our facility funding. This slide was presented in this year's CIP and it shows an overview of facility funding

119and their sources. Funding sources for capital projects shown at the top of the chart are the general obligation bonds as voted on by residents in the bianual schoolboard referendum. The annual limit for general obligation funding has increased over time. The increased annual allocation to 230 million per year in FY25 and beyond is seen here. And it should be noted that referendum for schools is by annual. So we're in the odd years at FCPS. As a result of escalation in the construction industry, you know, we continue to monitor these costs as they relate to capital projects. And also on this slide, you can see that additional funding that impacts the CIP includes FCPS operating funds, funds from the Fairfax uh county board of supervisors for infrastructure management, the capital syncing fund, and profers. So you can

120see we spend approximately 40 million annually on facility projects that are not using bond funds. And please note this is 40 million for facility related projects and that does not include work such as maintenance. That's also coming out of separate operating funds. Also previously shared with the board, I want to remind everyone that FCPS faces capital project funding constraints. This chart illustrates FY24 capital construction funding per square foot compared to other school divisions limited to the DMV where the regional cost of construction is most comparable to our market conditions. Comparing funding per square foot helps us under size understand the size of facility portfolio at a minimum obligated for renovations against capital funding. This graphic includes uh divisions approximately one-third the size of FCPS or greater as most comparable to our design and construction program.

121So, as you can see, of the eight public schools listed above, FCPS ranks last with a funding per square foot of $8.54. The average funding per square foot of the school division shown here is $21.80. You know, because we're such a large school system, even increasing funding by an additional $3.58 to bring us up to the second lowest ranked school, that means an annual bond amount or alternative funding would need to increase by 97.5 million annually uh or 195 per uh two-year referendum. And so this funding disparity has been really the catalyst for identifying ways that we can optimize the facility program. So the three topics today we'll be discussing are in response to the growing need for facility capital. So with that framework in mind, we're first going to discuss alternative project delivery methods.

122I'm first going to walk through what the methods are, how procurement influences them, and the implications for different approaches for our capital improvement projects. So when we talk about project delivery methods, we're referring to the full process by which a project is planned, designed, contracted, and built, it lays out who does what. Uh how the owner, design team, and contractors interact. These methods do not exist in a vacuum. They're rooted in procurement strategies. How we choose the project delivery method influences everything from the contract type to when team members are brought on board. FCPS has historically preferred to deliver its major capital projects following the design bid build process and so we're seeking ways to expand beyond just this delivery method and explore other options. Please note our current policy 8240 describes that our capital

123improvement project should be awarded um by competitive sealed bidding process to the lowest responsible bidder provided that sufficient funding is available. And so while our current policy follows this traditional design bid build project delivery method with a revision to the policy alternative delivery methods may be explored. There are two methods widely used in education construction. Uh that's construction management at risk and design build which we'll be discussing today. The first is our current method design bid build. It's our current process and expanding on this a bit more here provides us the foundation for better understanding how it compares to others. The traditional design bid build method follows a very linear approach. The owner uh us in this case FCPS has a contract with the design team usually an architect and engineers and that they create

124a complete set of project plans and specifications. Once that design is fully finalized and permits are secured, the project then goes out to bid. We have pre-qualified general contractors who submit competitive bids based on those documents. The owner or us in this case has a contract with that general contractor and again it's usually the lowest responsible bid to construct the project according to the plans. The general contractor then completes the building and turns it back over to us based on the bid price with change orders submitted throughout construction. So the construction price for this method can fluctuate due to change order process. This process also does not allow for any fasttracking, nor does it consider the general contractor's insight during design. So with that, we're going to go into our first alternative method, and that's

125construction manager at risk. It's a project delivery method where the construction manager or also known as a CM is involved early on in the project and typically we hire them during the design phase and they provide input on cost estimation, scheduling, and constructibility. There are still two separate contracts with the owner. So we would have one with our design team and a separate one for that construction manager. In this model, the construction manager assumes the risk of delivering the project within a guaranteed maximum price or commonly known as a GMP, meaning they're responsible for completing the project on budget even if the actual costs exceed that set maximum price. The CM or construction manager typically oversees the entire construction process, ensuring the project stays on schedule and within that budget. Uh CM at risk allows

126for more collaboration through constant communication between FCPS, the design team and the contractor, leading to potential better cost control and reduce project delays. It also opens up to the possibility for the construction manager to order materials early and start construction early, even before the full documents are complete. All right. And then the other method is design build. So design build is a project delivery method where there's a single entity or team that's responsible for both the design and the construction of a project. Uh in this approach uh us at S as FCPS we would hire one firm. It's typically a contractor who has an architect underneath them to handle both the design and construction phases instead of hiring uh two separate teams for each phase. So like construction manager at risk, this method also uses

127a guaranteed maximum price. So they're still responsible for completing the project on budget even if actual costs exceed. And because it's one contract, the general contractor is part of that project team from day one of design all the way through construction. So I'd say key features of the design build method include one single point of responsibility, uh faster project completion and cost control, and the highest ability for collaboration. In this method, the design builder assumes that also assumes the greatest amount of risk on behalf of the project. Um, and this method also has the potential for ordering the materials and starting that construction early. So, in recap, this slide here looks at all three methods side by side. So you can see design build our current practice seam at risk offering that more collaborative pra

128p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p practice while still having the separate contract and design build being the more integrated uh method. And you can see each method does have its advantages and features and I would say ultimately the choice between these methods really just depends on the specific needs of the project including its uh complexity, its budget, its timeline and that level of collaboration you're seeking. So why we're doing this? I mean exploring other delivery methods kind of stems from that idea that one size doesn't fit all when it comes to managing construction projects. You know FCPS capital improvement projects are all

129slightly different with unique sites, existing buildings and varying needs. And alternative project delivery methods like design, build or see them at risk allow for better risk sharing between parties which can lead to fewer disputes and change orders. They also promote early collaboration between FCPS, the design team and the contractor, which I think can lead to better uh improving constructibility, cost estimates, and that overall efficiency. Our projects are very complex, so this could really be an added benefit for FCPS. These methods can also allow for the opportunity to shorten the construction time and provide cost control which I think is very good for that predictability of budget and um better opportunities for getting good value during the design especially when the design uh contractor is brought on during that design phase. So I know I'm moving

130along here. These are the staff next steps. So on our side, we're going to continue exploring the delivery methods for our capital improvement projects. Uh as mentioned, we've redlined policy 8240. And currently staff, we're developing the architect engineer RFP for our next renovation project in the queue. That's Cubrun Elementary School per the CIP. And so our draft that we're building now states that this project may be a construction manager at risk delivery method and the design team will be expected to work with the construction manager team as an option. That's assuming the policy does get approved. So for the board next steps you know we have the recommended actions here. So policy 8240 has been redlined to incorporate construction management risk and design build as approved. The school board would then need to approve the

131updated policy to enact a new del these delivery options. And and again, I want to reiterate this does not eliminate or lock ourselves into a delivery method moving forward, but it really just gives us the option if we so choose to use a new method. Looking ahead, uh if we do approve it and do move forward, uh any future use of construction management risk or design build will require schoolboard approval for the respective contracts. So it would be required before an RFP is issued and then again at the GMP if that dollar threshold is exceeded. And so our office, you know, we're committed to working closely with the superintendent and the school board to implement these delivery methods and in search of optimizing our program. Uh thank you. Um before we get started with questions,

132I just want to clarify uh in response to a question on the one pager we list um design bid build which is the default required under Virginia law with design build and construction management risk. The idea is right now we have only one tool in our toolbox which is design bid build and FPAC has said that's more appropriate for simple one trade projects and we're looking to add more tools to our toolbox where appropriate and be able to include an RFPs. So um with that uh uh Miss Lady thank you Mr. done. Uh, and thank you staff for this presentation um, and all the work you do tirelessly behind the scenes when it comes to facilities. Um, I'll be brief. I 100% support what Mr. Dunn just said. I don't see any reason why we

133wouldn't want to have all of the options in our toolbox. And so, in relation to swing spaces and procurement, um, I'm 100% in support of the additional columns or suggestions that were made um, related to both of those. Thanks. Uh, thank you. Uh, Mr. Moon, I wish I could be as brief as my colleague, Miss Lady, but but I cannot. So, uh, let me ask you let me ask you a few questions. Uh, since a CM is a new to us, you know, obviously I need to be educated a little further on this one. And let me start with this one. Um I'm looking at slide number eight if that can be posted. So we are issuing two RFPs one for design team 10 one for CM and then CM RFP will stipulate a construction

134budget. Is that something we are stipulating or is that CM is responding to our RFP and stipulating maximum contract price? It would be the first. So we in the RFP would stipulate what that budget is. So we would, you know, internally decide what our budget is. We would use that CIP, the estimate we put together and put that in the RFP when we're hiring the CM. And then as they go through the design, they're going to be keeping that cost control and that review of the design. So when we get to actually negotiating the GMP, it should be that budgeted amount that we had originally in the RFP. If a CM is going to be working as a general contractor, how much of a control do we have on actual cost, actual expenditure? You know,

135at the end of the day, I think we're actually going to have greater control because we're going to one stipulate what that budget is. We're not crossing our fingers at bid day. We're going to say, "Hey, the uh price, the guaranteed price needs to be under $40 million, say, and we're going to put that in the RFP before we even sign up with a contractor." But then we're going to be working very closely with them and they're also going to be advising with the design team um to make sure that that cost control is being done in a collaborative way with FCPS. So when it comes time we feel like there's enough assurity in the documents we can actually negotiate that contract. So if you're going to have a design team who's going to be

136doing the design, I'm assuming designing will to the design and and you know our normal process based upon design uh the contractor general contractor so with a beat based upon our design that's our normal process right now and how would CM be able to stipulate to the maximum price without knowing what the design is going to be? Well, I think that's why we bring them on as a collaborative partner. So, I think one, it's just being transparent when we hire them on, saying, "You're going to need to work with this design team and with us to make sure it stays under $40 million." And then they do have a seat at the table working with the architect to say, "Hey, you know, what you've designed is overly complicated. We think this will be more expensive

137to build." And so there is just more control of the design from a cost perspective throughout because they have a voice at the table. So so CM is going to stipulate to the maximum amount even without knowing the design and then make a recommendations to design team on the design and then if a design team does not agree with the recommendations then what we're going to have to work through like a value engineering process or work with them. But ideally because they are on earlier through the beginning of the design, they're making the right big moves, you know, right moves through as the design process goes through, you know, to make sure that when it comes time to do that guaranteed maximum price contract, it's it's meeting that mark. Um, and you're right, sometimes the

138design is not fully flushed out, they are taking on that risk. They're agreeing to do it for 40 million without every line being drawn. Again, that's some of the risk we put on the construction manager. We do pay them fees and the fees will be negotiated when we bring them on on board as part of the RFP and will CM if they are general contractor, they are the ones and they may be hiring subcontractors, but I mean I'm assuming that they will go through they'll issue their own RFPs to hire subcontractors. And do we have a control over that? Uh, we will be reviewing them and yes, it'll all be open books. So, we're going to be able to see what sort of pricing they're negotiating with their subcontractors. And in fact, it because it's

139a guaranteed maximum price. Say they we were to agree to $40 million. They start awarding contracts and lo and behold, it comes in at 38. We see all that and we actually get the $2 million back. uh we only pay them the 38 for the actual awarded contracts. If it goes over 40, we don't pay any higher. I know that I only have a 13 seconds left. Uh if you could tell us how we can save money, how we can we can save a time using this method, right? One, I think you have greater speed because you can actually they're on board. They can already start ordering long leave materials before you finish the design. So there's some efficiency in the timeline which equates to money. I think the other one is budget predictability. We're

140going to put in the RFP it's 40 and then we're going to have all the right players in the room working together to make sure it stays at 40. And so your likelihood of change orders throughout construction goes way down. So I think it offers more predictability to that budget. Okay. I probably need to go back for one minute later, but since I have a 4 seconds, let me ask you, could you tell me what school districts, large school districts are utilizing this? Yeah, many school districts in the DMV are utilizing this. I I got sample contracts from Lowden County. I know Prince William County is using it. Um PG County was doing uh design build through their P3 program. DC did a combination of CM at risk and design build. So, um Montgomery County

141is using it. It's it's widely known in education work because it is complex work. You do want that perspective early on. Mic doesn't seem to be Oh, still working. Mr. Don, I'd like one minute. Go back later. Okay. Uh Dr. Anderson, thank you. Just to follow up a little bit with Mr. someone's questioning is your position or would your position be that had we employed the CM let's say for the false church construction they would not have allowed the um design team to put that cube or that glass walkway because it would have been difficult to build and um and expensive to build and then that that's a design that would not have gone to the community and not create the consternation that it created. Yeah, that's a good hypothetical without being in a time

142machine. That's exactly what a construction manager or design builder would do. They would take a look at the design drawings as they go along and say, "Hey, actually, this is not a great ROI. It's very complicated. You made it overly complicated. It's it's difficult to construct. Maybe either take it out or build it this more simplistic way that you get the same effect and it's less expensive because it's easier to do." And that's where you would have that dialogue between the construction manager and the designer to come up with a good solution. So under this um approach, the value engineering is built in rather than added after the fact, right? And it's truly finding value through the design, too. It's it's getting good value. It's making sure things can actually be constructed. It's a quality

143thing, too. like you're when the details are being vetted by people that actually install them, the likelihood that it's going to be done in a good quality way goes up too. So then how are we then going to u merge this with the FCPS approach of having a design team that includes community? I think it would be almost identical because we're going to have a design team on board. They're going to be going through all the different phases. That doesn't change. It's just another partner at the table. So we can actually bring them to the community meetings as well. I think if anything, you're going to get a more robust perspective when we go out and talk talk to folks. Okay. Um can you speak to the differences between CM and DB, whether or not

144one each approach lends themselves to particular projects? Yeah, it's a good question. They both have their pros and cons. Uh when you have two contracts, you actually get to control the architect a little bit more. So, if you want more control over what the design team is doing, you might lend yourself to construction manager at risk. If you want more of a one-stop shop and more of that risk, um, you know, one benefit of design build is if the architects say made a mistake, well, it's part of their team, so they'd be responsible for the performance of them a little bit more. So, it's a matter of preference, not size and scope of a project. No, I think you would want to take a look at each project and say, "Hey, if this project carries

145more risk, it's more complicated, has a shorter time frame, maybe the expediency of using one company would be good. But if you had something that was a little bit longer, and you wanted to interplay with the architect a little bit more directly, you might do construction manager at risk." I think both of them have their merits. Um, this chart, thank you for putting that up. the owner control over design under design build. It it's not checked off. What does that mean? Well, it means the architect technically works for the contractor directly. So then we don't have input into the design. We will and we need to make we have strong ED specs to make sure that no matter what the design build team is bringing forth to the table, it meets our standards and we

146can give feedback. but they might actually come up with some ideas and the builder might think they're a little risky. So, they might not even ever be shown to us. You know, there's there might be a little bit more interplay between that builder and the architect before it comes to us. There will be definitely collaboration and we'll make sure it's a design that works. It's already been vetted and sometimes you don't get to see everything. So again the community part oops the community part um who are engaged in the design of or who are engaged in the design team they will see a they'll have a slightly smaller window into what's possible because it's already been organized to only provide what they feel is doable rather than oh you know wide wide open kind of

147opportunities which if you think about could be a good thing because we can ensure that it's constructible that it actually meets the budget. So, anything that we are seeing, we have assurance that it's going to be v like viable. Sure. One of the things and maybe this is a better question for the next section, but you can tell me um when I worked in Lowden because they opened new schools just about every other year. The year that I opened um an elementary school, there was a high school and a middle school. And typically they would use that one design and just and I don't know how that worked with the construction company, but they would just use the same design over and over and over again. So you'll have elementary schools that look the same

148just with different colors. Would this lend us to that kind of um work because it was a lot cheaper? Yeah, I think you could do that methodology under any of these. I think the bigger constraints is actually going to be existing sites here at FCPS. Yeah. Thank you. Uh Miss Tixit, thank you Janice for the presentation. Um and uh I'm a big believer in the um fixed firm price contracts where we not keep adding more and more funds as as a work orders and change of orders. Um so definitely uh this is a much uh better approach to things uh going to design build or uh construction management CMR. Uh I just want to ask give an certain example if you could just go over a cost uh savings in a know for like for

149a any future project is in line that how much savings can we do by switching over? Yeah, I think that might even be better done in a follow-up because we had started to do that with swing space. We kind of equated it to number of dollars saved per month. So I think if you could say we could get ahead by a few months using this methodology. We could kind of equate, hey, that's $50,000 less a month that I have to pay the general contractor to be out there. Uh it's a little bit more streamlined with, you know, having the construction trades out there longer. So I think I'd want to actually put something together for you in that regard. But I guess what I will just keep reiterating is it provides just more budget confirmation

150upfront and less variance from that because when you agree and we do our internal estimates and put out an estimate for a certain specific price when biders the construction manager at risk or the design bidder bid on it then they're obligated to keep that price. Uh thank you for the response. Um and I do understand things can change and we talked about that before that uh there might be something unexpected happening and u it could be um you know something we had to address. Uh uh the maintenance log and and obviously we have a huge uh cycle. Um if we switch to this pro the new approaches how much uh difference can it make in terms of our 45 years uh maintenance cycle we have? How how much can we reduce that? Well, I think

151the benefits will be if you get work done quicker, you can move on to the next project. I do think having um trades that are actually building the work involved in the design lead to better designs. Personally, I think that's a a very strong voice that you need at the table. So, I'm hopeful that even just using these alternative methods, we might have longerlasting work. Yeah. and maybe more sustainable buildings which uh our commitment to net zero. Yeah, I agree. There's a lot of um construction managers and design builders that have experience building net zero and you can design a theoretical design, but you got to having that experience actually building net zero work is very valuable. So I'm definitely uh very much in support of this pro pro and uh would like to go

152forward um with the board support and uh thank you for this and uh thank you miss uh Mr. Dunn, Miss Marin for uh bringing this to the board. Uh Miss Anderson, I also would like to thank my colleagues and um I 100% agree with Mr. Dunn that having more tools in the toolbox is always a good idea. Um, I guess my question is from is this harder or either are any of these harder to attract contractors to work with? I would say in this geographic area, no. In fact, there's many larger companies that have started to only do construction management at risk or design build. It's a more collaborative approach. So, I think there's actually a lot of companies out there that prefer it because you're in a partnership role and not an adversarial role,

153only looking at the bottom price as a way to make profit. Uh, in these other models, you're actually negotiating the fees up front. So, you have that all settled and then it's a truly more of a partnership process. So, this wouldn't limit the number of contractors that were available to us. I would estimate no. Okay. Excellent. Um, how would this work in amongst the bond? So understanding that oftentimes we get bond money that's for a few years like several years out for when we vote on the bond. Can you just speak to any of that? Yeah, we tried to make sure that in this CIP and moving forward with our cash flow, we were cognizant and wanted to futureproof ourselves. When we talked about the potential for bringing someone on earlier, we made sure that

154the design year had enough money to bring on preconstruction services from these builders. So that should be built in. And you know, if we don't use it and we go with the traditional method, then that money would just roll into construction once it starts. So, I feel like it'll work either way for us. The other thing we did was during that permitting year, we usually just limit to design and permitting, we actually frontloaded some of the construction funding in that cash flow, in the event you want to buy that long lead uh mechanical or electrical equipment up front, get started on it. So, I think our CIP cash flow should support these models. Excellent. Thank you to you and your team for the work that you've done on this, Miss Maron. Yay. The day is

155finally here. We've been talking about this for a while. Thank you, Miss Mansky, and your wonderful team. I think it's just, you know, I'm glad to be learning about these options and I I love the way of phrasing it as it's a tool in our toolbox and um especially because we know that we have to be so stringent with our budget dollars and knowing that in this last past year alone we spent 20 million of our instructional budget on urgent capital facility needs. We just have to figure out other ways to do the facilities work better. So, I do hope that the public and certainly uh the board of supervisors see that we are doing everything we can to be as um as frugal of a steward as we can of every single dollar because

156no student or staff deserves to be in a building that is 45 years old. So, um I just wanted to say that um it's really imperative that the board approve the policy that makes all this stuff happen. We have to give that authority over to the superintendent. And so the governance committee um is reviewing that and that will come before the board. And so we do hope the goal is if the board can approve this before this school year is out, we can start using this right away. So if you do have questions about that policy, please um seek the answers out in advance, but it should be pretty straightforward. Again, this has been at our disposal. We just haven't done this traditionally, but you know, now is a very different time than it ever

157was. So let's get to moving these uh using these other tools. Thank you. Thank you. Um I just want to echo u my praise for um Miss Masky and her team and and for Dr. Reid for championing this um the exploring these new options for uh procurement of school construction and renovation projects. Um I just wanted to confirm uh your exploration of this involved review of billegal council division council. That's correct. We worked uh in collaboration with division council on this work and with the revisions to policy 8240 and uh and and Dr. Reed, is it is it your recommendation to add these tools to our toolbox? I think the the more varied our approaches are I think yes the answer that is sir. Um so are the sources of cost savings from design build

158and CM does it come from essentially doing things in parallel rather than sequentially and also through that collaboration reducing the number of change orders that might be required later on. Yeah those two are absolutely correct. you you know you put out the fires before they ever even start uh in design and then again it had it those are these are the two methods that have the ability to fasttrack work I I believe that um either FPAC or facilities I can't remember which um had estimated that design build andor CM would save six to nine months on a typical project is that a rough ballpark of what you think could be achieved um you know I think that's what we had talked more about in context of swings space um because that's probably going to be

159your more limiting factor when it comes to timeline. I think there's definitely efficiencies gained in this but I think that'll be part of the discussion in the in the next round. Um do you do you think uh from using design build and CM uh does it help to accelerate uh the permitting zoning 2232 process at all or are there any positive impacts in that respect? It it could having not gone through it here in Fairfax County. We're going to have to go through this together. I do know in my last division, we were actually able to break out permits and get them fasttracked. So, the architect may have been able to build a quick demo package and lay out the foundations while they then moved on to the rest of the building. In the meantime,

160we could submit those to the county for permitting, and then the contractor could even order some of those materials early, get started on that work early while we finished up the rest of the design. again knowing that we are always kind of keeping that stable budget. So, it allowed for uh in partnership with our local jurisdictions and regulatory agencies to do that. Um and c can you clarify um the the question asked by my colleague it's and used by other school districts in the DMV? I understand from what you said that some large construction companies don't do design bid build anymore for large school projects. So, does that mean we're going to be accessing new companies or new contractors that may have not bid on our projects in the past? Yes, there's the potential for

161that. Um, and do you see um that's all of my questions. Um, and Miss Seismore, thank you. And I also echo my colleagues. I appreciate all the hard work of your staff. I appreciate the hard work of of my colleagues on CBDC and FPAC to to bring this work forward. Um, a couple questions. U I'm It's okay. I was thought that was No, no, sorry. I was like, no, no, you're good. Um, I'm It says under Virginia Loan Policy 8240, design build is the default method. Does I'm assuming that means it's not the only method allowed, right? So, and I'm not saying I'm opposed to amending the policy, being clear, but have these other methods been allowed already? That's correct. So, VPPA stipulates that design bid build is a preferred method because it's all cost

162driven. However, it does also allow for uh alternatives like construction manager at risk and design build and that'll be part of the revisions to policy 8240 that talk about that process because per VPA there still needs to be local governing authority that signs off on those methods. I asked that question because I'm wondering have we used some of these other methods because they weren't not allowed. it was just not listed as a preferred method and if so did if we have what were the cost savings because I understand the DBB method is lowest cost bid which isn't always the cheapest option in the long run right because you have like you said this you know two-step process and you might have changes because of the so have we seen or maybe other school systems seen

163a savings using those other methods so we have not done that here at FCPS so while VPPA has the preferred and allows the alternatives our schoolboard policy right now only allows for design bid builds. So, we actually haven't uh piloted any of these here. Do you know if other school systems have I'm just kind of curious. It sounds like of course that there'd be a lot of savings and time savings as well, which is also money savings. I'm just curious what the what that's done in other school systems. I don't want to speak out of turn, but I feel like just anecdotally, more often than not, um other nearby school districts are using these alternative methods as their preferred for large complex projects. That's really good to know. Um, I'm wondering, you know, this is

164more of a regulation than a policy, but are we going to are there times when one would be preferred over the other from an, you know, facilities standpoint? And if so, are we going to put those in regulations as to in terms of these are the criteria developed? Because I understand we the board will vote on it. But it'd be nice for us to know why one method is better than the other, what type of construction, whether it's school size or footprint, I don't know. But yeah, I think that'll be part of future CIP planning. So our step one was making sure the cost cash flow works. But should policy 8240 be approved, we would then on a school by school basis as projects enter the CIP evaluate them because I do think it really

165depends on the complexity and the goals of the project. And so then when we bring forth approval for an RFP to be construction manager or design build, we would share our analysis. Yeah, it would just be helpful maybe and again maybe not necessarily to this but as the discussion about policy 8240 is is thoughts of what kind of criteria you'd be looking for for when these would apply just to get a better understanding of why these would be important. And I think on second second part I think it'd be really helpful if we had some communications once we maybe pass this policy about and we talked about this with the boundary work. These are all the things we're trying to do to be more effective and efficient with our resources. So, I think that'd be

166good to have that conversation as well around this piece of it. And I really appreciate again all the hard work of staff and our our school board members in shephering this. Mr. Fish, thanks very much. Uh, and thank you to our meeting managers and all the staff that worked really hard on all of this. Um, I'm curious if we have, and I'm not looking for specific projects, but do we have any projects in the distant pipeline that would benefit from the board aggressively moving forward with uh adopting uh revisions to 8240? And if I'm not mistaken, secondarily, it's not that 8240 requires the uh bid to build. Uh uh it's that we don't specifically allow for other things to be considered. Yeah, that's correct. Right now it only allows for the design bid build. Uh

167to answer your first question, I would recommend starting with our large renovation projects. That's where you have complexity that you could really get value from having the construction manager one and we'll get into it uh in our next session. But right now we are doing phased occupied work and that has you know a lot of input on making sure you can work on a part of the building while the other part's safe. And a lot of that is the means and methods of the contractor implementing that. So having that particular insight will be very beneficial. So to me it's the major CIP work where it's complex. So we have several projects in the pipeline that would benefit from this approach. I I would agree. And and like I mentioned in the um staff next steps,

168we're actually futurep proofing our design RFPs to say, "Hey, architect, you may be expected to work under the low bid condition or you may be expected to work with the construction manager and the fees that we negotiate should cover either method." And this is probably a question that you don't have an easy answer to, but take one bond. We have a bond coming up. Just about what percentage of that could we realize in savings if we did took this approach to having more flexibility? That's really difficult to project because it just varies so much. I guess what I will say is we will be very thoughtful on the cost estimates in the CIP and I would expect less variance of you know going over and having to value engineer at the last minute or going

169over and having to take from another project. So I think what it ultimately offers is uh stability which has been very difficult given all of the post-pandemic cost overruns and everything else. Um all right, thanks very much. Um okay uh like to start gobacks uh unless I'm missing anyone. Um so Mr. Moon just one quick question just to recap from my perspective if our current approach is characteriz described as hey we want this kind of building how much is that going to cost versus we have this budget could you build yes that's a great summary okay thank you uh Miss Anderson Oh, you're good. Uh, Miss Seismore Heiser, thank you. And that was actually one of my questions that Mr. Moon just mentioned or my statements to try to understand it. Um, two comments and

170again I I'm very much supportive of having more tools in our toolbox. I just want to understand a little bit. It looks to me from the descriptions I'm reading that design build has a potential of having less FCPS control over the process. He talks about resolving their own disputes and things like that, which of course takes some pressure off our staff, I imagine, and some cost savings there. But then does that give us some control over how the project may look as things go along? And I bring that up because I know certain school renovations, you know, in parts as we've gone along the process, we've heard from certain communities about their concern about certain fields or this or that. And I I'm wondering if there's still space for that. the way I'm reading the

171CMR C process versus the DBVB process, FCPS is involved a little bit more. So, can you talk to that a little bit? Yeah, and I want to assure even in design build, FCPS still has a seat at the table and provides design input. I think maybe sometimes we might see some deadends u cleaned up before it ever comes to us, you know, between the contractor and architect. But if we come and there's a design and we have particular feedback, we don't like something or we want to see something done differently, we work with them and actually again it's a collaborative approach where maybe we want something uh a little bit more upgraded or fancier, whatever it might be, but then we work with them on where we can offset that, you know, and where they

172might recommend, okay, here's some other options. So there's there's definitely still space for FCPS to work with this team on on a design. Great. And then just last question since the first that we use the DBB looks like a low bid contract, right? Lowest bid contract. I can I just finish and then Thank you. I I think I really do think Dr. Reed it' be really important for the community to understand that we're not just moving away from low bid and going that could lead to a higher cost. that the purpose is to actually have an overall lower cost because I think it could be spun as FCPS is trying to get away from the lowest bid to something that's more expensive without some information about well actually when you look at all of these

173other things this has the potential of being cheaper or more effective or faster which is cheaper I think that's a really important piece to help our community understand. Yes ma'am. And I I think I come from a area where we've used multiple of these. Um what I can say is we also want I think the particularly the addition of design build uh helps us be sometimes the lowest bid has the most expensive change orders and it actually ends up potentially being far more expensive than the design upfront being vetted by those who need to build it. Um, so I really think I see this as a another methodology to really get the best um, product for the money, right? Best value for the money. And I I think that uh, Miss Samansky and her team

174have really uh, worked to look at some of the repetitive change order um, contracts and um, that that's a concern as well. So low bid doesn't always mean at the end of the deal a low project cost, right? Thank you. Um, and I'll take a go back, uh, unless there are any others. Um so uh in in a March 12, 2024 FPAC memo to the school board, um they stated as one of their three recommendations that our current uh default design bid build may continue to be an appropriate method of hiring contractors for clear single-phased projects with a simple scope such as re- roofs, replacing chillers, etc. Do you uh share that view, Mr. Samansky? Yeah, again I think to your point, it's another tool in our tool belt and it allows us to be

175strategic and look at each project and fit the right method for the right project. And I do agree with that concept that if you don't really need a CM input on something very straightforward, then you actually might get a better price when you can do the design very easily. It's limited trades, limited complexity. Thank you. Um can you talk about uh that you know if the school board approved tomorrow the um uh the new revised uh policy 8240 what is the timeline for rolling out or incorporating these as options and RFPs because I imagine uh this is going to be new for at least some of your staff and might require some training or other efforts. do and and do you have a thought as to rolling out design build first or CM first or

176kind of the sequencing there? Yeah. So, from an implementation standpoint, I would say construction management at risk is more of an evolutionary process. It still has the two contracts that we're used to and um right now we have in the CIP starting in FY26 two renovation projects. That's Cubran Elementary and Franklin Middle School. And so we're starting to write those solicitations for the architect and should policy 8240 be approved then we could follow after that and do an RFP for a construction manager. So I think that makes sense to start because then we don't lose time. We can still move forward with the architect RFP no matter what. And then um again if the policy gets approved then we can follow right behind with the construction manager. Okay great. Um, so before we move on

177to swing spaces, uh, let me just, uh, obtain, uh, see if I can obtain schoolboard consensus on two, uh, suggestions. Uh, I think from listening to my colleagues, um, I just want to see if there's a consensus, uh, to support the revision of policy 8240 to allow the use of design, build, and construction management at risk, uh, which would allow FCBS to use them wherever appropriate. Mr. done. The board will adopt changes to the policy at a regular board meeting. We don't I'm I'm I'm not proposing that we change the policy right this minute, but just to see if there's support for governance proceeding in that direction. I believe governance is already working on the policy. Okay. All right. Well, uh I have heard uh then uh Mr. Chair uh may I take consensus whether

178uh it would there would be support to include design building construction management risk as options and future RFPs are appropriate. Okay. So uh I'd like to just confirm that there is consensus to support facilities incorporating design build and construction management at risk as options and future RFPs were appropriate. If you support let's see we have uh Dr. Anderson, Mr. Mcave uh Mr. Mr. McDaniel, Miss Anderson, Miss Lady, Miss Maron, myself, uh Miss Dixit, uh Mr. Fish, Mr. Moon, Miss St. John Cunning. So, it looks like unanimous. Thank you. All right. Uh so, now uh we will move on to the second phase of our uh presentation, which is on uh swing spaces uh and alternatives to our current approach to renovating schools while students are still in the building. Thank you. So, moving on to

179swing spaces. One of our biggest challenges in school construction, especially renovations, is how to keep students and staff safe and productive while work is happening on site. The currently used phased occupy construction is one approach, but it often comes with its challenges. An alternative method to phased occupy construction is using swing space. This approach relocates building occupants to a temporary facility, allowing construction to happen all at once in an unoccupied building. Let's take a closer look at how swing space works and how it compares to our current method. A little background here. So, swing space refers to the temporary facilities or locations used to relocate students and staff while their permanent school building undergoes renovation or new construction. It allows work to proceed faster and more efficiently since the construction site is unoccupied. By contrast,

180phased occupy construction means the renovation happens while the school is still in use, completed in carefully planned phases to minimize disruption. While this avoids the need for relocation, it often extends the timeline and increases complexity due to the need for enhanced safety, noise control, and logistical consideration. FCPS. We've been doing phased occupy construction for decades and is wellversed in handling this type of process and it uses the existing facility along with temporary trailers on site. The trailers are owned and maintained by FCPS minimizing the additional cost to the project in that regard. But this and this model also has a minimal impact on school dropoff and pickup allowing families to continue to retain their routines to the greatest extent possible. Additionally, this type of approach allows a portion of the school's building, such as the

181cafeteria or gym, those big box spaces, to remain in use. While this method has been successful for years, there are alternative swing space options that are worth exploring moving forward. So, we're going to go through a few different options. This is the first one. One type of swing space is to swing the entire school to temporary trailers on site. And that includes big box spaces I mentioned such as the gym, cafeteria, and library. There are multiple possible solutions for those larger spaces such as a tent or bubble or also known as an air supported structure. And it's important to note that this type of swing space will require temporary bathroom trailers and other features for full occupant use. There is substantial investment to purchasing the trailers and thoughtful planning for their storage and use. If

182we were to do this, FCPS would likely own the trailers so they can be used for future school projects or repurpose them to other schools in need of trailers. This swing option also requires temporary plans for bus loops, kissing rides, and pedestrian routes. We'd in short be building a whole campus um on the same site. Um, another consideration is the temporary trailer campus could occupy field space which may impact current program use and the trailers would still be operating next to a construction site similar to phased occupied um situation which can be noisy and busy. So just things to consider with this approach. Another type of swing space, the second of three we're going to discuss today, is to build a new school on the same site and move students after the construction is complete

183and then demolish the existing building for new field space. This way, students can stay in their current building until the new one is online, minimizing the administrative coordination of moving an entire school at the beginning or during construction. And this swing space approach could also occupy field space which may impact program use like the option previously described. A new school swing space approach will undergo a lengthier site review permitting process and may involve other agency coordination but it's all really subject to the actual site itself. Before moving on I will also add the end result is a brand new building. So more of the construction costs are going into the physical building itself. So instead of renovating, you're left with a complete new build. Okay. So moving on to a third the third and final

184and that's basically swinging off site. And so um that's where a school goes completely offsite to another location. The main benefits of swinging off site is removing students and staff from the exposure of construction and allowing contractors full access to the entirety of the site for maximum construction efficiency, reducing construction timeline and associated costs. Another benefit to using offsite is uh the potential for the building to be reused for another swing school site. Uh maximizing that initial investment which can be expensive. Uh there will be considerable upfront uh coordination and costs associated with this approach though. The initial investment will really vary though depending on the site chosen and the need but really may involve a similar effort to like a refresh of a school. Um significant administration coordination is going to be needed and

185you would want to align that to the academic year. So that needs to be considered uh along with transportation needs and community outreach and more coordination with this approach. In addition to the direct costs, there's other considerations such as the potential need for traffic demand studies and other agency coordination to ensure this all meets zoning and site requirements. Um, you know, we'll need to make sure that there's considerations for parking, drop off, pickup, security, and storm water needs. Off-site swing spaces h will have to be catered for the specific type of school building. And so a larger school such as a middle or high school might have a hard or impossible time finding the right off-site location large enough and specialized enough to support their program. So with this we would likely recommend it be

186used more for elementary school. And so you know while all these types of swing spaces have their challenges each option would need to really be analyzed from our capital improvement projects and really weigh those options accordingly. Um, and so while there may be costs associated with building swing spaces that vary depending on the approach, there is the potential for overall cost savings and reduction in construction costs. The average elementary school renovation right now has been lingering around that 28 to 30 months. And so without building occupants, we think this could be reduced by approximately 6 to 12 months again depending on the conditions. And so we expect the construction process savings uh due to efficiencies gained from the permitting process. We're not doing breakouts of phase permits. Uh it'll be more streamlined for the contractors

187to mobilize. They're not going out at four different times throughout construction. And just the overall material ordering and whatnot. It'll be much more streamlined and done once instead of multiple times. And so right now staff is currently exploring different approaches to reviewing swing space on a site-by-sight basis. I will say due to the size of the county and the locations of schools in the CIP on-site swing spaces are generally seen as the preferred option from our opinion. And so moving forward, what we want to do is during the concept dei concept design phase when we hire an architect for a CIP project, we want to have a feasibility study done for alternative swing space options compared to the phased occupied uh route as part of the design process up front. So again, I kind of

188covered it, but you know, the next steps are to do just that. The next school uh scheduled for renovation in our CIP is Cubrun Elementary School. It starts design in fiscal year 26. So our staff right now we're finalizing the architect engineering RFP. And we wrote specifically in that scope of work to include an expanded conceptual design phase. This phase will explore both on-site swing space and phase occupied options. It's something we already do during concept. We usually ask the architect to share a few different options and then we pick one. we get community feedback. So, it'll really just be a continuation on that where we say, "Hey, first, will you do a little benefit analysis and look at the potential savings, uh, look at the potential sustainability factors, um, how they might better fit

189the program one over the other, and then we would kind of pick a path and they would develop the same multiple options. So, you wouldn't see too much of a difference in the uh concept design phase except it might be a little bit more robust and we might have them look at a couple extra options. And so, like I said, it'll really depend on the project. So, each option will be evaluated and it will be evaluated based on cost estimates that that sustainability considerations I mentioned and the construction schedule impacts. And so, we would use this analysis to determine the most operationally beneficial path forward. And then we hope this could be a standard approach moving forward with the remaining projects in the CIP renovation queue. Uh thank you. Uh so uh similar to the

190last uh section, this is all about having more tools in the toolbox, not preferring one method versus the other. So with that uh uh I'll ask Miss Seismore Heiser. Uh Mr. Moon. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dun. Just a few questions. I would love to see us to be able to do uh you be able to stay away from as much as possible phased occupied approach. You know, just my we have a thousands of parents and families whose kids go through that. um used to be one of those and I really hated to see that kind of learning environment for any student to be in for a number of years uh at a time. So thank you for you know bringing this for a a bored discussion and bish consideration. Uh with that said uh

191you know one of the approaches which is you know unsigned new building would you say that that in general new building versus fully renovated building new building still has a longer life cycle I would say there is the potential for that just the potential yeah you are getting 100% of the materials brand new versus renovation where you might just replace be replacing part of the materials usually you keep the structure the foundations and all of that so if there's any ability to prolong that I do think it would extend would you able to quantify that 10% 20% 30% I'd have to do some additional research okay thank you I I I would appreciate that you know what if if the size of that extra space on on site for a new building is not large

192enough for a building we want to be constructed. Is there a possibility for a maybe larger portion of a Jew building to be ded first and and and tail down basically demolished the existing building and use part of that demolished space location to build maybe a smaller space needed for is that is that a possibility? I think we would have to take a look at it. It would depend on the site. I have seen some projects where it's technically still a renovation, but it's probably more 75% new build and we build maybe we can't fit an entire complex of trailers, but we could build a larger complex of trailers which would allow for more new construction and starting to make it more ground up. Yeah. So, I think it's potential again. Again, you know, if

193we could as much as possible find a way to stay away from phased occupied to provide not just cost savings, it's a learning environment for students and teaching environment for our staff members as well. Thank you. Uh thank you uh Miss Lady. Thank you. And again, thank you for all your hard work. Uh, I'm going to sound like a broken record with my remarks the last time. I don't know why we wouldn't want more uh tools in our toolkit. So, I'm fully in support of all of these being added as options for when we're doing a renovation. Thank you, Miss Seismore Heiser. Thank you. And I also agree. I think having more tools is always a good thing. I I do have some questions in terms of similar to what I asked last time. Do

194we have criteria on how each of these may get selected or are we going to be developing that criteria so we know which of the three or four options right the one we currently use the phased occupied versus the other ones would be selected. Yeah. Again our preference would be for the onsite swing just given the geographic challenges of going off-site and so our approach would to be doing almost a feasibility study per project uh as a project enters the CIP. And so that same architect we asked to design a building and create three different designs, a U-shaped one, an L-shaped one, we would also say, "Hey, also consider, you know, what it would look like if we built it brand new over on the field here." And then I do want as part of

195that architect analysis for them to work with a cost estimator. And then we can really make a decision and that we could stand behind with real data. I asked that question because if we're ask if we're asking them to do a feasibility study, I'm assuming that's just a new school or is it a feasibility for all any one of these four options outside the swing space offsite? I get the so any of the three on-site options. Yeah, it would be for the on-site options. I asked that question because if what would be the additional cost of requiring a feasibility study for every project versus the savings that we may have and the costs on using some of these other options? Yeah, you're really looking at design fees here and our strategy was to just embed

196it into the full project. So, say you are the architect that selected to do Cub Run. I mean, this is going to be a multi-million dollar contract that has goes all the way through construction documents into construction. So, adding on this feasibility study, I think we're going to be getting very good value for just getting the work done. And it and it won't be I want complete designs done for each option, too. This is a conceptual process that we would go through. No, absolutely. I just wanted to I was thinking that through because if I'm an architect and I'm getting paid I don't know two million I'm making $2 million to do what we currently ask them to do now and now we're adding this on top of it. I might ask for more money

197right to do that. So that's and I don't have a sense of how much work or how much extra that is. That's why I'm trying to get a sense from you on that. Yeah, because usually it's a fee based on the cost of construction budget and so we're just asking for a little additional scope when you know negotiating that fee. That sounds good. And uh you know I'm also curious how we're taking to other things into account in terms of picking these right like obviously new school on site would depend on whether the site was appropriate for that and then the difference between the cost of renovating which to your point not everything's brand new when you're renovating versus the cost of a brand new building right and then but the trailers on site you

198know there's a little bit of of concern about safety right I hear and I remember when Lake Bradock was renovated many years ago and there's a whole sea of trailers and there was a lot of concern then that was raised up in the community about safety about having that many kids in trailers and whether it would be feasible to have like you know the shared spaces like the gyms and things. So I'm curious that's why I asked about the criteria like how is all that taken into account in terms of because there's obviously we want to save as much cost as we can but we also I think like previously want to have best value and also best experience for our students you know least least disruptive. So that's a question for you that I

199had. Yeah and that's actually the criteria we're putting in these RFPs. We want an analysis and we want them to consider cost, sustainability. We had other criteria such as safe logistics during construction. I I don't want to sound like a broken record, but it it really does depend on the site. I mean, you might even have enough acres, but if you don't have street access to have um the contractor to have their own pathway safely to the construction, then you know, you can't do it or it would be so financially infeasible, you wouldn't want to do it. And so, you really do need to look at it on a case-byase basis. But to your point, we're going to as part of the RFP establish that criteria of the things that bring the best to your

200point, not just best price, but the best value and best product. That's all I would ask in terms swing spaces offsite, taking into account the transportation time and the community impact of having the kids at schools, you know, away the trailers and the safety. I just that's why I keep asking about criteria because I want to get a better understanding of what we're looking at in picking of these things. Right? If I could just finish my sentence and I don't have a go back. It's the same way that we've done the lowest bid didn't really get us maybe the lowest cost. I want to take these into account. So, I just would love to hear more about that at some point, not today. Thank you, Miss St. John Cunning. Thank you. And thank you for

201all the work you've done. Um I I think what piggy back on what Miss uh Seismore was saying, I think having that criteria, I think realistically it it is going to be a sightby-sight basis. Uh, as someone that has lived through three renovations when I've worked in schools and my daughters lived through another, um, on-site renovations, um, I mean, it's doable. It's not the best option, but kids are resilient and so are teachers. Um, obviously having swing spaces would work better, but I do see just knowing the schools that I've worked at where some would be able to provide a swing space and some wouldn't. And I guess I'm just the reason I'm mentioning this is to calibrate people that are listening to not have the expectation that that's going to be possible at every

202school. And I can understand where in some schools it would be and in some schools it wouldn't be. And I also want to say I've lived through three of them. I'm here. I survived. The kids survived. The schools look beautiful. Thank you. Okay. Sorry. Um, uh, Mr. Mavein, thanks. I want to pick up where, uh, Mr. Moon left off. Uh, and, um, you know, and I want to echo everyone else for saying that, um, this is a fantastic pres presentation. It's nice to see innovative thinking in this space. So, appreciate it. um on the um uh same site new build uh concept. We have always been told by people in your position and others um that from a sustainability perspective um it's really prohibitive to do that just because you're um uh because of the

203resource use because you're not repurposing um you know uh other materials. So can you give us your perspective on that? and also um just uh if you have a sense at this point how you would evaluate these different approaches from a sustainability perspective. Yeah, I would probably need to have it's a good question. I do think on one hand when you think about the embodied carbon of con the act of construction, this approach will likely exceed renovation because you have to tear it down and then you're building something brand new. So that can be put into account. What I think we need to weigh that though against is many of these schools undergoing renovations, they're often our highest energy usage buildings. So the ability to build something brand new, we should consider that that gives

204us the opportunity to build something as energy efficient as possible. And if these are long-term assets that are going to be in operation for another 40 plus years, we should uh balance those two out. So I wouldn't completely discount from a sustainability standpoint this option because you got to think about that as well. Um and then just in terms of that option and the others, how how will you evaluate them in terms of sustainability? How will you what kind of metrics will you be using? Do you know? Yeah, I know looking at embodied carbon, it's sort of a newer, you know, endeavor in the construction industry. So, I would probably have if we were using our alternative delivery method, get that builder insight on the embodied carbon for major uh construction materials, probably looking at

205your steel and concrete, your big heavy hitters that would have an impact on the environment and see if they could do an analysis that could be considered. In contrast with the architect and engineer, they're doing an energy model and they're able to actually predict what the energy costs will be for operations for like the next four decades too. So it probably be like bringing those two data points together, you know, using the architect and contractor teams. Uh, Miss Dixit, thank you. Thank you for the another uh great presentation, Janice. Um I think it's it's really good to um see those innovative ideas like Mik said but I I did want to say after going through the Brookfield pre-constructions meeting and also attended the the um couple of FPback retreat there too. It is um it's

206very difficult to be in the building while the construction is happening and it for staff members and and then being all these trailers um in uh which are going to be constructed there the the the uh community was already concerned about their safety of the students because there have been some break-ins in that school uh building uh and they were making sure that none of the constru construction crowd the workers are away from the students to for them safety perspective. So that really um kind of was worried me a little bit thinking that this must be happening in all the schools we are going through constructions. Um I prefer prefer the swing off-site space where so that then school is completely going in normal. They have their own uh class and space and doing the

207coursework and not getting interrupted by construction the time frame and the construction of the school will go much faster without any interruptions or phased uh construction. So, um I I would just prefer that if FCPS can have like, you know, they can rent like office buildings um for um temporarily and house the schools there for some time and then um I wanted to ask you about the new school on site. How's that an option? Wouldn't that be double the cost of renovation or not? Yeah, we we looked at that and I think that's why you would want to do a benefit analysis per site because when you look at it purely in a vacuum side by side, the cost of new construction is a little bit more than the cost of renovation. That's not always

208the case. And I do think that cost could be offset by cutting down on that 6 to 12 months of construction. And then you're actually left with a 100% new building versus a renovated building. So I think the offset is in the speed but we are also having budget crisis. We don't have enough money and you know we don't have enough bond uh funding uh to do these new constructions if if if we have to do that. Um the swing offsite would that be cheaper? That my last question. Yes I do think that would be the offset is constructing said off-site location. That would be the analysis you would need to do in that method. So you got to say, "Hey, I gotta re refurbish an office building or take one of our existing uh

209facilities and turn it into a school." So you would just want to offset the savings of the faster construction. And then same with the building new, you would want to say, "Hey, it might cost a little bit more for the material. You have to buy more materials because you're not saving the foundations and walls." Um, but you would offset that with the speed. And so you would never want to pick something that would far exceed price with the swing option. You may maybe in some cases it is appropriate to do the phased occupied. You just want to be able to do that analysis. And we'll get into it in the next session, but we did actually look at building a new building on site as part of the P3 scope. And what we did find

210in that study, and again it's in a vacuum, it was a very specific set of schools. We did find that the actual construction cost or the actual project cost overall was cheaper because of the time saved versus new build. Thank you. Yep. Uh Dr. Anderson. Um thank you. I I'm not sure if you're aware, but Jessica, maybe you can confirm when Glasgow Middle School was rebuilt, it was a school next to the school because they had enough space in order to do that. Yes. So we do have some history of having done this and I I think the benefits of the new materials pretty much across the board all of the things and bringing back what I raised earlier which is if we use this if it's a tool in the toolbox would could it

211lend itself to the possibility of reusing designs so that we don't have to pay that cost yes and that there is some precedent for that in Fairfax County. there was a prototype developed uh many years ago. So, sorry. No, it's okay. That's always a good ring tone. So, where it could support it, I definitely think that's an option that we could look at, right? And and I think, you know, it it's hard to live through construction. You know, Mr. Fr, as we know, the kids at False Church High School, the those who are freshman will live through the renovation throughout their entire career at Falls Church. You know, luckily they'll have little parts, but they will always be faced with all of the things involved in the construction process. But we do know very clearly

212we have limited dollars. I mean, we share that all of the time. So, any place where we could maximize and stretch those dollars, I would want to investigate because I think that's the bonus here. Not only do we save in, you know, the materials perhaps that we don't have to because we can replace everything. Um, and expediting the the timetable. I think that's where the real savings are. And at this point, you haven't any dollars, any numbers that we could perhaps work with. Yeah, I think the best place I can point you is part of the P3 costbenefit analysis because we did say, hey, when you're analyzing these set of schools, you can consider an on-site swing if it's possible. And they actually did a light feasibility study. And then they looked at renovating versus

213new build on site when they put together their package options. And what they found at least in these particular set of schools that building the brand new building on-site swing option was cheaper than the phased occupied. Right. And and that's what I'm looking at. And if we do the temporary trailers that you described with the bubbles for the gym, I had a bubble on my college campus and that's where swimming happened. So all kinds of things can occur. then that is a set of materials we can move from location to location pending that the site has enough space that the you know the acreage etc. Um I I would love for to see this be something that we really um explore as an option because again looking to maximize the dollars that we have which

214we know are severely limited when it comes to construction. Miss Anderson, not not to speak against my colleague because I agree with most of of what was said. I do have just a question. There's a significant amount more waste when we're talking about tearing down a previous building. Correct. Okay. So, the other aspect that I would just put out into the ether here just a little bit is that as someone who grew up here and has watched our historic buildings get torn down over and over and over again, I would hate to have it be that one of our schools could end up being in in that category. Um, I'm not suggesting that that is the most important thing, but there is an aspect of that that I would hate for us to lose. That

215if there's anything we can do to preserve the history of our county, I think it's an important step to make. And I do I would always ask us to make sure that we're doing things in line with jet goals and reducing waste and things like that. So, anything that we could do, even if it was just part of a building that we could that we could keep and maybe move the kids to the other side of the building or anything like that, I think that it would be worthwhile to at least consider as we as we move forward with these options. But otherwise, I I'm in favor of swing spaces. Um, I'm particularly in favor of swing swing spaces where we might be able to renovate an existing building and use it for a number

216of schools around and then kind of switch switch kiddos in and out. I think that there are some options there if we look at more regional um renovation projects. Uh, Miss Marin's away from the table, so I'll uh take a a question. Um, uh, Miss Mansky, can you talk a little bit about the analysis that was done by the outside consultant? I believe they looked at the next seven or eight schools in the renovation queue for potential swing space. That's correct. And we'll be diving more into it because it was part of the um public private partnership. But in order for that team to do a true costbenefit analysis, you had to give them a very firm scope and swing space, you know, would greatly impact that scope. So it was studied as part of

217that work. And so what we did was we looked at the last six schools, I believe, in the CIP and had them briefly look at could you actually put um a new building or could you do an on-site swing option? And what was concluded was was swing space practical for most of those schools? It was at some and not others. Yeah, I believe it was three or four of the existing schools could support an on-site option. Can you confirm that? I thought it was five elementary schools of the seven. Uh, one is a new elementary school, but not for Twain Middle School, which was Yeah, we'll go into it further. It was um looking at the last six renovation schools in the CIP, which includes five elementaryaries and one middle. And then we also looked

218at one completely brand new building in the CIP silver line per the adopted CIP. Um you mentioned that uh use of swing spaces might accelerate uh uh the elementary school renovation by 6 to 12 months. Did you perform a similar analysis uh for middle school and high school? We did not. We thought, you know, if we were to start doing this work, just given the current CIP, given the number of elementaryaries versus middle versus high, this is where we would like to start that work. And so when we met with cost estimators and um other contractors, we had them test out that model because it requires a lot less specialty spaces. The goal is to try to keep the cost of the swing process itself as low as possible. Um, did the outside consultant identify

219uh about a dozen different FCPS assets that we own right now that could be used as off-site swing spaces? They did. They briefly just did a quick analysis of facilities that are owned by FCPS that are currently not being used as schools. We also have all that data as well. And those are geographically distributed around the county. So, they could serve as kind of regional centers for renovations. Yeah, they did like a light mapping of where things are geographically. And so if you invest in uh renovating one of those sites to serve as an off-site swing space, that could be leveraged for multiple renovations, essentially spreading the cost of that renovation of the swing space over multiple schools. Is that correct? That's correct. Your your ROI will be better if you can use it for

220multiple schools. Um, FPAC has recommended uh that uh that FCPS pursue a comprehensive plan amendment um based on uh potential concerns on the part of the county with respect to Florida area ratio if you add trailers to an existing school site or you build a new school. Um, can you talk whe about whether you support that recommendation to pursue a comprehensive plan amendment or whether it's necessary in light of the fact that Glasgow uh middle school pursued this new school construction approach? Well, I think one it it will depend on the site. Some of this might be potentially done by Wright. So, as part of the architect RFP, having them explore that, they're going to need to look at zoning and entitlements to make sure this is a viable path where I think we might

221be running up into some challenges. I would recommend early, you know, collaboration with the county to make sure that it can still be a green light as we move forward. Wouldn't a comprehensive plan amendment though, uh, solve it kind of on the up on the upfront for many projects rather than project by project? That is certainly something we can consider. I think the consultant pointed out a floor area ratio was likely our biggest risk. So making sure that we by right can um build enough facility to have that on-site swing happen concurrently if we were to work with the county on something like that. It could be a big benefit and make sure everything could move forward. And if the school board uh achieves consensus to support um one or more of these potential swing

222spaces, can you describe kind of a timeline for roll out of these incorporating them into RFPs? For the offsite swing, we would need to first build a timeline for one procuring and agreeing upon a site. Uh if it is, you know, turnkey versus renovating an office versus it's an existing uh school that needs to be converted into a school. I think that will depend that will change the timeline. So I think one it's I could we could come up with a series of estimated timelines depending on the path and then you would need to ensure that that is then built before the construction of whatever project would be using it. So that's how we would approach that. And are are there one particular swing space option that you prefer over others? Again, we think if

223you if we're serious about using this, I think the most straightforward way to doing this is first looking at on-site options. You know, we're not beholden to finding new land or a new facility. Um, it cuts down on the impact to families from a geographic and transportation sense. And so, that's why we're interested in getting this RFP language for the architect scope to be expanded and then really finding that analysis. And we might see themes, right? We might find that out of the next few schools that building a new building on site is the has the best return on investment. So it'll allow us to also collect that data. Are there any changes legally to policy or regulation that are required to pursue these off these swing space options? Not not to our knowledge. No.

224Could could we ask Mr. Foster? Yeah, I concur with Miss Samansky. I don't think that there are any um immediate legal uh restrictions that come to mind, Mr. Dunn. Thank you. Seeing Seeing uh no gobacks. Oh, sorry, Miss Marin. I apologize. Yeah, I think this is great. I mean, I didn't know about this option until you raised it, Miss Samansky, and I think Dr. Ernson had done it in her previous district in Lowden. So, um, you know, again, I just think we have to keep trying to do new new things. And so, can you can you kind of walk through like is this something you could immediately start considering? And I apologize, I just have to step out, but you know, um, how you could immediately start pursuing this or considering it and what's the

225board's role? Do we need to approve it? Uh, if you could share that, please. Um, sure. And so our recommended next steps are to start again adding to the architect's scope this analysis since it is so sight by sight. Again, we think there's some benefit to first looking at on-site options while we contemplate a bigger strategy if we were to do off-site because that's a bigger divisionwide endeavor. And so we're actually already starting that. I mean, it's again a tool in our tool belt. You might as well get that analysis done by the architect. Hey, maybe they decide phase occupied is the right move for that particular school. But we plan to start doing that uh with the next round of design projects in FY26. We've started to draft the language. We've done a very

226very high level look at those sites and we think for the elementary school the acreage you know pure acreage it's a potential to build a new school or a trailer site on the existing fields there. So we think it has possibility to start doing next in the next round. Well, that's very cool. And I also this dovetales with some um feedback that I did want to share about the communications process with the community with kicking off a project and knowing that the questions like you know where will my child play and does my child have to be outside? And so I think um incorporating this into the the dialogue and letting families know, but also tightening up that communications piece is is going to be really good. So, thank you. Um I'll take a go

227back just quickly. Um could we use existing trailers that we already own around the county uh to provide the trailers for an on-site swing space? Yes, I think that's a potential. And if we do new school construction, could we uh potent and potentially reusing parts of the school that exist, could we potentially uh use that opportunity to make our schools more secure? I'll just offer West PTOAC has uh 28 exit doors, which uh is because it's so spread out. But if we consolidated maybe maybe made it more vertical rather than horizontal, maybe fewer exit doors and thus easier to secure the building. Yeah, I do want to just caveat whether we do phase occupied or a new build, you know, we're always going to meet our and exceed our educational specifications. So, if a community

228can't if the fe if an occupied renovation is the way it has to be, they're still going to have a great facility that can be modernized and renovated. I do think with a new build, there is the ability for more flexibility and more control over the design. You're not beholden to the existing conditions. Uh thank you. Um I don't see any more gobacks. Um so with that, I'd like to just uh uh see if we can achieve consensus on on a couple uh next steps. Um first, I'd like to ask if there is schoolboard consensus to incorporate uh two swing space options, trailers on site and new school construction on site as options in future RFPs where appropriate. I see one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. So great, we have consensus on that.

229I'd also like to see if we can achieve consensus to uh direct the superintendent to do an analysis to explore the uh use of existing FCPS assets as potential off-site swing spaces. Sorry. uh whether we can achieve consensus to direct the superintendent to explore uh the establishment of potential off-site swing spaces using existing FCPS assets. Okay. So you can say okay. Um so can we achieve consensus express to express our consensus uh to uh that we would be interested in receiving an analysis of potential off-site swing spaces using existing FCPS assets. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Uh great. Um and uh finally uh want to see if we can achieve if we can express consensus um for uh FCPS to make a recommendation to uh the school board whether to pursue a

230comprehensive plan amendment uh as recommended by FPAC uh to adjust the Florida area ratio so that uh FCPS can potentially use trailers on site and new new school construction as swing space options. Sure. Uh so be because adding trailers and new school construction might have zoning uh uh issues implications. Um FPAC recommended pursuing a comprehensive plan amendment. So we discussed that a little bit today. Uh but the request is to see if we can express consensus to have a formal recommendation from uh FCPS uh and the superintendent whether FCPS should pursue a comprehensive plan amendment as recommended by FPAC. Mr. Chair, do you have a preferred alternative phrasing? Okay. Okay, then I will then I will move that to next steps. Um okay uh next uh can we move the slides to the next presentation?

231So finally um and something that I think is very exciting for FCPS um public private partnerships. Um we are uh very close to Prince George's County which recently used a public private partnership to build six schools in two years where they estimated it would take 12 years if they financed it completely themselves. Um so with that I'll turn it over to and this is another adding a tool to our toolbox uh discussion. Miss Samansky. Thank you. And so to round us all out, uh, public private partnerships. As construction needs grow and public funding remains limited, there are school systems and government entities that are exploring alternative delivery and financing models. One of these models is public private partnerships, otherwise known as P3s. So again, to address fiscal demands, FCPS may seek alternative financing mechanisms such

232as P3s. P3s are contractual arrangements that are formed between public and private sector partners, which typically involve a public owner. In this case, it would be us, FCPS, contracting with private partners to finance, renovate, or construct, operate, and maintain and/or manage a facility or system or some sort of combination of those activities. As the cost of construction market continues to rise above the inflation rate, speed to market is essential because it not only alleviates capacity constraints and deferred maintenance costs, but it also locks in today's construction cost dollars. Overall, P3 projects are not necessarily less expensive. They are value drivers such as speed to market, risk sharing, and the financing of projects that may otherwise not be able to be funded. There are no P3s that are the same. Each P3 is adapted to the

233individual institution and developed to achieve maximum value within their reality. In short, P3s are incredibly complex, but they are highly customizable. There are long-term engagements that allow financing opportunities for public entities similar to FCPS. So, there are many reasons a public institution may pursue a P3 program. uh FCPS believes that their current facility planning and design and construction and facility management teams are skilled and capable of delivering high-quality projects and were able to manage those facilities long terms. These teams are extremely hindered though by the ability um and available of capital funding to meet and exceed the school board's policies and division needs of all areas of facilities work and you know we are seeing that impact. The current FCPS capital improvement program is funded mainly by approving a bond referendum and then selling those

234bonds with the maximum cap. The funding FCPS receives does not consider the changing needs and priorities when establishing an annual budget. And therefore, this limits FCPS ability to meet division needs appropriately. So, a P3 is a potential good solution for more financial flexibility. P3s also offer the benefit of leveraging the strengths of each sector. So uh on our hand the public sector we bring public interest focused regulatory power and project oversight and then the private sector brings innovation, efficiency, funding and technical expertise. Together they can create outcomes that neither could achieve as effectively as by themselves. So the question really bears to ask how does this alternative method compare to our current practice for our capital improvement projects. Uh currently the building and renovation of major capital projects are not financed through the school systems

235operating funds. We kind of saw that in the beginning. Um but it's mainly through bonds. A P3 approach to funding our renovation and construction of schools would be financed through a private developer. These are different types of there are different types of packages for a P3 approach and that includes design build finance operate maintain or DBFOM and design build finance bridge or a DBF bridge. Uh those are the two popular models and this approach underscores the relevance of speed to market and that risk sharing I spoke to. um you know and those are things that really need to be considered given FCPS prolonged renovation cycles and the urgent need to address aging infrastructure. One potential benefit of P3 is the ability to concurrently implement facilities and have a greater impact to the number of schools

236at a quicker pace. FCPS is interested in ways that construction timelines can be reduced because schools can receive updated facilities quicker. We also in this presentation want to share some highlights of a costbenefit analysis conducted in late 2024. So FCPS we acknowledge the comprehensive and detailed analysis conducted by uh Braillesford and Dunl or BND um a consultant we hired in evaluating public private partnership options as potential solutions for addressing the challenges of school facility renovations and new construction. And we found the report to be highly valuable in exploring the potential of P3s to address the facility needs. And the actual inclusion of real world projects from the CIP coupled with the sitewalks and detailed cost estimates that BND did really lends credibility and practical relevance to that analysis. Uh by grounding the study in tangible

237scenarios, B&D provided a clear understanding to us of the financial and logistic implications of this approach. uh the level of specificity offers FCPS a stronger foundation for those next steps and and I do want to say to do this you know FCPS we created a framework for conducting the analysis that we had B&D evaluate. So, we purposely chose the last six schools in the current renovation queue and then one new school construction per the adopted CIP really is the basis of this costbenefit analysis. And then tying back to our swing space discussion for those six existing schools, we had B&D consider the viability of an on-site swing as you know that approach would really have an impact on that speed, complexity, and price that they were evaluating. It also kind of did that kill two

238birds with one stone because it's really valuable information as we just plan our capital projects knowing the feasibility of on-site swing. So again as part of this analysis it included a breakdown of costs and benefits across multiple types of P3 packages. As I mentioned before, uh we had them look at design, build, finance, operate and maintain and uh the d design build finance bridge models. Um design build finance includes the financing and the design build team to design and construct the work. And then the design, build, finance, operate and maintain does the same thing, but it also includes capital asset replacements and maintenance services over the capital uh after the project's complete. And typically that's done for the length of the financing term. And in case of this cost benefit benefit analysis we did 30

239years. The costbenefit analysis we uh also per uh performed also described what a potential timeline could look like. Uh the project definition is the first phase of four to ensure a successful P3 project. Because P3 projects are long-term, often 30 years or more, it's imperative that that groundwork be done prior to the partnership selection and negotiations. uh before soliciting a private developer FCPS we recommend performing um both a visioning and like a risk tolerance session to define the scope and risk evaluation early in the process sets the foundation for a successful P3 development option um that really supports our mission and vision. Um through uh that discussion, the session would probably focus on the critical areas of project risk SCPs desires to transfer to a private equity firm in return for the associated financial trade-offs

240and other benefits. And so before we can move into phase two, we really need to finalize the package of schools and the type of financing that we FCPS may want to pursue. And it's imperative that we understand how the funding of the project may impact future projects uh such as the potential for less funding available over the course of the deal which may actually even impact the CIP cycle. So this is more just of a breakdown of last side the last slide because within those four phases these uh on the screen are some of the key milestones that may be considered and met in a P3 package. uh we begin with aligning all key stakeholders public and private on the project goals, roles and overall schedule. Next we would compare the P3 model against our

241traditional delivery and look at the value for money life cycle savings and potential for innovation. H and as mentioned previously that risk transfer session also helps evaluate which risk during the project should be transferred to the private sector. So from there, based on funding, risk allocation, and needs, we would refine and lock in that project scope. Uh, one key milestone would be community engagement that helps keep the public informed in alignment with current FCPS procedures. FCPS would then seek formal approval for the P3 model from the board of supervisors and once approved, uh, the RFQ would be drafted to attract qualified private partners. FCPS continues the process to select the qualified candidate for partnership of a P3. And from there the contract is for formalized to move forward. So you know together these elements provide

242FCPS with kind of that foundation for that assessment and making sure it's viable and to really address those key challenges. So next steps uh what are the next steps as we explore alternative financing options for our capital improvement projects? Well, to move forward, policy 8240 red lines do need to be approved by the school board to authorize P3s as an available tool for use. Another step would be for the school board to hold important discussions and work with the board of supervisors to discuss funding options for these projects. Uh collaboration between the county and FCPS is crucial to understand if a public private partnership is feasible. And then last, a staff also recommend that visioning session for the work to start defining the goals, criteria, risk tolerance as described in phase one of the proposed

243timeline. You know, staff, we recommend using that framework that we built uh as part of that costbenefit analysis uh as a starting point for input from the board. And with that, that kind of wraps everything up from my end, and I'm happy to take questions. Uh Mr. Moon. Thank you, Mr. Dun. Just a few questions. Thank you again for the presentation. Uh, let's say that if there are willing private partners right now, a how many more schools do you think our school system is ready to start renovating and building on top of what's in CIP? Right. It's a great question because we're actually in the middle of that facility conditions assessment that we spoke about in the last CIP. So, right now we have eight more schools that we need to finish in the current

244renovation queue and then we're developing that next pipeline. So, what we had recommended when we were doing our analysis is to say, hey, maybe the first couple schools in the CIP, let them run their course. They're already about to start. But if we were serious about doing a P3 package, one thing we can do is have the private developer um take off our hands the last set of schools in that existing renovation queue because then we can start the new renovation queue much sooner. Uh again, without knowing that's about six schools then correct six schools. How much money would be needed you think? Ballpark figure. Um if one of you guys could pull up from the analysis because we we had it run under design build finance and we had it run under design build

245finance operations 300 million 400 million 500 million 200 million I believe my next question is you know doesn't matter what the amount is at this point for next question is you know normally We'll be using capital fund to pay for construction and renovation and etc. Uh if we enter into relationship with the private partners they will finance private partners will finance will pay back will pay them back. Is that can that come out of capital funding with agreement from board of supervisors? Well, I think that's something we would want to explore further. That could be an option, right? Uh, for example, Prince George's County, their phase one, they had six brand new schools built and it cost approximately $1.1 billion, but it was financed over 30 years. So, they were really paying about 30 something

246million a year. So where that $30 million comes from like it one option is it could come off the top from CIP funds and annually we would take that deduction to do this package or we could find other funding sources you know and that would be a discussion we would have with the board of supervisors with a $1.1 billion project in Prince George's County over 30-year period. I have a hard time believing monthly yearly payment being only 30 million. 30 times 30 is only 900 million first of all. And are you putting in any interest because private partners, you know, they're not really there. Yeah. Uh to for I mean they are there to make money. Yeah, I agree. I do think we'd have to go back and look at the study. They might have

247had some balloon payments in there or upront balloon payments upfront funding. And so the that was one thing we talked about with the consultant. They said that could really change the game on how much you're paying annually if you're willing to pay some money upfront or if you truly want to mortgage that over 30 years. You don't have to have that large chunk of upfront capital as a barrier but then you are tasked with paying more annually. Okay. So uh you know I guess critical question is whether we can use a capital funding to do it and capital funding to make yearly finance pay financing payment and secondly you know if if that's not legally possible whether would be a prepared to pay out of our operating fund and okay thank you miss Marin Yeah,

248my question is a little more um looking towards the next step because I I'm eager to explore what a P3 partnership could or P3 could look like. You know, today we really focused on how we could save money and be as fiscally frugal as we can. And then there's this whole other bucket that's about raising revenue and that involves the bond and other fee structures and whatnot. But what I really appreciate about this work session today is that it was a time for the board to listen together and learn about things that maybe some of us knew a little bit or not. And when I think about that we are responsible for $ 8.7 billion in assets, we have to be more knowledgeable about this. And so, you know, we've talked um as we developed

249the work with Miss Samansky about, you know, what comes next and can this be a quarterly thing that our board does? Can we dedicate time to talk about either the saving money part or the raising revenue part or just understand and even go out to some places and see what's happening and also to other places that are already like having net zero buildings and you know just see some of the disparities um and in the spirit of partnership certainly including and inviting our board of supervisors members. So, you know, I really see this as a core it is a core piece of our work and I hope that as we, you know, get to the end of the school year and start planning for the next year of work that we can dedicate time to

250this regularly because there's a lot for us to know. And right now, when so much is uncertain, I think we have to become better um I don't want to say experts, but more fluent in these options so we can make better decisions. Thanks, I don't see any other plaque cards, so I'll take a turn. Um, uh, Mr. Mia, did you review the, uh, FPAC memorandum dated, uh, April 28th, 2025 about P3s? I I had briefly skimmed it. I was also told it was still under development. So, if there's also a more recent version, we'd be happy to look at it. Um, FPAC recommends designating a P3 champion based on uh best practices from Prince George's County and and other uh locations that have used P3s. Uh, is that uh something that you would recommend as

251well? Sure. Did FPAC stipulate if it's um a board member or a staff member? Uh, staff member. Sure. I mean, we would definitely have a project champion to do this. It's such a large project. Um, FPAC also recommended that uh the school board and our FCPS staff consider a follow-on procurement action with uh the consultant who was used Billesford and Dunley to have them prepare a presentation to uh come back and walk uh the school board through their study. Uh is that something that you would recommend as well? Sure, we think that's appropriate. Our our goal today was more introduce what a P3 is. um there was a very robust analysis done that we can dive into and it would probably make sense to have the consultant there to walk everyone through it. Um can

252you go back to the slide with the uh next steps? Um can you just elaborate on the two sub bullets there uh specifically what you're recommending to the school board for next steps? Sure. I mean, other than updating the policy and coming up with some funding strategies, we really want some board guidance on what this project could look like. As I mentioned before, there P3s really vary. We could do a 100 schools, we could do one school. Um, they're very customizable. So I think getting some overall guidance from this board and you know I think that could be best done in sort of a visioning or kickoff session where we could talk about what are the things that could define the project. We see it as that risk transfer session that was described in the

253costbenefit analysis the board's appetite for how much we want to uh put into a private developer's hand. we could talk about the goals and the criteria from a board perspective to really help us establish what that scope of work could be because I think that's going to be necessary just to make sure we're on the right track. Um, can you can you elaborate on the second sub bullet? Um, is that sequential following the kickoff or is that uh done in parallel? It's it's just a side note to say really we want to make sure we're meeting the goals and the vision. But one suggestion we had was if you're really looking for a starting place because P this P3 package could really vary from one school to 100 schools. We did come up with a

254framework that was used for the costbenefit analysis and that could be a starting point just to say hey you know we had looked at seven schools and actually part of that was intentional. PG County, Prince George's County, they did six schools in phase one and eight schools in phase two. So starting with seven made good logical choice. You know starting with schools in the CIP their known projects that we've been directed to do as part of our capital improvement program. So you know having them analyzed made a lot of sense. So we just know that because of the variety it you kind of want to ground yourself in something this would be a good place to start. Uh so that second bullet is essentially uh recommending that staff come up with a proposed package that

255could be put out in the on the street and an RFP. Again, we want to make sure we have that buy in and visioning and appetite for risk all eyes open, but we do think this could be a starting point for that discussion because we did pick seven schools, you know, very intentionally when doing the analysis and and those are the last seven schools in the current renovation queue. Is that correct? It's the last six schools in the renovation queue plus the first new construction school in the CIP. And so that would enable us to essentially accelerate the development of a new renovation queue if you took those seven schools and put them into a P3. Correct. The thought was right now we have that facility condition assessment going on. We actually just uh had

256the solicitation closed and we're reviewing the RFPs and we hope to award you know this summer. And that means in a year's time we're gonna have a new queue developed. So really one thing we could do if we want to keep moving now instead of waiting around for that new queue, we could expedite the end of the current queue. So we could put this in the hands of a developer and then in a year's time we'll know that next set of schools that we can continue to work through as part of our traditional CIP. And would that have a positive effect on the 42 in terms of reducing the 42-year renovation cycle? it it would because we would be jumpst starting and doing those six or seven facilities while we still do our typical cadence

257of a few projects a year uh with the CIP. And is the benefit of P3s that it brings in outside money? So essentially giving us access to a new pool of money beyond uh the the school bonds that get sold every couple years. It it does. And I talk a lot about barrier to entry. I mean, you saw the the Prince George's County, it's a billion dollars, and it's kind of like when you buy a house, you might not have that money upfront, so you mortgage it out. So, in the long run, you might be paying more, but you're limiting that barrier to entry, right? It makes it possible to do a large body of work without all the 100% of the capital in hand. I mean, that's how we're currently doing the CIP. We

258have to have all the money in hand before we then commence on a project. And uh was Prince George's County uh successful in negotiating a contract where at the end of the 30-year payback period, they get the school refreshed and renewed before it's handed back uh to the school system. It was uh and that was we looked at a couple different options in our benefit analysis. So that will increase the cost if you're adding in 30 years worth of maintenance and 30 years worth of capital asset renewals. So, we took a look and compared and contrasted those. I think that's something we would want to continue to do once we finalize the actual scope should we move forward. And and there are legal guidelines for uh to do uh P3s within our RFPs that are

259currently pending before governance and were developed with division council. Correct. That's correct. Uh no other first round questions. So, we have a go back for Miss Maron. So, the ones pending, is that policy 8240 or it's something different? Okay. So, that's okay. It's in if you haven't heard, we've got to update that policy. Um, and sorry if I missed this, but is there an identified funer or type of funer that we'd be interested in partnering with? Well, we would put out a solicitation and there are developers that are doing this type of work. So they would probably be putting together some kind of team and it would be um a developer with that equity component and then they would hire a design build team. So it would include the architect, include the contractor. So they

260would do the financing, purchase everything upfront, design it, and then build it, hand it to us, and then we pay out over a certain term. So, I've been trying to learn a bit and some of my budget questions reflect this about the financing and leasing and you know, I'm still making sense of some of those numbers, but I mean really to me when I think about kicking it off, it seems like it's got to be with the board of supervisors. I mean, they are a partner and the primary funer. And so, again, you know, if we really want to do this, like what are the action steps? Do we plan out meetings? And I know we have this joint facilities task force that's going to start up and I'm really eager that I'm pleased that

261I'm on that. But you know what does it look like to the visioning? Well, maybe it looks like going to some schools and getting excited about what the risk is going to pay off as. So, um, again, I really would love to sit down, you know, as a board and maybe this is some of the retreat time, which is to talk about if we really want to do something for our facilities, we've got to think really big and long term. Um with uh if there are no more questions uh then uh I'll see if we can uh reach uh consensus on uh the next steps that are outlined in um okay I'll take a go back um so there's a question that on the consent agenda um for Thursday, there's uh a a resolution regarding

262the bond. Is that related at all to this um sub Oh, new business. Oh, new business. Okay. But may I Yeah. Sorry. I just I just happen to have the printed print out. I just don't know if there's anything that you might want to say because we're doing the same thing we always do, which is asking for the same amount of money we always ask. And so is that what we have to do for this time around? I mean, we're asking what was most recently approved. I believe there was a joint um CIP in 2021 between the school board and the board of supervisors that increased starting in FY25 and beyond to 230 million. So that's what we're basing this on. Uh uh Mr. FR just to clarify I was going to reiterate what Mansky

263just said. We have an agreement with the board of supervisors over the amount which has escalated over the last few years. Uh obviously if there are other considerations I think that can be part of the facilities task force conversations although we do have some fairly extensive Q&A back and forth on what limitations the county sees in that approach to the work. Um, but I will say, and correct me if I'm wrong, this bond is the first bond that includes next Q projects. Is that right, or is that the following bond? No, that'll that'll be in subsequent bonds. This one's still working off of the proposed cash flow in the CIP. Okay, great. Thank you. Um, okay. So, uh, I', unless there are other questions, um, I'd like to see if we can, uh, express consensus

264on a couple issues. So, first I'd like to see if we can uh express consensus to receive or to have uh staff organize a kickoff with essentially the first bullet to express consensus for staff to uh organize a kickoff with visioning for the work and defining the goals, criteria, and risk tolerance to establish a list of projects for possible P3 agreements. These are all suitable for the next steps document. We could probably okay shortcut to that then I'll do that. Oh, sorry. I have one question from Miss Dixon. We have a process. So if the three six schools in the remaining queue will be part of that discussion, right? So um that is I I just know a lot of the schools are already in the construction design phase. So would that impact their u

265construction? There'll be some delays. No, the intent is for there to be no delays. We're simply looking at the remaining the very last of the renovation queue, those last six schools, because if a project's already underway, it's already underway. And in fact, we purposely didn't include the next two schools that haven't started yet because we feel like those will start sooner than when we could get the P3 launched. So we would see no impact. And would you be able to identify which of the packages um would be the best fit for those schools? Yeah, we we put in a staff response back in January and it might make sense to kind of go over some of that too. The reason it's hard to pull up numbers and everything is we explored a variety of options

266like each we explored multiple packages and then we explored within those packages multiple financing and term options. So, I do think it would make sense to kind of go through some of those and then we were kind of leaning towards um two of the three packages over one of them and we can kind of explain the why on some of that too. I think these are the schools which are in uh Miss Aderson and my district. So, I would definitely would like to look at all those different options. So, thank you. Quick question. Um, I know we have a process of next steps, but this meeting is scheduled to end at 5:30 and we're here where we actually have the benefit of having staff that we could, you know, pick their brains. What would preclude

267us from go a going ahead and giving consensus now instead of doing it on the worksheet? We already gave consensus for two other sections. That that that's a good point. I guess I'm trying to figure out, Mr. Chair, why this has to be next steps. Any objection? I mean, we did it two times already in this well presentation. I think there's a difference between providing consensus on a question that is not pertaining to the need for the board's action and things that we would typically do on next steps, which are things where the board needs additional information. Um, as far as I can tell from this, this is what staff is saying they're doing. Why the board has to provide consensus for what the staff is already doing. I I I don't think staff is

268doing this. Staff staff has previously conveyed to me that uh and Miss Marin that they are looking for direction from the board. Miss Mansky, can you speak to that? That's correct. I mean basically we feel like we put together a lot of information you know from the more summarative and explaining some precedents then we did the costbenefit analysis but we were really just building our own framework and rationale for that I think to make sure we're on the right track we would want to work with you on that kickoff envisioning just to make sure we're getting a scope that you know is the will of the board and works best for our division and and to that point this the reason why it matters right is that the board provides consensus on the board doing

269something okay so why doesn't the board just do it right the first item is that the board's going to provide guidance on policy scope risk tolerance etc one of these is about working closer with the board of supervisors one of them is about uh approving changes to policy 8240 those are all board objectives that have to be done by the board us providing consensus at this table is not going to achieve those Thanks. Uh, Miss Anderson. So, so sorry, I was still trying to figure out. So, we are not giving any guidance to to staff on these next steps the way that we did just a little while ago, giving guidance to Dr. Reed to go explore, you know, potential sites for swing spaces. I guess I'm a little bit that's different, right? That's something

270that's directing the superintendent. This is our work. So, if staff, if I heard from Miss Zmenky, they're looking for us to give them some feedback on whether or not this is the right way to go. What is it that you're looking for? Can you say it once more? I'm sorry. Sure. Again, because this is such a big project and it could really vary from one school to 100 schools, we really need some more guidance from the board to move forward. Are you looking us for to are you looking to us to say yes go ahead and do these things? I think we are something else altogether different. We are looking for some guidance from the board on what your risk appetite is for what types of projects you would want to do. Again, we had

271recommended as a starting point these seven schools and we kind of gave some reasons why. But I think before we jump into those seven schools, we want some more guidance on is this the right track or are we looking at something much bigger or is that too risky for you. I think we just need some general feedback on defi helping us define the scope. I think as a next step if you were to work on this more closely, we could provide some of those more specific questions like, hey, how do you feel about these six schools? Or hey, how do you feel about the your appetite for that length of term? You know, we could put together some of that. But I do think to just make sure we're on track, we we need a

272little bit more heavy guidance from the board just to go than to go off in a vacuum. Right. You're looking for an official board vote, which would not be a next step. No, but there is a path to it, right? So even if we voted on this right now, we'd be voting on us doing something for staff, which makes not a lot of sense. What we could do is take these next steps which request something from the board, do a forum topic at the next work session or the work session after depending on how quickly it can be pulled together to provide the guidance requested. Um, and some of this doesn't have to be done in that forum. Some of it can be done by governance in the interim. Um, and then we've taken the

273steps that they're asking from us that can't be done through consensus because we'd be cons offering consensus to ourselves. Uh all right. Uh for let's go through the people with placards and then I'll turn to Miss Marin. So Miss Anderson, the the other thing is I mean I I guess my question would be to governance. How fast is policy 8240 going to come to the board? Because a lot of these also could be follow be follow-on motions to that approval of that policy which is in line with the way we have done things in the past. My concern with creating consensus here is that we've had many conversations about the fact that we don't use this space to vote on things. So the public doesn't consider this a space to watch us for voting. This

274is purely for discussing these things. And then the next steps document is a public-f facing document. So giving general consensus to direct the superintendent towards a particular direction I believe is a little bit different than the path that we seem to be going down here. But I think that for me the the smartest way forward would be to let's get that policy approved so that we're not doing something outside the policy and we seem to have a general consensus on that so far. So I don't think that that will be a difficult process to to have and then we can handle some of these next steps as followon motions to that that approval. I think that makes perfect sense and we can put it on new business Thursday so that we don't have a delay.

275I mean, it may take more than a meeting for it to be pulled together, but we could have it ready to go. Uh, okay. Uh, Miss Seismarhiser. I was going to make the same point that Miss Anderson made, so I'm good. But I I do think this is a lot, and I know there's I really appreciate the work of colleagues been working on this for a long time, but there's many of us who are seeing a lot of this information for the first time without conversations around it. So, I'm not sure I'm really ready to give consensus. I think the process as outlined would give more time for those conversations and digestion and we can use the next steps process but that's kind of where my head is right now. Okay. Um uh u Mr.

276Moon just quickly I apologize that I didn't get to review a you know 80 200 before I came to the meeting. Uh but does our policy 80 to 40 at the present time preclude considering P3? Yes, correct. We would need to update the policy to include P3s and we have proposed that in the red lines. Okay. Because long long ago, I don't know what the 8240 back then looked like when we did South County uh South County back then. South County there was a secondary school that we did do P3 at the time and you think that was done because B connection to do it or B do it outside 80 to 40 or do you think that was included back then? You know I I really don't know the answers 20 years ago. All

277I know is that division council has given us the guidance to update the policy before moving forward. Okay. I don't have all the notes going back two decades ago, but we did it. Yes. Okay, Miss Baron. Yeah. So, thanks for reminding us of the meeting end time, Dr. Anderson. So, and the consensus and discussion like we do have the time to talk about it and like this is when we do the work. So, I'm happy to talk a little bit more about this huge new area. Um, but I think yes, we're trying to understand all of this in all of these different avenues. I think when it comes to the P3 in particular, Miss Samansky, and you're drilling down to like seven schools. So, again, this is new for us. So, is it helpful for

278us to does it matter what the seven schools are? Or maybe we just talk for a few minutes about this renovation queue because this has been something that, you know, keeps popping up with the boundaries with the CIP and maybe just reiterate where we stand on it because we now have, you know, the um the renovation queue, we have athletics facilities queue, and now we've got some new things in the hopper. So, that is like one thing I'm wondering. But to Miss Anderson's point about the action, I like that, right? Like how do we actionize these things? But I think if we really wanted to focus on a P3 approach, like could we in the course of this conversation this afternoon figure out like can we ask for something to come back to us to

279help us understand better and like even map out like I'm looking at the work sessions. Obviously, this year is done this school year, but what's in a year? What's two years? like maybe the superintendent or Miss Mansy can help us vision how far out this work goes. Uh I'll take a go back. Sure. Oh, sure. I I think um as a resource we when we had done the costbenefit analysis, the consultant had put together a timeline. Now again, I think at this point it's a little bit outdated because we you know they had assumed maybe some of this would have happened as soon as they had done the report. So, please keep that in mind with an asterisk on it. But I would just point you in that direction as a good resource so you

280can get a kind of general time frame. Um, I I'll take a go back. I'll just uh note that uh the December uh the very bulky December 2024 CIP followon motions report on page 68 had um the draft um P3 guidelines, legal guidelines prepared by division, council and um facilities. And so those have been pending before the school board that that was shared with the entire school board at the time it was released um in a Friday letter and uh right now 8240 has been in redline before governance for a few months I think uh which includes the addendum which is the P3 guidelines. So if governance adopts and recommends then we can put these into place and and um and uh operationalize it. Uh in terms of uh would it be difficult to put

281together a timeline Misssky kind of laying out you know from the timeline we sorry from the time uh the school board adopts the revised A240 including the P3 guidelines you know what next steps might look like over the next few months in terms of kickoff and kind of the sequence of actions that need to happen so you can get to an RFP stage. Sure. because we outlined what the milestones are and then the consultant did put together a theoretical timeline. So it would just be a matter of uh more updating that if you will. I'll just extend my go back a little since the other placards except Mr. FR. Do you have additional Okay. I do. Okay. Uh Dr. Anderson, thank you. Just trying to unpack this a little bit and and trying to envision

282what the next step is. You're looking for the board to speak about, you know, policy. Got it. We've got that in front of governance and it will come to the full board eventually. Scope and risk tolerance. These are conversations that are a little bit outside of us being um not fully able to make decisions regarding funding. So, with the next step in these um be conversations with the um with the county executive, Dr. agreed. Do you see a space for that to be will that come out of your collaboration with him or is it something that we need to bring to the full board of supervisors? I you know I think that it's something that I believe the board of supervisors has suggested a joint committee on facilities and I think it's perhaps something more

283so to be a conversation with that group. I certainly can talk to the county executive about it, but I think it's more so a staffto staff or board to board at a retreat type of conversation. Thank you. I'm just trying to figure out how do we move forward. We could certainly move forward on the policy, but I don't think we could answer the other questions if it's going to be um if it's going to be based on information that is determined from this jet I'm sorry, from this joint committee which is going to be meeting in the fall. Uh per the uh board, what do they call it at the board of supervisors? Bo, the board, thank you. The board matter. Um per the board matter uh after the budget process concludes this year. Okay,

284so it could be very soon. Okay, so it's going to start very soon. Can't speak to their availability, but that was the board matter. Okay, I'll take a go back. I don't know why we're still in two minutes. We have until 5:30. Uh c can you extend the gobacks to two minutes, please? Um uh seeing no other gobacks, Dr. Anderson, just wanting to go down this list a little bit. Um kick off with um visioning for the work, defining goals, criteria, and risk tolerance. The risk tolerance, I'm imagining, in Mitzky, that's related to funding. So let's put that to the side a little bit. Goals and criteria. Can you articulate a little bit in terms of what that is going to be? Is it the number of schools, the types of schools? Well, sure. I

285think it's combining all those things, right? So, when we talk about goals, like, do we want to get all the way down to 25-y year renovation cycle? That would be a ton of schools. So, therefore, it kind of exceeds our risk tolerance or might exceed what we would want to pay. So, I think it's right finding that balance of what we want to achieve from it, how much we're willing to pay, you know, what we're looking in terms of a timeline and and so forth. Okay. and to develop a solicitation. Can you speak a little bit about that? That's your Sure. And I think that's where staff would then start to carry some of that once we can kind of come to consensus on what this looks like. Maybe it's seven schools and we decide

286to do the design build finance model and we want to do a 30-year term with like a target budget. That's when we would then take some of that information, turn it into a solicitation. We put out an RFQ. we would get proposals from developers and kind of shepherd the project from there. Thank you. It doesn't seem at least in my understanding that we'll be able to move on until that conversation begins with our board of supervisors partners which is not likely until the end of this month and then who knows how long that will take to complete that work. Um so that's kind of where I'm standing. Mr. Dunn, love to hear your thoughts if you see it differently. Yeah, I I mean I I think there's definitely an important conversation to be had with

287the board of supervisors, but uh we we've already done this once with South County. Um and you know, I've spoken extensively with the P3 champion on the board of uh the school board for PG County and they said it was primarily a school board that school system conversation. there was some with their board of supervisors equivalent, but I I think we need to figure out our own risk tolerance internally and and how you know what we want the scope of projects to be because um this is a black box. It can be anything as as uh Mr. Mansky said, it could be 100 schools, it could be 10 schools. Um it could be schools that are geographically concentrated. You know, you could do one in the eastern end of the county, one in the middle,

288one in the north. Um you can do it any which way and um I think once we get the facilities condition assessment back and I think that's two years from now is that right or year and a half should be a little over one year. Okay. A little over one year. So that will provide us for the first time with data so that we might be able to identify um which schools are really in the worst condition not just by age since the last renovation but you know overall and that might be a separate group of schools that we want to prioritize because they're not on a queue at all right and uh so I I think we should have some internal just my opinion um we should have some internal dialogue or kickoff internally

289so that then we know like where we are and then we can engage in a thoughtful manner with the board of supervisors. Sure. But um thank you. And I'll just kind of finish rest of my time. It seems to be at least to me that we need a little bit more information in terms of what are these buckets that we need to give some decisions about? Like where do we find all those options? Um is it that if we do x number of schools um geographically it costs this amount? I I I I feel like I don't know which is first here, the chicken or the egg. What do we need in order I feel like we need a lot of information in order to arrive to this or even to have informed conversations with

290the board of supervisors. So, I'd like to get a sense of like what's the next potential step. I I'm still fairly in the dark here. Um, again, it is a chicken and the egg situation because I don't want to go off and do 50 schools if you're like, whoa, that's way too expensive or don't do them there. So, how much that is, right? Um, so I think one thing we could do is give the board some guiding questions more specific like, hey, what's your appetite for removing maybe from CIP funds and reallocating to P3s? You know, um, how big of a project are we willing to go down? You know, like maybe some guiding questions would be helpful. Um, again, I just want to reiterate though, I just we've done a lot of work to

291date and I don't want to do too much more until we have just some general feedback that we're on the right path because we can take it in a million different directions. No, certainly. I just feel like I I it's not that I think I need to be more informed because you did provide a lot of documents and I read it very thoroughly when you first sent it. I just need to I just needed to be organized so that I'm a little clearer on what is our ask of the board of supervisors because if we were to walk into a meeting with them tomorrow, I would not know how to engage in that conversation in a way that's going to be productive. Okay, Mr. Fresh. All right, I'm going to try and bring this home.

292First, I'm gonna misuse you some child slang. Um, my risk tolerance is mid. Um, and what I mean by that is it'll be the first time we're embarking on this in recent memory. And so knowing that that's a risk, but I don't want it to be too aggressive of a risk. Secondarily, if we adopt the approach that Miss Anderson uh noted where we put on new business the updating of the policy, some of this stuff can be brought to the discussion of that policy change at the board day as part of a presentation in anticipation of the vote. I would suggest that we list the revisions to policy 8240 on new business on Thursday, which would enable us to act on it as soon as governance is finished with it. In the interim, perhaps our

293meeting managers or the chair and vice chair or any combination thereof can work on um or or perhaps the superintendent could facilitate the board's work on the more specific guidance or the questions that Miss Samansky is talking about. And then by the time we come to a board vote at a meeting on 8240, which will likely be before the joint committees begin working, we will have something to talk about. and to ground our thinking in terms of polic or scope, risk tolerance, funding, etc. And that can help drive the conversations of our two members of the committee that work with the board of supervisors at least in this piece of that work. Mr. Fisher, are you done? Yes, Mr. Mayor. I like that a lot. And I also just, you know, want to add that

294again, if we're really going to do this, are we agreeing to dedicate our time to do this? Because this is a big big project and it's ongoing and like I'm ready. I'm pretty sure Mr. Dunn's ready and some other people, but like again, would we be willing to dedicate part of a work session a month to this? Is this the PM work session or is it a work session a quarter? But also we do have our committee um the CPDC committee. Does that take more of a role? You know, other boards use their committees more actively to do this work and so like what kind of time commitment do people have to really dig into this? Could this be the thing that this board sinks its teeth into for the next two and a half

295years of this term? Because we can't do all the things. And we've talked about, you know, especially with our um students responsibilities, trying to do that differently so it's not as much of a amount of time um that it used to be. I mean, we've got to come to an agreement about what else we want to pile on the workload or are some just going to really dig in and maybe that's the committee and some others and the task force. But I think as we go into summer planning with the superintendent and she maps out, you know, what's ahead, we really need to put down then in writing when we're going to talk about this stuff um and develop a plan. And if the facilities um the FCA, the facilities conditions assessment comes back in

296a year, well, that's a great, you know, stake in the ground. Let's backmap it. What do we need to have done by then in order to use that information effectively? Um, but I think too kind of putting it into two buckets of save money and be frugal and raise revenue, those are two very different things and we could spend all of our time just doing those things and and really make a huge impact on this school division. So, I'd love to hear people's thoughts um on those things. Uh, Mr. Fresh, I wanted to go back. Thank you. Um, couple things. One, I think that this should be CPDC work and that we should not be using PM work sessions as absolutely necessary. Um, secondarily, I'll be very interested to talk to board members and school

297divisions perhaps at the networking spring event, uh, the schoolboard networking event this, uh, this month, uh, from Prince William and others who do this to see how deeply engaged the board is in that work because I think once we get it to a point of initiation, we should be able to step back from it and trust that staff is doing it appropriately and we can judge that work through the EL process. Um, so I don't want to oversell the work required of the board. I don't want to underell it because it's a lot for us to internalize and know, okay, now I understand what the work is and staff can go do it and I can provide appropriate oversight during the EL process. Um, but I have a feeling when we talk to our colleagues

298from other school divisions, they're going to say like, I'm not I don't understand what you're asking me. You're asking me how deeply I'm involved in the in the contracting around the schools other than voting on the contracts at our meetings. Um, so, uh, my preference would be that this is the type of thing that CPDC should be doing. Its chair can update the board at at the monthly meeting. Um, and then when there's bigger ticket items that need further discussion, perhaps there's a work session similar to this, but closer, I don't want to say closer to CIP because I don't want to get in the way of the work that gets us to the CIP, uh, which is a significant time investment uh, by staff, but that that would be my presumption. Um, is that

299at some point we'd circle back on this front and just check to see that things are moving in the direction that we'd wanted. Um and then we've got various eelss that speak to this. I also just wanted to rehlight uh the recommendation from EPFAC to bring back the consultant who prepared the big lengthy report to have a presentation to the board if that can be a next step potentially. Mr. Chair, do you think that's might have to talk to the next chair because we don't have any more work session space. Got it. nor does the chair get to engage a contract. Uh any other uh thoughts, comments on this or any of the issues we've discussed today? Going going gone? With that uh I adjourn the uh work session.