3/27/25 - FCPS School Board Meeting

001This March 27th, 2025 regular meeting of the Fairfax County School Board will now come to order. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance followed by a mode of silence and a performance of the national anthem by the Katherine Johnson Middle School string quartet under the direction of Anna Sangstick. I pledge allegiance to the stands nation under God, indivisible, liberty andice for all. [Music] Hallelujah. [Applause] Hallelujah. Hallelujah. [Applause] Hallelujah. Hallelujah. [Music] [Applause] Can we hear another round of applause for those amazingly talented students? Sounded like a recording. It was so good. All right. Agent item 2.02, announcements. Miss Dixit has submitted a written request to attend this evening's meeting virtually due to a medical conflict and is attending tonight's meeting from Centerville, Virginia. All those in favor of approving Miss Dixit's request, Miss Marin, Mr. Macke,

002Dr. Anderson, Mr. Mr. McDaniel, Miss Anderson, Mr. Moon, Miss Lady, and myself. That is unanimous for board members present. Miss Dixit, will you test your microphone and camera? We can try her when she joins us, if she's not already. Miss St. John Cunning has submitted a written request to attend this evening's meeting virtually due to a medical conflict and is attending tonight's meeting from Franconia, Virginia. All those in favor of approving Miss St. John Cunning's request, Miss Marin, Mr. Mavine, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Miss Anderson, Mr. Moon, Miss Lady, and myself, that is unanimous for board members present. In accordance with changes to the Code of Virginia section 2.2-3708.3B, 2-3708.3b which uh occurrence which occurred on July 1st 2024. Members of the public body who have a disability or are caregiving for someone with a

003disability now count towards quorum as it is the individual uh as if the individual was physically present. Miss Seismarheiser has notified the chair and the clerk of the board that she is using remote participation as she is caregiving for an individual with the disability. Thus, thus Miss Seismore Heheiser will be counted as in person for this meeting tonight and for the purposes of quorum. She does not need to be voted in. She's located in Boston, Massachusetts. Miss Seismore, will you test your audio and m and video? Can you guys hear me? Okay. Can you speak again? Can you guys hear me? Okay. Yes. Thank you very much. If you would like to review a copy of the meeting agenda, please see the back of the auditorium. To obtain copies of any items or supporting materials

004being presented tonight, please reference the QR code on the agenda or visit fcps.edu/boards. Tonight's meeting is being broadcast on channel 99 and livereamed on YouTube and our website at fcps.edu/livestream. We know the community gathered here and watching online are passionate about the topics being discussed tonight and we very much appreciate the community's interest and their time that they're taking to join with us today. Please remember that you that we are conducting board business tonight and need the time and space to do so. No outbursts, including shouting or speaking out during the regular meeting, will be tolerated. Individuals who disrupt the regular meeting will receive one warning from security staff. If you are uh required a second warning, you'll be asked to leave the proceedings. You are welcome to continue watching the meeting uh via the

005live stream. Agenda item 2.03, Wanoke Elementary School 75th anniversary proclamation. I call on Dr. Anderson for a proclamation. Thank you. Good evening. Whereas Wayne Oak Elementary School was established in 1949 with only four classrooms, six additional class six additions and 75 years later, the school continues to play an instrumental role in shaping the lives of students by providing nurturing and inclusive learning environments. And whereas Wayanoke Elementary has a rich history growing alongside the community and evolving to meet the changing needs of its students while remaining steadfast in its commitment to academic excellence and the well-being of all children who pass through its doors. The school is named for the nearby neighborhood which was named after the Wuk Native American Indian tribe of Virginia. And whereas throughout its history, Wayoke Elementary has celebrated the international perspectives

006and cultural richness that made it unique, fostering cultural understanding and preparing its students to thrive in an interconnected world. while also strengthening school spirit and sense of community through annual Woodchuck week activities. And whereas the WWE student news team receives hands-on experience exploring careers in media and communications while enhancing their collaboration and technology skills used to report important updates and celebrate achievements within the school community. And whereas Wayne Elementary's dedicated faculty and staff are committed to developing the whole child, ensuring that each student reaches their full potential and equipping them with essential academic, critical thinking, and communication skills. And whereas Wayne Elementary's Women in Science and Engineering or WISE Club was recognized in 2022 by local media outlets for empowering young women to explore STEM fields and build confidence in their abilities, inspiring a new

007generation of leaders and innovators in STEM. And whereas Wayanoke Elementary has maintained strong partnerships with parents and families, emphasizing the importance of collaboration between school and home, enhancing student experiences with PTA sponsored events, inspiring curio curiosity, creativity, and a love for learning such as the science showcase and the spelling bee, and fostering strong community engagement through events such as family market night, family learning night, and heritage festival alongside strong afterchool programs providing tutoring, mentoring, acade academic enrichment, arts, and cultural clubs. And whereas Wayne Elementary is a community of learners grounded in dignity and belonging, dedicated to the growth and empowerment of its students. Now therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board honors Wayanoke Elementary School on the occasion of its 75th anniversary of providing educational excellence and enrichment opportunities to students and

008the community. Is there a second? Second. Mr. Mavine. All those in favor of the proclamation, Miss Marin, Mr. Mavine, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Miss Anderson, Mr. Moon, Miss Lady, Miss uh Dixit, Miss Seismoreheiser, Miss Ajunk Cunning, and myself. That is unanimous for board members present. Congratulations. Thank you, Principal Lasher, for being here with us as well as her son who's a way student. Wonderful. Agenda item 2.04, music, theater, and arts month appreciation. I call on Mr. Mavine for a proclamation. Whereas March has been officially designated as arts in our schools month, encouraging communities across the nation to focus on dance, music, theater, and visual arts education. This month serves as a reminder that all students deserve access to and equity in the delivery of dance, music, theater, and visual arts education. And whereas Fairfax County

009Public Schools has a thriving fine and performing arts education program with an average of 650 music educators, over 50,000 students in instrumental and coral programs, over 400 art educators, and about 25,000 students in elective secondary art. FCPS hosts one of the largest theater education programs in the United States. FCPS dance has programs at the elementary and high school levels. dance, music, theater, and visual arts students in FCPS demonstrate the importance of quality fine and performing arts education programs to the lives of young people. And whereas FCPS art programs are known throughout the state and country as a model of excellence, emphasizing conceptual learning, personal relevance, and innovation. In March and throughout the spring, FCPS school pyramids celebrate the arts with pyramid art shows exhibiting the works of elementary, middle, and high schools in each community.

010Each year, middle and high school artists are recognized with regional and national awards through the Scholastic Art Awards, as well as other art recognition programs. And whereas the Fairfax County music program consistently receives recognition as a recipient of the best communities for music education award from the National Association of Music Merchants. The sixth grade allcount coral festival this weekend is recognized as one of the largest elementary choir events in the nation. FCPS secondary ensembles garner accolades at prestigious events including the Virginia State Music Conference, Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic, National Band Association, and America Coral Directors Association. Our schools have been honored with several national distinctions such as the Sler Flag of Honor, the Sler Cup of Distinction, VMEA Blue Ribbon Award, and VMEA Honor Band. And whereas FCPS theater and dance offer a vast

011array of curricular and extracurricular arts experiences, including dance events and showcases, plays, musicals, drama clubs, improv competitions, student directed one-act festivals, the VHSL state one-act competition, the Brandon Victor Dixon Awards, and the Cappies. The Cappies, an international high school program that celebrates theater performance, journalism, and student ownership, originated in Fairfax County Public Schools. FCPS theater students and teachers are recognized at this annual gala hosted at the acclaimed John F. Kennedy Center in Washington DC. Now, therefore, be it resolved, Fairfax County Public Schools recognizes March as dance in our schools, music in our schools, theater in our schools month, and youth art month to celebrate and acknowledge every day that fine and performing arts education experiences and opportunities are an essential part of every student's well-rounded education. Thank you, Mr. Makavine. Is there a second? I

012second. Miss Anderson. All those in favor of the proclamation, Miss Marin, Mr. Makave, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Miss Anderson, Mr. Moon, Miss Lady, Miss Seismarheiser, Miss Dixit, Miss St. John Cunning, and myself. That is unanimous. The proclamation passes. [Applause] Congratulations. Agenda item 2.05, ReadAcross America and Library Rec Re recognition month proclamation. I call on Mr. McDaniel for a proclamation. Whereas ReadAcross America is an annual reading motivation and awareness program that calls for every child in every community to celebrate reading. And families, teachers, students, and members of our community all come together to celebrate the joys of reading and to encourage it to become a habit. And public schools are places where every child is welcome and where students are encouraged to delve into different books from a variety of authors that represent an increasingly diverse

013student population. And whereas April 2025 has been designated the 40th annual National School Library Month, we recognize here that school librarians and library staff are entrusted to each the skills of locating, evaluating, and using information through traditional resources and new technologies to nurture literacy skills and to guide and encourage academic and recreational reading to every student. And whereas school libraries serve as positive environments for all students to access and engage with a well-managed library that provides for free expression and access to ideas. And school libraries provide materials which reflect the ideas and beliefs of different religious, social, political, historical and ethnic groups and their contributions to the America to the American and world heritage and culture. And whereas lifelong learning begins and is systemically systematically developed through the school library curriculum of elementary and secondary

014schools. And the school library contributes to the individual growth and development of all students while fostering both excellence and equity in education. And whereas Fairfax County Public Schools has provided significant leadership in the area of community involvement in the education of our youth grounded in the principle that educational investment is the key to the community's well-being and long-term quality of life. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board proclaims April of 2025 as school library appreciation month in recognition, gratitude, and commendation of school librarians and library information services employees, the stellar contributions they provide to school communities and urges students to visit their school and local libraries. And therefore, be it further resolved that the Fairfax County School Board is firmly committed to promoting reading and literacy as the catalyst for our

015students future academic success, their preparation for jobs of the future, and their ability to compete in a global economy. Thank you, Mr. McDaniel. Is there a second? I second. Miss Dixit, all those in favor of the proclamation, Miss Marin, Mr. Makave, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Miss Anderson, Mr. Moon, Miss Lady, Miss St. Cunning, Miss Dixit, Miss Seismarheiser, and myself. That is unanimous for board members present. The proclamation passes. [Applause] Congratulations. Item 2.06, Transgender Day of Visibility Proclamation. Um, I call on Mr. FRS for a motion or for a proclamation. Thank you. Whereas transgender transgender day of visibility is observed annually on March 31st to celebrate the lives and contributions of transgender people while raising awareness of the discrimination challenges and violence the transgender community continues to face. And whereas Transgender Day of Visibility began in

0162009 in response to the lack of recognition for living transgender people, shifting focus from solely memorializing those lost to violence to also lifting up and uplifting the achievements and resilience of the community. And whereas all transgender people have inherent worth and are deserving of respect and dignity from well-known historical and public figures to those for whom it is not safe to live their authentic lives. Wherever uh they are on their journey, they are seen. they are valued and valid. Whereas transgender people have made significant contributions throughout history and across various fields including early LGBTQIA rights movements activists like Marcia P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, artists such as Leverne Cox, Elliot Page and Hunter Schaefer, leaders like Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender member of Congress, and Virginia State Senator Danica Rome, the first openly transgender

017state legislator. Scientists like distinguished neurobiologist Dr. Ben Barz and Dr. Lynn Conway, whose innovations revolutionized computer science, and countless others whose courage, resilience, and achievements have advanced equality and inspired others. And whereas, despite progress toward increased representation and awareness, transgender people continue to experience disproportionate levels of violence and discrimination. And whereas already in 2025 nearly 700 anti-trans bills are under consideration in state legislatores seeking to block access for transgender people to basic health care, housing, employment, education services, legal recognition and more. And whereas major medical associations including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Psychiatric Association have affirmed the validity of transgender identities and support age appropriate gender affirming care as evidence-based medically necessary treatment that significantly improves health outcomes for transgender people. And whereas transgender

018youth face significantly higher rates of mental health challenges largely due to discrimination, rejection, and the lack of affirmation, underscoring the critical importance of supportive environments in schools and communities. And whereas schools play a vital role in creating affirming and uh and affirming and inclusive environments where transgender students can thrive academically, socially, and emotionally with research demonstrating that transgender youth who feel supported in their identities show significantly improved educational outcomes, decreased absenteeism, reduced psychological distress, and enhanced overall well-being. And whereas the Fairfax County School Board stands by and celebrates its transgender students, families, and staff, recognizing the urgency of its charge to foster a responsive, caring, and inclusive culture where all students, including those who are transgender, are affirmed and can live without fear of discrimination, harassment, or violence. Now therefore, be it resolved that the

019Fairfax County School Board proclaims March 31st, 2025 as Transgender Day of Visibility in Fairfax County Public Schools and encourages all to promote a caring culture of equity, inclusivity, and respect for transgender people, not only on this special day, but throughout the entire year as well. Thank you, Mr. Fr. Is there a second? Second. I'll call for the vote. All those in favor? So we have Miss Marin, Mr. Mlavine, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Mr. Fresh, Mr. Moon, Miss Lady, Miss St. John Cunning, Miss Dixit, Miss Seismore Heiser, and myself. And that is unanimous. [Applause] All right, everyone. [Applause] Thank you. We have a meeting to get to. I would like to welcome all those who are here in support of transgender day of visibility proclamation to join the board for a photo at the front of

020the deis. If you'd like to join the picture, you can go up on the stage. It's okay. I would like to welcome all those here in support of the ReadAcross America and Library Recognition Month Proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of the dis. I would like to welcome all those here in support of the readacross America and library recognition month proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of the dis. I would like to welcome all those here in support of the music, theater, and arts month proclamation to please join the board at the front of the dis for a photo. I would like to welcome all those here in support of the way elementary school 75th anniversary proclamation to please join the board for

021a photo at the front of the dis. Board members could return to their seats. Agenda item 3.01, community participation. The next order of business is community participation. We welcome all community members who are here and those who have signed up to speak this evening. Additional information about signing up to provide comments at schoolboard regular business meetings and public hearings can be found on the schoolboard website at fcps.edu/schoolboard. During the sign up process, community members acknowledge they are informed of the school board's expectations for proper decorum when providing comments. These expectations are also available online and with the printed m uh agenda and meeting materials in the back of the room. We ask audience members to be respectful of one another. Shouting and outbursts will not be tolerated. Please hold your applause until the conclusion of

022a speaker's remarks. Audience members may not join speakers at the podium and should refra should remain in their seat, including when taking photos or recording video. We are grateful you have come to join us and speak with us today and thank you for your cooperation. The school board members will be listening but not responding. Madame clerk, please call the first speaker. Cass Cayer. Good evening. I am a transgender student in FCPS. Due the due to the protections in this school system for kids like me, I am able to survive. Due to the recognition and celebration of kids like me, I am able to live, enjoy life, breathe. Protection for trans students is necessary, but so is the time taken to look at these students and say that they belong. Transgender identities and traits aren't taught

023in school, but trans kids exist anyway. They find themselves despite not seeing kids or adults like them. Imagine a world where kids don't have to feel shame and confusion for who they are. They could experiment freely and have fun and be a kid knowing that they're loved. They could they could be proud of who they are alongside their friends, unafraid of feeling alienated or unwelcome. Recognition of the transgender community is necessary to help kids feel accepted and love themselves. And I'm here thanking you for your support and your proclamation and asking you to continue to accept, celebrate, and honor us so that we can continue to live. Thank you. Mera Nadakar. Can you hold on for one moment and pull the microphone down so we can hear you? You can start again and if we

024could restore the time. Thank you. Hello, my name is Mir Naut and I'm in sixth grade at Mosaic Elementary School. A couple weeks ago, my friend Sophie, who is also here to speak to you, and I spoke at a Fairfax County Board of Supervisors meeting, and we want to share the same message with you. We are here to address a problem that has come to our attention. This problem is that Fairfax County is thinking about cutting the funding for after school programs at FCPS middle schools. We hope you can help us influence the county to change their decision. Since we are in sixth grade now, we will be going to seventh grade next year, which means this decision will directly impact us. We strongly believe that Fairfax County should not cut the funding for after

025school programs at middle schools. Here are two big reasons. First, there are so many children who enjoy after school programs. Some children can't afford to do these activities on a regular basis. This way, they can do it without a full commitment or paying too much. Our after school program at Mosaic is great, but the classes cost a lot of money, so kids can't take them. The great thing about middle school after school programs is that the classes are free, so everyone can take them. Second, the program also gives children extra homework help and tutoring. Sometimes students stay after school for homework and get extra help from teachers. Many students don't have parents at home who can help them with their homework or can't afford to pay for private tutors, which means if the program gets

026cut, these students won't have help with their work. This will cause their grades and test scores to go down. These are just two of the many reasons that FCPS should not cancel middle school after school activities. Later, my friend Sophie will list two more reasons we came up with together. Thank you for your [Applause] time. Marley Dorenzo Hello, my name is Marley D. Renzo and I'm a senior at MLAN High School and I'm also the president of the MLAN GSA. I urge you to resist federal efforts to force queer students out of the public sphere and compromise their safety and to stand up against the threats made by the Trump Elon administration. Lawmakers have spent the last few years being obsessed with trans kids' bodies rather than the real issues facing our schools such as

027gun violence, the mental health crisis, and socioeconomic disparities. And I've spent the entirety of my high school career worried that my rights were going to be taken away. I've had friends who have had to move out of their home states due to hostile legislation. And just recently, a friend, a fellow Virginia resident, lost their gender affirming care due to their provider preemptively deciding to decline care to trans minors because of Trump's executive orders despite not being legally required to. This school system is one of the only places where I feel I am effectively supported as a queer person. And I know it is also a safe haven for many of my friends who do not have supportive families or environments at home. I ask you to keep it that way and to stand up against

028injustice coming from above while advocating for the action on the issues all of you know are actually affecting our school systems day in and day out. Thank [Applause] you, Kathleen Malard. Good evening. Um, this evening I'm going to return to the topic of human trafficking in Fairfax County Public Schools. Um, human trafficking, sex trafficking. Today, a major victory occurred, not in Fairfax, but in Prince William County. Uh, major leader of MS13, a gang, a Salvadorian gang. I'm familiar with them. I have met many of those gang members in my capacity as a teacher in Washington DC. Um, was arrested and will be hopefully tried accordingly. Um I look at your resolution on human trafficking which you put out in 2022. Um victims have been identified from every Fairfax County public high school and multiple middle

029schools and elementary schools across the country. You acknowledge that Northern Virginia is particularly a lucrative market because there's money here. So sex traffickers know that they they will have clients. Um you may remember the case of Courtney Young. She was a 15-year-old girl um about 12 years ago. She was seduced by an MS15 gang member right here in Fairfax. She was abducted, she was convinced, a groomed and convinced, etc. She would uh be made to have sex with 10 men after school. Maybe some women too, who knows? But at any rate, um, her her she had she she attempted to notify administrators 22 times to no avail. So I ask us to to let's be mindful. We have a lot of I know needs in this school system. Let's remember the the victims of human

030trafficking as well. Thank you very [Applause] much, Sophie Hespr. Hello, my name is Sophie Hesbridge. I'm a sixth grader at Mosaic Elementary School. You already heard from my friend Meera about the importance of middle school after school programs and academic success. I will now be doing the second part of our speech. In addition to supporting academic achievement, after school programs support working families and help students develop important lifelong skills. We should keep after school programs for middle school students to support Fairfax County families. Middle schools are dismissed earlier than elementary and high schools. Many middle school parents work late shifts and are not home when their children get home. With without after school programs, many middle school children will be left unsupervised. With after school programs, kids can do something productive and not have to

031go wait at home alone for hours. In other words, these after school programs provide a safe place for students and a more convenient time for working parents to pick them up. Additionally, these activities build skills that are useful later in life and help students make new friends. In fact, there's something for everyone's interests. Some of the most popular activities include soccer, engineering, pickle ball, volleyball, and Dungeons Dragons. What happens if they go away? My friend Mirror and I are both taking a debate club this year where we learn public speaking skills. And we would love to take musical theater next year while continue debate club if SCPS doesn't cut the program. Thank you for your time. [Applause] Enrique Gonzalez. Mr. Gonzalez, are you online? Willow Walk. school board members. Dr. Reid, my name is Willow

032Walke, she, her, hers, president of the Transgender Education Association and board member of FCPS Pride. I live in the Drainsville district and I'm a parent of four Hearnen High School grads. Um, I wrote a speech, but those kids They said everything that's here. Um, and they've said it from their their, you know, today I'm grateful for your proclamation because I've been coming to these meetings for eight years because eight years ago I transitioned and saw that trans kids needed help in the schools and now these kids are coming here and speaking for themselves. And the things that I would like to really point out is the current climate for trans people is fraught with false narratives that are making it harder for trans kids and for trans people in general. Having FCPS stand up and

033do this proclamation helps a little for those kids faced with bullying and fear and unsupportive parents. Gives them a little bit of hope that they have a place to go. trans people grew up feeling different than everyone else and not knowing why. Our parents usually didn't understand. Mine certainly didn't. And often we had to educate our parents, teachers, and friends. Discovering that you are a broke, not a broken boy who wants to be a girl, but in fact a transgirl is such a gift. Um, more importantly than your proclamation is the actions that you've taken to to combat these policies that are coming from on high. Knowing that FCPS's policy meets the state law by exceeding its standard, that's a good thing. Seeing that you have haven't changed policies in response to the executive orders

034that seem to come out of nowhere. Wonderful. Emily Vanderhoff. Emily Vanderhoff, Christina McCormack, [Applause] Chairperson FR, members of the board, and Dr. Reid. My name is Chris McCormack. I'm a co-chair of FCPS Pride, a board member of the Transgender Education Association, and most importantly, a parent of two FCPS students. I've spoken to you all before. I usually talk about my younger son, my teenage son's struggles, um, and the things that he faces as a trans teenager. But tonight, I want to share with you, I'm going to flip the switch and share with you a success story of my older son in FCPS. So, our son Drew came out to us. He shared his gender identity with us about eight years ago. And this was before regulation 2603 had been approved and adopted. As parents, we

035knew nothing except that we planned to love him unconditionally and support his journey. When he was ready to socially transition at school, we were terrified. But his friends, his theater community, and his school supported him the best way that they knew how. They respected his chosen name, his pronouns, and everything else about him. And over time, we watched him slowly bloom as he became his true and authentic self. All of the things that we loved about him were still there, but magnified as he became himself. As a parent of trans kids, I don't want my teachers to support him because it's required by law. I want them to do it because I care about him and he's a valued member of his school community and his school did that. Um going to brag just a

036little bit but only to prove a point. He graduated with a GPA well over 4.0 in advanced classes, was a Cappy's nominee, uh was accepted into the college of his choice, and this summer he is spending this his time on an archaeological field site living his dreams on a scholarship. Um so that's what a supportive school system can do for all kids. Um, please never doubt that what you're doing is not just important but life-saving. Um, and in especially currently in the face of a lot of hateful opposition and harmful narratives, as has been said, I know there's more work to be done. Looking forward to doing it with you. Jenna White. Good evening. This is my fourth time here talking about middle school start times since December. So, I'm trying to think of what

037else I can say that I haven't already said. I did want to talk about middle school start times because while I strongly support them, just want to remind everybody if we didn't start school so early, we wouldn't end at 2:15 and have this need for such extensive middle school after school programming. If we had better school start times, we'd have a later end time and we could still do some fantastic afterchool programming, but not at the same cost, especially when it's under this tremendous budget threat. Um, and then tonight, uh, we have a motion on the table and a follow-up motion. And I urge you to obviously vote yes for both of them. And when you do, please think about the other speakers that have been here over the past several months. We al we've

038also had over,00 people sign the petition for healthy middle school start times. We've had several students up here. A high school student advocating for her younger sisters. Middle school students begging you to fix this as they're coming up upon this. A pediatrician who told you that every night on her shift she's dealing with young people who have tried to take their life and the first thing they address is stabilizing their sleep. I can't stop thinking about her words and I hope you remember them tonight. We've had the founder of sleep up here who's been doing this work for decades. We've had the co-founder of Sleep Up Here, your former schoolboard member and colleague Sandy Evans. We've had the PTA president from Glasgow and Sleepy Hollow Middle School up here, as well as several other parents

039asking for healthy middle school start times. And when Dr. Anderson brings her motion, I encourage you to support Mason District. If those in the audience aren't aware, Mason District, every school except one is a title one school. Unless you've been in that district, you just can't imagine what that kind of intensity is like. So, while I'm up here, in fact, anytime Dr. Anderson brings something to you, I ask you to support it because she needs it. She does a tremendous job for Mason District, Lily Sada, Thank you. Good evening. I'm speaking tonight to address the critical issue of middle school start times, an issue that directly impacts health, well-being, and academic preference of performance of our children. While the benefits of later start times are well documented, tonight I want to focus on the importance

040of listening to our community and acting on its behalf. The recent discussions on this topic sparked only because the persistent community advocacy make one thing clear. The voices of the people you serve matter. It was deeply disheartening to see this matter postponed yet again, but it is a testament to the power of collective effort that it was addressed at all. This board is elected by the people and it is your duty to represent all of us, especially those who may not always have the resources, knowledge or opportunity to speak. Dr. Anderson, my representative, I appreciate your commitment to our region. However, I urge all board members to recognize the unique challenges faced by our area at large. representatives in particular carry a vital responsibility to bridge gaps across regions and to uphold equitable representation of

041all communities. Too often our region is overlooked and forgotten. Not because our issues don't matter, but because our advocates may be fewer in number. Many of our families face language barriers, demanding work schedules, and personal obligations that prevent them from actively participating in meetings. Yet, they care deeply about these issues and deserve to be heard and considered. Our regent is distinct in several ways that makes this issue even more pressing. We are the only area in the county where sixth grade is included in middle school, which contributes to significant overcrowding in our schools. These conditions place an undue burden on our students and families, making our situation profoundly different from other regions in the county. Even with these unique challenges, our region often feels forgotten when priorities are decided, not because the issues are less

042important. Thank you. That was your time. Ireina Avalova. Good evening. I, Ireina Ailova, represent the community of parents of students at Rachel Carson Middle School. Today, I am the voice of every single family we know with a middle school student. The united voice of our family families requests that not a single additional school year goes by without a change of their unreasonable unhealthy schedule which negatively impacts not only our kids' health and their immune systems but as a result also their academic performance. are seemingly superuous considerations like preventing uh message fatigue and others uh really more important than our kids' health. What other considerations could possibly be taking as much time as they have already with no decision or change being made? My son is a seventh grade AAP student at Rachel Carson. He has

043always been an early bird and is very disciplined going to bed early. Nonetheless, every morning when I have woke woken him up in the last year, way before 6:00 a.m. to be at the bus stop at 6:40, I see him not having gotten enough sleep on any given school morning. I can state as a matter of fact that this year, as a result of chronic lack of sleep, my son's immune system has weakened and he had to miss by now seven days of school because of viruses. More than in the last three years combined of him attending a public elementary school. As a result, his grades deteriorated. We, the parents of the middle school children, strongly believe that the FCPS school board has conducted enough surveys, has hired enough consultants, has studied enough medical research

044and recommendations, and has spent enough resources. Now is the time to take action and to do the job of making and implementing the muchneeded decision which will create a thriving healthier learning environment for our children. Not in a year and a half from now but in the next school year of James Doerty Now, I'm going to try and keep this brief because I know some of y'all are probably pretty tired, but um my name is James Dhy. I'm a graduate of False Church High School. Um during my time at False Church High School, I transitioned from female to male and I was treated with nothing but dignity, respect, courtesy, which is all any of us really want. Um I applaud and thank you all for upholding these policies for us. Um, and I hope you

045continue to do so in the future so that no one has to suffer anymore, I suppose. Um, now, last thing I'd like to say is that, um, we live in your community. We work in your community. We, you know, some of us even go to school in your community. We're your friends. We're your co-workers. We're your neighbors. You know, if you need to know anything about us, don't assume. You know, if you want to know about how we live our lives, ask us. Thank you all. [Applause] Courtney Dinkens, Maurice Curello, Christina Cayer, Hello and thank you school board members, chairperson and Dr. Reid for having us and our all of our proclamations today. Um I am a mother of a child now in FCPS. Um but I'm a baby advocate. Um, my 17-year-old is actually

046um quite the advocate. You met him here tonight. Uh, being a teacher, elementary school teacher, I've always taught my kids that school is a safe place. Um, teachers are trusted adviserss um and partners in their education. Um, we moved here. We were a military family that moved here uh from overseas when my youngest uh was in elementary school and he unfortunately got to spend COVID years online. Um and during that time he went through his uh change. Um we know that that um validation makes a world of difference to help students feel safe to engage fully in their education to take risks um and to reach the heights of their success. My kid is a brilliant kid. Um and when his teachers started using his name, everything changed for him. That time during COVID was

047a really difficult time and it was the first time that I found that I lost my way and able to support my kid and his education. Um, now here's my mom humble brag. This kid is um supported by his teachers county. Um, I'm so thankful because we send our kids to school uh and and in the hopes that they get the support that they need. Um, and I'm so glad that FCPS is upholding uh transgender rights, the things that they have in school right now. Um, this kid is going to change the world. Our transgender kids are going to change the freaking world. It's going to be amazing. And so I'm Enrique Gonzalez. Hello. Um, my name is Enrique Gonzalez. I'm a parent. Am I on? Yes, I am. Okay. Thank you for allowing me

048to speak today. Um, I would like to ask uh the board to consider allowing parents the ability to have a say in discipline under the SRR rules. Uh, to argue this, I going to detail a specific incident that happened to my son, but refrain from identifying any specific FCPS personnel as required by the rules. Uh, late last month, my wife and I reached out for the very, very first time to our child's principal to discuss ongoing efforts. We and his teacher were making to address an issue she had raised. On the very same day, a few hours later, our 8-year-old son was playing during indoor recess with soapy water, and he joked with a fellow student about the soapy solution. Uh, shortly thereafter, the teacher cornered and interrogated him about the incident. Our son was

049was terrified. Uh that afternoon, the vice principal called us saying our son would be suspended for threatening to quote unquote kill a child. Our s son came home crying and despondent. Uh the next day we sent a message to the principal asking that no punishment be taken until we could also review the evidence. However, um we never received a response to that message, nor was the message even acknowledged, although the message has been logged into his official record. Um, our son was not suspended as we were told, but was put in AIA for three hours. During his punishment, our child asked the vice principal overseeing him to allow him to call his parents. He was denied. Uh, the soapy water incident has been on his record as quote unquote used improvised weapon to threaten student

050RB1 bullying. No physical injury. Uh, I found out today the principal called us that that has been downgraded, but it's been on the records as that up until today. In the official, please play the video submitted by James Gross. Hello, schoolboard members. My name is James Gross and I am one of the many transgender students in FCPS. I would like to speak out to those who are afraid to speak for giving us representation in this community and allowing this to be a place where we feel safe to learn and grow. By recognizing trans day of visibility, you may not have realized it with the impressive nine out of zero vote that you are making multiple people feel safe in their school building and giving people opportunities to learn and better understand of transgender community. And

051most of bullying is from confusion and not understanding. We are providing a safe outlet for CLA students to get educated and understand the 2.6% of our classmates, including me. All of this information used came from Fairfax County's youth survey of 2023 and my pride club teacher, the intellectual Miss Tolman. And speaking of Pride Club, this is one of the many amazing after school activities offered to middle schoolers to help inclusivity and feeling safe. These clubs provide opportunities for us to develop our portrait of a graduate as students. Chair Fresh, that was our last public speaker. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Agenda item 4.01, student representative matters. I call on Miss Sant. Thank you, Mr. Chair. First, I'd like to thank all of our community speakers who came and spoke to us tonight, as well as the

052students. Your voice matters and we love to hear it here. It has been a busy few weeks for students all across FCPS as the third quarter ends tomorrow and we look towards April and May, which brings spring break and AP exams and the end of the year, which is coming faster than we realize. I wanted to share a couple things that I got to do in the past couple weeks, and I'll be brief about it. Last week, I had the opportunity to attend the Association for Career and Technical Education National Policy Seminar on Capitol Hill to represent National TSA along with representatives from the other CTSOs we have here in Fairfax County, including DECA, HOSA, and FBA. As I've mentioned in the past, CTE provides students with academic knowledge and technical skills to succeed in

053high demand careers. And our CTSOs empower students to develop leadership, communication, and career readiness through real world experiences. I am so proud of the CTE opportunities we have here in FCPS and how amazing our CTSOs do here and I hope that we can better share these opportunities with others in the coming years as we saw with our CTE video just a month ago. Last Friday, I also got to sit down with students from Robinson Secondary School with both the middle and high school and NBC to discuss the successes and challenges of the new FCPS cell phone policy. It's always interesting to me when I visit a new school, I learn about how they enact their policy. And I just wanted to say that their principal, Miss Phillips, is absolutely amazing. The students had amazing things

054to say about her and how it's enacted in the schools. I also one one thing that students mentioned is that the cell phones increase focus and attention in the classroom and build the social life, especially right before class starts or right after when no one is looking on their phone. But they did talk about the balance between the middle and the high school program where the middle schoolers have the yonder pouches and the high schoolers can put them in different pouches in the classroom. So especially at a secondary school having that differences between both can be challenging. Yesterday I also attended the GCP showcase as part of the Fairfax Global Leaders Program where students of the global classroom project collaborated with classrooms across the world. I was blown away with the connections and the growth

055that students had made from partnering with a school in Romania that I heard about as well as a school abroad in Norway where they tackle issues on a local, national, and global level. It was so exciting to see the importance of language and world education when it comes to student learning which supports goal 4. I got excited Dr. Reid and I looked at the goal for report for tonight where one of the things that it shows is the gaps in increasing course intensity in world language courses. And I think that the global classroom project and expanding that to other schools is a great way to learn about new perspectives and close that gap. So I'd just like to thank Mr. Meline and the GCP team for organizing such an amazing showcase and the projects that

056the students are doing tonight. I'm also looking forward to the action item on middle school start times, particularly the Mason District proposed pilot program in middle schools that start in sixth grade. We all know that the transition from elementary to middle school is challenging. And from the past several months, we've heard from community members that talk about that talk about the research that shows that the amount of sleep that students need to be focused in schools is much greater than what we currently have. I'm grateful about the possibility of piloting this at a few middle schools in the next school year to eventually make it possible at all middle schools with the budget allowing, just as we successfully adjusted the high school start times almost a decade ago. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Sant. Agenda

057item 5.01, certification of closed meeting compliance. In order to comply with section 2.2-3712D 2-3712D of the Code of Virginia. It is necessary for the board to certify that since the Fairfax County School Board convened a closed meeting on March 27th, 2025, to the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements, and only such business matters uh public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered by the board during the closed meeting. Do I have a motion? So moved. Mr. Mcabe. Do I have a second? Miss Marin. All those in favor? Miss Marin, Mr. Mcabe, Dr. Anderson, Mr. McDaniel, Miss Anderson, Mr. Moon, Miss Lady. I can't see board members on the screen. If they could vocalize their votes. There

058we go. Miss St. John Cunning, Miss Dixit, and myself. Miss Seismarheiser. All right, that is unanimous with Miss Seismore away from the table. Agenda item 5.01, confirmation of action item taken and closed. There were no action uh no actions taken and closed tonight. Agenda item 5.03, strategic uh goal for report. Uh presentation of vote. I call on Dr. Reid for a presentation on strategic goal four. All right, Chairman Fr, this is uh my pleasure this evening to present our goal four report. And just a reminder to our board and those watching that we have spent an extended period of time in a work session previously reviewing the goal four report. And also for those watching from home, the complete unabbridged version is attached to board docs this evening. So um who is uh okay thanks

059Janet if we can move to the first slide please. Just want to remind uh the board and our community that goal four is equitable access and opportunity. And so this evening we're going to be taking a look at um our equity commitments as well as our five measures in goal four. Tonight I will highlight uh data for measures B, D, and E. So let's get started. Um, and we spent quite a little bit of time uh at the work session talking about academically intense uh course taking patterns. We're on the next slide, please. So we began a pilot this year actually with ABL which is an education company that focuses on students being ready for postsecary success and opportunities and over the course of two years all of our high schools will be involved in

060this work. Uh the high schools we had 20 high schools choose to begin this work in year one and our remaining five high schools will be picking this work up uh next year. So, we were very excited uh to begin really taking a look at what our middle and high school students in terms of what they typically do and making choices about their courses. And also, we looked at data that um kind of gave us feedback about students within specific content areas. And this is data we have not previously looked at. And it really matters because what we know today is that graduating with a diploma is not enough. We need to make sure that our students who leave with a Fairfax County Public Schools diploma have the skills to persist in whatever path they

061take when they leave us here in Fairfax County. And so here's why this matters. We know that uh academically intense course taking is linked to on-time graduation uh college enrollment and college completion. uh that data nationally is significant in terms of students who do not complete and we know that we can look at data that's predictive of students completing. We also know that since the great recession um four out of five jobs were lost that require only a high school diploma or less. That's 80% of the jobs uh have been lost for that group and they've not returned. 66% or two out of three of the jobs available today require some type of post-secary education. That's why these course taking patterns are so important. So as we look at the next um slide, this is

062an analysis of last year's senior cohort data. So that would be the graduating class of 24 and we created some targets as a result of that for this year's class of 2025. And we do see uh differences between student groups and have set annual targets to ensure all our students are prepared for this full range um of post-secary opportunities. And recall that this is a strategic plan that goes through 2030. So you can see um on the far right of the chart is 2030 and in some cases uh we have a little more acceleration required than in others. We also want to share that we do have a bit of a gap in academically intense course taking patterns for seniors that were in that uh graduating group last year and we've set a target to

063ensure that our students who are not meeting these minimum readiness criteria are on track to do so. So as we look at the next um chart I want to share the preparedness benchmarks and we know that these are the three areas. In other words, the quality or intensity of the courses a student took, their cumulative GPA and test scores. And these three indicators are what are predictive of post-secary readiness and success. However, research bears out that the academic intensity of the courses students take has the most impact uh far greater actually than the cumulative GPA andor um test scores. So this academic intensity measure that we're looking at, it's a composite measure. And the reason this is important is because the chart on the next page is going to be based on this data, but

064it's a composite of uh the courses really to the right. So the scoring system can be seen on this slide and it does include high school credit courses taken in these areas. So, let's take a look um at the academic intensity for our cohort 2024. And this, I think, is a fabulous slide. It's one of my favorites. I um would have this on my wall in my office. And we're going to see the blue gradually migrate left over the course of this work and the yellow become less and less and less. But what's fabulous news here in Fairfax County is that the vast majority of our students or 75% are ready or highly ready for post-secary. This is huge uh compared to work across the country where this is happening. However, as you know, amazing

065as the work here in Fairfax County is, we have um opportunities to continue to even improve further by looking at um those students who are at 9, 8, 7, six and below u 10 points based on the scale that ABL chooses. In other words, these are opportunities. So we see um the greatest opportunities and again this is across um all of our high schools for the last year's graduating class. The greatest opportunities in our data to increase readiness would be by focusing on mathematics and world languages. And this is why when we had our conversation even on goal three, I talked about recommending that we need to increase our math graduation requirements by simply adding that fourth year of a math graduation requirement. that would by default create a higher percentage of intensity for course

066taking patterns for a number of our students because currently we do have students in Fairfax County that complete their math cycle as sophomores and they're not taking math in their junior and senior year. So it's critical that we contemplate raising those graduation requirements. the same in world language as Miss Swant mentioned in her comments. Another opportunity area andor ways to be assessed for biiteracy um I guess biiteracy recognition at graduation. So as we look at the next um chart we see opportunities to increase readiness by focusing on the number of years students take math, science and world language. You can see four years plus is to the far right. three, two, and one. And so again, English 97% again, those are driven by our graduation requirements and social studies, world language, and you can see

067how things play down with that. So again, I'm going to reiterate um our expectation that we're going to be looking at a fourth year of math graduation requirement. So, as we think about the strategic improvement efforts uh focused on these, we're already doing several things uh which I would like to highlight this evening. I am so proud of how hard our principles, our counselors, our DSS's, our region offices, uh Dr. Pon's office, Dr. Prescidio's office, um how hard folks are working right now, Miss Neil and the team, uh Mr. Seth and providing data. This is an absolute cross-dep departmental crosschool uh work group. Um and they are currently the um instructional services team is revising K7 math curriculum and standards. We have teams revising and refining academic advising processes. We're going to continue expanding the

068ABL pilot uh to all high schools obviously next year and we'll begin to uh start with middle schools next year because we know that students don't begin a course trajectory at 9th grade rather that happens much earlier. So we're excited about moving that work into the middle schools. And finally we want to ensure all students are prepared. Uh and one way we do this is through basil adoptions. We've done literacy this year. Uh we'll be doing secondary math next year and elementary math basil the following year. So we're really excited about um that work. I'd like to continue um with sharing the expansion of dual enrollment and AP options in high schools. Um another close look at what we offer on FCPS online and our non-traditional schools and programs. We also we currently have an

069advisory committee around supporting for our twice exceptional students and making sure we have access for students um that are twice exceptional in these advanced course taking patterns as well as our multilingual learners uh and students with an IEP and 504 plans. Finally, goal four, there's also there's significant data points around access to activities and we know these access to activities are linked to a number of positive school and social outcomes which are listed here for you. I want to uh share that based on the Virginia climate survey results, 72% of our high school students, which are the green bars, did not experience any difficulty participating in activities. So, we felt good about that that there weren't uh in general barriers. However, we do have some uh I would say act activity gaps. They're not achievement

070gaps, but activity gaps for some students who are less likely to be able to participate um in activities. And we know it's important to have these activities because of the um physical, social, intellectual, and academic benefits for students who are able to. And again, that's why I think um we had several students this evening speak about middle school after school activities and how important those are. And I know um this board and our board of supervisors all recognize the importance of those uh for our healthy and active students. Uh these are the reasons that students reported uh for not being able to access activities. And so I think you can see the high school reasons on the left and middle school on the right. And I think that um these are we're continually uh trying

071to work to overcome these barriers for our students because we know how important it is uh for our students to be able to participate. Want to share that um students with 30 or more days of participation in our middle school afterchool activities program uh have some real benefits. Uh we know that 78% of all of our middle school students did participate in one or more day. 30% participated in 14 or more whereas 14% participated in 30 or more. Last year there was a 2% point increase in students participating and 78% of all students um reported uh at least experiencing the program uh for at least uh one or more days. Finally, our strategic improvement efforts focused on this access to activities. We've really, again, big shout out to our school board here for supporting uh

072afterchool activities that our students want to participate in. You know, we went for almost a year with our uh young people asking for us to provide boys volleyball as an option. And they did a lot of work to make sure it could occur at every school. And this board, I know, uh, deserves a big thank you for supporting that, as well as girls wrestling, uh, last year. It's huge. Um, and I think Jenna's still here, right, with a one of our Wolves uh, volleyball parents here. Um, we also had title one funded activities, making sure we have science olympiad and math olympiad at all elementary title one schools. Next year, we're actually gonna have Fairfax uh science olympiad event and math olympiad event. We want our math leads and science leads to have a chance

073to compete uh for divisionwide math and science uh glory of sorts. Um we also want to make sure that uh the board understands that we're working through our three-year plan to make every school in the county a purple star school. This matters for our military connected youth. We have military connected youth that attend every school in the county. Maybe not in the same numbers at every school, but do uh I think absolutely uh require the same level of support regardless of the school they attend. So um just the finally our goal innovation team is working on several activities including improving data collection uh because we hadn't collected a lot of data on this topic area. So we don't have a lot of comparative data for the board, but this being our baseline year, we'll have

074more next year and we'd like to see the trajectory of, you know, participation increase. That's a sign of a healthy, connected student body. So to summarize tonight's presentation, the majority of our students had academically intense course taking patterns last year which prepared them for a wide variety of post-secary opportunities even as we see some differences between student groups. Also want to say that the majority of our middle and high school students self-report that they are able to participate in activities and many are. And finally, we're going to continue to have additional data through our student experience survey later this year that will help us both identify barriers and plan for the coming year. So, I really I really want to say sort of in summary that um this course taking pattern data our high school

075principles have really taken and run with um because it's data that can be actionable now. It doesn't require years of processing. So, we're really looking forward to being able to present um some upticks uh in this area for next year. So, Chairman FR, that would be uh the goal four report and I'm happy to take questions. Thank you. We'll get started with Dr. Anderson. Thank you. Just a couple of com um just a couple of questions and a comment. My apologies. One second, Dr. Anderson. I forgot that we've changed things a little bit in compliance with Robert's rules of parliamentary procedure. Give me one second. I call on Miss Lady for a motion. I move the school board approve the goal for strategic plan report for SY 202425. Thank you. Is there a second? Miss

076S. John Cunning, are you there? I'll second. Mr. Thank you, Mr. Moon. Would you like to speak to your motion, Miss Lady? Yes, I would like to speak to my motion. Um, this is probably the most exciting report for me as a former DSS. Um, it's important work and I and I think that one of the things that I want to emphasize when we met with the uh folks from AEL who did the work, uh, I want the public to understand that we are in a good to great scenario. um they do this work around the country and seldom do they ever walk into a school system where 75% of their graduates um have indicated the academic industry that says that they are highly highly ready for uh college level work or whatever comes next.

077And I I I think we I just need to we just need to hit home that data point. That is it's an excellent data point. But knowing that we are saying public schools, the 25% that are not hitting that point need our attention. Um and this is why I I do I want to um commend the superintendent for uh wanting to look at these course taking patterns bringing in this company to do that and then sending that data to all of our principles. It is enlightening. It is eye openening but they are all taking action as we speak. Uh I think that's fantastic. Um I also um having been a Fris County product and working in the system as long as I have um also agree that from a mathematical perspective um I think we

078we I think that in theory the state expects people to uh move through algebra 2. Um but with with the after course there's sort of a little like hiccup workaround there. Um I'm in full support of a four-year requirement for mathematics at the high school level. Um, having said that, I am disappointed that uh I did learn that unfortunately Governor Yncan uh did not uh support the bill that would allow us to do online driver education as part of our online courses. Um, that's going to change July 1. I'm hoping if summer school starts before July 1, it might be grandfathered in, but I'm not sure. Do we know if it'll work this summer, Miss Flamingco? for this coming. Uh what we were asking for is for Fairfax County Public Schools to be able to

079do our own online as part of our online health and PE and that was um that was uh not signed by the governor I think last evening. But the online company that we have been working with um we will still be able to they have um we will continue to work with them for one more year. Okay. Thank you. That's Videts. Sorry, the videts program. Vadets. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. But I mean I bring that up just because there are a lot of our students have been accessing health and PE on the over the summer because they want to make room for like we celebrate the arts tonight for more arts classes. So um hopefully we can bring that to to the governor's desk uh new governor next uh uh uh when they're back

080in session. Um the other thing I want to talk about is we have done tremendous work in increasing the number of dual enrollment credits uh offerings should I say and this might be a question for uh Dr. Pon are we are we still working with NOVA and the provost to try and change the 18 hours at the mast's level requirement to be able to teach DE. Uh yes and we are very sure to to accomplish it. So there's hope some updates to come soon. Uh yes. Uh otherwise we will look on uh other places like um I know that we talk about uh Virginia Beach that they they have been doing it and we could go that route as well because Richard Bland is another one that's I think Lowden County used for a long

081time. Um, but the other thing I want to point out is with the increase in in in DE, and this is just going back to my days working as a DSS, the the staffing in that office at the county level has not changed. The volume of what's going through that office has changed tremendously. And I don't know what what that costs, but that's something that the budget's eventually going to have to look at because every single person who gets in that job, they figure it out and we I think that we waterboard them and then we leave and we have to we have to train someone new and we have to change that process. um they need they need more support um as do our school counselors because um the paperwork that's involved and the

082different portals are timeconuming but the outcome of students getting college credit and carrying that to college is hugely important. So anyways I'm obviously in full support of this. Thank you. Thanks Mr. Moon. Would you like to speak to your second? Uh thank you Mr. Uh thank you for giving me an opportunity to second this motion because I support it. uh maybe not in every detail but uh it's about the time that we put a little more emphasis and putting extra efforts in strengthening uh our students learning of math and world languages with that said since I missed I think first part of this presentation at the work session and I didn't get to ask some of the questions I'm sorry that I did not send you my questions in advance but a couple of questions

083that I have is by a wanting to require additional math course for graduation. I mean there is there have been a a request to a you know for example uh offer more CT courses for the students to be able to take and there are and also we just like earlier this evening we have proclamination uh regarding art and music and theater arts and etc. All those are important courses. So, where could students be able to find room to take another math class? Well, I think that's a great question and in the research when we begin looking at transcripts because that's what the work with this consultant, they've shared a number of uh sample transcripts. We have students um that don't always fill out a full uh senior year even um which so it's not there

084are a lot of schedules that aren't over full but they're simply not being fully utilized. So that's one very obvious space to take that. Um, I also think that the the earlier we're able to uh be successful with mathematics, those are some of the CTE courses that are developed if there were um some of those could be crossredited for mathematics in terms of our Fairfax County Public School look at those. A lot of machining, CAD, architectural drawing. Uh there are a number of those courses that actually have a great deal of math in them and would be very appropriately cross-redited. Um I do think the ability to complete successfully complete an algebra course is critical um because many apprentice exams as well as um the SAT uh pre- requirements really are sitting at that algebra

085trig level to be you know successful. So I think what we really want to make sure is that our Fairfax County Public School graduates when they leave they have as many doors open for them as as possible. Thank you. Uh next question has to do with the world languages. I think we can all agree that studying of world languages is a better to start at an earlier grade than waiting until middle and high school years. Would you agree with that? And if you do, how could they make that happen? Well, I think we've had several conversations about that. We have our current flex program. We have immersion programs. We have two-way immersion programs. I think we really are probably going to need a a fairly thoughtful aligned plan for that and a commitment to stop

086doing some things at elementary, right? Because the time of the day and the amount of staffing is pretty much set. So, if we're going to add or integrate a world language, we're going to have to look at the schools that do flesh and make sure that that type of staffing occurs across the entire county at all 141 schools and not just the schools currently that have it. So, it's it's really about changing out staff um at the schools who don't have that program. And that's going to take some time to put that plan together. Okay. When you say it takes some time, are you saying six months, one year, two years, or 10 years? Well, I'm not sure, Miss Clemenco, how long have you all been working on the flesh plan? Um, we've been we've

087been trying to look at, as Dr. Reed, trying to look at it in a costneutral way, right? like how we would swap things out makes it um a little bit more complicated. But we have been we have been looking at um different possibilities and uh Miss Neil was just sharing with me as they bring on their new um uh research director of research we really need to do a deeper dive on how to do this well and ensure that whatever we're doing at elementary school creates the experience that generates the interest and love of language um so that we see kids continuing on in uh the course taking as opposed to just doing the three and out or the two by two and out. So, um, it's a it's a little bit longer than just

088a a mathematical equation. Um, making sure we have the right programming as well. You know, I hate to put you on the spot, Miss Clemena. I know you have a retirement coming up pretty soon and and I hope that I hope that you can you can bring this back to us before uh I I would I will not promise that it will come um before uh June 30. No. Okay. Thank you. But one one more question, Mr. Show me if I may uh is just a little bit about a a a educational philosophy related question. I remember that going back to 2010 2011 time frame where many of our parents were stressed because they saw their kids were stressed and and we are all encouraged to watch and board members all went to uh Madison

089High School or Robinson or somewhere else to watch raced movie called documentary film called Race to Nowhere. I'm looking around probably Miss Clemco was there. Miss Lady was there. I don't know who else was there in this room at the time. Our community certainly felt that our kids were being asked do too much. How is a pendulum being swung in regard to which intensity when I see that we are asking students to do more what intense work because that itself is called AIM that I stands for intense course taking yeah I think philosophically and I recall the movie as well it's been what almost 15 years yeah I think that I I think it's important to recognize that it's extraordinarily uh stressful to go on to postsecary and not feel prepared, right? And I think

090even if it's not going on to university, but going out to a job site, the Lexile reading level for entry level industry text is higher actually than freshman and university reading level requirements. So, we want to make sure our graduates leave able to read complex text as well as compute mathematically in a thoughtful way as well as be good people, right? Having that well-rounded education. So, I think that it's critical that students are academically prepared. And I think that families and students have opportunities and can make choices. And that's what we're wanting to make sure is that those choices are available for families and that the guidance for those families would be guidance that prepares young people for success when they leave us. When we think about the math requirements I'm talking about and the

091requirement, for example, to pass algebra trig to graduate, that's already a requirement in 40 other states in this country. It just doesn't happen to be a requirement here in Virginia. So, I would like our children, even if Virginia doesn't require it, we should in Fairfax County Public Schools because we want our students to be able to keep up with students all across the country in a core content area like mathematics because we know mathematics limits 84% of our career choices. As we move into AI, sensor technology, quantum, it's critical that our students master this content, maybe more so today even than 15 years ago. Dr. I'm not I'm not opposing the direction you want us to take. That is why I am seconding I'm supporting this motion. But I think we at the same time

092we need to keep in mind keep in mind that at least some of the students if not large number of students might feel more pressure under new approach new direction. I think we have to recognize that with our high expectations have to come high support and we can't have one without the other. We can't expect a more intense schedule and not support it. Um, and I believe that our staff, our board is committed to those supports. I'm the Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Moon. Dr. Anderson. Um, thank you. Just a couple of questions and then some comments. If we could bring up slide seven, please, I would appreciate that. One of the things that stood out to me in our um conversation with Dr. Bell when we had this work session which I know we

093all hungered for a little bit more time um was the fact that he talked about expectations also being a critical component. I would love to hear how is that piece being handled so that we have greater expectations of all of our students because preparation is what we've been talking about here and that's really important but the expectations is just as critical. Yes ma'am. So he uh Dr. Bell and Dr. Garing both were very clear that the expectations of the adults surrounding the student often determine that trajectory academically for the student. So, um I think it's critical that we communicate our expectations and our confidence in our young people that we know our young people can handle this next step and we know they're capable of doing this work. And we know it because we've made

094sure that the support has been high and that they've been prepared. And I think part of the expectations have also been key decision makers recognizing actually looking at the data in terms of which students are making their way through which class paths and actually interrupting those paths that we see as not really ideal uh class taking or course taking paths. And I see our counselors, our DSS's, our high school principles really looking more closely at this data with Dr. Pon and the region offices uh than they've previously been able to because many of our high schools are extraordinarily large. As you know, we're 6A schools and we need uh this the way we're able to look at this data. They're able to look at it by student, by course, by transcript, and are able to

095make real decisions in real time, which I think is a gamecher for a number of our students. And I'm glad to hear of all of the levels of review because very often some of the people we put in charge are the very gatekeepers of this access for some of our students. Um, one of the other points that I wanted to raise is part of the counseling and career um, trajectory. I know we've talked about that quite a bit. I I find that our parents are a lot of times in the dark about that. I would love to see some strength and opportunities to have a conversation with a family student and parent and just really explain what this could offer. And I do remember um Miss Lady had shared that in her experiences at Chantelli,

096she often would opt students into classes and allow them to explain why they needed to be out of classes. And I'm wondering is this a strategy that we can utilize? Yes, ma'am. I it is and it's one we're discussing uh right now. Actually, I know the staff is nodding their heads because we do that for some courses for some kids now, right? We put them in certain courses and wait to have them come and say we'd rather not be in those courses. So, we're talking about doing that for our next uh most advanced or most rigorous course. So that's already on the table and likely will be uh implemented within the next calendar year. Thank you. One of the other things that I wanted to raise and the points to me were not lost on

097the proclamation we had earlier. We had all these young people speaking about how they're seen and we have really I think put a stake in the ground today in terms of what is important to us in FCPS and we have made it clear no matter what the conversation is outside of this system how we want to treat our students who are transgender and I think we also need to take the same approach to the work of equity. It's become that inclusion, DEI, all of that. All of those things have been so negative as of late and something just came out as early as today regarding how, you know, history has been distorted and what the executive the next executive order will be. this data set and we have so many others like it show us

098the really true need for equity because I wonder and if you have this information I would love to hear it if this is a consistent um reflection of how our students are performing across the various pyramids. I see this as a strong if not screaming call for the equity office to continue to be strengthened because outside of that approach where we are giving students what they need because this tells us some of our students need more and that's the work of equity that I'm hoping we will continue to be married to in this division and we will continue to fortify the equity office because without that we will continue to have these results that we're seeing. Now, thank you. I could go back if possible. Mr. Makave. Um, so first I want to thank Miss

099Sant for um her remarks about the GCP showcase last night. It was great to see you there and um uh three of our colleagues, Mr. Moon, Miss Lady, and Mr. Fr. Um which I think pointed to the importance of our work on world languages in the system and also our our persistent underfunding of that work. Um and I think you know this raises the question that Mr. Moon raised um which is you know why do we keep redoing the work um you know a decade ago we we convened the internationalization working group and a key point of that was to lay the foundation and the plan for expanding world languages. Um and we came up with a substantive plan um that focused on um on the vertical articulation um of languages so that people could

100start in elementary and carry it through through the high school. Um so um I guess um Miss Flamingco I question for you is I think we've already done a lot of this work right um and some of it's a decade old. So um why why does it is it a funding issue that keeps us here? So with that plan there was a roll out a phasing of schools to um especially regarding FLS right our elementary um whole school program and it was a phasing that would require additional funding um and that funding really never came about to continue to add um basically another special to every single one of our schools. It kind of got a little bit um intercepted by full day Monday and recalculation of how we how we do our specials. Um

101but that really that funding just wasn't there. Now, as we're looking at the model, we do need to go back and look at it because we're trying to do it in a cost neutral way. How do we make this work without the funds? Thank you for that. And I do want to thank you for attending last night and every year for the GCP showcase uh and representing LT there. Um it's it's um great to see your support. Um but it is frustrating and I think we'll have this conversation when it comes to start times that um we keep redoing the work. Um and if if people aren't sitting at this deis that support this work, it disappears. Um that plan would have been shelved. It frankly was shelved until we resurrected it. Um and so

102I'm hopeful that we can finally bring closure to it. Thank you, Mr. Mavine. Miss Dixit, thank you Dr. Reed for the presentation. Um I am actually going to stick with the same slide of here number seven and uh definitely we are seeing that the the difference between the you know multilingual learners and Hispanic students and black students uh uh as special needs students is is definitely an equity um issue here. Um I I think the more reinforcement we can provide to some of these uh sections would be great to see that you know leveling the field a bit uh because all stores students have potential all students get can be beat that 90% benchmark if they get the right tool and um so I wanted to kind of I know you went into this a

103bit uh would you uh be able to share a little bit about how what's the plan of action in next uh year or so or to get some of these uh lower performing I won't say lower performing but the you know is there are diff reasons but how to improve the numbers here so right now we uh Dr. Pon's office and Miss Neil's office are really leading this work uh with the 20 schools that are in year one of the work uh with our high school principles, our counselors, our DSS uh staff. And part of it is really just making sure we're sitting down with the students one-on-one doing academic advising with students and families and making sure courses are available and that students understand that's their next best move academically. I'll ask Dr. Pon

104to talk just for a minute or two about what is happening at the school level as he uh meets regularly with those teams. Dr. Pon. Um yes. Uh actually I was just reading right now and and I just have like a one to two minutes is the probability uh for eels's multilingual is a one and one/3. It's it's one out of three or uh three times less likely that they will be invited to be and take an AP class. And so something that we were talking about is expectation. This is number one more than anything else. Uh and this is an effort that every single one has to push because sometimes uh we uh tend to to go into that trap that just because uh we can hear um the accent then we don't believe.

105So that's is number one that we have been uh talking with with the parents as well. So right now every single school uh know exactly that number the students that they have that they could easily get a different uh route and make sure that they get into all those classes that they should be having to get an advanced diploma or classes that will help them to transfer to a college four years degree. And so right now is just expectation. This is number one and communication with the parents. I think this is most important because a lot of our parents they don't know. So I know uh we had that conversation with Dr. Anderson which I I really think that that's is the number one um uh strategy that we are utilizing and and we are

106very pleased that very soon we're going to see the fruit of those numbers being increasing to double. I also think uh Miss Dixit, we really looked at some of the barriers. Uh we had an entire senior leadership meeting talking about the barriers to algebra and seventh grade, for example, and the Iowa test and the students that are at home just waiting anxiously. Can they please get into algebra and seventh grade? And we need to eliminate those barriers. And our instructional department, Miss Clemenco's department, Dr. Hon and the region offices we're realizing that in our efforts to I think um you know sort of protect uh the certain courses we've actually created huge inequities um in access to those courses and it's important that we not do that. Um, just briefly, I was recently at the

107robotics competition at Hayfield Secondary School last Saturday, and the teams that were contending, uh, for some of the most serious matches, um, I asked them what math were they in as seniors, and almost to a, um, almost to a student it was multivariant calculus and linear algebra. And you can't get there unless you've uh, done algebra before 8th grade, actually. So uh we need to make sure those opportunities are available to all of our students which means we have to have um our curriculum aligned and focused from a very young age. So I think the team is working very hard on that. Thank thank you for that answer. Um I think my last uh question is about the slide 12. Um and it is again similar in nature. um you know we are doing great

108uh in most of things and uh I will say there are opportunities FCPS um there are students who graduating in high from high school with with uh with so many college credits that they can actually go go to college um transfer college for just two or three two or three years and graduate with a degree. So that's one of the things if we can convey to our parents that with all the DE courses and IB courses and AB courses there is actual costsaving here act in the college that's a strong message for a lot of people who have not not a you know ability to pay a huge tuition college fee but here is the question I had is I'm surprised that we have 1.1% student with zero and seven with one. What's what's happening

109there? These students are not taking any um of those higher level courses. I mean, I'm just trying to figure this one statistics a bit. So, remember this is all of our students from the class of 2024. So these might be students um who are in self-contained settings perhaps or students who um for whatever reason were not uh in courses that would have been credit counting uh might have been seniors on partial schedules. Uh we would have to go back but we can provide that data in an upcoming Friday letter. Um I will say that the score from 20 above which is almost 40% uh are actually likely to persist at one of our top tier um or what we call elite level universities in the country which is really almost unprecedented for any division in

110the country. So, uh, we've got work to do to look at the data and the darker yellow side and a recognition as, uh, Miss Lady earlier said that the data on the right side is really incredible in many ways. So, we just need it to be incredible for more of our students. Yes, exactly. And and this is incredible data for sure to see so many students ready for college doing doing postsecary. The my last point was I'm full support of four year of maths in high school and that is the the rigor of math should be from the elementary grades. That's where the students will continue to do fourth grade, four years of math because they're just not that interested in math and then just there's no need. They just drop out of picking math

111after sophomore year. It is definitely should be uh the four year of math in high school. So I'll I'll stop here. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Dixit. Miss Seismarheiser, thank you. And I know I I asked most of my questions at the work session, but I just wanted to mention first, this is incredible data and I wanted to lift up to your team about how many of our students are highly ready for postsecary, right? And I think it's really important to mention because sometimes, you know, we hear this narrative that our our public schools aren't doing as well or we're having issues our public schools, but here in Fairfax and in many other school systems, the the percentage of students, 61% who are ready to be successful at elite universities, at high levels in universities,

112and already taking university level classes is really incredible. So, I just wanted to mention that. Um, I I love the data behind this and the research behind this in terms of the course taking patterns and the intensity of course taking and the correlation to success um once our students leave here. But I I would be remiss if I didn't say and I've actually heard from some constituents as well that um we want to make sure that when we're looking at intensity of course taking we're not just looking at intensity of uh we're also looking at intensity for arts for DECA. there's a lot of highle classes and advanced classes in many fields and I want to make sure that is also considered and I know I I think at the work session I believe um

113it was mentioned that there is data around that it just wasn't brought to the full report and that we would perhaps get that later. So, I just wanted to check in and see um at what point we're going to start looking at data around course taking patterns in all higher level courses um to include arts, to include DECA, to there's marketing, there's all sorts of things. So, I'll pause there for for that question. Sure. Um we as I mentioned during the work session this is a multi-year body of work and where we're starting is where the research starts in that if you will instructional core area in terms of predictive uh analytics for success in post-secary either work uh military or uh education at postsecary there's no question the research around the arts CTE languages

114um the benefits of those to persistence and um success and just a stronger feeling of self and agency often, right? So um but we'll have more of that data coming and it's more probably of a second uh year look in terms of uh advising for students just because the predictability in this core area um is so overwhelming at the moment. I appreciate that and I just would put out that I think sometimes when people hear an emphasis on a certain area they think it the the flip right that we're deemphasizing another area. So I think it's important as we roll out this sort of initial part of this work that we make sure we send the message that it's not a deemphasis on on CTE and and you know arts and all these things. It's

115a first step because I don't want, you know, in that game of telephone, right, when we're talking, you know, from one level to another to another or from one person to another as we're passing down this work that um we start to deemphasize really, I think in some ways part of what makes Fairfax County so great is the breadth of of offerings and work we have that's supported by so much research, too. So, I just wanted to put that out there as you're rolling this out to continue to emphasize the importance of advanced coursework in all areas. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Seismarheiser. Miss Marin. Yes. I want to focus on the data about world language course taking. So, the report shows that just 30% are taking highly intense coursework and only 22%

116take world language for four years. I am so proud of FCPS, but that we do not offer effective world language instruction embarrasses me. But I don't blame the superintendent and I don't blame this board because I know we all want this. So why aren't we funding world language? It's all about the funding. That we know how low the course enrollment is and there is nothing in this proposed budget from the superintendent to expand world language instruction meaningfully is evidence that FCPS is underfunded. It's an example of what we are not and cannot do in this current funding situation. And I think the the public must understand what we are not able to budget because of how county leadership approaches budgeting. So to have the Fairfax County Executive propose the budget cuts he has for something

117as distinct as middle school after school activities just exemplifies the disconnect in this county when when the funding reality facing Fairfax County Public Schools. We're trying to find the success for 180,000 humans who live here. So, you know, I just it's like looking at a grain of sand and the title wave is coming only like actually the title wave has come because uh there's national public policy undermining public ed. There's proposed legislation to fund and fortify publication public education has been rejected by Governor Ynan. So, the county board of supervisors is our last standing protection of our public schools. So I think the convers I think this is amazing presentation and data. I was you know uh totally informed and inspired but our job is to get the money to do this stuff. I believe

118our superintendent knows what to do but she can't do it until she gets that money. So um I would like our board to focus our conversations, our questions, our actions around how to obtain the funding needed. This is our task before the board of supervisor votes to adopt the budget on May 13th. So I hope we can continue to talk about that reality this evening and in the um short weeks that are ahead of us. Thank you. Thank you Miss Marin. Dr. Anderson. Thank you Dr. Reed. I did ask a question during my last go round but I don't think you had the opportunity to answer regarding the data on slide seven whether that was reflective across our pyramids in a consistent manner. Yes ma'am. I I think the data to varying degrees is reflective

119across our pyramids. Uh Miss Neil, you've probably looked at it most closely. I think with some variation, it's very similar across pyramids. Yeah, we do have some information, but we are working with AVL to provide additional information to the board. Okay. Thank you. And the other piece of data that I was interested in when we take a look at some of our students, I don't think we had intersectionality data because I'd like to know when we holded study for our black students who are not English language, who are not multilingual learners, who are not students with disabilities, and who are not um what's the third category? Economically disadvantaged. Are we seeing similar patterns of achievement? I think that in general, and Miss Neil and Miss Hunstad are sort of probably checking while I'm answering this

120because I'm going to turn to you in a minute. I think in general probably the most significant uh if you will uh concern in the in that area is around um socioeconomic status uh and language would be my guess. uh Miss Neil. So, we are working with AVL. Some of the data that we look at consistently in FCPS is new data that they're trying to add into their system to be able to provide some comparisons. So, the intersectionality data, I think what we would expect to see in this is not dissimilar from some of the intersectionality data points we've looked at in other reports. So, as Dr. shared looking at some of our multilingual learners who were at levels one, level two and socioeconomic status as being big drivers of impacting this data. Thank you.

121And I do remember Dr. Bell sharing that um they provided us comparisons comparative data with the 100 schools that they worked in without um around the country. I I would love to see if we are seeing similar um achievement gaps across the same schools with the schools that they work with because it is really important for us to say that Fairfax County is an excellent school system, but it is not for all of our kids, right? It definitely needs to get there and we're talking a 100 school divisions which have a lot of other high schools. So, just want Okay. Yes, certainly. Um one of the last things that I wanted to ask, you talked quite a bit regarding the work of Dr. Pon and thank you so much for your response. Um what I

122didn't hear is how is the equity office involved in this work because I know they're they're farreaching but in terms of changing culture or regarding expectations those softer skills really need to come out of that space I think. So I'd love to hear how they're involved. So, the equity office, in fact, I spoke with them yesterday morning and talked about the critical uh intersectionality, if you will, of that culture and impact on student achievement and closing these gaps. Uh Dr. Prescidio, Dr. King, and Dr. Pon meet weekly and I meet with them as a team monthly. Uh they those three departments led by those chief officers are leading this achievement gap closing work. It's critical that they're a part of that and as I shared with our um equity office staff yesterday, their work has

123never been more important. Um the excellence that's required for each and every one of our students right now is critical and I will share that a significant number of our equity office staff right now is out in schools in this last 30 plus days prior to um our so assessments. They're doing small groupoup reading in our uh 25 highest need elementary schools right now and there are um you know it's an all hands- on deck from all three of those departments and the equity office is playing a key role in that work. Thank you. And the last thing I want to mention, it's not a question, it's just a kudos regarding the title one schools math and science olympiad. As you know, this has been a thing that we've talked about since you got here.

124And more and more I'm hearing from parents that they're seeing this in the schools and the principles are speaking about how excited staff have been and students have been for those opportunities. And so I I could not be more grateful because as you heard earlier, all of the schools that I represent, but one is a title one school. So this is something that I, you know, we're faced with in the Mason district each and every day. Um, again, I I think we are I'm glad that we're looking at this data. I just want action sooner. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. I'll call for a vote for the motion on the screen. If the motion can get on the screen just momentarily. Mr. Fresh, I still see Miss Seismarheiser's hand. Thank you. Miss Seismoreheiser, did you want

125to go back? Sorry. No, I thought I'd heard you call the vote. Oh, yeah. We're getting there. It's almost on the It's on the screen. All right. No worries. All those in favor of the motion on the screen, Miss Marin, Dr. Anderson, Mr. Mr. McDaniel, Miss Anderson, Mr. Moon, Miss Lady, Miss Dixit. I can't see our other virtual participants. Miss Seismarheiser, I assume your hand, if you could vocalize your your vote. I'm a yes. And Miss St. John Cunning. All right. And I am in favor as well with Miss St. John Cunning and Mr. Makovine away from the table. Uh, it is otherwise unanimous. Thank you. Agenda item 5.0. 04 Mason District uh proposed pilot program. I call on Dr. Anderson for a motion. Um, I move for the school board to direct the superintendent

126to provide to the board by April 10, 2025 a costneutral plan. Oh, a costneutral plan to implement a pilot of later start times and as many of the Mason District middle schools, Glasco, Homes, and PO as possible for implementation for the 2526 school year. This plan should minimize start time changes for the pyramid high schools. Yes, please. I will second. Sorry, just for the microphone. Is there a second? Yeah, the second a second. Miss I second twice. Miss Maron, thank you. Dr. Anderson, would you like to speak to your motion? Um, yes, I would. Just give me a minute to find my notes. Thank you. they've just disappeared on me. Um, clearly the conversation is not about healthy start times because I think the data is clear, the research is clear that this is something

127that has to happen to for our students and this a Fairfax County Board, not this configuration, had had those discussions 10 years ago, probably a little bit longer because I think some of you have been at it for 20 years, but 10 years ago, the change was made at the high school and it was clear that it needed to be done for the middle schools. It just took us a little bit of time to get here. Um, you've heard the surveys, the anecdotes from teachers who are sharing that their students are sleepy in the morning. I I know I have middle schoolers of my own and they are not quite awake to really take advantage of all of the academic instruction that's happening until second or third period. Um, and so I think those are

128important pieces for us to consider. Uh most importantly during the work session that we had just this past February uh Mr. Muick shared um the I guess desire of staff to do a pilot in one to two school pyramids in order to see how this could go and I believe that this pilot should occur in the Mason district for many of the reasons that you all heard earlier. It is the only district where we have sixth graders in the middle school. It's also a tightly packed district. it it's dense and so there's a lot of opportunity for you know the the you know mechanisms behind the scenes to not be stretched because we only have you know one way to go because we butt up against Arlington um the community most importantly they're are here

129tonight and they've been here every night we've received the letters I get this at the grocery stores I get this and everywhere that I go my kids concerts where are we with middle school they are wanting this and so denying a community that is wanting to have this action I I think is is it just should not be a thing that happened. Um and also one of the things I want to be clear is we are not going to address all childc care issues with this. It's just not going to happen. We are always going to have the issues. We have parents who have issues in the morning with late um elementary school starts. We have parents who have issues in the afternoon. and that will continue to be the case no matter what we

130land on in terms of a potential pilot time. What I do know is a high concern and this is a concern that I want to put on the table very clearly is that any configurations that are provided to us when staff completes their work should not include a later start time for elementary. We cannot have elementary students begin school at 10:00 when we know their clocks wake them up at about 7:30. We all see those littles. they come up with the sun and so we need to ensure that they go to school with the sun. Um in the places where I worked before right next door in Lowden County, the elementary schools started at 7:30. 7:30 doors were open. Then those same buses took the middle schools and then those same buses took the high

131schools. It has been the case there for years. Um if this motion passes, I I really hope that staff will engage with our vendor prismatic to really create some very good options for this community. This is also the first step. This is the ask for information and then we need to come back here and have the conversation about what is it that we're going to implement. And so this is a two-parter. So families, your work is not over. And I'm hoping Oh, was that the bell? It was. Okay, I will stop here. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Miss Marin. Yeah, I'm happy to second the motion and also want to echo some words of the community about Dr. Anderson's um just um over and beyond work for the Mason District. And it is, you know, an

132anomaly that there's uh middle schools with six to eight grades. And the last board we actually did explore is that something that's, you know, better or worse or what are the challenges? And it kind of didn't turn up anything. And I'm I'm sorry. Ironically, I'm a bit tired myself because um I am advocating so much for the budget, which again is part of this solution. And you know, I I don't want to sound like a bureaucrat, but like we only heard these options in December. like we're doing the boundary review for the first time in 40 years. Like things take an obnoxiously long time and we're trying to fix things. So, um you know, I I have a seventh grader next year. I get it, right? But to change bus schedules and nutri and nutrition

133services and it takes a little bit of time, okay, so I get it. Um, I just would love to have the community with us in the quest for more funding. And I love each of you that spoke tonight to head on over to the budget public hearings of the board of supervisors that are April 22nd, 23rd, and 24th because if we had more money, we could do this kind of thing. But as a board, we also need to be accountable. And unfortunately, that didn't happen in the past. Um, I think too that um I would like to have the superintendent take this over. This is operational. This should not be a decision of the board and it is um regretful that a clearer statement hasn't been made to the public yet. I have made the

134the statement saying it doesn't look like this is passing. Don't count on it. But I do um I do wish that that could have been clearer by the board. And I think as the board we need to really be sure that when we have work sessions we're finishing them with complete discussions and empowering our superintendent to do that work. We just can't keep and on that note I don't think further surveys are needed. We have a lot of information. It's an operational decision. So you know we're going to see what's going to come out of this pilot that's going to give us information. Um I think as much as we want to include our community it's overload. So we have the data. It's an operational thing. Let's see what happens in Mason. Get our kiddos

135some more sleep and then we will move on to make it happen as soon as we can. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Mr. Mackin. Uh thank thank you and sorry I had to step away for an urgent um family issue. Um so um I'm I'm proud to support this. Um Dr. Anderson, a decade ago uh when Mr. Moon and I were at the Stasis. Uh we made uh the good decision to move forward with changing start times, but we also made a compromise um to bring later high school start times while moving later moving middle school start times earlier. Um and as a result of that decision, we've benefited countless thousands of of high schoolers um to the detriment of of countless thousand middle schoolers. Uh and so um at that point when we uh

136made that um decision, we also made the commitment to the community uh that we would take action very soon thereafter to move forward with uh middle school start times uh as soon as feasible. Well, what I have found, as I mentioned earlier tonight, is that in this county uh the time it takes to make any sort of change, no matter how seemingly small, is counted in decades. Um, that has certainly been the case with start times. Sandy Evans and Phyllis Payne have been advocating for this for 20 years. It's taken us 12 years plus to get to healthier food. It's taken 10 years to get to solar panels on schools. It's embarrassing. Um, I'm it's the frustration um that wells up inside of me when I talk about these things um is immense. uh and

137oftentimes if supporters of these kind of initiatives as I mentioned earlier if they fall away from this deis for whatever reason the institutional commitment just completely evaporates no matter if the board has made a commitment at one time um it just disappears. Well tonight it's time to finally commit to correcting uh what happened a decade ago at all levels uh and ensuring that um uh we correct that disparity. We know this is the right thing for kids. The science is unequivocal. Um so please I encourage my colleagues to take this small step tonight to help the kids at least in Mason District next year. Um since there isn't a willingness on this board to do it for the full county. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Mavine. Miss Dixit. as a as a parent who has

138gone through this uh trauma, I I I'm very I want to get this changed as well because you know if students have have to you know get up at 6:15 or go to the bus stop at 6:40 in the morning uh and and you know this is not helpful helping anyone. So I understand the prior board or when the decision was made and that time but we have to you know fix that in this manner or and so a pilot is the way to go uh for now it's totally fine but I wanted to be I want this to happen to all middle school students and earlier a a student a parent from Rachel Carson came which is my constituent's u you know school and I would really like to support all the students of

139FCPS attending middle school. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Dixit. We can go for a vote for the motion that is on the screen. All those in favor, Miss Marin, Mr. Mavine, Dr. Anderson, Miss McDan, Mr. McDaniel, Miss Anderson, Mr. Moon, Miss Lady, Miss Dixit, and Miss Seismheiser. I can't see if you are there. Yes, Miss Seismarheiser, Miss St. John Cunning. Yes. Yes. And myself that is unanimous for board members present. I call on Mr. Fron motion. Thank you. I move to direct the superintendent to develop a plan including robust community engagement in consideration of varied student transportation needs for implementing healthy school start times in conjunction with the holistic boundary review. Is there a second? I second. Mr. Fr, would you like to speak to your motion? Yes. Thank you. So tonight, Miss Anderson and

140I are offering this motion to direct the superintendent to develop a plan informed by community engagement and thoughtful consideration of varied student transportation needs to implement healthy school start times across the county in conjunction with our ongoing holistic boundary review process. To be clear, while this motion is on the same topic as the previous motion um that it follows, it will not impact the planning, the timing, the work on that motion. Um, before I go any further, I do want to take a moment uh as the school board member who represents Miss Payne uh in Providence District to thank the many people who have, you know, parents, um, students, people who are parents of former students in FCPS at this point, educators, community members who have been raising their voices on this issue, not just

141in recent months, but as Dr. Anderson said, for many years. Um, your advocacy has been informed, persistent, deeply rooted in care for your children, for their peers, and for the broader well-being of our school communities. And I want to be clear, I want to be just as clear as the science on this. Start times that are too early harm students. And sleep is not a luxury. It's a prerequisite for learning. And so with the roll out of the new bus routing software coming in the middle of the next school year, which we thought was coming earlier, but it's not arriving in time, uh, and the transportation efficiencies we hope to see from the holistic boundary review process, uh, we have an opportunity to ask the superintendent to think creatively and develop a plan for finally

142achieving healthy school start times for all our students. This motion gives the superintendent clear direction to consider the best operational path forward. A directive that can be monitored and held to account as part of the board's executive limitations process. In short, this motion sends the message that we support healthy school start times and that we want to plan for getting it done. Miss Anderson, would you like to speak to your second? Yes. Um, from the moment that we came on the board, this was one of the first issues that I sat down with somebody and talked about and it was 100% clear to me, particularly as a student who was a middle school student at Lake Bradock, where I never got the later start times as the middle school student. I always started at 7:20

143for the whole six years. Um, so we never I never noticed a difference because it was just the way that it was. Um, however, I do understand the importance of sleep in in my professional world. We talk a lot about this related to successful outcomes for kids in school. So, it's never been a question about whether or not I support the ear the appropriate start times for kids. Um, I do think that we are in a partic my colleagues have heard me talk about this before, but we're in a plastic moment. We have new bus routing software coming in. We have holistic boundaries going on at the same time. That gives us a great opportunity. So, I love the idea that we're going to be able to work to align these things to make sure

144that our impact for parents um and for families are going to be appropriate and not um cause excessive change as we go forward. Um I would also like to mention that I do think we absolutely need robust communication which is why I asked for that portion of the motion to be included because I don't live in an my district is not compact. my kid my kiddos that are in elementary school are already on the bus for an hour in the morning to get to their closest elementary school. And it's just the way that it's going to be because of the location that they live in. And so putting them on a road at 6:30 in the morning in the dark to get to school is not tenable where my kids live. And so I just

145want to make sure that we are talking to parents and that we're using the appropriate language when we're talking about school start times. This isn't just about middle school students. It's about all of our students. And so I want to make sure that we move forward and make sure that everybody's on the same page as to what we're talking about and what we're doing. So I look forward to seeing what's possible. Thank you. Uh Dr. Anderson, um thank you. Um one of the things that you mentioned, Mr. um Fr is kind of I guess a hiccup with the new software system. Mr. Muick, I don't know if he's here. Yes. Can you speak to that a little bit? Yes, I can. Dr. Anderson, it's I wouldn't necessarily say it's a hiccup. The company that is

146working with us is working really hard on the routing and um we're we're still on track to bring it out uh next year. The routing should uh we're going through a pilot of that over the summer uh during extended school year and we'll start rolling out in the fall. It just may slip a little bit, but I don't foresee that yet. And the end the mobile data tablets come at the end of the year. Okay. So, the software is going to be on time for the fall, not December, which is what I Well, it's it's a it's a phased roll out. So, it's not like a big bang theory where on the first day of school in the fall, it's everywhere. We kind of phase it in. So, it it takes about the full school

147year to get it out everywhere. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Um the only other comment that I wanted to make is I I know from speaking about this adnauseium um our community is looking for some intent. They're looking to see what is it that we want to have happen because as the board it is our job to give direction to the superintendent and if we're saying to the superintendent make this happen by the 2026 by the 2627 school year then I think they will have some comfort that it is going to happen. I I think not being clear and saying it will be in conjunction with the boundary which has a whole ball of unknowns and that could be phased out. I mean phased in. So what does that mean? Will it be after

148each of those phases? All of those unknowns have really resulted in a lot of um angst and anxiety. And so if this conversation is resulting again we're I it seems to be a night of putting a stake in the ground. If this is putting a stake in the ground, like we want for this to happen, this is going to happen by year X, then I think we're going to gain a lot of um support from our community because that has been, I think, much of the um anxiety all along. And so that's the intent with this motion, Mr. Fris, Mr. FR, I have never mispronounced your name before. Yes, the intent is to get a clear plan from the superintendent that operationalizes this and we can judge that in the executive limitations process. Thank you.

149And Dr. Reid, since you're going to create a plan, may I ask that that plan be inclusive of what happens if certain scenarios occur with the boundary with the holistic boundary process? If it's phased, if it's all at once, where does this fit into that um that full picture? Um I think that I would have to get back to you on that. You don't have to answer it tonight. Okay. Thank you. It's been the plan. I'm so sorry. I I I was not asking for a response right now. Do you unless you have the plan, but no, it would be part of the plan. I just would like for it to be articulated so that there could be some predictability on the part of the community rather than a constant wandering as to where we

150stand on this. Thank you. Okay. Uh Miss Seismore, thank you. I appreciate it. And I appreciate my colleagues bringing this forth and I'm happy to support um I think part of the importance of this I will say um similar to my colleague Miss Anderson I on the flip side as a parent I actually lived through early start times for middle school having uh children at a secondary school and my daughter was actually at Lake Bradic when they started at the 7:20 a.m. high school start time before the high school start times were changed. So she had middle school at that early start time. So, I can say as a parent, I've lived through this. I understand that the challenges and the difficulties. I also in talking to my constituents at several PTA and other meetings

151I've been to. Um, everybody understands the value of sleep. There's a lot of research behind it. I I appreciate all of our constituents who've advocated for healthy start times, not just for middle schools, but all of our school levels, but in many of the meetings I've had with constituents, they're also concerned about having sufficient time to be able to plan for their families, especially at the different levels, especially for child care for elementary school students, but in general, that planning is important and also minimizing the disruption for their students as we are looking at the boundary review work as well, especially considering sort of the uncertain times we've been living in, the disruption that's come out of COVID as well. So, you know, it is interesting. There are many things that I think a lot

152of us on the board when we started in 2020 wanted to do and when COVID came through as well as a superintendent who left and hiring a new one, there's a lot of things that end up not being addressed that we wanted to address, especially with the challenges of trying to educate through a pandemic and bringing students back in. So, I'm glad we're able to um look at these things now, but I also recognize that for our community, having multiple disruptions and having to make plans for their families and then having to reshift those plans is also um significantly difficult. So, I think this is a very thoughtful way to move forward to make sure that we have healthy start times for everybody, but also really engage the community on what that looks like and

153what the timing of that looks like and minimize disruption. So, um, you know, listening to my community, I think it gets to all the things they're looking for, healthy start times, partnerships, time for them to make plans and minimizing the changes for their students. So, thank you for bringing this forward. I'm happy to support. Thank you. And seniors will call for the vote. All in favor? Mr. Mine, Dr. Anderson, Miss Anderson, Mr. FR, Mr. Moon, Miss Lady, Miss Dixit, and Miss Seismore Heiser. Are you in favor? Yes. And is Miss St. John Conning up? Yes. Miss St. John Connie. All oppose. And I am in favor. All opposed. Any abstensions? Miss Mirren? Will the clerk read the vote? The vote is 1001. The motion carries. Thank you. Thank you all. We will take a 10

154minute recess. Uh I know that people need a little bit of a break. Let's try and make it a tight 10 minutes, which is typically difficult for us, but we're going to try and make it work this time. He's very funny bird. Anyway, this is my [Music] Board members, please return to your seats. Board members. [Music] Board members, please return to your seats. All right, welcome back everybody. Agenda item 6.01, academic matters. I call in Dr. Reid. Thank you, Chairman Fr. Tonight, uh I am thrilled to offer an update on our elementary literacy work uh and focus on how this work is supporting goal three of our strategic plan. So this is very exciting this evening. Want to share that um as you're aware all students reading on grade level by the end of third

155grade is one of the most important and foundational excuse me goals of our uh strategic plan this year. uh as we strive to meet these goals and fully implement the Virginia Literacy Act, we've taken several key actions and you can see on the right side what those look like as this is measure F. Um we've implemented the new Basil resource uh benchmark advance. Uh and this literally literacy curriculum really is across all 141 of our elementary schools. We've also introduced new screening and progress monitoring assessments for uh students, all of our students in grades kindergarten through 2 grade and for students in grade three to ensure that we're really effectively identifying any student who may be experiencing a risk for falling behind in their grade level reading performance. And finally, we're providing more intense interventions

156for students who are at risk and documenting these actions in individual student reading plans. Uh that we also and I don't know if we're going to talk as much about it this evening, but we have materials basil materials for our multi-ingual learners as well for the first time in Fairfax County Public Schools. And I just want to uh do a shout out for our um elementary teachers, education staff, multilingual educators, special ed educators, all of our staff at elementary and our um leadership at the elementary level and at the school level. This has been a heavy lift. Uh and it's paying off. We're very excited about the progress. Uh so, Madame Clerk, if you could play the video, let's kind of take a look see at how this is going across the division. So it

157is very important for all our students to have access to the same rigorous curriculum as everybody else in our school district and 60% of our school population are students of multilingual learners. I am seeing a very big difference this year and I think it's because we have implemented this rigorous curriculum plus our interventions and the combination of both is what's making our students be successful. I feel super proud of myself cuz I didn't even know how to how to like write when I was in first grade. So when I first came here I was like I didn't write so much sentences. I just rated like three or four but now I write like five to 10 sentences. At our school we use a walk to intervention model where we uh use the grade level data

158for each student and then we flexibly group them based on that assessment data. Um students are placed in in a group where their ind their individual instructional needs are going to be met and we have all hands on deck effect on the village. Something happened something changed in their village. So how did the storm affect the village or how was the village affected by the storm? What changed? You're going to turn and talk one more time with your partners to share. So, one thing that we've really been focused on in the general education classroom is explicit instruction. I do, we do, you do. That really benefits all of our students, especially our students with learning challenges like our students with disabilities. It really helps them grow in the large group and in the small group.

159They are focusing on student talk. So, students are building their oral language skills, which as we know is a precursor to reading and writing skills. And it's a unique cohort of students. About a quarter of the students in the grade level have an IEP. So planning for that group was very intentional. And what we've seen with our third grade is 19 students have gone from the high risk with reading to the low risk which is about a class. Looking at I Ready data in the beginning of the year there may have been two or three kids in the green and now there's 13 and 14. So in addition to benchmark and the whole group and small group lessons that we're giving there, we do have we call it croc time um which is our intervention

160time, we are working on very specific skills and like word features that they're then able to take into benchmark and read those words and access those words. And then the students who aren't specifically with me in my group, they're getting to do other interventions like Lexia and then um they also get more time to actually read a physical book which is great. So benchmark advance is a priority for our entire school. Most of our students with disabilities are accessing tier one in the general education classroom. We have really worked hard with our classroom and special education teachers to ensure appropriate scaffolds are in place. Miss Valor also gives us time to work with our special education partner. We'll then go through those plans and think about how can we adapt this to meet the needs

161of our students. So when they're in the classroom with me, they're learning from each other, not just me. My class is very inclusive. This year, we have a more deliberate approach to reading. And I feel like the plan really supports the growth in the students, and it really supports me as an educator because I know what my students need. I know how to give it to them, and I know when to give it to them. All right. Pretty exciting stuff. I uh I really am thrilled and I know each of you as board members get out into the schools and have had an opportunity to visit elementary schools. The amount of uh writing in particular this year has really uh increased and we're just really proud of our our young learners and our educators working

162with our young learners. Just want to indicate that on the green side here on the chart, uh growing green is a good thing. this uh more students are uh good to go or in the green category and fewer and fewer students are requiring uh this targeted literacy support um based on our assessment. So we're shrinking the red and growing the green. Uh let's take a look at our uh grade three data that's real time. So this is exciting hot off the press data. And um in grade three on the top we have the fall and our winter scores for all third graders in the division um are uh below. So we have 14.2% more of our third graders um who are good to go and 8.4% fewer of our students who are struggling in that

163lowest uh quadrant. So, we're thrilled with the progress that our uh students are making and this is just a different way of taking a look at it and several of our learners. Uh we looked at the graphs recently um in our goal four report and so we're really critically looking at our multilingual learners, our socioeconomically disadvantaged students and students with disabilities. And in those key areas, we're seeing the same uh growth in ready to go at grade level and the same uh shrinking in terms of those students who are less prepared. So just want to be clear that we're marking this data from the very uh youngest learners, grade three, and feel really positive about the success of our educators and our youngest literacy workers. So happy to Thank you, Dr. Reed. There any questions

164or not? Seeing none, we will go on to agenda 6.02, financial year 25, third quarter budget review. I call on budget chair Mr. McDaniel um to introduce this item. Thank you. Um I'm going to be very quick. Uh Q3 review is just that. It's a review of finances as of Q3. Um so I'm going to hand things over to Dr. Reid and her staff to go uh deeper into what that actually means. Thank you, Mr. McDaniel and it's my pleasure to introduce our chief finance officer, Lee Burton. Uh, and she will prepare or she has her team has prepared and she'll present uh the third quarter finances. Thank you, Miss Burton. Thank you. Good evening. Uh, the doc before the document before you identifies the third quarter changes to the fiscal 25 approved budget. There's

165only one change in the operating fund and that is recognition of funds from the vape settlement of 621,000. Uh the specific use will be determined by the chief of safety and security, but projects that are currently in progress include security cameras, panic alert systems, screening programs at high schools, those sorts of things. Um I don't normally review the other funds u because they're multi-year funds uh that carry over from year to year, but there's only a couple of changes, so I'll tell you what those are. For food and nutrition services, we have an equipment grant from the state. For the grant fund, we have about $650,000. About 80% of that is from the state as well, 16% from other sources, and then a really small grant from the federal government. And then the healthc care

166fund, um we are recognizing 22 million uh of increased rebates for pharmaceuticals and that will offset the increased claims experience that we're seeing right now. We've already included that for fiscal 26. So this just um gets those numbers um right for fiscal 25. Got fund statements in the appendix uh and some other documents um if you're interested. Thank you, Miss Burton. Seeing no comments. Oh, under the wire. Miss Marin, thank you Mr. Fresh. Um thank you very much. and I've already spoken and pleaded for us to focus on the budget. And in that um in that capacity, I would like to ask us on our upcoming April 8th work session where we yet again are scheduled to talk about the student rights and responsibilities regulation um for two hours, can we be really uh paired

167down during that time and identify beforehand what members still um want to answer, have answer to talk about and then dedicate some time to the budget. We are in the thick of the budget process right now and I've talked to many of you this week. We have questions. Things are changing. I think that we really need to prioritize time for that. So, um I uh invite any other colleagues to express their support for that and we'll follow up with our chair and vice chair uh next week. Thanks. Thank you, Miss Marin. Dr. Anderson. Thank you. Just a quick question. the um the expenditure to security initiatives. Do we have any sense of how many um of these vest um initiatives we'll be able to do? How many schools we'll be able to impact? I'm going

168to call a friend for labor. So I think we're looking at the sort of a variance of whether they are cameras or the panic alert or vape detectors. And um Mr. Mr. Lambert, do you want to lend some uh visibility into your thinking at this time fully knowing we're not in a final stage yet? Yes, ma'am. Still a major priority for us is trying to get uh more of the elementary schools up on grade and this gives us an opportunity to give um the elementary schools some cameras. We we still have a fair amount that we're trying to catch up on um so that they are all equitably getting uh coverage there. That would be the priority with this funding. Okay. Thank you. Dr. Reed, you mentioned vape detectors. I I know the last time

169we talked about vape detectors here, it was a system that wasn't very reliable. There were a lot of false positives. Will this include a new system, an improved system? We're I think the technology is con constantly upgrading and transforming. So, I know we've looked at several different products. Uh Mr. Mr. Lambert, do you want to elaborate, please? Yes, ma'am. Um, the product that we started with on the the very small um pilot, I think the limitation that we saw was that we were only in four bathrooms at one school, two bathrooms at another. Uh so we are planning on outfitting, we're waiting for some stuff to come back from the vendor, but outfitting one entire school so that we can better understand the behaviors and use the technology a little bit differently than we did

170the first time, which was kind of just in the background. But the technology does have applications like an alarm, like a smoke alarm, um to try to understand how student behaviors change um when we turn on some of those features and use it more holistically through an entire school. Sure, I appreciate that. But I think my question was a little bit more pointed to are we going to use a similar product or an improved product because the last time Dr. Reed spoke about this before your tenure here. It was that what we were using for that small pilot, the readings were false u many times or there were a lot of hiccups that prevented a um a an expanded roll out at that time. And I'm just wondering what has changed for us to invest

171more into the product that we well what we have currently we didn't seem to have a lot of confidence in. Sure. And the the vendor is always tweaking the project. So the current model we actually are going back through the approval process through cyber to make sure that it's that it is going to work better. Um but the limitation that the team said from the initial pilot was we were only getting four bathrooms and really missing. Um we also learned that we didn't outfit some of them with as many detectors as we needed. Um we falsely presumed where vaping was taking place in some of the bathrooms thinking that it was all happening in a stall for example and um administrators informed us that no in fact much of it happens just in front of

172mirrors for example. So um we learned a little bit more about spacing and and some items that that we want to expand upon. Thank you. That's very helpful. And in response to Miss Marin's um ask that we reflect on the schedule for next time. I'm happy to support that. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Mr. McDaniel, real quick, in my haste to introduce I I did a quick calculation. I think this is remarkable. If you go to page 50 of 16, the fund statement, our annual uh expenditures on the operating fund is just over $4 billion with a variance to date of $621,000. Now, back in the napkin math, that's a 0.015% variance. And if you calculate that out to a typical Northern Virginia Fairfax household budget of $150,000, that's a variance of $22.50. I think of

173myself to be decent at budgeting. There is no way I could budget a household down to $22.50. So, thank you, Lee, for the work that you and your team do because it's it's a very good product that you deliver on behalf of our schools and our taxpayers. So, thank you. Thank you. It's it's it's not me. I have a talented group of directors and other staff members that support me and I couldn't do this without them. Thank you, Mr. McDaniel. We will move right along. Thank you. Thank you. Agenda item seven, consent agenda. Our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure, Robert's rules, provide for a consent agenda listing several items for approval by the board by a single motion. Many items listed have gone through the board review and documentation has been provided to all board

174members and the public in advance. Items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member prior to the meeting. The consent agenda items are on the screen. Is there any objection to approving the consent agenda? Hearing and seeing no objection, the consent agenda is approved. Agenda item eight, new business. The following are new business agenda items. There will not be a vote on these items this evening, but action is scheduled at a future meeting. Agenda item nine, board committee reports. I call on Mr. Meline for a report from the audit committee. Um the audit committee continues to work through its um annual work plan. Um and we're looking forward to um next year's audit work plan as well. Thank you to those board members who have um submitted their feedback

175and spoken with uh General Co on their preferred audit topics. Thank you, Mr. McAfee. I call on Miss St. John Cunning for a public engagement committee report if she's available. I'll pass just because I can't speak. Okay. Thank you very much, Miss St. John Cunning. We'll have an update from you next time. I call on Miss Lady from a report from the governance committee. Thank you, uh Mr. Chair. Um I'm happy to uh share that the last uh governance meeting we actually passed three approved revised uh policies. Uh we convene again this coming Tuesday uh at 3:00 uh with uh a healthy agenda ahead of us. Um I will say that we've had some good conversations around uh formatting of policies. Um do policies need philosophy? What what are the what are the components we

176want in there? Um, so in addition to looking at them in terms of content, we're looking at them in terms of other ways. Um, but we do have a lot of work to get through and hopefully uh our committee will will keep keeping on, but the next meeting is uh April 1 from 3 to 5. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Lady. Agenda item 11, excuse me, agenda item 10, superintendent matters. Dr. Reid. Thank you, Chairman Fr. Uh it's been a busy week this week and um I spent some time Tuesday at Belvadier Elementary School. Uh was greeted by some fifth grade student ambassadors that were very excited uh to show show me their school. And so principal Cecilia Vanderhigh and her admin team as well as her preschool team had a chance to look at

177several of our models for inclusive preschool. There's a lot of excitement there at Belvadier and also spent time with principal Anthony Harris at Frost Middle School and had the opportunity to visit some family and consumer science classes. There's a lot of great baking and sewing going on. Um and uh visited some algebra 1 classes where polomial work was going on and I just have to say that did make my day. um the Fairfax High School. I got some help in the weight room by some of our uh young student athletes. I didn't realize that the weight bar that I was going to lift actually weighed 45 pounds. So, I did say do not put anything else on the bar. Um but visited AP Seminar, biology, and English classes at Fairfax High School, and our Lions

178have dramatically increased the number of lions in um AP classes this year. Uh, Principal Georgina, I was really excited and so were the students. Um, I got to read uh, Leonardo the Terrible Monster to first graders at Glen Forest Elementary and there were some sad moments in it. I'm not I'm not going to lie. Um, I'll have to go back and reread Leonardo. uh got to see Model Congress going on at Oakton High School and uh just really fabulous opportunity and then joined several of you at Fanquest at Anandale High School and um just really excited for that. I also want to share with our community that uh I was called this week from our Virginia Department of Education uh to be notified that we have two Virginia finalists for presidential award for excellence in

179mathematics and science teaching and Kristen Salonga science teacher at Justice High School, one of our wolves. Um and John Mika, mathematics teacher at Hayfield Secondary School. So, these are very prestigious honors and just uh so proud of our uh FCPS educating staff and uh just nice to be honored at that level. Um also want to congratulate um Ely Pope, a family services specialist who was named NEA Education Support Professional of the Year finalist. Um so, lots of fun there. And um join Mr. Solomon and others, Miss St. John Cunning at Twain Middle School to celebrate our FCPS quarters recipient Samantha Vivian Beck. Uh and the Education Foundation presented her a very large check. Um lots of excitement there. So um went to band events and robotics events. Um, and something I'd never been to because

180it's not a West Coast thing, but was the Atlantic Indoor Association indoor garden and percussion competition at Mount Vernon High School was amazing. I have never uh been to a competition like that. I just it was beyond uh I couldn't say enough about it. It was very exciting. And then of course our science fair and finished off the weekend at the spelling bee where I was watching third and fourth graders spell words I had never heard of. So we have some amazingly talented young scholars here in Fairfax County. Um so that's my report. Mr. FR. Thank you Dr. Reid. Miss Lady excuse me. The next item on the agenda is agenda item 11 board matters. I call on Miss Lady for an update. I thought I was after Mr. Moon. Mr. Moon has passed. Mr.

181Moon. I was I was yielding my time to you. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Sorry. Um so yes, I will share some of the exciting things that I have been involved in. I will start with the fact that I was able to observe MLAN High School's uh AP Capstone 10th grade English class presentations um last week. Uh, and I will tell you as somebody who was a little skeptical about making that an English 10 offering, um, I was very very impressed uh, by these young people and the delivery of their presentations, especially with unexpected guests in the room. So, they're doing great work. I'm very excited to see that expand to uh, all of our schools um, as an offering as an AP offering for 10th graders that will also cover their English uh, 10 requirement.

182Um, also enjoyed uh, some point last week Dr. Dr. Reed's community conversations with uh employees uh at Haycock Elementary School and I will say that uh short and sweet uh faculty seem to be very pleased. So uh it went very well, very smoothly. Um also attended another SHAK meeting, student health advisory committee. uh continue to learn a lot more about cell phone usage and actually just uh to be quite direct the uh addictive uh nature of social media and cell phones in our young people and some of the things that we need to be doing to intervene there. Um also enjoyed attending science fair and celebrating several of the people from the drainsville district. Um I will not name all of their uh actual uh experiments but congratulations to the students who won grand prize.

183uh Khloe Gigglio from Mlan High School. Um Oliver Wang from Thomas Jefferson High School and Bennett Huang and Jason Pan from Langley. And then also to the Drainsville grand prize alternates uh in animal science Justin Kim and Nisha Shaw from TJ in computer science and math, Maria Marina Lynn from TJ and then a material science um Aditha Pilia and Lang Xiang from Langley High School. Um, again, very impressive projects. Uh, it's there's nothing more exciting to be at Science Fair and feel like you're at at an athletic event. Um, and your team just won. Uh, the the excitement from the students when they heard their names called. Um, it's a must it's a mustsee and it's a must experience. It's great to to see our kids love science that much. Um, spent some time earlier

184this week at the PTSA um, for Langley High School at a meeting. Um, good conversations there. some boundary questions, um some uh K12 start time questions, um and as mentioned earlier, enjoy going to the global classroom project presentations. I think last night, all my days are running together. Uh but that was quite impressive and uh and I really commend the teachers who take that on and I I I hope there's a way that more of our teachers can learn about that because I feel like in my time at Chantelli, I wasn't that familiar with it, but there would have been some teachers who would have loved to have latch on to and participate in that experience. Um, and then just as a reminder, tomorrow I have a budget meeting with Drainsville at the MLAN Community

185Center with uh, Board of Supervisor Jimmy Beerman's office. Uh, that's at 6 PM. And then we also have one at Hearnen High School on Wednesday, April 2nd. And then finally, I'll give a shout out to um, our career center specialist and counselors that I was able to um, share a meal with today. uh Christopher Newport University hosted a counselor uh workshop for our counselors to learn more about their admissions uh and their institution and that was a special event and it's just nice that counselors can get to that type of professional training during their day. So that's it for me. Thank you, Miss Lady, Miss St. John Cunning. I'll pass tonight. Thank you. You feel better, Miss Marin? Yes. Well, I'm going to be out bright and early. Well, not that early, but in the

186morning tomorrow over at Cedar Lane. They're having their basketball championship, and I'm very excited to go and see that. I um am also then going to head over to an IFAR dinner hosted by our Sudin American community, of which uh a lot of the families are at Forest Edge Elementary, where I was yesterday reading books donated by Microsoft all about steam. So, that was pretty fun. and I managed to read to fifth graders and they found it pretty engaging. So, yay. Um, I also headed over last night to Sunrise Valley Elementary had their show what you know and Flores Elementary had their science fair. So, just really cool projects by students uh you know talking about science and doing fun things and uh it's just a nice time. Somewhere in there I went to the

187Madison High School for their jazz band concert which was really great. And um I am having a town hall uh to talk about the budget. Uh so please come and learn. It's on April 7th. That's a Monday from 7 to 9:00 p.m. at the newly renovated Louise Archer Elementary which is also an amazing you know opportunity to go and see that beautiful school which I believe will have an official opening at some point. Um, and I also want to wish, you know, a meaningful Eid, uh, to our families, uh, observing Ramadan. And, um, I saved the best for last. The thing I'm most looking forward, well, tonight my daughter played in her first JV soccer game. And so, I heard it went really well and apparently my husband was the announcer, which I'm sure she

188really didn't like. Um, but I am excited to do that at some point, too. And my son is playing in the sixth grade basketball game tomorrow night where it's teams of teachers and parents. And this is something that I've been waiting for for years. So, elementary school is is fast uh sun setting. So, looking forward to it starting the new quarter, the new semester next week. And uh yeah, enjoy the three-day weekend. Thank you, Miss Marin, Miss Dixit. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I enjoyed my visit to Centerville High School along with my colleague, Mr. Kyle McDaniel last week. Um, I welcome the opportunity to engage directly with their amazing new principal, Mr. Healey, staff and student in the classroom. All the students mural on the wall and artworks are incredible. Uh, we also listened to

189the fantastic uh, Centerville High School Symphony Orchestra assessment. It was really cool to see like the more than 100 students were on the stage and the uh, the symphony orchestra and uh, a very talented group. I must say I also had a PTA uh PTO uh PTSA president's uh round table which we were talking about the budget. Uh we talked about the CIP boundary study and answered question. Thank you for those who could attend and then we sent the slides over to everybody who could in the Sulli district who could not attend the meeting. And so um I did want to congratulate uh Mandy Walter, special education teacher from Popular Tree Elementary School and Elizabeth Frost, special education teacher from Shanti High School won the first class awards. These awards are presented each year to

190recognize and celebrate the STU effort of educators, administrators, support staff and students who had demonstrate excellence in all facets of education related to disability. Congratulations to all of them. uh to all the awardees. Uh the 70th annual Fairfax County Regional Science and Engineering Fair showcased roughly 400 high school science projects. Congratulation to all the student who participated and won prizes. Nine FCPS student awarded the grand prize and so proud of Sal district student Saman Van Mala from Shentley High School who was a grand prize awardee for chemistry and An Malhotra from Thomas Jefferson High School. um who was the grand prize award awardee in engineering technology. The grand prize winners are eligible to complete compete in the regional international science and engineering fair in May. I'm looking forward to my trip to Londontown Elementary next

191week and uh I just say good night and thank you to all of you and happy Eid for those who celebrate and enjoy the long weekend. Thank you Miss Dixit, Mr. Macke pass. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Mavine. Dr. Anderson. Yes. Thank you. Firstly, I do want to say congratulations also. U Dr. Reed stole my thunder a little bit regarding the teacher at high school at um Justice High School, Kirsten Salanga. It was fantastic just to hear this wonderful news. We do have such wonderful educators in our schools. So, I won't belabor that point, but just to wish her good luck as she's going to be announced. I guess the the winners are going to be announced for the presidential award for excellence, which she is up for very soon. Um, speaking of science, I do

192want to say congratulations to the nearly 70 Mason district students who represented all three of our high schools and brought home awards um in this recent Fairfax County Regional Science and Engineering Fair. That was very exciting. I will be celebrating your many, many names in our newsletter um coming up very soon. Um I do want to thank Supervisor Jimenez for um hosting the budget town hall with us to um yesterday as well as Miss Burden who was just really wonderful on camera. But I think the star of our budget town hall was a student from Po Middle School who called in and asked a he had such strong advocacy. He asked wonderful questions regarding the middle school after school programs. So much so he ended up being featured on two news outlets. So, just go

193ahead and um check out that video because they also went to the school to interview him. It was just a wonderful display and he was just so eloquent and just so clear in terms of how important that programming is to him. And so, I'm excited to continue to work um with um Supervisor Jimenez to see what can be done in a timely manner because we also don't want to have that running into the VIP summer camp program which are run by those same coordinators. I'm very excited to visit um Parklon Elementary yesterday and the opportunity to visit Miss Jensen's fourth grade classroom. Um I talked to you all just a few weeks ago regarding the students who wrote the letters about the overcrowding at their school and how the um playground is crowded. They were

194a wonderful audience and they were just so enthusiastic and wanting to know what what are you guys going to do about that. So it was very exciting to speak with that group. um also had the opportunity to visit with um at Annadel Terrace that's the principal Bedia who you saw in the video a little bit earlier and had a chance to see some of that work in person and I'm really proud of the work that they are doing there. Um just very recently I also visited false church High School with Congressman Byer um to see the new space. I don't know if you've been yet Mr. fridge, but the auditorium is really coming along. And he had the opportunity to speak to a government class and their concerns were far ranging and there were a

195fantastic group of students who really put him on the spot regarding how he is going to protect our interests here in Fairfax County. So, I was excited that they were unafraid of the opportunity before them. Um, I do want to share that Justice High School's Wolfpack Theater production of Almost Main premieres tonight and runs through Saturday with two additional evening performances and a matinea on Saturday. Um, the park boundary community meetings I believe are slated for April 1st and 9th. So parents, I know that uh Miss Forgi has sent out some information and we look forward to seeing you on April 1st at 6:30 for the inperson for I think that's virtual and the in-person meeting is April 9th at 6:30. Lastly, I want to say congratulations to Alice Pri Alex Price who is a

196sixth grader at Glasgow who was one of the nine finalists in the county spelling B. What science is to you Miss Lady? spelling bee is to me it is one of my favorite things and I was excited to participate in all three spelling bees at Glasco Homes and Po this year. I could sit there all day. I was not able to make it on Sunday but I it's one of my favorite things ever. So I look forward to seeing our finalists very soon at the Gaylord which will be shown on ESPN. Have a good night all. Thank you. T HA I'm just kidding that is incorrect Mr. McDaniel. Thank you. Uh, quickly, uh, I will be joining Miss Anderson, uh, next Tuesday, April 2nd, 7 p.m. at West Springfield High School for a budget town

197hall. And we're excited that we're going to be featuring chairman Jeff McCay, the county executive. And I think the superintendent will be making an appearance as well. And uh lastly, speaking of West Springfield High School, I wish a speedy recovery to my friend and and uh quai colleague on the other board, Supervisor Herity, who I hear is recovering very well from a recent medical procedure. So, with that, good night, Miss Anderson. Um just really fast, we talk a lot about budget on this board. Um and we talk a lot about money and where where money's coming from. And as I have been digging in related to what's been going on with the Department of Education recently um and the risk of local funding from the federal sources um I have I just have been reiterating

198this in opportunities that I've had to speak is that I have never been more grateful for the commitment of the board of supervisors in Fairfax County. Um, you've heard this from me before is that my standard answer is kind of that I recognize that they have filled the delta for a very long time to make sure that we can have the school system that we do. We have work that we still need to do, but we would not be in the position where we are where if we lose federal funding, it's only $168 million out of our four billion dollar budget. Um, and that is while it's still an astronomical amount of money, um, I am grateful that it is only $168 million that we would have to figure out how to how to make

199work. So, I just wanted to say publicly one more time, thank you so much to the board of supervisors for your continued support. Thank you, Miss Anderson. Uh, first, I too attended the Oakton Model Congress. It's one of my favorite events every single year. It starts off with students electing their leadership for their respective uh parts in Congress. Um they give speeches, they get elected, um and then they talk about their legislation and they debate their legislation, they pass their legislation. I cannot tell my colleagues how refreshing it was to see what a functioning Congress looks like. It was just incredible. Um, and I also very much enjoyed going to the global classrooms event u yesterday um, and seeing the talented students of Luther Jackson Middle School open the the uh, the event with their

200very inspiring performance of spoken word um, tributes to the the goals and purposes of the program. It was fantastic. Uh, and I look forward to going again in the future. Um earlier this month there was a huge WACFL speech and debate league uh tournament that was open to public and private middle and high schools in the greater DC area. Um and I am excited as somebody who used to participate in speech and debate. I'm excited that a pair of Madison High School students um did so well and they will be moving on to the next round of competition. Um, I was recently, uh, approached by a parent in FCPS who's a Rift federal worker, and they expressed to me how grateful they are for FCPS because though they are trying to scramble and re-evaluate what

201their professional career is going to look like after 20 years of service to their country, um, they've been to a pair of the job fairs that we've had in FCPS to invite these people, these scientists, these lawyers, these professionals who have given to their country to join us in our service to our community um and is hoping to join us. And so I appreciate the work that's being done from our human resources department to bring these people into the fold here uh so that they can continue their public service. So thank you very much. Um looking forward to uh a couple of upcoming events this weekend. in the sixth grade all uh county coral festival which is a fantastic event uh filled with super talented students and I'm looking forward to being there for that

202again. Uh and then upcoming Providence Day is holding its Earth Day celebration um at the Graham Road Community Building on April 5th from noon to 3. So I hope folks will turn out and join Supervisor Palic for that wonderful event. And with that at 10:22 p.m. this meeting is adjourned. [Music]