3/11/25 - FCPS School Board Work Session

001the code of Virginia Section 22- 37083 B which occurred in July on July 1 2024 members of a public body who have a disability or caring for someone with a disability now count toward the Quorum as if the indent was physically present in this case Miss seore Heiser has notified the chair and Clerk of the board that she is using remote participation as she is caregiving for an individual with a disability thus she will be counted as in person for the persons of Quorum tonight and do not need to be voted in by the board thank you all right this point I will turn it over to Dr Reed thank you Miss Lady and this morning um it's uh a great opportunity for our board and our community uh to have an opportunity to review

002goal four and I couldn't be more proud of the work that the team has uh done and continues to do all of our Educators across the division and our support staff um goal four I think we have some really great data to share this morning and some information that's going to drive future decision making so um we're in for a treat this morning and really uh look forward to the conversation so at this point I'm going to turn the presentation over to uh Miss Neil who's going to introduce the team and I hope it'll be a productive interactive uh presentation so thanks Miss Neil thanks Dr Reed good morning board members um it is my pleasure to introduce with us today Mr Howard Bell who has been the CEO of able since 2020 and Dr

003Steven Garing who is the chief AC ademic officer for AEL and they are joining us today and will be co-presenting with us and supporting the board's discussion around the work we're doing to look at um course taking patterns so our objectives for today's meeting are to provide the board with an update on our progress towards meeting our 2030 go four measures um to talk about the work that we're doing around go four and to have an opportunity to talk about policy budget and strategic considerations as it relates to our goal four work and just as a reminder goal four is our Equitable access and opportunity goal and the work is deeply connected to the goals within our strategic plan there are five measures in goal four which are all on the screen and today's presentation

004is going to specifically focus on measures b d and e looking at accessibility and participation today we're going to share data that examines High School course taking patterns through the lens of academic intensity and we will also look at accessibility of activities for students at the very heart of our goal four is the notion that students are able to make informed choices about the opportunities they pursue that those choices are aligned to their passions and interests and that those choices support their future goals and success this goal also recognizes that availability does not necessarily equate to accessibility or connection to student interest our student experience survey that is currently wrapping up will provide some additional insights into accessibility gaps where students want to pursue things something that they're currently unable to do and the data

005from that survey will be shared with the board in May so we began a pilot this year working with Abel and 20 of our high schools to look at cour taking patterns by examining transcripts for last year's senior cohort our pilot schools were able to see patterns of academic course taking for their students that correlated with Readiness for post-secondary Education we had Dr Reed yeah thank you Miss Neil I just wanted to pause for a minute and and I want to share with the board how this was rolled out because I think it's important uh we met with the high school principal Association a year ago we actually met last spring and we began to share the um ideas that were inherent in this work and what I shared and I say this to the

006board because we've had a a large discussion on being a system of schools versus a school system and so what I shared with the High School principles was every high school would be involved in this work but it would be a two-year roll out so this year would be the first year cohort and then next year anyone that didn't choose to start in year one because maybe they had other initiatives transitions whatever they could take a pass on year one but they would be starting in year two so when Miss Neil says 20 of our high schools were involved in this work of our 25 schools 20 said we want to jump in on year one the the remaining five will jump in in year two and all high schools will be doing this work

007um by the end of next well by the beginning of next year every high school will be engaged so I don't want to leave the impression that some schools are and some aren't they had an on-ramp um to choose start in year one or start in year two um and then all high schools will be involved so thank you thank you Dr Reed so for our pilot schools we had teams that consisted of principles High School directors of student services school counselors assistant principls Department chairs and other teachers that came together and participated in three sessions with AEL to use the data and an internal tool so they could identify opportunities within their own school's data to strengthen post-secondary Readiness for their students so in the first section of this presentation we're going to take

008a look at cour taking patterns through that lens of academic intensity meaning our students are taking the necessary coursework to prepare for additional education after they graduate from high school school so this is different from goal three where we looked at student completion of one Advanced coursework this presentation is really looking at that pattern of course taking that's happening in high school and looking at this data allows us to ensure that all of our students are preparing for postsecondary path of their choosing and that their options are not limited because of the courses that they're enrolling in um as a reminder to our public our middle and high school students typically have the ability to choose coursework in two ways so first students can choose the level at which they want to take a required

009course so for example they could take an English n honors course or a standard English n course and then outside of those required courses middle and high school students may also choose elective courses in a variety of areas and this can um include additional courses in required subjects such as taking an additional science class beyond the minimum requirements or courses in areas such as World languages the Arts or CTE academic intensity is focused on the selections our students are making within the areas of math science social studies and English and World languages as these courses are the most predictive of post-secondary Readiness so this analysis does not examine differences in the decisions students are making outside of those academic subjects with the understanding that the decision to pursue one elective over another is often driven

010by a student's personal interest and passion and that each elective area has benefits to students based on their individual interest and goals so academically intense cour taking is linked to ontime graduation college enrollment and higher earnings and research has identified several factors that contribute to students pursuing these courses including course availability and financial accessibility such as paying for AP or IB exams recruitment practices and school culture as well as student and family expectations and interests our key takeaway for key takeaways for this section are that 75 5% of last year's senior cohort had academically intense cour taking patterns and we do see significant differences in these rates across student groups the greatest Gap we saw in academic intensity was between our multilingual Learners students who are levels 1 through four and students who are not

011multilingual Learners and to address these gaps and improve rates we are focused on five key strategies that we'll discuss further after we talk about the data So based on Able's analysis of last year's senior cohort data we have said annual targets for academically intense course taking and on this slide you can see both the student group data as well as the 2025 targets to ensure all of our students are accessing coursework that prepares them for postsecondary we are also setting a Target to close the gap which will ensure our students who are not meeting the minimum Readiness criteria are on track to do so so to do this we've set an annual growth Target for all students to hit that minimum Readiness standard that Stephen will talk about more which does not prevent any student

012from going beyond the minimum so rigor and Readiness are on a Continuum on which all students can continue to grow so at this point I'm going to turn over the presentation to Dr Stephen King like to start off with this quote the schedule is the place at secondary schools where all of this interacts so as students start making those choices um in terms of how many years of courses what are their electives the schedule is the place where students can access more intensity or often often times sometimes those inequities are memorialized inside we started out with some of the work with the schools talking about where are the future of jobs so we started looking at Virginia's economy we looked at the national economy talking about the shift in the United States particularly over the

013last uh 15 to 20 years towards post-secondary not all students need a 4-year degree but we talked about the need for students to have something beyond their high school diploma about 70% of the jobs in Virginia require it's actually a little bit higher it's some of the latest projections so talking about are we making um all of Fairfax students postsecondary ready and talking about how this was based inside research around postsecondary preparedness when you look at the research on postsecondary preparedness for high schools the single biggest predictor out of all the metrics that you could pay attention to is academic intensity so if you had to choose one metric for high schools to pay attention to it's the intensity of the coursework that students are taking it's particularly important for uh African-American Latino students uh

014out of all of the metrics to pay attention to second is grades we also collected data on test scores which we'll talk about but the most important out of all of this is intensity so that's where we'll spend the majority of time today how did we do our our methodology it's a holistic evaluation so when we're looking at it there's not one right way we talked about students having a mix of really rich electives to complement that what we're looking at in their core classwork is how how many years of courses are students taking are they going above and beyond the minimum Virginia and Fairfax County requirements did they access advanced cours work honors AP IB College in the high school dual credit what mix of courses did they choose there and and we looked

015at um their stem course progressions for example a lot of research uh around the highest level of mathematics that a student completes what was the highest Math course that they got to and specific science sequences things like biology chemistry physics very important for students majoring in stem subjects um out of that Continuum we scored the the transcripts on a holistic scale very similar to how a college would score it on a 25 point scale we're not suggesting all students need to get out to that 25 points but we do have research that shows if students can get to that 10 points they're much more likely to move on we also have benchmarks that we can talk more about in terms of GPA and test scor our methodology again looks at the five subjects students can

016score up to Five Points in English Math Science Social Studies World Language lots of ways to do it we want we keep reiterating with the team there's not one right way there's so many ways students can choose to add to their course intensity over their Junior and Senior year um and we're really again shooting for that score of around 10 which is highly predictive of a student enrolling somewhere persisting to their second year and completing some sort of post-secondary so if students can get to that level of intensity increase their momentum they're much more likely to move on on and persist in some sort of post-secondary studies that's why we uh use that Benchmark and why we verified that Benchmark through research so let's get into the data the exciting part so this is a

017Continuum and I want to start out saying we work all over the United States with school districts uh we've never seen in course taking intensity this High um so definite compliment to the division all of those students in that dark Blu you're talking 75% of students hit that Benchmark that's very high and 61% of students are in that 15 to 25 range those students are probably ready for any selective or highly selective College in the US so big story here it's a very very high performing School District with the vast majority of students taking highly intense patterns of coursework uh across all schools uh about one out of five graduates walking across the stage is a little bit lighter in their course taking intensity and we'll spend a little more time talking about them through

018through the rest of it there's two students uh we're just using these two students to illustrate our methodology this is a student in that blue and uh the key thing to note is they're really strong core coursework so again uh as Marcy was was laying out students have choices they're Junior and senior year in particular this student chose to start French in 8th grade and move on to a third year of French added um some AP coursework added some challenging coursework throughout their their four years this is an example of a student who has lots of momentum in our analysis uh a high GPA uh the student will probably thrive in their post-secondary studies lots of post-secondary momentum the next student is an example of the 25% of students that's a little bit lighter a

019little more at risk not that the student won't succeed but this is an example of a Fairfax student who went through met all of Virginia requirement chose not to go into World languages didn't access any honors didn't access any AP any IB any dual credit 3.87 GPA thrived probably could have um accessed some more intensity um just trying to illustrate who's that student in that light yellow who's that student in the blue here's two examples of Fairfax students kind of give you a a flavor of how the methodology plays out across a real transcript this is reiterating the point so in that green box you'll see you'll see a a school with the the blue dot is your school the gray bar Compares your school to similar schools across the United States big story line

020on this graph is your schools are outperforming similar schools um that we work with uh so if you compared the demographics of your schools to other schools across the United States Fairfax the the story Fairfax students are taking more intense coursework across the board than similar schools across the US you guys have a very rich curriculum students are accessing that rich curriculum and completing some of the most intense cours work the blue dots way off to the right are showing how intense um some of the schools are and you'll see one school kind of right in that GR band but big picture idea this is a good to Great scenario with really high performing schools across the board inside that so inside an incredibly high functioning School District with students taking intense coursework not all

021families and not all students are accessing the same level of intensity and you'll see different patterns here and you'll see some families some students not for whatever reason getting access choosing getting advised the combination of all of those things that that Marcy talked about in the research and you'll see some student groups did not complete the same level of intensity and a little more at risk in their post-secondary studies we don't show the overall data uh and stop there you're we're going to show you what we do with the school so this is a view of by subject so we start here our goal is to aggregate the data for your schools and for your division play the data back so you all see where your opportunities are this is showing you where your greatest

022opportunities for gains the subjects that you have the strongest intensity is science social studies and English again we haven't seen a course intensity like that um the areas where you're likely to see the greatest gains is math and World Language those are the opportunities where if you wanted to move the needle a little bit those are the places where you're likely to move the needle the most and then we drilled down inside the schools to show them we showed you there's three ways you can improve your tensity how many years you take do you access advanced coursework and then your progressions this is showing you years of coursework or another way of saying that's persistence and you'll see uh very very high persistence particularly in the humanity students taking up almost up to four years

023the place where you can see the most gains is in your math and your science is getting more Fairfax students to sign up voluntarily again it's called an elective some families are choosing uh calculus as an elective or chemistry as an elective other families aren't so how do you help guide and advise students through that course selection process you'll see Math and Science are an opportunity to have more students take a fourth year as World Language uh you could have more students take a third and fourth year um and go beyond that second year lots of different ways to improve the intensity and we also look at the second way we looked at was uh our students accessing Advanced coursework so the last one was persistence this is looking at Advanced coursework and again very

024high levels students are taking advanced coursework in in English and social studies at incredibly High rates the areas where you're likely to see the greatest gains on students accessing honors AP IB dual credit is going to be inside math and World Language and a little bit in science for schools in the division we also drill down so this is giving you a taste of how we drill down into the data uh so this is an this is a breakdown by student group so you can see some families in math so we'll just do a drill down in math just so you can get a sense of what's in the software and what students or what schools were able to see in their Trend data this is an example of not all students not all families

025having access to the same level of advanced mathematics and varies by student group fairly significantly and you get to see the flow through the curriculum this is called a sanki graph so you read this from the left to the right you'll see uh students coursework in their first year their second year their third year and their fourth year uh this is a group of students out of high school for example when we were working with them as they were digging into their data where 109 students didn't take math their senior year really showing them you had an opportunity here's a here's an area where your school might want to focus and you'll see about half of those students were from algebra the other half were students who started already had started algebra in 8th grade

026and started High School in Geometry so it was a mix of their students some of them were accelerated some of the students were on track really trying to show that high school there's a group of students that you could really tap on their junior year as they're choosing their senior year cours workor to really shape their post-secondary Readiness mathematics in particular is one of the most predictive and this is another high school just trying to show you the types of data that schools and the division can see this is a high school on the left you'll see this is their students who started with their very first course in algebra so they had 181 students starting in algebra you'll see uh the students progressing to a geometry sequence some of the students continued on into

027a multiple-year geometry sequence and some moved on to Algebra 2 Big Ideas students at that high school who started in Algebra 1 only 6% got into a pre-calculus course um at that particular school so we're trying to show them here's an opportunity to really recruit students or to really Market your courses trying to get more students into pre-calculus is very predictive particularly for stem Majors the the graph on the right shows their students who came already completing Algebra 1 starting in Geometry those 162 students um and again an interesting pattern at that school that's why we chose it to kind illustrate those students are moving through the curriculum to statistics um but not moving to calculus at very high rates you would typically expect um when there's 162 students starting geometry a higher yield or

028a higher percent of students moving on to a calculus at this particular school is only about 12% so showing them here's where your opportunities are uh here's what's happening inside your curriculum patterns and then here's where you might want to intervene as you're thinking about your course selection process and advisement yeah thanks uh Stephen one of the things that I also want you to look at that we're taking a close look at on both slides is you can see on the left slide the geometry uh the large group there and then there's a group that takes geometry again and on the right side you see the algebra 2 and then you see a group taking trig and really that should be the same class right so what we're seeing is a lot of dupli duplicated

029classes in some spaces where as we begin to look at our schedule and our course offerings we have some real opportuni um to tighten up this persistence because that yield to pre-calculus is not much I mean 6% is not high and even starting with geometry having a 12% yield to calculus is just unusual so I just we're going through this data fairly quickly and each of these slides really has a story that has some depth to it in terms of our ability to make this work actionable and as principle see the path in their schools it's really opened up some significant conversation I think so I just want to pause a minute and kind of take a look at that so thanks Stephen the other the other part and partly why I created this when

030I was a former uh Chief academic officer I could see the enrollment in my courses and when I was a high school principal what I couldn't see was the flow through the curriculum it wasn't visible to me I knew like how many students were in pre-calculus or how many students were in Algebra 2 this shows you the flow through the general to advance so sample high school in Fairfax you'll see 284 students started in general math the big story is there what whatever you chose your e8th to nth grade transition at this particular High School you're kind of locked in into that you're going to stay in the general track they did have a A nice bright spot their senior year where 71 students did get into an AP course that's that's a real bright

031spot that we called out to that school this is great can you find more opportunities to move students into that accelerated pathwork that might be ready to benefit um might have great grades might do really well um that's an example of how to use this data um to really uh leverage it for your advantage just piggybacking off of Stephen's last slide this slide shows um a snapshot of our math data from last year and it looks at advanced math in sixth grade algebra 1 in e8th grade and the of our graduating seniors who had at least one math credit Beyond Algebra 2 and it's important this isn't cohort data but it is a snapshot in time for us to look at and what we can see is there are gaps um in sixth grade between

032student groups those gaps are larger when we look at the data in the same year for our students taking Algebra 1 and e8th grade and those gaps are the largest in high school when we look at our final data point we also see in this data that for some of our student groups um they're able to take advantage of honors and open enrollment at higher rates um and we certainly anticipate that as algebra 1 participation continues to increase that High School data will also improve we mentioned that we looked at two other data points so the academic intensity is the single biggest predictor GPA is the next biggest predictor we have two benchmarks for you but we wanted to talk about test scores uh test scores are a useful triangulation Point not to measure individual

033students as much as to measure the system and uh how how students are flowing through the curriculum the quality of the curriculum uh and we have a benchmark here of 1120 we collected from you all sat PSAT ACT scores we converted them all to a common number um based on our Predictive Analytics and we'll show you some data on how students are the interaction of their course taking and their test scores so first of all this is the test score data again very very high performing School so about 45% of students walking across the stage hit that minimum Benchmark uh have lots of post secondary momentum and another 23% right on the cusp again this is all your PSAT act and sat data this one was interesting so the a little a little challenging the

034green bar is your course taking so remember 75% of your students are completing intense coursework you would expect that purple bar to be a little closer to your green one uh track a little closer so for example there's about a 30% gap between your course taking set another way students are signing up for the right courses in Fairfax they're not always hitting that test score Benchmark even though they're enrolled in that coursework so that's something to definitely watch and when we drill down uh this looks at the intersection of the two so the bottom access is your course taking uh so for example that 45% in that dark blue those are students who took very int tense coursework and they also hit that test score Benchmark they have lots of post-secondary momentum it's about half

035of your graduates that's the gold standard the students um if students do not sign up for intense course work at Fairfax they're not hitting the test score Benchmark at all so that shows how important the course taking is and the the electives are for students the the two that I wanted to really call out that green box those are students who signed up for intense coursework 28% but did not hit the test score Benchmark so really starts um talking about curriculum quality of the curriculum curriculum Fidelity instructional practices the students in that gray box are the most at risk they're taking not intense coursework and they're not hitting that test score Benchmark uh definitely a group to focus on over time and then this one we really wanted to call out different student groups are

036experiencing uh hitting the test score Benchmark at very different rates the one in particular that had the largest drop off was African-American students uh noticeably larger than any other student group in Fairfax there's and instead another way African-American students in Fairfax are signing up for a very intense coursework they're not hitting the test score Benchmark more so than any other student group in the school district so we definitely uh discussed that with the division at this point we're going to talk about the strategies that we're using to um increase academic intensity for our students so as we shared in goal three we're currently revising the K7 math curriculum and standards to strengthen all of our students Readiness for Algebra 1 by 8th grade um as Dr Reed mentioned this data also provides FCPS with an

037opportunity to reexamine our current graduation requirements our course offerings and our enrollment practices and policies so that we can remove access barriers and ensure all of our graduates are prepared for their future um in multiple goal reports this year and last year academic advising has come up as an area for the division to focus on and we we have a team that's currently working on recommended revisions to the academic advisement process including activities during key transition years in this work is going to include the collection of student and family voice data to help us ensure consistent highquality practices are in place at all of our schools including early and consistent academic and post-secondary planning activities this also includes an RFP for an updated College and Career Readiness tool our schools who've been part of the

038able pilot are using this data to strengthen their practices and increased postsecondary Readiness specific to areas of opportunity that were identified for their individual school and as Dr Reed shared we'll be expanding this pilot pending board approval to include all of our high schools and our pilot middle schools next year finally we want to ensure all of our students are prepared for the rigors of advanced coursework and during the goal three report we talked about the honors framework that's in place to ensure rigorous instruction is embedded in all of our courses and that there are consistent expectations for extensions and honors level courses we also talked about the adoption of the basil resources including the math adoption that's currently underway as well as common assessments to ensure alignment between the written taught and tested curriculum

039across all schools and classrooms we've invested in increasing Avid in all of our tital one elementary schools to help our Young Learners develop those academic habits that will prepare them for advanced coursework in middle and high school and finally FCPS is also providing already no cost sat and PSAT testing to 10 through 12th grade students during the school day and this year we're also planning to Pilot no cost test preparation so students can demonstrate their Readiness on college entrance exams as we shared in the last goal report we continue to add dual enrollment options in both schools offering current dual enrollment as as well as exploring new courses to be offered as dual enrollment based on student interest we're also increasing the flexibility of the AP courses that can satisfy graduation requirements and expanding access

040to AP beginning in nth grade and then finally to support all of our students with accessing academically intense courses we continue to focus on identifying and resolving common barriers um including our work focused on twice exceptional Learners our efforts to provide academic support for students during non-elective time so for example the pilot we're doing to use advisory to deliver content that otherwise would have been provided in a strategies for success course the ongoing work with our inclusion consultant to increase the inclusion of students with disabilities in the general education setting and to have more more access to Advanced coursework and electives the updates to the Esau course sequence and providing professional learning to staff focused on asset based mindsets and effective feedback for our students so at this time I will turn it back over

041to our meeting managers okay we'll start with uh chairman frish thank you um can we go to slide 29 please all right um so as described on the left we have geometry being repeated in a significant number and on the right we have Algebra 2 and trig um which should probably be the same class um I'm curious how much of this is because of our repeating content you've talked a lot about how compared to other countries our math uh programs here in the US tend to repeat a lot of the previous courses um curriculum how much of that impacts this these two charts I think these are the posters for those charts um or these charts are the posters for that theory I know Stephen and I have done a lot of work in this

042area and often what happens first of all through K8 there's just a lot of review every year and as we look at our math curriculum uh and our shifting basil resources that the committee is going to look at we should be able to minimize that and be able to um support students in higher level of mathematics sooner having said that we also know that there's a certain there can be a tendency at times if people don't think students are ready for a certain level of math to create another math class or create a two-year class that's really a one-year class or create you know out of a good intention to be supportive and at the end of the day it isn't the impact of that good intention is not a good thing necessarily if students

043don't get to where they need to be to persist post secondary right so it's always thinking of that second uh that second Lookout but to your point yes I mean this is illustrative of exactly that concept and one of the things that we're doing as a division to fix that is the new basil materials that you mentioned yes sir um we anticipate that much of that will be in place for the next school year the secondary materials should be in place next year in the elementary the following year um will the transition for those materials be similar to our language arts uh materials or will it be less intense for the Educators to pull off I think it will be quite similar to be honest with you um because it's going to be new new

044materials new scripts new manipulatives um I think it'll be very similar one of the things that I think has been different with the language arts is the transition to phonics phic awareness as a opposed to whole word and everything else is there a similar kind of philosophical shift in the approach that we we would be having here I think so I think that one of the things pheic awareness in the science of reading provides is a um done well there's a level of fluency that's possible Right the learning of vocabulary the intentional teaching of vocabulary gives voice and language that can increase uh fluency which allows you to read more fluently I think we need to remember the importance of knowing our math facts and I know for a long time we maybe have shifted

045away from that being important I'm not talking about Fair facts specifically but um just our nation in general and I think we need to come back to the understanding that if you don't understand your basic math facts your math fluency is impacted and math fluency is just as important as reading fluency if you're going to be able to be effective in a mathematics classroom so um and we also are going to move to much like the basil reading materials in actual text uh math books if you will uh and I I believe uh one of the things that I've shared uh with the team is I think homework is important I think practicing math skills not learning new material at home but practicing math skills such as basic math facts it's critical to develop that

046math fluency and that um those neural Pathways for mathematics so um I think it is a very similar shift to the science of reading and so it could be several years before we start seeing the dividends for the the work it could yes sir we should be stressing that as we have these conversations I don't want people to see this as a Panacea that overnight things are going to change can we go to slide all right knowing what we just talked about I'm curious if we have data breaking this information down by subject matter like how much of this or the lower numbers are representative of math scores being lower than language arts we definitely have that data not for today's presentation but we can get get that uh that to you so to your

047point the SAT and the ACT provide subject we get a reading score in the act of very similar one on the SAT you also have a breakdown by mathematic so we can provide more detailed breakdown this is the composite score to your point and definitely warrant some further investigation uh that we can provide in the future do you have any thing that you can share that you might recollect from what that might look like in terms of the the math component here it the math component definitely lags in my recollection so I don't want to be held to that without having in front of me but you're right I think the in my recollection and across the the country uh in the data in general that math tends to lag behind students reading scores in

048both in these exams and that's usually the limiting factor that has students in that pink and that light red and not moving into the blue in general sometimes people on the bubble I'm assuming yeah it's much more likely to be in mathematics than it typically is in Reading there are some students that are uh outstanding in mathematics and are on the other side but you're right in in general it's mathematics it's the limiting factor well one thing I'd like to see as we bring this to the regular meeting is um some information about you know when we talk about Title One schools for example I was talking about the other schools that are on the bubble but not getting the additional support right I'd love to know you know if we follow through on these

049changes to our approach on mathematics what is the number of students that are on that bubble where with the additional support they tip into the next category um because I think what I'm seeing throughout this part of the presentation is how important the mathematics component is to each facet and um so I think it expresses the urgency of the changes that are underway and perhaps even the the changes to graduation requirements that you've discussed so I'll be eager to see more on that yes sir and I I'm glad you brought up the graduation requirement changes I will be recommending to the board that we add two things one a fourth year of mathematics because in talking with our principles um it would be so much simpler just to default to a fourth year requirement which

050many many states in the country already have and we have students that actually are done in some cases at the end of their junior year and aren't taking any more math some at the end of their sophomore year uh and then secondly I believe algebra trig needs to be a graduation requirement um it is the exam that uh Apprentice exams are based on uh it's uh whether you're going into the military into work or into postsecondary it's a must to understand the principles in algebra trig and those two additions to our graduation requirements I believe would position Fairfax County Public Schools um particularly here in the Commonwealth to be a leader um because the Commonwealth doesn't require those and is clearly lagging in mathematics as we're 50 out of 50 states in the natee math

051scores but over 40 other states already require algebra Tria as a graduation requirement so I feel like this is opportunity for Fairfax County to say we're going to raise expectations not by changing how we measure kids but actually changing the experience uh for our children educationally and I think it's essential this data is a key piece of that um but I just I really feel like that's something that our kids are capable of and our community would expect so I'll be putting on the next St docu next steps document a request for more information about the benchmark test data broken down by subject area not only in the aggregate but also in the demographics broken down on slide 37 thank you very much thank you chairman for Dr Anderson thank you and thank you for

052this very interesting presentation um I I'm glad and it's not a surprise that you found that Fairfax county is a high performing School Division and I'm glad that you raised it before me that while it's a high- performing School Division it's just not uniformally so for all of our students um you made a point of highlighting the performance of African-American students who are accessing those higher level courses but not having the yields on the assessments what are in your analysis what are the reasons for that yeah definitely have some hunches that we were following up on with the division some of the internal conversations because it's not all student groups with to the same level one of the hunches that we have is somewhere around teacher expectations and teacher beliefs uh around students so there's

053some great research around for example African-American teachers uh having higher expectations in terms of their own students in terms of discipline and feedback to their their Scholars so um that's one hypothesis that we were talking about around teacher expectation teacher beliefs teacher feedback and quality of teacher feedback um so that's that's the that's the first hunch is and then really looking at curriculum curriculum Fidelity inside some of the schools with higher concentrations to making sure that the courses are following the curriculum following the curriculum guides have the same expectations across the across the division across the region to make sure that those Algebra 2 courses those pre-cal courses are offering the exact same curriculum the same standards um using some of the same Benchmark so those were be the first two I'd start with is

054teacher belief teacher expectations professional development around that combined with some curriculum curriculum Fidelity particularly in targeted schools where you're seeing larger test score drops thank you are you seeing also a consistent application of those African-American students in terms of where they're being the least success uccessful around our division is this uniformly across all of our regions or are there concentrations in spots concentrations in particular regions we broke the test score data down by regions not for this particular presentation um but we did break it down by region and by schools and you'll see some schools are having more success than others and some schools are less success and some regions so you can see um concentrations that we provided data hopefully for the division to do some further investigation and followup tied to the Strategic

055plan that Mar L up thank you Dr Reed I would be very much interested in seeing some of that information and lastly um and I have that I have a hunch that this is connected to your other hunches um what have you found as related to teacher experience if anything yeah teacher experience nationally um when you start getting Beyond four to five years so there's there's definitely evidence in the first four to five years of teacher experience that there's a very strong correlation after that the correlation drops off pretty dramatically um so you're not seeing necessarily a teacher with 15 years of experience being three times more effective than a teacher a 5 years experience that research just doesn't show up um so then it gets really down to instructional practices but in the first

056if a school is impacted by large teacher turnover has large percentages of of teachers in their first few years of teaching there's definitely evidence um you want to reduce the amount of teacher turnover and the amount of professional development if that's taking place outside of that then once your last year fourth or fifth year um you're seeing really wide variation in terms of teacher practices and less correlation to experience thank you I would also be interested in seeing um what the teacher turnover rates are in those areas where you have identified as having greater um issues with maintaining the level that is occurring elsewhere um so thank you for that um Dr Reed just a question that I wanted to piggyback on What U Mr friser shared you talked about the basil being able to

057address some of these concerns is the basle also going to address the scope and sequence and standard walk me through that a little bit I'm little unclear you're referring to the basil math yes of course the basil math has to be aligned to the Virginia standards for sure so if the standards are repetitive in and of themselves how would that give us the opportunity to kind of move ahead a little bit quicker I I don't know um that the standards you know one there's so many words to describe that they used to talk about um the cyclical curriculum there there were a lot of different terms for curriculum and obviously math like reading you're still adding from the time you're in kindergarten till you graduate your addition is still something you do but I think

058what we want to make sure is that we plan backwards from where we believe everyone should be and at this point the belief is based on all kinds of research that if you're in general education you should be in algebra in e8th grade so and even the Virginia Commonwealth says that I mean I think the prerequisite is success in seventh grade honors level mathematics I don't see no well but I think that was what we discussed in the meeting and if that's currently the Virginia um trajectory we should minimally be there I think what we're talking about is that for some children math is their Friday Night Lights right so we want to make sure we provide that extra experience um and we know know that acceleration for some children is just kind of where

059they are in mathematics just as you can go into a library and pick any book I can choose go Dog go or I can choose of M and Men um depending on where my independent reading level is but in a math class often I'm going to be in third grade math right and so what we want to say is look you can do third grade math which is going to be robust and rigorous and it is here in Fairfax County and if you're ready really for fourth or fifth grade math skills we want to provide that as well so that if you want to take algebra in sixth grade that's an option here in Fairfax County regardless of the school you attend right and you we would like eventually I think to get to a

060point where you don't have to leave your school to go take algebra uh in elementary school but there are a lot of factors we're going to have to address to get there but to answer your question um I think that we can uh the idea of this duplicate algebra trig that you saw on the one chart of the duplicate geometry that doesn't hold even if you're let's say for example you're a an amazing tennis player and you're going to go to college on a tennis scholarship the NCAA clearing house is not going to give you credit for two classes that are the same class so we're setting kids up for problems if we don't make sure that we have those discret courses um in a really discret and thoughtful pattern no sure I I definitely

061understand and I also understand the the need to have a basic curriculum because it also levels the playing field a little bit in terms of what's happening in one classroom is consistently happening across all classrooms at that grade level but I I'm having a hard time figuring out how that's going to advance the work of um well reduce duplicity and reduce some of the repetitive nature of what we're seeing here I'm struggling with seeing that well I would say that I'll make two other opt or two other observations one if we if we in Fairfax County Public Schools provide a higher level of math and the so targets we have to remember that standardized testing is a floor it is not a ceiling right it's it's kind of a a minimum that everyone should be

062able to master so if we end up with a um a basil math curriculum that actually is set as we do a reset here in mathematics to have um if we move through things um in a way that doesn't have as much review our kids are going to be fine right what I often notice not in Fairfax County so for those watching it I'm sure it does not happen here but there are places where sometimes they never get to the end of the book right and it used to be probability and statistics was at the end of third grade fourth grade fifth grade and so by the time kids got to sixth grade they'd never seen it because they never got to it because they got stuck on chapter four for umpty um weeks in

063chapter five and you've never seen that either so it's not a Fairfax thing I'm sure but the problem is if we're not going to get to all topics then the next year you'd think we would start with the end at the beginning but we don't we start with the reviewing everything so we don't get to it again at the end of the year so I think the standards are solid we just have to make sure we actually get to all of them every year sure I I have lots of questions but the one that I'm going to hone in is kind of the the bigger picture this is all great and as you know I I love this information this kind of data but I'm more interested in what are going to be those actionable

064steps one of the things that I'm thinking about as we're going through all of this is how do we prepare our students from elementary school to be ready to take algebra by sixth seventh grade instead of e8th grade to be ready to access all of these um other electives at the at the high school level just kind of let me in a little bit on your thinking on where does this preparation begin and when are we going to start seeing those baby steps well I think to your point the preparation begins in the home right let let's start there parents are a child's first teacher I will say high quality preschool also helps if every child comes kindergarten and school ready having said that kindergarten um on is our really primary focus at this point

065instructionally with materials that we're talking about uh we have a number of pyramids that are working really um as an entire K12 pyramid to look at this data uh we didn't talk today but this data is going to eventually move to a middle school project in the out years and then Elementary so we see cour taking patterns uh that develop from middle to high and that Arc is really informative for Regions I know right now the Justice High School pyramid in particular uh is laser focused on this work and we know that that laser focus um matters uh every High School principal that's been involved has talked about data that they hadn't realized right like they're very supportive of this work we talked Friday in fact about it and um just the groups that aren't

066persisting in certain content areas uh so this data is like it's extraordinarily actionable because it's about conversations and beliefs and expectations and making sure that classes of equal rigor are available to students across the county and that the expectations are there of all of our students that's also a piece that is harder to um and still and our staff then we could ask for it but it's harder to see that play out in the classrooms um just very lastly with my eight seconds what we talked about homework we've talked about that many many many times what is going to be your plan moving forward next year because at elementary level we still have a lot of local decisions to not have any homework so I know our grading committee is underway and I I know

067that homework is a piece of that um I just think it's good practice I think uh we lost our way a little bit on that topic and we need to get back to the importance of the discipline of Simply taking something home and bringing it back um and practicing skills because that does mirror real life um I actually do things at home for work um and I I trust all of us do so it's just good practice thank you Dr Anderson Miss Anderson okay so if we could flip back to slide 31 you guys touched on something that I have been um saying actually since my first meeting with Dr Reed um the only group of students up there that doesn't have a choice as where they register is the sixth graders because sixth graders

068don't get to choose whether or not they're in advanced math it's related to where they're placed and there's not much parent advocacy that can happen and anecdotally I am seeing numbers drop for how robust our local level four programs are and how the level three designators are happening so if we don't have kids identified as level three right now in our current system if we don't have kids identified in level three then they can't get to the advanced math placement in sixth grade other than differentiation in the regular classrooms and so that is something that I'm seeing just at schools that were previously very high performing level local level four programs that were that had robust level three offerings I'm seeing that anecdotally happen in in locations and I would like us to pay more

069attention to that as we move forward um the other thing that I would love to see here is how many of the 34% of our kids that are in sixth grade math what is their flowchart look like because I think that is essential information for us to understand why it's so important that if we don't provide that that higher level math in the elementary level that they are they don't feel ready to necessarily get there and I think that that's a hold it's a holdup of ours that we need to and you've got a bunch of kids that may be deemed as discipline problems that are just Bor and I would really love to see us challenge those kiddos a little bit more um so that's one thing the other thing that I wanted to

070ask is I know our Focus right now um is on math and I love that um I think that what we pay attention to is what we succeed at and my question is for World Language is up to this point um what benchmarking have we done amongst schools to ensure a certain level of instruction for World languages across the board I think I have a question is it about the instruction or about the access to courses it's about the consistency of curriculum um I mean we provide we provide um curriculum for level one through I think five AP is obviously based on the AP curriculum um I'm not sure so I know we provide that and we support teachers with that that constant curriculum and we buy basil resources for those um for those cont

071areas I think that again anecdotally I'm hearing a consistency issue with how those pieces of curriculum are being utilized within the classroom and how much um autonomy different languages may have related to what they're instructing um because I would be very interested to look at how our Advanced course taking patterns even going up to level three are dropping off at certain I I'm not going to get into certain schools here but I would be very interested to see whether or not we have Trends going on with certain languages at certain locations that could be looked at to ensure whether or not the adequate instruction is being given at level two which would encourage kids to to feel comfortable taking the level three classes because if we're seeing that as some sort of pattern towards a

072higher level of success I I think your question is is um is smart around like what are we seeing across schools because we know that graduation requirements drive a lot of the drop off after level three right that's what students need to get their Advanced diploma and they have so many other options they want to explore um in the CTE or in other arts and all sorts of areas so um but to your point if we're seeing a real significant difference across schools and especially like schools then there might be some questions there to look at and the other aspect is if we see a significant number of students at a particular School drop a language after level two and switch to a new language then we know we we likely know that we've got

073an issue within that language particularly kiddos that have started in eth grade so we I want us to look at some of those things so that we can pinpoint where the problems are and that way we can provide those teachers and those schools with the support that they need so that the kids can be in those advanced because the other thing that does is that means that kids are taking four years of a language and it doesn't open them up to other opportunities into higher level course taking patterns so I would like us to spend a little bit of time um and it could be look guys I understand fully um language arts is a like World languages is its whole its whole own ball of wax here um and we're probably not going to

074be able to be perfectly consistent just because of the fact that different languages are different um however I would like us to ensure that we're spending more time to make sure that the cohorts of of teachers that sometimes are one-offs in different locations I would like to make sure that they're spending more time with their colleagues to ensure that AC there's consistency across the board so I'm I'm gonna stop there thanks um Miss Maron okay I don't know that I'm going to talk fast on this one there's so much this is outstanding this is just I mean I I am simultaneous ly thrilled I'm relieved I'm overwhelmed but ultimately I'm motivated by this information um as a school board member and as a parent with two kids in the system I'm also hearing the clear

075call to this board and future boards to hold the superintendent accountable and the School Division accountable to best practices and research um board policies and state guidance when it's not tainted by politics um we have policies that are out of date that we are working on we have policies we're not following that cannot continue and we are doing the work I know in governance we are but that is the work of this board it's not all the other stuff that we tend to spend time on we've got to understand that they're recommending the policies that are going to drive the work so on strategy um slides 39 and 40 strategy 1 the enrollment and placement policies and I've been wondering about class sizes because and that is a question I have for our researchers what

076are the implications of class size because that's been stagnant for a while and I know it's been 29 30 and our elementary schools um the basil resource adoption again years behind where we're supposed to be I know we're fixing it though so that's the bright side because we've got Dr Reid here pushing the board the funding and this goes right back to our Board of Supervisors you know we cannot quibble about $7 million for this and that this is what it's going to take to continue funding our our school system and we've got to better I mean I I wrote down I want to clip your video remarks we've got to communicate that we are an outstanding school system and yet we still have 25% of our kiddos that have to reach that that goal

077post um I'm also wondering about the number of Math teachers how do we do that pipeline I'm wondering about state colleges of Ed the um lure the best practices I mean Dr you mentioned NCAA never even I didn't know that we need to know what the best practice research is on all the things that it's going to take for a graduate of our school to go on that's that's what I want to hear at a work session I want to understand I want to see this kind of data and modeling and um you know my questions yes for four years of math I grew up in New York the New York Region I took them in the late 90s it was Nob brainer standardized tests four years of math I mean World Language I don't

078know I know you've got a lot of other things you're doing but I'd love to hear what the plan is for that yes to homework the things I wonder about is the schedule the schedule currently limits how students can take courses and if they're going to an academy then they're wasting their time on a bus so when are we where does that factor into this um what um what are the implications of this data on the implementation of advanced academics level one through four and centers there's a lot of operational stuff here that I'm curious to know about and then F so I would love to hear your responses to those two things but finally Dr Pon I think about when we went to visit our friends at Marshal Road Elementary and how they our

079multilingual learner families and were really you know educated about how important is to not just know their home language words but their science and stem words this kind of data I think is what our families need to see too if they take algebra where does it lead them y so miss Marin I'm sorry which two things did you want me to respond to please I'd like to know um about schedule and how the schedule is going to be adjusted to allow for more intense course taking patterns and not wasting time on a bus for instance and the Implement imple implications of this data for implementation of advanced academics including centers so I think um those are good questions I think that when we talk about access to programming we're going to need to figure out

080ways like we've run the data across the School Division for example at middle school for how many teachers are credential to teach algebra and in some middle schools there are not sufficient numbers to meet the goal we have so I think we're going to need to look at options for programed delivery that might look different uh we may need to harness online options uh for some Singleton courses or courses that aren't offered in one school but are in another um because we can't keep driving to places right I think we're going to have to think about how do we bring the program or the instruction to the students so I know that's a big part of the conversation right now as far as the implications for AAP centers um I think that that study the

081Jonathan pleer study has certainly informed work here in the county and I know ISD is looking at ways to support AAP centers I think the Curious data point is to take the 34% I think Miss Anderson said that we're in advaned math and where do they go right and where do students so I think that's one of the things we like to look at on those charts is where do students go from each um program is it predictable I think it is um there always be outliers but I think it is predictable and where it is predictable and not acceptable we need to change the system thank you Miss sear Heiser thank you I appreciate it um it's nice to see you all first Dr Reed and staff this is incredible work um to speak

082you at can you guys hear me can you hear me okay perhaps it's us I don't know we still cannot hear you oh um I can hear you hang on let me let me change my microphone you test your mic again testing Can you guys hear me it's still too low I can turn mine up on my end can you hear me now can you guys hear me now well now I can't hear you either okay that's much better okay can you hear me now yes please proceed okay all right um sorry I lost my thought um can I just do you mind if I start my time again I apologize I kind of lost my train there your time is still at three three minutes okay thank you oh there I can see it

083now I appreciate that um first thank you um Dr Reed and staff for this work it's it's really excellent work and I'm really excited to see the um the focus on intensity and math first question and I apologize I had to come in a little bit late for a previous meeting but um what is the plan on really focusing I know you're talking about new basil material on increasing the intensity at the elementary school level um you know I think one of my colleagues Miss Anderson mentioned about sixth grade not having a lot of choice and who goes into advanced math but also the repetitiveness you mentioned of the curriculum maybe causing students to get bored and and I actually think the message of you don't have to take four years of math sends a

084message about math itself so what is can you tell me a little about your plans about increasing the intensity from kindergarten on for all students and I'll pause there so uh thank you for the question I think that having uh new materials that are consistent grade to grade classroom to classroom school to school are going to be extraordinarily helpful um and I think again remembering that whatever curriculum materials we select should as a matter of course lead students to algebra by eth grade that is the general track in this country so we believe that as we make the best selections of materials that's where that will lead um so and I think the ability to also enable students to um soar in whatever way they wish uh in terms of more advanced mathematics at younger

085ages I think we're going to it's going to require us to use some more creative interventions to do that but minimally the curriculum has to get all students to algebra by eth grade okay and I think that's super important especially in an increasingly technology world I did have a couple questions you it starts talking about intensity and course taking you know course taking intensity but then and it in your first slides talks about intensity kind of in all areas right mathematics core academics languages and other electives but then the rest of the slides only talk about core academics and World Language is the only quote unquote elective that you talk about it and specifically slide 23 and 24 I'm kind of wondering why we're not looking at intensity and other elective CTE business computer science

086Arts it's only on world languages I would maybe argue that if you're looking at intensity there's probably opportunity in all of those areas not just in World languages for increasing that intensity and I'll pause and kind of ask why only World languages was chosen as an elective so we had to make a choice given the time of the presentation this morning about what we wanted to run to ground and I think like we could have picked reading also in science not just math but we chose math because it has just some unique it also connects to the goal three goal and it had some unique pieces to the arc but we could have chosen any of those it's more time that limited it um but Stephen or Howard do you want to com comment on

087What Choosing any of the others might have uh yielded um multiple things we did do research on CTE course taking patterns as well and we had that connected to uh students uh intensity that is part of the analysis that we did we worked with schools so that that's definitely um a component we looked at high growth High wage Industries connected uh two CTE and two core academics uh we just because of time today we didn't put that content in but we could definitely share more on CTE course taking course taking in the electives is uh interesting there's a lot of research around students course taking in in the electives in terms of their engagement to School postsecondary connections mathematics less so around specific courses um that you see in the in the five core subject

088areas so in the five core subjects including World Language you see some very specific course taking patterns and some very specific courses that are highly predictive student postsecondary enrollment um in some of the other electives like um music for example there's some great research on uh students who take music courses sometimes do better in uh in mathematics in particular less so on specific courses though so there's less evidence around taking Orchestra versus taking um playing a or in choir versus an instr uh playing the trumpet uh that one is better than the other in terms of postsecondary where in mathematics there's evidence that pre-calculate very specifically has uh evidence around postsecondary preparedness so that's why we called those out in the core subjects um and I know that there's some upcoming analysis around the electives

089and students extracurricular um that we could do as well yeah and Stephen probably didn't spend as much time on the setup I've we've been doing this work for a lot of years um with this type of data and one of the things that when they picked the number 10 right as being ready that means that students don't just get into a college but they get in they go and they persist because we don't want our students leaving Fairfax County Public Schools with the key to get in but not the skills to continue or the skills to complete so Stephen you want to just quickly describe why I mean like this is more than just hey this is a great a great number because when as a superintendent when I look at an entire roster of

090all schools in the division and you see the um Continuum of possibilities here uh it's critical that every one of our high schools provide that because we want students that leave any one of our high schools to be able to successfully finish a high school diploma is no longer enough and too long I think around many parts of the country not in Fairfax but around many parts of the country there's been such a drive to get graduation rates up that there's been I Stephen and I used to call it credit grubbing right we'd find ways to just get kids across the Finish Line because then we could celebrate these High graduation rates but if they don't mean something for our students then we're really the division with no clothes right we have to make sure

091that when our kids leave they don't just have a diploma but that that diploma is a ticket to an incredible life and opens doors for them and not closes it that's why this work is so important um so Howard all right the only thing I was was going to add was one we limit the data here because of time but to be really clear every High School gets to see the complete array of data and they make choices on where they want to focus as a school and it could be in any one of the subject areas um so I want to be really clear it's just a matter of what we can do in the limited time we have here the second part which I think Dr Reed is talking to is what we

092really want to create is sort of a national understanding that when a student shows up in any post-secondary setting that they become identifiable as a Fairfax County student that they know when they show up they're prepared and they're going to excel that is going to be the real meaningful thing that I think continues to attract more and more people to this region by the way I know I'm introduced to CEO but I am a uh fairfx County resident uh my son went to school in fairfx County graduated he's now UVA graduating this year uh when he uh we moved here from Connecticut 10 years ago and I distinctly remember him saying at the time Dad the teachers are better here um and the courses are better and it was unsolicited and so you should understand

093that what we're talking about here is a good to Great move this this district is already good nationally but you know on the fringes is where we have this opportunity to create this additional opportunity to be able to say that anyone who comes into this school district will excel when they leave and so this work and I I applaud everyone and the questions you're asking around what are we going to do about you ele and what are we going to do about kids of color those are the right questions to ask um because what we want is all boats ring and everyone to be available to you know whatever job military or or or post-secondary training they need to go to no I appreciate that and I'm very bought into especially on the math aspect

094of this and very bought into this work and I think it's very important that we do it my concern was that in this presentation the way it came across when I read it it felt like we're going down a path that I've seen other school systems go down that has me worried and in particular there's a lot of research around around the Arts and success in college and that persistence and that grit and having World Language be the only elective that was discussed had me worried that one of the things I think Fairfax is known for is the breadth and the intensity of its electives and so if we're going to talk about electives it'd be helpful somewhere maybe in the full report I understand time today's is not you know there and computer science

095and and sort of how we're going to make sure students access the intensity of those as well that also have data behind behind success beyond graduation and success in College and Career so that was the point I was trying to make with that and it seems like to me that got lost in this and I don't know where I know you mentioned CTE but I don't if you have data around all of those other areas um and I in my 22 seconds I may take a go back I wanted to mention Dr Reed I'm going to put a plugin that um you know in slide 40 you talk a little bit about you know the strategies pilot and some of these things that we're doing but I applaud your team for doing this work around

096the math Pathways math basil and the literacy basil quickly if that other work isn't also done quickly in conjunction you're going to continue to leave that set of students behind I know my time is up I'll take a go back yes ma'am and I we had a meeting yesterday morning at 8 of the team around the 2E learner data and this very specific bullet and uh I think there's a there is a strong sense of urgency but to your point that's not always transparently clear to family so we will uh the strategies pilot has been the work for five years so I'm just putting that out there that it's got to have the same urgency or you'll leave them behind yes ma'am thank you Miss St John cunning we're sharing a mic today um first

097of all I want to thank you for all the work that you've done this is really impressive and it's great for us to see this data um having just come back from the South by Southwest educational conference and listening to what other divisions and jurisdictions are doing I'm not surprised that FCPS is where it is I mean uh I told my colleagues when we were there is like we need to be presenting at these conferences because we're light years ahead of some of the presentations I'm hearing and and so that's always a very comforting thing to know having had three students that have gone through um FCPS schools and having worked at them um however it's that getting to great and working on the fringes that's important um one of the things that I did

098want to address in terms of uh how we work with our multilingual Learners and how we work with foreign languages through our immersion program how we leverage that I know that that from experience my own experience with my kids that when those students and Scholars go through those programs they opt out of college requirements for language so that that translates into dollars and cents for parents Ian let's face it or for the for those kids to do uh a minor have the space to do a minor so that's a question I'd like to ask um how we leverage those opportunities in World language for our immersion students but also for our multilanguage Learners because um the ability for them to retain and maintain their language and also have Proficiency in it because once you start

099learning in another language the Proficiency in your native language drops um so those are things that maybe we can creatively look at and just asking how we do that in our our system or have you came up with any data I definitely wanted to follow up I think your your hunch is really wanted to follow up on your multilingual Learners as a great opportunity to both encapsulate and formalize their written language in their native language and as an opportunity to see themselves as Scholars if you see it as a strength uh so you all are doing some Competency Based testing very robust Competency Based testing but uh one of the recommendations that we had initially in the year is to take for example your Spanish speaking students um who are highly proficient and creating Pathways

100for them towards dual credit not just getting competency towards dual credit where they then see themselves as a scholar and then hopefully add some intensity in some other areas so I think there's a great opportunity for you all to take those those speakers um there's some districts we work with that after a onee or twoyear on-ramp um those students are passing AP Spanish language and AP Spanish Literature getting multiple college credit money in the family's pockets and then seeing themselves as very successful Scholars and then moving on to some other areas so I think that's a a wonderful opportunity uh that you all could be capitalizing on a little bit more than you are with your Competency Based exams all right seeing no other placards I'll take my turn um obviously I love this presentation

101it's everything I do and where I live I just want to keep two words in mind at all times which is preparation and persistence everything we do has got to be around preparation and persistence um the other thing I want to talk about is I want to highlight a couple slides um in terms of acade academic intensity um if we look at the two sample slides on 19 and 20 of the two students um I I really want to highlight the second student um who you know has a cumulative GPA of 3.87 but has not taken any honors courses um when a college is evaluating a transcript and they see grades that are this strong and they don't see any honors or AP or IB there's a couple there's two thoughts that go through their

102mind one is this is a student who's perfectionist it and they're maybe don't have the to be quite Frank they have a mental health issue around fear of not getting a B I mean fear of not getting an A so they won't push themselves um or they're in a situation where um they don't understand cour taking patterns and someone hasn't pushed them um the other thing I would say is we talk a lot about backward design I think that we have to approach that with kids that math is four years I do have a question on the slide um that shows geometry back toback two years in a row when we drill down on that is that really geometry that code twice or is that a a geometry part one code and then a geomety

103part two code it's actually two different courses that you you all there's a mix some of the students are repeating but it's a very small percentage you don't have really high failure rates um to Dr Reed's Point what's happening in some of your course sequencing is some students are being identified as possibly needing extra support one way that you could do that is to try to provide that intensity inside one school year and there's lots of strategies what you all are doing in this case is providing it over multiple years so you're taking the curriculum you're stretching it out over multiple years in some slightly different course sequencing um that that's a an approach a strategy approach that that is causing some of those students and you'll see most of those students are staying in

104that particular pattern across the division yeah I just want to bring that up and I would also say we should never have kids spending two years in Geometry with all due respect to mathematics um Algebra 1 and getting to Algebra 2 are essential we've got to figure out how to how to how to do this um and again sometimes if we have to double block an algebra one first year C they're getting math every year and they get that solid foundation it needs to happen so miss lady I'm going to invite Miss clo too to talk about this because I think we want to clarify that this is our AFA course and so I think she can provide some additional context as well yeah I think we have some limitations in the in the modeling

105um and so that it's been represented as two years of geometry which in some respects it is another year before they get to algebra too right but we do have a course that is called ACTA algebra functions um patterns algebra functions data analysis um and it is a step towards Algebra 2 it's not a repeat of geometry at all it's not even in the geometry family it's in the algebra family and it gives students time to um uh learn some of those algebraic Concepts in more concrete and explicit ways to prepare them for Algebra 2 don't disagree that maybe an on-ramp isn't a good idea but it's the on-ramp we have I just want to be clear that it's not a 2-year geometry sequence and it's not um the majority of those children are not

106repeating because they fail geometry no it's only been in place for I don't know I'm going to say Robin and and others might know a handful of years it hasn't been something we avoided it for a long time and um at the urging of many we we went ahead and put it in well and I think that um key to all of this is the belief our teachers have in our Scholars and I can't underscore that enough we've seen that with Benchmark with reading um lot of teachers initial reaction to seeing the literacy U and the benchmarking they were going to be teaching and reading was our kids can't do this and here we are semester in a quarter in there were epiphanies happening everywhere they were like oh my gosh they can do this

107like we have not been stretching them to the point we need to um and I'm going to take a go back but also echo my my colleague's comment about uh behavior um you know as someone who got unsatisfactory okay when we had those back in school throughout third and fourth grade in just about everything especially self-control I was underchallenged I was bored when you started pulling me out and you started moving me to more challenge I was like all right learning can be fun um so I see I'm out of time and I'm going to take a go back the last thing I'd say real quickly because it's just a comment is I worry that too often our our students are not taking physics for whatever reason they're taking bio chem and they're jumping into

108other courses and there are a lot of our selective institutions who want to see the three Core Mathematics I mean uh science courses um all right we're going to go to Gob backs and I'm just going to check with everybody just in case chairman FR do you need to go back okay Dr Anderson okay Dr Anderson thank you firstly I'm trying to understand the targets that have been laid out in the document I think page um 38 it doesn't seem to have the typical demographics that we use can you speak to that a little bit two seem to be missing yeah so I think the two they're Miss ing our our economically disadvantaged category and in working through some Partnerships with ability to share data that's part of the reason that that's not included that's

109a sensitive data point to sharing so we're working through some of those things and then I believe the other one is 504 data I'm looking um and I believe that's something that we've talked about trying to get for future reports um some of this is how they're able to take our data and our categorization and use the existing data because we're looking looking at how AEL is benchmarking across other right other school systems or looking at large aggregate data so it's that's an ask that we have Dr Anderson thank you and it also focuses on seniors the conversation that we are engaging in right now leads me to believe that there's an opportunity to have targets beyond that group so what is the opportunity for expansion for us to kind of be a little bit

110on top of it before it's too late there seniors they're gone oh it's a great question I'll start and I'll have Stephen jump in so we recognize that this is the culmination of course taking patterns right what students experienced in elementary school middle school is showing up in their transcripts which is why we're going to bring this work down to the middle school next year because we need to do some additional work on this topic so we see this as a starting point for setting some um targets for ourselves but not the ending point and I'll ask Stephen to jump in as well another typical uh evolution in the implementation is we start with the historical analysis we also have tools to look at current students and uh for example we have tools in the

111software where it could recommend students who might benefit from an advanced course uh you could find African-American students at a school who didn't sign up after the course requests have come in and you could use it as a tool to recruit so that's typically in years two three and four As you move forward actual current students before they actually sign up for their courses the next year to your point to shape what they're taking before it's too late and they graduate so we start here to understand the trends and then often times the division chooses to move forward and and say we want to have current data on our students as the course requests are coming in so we can have a a an opportunity to correct some of those and to recruit some of

112those kids who maybe chose not to sign up for whatever reason and get them into those courses before they graduate I would certainly like to see some other um targeting um some goals in that area because I think it's just too late with the seniors um just speaking a little bit to some of our practices where does young scholars fit into this work because you talked a little bit a while ago Dr Reed about when we are extending curricula across multiple years when they're intended to be a single year we're kind of having placeholders of activities rather than going to the real thing and to be honest I've always felt that way about young scholars because our hope is to put them into advanced academics but yet we have this kind of separate thing where

113does it fit into this what has been the impact how are we seeing that it is motivating students to participate in these higher level courses so I'm gonna answer that question in a minute and I'm gonna answer the question you didn't ask but is inferred in your discussion with Stephen and Marcy which is to say we're actually exploring in some cases an opt out instead of opt in when we know a students capable of a more rigorous course what we instead of recruiting we just need to put them in it and if they don't want to be in it then they can come back out of it so we do that with other courses we place students in without recruiting them into other courses often remedial courses right we place them so what we're talking

114about we had a very spirited conversation last week about having our default if we have data in front of us that says student X is capable putting student X in that rigorous course period certainly talking with them about it but not waiting for them or tracking them down to find out so that's a system shift we're talking about that is an implication for the conversation you just had for Young Scholars I'm going to ask Dr Presidio um because we just did a paper on this for part of the conversation um to this very question so Dr Presidio yeah no thank you and thank you for the question so our young scholars are actually receiving Advanced academic Services right so we made a programmatic shift in that program a number of years ago that originally was

115like a talent development program program to try to get students to bridge the gap for uh being included in the program but really young scholars are included in receiving Advanced academic services so to Dr Reed's Point earlier point when we look at the data for our young scholars about 90% of those students um when they move from the elementary to the middle school and the middle school to the high school level are continuing to enroll in advanced courses that doesn't sound bad 90% is good but to Dr Reed's point it really should be 100% because those are students that were accessing Advanced Services at the elementary level so again we're trying to try to figure out like how can we change the way that we work through the course advising process to just make it

116a default setting so that those students continue in advanced courses and if they choose not to take for example the four honors courses in seventh grade and eth grade then we can work with the family and the student through the advising process to respect their you know their wishes in terms of course enrollment but we want to send the message that the expectation is that they continue uh with full-time service is at at the secondary level okay um thank you for that another opportunity that I think we need to include in this conversation and Miss Anderson started to talk about a little bit but I want to hone in on the local level four programs you and I had this discussion not even too long ago each and every single one of them looks differently

117from each other so that does not Inspire confidence by parents that does not give us that robust data that we're looking at what could be the expectations in this area to have a consistent delivery of programming at the local level fors so yes ma'am I know we just talked about that and I I certainly there's um opportunity for improvement in that level of consistency um Dr precidio I know you guys have been working on a plan for several years I think following the pleer report so where are we on that yeah so I I think a number of things just to remember first of all a student does not have to take local level four they still have access to to the center so it's a choice if they want to remain in their base

118school to stay with their neighborhood students neighborhood peers then they can choose to do that and you're right there's differences not in the curriculum but there's differences in maybe how students access the curriculum to some extent um in local level four programs because if you're in a school that has a large number of students staying back for local level four you might have an advanced academic third grade classroom in a local level four program um but if you're in a school that has a smaller number of students you might have a cohort model of students in third grade so you might have six or eight students in the third grade classroom receiving local level four services and obviously that makes it a lot more difficult for the teacher because you're managing different groups of instruction

119uh for smaller numbers of students that are accessing that off-grade level or Advanced grade level curriculum so definitely there are differences and I think one of the things that's important is that when we're explaining those differences to parents that that's clear and transparent and that they understand because if they think that they're going to have something that is maybe a different experience than what they're getting that wouldn't be what we would want to deliver so we try really hard to make sure that parents understand they have the choice to go to the center or to receive access to the local level four program um and what that experience would look like so in terms of growing the number of students in advanced academics in a local level four program I mean we we're serving 50%

120of our students students right now and advanced academics in this County at either level two three or four so that's a pretty large number of students um so we have to really think about what's the best and most effective and efficient way to deliver those services in the past we thought it was centers but we perpetuated a large number of centers across the county um and often times that created more barriers to access so we opened up the local level four programs and now I think board members and community members are raising questions about consistency of experience so we're working hard with our administrators we're working hard with our Advanced academic teachers to provide clear expectations of curriculum delivery needs to look the same the instruction needs to look the same the supports extracurricular experiences

121enrichment activities need to look the same but that's an ongoing continuous improvement process and I wouldn't dismute that we've got work to do in some of our schools and sure we're continuing to work on that thank you and I'm looking forward to see some of that work because as I understood it the last time we had this discussion the local level fors like the Cheesecake Factory menu there's so many options that schools can engage in it that's not reasonable it doesn't give our U families the rigor and expectations that they're looking for um thank you thank you Miss Anderson I I know we have more to talk about so I'm only going to ask one other question um on slide 30 when we're talking about the throughput like the the kids that are going from

122General to honors and then hearing Dr Reed talk about some of our availability of teaching staff are is every child that that signs up for an honors class able to take it or are there any that aren't able to take it because they haven't been part of the cohort so then they're not in the planning well honors courses are open enrollment so any oh I understand that they're open enrollment but it doesn't necessarily mean that we have everybody that's teaching an honors level course and so what I'm asking is is there available ility if if every student at the school decided that they wanted to take an honors class year you know knew that next year would we have the staff available to teach those courses or any of those kids you would have the

123you would have the staff available because there's not a lure requirement to teach the course the only part where perhaps that might be an issue is let's say for example if it was an honors geometry course and you didn't have enough certified staff and Dr Reed was talking about this earlier that had the appropriate lure to teach geometry that would be a problem we haven't run into that problem yet and as Dr re pointed out we've run the analysis we' worked with human resources to look at teacher lure particularly in math and then science as the next area um of focus to make sure that we see those areas where as students are accessing more advanced coursework in future years that we need to work with the school to make sure that their current staff

124either increases their lure or that they're hiring um to make sure that they're prepared to be able to offer everything so we haven't run into a situation yet where that could happen but if we're not thoughtful and if we're not planning that could in out Years be be an issue so the reason I bring this up is I just want to make sure that as we're looking at these General numbers from year to year that we're not we're not only aligning with the fact that it's kid you know it's kids that abs are making a decision to stay in the general side they're not and kids stay in the general side for lots of different reasons I'm not suggesting that there's anything wrong with them exercising that choice I just I am very interested in

125the fact that there are so few that are bumping up to honors and so would be very interesting to me as to year-over-year um why those it's such a small cohort from this example so thank you I I don't know if Stephen wants to weigh in he was talking about that a little bit earlier in the presentation about some of the reasons why you know when you start in a standard level class making that jump becomes a little bit harder so I didn't know if you wanted to add anything to that or not yeah oftentimes we talk about two types of barriers the formal and informal and sonone was talking about the formal barriers have been removed students can sign up and then often times there's informal barriers it could be issues around curriculum or

126preparedness or just um not believing that I'm part of that track or uh not communicating that this it might be communicated in paper but the belief just might be that that's just not for me or I I'm not welcome there or I can't really sign up and and compete so how do you take the for how do you take the informal barriers away and really promote those as opportunities um you can do do the automatic enrollment and do a systems move or often times people do targeted Recruitment and really um actively reach out to students and families and say look at your grades look at your test scores we really invite you into this program and into this space because we think you'll Thrive um both of those strategies often can work and if I

127could add to that CU I have two high school students myself right a senior and a freshman and both of them when they do course registration the first thing that they do is what are my friends taking right and then they come home and they meet with mom and dad and we talk about well what are your academic goals right so if every student doesn't have somebody pushing them because obviously I know a lot more than the average Community member about our course taking options then we have to do it ourselves as staff members as Stephen is saying is really that intense personalized academic advising process because left to their own devices a lot of students are just going to go where their friends might be going well and I I speak from personal experience

128that I was also an FCPS kid so um I was not identified in second grade so I did not receive Advanced Services in math until I was in high school and had to fight tooth and nail in order to get into those courses so I do understand that there are the informal barriers that absolutely happen um and just being able to feel like you're prepared with the extra work that's done in a pre in the previous math class so I do think that spending more time to get those kids identified as as young as possible um helps move them towards that direction thank you Miss seiser Heiser I'm Sorry Miss Marin Miss Marin so I think um you know I want to say I support Community Schools neighborhood schools students should should be able to

129receive what they need to their ability at their local school and not have to travel somewhere else but you know just reflecting on the previous comment I mean ultimately it's really about considering the approach with each scholar and I love that word and I'm going to use that more often the vernacular those things that really matters but you know what does the scholar need how to expand the achievement to their full potential each year with an eye on graduation beyond that so yesterday I was meeting for my sixth grade son's IEP um into Middle School e dyslexic and you know I know some things but I didn't know things about that transition so that's one piece about and that's the one I want to get to but so he's going to get fewer hours but

130now that I understand that he's going to be in English and whatnot like it makes sense but you know that was one conversation once a year and now it's going to get you know higher Stakes right as he so I really see like if we could you know someone's Advance someone's dislexic someone's autistic you know we have these labels and some of them are legal but um how do we move beyond that to really get to the point where we are counseling our students and this gets to communication I'm really I'm really I don't to say disappointed but we haven't talked about families really at all or Communications and as the overreliance on students to transmit educa trans Transit Information home to their families has got to stop I mean these are 11-year-old children 12-year-old

131children they cannot articulate and I'll tell you like Dr pidio I know some things and I had many questions about the course selection process driver's ed IB credits summer school course I mean and I only got to meet with the counselor because my daughter amazingly asked me to join her and is she going to have a different counselor next year and another one the year after that I mean there's so and I you know I've been on this the the Tactical part of it but we can have all the access we want but if we do not educate families about where the kids are going every step repeated messages every year they know what to expect so their next kid goes to the same thing and it's not different if their kid goes to IB

132or TJ or whatever I mean we just it's got to be a school system on this I will take another go back where I could finish now okay Miss seis Mah Heiser hi thank you can you guys still hear me okay yes okay great thank you um just a couple other questions I wanted to pick up Dr re on where I left off in terms of um the strategies pilot as well as um you know you and I've talked about program delivery models as well as um how education is being delivered but what's the plans on doing that in conjunction with this work I'll pause there well I know that the program delivery model uh we are doing the inclusion uh work uh there's going to be a cohort that begins this coming year I

133believe there was a meeting Monday on that um and the strategies pilot is uh continuing this year and I believe will be the model next year so Dr Presidio do you want to elaborate just briefly on both of those sure you're doing a great job though so pretty much Dr Reed already nailed it uh on the um Service delivery model we have 12 schools in our phase one early adopter model um that we're supporting uh we have two uh special education Consultants that are working with our um our 12 early adopter schools and we're working to increase dramatically the number of students with disabilities that are educated in the general education setting so uh we have been working with those schools we actually have a full day plan of support and professional development this Friday

134uh with those 12 schools we're going to continue to support them throughout this uh the remainder of this school year the summer um and next school year doing intensive on-site uh professional development and coaching um to make those transitions um to a more inclusive Service delivery model the idea is to try to develop 12 model schools that other schools can learn from so we've got six elementary schools and six secondary schools either middle or high schools in this pilot um and then in year two and year three we will bring on the remainder uh of the rest of our FCPS schools in this process and we anticipate that it probably would be about a three-year process to within each of those schools uh really Implement all of the changes that we're asking them to make

135uh if we can go faster we'll go faster but we're estimating uh probably about three years within an individual school and then the strategies for success pilot U Miss eore Heiser has been a great advocate for that and she's right it's taken us a lot longer to get that going than we would have liked uh we're actively running a pilot in middle schools and high schools right now where students and families can opt to receive um their strategies for success supports that executive functioning and academic support curriculum not in a standalone class but embedded in a special section of advisory and that allows them to open up another um option in their schedule to take an elective class and that pro project has been going uh quite well and the goal and expectation is that

136we make that available to students in all of our middle schools and high schools next year um and it will be based on an IEP team decision uh where the student and the family would like to receive those supports either in a class or in this new um alternative to the class whichever is going to best meet their needs all right well I would just recommend and I have a lot of other topics off this topic but Dr really recommend on keeping those work those two work together and not siloed um because three years is not I think in enough time to get it done in time but I'll leave that there I I also want to just lift up what my colleague said about behavior and boredom I think there's a lot of students

137who could access advanced math earlier but then get turned off of it because of Barden from a very young age so I'm really hoping that part of that teacher training will be to recognize those signs and then recognize that maybe where we need additional challenge for the students as opposed to behavior intervention plans so I wanted to put that out there and um I missed the beginning are we going to talk about the extracurricular aspect later or is that part of this presentation as well we're trying to get to that we we've not done that presentation yet okay all right so I'll save my questions on that for later um and then the last question I really have around this when you talk about um four years of math are you looking at four years

138of math with standardized testing at the end or just four years of successful math because one thing I really do love is the philosophy of setting our students up for being successful in college because the college completion rate for FCPS students I believe is somewhere around 60 65% and I'm sure my colleague knows that that much better than I do um so what's the thought about setting students up for success for completion in college with the way we're changing how we're delivering our math curriculum and I'll pause there I think the intent is to make sure that there are four years of successful math not necessar I wouldn't Advocate another standardized test I would neither I just want to make that's we're on the same page there yes ma'am in our analysis looked at postsecondary

139Preparatory math so what we're not doing in any of your subject areas is looking at your um a course that maybe meets a graduation requirement we're looking at courses that are postsecondary Preparatory which is different than does it meet math does it meet English does it meet social cities which is why you're seeing some variation and the numbers there we're only counting courses that are likely postsecondary Preparatory in our analysis as part of our intensity score okay well um I I won't repeat what my colleague said too much but I also want to lift up what was said about local level four I think that's a great opportunity to increase the consistency of math and opportunity to access more advanced math through local level four as well as what we're doing in in our other

140classes but that consistency has got to be there so I think that's an important piece of this is to be up the consistency of our local level four thank you for your time and thank you for this great work Mr mine uh thank you so I wanted just to pick up on where um Sloan and Melanie we're going on um bringing parents into the course advising process um what are we doing in um in that area and what do we envision doing in the future oh thank you for that question and I'm not going to put Jen on the spot but if she wants to add in um she's welcome to do that Jen Glazer is our director of counseling College and Career Readiness and is leading project plan to revamp our academic advising process

141to have a a enhanced family um uh collaboration component so the first part is just being more consistent from school to school so one of the things that we've mapped out is that we're going to create standardized materials that we use in every school so jens's team will be uh creating those materials we're going to standardize the engagement process uh in terms of like family information nights and things that schools do some schools do a lot of things that are very robust others haven't done as much traditionally so we're going to try to standardize that um another piece is trying to be more transparent with what uh students are actually signing up for not just on an individual year but from year to year so I think you know this is the first year that

142we've required schools as part of the advisory program to really focus on the academic and career plan which is a multi-year um way for families to actually access and see what students goals academic goal goals are and how the courses that um they're registering for can support them in achieving those goals again it's not 100% consistent yet this is our first year of trying to do that one of the things that's been a challenge a little bit people have had some concerns about some of the technology that we're using um to support the academic and career plan so we've initiated an RFP to look at to see if there's a better tool that would be more user friendly for families so those are just a few examples great that's very helpful thank you um uh

143so different topic is on um when we when we're adding additional math courses that's inevitably going to squeeze out uh the Arts which as we know coming through the pandemic are already suffering in terms of um student numbers um so do we have do we have any sort of sense of the impact that would have on those courses CTE courses other courses um I don't know that it necessarily would impact a particular content area when you look at a variety of our students who are currently not taking a fourth year of math they're not taking a lot of other things either um so when we look at the data I don't know I don't think the impact will be chilling on the Arts in fact I think many of our students were excelling in the

144Arts are also doing four years of math so but I I think it's a great question because we don't want to resolve one issue and create another um but I'll be happy to provide the data on that Mr mine and um that would not be an outcome we would want great um and then just the last thing I I'll leave folks with is I know we chose World languages up here and that's very much appreciated um but that's World languages is not just like math it's not a high school only conversation and I think when we think about world languages we need to be pushing earlier um into earlier grades and doing so more robustly and I know um we've had that discussion here before thanks okay we're on a third round so we're going

145to get a minute uh Dr Anderson thank you trying to get some of my questions that I did not ask yet while you're looking at your questions I can answer your I think that one student we showed in that second transcript oh sorry that second student in that transcript that we talked about I think it's an example we can provide you the data um but that's that's an example of a student um who excelled in the Arts and had plenty of opportunity and what we're talking about inside their other cour taking there was still opportunity to really double down and they this student was in um Advanced band was really interested in the visual arts and they still had opportunities in their other subject areas to add some stretch courses so we think there's opportunity

146for students with good academic advising families with good academic advising to have really rich opportunities in the Arts Rich opportunities in their electives and still take their course taking inside their core subject areas um with some uh good academic advising so it's it's both and it doesn't have to replace and doesn't have to take up some of those opportunities in the electives okay thank you um Dr Reed can you speak a little bit to our students who are taking remedial courses how will they have opportunities because I know we we've run into that problem in a couple of my high schools where it's not just necessarily strategies to success but maybe it's an ELD class how will that be remedied so that access can still be provided because your data shows that's the lowest group

147of kids accessing these Advanced courses we currently have a bit of a um quandry with graduation even revolving around our multilingual students right now they have to graduate in four years for the new accountability framework and we've had some tradition of when they arrive putting them in sixe um schedules to graduate because we were allowed to have something called Sliders in Virginia that's no longer allowed so we've got students that are caught in the middle who are on a six-year track that need to be moved to a four-year track so right now we're dealing with that as a graduation data data point we're going to talk more about that moving forward I know Stephen's looking at me we didn't other states didn't have that slider provision they just we had received students and they had

148to graduate in four years in other states but um I think that we have to be very careful that we don't over remediate either students do need support but what we want to try to do is provide the support within grade level instruction so I think that's one of the topics for sure that our High School principles um and subsequently counselors and DSS's will need to be wrestling with okay that is really terrible news to hear I don't think I realize we had to change those students who were in that situation right now essentially right now with no buffer so thank you for that um the RFP that you're all talking about is that to replace Navan is or is that something else okay that is very terrible to use I will say also as

149a parent um uh I had one more here oh this is a question for you you talked a little bit earlier in terms of how Fairfax county is doing very well among schools and its own that are similar what is that grouping that what's the criteria that you use to identify similarity because we're working nationally all across the country we're able to look at the demographics of the student composition uh so the percent of students by certain um student groups uh if it's provided to us from school districts around free and reduce lunch so we can create similar type schools so our data science team created similar profiles of schools so when you're seeing your dot of your school way to the right on that one graph that's showing you that in those schools they're

150outperforming similar School that we work with across the country in terms of the course taking pattern students are signing up in general the average Fairfax student is signing up for more intense coursework than the average student um in other other school districts with similar student body composition you mentioned schools that you work with yep but not all of the schools that exist in that criteria correct so what's the end of the schools that you work with right now I think we're up is that hearing me right now we're up to about uh 105 school districts around the country okay so it's a very small subset then of the schools nationally it is but keep in mind that most of the schools that engage in this work are very large districts like we work in La

151UniFi we work in Baltimore City we work in Portland we work in El Grove we've worked in Houston so we've worked in some so it's a it is a small in but it's a large number of students overall thank you okay Miss Marin okay Miss Dixit all right Ryan did you want to go back okay all right I'll take a quick turn um this has been oh sorry sorry I'll take a quick turn and I'm trying to be quick here um first of all I think that I heard an excellent argument from uh uh Dr Presidio around AAP centers being in all of our middle schools and probably all of our elementary schools uh the programming that we've created is pulling kids away um if we just keep them at their home base we save

152money in transportation and we raise uh the the the the bar for all of our students and we can differentiate instruction uh much better secondly IB math there are some tracks that end uh a junior year and I need those schools to be offering AP Stat and AP Calculus uh in their building um although I do understand that that particular IB track doesn't necessarily prepare one for calculus and I'm not as familiar with that curriculum so definitely AP Stat I also want to highlight slide 35 and this is my biggest Point test scores 75% of our students from cour taking patterns put them in in academic intensity and 45% in test scores that is a that is a bad bad data point and I'm going to argue that it is because we have not been

153doing homework and we have been doing um test corrections in mathematics at some schools for years and also reassessments up to 100% and I'm going to argue our foundations are not strong and I can't emphasize that enough can't emphasize it enough because before we got to this year's um way of doing uh grading um you know I was aware of practices at some of our schools and studied you know SATs I mean AP tests I'll tell you when I was at chanelli we didn't do test corrections we didn't do assessment up to 100 and our AP scores rocked our kids knew their math and their Math SATs rocked and so I'm just saying I think we need to get back to homework I'm not saying we shouldn't reassess I believe in it but we're talking

154about learning at that level we have to have expectations of our students because there's no retakes in college Miss Marin yeah well good thing governance chair lady we are we did the governance policy and uhum the grading policy which now incorporates our homework policy so we are on the way board should have done it in the past but we're on the way um you know I just saw a little bit of an article in the Atlantic about Teen engagement that really made me sad and um I want to share it but you know just thinking about there was a comment made earlier about engaging our our Scholars and Dr re you'll say you know when kids are engaged they're not on their cell phone and yeah that's true on the basketball court and go South

155Lakes going to the state championships this Saturday by the way um but you know are they can they be can they be that way in math can they be that way in science do we have science labs so there's all these things that engagement piece how are we you know engaging them um the Arts I agree that you know let's include World Language but those Arts we know are are something so how do we incorporate that into rigor with the academic uh thing I um opted out of rigorous course placement yes that's fantastic and three questions for Dr Garing um you'd said that teacher expectation is the biggest impact on Student Success was it um wondering about how the class is taught and the class size and my other two questions colleagues please um did

156you investigate the counseling methods used the advising used in the schools they s L and then how can we support our multilingual Learners more question for you Dr Reed like do we teach in Heritage language is it our Esau program so you got that Dr Garing I think I had two of those I might class size and the advising method so what you know how much does class size Implement what's happening and how the class is taught and did you investigate the academic advising methods used in our sample and how does that affect the outcomes so not knowing the history of the conversation on class size in your School Division I can talk from a researcher yes uh I can talk from a researcher perspective there's not a lot of evidence on class size having

157a large impact on student performance until you get down to around 15 and then there's been some studies that if you get to a certain threshold uh the big evidence appears around the instructional practices so not that class size has no effect teachers will definitely say it's around their workload and stress and I'm not saying but there's not a lot of evidence that changing a class size one or two students unless you change the instructional practice doesn't appear to have a large academic benefit in the studies that I've seen um the second one was oh the advising we did not do individual studies so what we did we did bring to you all is best practices across the country around um a library of strategies that we've shared with schools and with the division around

158best practices that we've seen in the country we didn't go to individual schools one of the things I was pushing your schools in the PD a lot of the schools continue to talk about um and Dr presido talked about that with the new model continue to talk about counselors being responsible and I was continuing to push the schools a a few counselors at the schools with the ratios that they have cannot solely be responsible for the academic advising if you guys are really going to move the needle and supporting all the families for all your Scholars so you have to think about every single adult doing advising with kids now do counselors play a critical role absolutely but it shouldn't be counselors responsible for all academic advising all staff members and you have the ratios

159of adults to students and you have the model set up so if you can standardize that um and really using your counselors As Leaders to help support and train teachers um and then using the counselors for the individual guidance and Advising that are the really complex ones but trying to get away from the model where you're thinking about one counselor with 200 250 300 students thinking that they're going to have the opportunity and the time necessary to do the level of guidance and advisement okay we've had three cacks and we have another presentation and we're supposed to be done by one so I'm going to conclude this one and transition to uh Mr Horn's presentation or I don't know who's doing it I'll defer back to Dr Reed thank you Miss Lady and Mr horn

160why don't you join Mr Smith and let's go ahead and uh proceed time is of the essence all right I will try to go quickly through our slides today so for the actually before you go quickly I just want to say this isn't just about activities um this is about student connections this is about mental health and this is about actually this well-rounded education that we think is critical here in Fairfax so go ahead Marcy yes okay all right for our second part of our presentation we're going to take a look look at student access to activities um and as Dr Reed set up so well participation in activities is linked to a number of positive School outcomes such as consistent attendance academic achievement and student well-being there are several factors that impact students participation

161in activities including School climate family and student obligations and student interest um our middle and high school students can access many division funded after school activities in areas such as the Arts academic enrichment community service or Athletics and Inter murals and our Title One elementary schools also provide a set of Title One funded activities including Math and Science Olympiad as well as other enrichment offerings and then additional elementary school after school opportunities rely on our community and parent Partners our current Focus for this measure is understanding the extent to which there are barriers um to which barriers are a factor in students participating in desired activity and this recognizes that students may choose to participate in programs in the community in Li of school sponsored events such as um travel sports teams so to understand

162accessibility of activities we analyze data from the Virginia climate survey as well as the Fairfax County Youth survey and based on the data from these surveys the majority of our middle and high school students are indicating they're able to participate in activities and most do so regularly the student experience survey is going to help us um gather additional insights into participation barriers and will form the basis of tracking accessibility to activities as a part of our 2030 goals so the climate survey is an anonymous state required survey that's given to students in grades 6 through 12 the survey is administered in alternating years to students in grades 9 through 12 and students in grades 6 through 8 so according to the most recent survey which was last year 72% of our high school students which

163is um looking at that green bar did not experience difficulty participating in activities we saw that all of our student groups and grade levels had similar results with the exception of our Hispanic students who were substantially less likely to be able to participate in activities based on those climate survey results we also can see that high school students were less likely to access activities if they were transfer students so in other words they hadn't spent all of their years in the same high school they missed 11 or more school days uh they received an out of school suspension they lacked a positive relationship with an adult they experienced any issues with school climate or they had recent um moderate or severe symptoms of anxiety or depression so and it is important to note that these

164are associations and not necessarily causations so for our students who said they were unable to participate so thinking about the kids in in the yellow bar from the previous slide this slide shows their self-reported reasons for not participating in activities so if our middle school students the most commonly cited uh barriers were interpersonal factors and Logistics while our high school students reported other obligations feeling they wouldn't fit in or be welcomed as their primary reasons for not accessing activities so as I mentioned we also analyzed the Fairfax County use survey data to measure measure participation rates so on the green bars on this slide you can see the data from the climate survey so again looking that 72% who are saying they are not experiencing barriers to accessing activities in the yellow bars you can

165see that 62% of our students who completed the youth survey last year participated in after school activities two to three times per month and this could have been in any setting it was not specific to school in the blue bars we see that 49% of our students reported participating in after school activities daily at their school so what this data is showing us is that most students report no ex no issues with access however that doesn't necessarily translate to school specific participation so for example when you look at our sixth grade students they had the lowest participation in the daily after school activities that blue bar but their regular participation in activities in any setting which is that yellow bar um was actually one percentage Point higher than the division average so it suggests that

166these students are just as likely to have access to activities but they're doing some of that in out of school settings uh we saw that boys and girls had similar rates of participation in school-based activities and while the youth survey did only include lgbtq Plus data for our students in grades 8 to 10 and 12 we also saw that those students reported substantially higher rates of participating in daily school-based activities when compared to the division average So currently FCPS collects student level participation data for both middle school after school programs and Virginia High School league sports and on this slide you can see the percent of students who participated in theid middle school after school program for 30 days or more for the last two years so last year we did see a 2 percentage

167Point increase in students participating in the program at that level we also see that 78% of our Middle School um students participated in the program at least once last year and 30% of our middle school partic students participated in 15 or more days of programming last year and there are additional details in the full report on this and then this slide shows data on the percentage of high school students participating in hsl Sports and again we did observe a 2 percentage Point increase in this data last year as well our student experience survey is going to allow us to report on the percentage of students who have no barriers to participating in desired activities which will be a new accountability metric for goal four and the target for this will be 100% by 2030 so

168finally I'm going to highlight the division efforts in this area focused on accessibility to activities we do have three strategies in this area area first we're currently offering a variety of after school activities this includes the recent funding of the middle school after school sports the expansion of high school boys volleyball and girls wrestling and the title one funded activities we're also focusing on leveraging insights from our student experience survey focus groups that we're conducting with students and data that we'll be collecting from empathy interviews to inform future programming offerings I know our our middle school or our high school boys volleyball was out advocating in full for so I their excitement and we'll get to see a little bit of that in our our upcoming board report with our strategic Plan update our second

169strategy is looking at understanding and addressing barriers to participation so in addition to that student voice we also continue to focus our efforts on school climate and belonging as we know those were core factors students cited as limiting their participation so this includes the work around social emotional learning and continuing to provide programs like our purple star student ambassador program that helps connect those new students who are coming in um to their school as well as programs like our R Minds matters program that aim to reduce the stigma associated with mental health our work in goal two including the work we're focusing in on with discipline and chronic absenteeism is also connected to this goal as again those were key barriers that students cited that decreased their access to activities and then finally we're leveraging

170our goal Innovation team to identify and activate student preferences for activities um to explore expansion of elementary school activities to improve some of our data collection practices and to leverage some of the insights from this report including ways to provide access during the school day and this concludes our presentation for this section I'll turn it back to our meeting managers thank you we have 15 minutes so we we're going to have two minutes to start off with and we're going to start with uh Dr Anderson thank you I'll speak really quickly on page 25 you talked about the impact on students in their connections when they began schools at as freshmen I I think that's an important point to raise because that's not something we cemented in our own boundary policy when we could potentially

171have moves so I I'd like for us to make sure that we are seeing that the data shows that we want for our students to begin in a high school and remain in a high school and so I want to raise that for a revisit by this board because we did not get the chance to cement that in our boundary work um secondly on page 30 no is that right um on page 30 you talked about I think I lost my page oh page 31 you were talking about some of the activities this is only Sports we don't have Esports debate and some of the other extracurriculars that are provided can you share a little bit why first so orts is included in the vhsl data I believe I'm looking at Mr yes for confirmation

172yes so Esports is in there and Mr horn I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about some intended data collection moving forward uh so the category of vhsl does include nonathletic activities that are sponsored through the Virginia High School so Esports debate forensics um theater um and then as robotics if that school chooses to participate in it so we will begin collecting um what I would say curricular extracurricular activities those attached to school day classes things that we have identified we're not currently tracking in the office of student activities because they're curriculum based band theater programs where kids spend an awful lot of time after school but we're not necessarily tracking it as an after school activity because it's attached during the day so we'll be improving the numbers of kids

173that we're well I think that will be important because if I'm a child who's spending months and months on a theater program I may not be available for some of these athletic programs and so it doesn't give us a full picture of how can connected our kids are so I would love to have that information and I did find my place the last thing I think it's pretty timely that we're talking about middle school activities given the conversation that we've been having the past couple of weeks this is not a question it's just a comment um I I do appreciate and I think it's important to to see that you've outlined on page 30 that 70% of our students who participate in middle school after school programs are economically disadvantaged and we have um 20

174is it 22,000 middle school students who participated um back in 2023 and then that number just continues to increase it's just a point to um share with the public what the impact of not having this program will do to our middle school students so thank you Mr Moon thank you I just want to Echo the comments made by a Dr Anderson about middle school after school activities especially uh if the funding get cut uh you know the especially for the families who are unable to provide their own wholesome activities for their uh potentially very vulnerable you know young students uh I know this is not a budget work session but but but we have to be uh you know I mean I'm I remain hopeful that County Board of Supervisors will do the right thing

175but in case that doesn't realize then uh we'll need to make sure that those students are not negatively affected thank you Mr Moon um Miss Marin yeah only to say I do wish that we had scheduled this a little differently because this is an important part of our our work and especially with the Board of Supervisors their County Executive proposing to cut middle school activities we really need to discuss the ins and out of that so um I appreciate the data I just hope that we can on future things schedule things a little bit differently thanks thank you Miss Marin Miss dixet hello everyone thank you for the presentation uh actually I have a couple of questions from the earlier uh presentation too and I'll just start from that um on the page 25 on

176the presentation I it uh talks about different courses um students have taken and it does not highlight um any of the computer science courses so I wanted to know if that is something you could share how many of our seniors or students in high school take computer science uh great question we can provide some follow-up data specifically on computer science we do code a lot of your computer science and a lot of your stem activities inside CTE inside this data so it is including so like your AP Computer Science a lot of your computer science we can dual code the courses and we do dual code so that's showing up as Math and Science often so you're seeing it there but we can provide um more specific data on computer science in particular and computer

177science Pathways in future reports we have that data but it is showing up in this data um more than you would think and we could provide the numbers of courses that are also dual coded uh not specifically called out yeah I noticed that uh even with my own son when he was taking computer science in high school it was under science as a subject not as as a separate CS um track um which I think it's really important uh giving in our current uh environment uh that we should have a separate track for computer science and and it should be tracked from Middle School uh from when students start taking a little bit of those AI uh computer science related courses um then I have a question on slide 20 um8 which is um really

178surprising and I think not surprising to my colleagues who have been in FCPS for long but seeing as data point that 29% of student do not take math during their senior years uh it never happened in our um you know when I was growing up math is the most important subject you can have uh in high school just because if you are especially if you're going into the STEM related uh field and act so um there there has to be a better um I guess emphasis given to that this number can drop down obviously we won't be able to go get to zero uh because obviously some students prefer uh different tracks um I think the algebra in the first grade Dr Reed is a great approach for that um so we can have students

179till high school till who will take math courses till 12th grade but we really need to Focus as a group that algebra by seventh grade I think if algebra one by seventh grade is taken care off during our Improvement on basil and all that stuff happening in next few years I think we'll hit that Mark where students are going to be much more prepared for postsecondary Education I'll stop there I'll go take a go back thank you Miss TX uh Miss seore Heiser thank you sorry it took me a minute to get my camera working my zoom was frozen can you guys hear me okay I know we have just a short amount of time for this section so I'm not going to ask a lot of questions um a couple questions I heard you

180mention at the beginning the data you currently have is Middle School after school programming and then um vhsl sports for high school participation is there a a thought of how collect data for um other High School participation whether co-curricular activities or other extracurricular activities I think that would be valuable data to have yes ma'am we actually a lot of the data we wanted to look at we don't currently collect and that would be around musicals theater music the Scholastic Arts um Deca FPL right like so we're putting into place systems to collect that now so we can have a baseline you know there like speech and debate I know there some students who participating after school speech and debate we don't currently offer those as a class which I think is something you and I

181talked about the importance of offering speech and debate in classes but I know those activities um International clubs all sorts of things that we have that it would be good to know what students participate in and then I saw on slide 47 there is a data amongst high school students about 33% felt like they don't want to put because they wouldn't fit in or be welcomed and I've heard concerns sometimes you know from students around this as well what are we doing to maybe make the after school activities more welcoming I'll pause there thank you Miss seore Heiser I'm gonna uh turn it over to Dr hor or Mr horn not a doctor um the um candidly Miss sisar Heiser that that's a number that is is new to us and our office right and

182it and it is surprising and is unacceptable so um today I don't know that I could say that we have a defined plan on how we reduce that number and attack it but um we have a commitment that no student uh much less 33% would feel uncomfortable with the programming that we're offering um so exploring how we're making connections in the buildings at at the high school level um how we're making um programming of known to students right which teachers um how do students get connected the use of Home rooms school counselors you know there are a lot of avenues where we can improve their feelings about whether they would be accepted in those programs so the other thing I would add Miss seore Heiser is we have a hugely disperate level of pre High

183School experience in these programs across the county and what we often hear is if I have if I'm a student who's never um played basketball and truly we have some high schools where students come and have have to be taught how to dribble the ball as a ninth grader they don't want to come out they don't want to turn out for something they don't feel like maybe they have the ability to do because they've never had the opportunity to do it and that translates to debate or U model un or music or they haven't learned an instrument early BEC and as a ninth grader it's very difficult to pick up the viola and suddenly you know play in the orchestra so I think a significant part of the 33% is providing earlier opportunities for our

184students across the county to experience these opportunities where there are fewer um you know every kindergartener believes they an amazing artist right and by high school they don't want to draw anything in front of anybody for the most part so I think where they have fewer inhibitions and fewer concerns when they're younger that's when we need to make sure our children feel more capable and I think that would also add to that which is why do you know after school and enrichment programs are so important for children yeah that was actually I was going to say partially I think it's maybe some training for the people running the programs as well right in terms of how to build those communities and connections I think it's some um work with the students as well to kind

185of you know talk about just we we talk about acceptance and things like that I think that's the work but I I do think that's why we need to have some consistency of what we're offering at elementary school you know I've talked about elementary school theater programs I think that would I think mirroring what we offer at elementary school after school to high Middle School after school to what you have in high school I think would help that through line as well right like it's hard for a student to start doing theater in high school and they may not have that access in middle school it's the other reason I pushed the strategies pilot for as many years as I have right because students who don't traditionally access to stuff who are already getting segregated

186are going to get segregated everywhere right if they don't have those opportunities when it's not as high stakes so if we segregate them in Middle School away from electives and they're not going to do them in high school and they're going to be more disconnected same with the after school program it's hard to go when you don't know anybody at all because you're were the same six kids all day long so I would really look at intentionality between what we offer after school elementary school we offer after school middle school and how that has a through line to high school I know my time is up but thank you thank you um miss miss lady uh one comment from the previous part of the presentation around executive functioning um I love this idea of nth

187grade advisory I think that should be Universal in all of our schools I know when I taught at TJ I mean when I was a counselor are TJ we spent time teaching exective functioning in ibit um because they don't they don't come with the skills the other thing I want to make sure our our our public understands because I have gotten a plethora of emails related to the funding of our our middle school after school specialist um our public needs to understand that that is a line item that has been that has been funded by the Board of Supervisors it is not in our Fairfax County School Board budget it is in the Fairfax County budget they have decided as of now to eliminate that so I appreciate the advocacy in my email box uh

188however that is something that is completely out of my control if you drill down on their budget you will also find that they're eliminating crossing guards at several schools and they're also eliminating some of our uh nurses and I just want to bring that because this presentation around activities it's absolutely essential that our students are connected extracurricularly or co-curricular because the more adults in their life then there's the greater chance they're going to see a kid who might be mispp or being pulled by a peer perhaps in a Direction that's going to take them off course of success the more adults that we have mentors coaches that we can have in kids' lives the greater they're going to meet with success so uh I have confidence in the Board of Supervisors that they are going

189to fund that U but I want to make sure that people understand where that that that budget item lies at the moment thank you I'll take a quick turn before we consider going uh to go back in the interest of time um ditto to everything my colleague said but I would be remiss if I didn't point out what I've seen across all of these graphs is the the lack of participation by Hispanic students and to ask if there were any specific barriers identified that led to that in this specific analysis we don't have the ability to provide that information but when we have our student experience data back we will have that ability to drill in a little bit more thank you uh at this point we're 2 minutes away from our break and Miss

190dixid has a go back um can we agree to take an extra five minutes before we go to lunch okay see no objection mtic and I'm going to be quick um I'm looking at the slide uh 46 which is again the one which uh talks about students uh self-reported risk factors where they cannot they're less able to participate in activities no positive result relationship with adult um there was um you know quite a bit of that um section I saw there's some room of improvement there um it's it's basically when my son was in Middle School I um one of the the principal at that time said that every student in the school should have one adult in the school building they can trust and that builds the that relationship and their trust factor and

191then that could also translate in them feeling more comfortable in the school and um obviously U it's not possible for everyone but that's something uh is a champion for students I think they they called it that time it's it's like a 10 years ago I I don't remember exactly now but it was in Rocky Run Middle School speaking of Rocky and middle school yesterday we had a budget town hall yesterday the students were amazing they all talked about their uh middle school after school program and they talk uh and they advocated for themselves they said we don't know about rules and laws and funding but we don't want our programs to get cut um I I really like that voice uh coming of students themselves and and and it speaks volume of our kind of

192students we have in our schools they speak for themselves are really proud of them one last thing I would say is that some of one of the other program my son uh attended was a Westfield High school was doing a summer camp for elementary school students in the theater club and that's how he got introduced to theater so if our high schoolers uh clubs can intro invite middle schoolers and Elementary and get them that one week of uh experience for different clubs I think they would really love it they absolutely loved that program I mean my experience and did it a show after the whole uh the week of uh Camp so that would something I was um going to suggest thank um what I really want to say I mean we have this limited

193time and by no means does this indicate the lack of importance to this topic we all know that extracurricular activities are what helps some of our students belong and what inspires confidence in them which then translates into their academics um I would encourage uh my colleagues to look at the next steps document if they want more information about this because um just due to the time Factor we were not able to spend the time that I think that this topic merits uh and I do want to say that just like everything else at Fairfax County Public Schools does we have seen that some of our extracurricular activities are the top in the nation and we have award-winning students and teachers so I want to mention that but we do need to have more kids involved

194and we have to move from that good to great um so seeing no other placards up we will now recess for lunch and thank you for all your work session so thank you everyone for being here um I would really like to thank the team for all the the work they've done on the srnr uh and to bring back a report that has been very responsive to what the school board has asked um and I know that was a huge lift uh I appreciate the efforts you have to increase consistency and Equity throughout our division um and I think what's a really important point that when we look at the student rights and responsibilities that we don't neglect the responsibility part and that responsibility also extends to our parents um I just wanted to make

195that point as a former family liaison um I'd also like to welcome and thank our principls who will be sharing their experiences on the execution of the new cell phone policy in their respective schools and that was a new program that uh I think we're going to find has been very positive uh so without further Ado you please start the report thank you all right thank you um I'd like to uh like to thank the board and those community members watching uh it's an important uh topic and uh I want to introduce Dr naris King our chief Equity offer officer who's leading this work so Dr King if you'd introduce your team please thank you Dr Reed and thank you steam board members we are excited to be here it's been a nice long year

196of Engagement robust it's inside joke um so greetings Schoolboard members colleagues and community members today our time will be spent engaging in meaningful discussion regarding the students rights and responsibility regulation for the 2526 school year this is the first of two work sessions on srnr the second work session will be held on April 8th our work in refining the srnr is not just about proposed policy adjustments it is about ensuring that our schools are spaces where students feel safe supported included and empowered where educators are provided valuable resources to make positive disciplined decisions and community members relationships are further strengthened and all these efforts align to goals to our division strategic plan today's presentation is is divided into two areas first we will explore the proposed discipline related changes to the srnr that focus on

197improving Clarity equity and consistency in policy enforcement after reviewing these changes our team will pause for and allow for a collaborative discussion and questions following that we will transition to discussing proposed cell phone policy and storage changes to the srnr which have been Guided by data from our cell phone pilot program all of the changes presented today are reflective of extensive Community engagement in this section you will also hear from School principles who will share firsthand experiences from the cell phone storage pilot at this time I would like to introduce members of the chief Equity office who have been instrumental in leading this work Kathleen Waltz our executive director for equity and student relations di Shin senior manager to for equity and student conduct Alicia Martinez administrator for Equity programs and Lisa Forest Administrative Hearings

198office we have other members of our collaborative team from different offices sitting in the back um in here to answer specific questions if they should arise I invite Kathleen Waltz to begin our presentation and guide us through the foundational elements of today's discussion not yet all right good after afternoon everyone today's session is intended to achieve two desired outcomes review and seek approval of proposed changes and recommendations to the srnr and determine alignment between school board and staff around Community engagement feedback the Virginia model guidance which governs State discipline codes of conduct requires that Schoolboard policy provide for the systematic review of local discipline res regulations as such FCPS reviews the srnr on an annual basis to ensure alignment with any state mandated changes staff recommended changes and Community feedback on May 9th 2024 the

199school board issued several follow-on motions which directed the superintendent and staff to engage in robust Community engagement around the cell phone policy a cell phone storage pilot and an assessment of disciplinary practices starting June 1st 2024 the chief Equity office engaged the community Through training feedback forms focus groups web dialogues office hours surveys and has provided mechanisms and tools to support the data entry of cell phone violation incidents into the student information system this community engagement is ongoing our community engagement plan produced opportunities to hear from community members including school-based administrators teachers central office staff students families and Community Partners to date there have been 55,940 touch points between June 1st 2024 and January 31st 2025 related to the five follow-on motions set forth by the school board on May 9th 2024 as we consider

200feedback from these Community engagement touch points it is important to highlight key emerging themes that have played a crucial role in shaping these changes feedback on srnr revisions emphasized the need for consistent disciplinary Focus that still allows for consideration of student context and ensuring serious issues are addressed rather than over prioritizing minor infractions like cell phones and dress code violations community members called for more student education on disciplinary consequences along with continued expanded staff training to improve Pro policy enforcement consistency regarding cell phones feedback highlight highlighted the importance of minimizing distractions while allowing for educational use and safety considerations these insights are shaping policy updates to create clearer fairer and more effective srnr guidelines we will now begin our review of the proposed srnr changes assisting in this review is di Shin our senior manager

201for equity and student conduct good afternoon recent legislative proposals may require updates to srnr policies to ensure compliance with State discipline and conduct mandates Senate Bill 908 expands School Board responsibilities by requiring stronger policies and procedures for preventing and addressing cyber bullying additionally House Bill 1987 updates the drug Control Act by adding new substances to schedules 1 and 9 these bills have passed both the House and Senate and are a waiting the governor's signature in response to community feedback student srnr lessons and videos will be revised to better emphasize student rights and ensure their voices are heard these updates will include age appropriate lesson plans storytelling videos with relatable scenarios and student assessments to measure understanding and identify areas for reinforcement key learning areas areas will focus on student rights and responsibilities with materials made

202accessible through the district website and parent newsletters to keep families informed and engaged here we have summarized the proposed srnr discipline changes the updates include Clarity and enforcement enhancements to ensure more consistent discipline practices across schools the proposed discipline Matrix would now feature clear definitions cross referencing for infractions and detailed guidance on weapons policy and sub use to support context based responses data monitoring has also been strengthened with required interventions mandatory CIS data entry and 24-hour parent notifications to enhance transparency Additionally the chief Equity office will review key discipline cases to ensure fairness and enforcement to support effective implementation administrators will continue to participate in annual integrated discipline training reinforcing consistent disciplinary practices now we will review the srnr discipline crosswalk the crosswalk is a comparative tool that systematically aligns and contrasts our current discipline

203policies with proposed changes these discipline changes reflect Community engagement relevant legislation and feedback from our school board we'll begin with our first theme Clarity and enforcement enhancements the chief Equity office hosted three groups on the srnr three focus groups on mandatory versus discretionary decision-making also known as May versus shell and a community Forum focusing in part on the same subjects emerging as a universal theme from these Community touch points participants remarked that the srnr was seen as complex the following changes helped to make the srnr specifically the discipline Matrix easier to use in terms of clarity and enforcement as a current practice the discipline Matrix does not include a definition for the k6 icon steps on how to use the Matrix guidance somewere to find additional violation codes information the key found on each page

204or mandate interventions instead interventions are described with the language that sanctions quote should be paired with an intervention from the same level or an earlier level as appropriate to address this the discipline Matrix will now include a definition for cas six that states k6 is equals the required starting level response for students in kindergarten through grade six additionally a more detailed guide on how to navigate The Matrix will be included offering step-by-step instructions for administrators on identifying violations determining response levels and selecting appropriate interventions and sanctions as another change towards greater Clarity the updated srnr will include an expanded discipline Matrix The Matrix will have an additional column indicating where the page number of the corresponding narrative can be found for example bs7 the code for dress code violations will contain a direct sorry will

205contain a direction that additional dress code information can be found on page 13 of the srnr in our feedback it had been requested that the discipline Matrix key currently found on page 20 be added to the top of each page where the Matrix is found however upon beginning the red lining process we realized that this would add several pages to the document and create issues with the formatting of the regulation and The Spar code chart what we are proposing instead is adding a note on each page where the Matrix is shown which would refer the reader back to the page number where the Matrix key could be found the narrative sections found in chapter 1 section 8 also known as the right to voice concerns and chapter 2 Section C2 B8 around disciplinary procedures and

206interventions will clarify that parents Guardian discipline concerns should be directed to a school administrator or region assistant superintendent if applicable lastly The Matrix will mandate that whenever a student commits a reportable incident named in the regulation the student shall be required to participate in prevention and intervention activities as deemed appropriate by the referring administrator with improved Clarity in the discipline Matrix we now turn our attention to another critical aspect of enforcement the handling of weapons violations also emerging from engagement touch points community members requested strong consistent application of weapons violation coding coupled with consideration of student context the following changes reflect this Community Focus as a current practice the esar code bc27 provides some information about weapons covered by the code however this guidance could be expanded additionally current Provisions do not require suspension for

207weapons violations or interventions changes now allow for the bc27 weapons code to include guidance that blades Less Than 3 in and pneumatic weapons are included additionally weapons violations related to a possession or use of statutory weapons possession or use of switch blades machetes and certain other knives and use of other weapons will now require a suspension unless the referring administrator determines the students age background intent previous infractions disability status and or other circum irst ances should not warrant a suspension as well as a referral to the school-based risk prevention team to determine appropriateness for further risk assessment in accordance with regulation 2111 and any other appropriate intervention having established clear guidelines for handling weapons we now shift our Focus to another area substance use community members request for consistent application of coding also extends to

208student substance use as a current practice substance use violation Provisions do not provide guidance on how to determine if a student is under the influence changes will now include a footnote in the discipline Matrix that when determining students are under the influence administrators shall refer to the signs and symptoms of substance use within FCPS overdose protocols for administrators before rendering a decision while ensuring Clarity and substance use policies is critical it is important we now turn our attention to assault and battery offenses as a continuing theme community members requested consistent responses to assault violations the following proposed changes are responsive to community requests and feedback from the school board as a current practice there is no clear distinction in the narrative sections of the regulation between assault beo1 and beo1 a and assault and battery

209beo2 and B o2a despite the distinction being made in the discipline Matrix proposed changes will include this distinction with the following specific provision assault violation narratives applicable to beo1 and b1a will now provide the VOE definition of assault which is defined as intending to cause physical injury to another person it will distinguish the assault violations it will distinguish that assault violations occur without injury and require referral to one or more of the most appropriate interventions assault coding violations beo1 and b1a will not make any changes to the current provision discussing suspensions or referral to the division superintendent lastly the sub Provisions related to hazing will be removed from the assault section and placed into its own section titled hazing since hazing currently has its own esar code B o1 assault violation narratives beo2 and B

210o2a will now be outlined in a new section of the srnr titled assault and battery the new section will contain the VOE definitions of assault and battery which is defined as causing physical injury to another person or staff member the section will provide that violations within this provision may result in a suspension from school for up to 5 days unless the principal makes a referral to the division superintendent in which event the principal May suspend for up to 10 days this language mirrors the same Provisions discussing suspensions and referral to the division superintendent found in the assault narrative the assault and battery VI sorry the assault and battery violations also mirror the assault violations to include any involvement in a group assault and battery assault and battery upon another student or any other person other

211than a staff member assault and battery upon a staff member and improper touching of another person whether or not consensual for students in grades K through six an assault and battery upon a staff member identical to the provision may result in a suspension from school up to 5 days unless the principal makes a referral to the division superintendent in which event the principal May suspend for up to 10 days for students in grades 7 through 12 assault and battery upon a staff member shall result in a referral to the division superintendent and the principal May suspend for up to 10 days in the event of an assault and battery the referring administrator shall make a referral to one or more of the most appropriate interventions lastly an additional code would be added to the Matrix

212to allow for the coding of group assault and battery this code would be listed as B o1b now that we have addressed clarifications and assault related violations we will review enhancements to discipline procedures and oversight to ensure accountability and enforcement of proposed changes srnr revisions include new requirements for data entry parent notification and oversight by the chief Equity office as a current practice there is currently no formal requirement that administrators enter all disciplinary incidents into the student information system also known as CIS or notify parents within a specific time frame additionally there's no current practice that provides monitoring to ensure weapons and assault violations adhere to set regulations the revised srnr will mandate that all disciplinary actions be entered into CIS and that parents/guardians be notified within 24 hours of any disciplin incident barring extenuating

213circumstances lastly a section will be added to the introductory portion of the regulation titled monitoring and enforcement that requires the chief Equity office and the chief of schools to conduct after semester review of all disciplined cases involving weapons assault and assault and battery to determine use of required intervention and are factors considered prior to issuing a suspension for the related violations to ensure that all these policy updates are implemented effectively it is essential that school leaders continue to receive comprehensive training and professional development we will now review changes to the srnr governing administrator training the revised srnr includes a commitment to honor on goinging training for school leaders as a current practice the regulation requires that school-based administrators receive semiannual srnr training the revised srnr will now require annual integrated discipline training for all school-based

214administrators and will cover integrated discipline practices to include changes to the srnr srnr scenario processing and procedures policies related to division superintendent referrals Title 9 bullying and harassment bias and discrimination discipline data entry and turn key professional development for srnr training with school-based staff we will now turn our attention to recommended editorial changes editorial changes refer to revisions in language formatting or structure made to improve Clarity consistency and accuracy there are three proposed sorry there are three proposed editorial changes these changes focus on hate speech stealing and stakeholder terminology current practice does not include symbols as hate speech or religion as a protected class the revised definition of hate speech will now explicitly include symbols as a form of hate speech and ensure that religion is a protected category alongside other identified protected classes next

215current practice uses the term stealing in the discipline Matrix to describe property related violations however the term theft is used in The Narrative regulation sections and Cy the revised srr srnr will replace dealing with death for consistency purposes lastly current practice uses the term stakeholder throughout the srnr to describe individuals or groups with vested interests in the school Community however the term has historical connotations related to land ownership and exclusion the revised srnr will replace the term stakeholder with Community partner or Community organization the next set of updates focuses on expanding the glossery to provide clearer clear definitions for terms frequently referenced in disciplinary policies these additions aim to eliminate am ambiguity and offer administrators and families a consistent framework for understanding srnr enforcement current practice does not include a definition for the following terms

216in the glossery additional consequences alternative education programs assault and battery force group assault individualized education plan intent Progressive discipline and region the revised srnr will now include these terms the revised srnr will also include updated EXP Ed Andor established definitions these changes include updating the definition of assault from an act criminal or torous that threatens physical harm to a person whether or not actual harm is done to the VOE definition of assault establishing a definition of assault and battery reflective of the VOE definition of assault and battery expanding the definition of drug paraphernalia and transitioning transitioning it to drug and tobacco paraphernalia this expanded definition includes tobacco products electronic cigarettes products and marijuana establishing a definition of force which defines it as any physical action used to compel restrain or harm another person or to

217damage property including but not limited to physical contact use of objects threats of physical harm and restraint accidental contact or contact that is part of a school activity that is not is not considered Force unless it exceeds the normal expectations of that activity expanding the definition of restorative justice conference to include guidance that restorative justice conference are voluntary and may only be facilitated by FCPS certified facilitators and conducted in accordance with protocols set forth by the office of the chief Equity officer and expanding in the glossery the definition of weapon found in the narrative regulation sections this definition is pending final approval from division Council we appreciate the time and dedication of our Schoolboard members staff and Community Partners in engaging with these important updates to the students rights and responsibilities your commitment to fostering

218a safe Equitable and supportive learning environment is essential as we refine our policies to better serve our students and schools and to achieve goals outlined in our strategic plan as we have outlined these proposed discipline updates are designed to clarify definitions enhance enfor enforcement consistency and ensure a more Equitable application of the srnr across all schools by refining the discipline Matrix providing clearer guidance on weapons and substance use policies and distinguishing between different levels of assault we are strengthening the consistency and enforcement of disciplinary decisions beyond the disciplinary measures we are also reinforcing Data Tracking timely parent notification and comprehens comprehensive administrative training these systematic improvements will enhance oversight promote consistency and ensure that disciplinary actions are informed by best practices and a commitment to equity at this time we would like to open the

219floor for questions and feedback regarding these proposed discipline related changes your in your insights are invaluable in shaping an srnr that will be clear Equitable and responsive to the needs of our students and school communities we look forward to your thoughts and recommendations as we move forward in the process thank you I'll turn it over to the managers thank you Dr Anderson thank you so much for this robust presentation and all of the documentation that you provided us every time I went to my mailbox that was something else from the equity office on this matter um I I'm so appreciative of the um the intention to be more consistent in our practices because we know this is a concern in order to provide greater Clarity I think there's so many things that you've just outlined

220that will be so very helpful in this division not just for the administrators who have to carry this out but also to the parents and I'm glad that we're having that conversation regarding not just the responsibilities of our students but also they have the right to particular things and we've all sat around this table and talked about the concerns that we've heard from our students about activities at schools and bathrooms that cause them to be to feel unsafe and so I see that this work is to intentionally address that so thank you um one of my overall arching concerns regarding this and this is not going to be new because it's what I shared in the 2 by tws that we had which I was also very grateful for um because a lot of my

221questions were answered there where um in one of the doc it say it states under each I think the weapons and a couple of other areas that the administrator shall suspend for up to 10 days unless the referring administrator determines the students age background intent and previous um inter infractions disability Etc do not warrant that and I know the intent of this section is to provide flexibility but to me it raises like a big old flag a red flag regarding inconsistency of practice just like everyone else in our division you know we just talked a little bit ago about teacher expectations of students where it's not the same across our student body um I see the same thing happening with our administrators so I'm very concerned this will further raise more dis disproportionality because of

222how I view a certain student's age of how I view a certain student's background that's all very different and so very subjective this one is giving me some heartburn so I would love to hear a little bit more about your thoughts here well thank you for that question um Dr Anderson um when we um completed our Focus Group groups one of some of which were on the srnr and we got just general understanding around perceptions of the f um of the srnr as well as the concept of May versus shell one of the universal themes that emerged from that was that we did want consistency in the application of policies but we still wanted to be able to take into account student context and that was something that was really strongly enforced by parents um

223as well as by students and so this policy is trying to be responsive to that request um at the same time to address your concern one of the things that we've done is put in a required monitoring tool specifically for weapons and assault violations that have this provision in regards to unless age disability status Etc and then that proposed change is a partnership that exists between the CEO and the chief of schools to monitor those specific Provisions to make sure that those factors are being put in place during a suspension and if we don't see those particular things happening then we're able to provide supports to schools so it's paired with the monitoring kind of enforcement so the the office whoever's responsible will be monitoring every one of these um referrals we're going we will

224be monitoring weapons and assaults correct those that have been reported for a 10day suspension and those that have not because if you don't have both sets of data it will be hard to determine where there might be some concern of implicit value that can be part of our report certainly that we can make sure that we are we have that comparison data between those which are 10 days 5 days in regards to weapons and assaults and providing support to schools I think that would be important and the other thing that I would love to hear more because you've talked about all of the opportunities for um for staff training and I also want to hear why you went from a semiannual to an annual admin training but I I don't know what that's going to

225exactly entail in the areas of making this section less nebulous and also ensuring that folks are being cognizant of implicit bias is that going to be incorporated in your work yes it absolutely will be incorporated into the training so the the annual training the shift from semiannual to annual fits within the schedule of how we are operating trainings throughout the division as as well as just being responsive to administ requests to kind of have training at the beginning of the school year so that's why we've we've created that shift but more importantly in terms of the srnr training it is absolutely going to include training around implicit bias harassment discrimination and how to make sure that we're equitably enforcing these policies and an understanding of these changes to the srnr as they are extensive and

226impactful in our schools so the training will occur at the beginning of the year but you'll capture new administrators throughout the year is that the plan absolutely um okay um 48 seconds what can I get through one of the things um that I also want to highlight is the notification that you've talked about of parents um it's so important that students are not the first reporters of what occurred and that that is happening in a timely manner how is this being monitored how is this being recorded is are we on the honor System I did it is there a checklist somewhere or we'll hear about it when a parent complains yes so we have already started conversations in anticipation of these proposed changes with the Department of Information Technology in order to be able to

227make updates to CIS to ensure that there is monitoring of the of the parent notification and the 24-hour requirement as well as many of the other proposed changes so what I think I'm hearing is that once the communication has been made there will be a check off and a date on that iny so there'll be affirmation that it did occur absolutely okay thank you last thing if you could speak too you mentioned there was an organization part of the tool that you said you were unable to do I kind of missed why and i' take a go back please could you give us a bit more information on that when you were talking about reorganizing the columns there was something that the red line was going to make for extensive pages I didn't capture all

228of that so we've um already started editing the srnr for next year and redlining it and one of the things that we have realized is that when we try to add that key that's on the top of page 20 to each and every single page of the Matrix It significantly Alters the formatting so instead we're going to be creating a footnote which redirects them back to the initial page of where they can be able to find the key instead of altering that specific chart matrix chart that's there thank you um chairman f thank you um on slid Pages four through six here we have some changes from May to sh it seems um am I correct in saying that this is part of the response to the the boards follow on I think what's hard

229for me is that it's not really a sh not even close right it's it's using sha language followed by a giant unless right I can't think of another category that we could include to make it broader in terms of what the discre of of the administration is at any given school and so if our intent is to um bring some uniformity here I don't think this does it even if we do keep the data it doesn't it doesn't you know increase necessarily the uniformity of of sanction um even though the word shall is there now without the word May we might as well say they may do this providing X right um because shall implies that this is how it is you can't have this is how it is with a unless um any response

230to that I definitely see your point um we want to make sure that when students are sitting before administrators I'm going to give an example a kindergartener brings a a knife less than three in to school um he doesn't understand that he brought that knife that he wasn't allowed to bring the knife to school and we want to make sure that principles have autonomy in ensuring that their age um is taken into consideration as to why or how they're going to be disciplined but it's not just age right it's a whole battery of potential mitigating factors and if it was age couldn't we just say here's the penalty in this age group this age group and this age group we could um all right well that's all I have in terms of the substance I

231think the work is obviously very well done I do want to talk a little bit about how we get here every single year it's perplexing to me that our board is this deeply involved in the drafting of the srnr uh for the superintendent or others who may know from looking at other srrs or whatever they call them in other divisions um how do other places do this well in the in the state of Virginia um the the vdoe does does require that there is review of the discipline code conduct by the superintendent and the school board so other divisions may not engage such a ly Pro process as we do with two work sessions and Etc um but there is a process of it that does happen by the superintendent and um of course by

232the school board as well do any of these School divisions delegate the responsibility of the superintendent there's a lot of portions of the code that say the school board must that we then delegate to the superintendent some do all right um I asked this because you know there's probably another way of doing this work and getting similar results without taking an absurdly large amount of this board's time compared to the other work that this board focuses on I mean where else do we have room for two work on a single topic um let alone a 2 by two with that and then a board discussion at the de and then a vote that's almost I mean that's comparable to the budget um so I think I'll be talking to colleagues a little bit about our

233approach here and seeing if there's a better way I'd much rather have some very specific guard rails in the executive limitations uh work that we do that spell out exactly what we're looking for with the srnr and then we can hold the superintendent to account and then she'll have to come up with a method maybe that does include 2 by tws and you know other things to get there but I'd be much more comfortable with that um and then the the slide about the feedback from the community I'm just going to reiterate what I always say when we get these slides is that there's no scientific information here so it's informative not instructive uh it's a large sample we should be able to break that down into um segments of the school population that our

234scientific and nature to tell us what we're looking at here otherwise we are bound to have over representation of certain School communities uh than others or parents who have multiple kids and so on and so on thank you so much for that um comment uh chair fres and good afternoon to everyone uh we embedded in some of the reports that you all have received um in via the Friday letter about the composition of those who are included in all of our community engag efforts and I will say that we were very intentional in partnering with an external party a third party uh to ensure that there was representation by Race by pyramid by school Community by language spoken um at home um we really were very intentional in doing a census opportunity but making sure

235that those who attended our respective focus groups and Community Forum were indeed representative of our Fairfax County I don't doubt that and you don't get to 55,000 without doing that but it also doesn't give us any scientific value right there's no waiting to those different numbers based on who's represented in that sample for example yes we um I I agree with that statement that it may not be scientific however it was a census opportunity in giving everyone an equal chance to participate and we did ve we did work very closely um with our partner to ensure that all of those voices were heard representatively and proportionately at those respective Community engagement efforts that was our best effort to do that thank you um mret thank you for the presentation I think my 2 by two

236was bit um I did not go much in detail on my 2 by two there was some time constraints but uh I I read through the uh topic what I was looking for is a more restorative justice in our uh discipline actions and I know it's not possible in every section and and but to emphasize that in s SNR NR that we advocate for that as uh we feel like students are in that age group which can be given the right direction which can change the course of their life especially students are coming from uh low-income family or uh broken homes or things other other history where um they're seeing some situations in which they think is normal but it's not normal so um I definitely feel that is a consideration we should make um

237as as a school system and um and I agree with my colleagues that this is very much in detail uh and we we should just uh continue to work with Dr re to just uh put the e in place uh and and then leave it uh to the schools to monitor this and and uh continue this path um I did want to ask the the language some of the language is um you know as a as a parent if I am reading srnr document um and if I don't have a very good ski language skill it's a difficult uh language for a lot of people so how do we make it simplified and and uh how how to uh reach out to more parents to collect data because I saw in some languages it was

238only like one Ser one person respond responded to survey or two person responded to survey it's not enough um so maybe your view point on that sure thank you for the questions M disc I I definitely want to um have Miss Shin respond to the restorative justice you know as you know Dr Reed invested um time energy and training into ensuring that every school in Fairfax County has two certified facilitators for RJ that's how much we believe in RJ and um M Shen can share with you she oversees RJ team some of the work that they've done and then we'll respond to your second question so thank you for that question um I was farar on to the first portion so one of the proposed changes in the srnr is to require interventions it is

239a requirement per the vooe that every single disciplinary action has an intervention and so of course one of those available to administrators is restorative justice and we do have an expansive restorative justice program that we are able to support schools with as Dr King mentioned we have our central office facilitators as well as two facilitators in each building and I'm happy to report that um as of Friday of last week 100% of our schools have one trained FCPS facilitator and 81% of our schools currently have two certified facilitators and we will um we just finished that on Friday so we'll be able to have updated numbers in regards to that so the application of that and the opportunity for that intervention is available to to schools um additionally we have seen about a 10% increase

240in our referrals um at the central office level right now we have a Target to have about 30% of our cases be school based and we've met that Target for the year consistently 36% of our cases are school-based so schools are using restorative justice and we'll continue to support them in that in terms of being able to support support accessibility of the srnr we do have our quick guides which are available which provide very quick snapshots of understanding the srnr we are also going to be expanding our srnr student lessons and videos and of course they'll be available for on our fcps.edu website for families they'll be also translated into the same languages that the um the srnr is translated into and then lastly we are in development for an srnr AI generated chatbot with

241the Department of information technology which also has language Services translated into all of the um languages that the srnr is currently in so that administrators parents teachers community members can be able to access and understand the srnr I think the U last thing I would say is and I have a minute okay uh that um the reporting to the authorities in which level of assault um or any kind of progressive um you know repeat offenders and things like that when does it go to the authorities but I mean to say the reported to the police there are certain offenses that are required reports to police when it's a malicious wounding sexual assaults those are required and enlisted in srnr as mandatory reports to um police but a minor physical altercation between students are not required

242to be reported to the police uh so the so we had an incident last year when I guess a six grader was H you know police came and uh took the sixth grader away in handcuffs um wanted to ask does every school sites and principls and the the people hand handling the situations are aware that um of the again student situation and if they have any special needs going on is a it's uh before reporting that to the police so I mean to say if some student just uh hit another person and they did not know they were doing it was uh manif you know it was one of the special need is uh cases how do you then address that and I'll stop it certainly School administrators are training in assessing a student's cognitive

243ability and whether a uh and we also train on what an assault is and so if a student has special needs and is escalating um and makes incidental conduct contact with a person even if it harms that person that is not considered an assault and battery and and therefore we provide that training to school-based administrators to identify when it is indeed an assault and when it there is just physical contact and so we make a very um intentional effort for administrators to know the difference between the two Miss Lady thank you thank you for this great report uh just a couple things one and and this is all uh related to uh disproportionality and what I believe um is created by lack of reporting uh versus over reporting um I think there are too many

244situations where things are not entered that are part of the srnr um I'm not going to into more theories related to that but having worked in the system um I've observed it firsthand um so I one question I'd like to raise mostly of principles um is an ask that you audit your discipline entries um by alphabet or by grade depending on who that administrator is um to see if I mean it could be that you know the a through C's um are the ones who skip class the most or have self hope violations the most or it could be that people are not entering things um with the Fidelity that it's expected um because I do believe it's the Under reporting that's creating a lot of our disproportionality across our system so I just wanted

245to bring that and since we do have uh some of our most esteemed fantastic principles sitting with us maybe they can take back to their colleagues but I can tell you at some of the schools I worked in the faculty would have loved for you to audit that um because there are situations where faculty say well this student is in this particular person's alphabet so it's not even worth my time to write the discipline referral thank you Miss Lady thank you for those comments and I'd like Missin to talk to you about a new process that we're going to implement for next year that will address just that so again thank you for that question um one of the initiatives that we have currently in development is what we're calling core um which allows for

246us to be able to Monitor and be able to to assess and provide an audit for discipline infractions and how they have been entered so essentially the way the the process works is we work with the Department of information and Technology who provides US Reports weekly audit reports or at least monthly reports which shows schools which have audit errors meaning they've entered a disciplinary incident incorrectly according to the guidelines and then once we provide that we give that information to region assistant superintendents who then support administrators in correcting those errors and that looks like one engaging in a root cause analysis the understanding why those errors are occurring and providing a corrective action plan to make sure that they don't continue to occur and then the actual correcting of those errors and then we monitor

247that to make sure that those audit errors are declining and are not continuing to happen and then issue of course reports based upon our findings so that is currently in development and we are working with the chief of schools and the department of Information Technology and making sure that that is launched before July 1 when our administrators begin the new school year I appreciate that and the Integrity of things being accurately reflected based on what the discipline codes are uh however if I don't bother to enter anything I'm not going to come up in your core audit I'm asking for an audit but principles can do this to see who's inputting and who's not um because I believe that our disproportionality is and I'll say this again is lacked to people who are not who

248who are not uh who are Under reporting but thank you miss lady if I can just share the reason why we added um made this change to the srnr that you have to implement because it was never in the document itself and I agree and we'll look into core and see how we can add that as part of it thank you Dr Dr Anderson for a go back thank you the other thing that I wanted to highlight when you talked about the student videos I I think that is so important um because in talking and I'll even ask um Dr Roland to even speak to this if that's possible students don't seem to make the connection between what's in the srnr and what they are doing at the school building um they seem to think

249the scenarios are not clear to them and we also have to realize some of our students are very young and so I I would love to hear a little bit more in terms of the scenarios that you are intending on building and with the assessment which is great it's kind of a check for understanding which we do in a lot of things and this is probably one of the most crucial things for us to do it in because not following what is in here could remove students from their schools so we want to be sure that there's clarity about what is it that they understand that is being provided to them um I would also like to um advocate for kind of pacing that out a little bit because as adults we can sit here

250and read this srnr and be completely overwhelmed by it and not really build the understanding that we really need to I I see it kind of counter productive to just kind of throw all of this at kids all at once so I'm hoping there's some opportunity to chunk the learning and to do those check for understanding and of course I know this is something you'll put on your radar for the beginning of the year but also when we come back um in January where in many places we tend to have a whole new crop of kids so I I would love for Dr Roland to kind of talk about some of his experiences if he could regarding kind of the disconnect in terms of kids understanding of what their responsibilities are based on what we

251are instructing them hi good afternoon everyone I would agree with you we see a disconnect um at every school I've been at specifically at Justice there is a lot of issues with understanding what the srnr is some of that is language barriers some of that is tied to Chronic absenteeism and not attending when we're doing srnr sessions or the particular makeups but I would agree generally speaking with the scenarios often times the way that it is currently presented our students will laugh it off not necessarily pay attention to the degree that they should and that might be a way that we are presenting it that might be worth revisiting thank you so thank you for that um one of the things we've been responsive to this year that came out of our focus groups is

252exactly that idea hearing from our students that there's a disconnect with the srnr that they don't necessarily understand it that it feels very complex um and so in order to be able to support that we are completely revising our srnr student lessons so the videos which currently exists will actually now transition to a video storytelling format so that it has more relatable scenarios and stories for students that they can be able to identify with additionally we're going to ensure that we create lesson plans that are attached to the videos and which have a longer duration we are recommending that schools of course do that like within a week period and they take their time going through those lessons and those lesson plans those lesson plans are also going to include interactive activities as well as

253discussions and we we have enlisted instruction um teachers and instructional coaches to help us in the planning and the development of those lessons and lastly we are we are aiming to ensure that students actually review those lessons before we post them so that we can actually get student feedback to see if these lessons are even likable or relatable so we certainly want to be able to hear that from them and then we do of course have the srnr mid year review and that will can schools are able to alter um to Det DET their their midar review based upon their discipline needs but they can use those same lesson plans and videos um to to be able to support students okay thank you I would imagine that you plan on delivering those lessons during advisory

254I I also think you know it's great to to use that time because that's where we want to send out information because the curriculum does not really allow us a lot of flexibility um but I also want to say not all advisory periods are created equal um very often a lot of the things that we're trying to push out as a division through that period um they're not coming through consistently to all of our students it could be because they had a sub it could be it could be a number of reasons but we also have to keep that in mind that not all advisory periods are created equal and I have you know experience with that as well just one last thing um at the end of the presentation Miss Shen you talked about

255um some changes um religion you mentioned that and I kind of missed that can you also articulate that for me yes certainly um So currently right now the definition for hate speech included in the glossery does not include religion and it does not include symbols and so we want to add those to to the definition for hate speech to allow those to be able to receive interventions of course under the hate speech definition okay um I'm going to mull that one over a little bit thank you that's it Miss Marin yes hi um I guess I I just want to share maybe three things one is the theme of Engagement and we talked about that this morning when we talked about developing the core Pathways and students will be interested when they're engaged and you

256know this is tremendous effort and I was actually thinking about the first year I went through this it was during covid I was outside Somewhere listening to this call and I feel like it's come a really long way and it's super thoughtful and it's evolved with our students needs I do think it has a place in being part of the El and the superintendent reviews a closely our policy is currently redlined and our governance committee is going to talk about that next week and I'm really excited about that um because the current policy is a paragraph and we could probably put more in there about the board's values as um expected by the community to do the work there so but with the engagement piece um I wanted to call upon one of our principles

257like um there's so many here thank you um but Dr miselle of Langston you know I saw firsthand when my daughter was there the level of Engagement and so like on the one hand we have this very specific document with all of the things so we're ready when something happens but I actually would like to call on Dr misel to talk about what he and his team are doing to prevent the needs of a lot of the use of a lot of this so would you mind Dr miselle like talking about how you are engaging students to avoid some of infractions and just what your data are showing about discipline um particularly I remember uh leaving the school dismissal time it was one of the first data points you told me about um so I'd

258love to for you to share with the board please so I am simply being on my administrative team being visible um throughout the day hallway transitions huge in the cafeteria so if you make sure your cafeteria is intact um that solves many of your problems um again we're just all over the building um the kids hear us over the walkie um every transition my adment team we just spread out um I'm on the red Hall I'm on the blue kids hear it it's a good thing the other thing is we're consistent um and clear with our expectations um we're not out to get kids um as I often tell parents um our goal certainly is not to make learning punitive just like I implemented Hall sweeps students have three minutes to get to class the

259goal is simply that to protect instructional time and get kids in class and kids will do precisely what you ask them to do and so I often tell teachers you have to accept what you allow so again clear consistent um expectations with you mind sharing the data about how you um adjusted the dismissal and the results you got from that do you remember it was just a year and a half ago right well with dismissal the school was releasing around 1100 students simultaneously um so I implemented staggering dismissal more so with buses rather than have 1,000 kids walking out on the Bus Loop we release 10 buses at a time and it works perfectly we have three waves two waves of 10 and one of six so it works really well um teachers see that

260our building is empty by 2:30 and so if we don't have a staff meeting teachers are more than welcome to leave I also recall you sharing that um the other not to cut you off Melanie I will say we have multiple ways in which students know buses are being called we project a bus board every teacher is expected to project that bus board students have access to the bus board on the schooly page so they can pull up the bus board as well at dismissal so they hear the buses as well as they see the bus board um I can even monitor the bus board that's what I was just doing watching dismissal so well thank you Dr miselle um not to mention the school culture that he's created the students the first month you

261were there raised $60,000 in a chocolate selling event and 30 had to go back to the vendor but they now have beautiful murals uh an outstanding chorus theater I guess you know it's when people a lot of times now they're saying what can we do to help public education it's the school leader it's can we take the things that we know work and make it then this it just comes back to the same theme system of schools or school system if this bus board strategy is working can we implement it I mean I'm not trying to tread on anyone's Authority or but like it worked it literally changed the school over a matter of days so I again we need to have all of this but um I am just worried I am just wondering

262about consistency the last thing I'll ask about is I'm glad to see the hate speech definition updated we need to be bold and instruct our students on the matters that we're dealing with right now and we know that that's involving the situation with Israel and Palestine and our Jewish community and our Palestinian Muslim Americans Arab Americans we are not going to do better until we figure out how to facilitate the respectful learning of that we've been dancing around it for a year and a half and anti-Semitism is the highest rate it's pretty much ever been since World War II and we know that our other parts of our community don't feel hurt as well thank you thank you before we move on um I just have a few words to say I just Echo thank

263you for including the symbols as well uh because those weren't included before and I know of situations where nothing could be done when there were certain symbols and now the fact that they're included is going to be really helpful for administrators um and I'm also really happy to see that there is going to be um guidance on on documenting everything in syis because I know that that has been inconsistent and um the thing that I would like to advocate for is the training that goes to our administrators is wonderful it's a lot on their plate sometimes and um and not you know throwing any shade at them sometimes it doesn't filter down to certain teachers or certain staff members and so how we can bolster training for the staff members um I think is really

264critical cuz that's where I've seen a gap and no fault to our administrators cuz they do a great job uh but that's where we start to see the inconsistencies with certain staff members and teachers um and I know it's a lot for everyone to do and I hate to be the person that is adding more to an over full plate for everyone um but if we start doing this systematically then I think it'll become more routine and not as um not as a what do I want to say not as heavy of a lift once we get into a pattern of doing it so thank you thank you for that question um one of the changes to the annual training for administrators is going to include a turnkey professional development for staff members so as

265part of that training they will get their materials their supplies they'll get a script lesson plans Etc um on how they can be able to turn that training around that they got and give it right back to their administrators I'm sorry to their to their staff and then we're going to pair that with our acknowledgement form which has already launched this year ensuring that those srnr lessons with staff members are being done and we asked administrators just to complete that acknowledgement form so we can verify that thank you um also um I failed to see U miss seore heiser's hand raised so uh go ahead you've got the floor thank you and no worries at all um I I spoke a lot during the our 2 by two I have a couple questions I appreciate

266all the hard work I know this is a lot that goes in here and a lot of thoughtful work went into um doing this I also agree I think having the consistent reporting and training will be very very helpful just to kind of even get a lay of the land right of where really are we really around discipline incidents once we have a little more consistency in that reporting um a couple of questions that I had um one was around um mdrs I think one of my colleagues asked earlier about special education students I know you talked about principles are trained and understanding can you speak a little bit more to what training goes into for principles around understanding you know the um causes of behavior as well as how to conduct an MDR I'll

267pause my time please Dr axler are you prepared to share that I mean I don't see anybody from sped here that can go into detail no okay I just think that's important to know because um one of my my understanding and hopefully someone there can correct me if I'm wrong is part of what gets looked at in an MDR is the IEP and I've mentioned this Dr R before and I think maybe Dr King and I have had some conversations too but I find it problematic that we're using the IEP for an MDR when it's not written for that purpose so my next question would be what training do we give to IEP teams in writing an IEP to make sure that is also included along with the other goals and um requirements of an

268IEP to make sure that families know and IEP team members know that hey if your child is involved in the discipline incident and mdrs needed make sure that it IEP documents what you want that MDR team to know so what training or what consistency do we have around IEP meetings to make sure that proper information is documented hopefully it's never needed right um but if it is we want to make sure our MDR teams have the full information they need so what goes into those IEP meetings for MDR purposes so thank you Miss seore Heiser and I am gonna uh phone a friend uh principal Tracy Phillips is gonna talk just about what it looks like on the ground um great but for sure obviously we want to you know be thoughtful so uh principal

269Phillips yeah so um I would like to clarify we don't particularly look at the IEP necessarily in the MDR meetings what we look at that is the the disability what is the child what qualified the child to receive an IEP so you're looking at the disability under what their qualification was and then having a conversation does that disability impact the behavior and the decisions made in the process and so we're not looking at what's written in the IEP versus what their eligibility area is so you're talking about what their eligibility is and then talking in those conversations did that eligibility impact the decisions they made in their actions and their Behavior I think some of the and what we do also is that you know you have somebody from the clinical team you have teacher

270representation you obviously have family members that are there at the MDR at the table having those conversations and answering those two questions related to the MDR process I think it's pivotal for uh or really important for MDR teams to have those staffings ahead of time to review any questions or concerns that that might arise before we get to the actual table you're not predetermining the outcome of the MDR but making making sure that you're clarifying any questions prior to getting to the MDR table uh with those Staffing meetings in advance with the staff that are going to be attending the meeting um but yeah I think I hope that answers your question we're not talking about IEP we're talking about their area of Eligibility no that's actually super helpful because I've always in other formats

271when I've asked I've been told that the team looks at the IEP so that's the first I've heard that that isn't the case so that is super helpful to know I guess they question I'd have and follow up with that is when you look at the area of Eligibility I mean some of the areas of Eligibility have a wide range right and how they present right for example ADHD or Autism you know it can be varying differently from each student to student so how do you have um familiarity you familiar people in the room I think you saw you talked to some staff but who do you have in the room that might be familiar with how the student um you know presents on a day-to-day basis and what roles do the families have in

272providing information for that as well yeah so sitting at at the table the parent obviously has their input regarding what they see vers regarding their child as well as you know you have a general education teacher and a special education teacher who are familiar with the child to talk about what they see in the classroom and we try to have the case manager present to be part of that discussion as well so almost you know all those teacher input um of behaviors and actions they're seeing and if there's you know questions that remain um we try to get those answers prior to making the decision to those two questions that we're giving at at the table okay I appreciate that so it's it's not just aage of Eligibility but it's really talking to teachers and

273staff familiar with the student regarding how that that that um disability might manifest for that student yes that's correct all right that's helpful I appreciate that and then um I do think that it's also important as we're looking at the srnr to really figure out what are our roles here and how do we balance our roles because this document is quite large um and we do get quite in depth in that so I agree with my colleagues I just wanted to kind of give some voice to that and kind of May rethinking this process around the srnr um that's all I have for right now I appreciate it thank you thank you I think that we are now ready to move on to part two of the presentation all right thank you and thank you

274for that conversation it was very helpful to us as we move forward in the process I'd like to introduce the principls who've joined us today they are part they were part of the cell phone pilot process this year whether they had um a storage unit or not they were still part of this and provided great um feedback to us throughout this process so I want to say thank you publicly to all the principles who um signed on to do this journey with us so we have Tracy Phillips from Robinson Secondary Shan Rolan from Justice High School Herman miselle from Hughes Middle School Matt ma from Twain Middle School Cindy connley from Irving Middle School Mandy Burke from Edison High School and Dr Ellen Riley at mlan High School school so we want to thank you

275again for joining us as we transition from the broader discussion on discipline we now turn our attention to another key srnr issue the cell phone policy and storage based on extensive and I mean extensive Community engagement and feedback the proposed changes seek to balance minimizing distractions in the classroom while acknowledging the role of cell phones and student safety and communication in this session you will also hear from School principles who will share firsthand experiences from the cell phone storage pilot at this time I'd like to introduce Dr Alicia Martinez the administrator for Equity programs who will review the key data metrics collected from our community engagement efforts related to the self-owned policy and storage options thank you Dr King I have the pleasure of walking through our community engagement efforts over the course of this

276school year as shared in previous slide our team had over 55,000 touch points in our comprehensive Community engagement efforts related to the five follow-on motions there were 18 Focus Group convenings which involved close to8 800 voices in our Fairfax County Community one Community Forum where we gathered final input on the proposed option set which included voices from Community partner organizations students at the elementary middle and high school levels parent par and caregivers a repr representative excuse me sample from central office and several school-based staff members including teachers and administrators the final Community engagement effort reflected the collective feedback we received across all of these engagements spanning from September of this school year through the community forum and final input received from principles participating in our cell phone storage pilot many of which are here today

277either as a comparison or control school or School pilot one of the three cell phone storage options this school year our team partnered with a third party K12 insight to develop the srnr and cell phone policy survey which was open from January 17th through February 3rd this census survey was sent to All FCPS parents and caregivers FCPS staff and middle and high school students the survey was available in English Amharic Arabic Chinese Korean Spanish erdu and and Vietnamese we have participation details presented on the following slide which I will present in a few moments overall there were 14,592 responses key findings are presented on this slide and indicate 49% of parents and caregivers preferred to keep the current FCPS policy 57% of Staff favored the governor's recommended policy the majority of secondary students 85% prefer

278referred to retain the current FCPS policy and when broken down that represented 74% in support among our Middle High middle school students and 90% support among our high school students while 63% of parents and caregivers and 77% of Staff either strongly support or support FCPS creating some kind of cell phone storage policy fewer students do only 133% when asked about their top choice for cell phone storage the highest percentage of parents and caregivers 66% staff at 57% and secondary students 35% indicated that elementary middle and high school students should all use cell phone storage options during instructional time recognizing the importance of inclusivity the survey was made available in multiple languages which I already shared this helped ensure Equitable access across all community members to share their perspectives in terms of participation our team is

279most proud that we had the ability for people to participate in the survey in multiple languages and as you can see while the majority of participants opted to complete the survey in English there was participation in each of the seven languages across all three participant groups students parents and staff I'll now turn it over to Kathleen okay to assess the effectiveness of cell phone Storage Solutions 14 middle schools participated in the Middle School cell phone storage pilot which launched on September 3rd 2024 the pilot was designed to evaluate two approaches schools implementing structured cell phone storage Yonder pouches and comparison schools maintaining current policies without a formalized storage system seven middle schools volunteered to participate in the pilot using the magnetic Yonder pouches and Alicia has one for you to take a look at uh

280these schools included Frost Irving Jackson Poe Robinson thorough and Twain middle schools in these schools students carry their pouches with them throughout the day at the start of the school day students Place their cell phones inside the pouch and then are instructed to lock their pouches the pouch remains locked until the student leaves School ensuring that phones are not accessible during instructional hours students with IEPs 504 plans or medical conditions who were eligible for a medical pouch were provided one with the exception of the locking mechanism the medical pouches look the same as the non-medical pouches this approach was selected because the existing FCPS cell phone policy already requires phones to be away for the day at the middle school level seven additional middle schools were designated as comparison School schools meaning they continued enforcing

281the current cell phone policy without using Yonder pouches these schools turnside now it's the round go ahead I'm sorry these schools included Franklin Holmes Hughes Kilmer Lake bradock South County and Whitman Middle Schools the office of research and strategic Improvement selected these comparison schools to ensure a balanced study this allowed for an accurate comparison between schools implementing Yonder pouches and those enforcing current cell phone rules without additional storage requirements at the high school level a similar pilot program was launched with 16 high schools participating in structured cell phone Storage Solutions during class time however unlike the Middle School pilot high school students retained access to their phones during passing periods and lunch as consistent with the current policy eight high schools volunteered to participate in the pilot implementing the structured in-class Storage Solutions beginning September

2823rd 2024 two different storage options were tested calculator storage bags at Edison High School and mlan High School and hanging holder storage at Falls Church Justice Lewis Madison Robinson and Westfield High Schools under these storage methods students are required to place their phones into designated storage areas at the beginning of the class period similar to the Middle School pilot eight high schools were selected as comparison schools meaning they continued enforcing the current cell phone policy without implementing structured Storage Solutions these included chanelli Fairfax Lake bradoock Mount Vernon Oakton South County South Lakes and Woodson High Schools as with the Middle School selection process the office of research and strategic Improvement determined the comparison schools to ensure a fair and balanced comparison between pilot and non-pilot schools on the slide you can see the various tested

283storage options and their cost per unit or cost of unit per classroom perceptions of cell phone storage options at the elementary school level revealed key insights the highest percentage of secondary students 50% incl in indicated that FCPS should not create a storage policy whereas 32% of Staff indicated that they do not have a preference and 31% of parents or caregivers prefer a door mounted storage unit when looking at perceptions among community members about cell phone storage options at the middle school level the highest percentage of secondary students 54% indicated that FCPS should not create a a storage policy where whereas 28% of Staff indicated that they do not have a preference and 28% of parents or caregivers prefer ajon Ed storage unit finally when looking at perceptions of cell phone storage options at the high

284school level 72% of secondary students indicated that FCPS should not create a storage policy whereas 28% of Staff indicated a preference for door mounted storage and 29% of parents or caregivers indicated that FCPS should not create a cell phone storage policy I will now turn it over to di Shin who will guide us through the relevant leg isation in the next section of our presentation thank you to provide policy context to this discussion recent cell phone free education legislation was reviewed executive order number 33 mandates that Virginia Public Schools Implement cell phonefree education policies to protect the health and safety of students in Virginia's cave through 12 Public Schools as an expression of this executive order the Virginia Department of Education issued guid guidance to every Virginia School Division and local school board to review

285existing policies Andor work to create or revise cell phone policies that adhered with the provided minimum guidance lastly State Bill 738 which has passed both House and Senate and is on its way to the governor's desk for Signature requires each School Board to develop policies that restrict to the fullest exent restrict to the fullest extent possible student cell phone possession and use in the classroom room during regular school hours and expressly prohibits any student from being suspended expelled or removed from class as a consequence of any violation of such policies research on cell phone restrictions presents a complex landscape of benefits and challenges a 2024 New York Times report found that cell phones can contribute to school fights as students often use them to provoke record and spread videos of incidents schools that implemented classroom

286cell phone bands along side increased security saw a noticeable decrease in fights similarly the Virginia pilot in 2025 highlighted evidence from Indiana and New York City showing that restricting phone use leads to improvements in academic performance student engagement mental health and participation in extracurricular activities feedback from FCPS principles participating in Pilot programs aligns with these findings with many reporting fewer fights and reduced bullying particularly in middle schools that that introduced storage pouches mental health research further supports limiting cell phone access in his 2024 book The anxious generation Jonathan hate reported that teen depression rates have surged rising 145% in girls and 161% in boys he recommends implementing phone-free school days where students lock their phones upon arrival to create a healthier learning environment the FCPS youth survey for the 2324 school year reflects similar concerns

287showing that 29% of sixth graders feel persistently sad while 20 25% of older students report feelings of hopelessness however research on the effectiveness of phone bands is not conclusive a BBC study in 2025 2025 found no clear link between restricting phone use and improvements in grades Behavior or overall well-being likewise the survey that was concluded sorry conducted by orsy among students participating in one of the 30 pilot schools findings revealed no significant difference in digital stress between students in phone-free and phone regulated environments many students also Express concerns over needing access to their phones for safety emergencies and communication with their families ultimately while reducing cell phone use can enhance school safety and minimize distractions it must be paired with policies that address student mental health and security concerns I will now turn our presentation

288over to Dr nardis King to review our proposed changes to the cell phone policy Andor storage options thank you the chief Equity office recommends the updated cell phone policy reflect extensive Community engagement with a strong emphasis on student voice feedback from students parents and Educators highlighted the need for Clear Equitable enforcement of cell phone rules while ensuring that policy support a focus and distractive free learning environment for elementary and middle schools the CEO recommends a bell-to-bell ban on cell phones and cell phone accessories ensuring that devices remain unavailable for use throughout the entire school day there will be no instructional use of phones and students who violate the policy may have their devices confiscated no confiscated phones will be kept overnight under any circumstance all devices must be returned to either the student or the

289parent by the end of the school day depending on the severity of the frequency of violations no student will face suspension or expulsion from cell phone related violations recognizing the importance of accessibility and Equity the policy includes accommodations for students with IEPs for 504 plans or for medical needs for high school the CEO recommends a bell-to-bell ban with one exception students May access their phones during lunch in designated areas this adjustment directly responds to student feedback balancing the need for students with the reality that older students often rely on their phones for communication and personal management as with with younger grade levels instructional use of cell phones will not be permitted the confiscation will be available um excuse me and confiscation will be an available disciplinary U measure no confiscated phones will be kept overnight

290under any circumstance all devices must be returned to either the student or the parent or Guardian by the end of the school day suspensions and expulsions will not be used as consequences for policy violations and accommodations will be made for students with IEP 504 plans and medical needs to ensure consistent and Equitable enforcement of the cell phone policy the CEO recommends a progressive discipline model firsttime violations will result in a confiscation and parent no notification while repeated offenses May escalate to detentions or temporary loss of uh phone privileges confiscation of phones will always be returned at the end of the school day either to the student or the parent depending on the violation history but no devices will be kept overnight the positive discipline approach embedded in the policy reflects Community engagement feedback advocating for

291fairness restorative justice and student centered interventions rather than punitive measures enforcement will focus on corrective actions restorative justice and support through multi-tiered systems of of support what we call mtss referrals importantly all cell phone violations will be classified as level one infractions meaning no student will be suspended expelled or removed from class due to cell phone related offenses unless required by the srnr the CEO recommends align with student concerns about fairness access and enforcement consistency while also addressing parent and educator priorities regarding academic engagement and school safety by integrating Community feedback and student voice these recommendations create a balanced structured and student Focus policy that supports both learning and well-being across all grade levels if the school board mandates cell phone storage during the instructional time three opt three options are under consideration flexible school

292choice will allow schools to determine the storage method that best fits their environment providing autonomy and how cell phones are managed uniform storage would require all students excuse me all schools to implement the same storage solution ensuring cons consistency across the district the third option policy enforcement only would eliminate the requirement for physical storage but mandate strict enforcement of existing rules that prohibit phone use while not permitted if storage units are mandated several options are available including individual locking pouches which would prevent student access throughout the school day other options include classroom storage cases or wallmounted storage holders which would provide a designated space for students to place their phones during instructional time while these storage methods offer physical solutions to the issue of phone use they also introduce logistical and financial considerations that must

293be addressed the CEO recommends option three policy enforcement only ensuring that schools strictly enforce a bell-to-bell ban without requiring mandatory storage unit this recommendation is directly reflects the student voice as students overwhelmingly Express that they do not support mandatory storage options feedback indicates that storage requirements could create un unnecessary logistical challenges increase transition time and add complications to an already structured school day additionally students raised concerns that mandatory storage could lead to lost or damage of personal devices and create unintended barriers to access their phones when needed outside of instructional time a key reason for this approach is that bell-to-bell bands El imits the Temptation for students to access their phones during passing periods when distractions social conflicts and unauthorized phones that tend to escalate rather than dis diminish by prioritizing student feedback academic engagement

294and Equitable enforcement this recommendation ensures a structured distraction-free learning environment while respecting student concerns about stor mandate I will now turn this over to um Michin who will guide us through the cell phone policy crosswalk a cell phone policy crosswalk provides a detailed comparison of the current policy and the proposed policy for elementary middle and high school students focusing on three key areas use storage and access outside of the Bell to Bell school day these proposed changes reflect anticipated legislation and Community engagement feedback with a particular emphasis on reducing distractions and ensuring Equitable enforcement under the current policy elementary elementary students must keep their cell phone silenced and stored in backpacks for the entire school day however teachers may allow cell phone use for instructional activities with principal approval in contrast the proposed policy eliminates

295all instructional use of cell phones reinforcing a strict bell-to-bell ban on both pH phones and accessories regarding storage the current policy requires phones to be turned off and stored away from the student during school hours but in practice students may still access them in their backpacks the proposed policy mandates that phones remain off and away for the school day preventing any unauthorized use for use outside of Bell tobell hours no significant changes are recommended elementary students may still use phones before and after school and on buses they may text or listen to music with earphones but cannot make phone calls unless in an emergency middle school policies follow a similar shift currently cell phones must be silenced and put away for the school day with limited instructional use allowed at the principal's discretion the proposed

296policy eliminates any instructional use enforcing a strict bell-to-bell ban on both phones and accessories for storage the current policy allows phones to be kept in middle school students backpacks which means they remain accessible the proposed policy strengthens enforcement requiring that phones be off and away for the entire school day to prevent distractions regarding use outside of school hours there are no changes middle school students may use phones before and after school and on buses they may text or listen to music but cannot make calls unless an emergency the most notable changes occur at the high school level the current policy allows cell phones to be used during passing periods lunches and before and after school with teachers able to permit phone use during class for instructional purposes the proposed policy significantly restricts access requiring a

297bell to Bell van on phone use except for lunch in designated spaces principles will determine these spaces based on student enrollment and school capacity the proposed policy eliminates any instructional use enforcing a strict bell-to-bell ban on both phones and accessories except during lunch the storage guidelines also shipped while the current policy requires phones to be silenced and put away during class the proposed policy mandates that phones and accessories be completely off and Away throughout the school day except during lunch reinforcing clear enforcement and minimizing classroom disruptions for use outside of bell-to-bell hours phones may still be accessed before and after school but they will no longer be allowed during passing periods a change aimed at reducing hallway distractions and potential social conflicts the proposed operational guidelines for cell phone policy violations establish a progressive discipline

298structure ensuring that all violations remain classified as level one offenes this means that students will not face suspension expulsion or class removals as a result of violation of the cell phone policy instead the response follows a tiered approach escalating in consequences based on repeated infractions while prioritizing corrective actions parental involvement and student support for the first violation the phone Andor accessor is confiscated by an administrator and sent to the front office the student can pick up their phone Andor accessory at the end of the school day a parent or Guardian is notified pursuant to LED srnr discipline notification policies the violation is recorded in Cy detailing the confiscation as the sanction the corrective warning as the intervention the assigned violation number and the parent notification if a second violation occurs the phone is confiscated by

299an administrator and sent to the front office the student may retrieve may not retrieve the phone until the end of the school day a parent or Guardian is again notified and additional sanctions include a one-day detention and confiscation of the phone for the remainder of the day under no circumstances will phones be kept overnight to reinforce expectations the student will also participate in an administrator student conference and the parent will be required to engage in administrator parent conference this incident is recorded in CIS ensuring documentation of the sanction intervention loged violation and parental notification for a third violation the phone is confiscated by an administrator and sent to the front office however this time the student may not retrieve it only a parent or Guardian May pick get up at the end of the school

300day sanctions increased to a two-day detention and the Phil must be returned to the parent or Guardian rather than the student however under no circumstances will phones be kept overnight interventions now include restorative justice requiring either an individual conversation or a formal conference led by an FCPS school-based certified restorative justice facilitator additionally an administrator student an administrator parent conference is conducted to address ongoing concerns this violation is documented in Cy including sanctions interventions and parent notifications for a fourth violation and Beyond the phone is confiscated by an administrator and taken to the front office with the parent required to pick it up at the end of the school day however under no circumstances will phones be kept overnight at this stage the student will receive a three-day detention and further consequences include the loss of

301phone privileges for 5 to 10 school days during this period the student must report to the front office each morning to turn in their phone and retrieve it only at the end of the school day this structured loss of privilege is designed to reinforce expectations while avoiding exclusionary discipline additional interventions include a mandatory administrator student and administrator parent conference along with the referral to the m to the mtss team to develop a behavioral to to to develop behavioral goals and monitor progress the student will also be referred to their school counselor for ongoing support and check-ins all details of this intervention process including mtss referrals counseling services and disciplinary sanctions are logged in for tracking and followup by maintaining a level one classification for all violations this policy ensures that students receive appropriate interventions rather

302than punitive disciplinary actions the tiered progression reinforces clear expectations prioritizes corrective actions and involves parents and support teams to address concerns proactively now we will hear from Pilot principles who have played a key role in implementing and evaluating the cell phone policy pilot program in their respective schools each of these principles have firsthand experience navigating the challenges and successes of enforcing the FCPS cell phone policy managing Storage Solutions and assessing the impact on student Behavior engagement and overall School climate they will share their insights on what has worked well areas for improvement key takeaways from their participation in the pilot program how great we were I'm just CAU it uh we will begin with our Middle School cell phone pilot principles who will speak in the order in which they appear good afternoon I'm Cindy

303Conley principal at Irving Middle School and I will say we started as an away for the day school back in 2019 um and so we have been working on trying to have cell phones be away um for a number of years um and so when the opportunity to participate in this pilot um came about we jumped on it because we've had a number of of ways we've been trying to to keep the phones away um and so I'm excited that we were a part of this uh pilot pouch program what worked well I I felt like our implementation went really well utilizing the pouches was really easy um we were able to check them out very quickly our students we were able to amend our schedule at the end of the day to make sure

304we're at 1217 is students in my building and so um we were able to quickly amend our bell schedule just a little bit and stagger our dismissal so that students could get access to the magnets really quickly and then move on so we let our eighth graders out first and then our seventh graders and it seems to work really smoothly we on even on the first day we didn't have a delay in our bus departure um so it was that it was that easy to implement um the students are using the pouches um we do know some students might not put their phone in the pouch but they're still putting it in the backpack and they're not coming out um and so um there is seems to be a little bit more more teeth to

305this we are not chasing phones as much as we used to chase them um on a daily basis um teachers have reported that they are not seeing the phones out because they're in the pouches in the backpack um I think one of the areas that we still are you know trying to work through is students who don't have phones some of them didn't really want the pouch to carry and be responsible for through the year and some who didn't have phones wanted the pouch so they didn't stand out for not having a phone um we've had a lot of students who report they just don't bring their phones to school anymore because they didn't like the hassle of doing the magnets but that was kind of their choice after they went through it a little

306bit um uh overall our staff is really pleased with it I think our students are used to the routine now um and then I would just say I really would love for it to continue um we have like I said from 2019 till now those privious previous years we didn't have those pouches and I think having the pouches just adds a little bit more teeth to it and keeps that Temptation especially for middle schoolers who really uh you know that prefrontal cortex is still developing we want to make sure that they don't have that Temptation thank you I'm just going to ask our principles to use their school voice and speak up so that we can all hear you including those people listening at home okay well you know this cell phone is the center

307of a middle schooler's World um I will say we are a school not implementing pouches but it has gone really well um I go back to being visible Vigilant making sure that your expectations are clear um consistent make sure that teachers understand it um the other piece is I don't want I try and deter teachers from confiscating cell phones simply submit a support call and allow an administrator to show um and confiscate the cell phone um it is going really well um at Langston Hughes again I just think it's a matter of being visible Vigilant consistent um with your expectations thank you thank you all for the opportunity to uh be a part of the pilot and to share uh Twain Middle School's experience uh with you this afternoon uh a lot of what I

308would share would Echo certainly Cindy's experience uh the implementation although on the front end uh was a heavy lift we were supported by Dr King's office throughout that and it made that work uh much easier our our faculty and staff enthusiastically I think I'm understating that uh were a part of the pilot they were excited to try something new to combat an issue that they've been dealing with for years uh Twain already uh similar to Cindy's experience at Irving before I arrived uh had a strong policy in place the issue was consistency um and that word has come up a lot in our time get together this afternoon not just in this conversation about cell phones uh the tool the cell phone pouch uh has allowed us to be more consistent it has taken some

309of the interpretation out of the equation for our staff whose energy I need focused on instruction not on the minutia of uh did I see a phone did I not see a phone is that kid checking the time is that kid someone who I can trust truly was getting a text from their parent or were they engaged in social media so it has allowed for instruction to flourish uh in a way that uh we haven't seen in years uh as cell phones have become more prominent for our middle school students um it has reduced uh our incidents where we have students recording each other uh when in Conflict which is uh of course gasoline on the fire of conflict once a phone's out it becomes hard to walk away uh for our young people when

310they know that they'll be uh that video of them walking away and potentially looking weak uh will be shared with their peers uh it has reduced incidents of uh student meetups to skip class and to vape uh and that of course is uh Central to our making sure that the environment at Twain is safe for our students um I don't I don't intend to speak in hyperbole but I will say um our students are addicted to their phones um this is a tool that helps address their addiction um and I am a huge supporter of student voice and it does not surprise I don't think anyone in this room that they didn't like like this policy um but I would I would make the argument that our students uh that don't like the policy is

311because they're addicted to their cell phones uh it's reasonable that they're not going to like a policy that restricts their access to those cell phones thank you thank you principles we will now hear from our high school cell phone pilot principles and I'm going to ask um when Tracy speaks that she speaks from the perspective of a secondary school Amanda hello thank you for having me here today um in case anybody wants this is I call it AKA The Lunch lunchbox um but it holds about 30 some cell phones in it absolutely please take it um so some things that have worked well um at our school first of all as you can see the collection holder is easy to go so if you have to leave a building you can grab it and go

312um and we practice that with fire drills you see every teacher walking out with their lunchbox um and heading out the door so the kids know their phones are coming with them um so so that has been great students and teachers report um increased engagement and less cheating um in the classes uh one thing I'm also going to speak to I'm sure many people know we had a crisis at Edison not too long ago um not having the phones out why that was going on allowed us to focus on the crisis and not manage all the calls coming in and the increased anxiety that calls from people communicating back and forth that may not be in our building so for me that was key in everything that happened in our building that day and allowing

313us to solve what was going on um areas for improvement teacher enforcement is always an area of improvement um there is inconsistencies among classrooms we do um my students when I asked them what I should say today um they wanted randomized uh cell phone holder checks which I was surprised to hear from kids um so uh I just think knowing that you know that that expectation is there um is an area that we all could improve on on they associated with the door locks teachers locking doors when they're in there the first year we jiggle handles and see whose door wasn't locked and then this year all the doors are locked and so we have to use our keys to get in as far as a safety measure um so that um has been great

314um some takeaways kids have seeing the value both academically and socially they'll tell you that they interact more with their peers even in the hallways when they can still have their phones um so they have seen that that is uh increased uh they also say their overall screen time is down um just for some numbers our fights with no injury last year were at 33 by the end of the year we currently have only had five this year uh one of those being in the cafeteria four being in the hallway so if we're looking at where we might limit for high school hallway is an area that we're still trying to figure out as far as the phones go um for I'm going to put vaping alcohol and drugs all in one category we had

31588 incidents last year this year at 28 so there is a direct correlation between them not being on their phones and how U behav plays out in the school and it's a positive one I started the school year with my teachers having to have some hallway duty to monitor hallways we quickly saw that with the cell phones we didn't need that anymore and they gained back their time um as far as not having to monitor the hallway and I think that that's all I've got yeah okay um so hi I am the unique uh I like say one of the unique beasts in FCPS with the three secondary schools cuz we have I have two different policies Under One Roof with all three of the storage options going on in my building I already kind

316of ratted myself out to nardis a little bit earlier in the school year because we realized really quickly that the over the- door pouch solution did not work in PE classes and so how are we going to securely store items in PE so we bought a couple of the lunch boxes with rolling carts that have uh locks on them that all the PE teachers have the keys to so they take them from the PE students put them in there and then they go to the locker rooms to change and then come back and get those and so um overwhelmingly um like all of my colleagues had said I would Echo all of their sentiments it has been super easy uh to implement uh we've seen great progress uh with student engagement with the reduction and

317discipline issues across the board um you know I think for us what has gone well the communication being early and often uh not only with our students but with our parents and our community as well as with our staff um being clear on our expectations um and when I say often that's in my daily announcements to remind students to put their phones in the pouches as they enter the classroom and for middle school students to put them in the Yonder pouch and for teachers to check those pouches every single day um we also do uh regular pouch and storage checks as we go uh throughout the school year so I put it on my admin team's calendar and we rotate through our areas in the building like we do a fire drill and walk into

318classrooms and observe what we're seeing and so teachers know we're checking and kids know we're checking and then teachers can remind students like see they're checking on me um to make sure that we're all consistent with the rule um so we've been very clear in that um I think we do see a difference between the Middle School and the high school in terms of compliance high school has been a lot easier to manage I think some of that is maturity um because they and they also know that they have access between classes and at lunch so they have been much more compliant I think if you look at my data in terms of entries into CIS it's it's very different from the two schools um middle school they're a little savier they don't like to

319use the pouches as some of them stated but for you know it is off and away and in their in their backpacks we aren't seeing them as much um but we've seen burner phones we've seen just cases in the pouches um but what we did we created a uh generic email address Robo phones um and it goes to about 25 people in my building and so as we said we don't want teachers having to have those conversations and battles they just simply send an email to Robo phones and one of us responds and deals with that situation during that school day during that class uh period and implement the consequences or confiscate the phone either way um you know so all of the same things I think for me uh you know removing the class

320change will be a challenge when you have 4,500 kids in a hallway somewhere navigating like hey put your phone away or I'm trying to collect this phone there's 20 going by at the same time you're not going to be able to consistently enforce that um so I think we have to lean one way or the other um I will share today we did have a all School pep rally with all students in the gym um and it might have been the best pep rally I've seen in my 10 years at Robinson the students were completely engaged there weren't cell phones out there were singing there was dancing there was clapping um and so we do see the effects across the board some of you have visited with my principal's advisory Council they shared with you

321like while they don't love it they like it um they understand and recognize it's been beneficial for them um and see you know the outcomes within their peers and in their classroom so I fully support what we're doing thank [Music] you hi I'm Ellen Riley I do not have a teacher voice I used to teach American Sign Language so bear with me so um so um I'm going to talk to you in two ways teachers and then I'll talk about the students so with teachers when I told them we were going to be part of this pilot at the beginning of the school year literally Standing Ovation like they were like cheering they were so excited it and then what happens is what we call in our school teacher on teer crime right that this

322teacher is going to be consistent and this one's going to be the fan favorite so what happens is they start falling one by one by one um and what happened was I would say that consistently they were at the door they were taking them and they were watching the kids put them in and then they were like get engaged in conversations and then kids started not putting them in and then kids started noticing oh I don't have to put it in it just I can't have it out in the classroom so because we told the teachers don't say I need your phone it needs to go in here don't engage in that fight so they didn't so then when we would come into rooms and look there would be at the beginning of the year

323there'd be 30 phones and then probably 3 4 weeks in there might have been 10 15 phones in there and now if you probably go in there probably would be less and it's some kids who just are like I know I can not have this I need to put this up so in the classroom when you're in there you will not see phones you don't see kids out on their phones during the instructional time what the problem that is occurring is that they are then keeping it on themselves and then they go out into the halls and then they're in the hall and then they come and then they run into me my shoes usually give it away they hear me before they see me um and then they know to put it away but

324a lot of the times they it will be that give me your phone and then I have to walk them back to class and I say put this in there and then the teacher has to write the referral so that has been our biggest problem teachers don't want the phones in the scho in their classroom but they also don't want to monitor it they would like me to just make it go away and I I need them to do those things so the consistency is the hard part with the adults maintaining that so that's the part this what the teachers will tell you also is the pattern in the classroom has increased dramatically dramatically Beyond like they started having kids answering questions and started like there's laughter back in the classroom there was so much

325happening more in the classroom that they enjoyed being with the kids again um today we had um sophomore talks where they came down and listen about career talks and we told the students to leave their phones inside the classroom and the teachers to lock the doors and they did I only caught one student who had their phone out and that was it um so we had a pep rally we let them take it to the to to the pep rally because we were like well they need still need to be kids they have to have some fun memories of high school you know or picture but I looked up in the stands and the kids weren't on their phones they were just engaged in what was happening because they just don't realize that they weren't

326using it as much so with the students they they want you to take their phones but then they don't want you to take their phones they know it's the the best thing for them they know that this is what I need to have happen um but they still think they can manage it and and and they can't they're they're really they have a problem they they see one person on it and then it goes so a teacher will describe that class period last year as whack-a-mole put your phone away put your phone away put your phone away like their trans their um thinking loses its train of thought because all they do is see kids with phones out and so it becomes very difficult so putting it away has been very helpful I will say

327that I don't know how it happens but we just had a major cheating scandal a child during class was able to take her phone and take pictures of six pages of a test and I'm like to the teacher I'm like what were you doing you know like how can you miss something so blatant and if you had just held on to that phone in the beginning we wouldn't be here or if you had just gotten up and walked around the room we wouldn't be here so we still have a lot of learning to do and a lot of you know just because we say put the phones away doesn't mean they're really going to go away and we still have to do the monitoring um for PE class what we do is we have a

328a cage we've always had this big cage and all the kids put their backpacks in it and then they get locked up so all their phones and everything is in there so PE has always been pretty easy to do but overall we're very happy with it um we really only have the problem out in the hallway and and that's about the only problem that we're having with it so far good afternoon everyone um thank you to everyone that was a part of creating this pilot program it's been transformative in so many ways and I'm very appreciative to be a part of it um talking from the initial part getting started parents were unanimously supportive teachers were unanimously supportive students were unanimously opposed by and large to much of this that data is not surprising um

329starting the school year um myself and my administrative team we went to all of our class meetings with every single grade level and talked about the importance of this cell phone pilot I read the anxious generation over the summer and that really changed my entire perception on this and shared a lot of data with the students from this and you guys were spot on this is an addiction for our kids and they don't necessarily see it that way because it's just an extension of them in so many ways but removing that from our classes I have yet to go into a classroom doing an observation this year and I have seen a phone it's incredible and it is Game Changer our dialogues in our classes are higher the amount of laughter that you hear is

330higher the kids are definitely engaged with each other in a way that I have not seen in my career um I did a survey at our February staff meeting asking staff how they felt this was going in the classrooms and outside of the classrooms 89% of our staff felt it was going very well in the classroom only 49% felt it was going well in the hallways and I would completely agree we are seeing the same exact things that Dr Riley just discussed we have the calculator pouches on the back of our doors or over whiteboards at the very beginning they were jam-packed and filled with phones we quickly realized that this was putting teachers in a contentious position with students and we did not want our teachers in that position we wanted to be able

331to deal with it ourselves but what we have found is as time has gone on the storage pouches are not being leveraged in the majority of our classes unless it's a student that really knows that they just can't have their phone on them so we went from 30 or so in each of our classes down to a handful but you don't see phones they are often away the problem is they're often not in their backpacks they are on their person and what this has led to at Justice is a lot of students leveraging bathroom brakes and being out on their phones in the hallways and airpods as well constant um we are playing wole in many ways in our hallways right now and we try to be as present as we possibly can it has

332definitely we have definitely seen a decrease in our like videotaping fights which has led to a decrease in fighting overall like there's definitely positives of that but the hallway issue is definitely concerning um I definitely am in favor of a total ban as best as we can in our school buildings because I don't think we have the ability to police our hallways without that but the consistency is huge the support and knowing this is happening at multiple schools has been tremendous um and the students the constant line they'll give me is we hate this but we get it um but that addiction is very very very serious and I've had several students that have had disciplinary consequ consquences for other reasons because they would not let go of their phones and it has led to

333some contentious situations between admin and students teachers and students and we've had a lot of parents come in and they're basically begging us in our offices to help them with their cell phones so I think one part of this that we're really thinking about at Justice is how can we better educate our families on what they can and can't do as well um but these phones have completely consumed that parenting dynamic in many cases and it's by the time they get to high school it's really hard to pull back on that if the parents have not been as top on top of it throughout the entire time we've had 40 students that have hit the fourth violation so we've only had 40 that have made it that far we have put in some restorative practices

334um anytime there is a violation and so far our data seems to stop students around two not getting passed that for the most part um but only 40 throughout the course of the Year given what I've been told it was like in the past is definitely an improvement for us and so we are very happy to continue to be a part of this and thank you all Dr King if if I may add it looks like I'm the only school here this nine pouch um let me just add again I I just want to emphasize it's a matter of being visible and Vigilant um I will tell you our students use their cell phones during lunch for vending machine purposes and I've shared this with Dr King I want to make sure students eat so

335cell phones throughout the day are put away but I do allow students to use them during lunch and my Langston Hughes Panthers do a fabulous job with it they know that we administrators are in the cafeteria we're monitoring what you're doing so students will take it out use the vending machine and put it away the challenges with this is occasionally you will get a stubborn recalcitrant student who's determined to use the cell phone and constantly and then you may reach out to a parent who will say keep the phone overnight now I have had parents to tell me this or a parent to not show so what do you do in cases like this now we as principles the last result is suspending a student that's the last result students are not learning when they're

336not in school we want them in school but that can be very difficult if a student is Con if the cell phone is a constant problem and you will have a handful of students who are determined they're at that 20-day limit and it's very difficult to tell a child that you should not bring your cell phone to school for 20 days and some parents don't support it so that's the part I ask you all to look at very closely keeping overnight again when a parent will tell you I'm not picking it up keep the phone or two again our last result is suspending a student but sometimes we're forced to now cell phones lead to other things they take make copies of test they videotape each other they drop them uh messages and pictures in

337other places which leads to other things so be mindful of this when you're having this discussion again let me reiterate langon Hughes is not using pouches and my students are doing very well I just think it's a matter of being visible Vigilant consistent um and clear expectations thank you to all I asked them to share their truth today um and they did just that and I appreciate it I do want to clarify when we say that they cannot be suspended it's for use of the phone and possession of the phone but any violation of the srnr if they use their phone then srnr takes precedence over that as we conclude this presentation it is important to recognize the significance of srnr changes and the impact it will have on our FCPS students families Educators and

338staff these recommendations are more than just policy revisions they are collective effort shaped by the voices of those we serve every decision from refining discipline policies to the strengthening of cell phone guidelines has been driven by our commitment to create a learning environment where every student experiences an equitable School Community student health and well-being are prioritized and student voice is centered first our recommended discipline policy changes mark an important step towards ensuring Clarity consistency and fairness in how we support students while maintaining a high expectation for Behavior by refining intervention strategy IES bringing Clarity to discipline provisions and reinforcing Equity monitoring we are providing clearer more focused tools for Equitable discipline these adjustments will help reduce disparities in enforcement ensuring that every student has access to a safe and supported Community accountability and support are

339not mutually exclusive we can hold students to high standards while also guiding them towards growth the proposed cell phone policy reflects the overwhelming input from students families teachers and administrators who have shared their perspectives on how cell phones impact learning our team has crafted some possible recommendations at the elementary middle and high school levels to protect the Integrity of the classroom Foster a deeper student engagement and minimize distractions we are reducing the temptation to disengage from learning eliminating unnecessary social conflicts and ensuring that instructional time is Maxim ized and protecting student mental health the decision is strictly enforce excuse me the decision to strictly enforce the policy without reiring storage units also reflects the voice of students many whom share that mandatory storage would create more logistical challenges than Solutions instead we are reinforcing clear

340expectations that will be consistently applied across all schools I'll call that the misel method to our students the these changes are designed to support our growth your growth I'm sorry keep you engaged in learning and ensure that your voice is heard and respected to our families this is about ensuring that every child in FCPS has access to a structured focused and safe learning environment to our staff these updates provide Clarity and consistency needed to enforce policy fairly and effectively and to our Schoolboard members this is a step towards building a stronger approach to student rights and responsibilities and a learning culture change is never easy but when it is driven by shared vision for improvement it is powerful these updates bring a a closer bring us closer to the FCPS we all collectively believe in

341one that is fair structured and centered on students success with a clear more focused and more Equitable framework for discipline and cell phone use we are ensuring that every student has the opportunity to thrive thank you for your time your engagement and your dedication to the future of FCPS Community we will now open the floor to your questions comments and related cell phone policy storage changes um thank you for the presentation and thank you for all of your amazing feedback uh almost everybody has a question so I'm going to start at 2 minutes because I think this is going to be a robust conversation I want to get to everyone and I want everyone to at least have their first if not their second Gob back uh we'll start with uh Dr Anderson thank you

342you firstly I'd like to thank the principals for the um detailed accounts that you've provided so I much appreciate it um Dr Reed given what we're hearing from the principles particularly regarding the teacher experience I I think I'm a little surprised by your recommendation can you speak to that a little bit certainly Dr King since that was a recommendation coming from your office you want to share the response Abs if you one second so that is not a recommend that you have this is coming from the chief Equity office so what recommendation do you have I'm going to reserve judgment on that and have Dr King answer that all right the reason why we made the recommendation that we did one was because we believe that um if we ask the students throughout this entire

343process what they wanted right if we totally ignore and and have a complete ban at least at the high school level then why would we ask the students to begin with right that's one part the second part when it comes to the storage unit we know that because we had office hours with our principes every other week so we heard from them we knew that some of them really wanted to keep the storage units but our team and looking at all of the information that was provided back to us came to the conclusion that if we ban cell phones right for the entire day with the exception of lunch and we asked the students to engage with their cell phone every period by taking it out of their phone putting it away putting up on

344something back and forth then we're asking them to engage in their with their cell phones and we wanted to eliminate the engagement with cell phones as much as possible during the day with the exception of lunch at high schools and teach our students and hold them accountable to the policy we have an example of principles who are able to do that and yes we know that it is challenging particularly in our bigger schools in the hallways but students rise to the occasion if it's consistently applied throughout the entire district and everybody recog recognizes that cell phones are not allowed in Fairfax County Public Schools we didn't want to send a secondary message by saying oops take it out of yours to put it in something then put it back then take it out and put

345it back because every time they do that they're going to stop and look at their cell phone and they're going to engage so that's why we made the recommendation that we did not that we don't support what the principal's like as well sure I I I appreciate wanting to give voice to the student voice but it seems as if you're not giving voice to the staff voice to the principal voice even to the parent voice even when you showed that chart earlier I I I'm trying to figure out why the student voice has become the driver in this measure well the student voice only became the driver at lunch during their time during the day right we're not asking that students engage with their cell phone any other time during the school day okay and

346the parents overwhelmingly well not overwhelmingly a majority wanted that as well and so did the teachers the teachers wanted to make sure that students didn't have their cell phones during instructional time we did that that the parents wanted us to limit it as much as we could during the school day and the students wanted access to their phone at least one time during the day and that's why we provided the lunch I think I I misunderstood some parts of it I don't think I heard from the principles either that they wanted for the for the um at least the high schools because Middle School is different for students to not have access during lunch um what I thought I heard is now without the storage option the responsibility shifts and returns to what we had

347last year which is teachers in consist recently supporting the the the initiative and so they're playing whack-a-mole that's what I heard and the meeting up at in the bathrooms for Vaping which we know is a concern the hallway Behavior which is which we know is a concern so I'm not clear on how we are supporting those challenges that have been raised by the people who are serving our schools and leading our schools and are being very articulated in terms of their concerns absolutely and that's why one of the options that we provide to you was to also allow principles to determine whether or not they want a storage unit in in um and use our recommendation was based on the overall feedback that we received from all levels well I will definitely be leaning into

348the recommendation that seems to serve the purpose of the principles that are sitting here um talking with us about what they need to have a successful school where students are engaged and teachers don't feel the burden of having to be the enforcers in the way that they have been without the storage uh process do but Anderson can I can I just say one thing if you listen to the principles they talked about at the very beginning of the uh pilot program that students were putting their um phones in the storage units and I'm not talking about the middle school I'm talking well even the middle schools right and then they stopped and they saw less you know one somebody said described that there might be three or four zones so it's the policy that's in

349place is what's going to stop people from playing whack-a-mole right because if the students were not using the storage unit to begin with but they were putting their cell phones in their backpack like the teachers asked with the exception of the few then I did not see the need for a storage unit to enforce the policy that we have in place I think I may have captured some different things um but I I will hold that for my gob back but I also say Dr Reed I'm a little confused about the recommendation that is provided by staff not being your recommendation because your staff I I I'm confused as to why that's a divorced activity I'll pick that up on my GoBack thank you chairman F and I would ask uh I would kindly ask

350for staff to be more concise I know we have a lot of questions and I want everyone to have a chance to to speak and get their questions out all right uh I was deeply confused by the presentation because I didn't get what I thought I would which is the results of the pilot um I got suggested ch changes and a survey I assume of the entire Community not just of the schools with the pilot um and then I was grateful when the principles began to share but what I heard from the principles was pilot went great going very well heavy lift but enthusiastic allowed for more consistency great increased engagement fights are down uh don't see uh the instructional interferences more engaged overwhelmingly easy um and then the issues that were raised were teacher

351enforcement um uh high schools having uh easier access burner phones halls and bathrooms um and I don't see how any of the suggested recommendations address any of the shortcomings that were raised by principles and if we're doing a pilot then I would expect that we would get a report back on the pilot that tells us the efficacy of the pilot which would be more than the the Recollections of Prin right it might be a survey of the principles and staff to say how did this work and how did this work but I don't see how you can move away from a pilot that every principal said went really well um I also don't think that you can go back to what we had before um so on the on the question of the survey what

352percentage of the survey respondents were from Pilot schools we don't have that but we we have the information but it's not in the information that we I would encourage staff to stop saying the students wanted this the staff wanted this the parents wanted this that is not true the respondents wanted this we're talking about like 13,000 people out of you know well more than 200,000 possibilities without weighing this information to tell us its value it has no real value other I mean clearly the students have a point of view it's very lopsided so even if you pulled all of them it'd probably be very similar but without waiting this information against other you know scientific information for a bigger uh value we have no idea what this information means it's 13,000 people out of well

353more than 200,000 I know a lot of work went into Gathering that information a little bit more work could have gone into weighing what those numbers actually mean not just saying because the students who responded said this that is what all students think or that is what 50% of students think you'd like to go back chairman F okay um Miss Marin yeah the most valuable part of this was hearing from our principles and what I hear them saying is phones being away is best but the recommendation seems to put us right back where we started which is Teachers enforcing so there are two things that we need well we need consistency that's number one I mean this is again one of those Universal themes system of schools not a school system we can't have different

354rules in different places and they can't be subjective we need two things implementation and an enforcement consistency for implementation it sounds like perhaps having a heavy dose at the start of the school year where maybe we're teaching kids maybe that's part of it but then there's also enforcement but I have to say this is not a decision for the board to make and I know we get a lot of input about cell phones because I mean I got a nth grader a sixth grader I get it okay but this is an operational thing this is I'm sorry Dr King I told you I wasn't going to go this way but I'm got to go this way because this is a regul for how the superintendent's going to do the work and I am concerned that

355in this case there's been bifurcation between the superintendent and the chief Equity officer because our directive is always to go to you Dr Reed not to the staff so I need from the superintendent to recommend what we're going to do um I I think we've got to weigh the tradeoffs I also think just like this morning that like having principles talk this way is super powerful and more people should hear this sharing the video clips you know hearing that our children are addictive that there's more laughter I mean that makes me want to cry you know I think maybe we can there's something that's got to give here between the trade-off of lost instructional time with educating people about what's going to be gained when we get the cell phones under control and I also

356think there's a bigger role for this board to advocate for our kids again this is an outside problem that comes in but anyway at the end of the day we need consistency of implementation and of enforcement and I do believe it's the superintendent's job to operationalize that and for her to make the decision Mr Moon thank you I try to talk quickly uh since we seem to be a a giving our individual uh preference on which way to go uh hearing the principle from uh all of the schools especially one from hug M Square I think one thing that's been repeatedly mentioned was being visible Vigilant and consistent however those going to require someone's efforts to be visible Vigilant and consistent among the different options uh which one is going to make it easier on

357the part of step to be visible visant and consistent with storage options versus without storage options even though even with astology options you may feel that there are students toward the end of a semester end of a school year less and less few and fewer participating I still feel the storage you know giving them Storage Space Storage will make their job easier than not having and still expect them to be consistently enforcing no cell phone policy with that I will not be able to support at this point in time our CEOs CEO's recommendation uh at least we need to give in know schools at least the optional as an option as a flexible Choice depending upon schools whether they want to do a pouch whether they want to do a lunchbox whether they want to

358you know War what do you call that wall hanger to hangers but you know I think at least having that will make teacher job or Ministry job easier to be visible L and consistent thank you Mr Moon um Mr McDaniel um I don't know if I've told this story before uh in in this room or this context but uh I was at Hayfield several months ago I think probably I don't know October give or take and I was doing a presentation in a government class and I was up in front of the class and the teacher said ask questions he's the one that's cracking down your cell phones um so that was an interesting uh uh conversation but and well I was trapped at that point so um I did not run but laughter is

359back is what I'm hearing and kids are engaging not just with the teachers but amongst themselves um you know the fact that the kids were at the pep rally and really weren't concerned about getting pictures I think that speaks volumes and what Miss mirin said I agree with completely um that's impactful so you know I I could critique some of the stuff that's in the recommendation but enforcing the rules as they're written is key to this um we can have the best policies and the best rules but if there's not enforcement mechanism there it doesn't really matter at the end of the day so I do support the policy recommendations that are in this document I especially support the fact that it says sell at high school and course middle Elementary School cell phon shall

360not be used as an instructional tool and that's I think this was one of the questions that we had going into this program into this um pilot program whether or not uh cell phones would be needed for academic purposes and it seems like the answer to that at least based on this recommendation is no so that is one definite outcome and one decision point that in my mind I've made up my mind on um I agree I don't want take a step backwards by not requiring some type of storage solution I don't want to get into the Weeds on what that exactly looks like um but I agree with Mr Moon we need to have options on the table and have expectations that those options um are are utilized thank you thank you Miss Anderson

361so as someone who has taught at the college level for 14 years like I have a lot of experience dealing with kids and trying to get them to do certain things for you um particularly when they're older and are cranky um I want to say thank you to the principles because I think that what you guys did more than anything else is enforced the policy that we had and that worked and so I guess my point has always been enforce the rule that we have and then see where we need to go and so all this told me is that when we enforced the rule that we had we got where we were trying to go um I am deeply concerned that no one is talking about the fact that these kids are smart and

362they are already using their school device for things that we don't want them to please do not for a second believe that fights will stop happening or vaping will stop happening because their cell phone is no longer with them when they have a device that we have given them that they can share a document with anyone they want within the school system so we are taking it off of something that their parent owns that their parent can control and we're putting it on our system which we don't want either so I am deeply concerned with the fact that we are headed down this path um I will ask a question though if you flip over to slide 20 on I believe it's on this deck can you tell me um for State bills 738 which

363part of that are we not in compliance with right now that one right there so 738 so we are generally in compliance with s SP 738 um with the exception of we currently allow cell phone use during those passing periods during lunch Etc and S SP 738 says that we restrict to the fullest extent possible that cell phone possession and use in classroom during regular school hours so I mean we are in compliance with that we're just allowing it outside of like those classroom hours and the srnr does currently um mention that you can only the suspensions are not permitted for cell phone violation so we are generally in compliance with s SP 738 so what I see what it says is that you can't use a cell phone in a classroom it does not

364say that you cannot use a cell phone cell phone in a school building during school hours so we are already in compliance with this and all it did was take teeth out of enforcement so the law basically says that we are removing consequences from cell phone usage in in spaces that it deems inappropriate and so it actually is going to make our enforcement harder in the long run I sat in on some of those student groups where the kids are talking about the fact that they want to be treated like responsible members of our community and I really really strongly believe that we should listen to them so I will not support anything that takes it less than lunch at least mtic said so this is a very interesting conversation um I agree with my

365colleague Miss Anderson that um we need to enforce the policy uh my son was in high school in uh fairfest County cille High School few years ago he just graduated in 2024 um cille high school has a great enforcement policy he would never text me during the school day um he he had a rule that I he has to put the phone away uh for and maybe only the time was lunchtime that he would sometime message I feel like there should be some place for students or high schools to have their phones to because they're working they have extra classes and other plans some of them uh support their younger siblings um so a lunch hour or any break hours they could they few minutes here and there they should be able to get to

366their phones um but at the same time if the rules are very clearly laid out and and the school is enforcing them it is possible because I have seen that with my own child in the school and I never told him don't use your phone at school I'm going to get mad because obviously I have no re no way to know what he's doing at school it was a school doing that and and he was just following the rules so I think um it can be done so for me I I I I do do like the recommendation made by um the equity office that um you know we may give them storage units or even not but the the whole thing is that the F the phone should be away during instructions that's where

367I'm going to St stick with and I'll support that thank you Miss seiser please thank you um I appreciate it and I won't take too long I fully support the statements of my colleague Miss Anderson um on this I think you know and I well I appreciate the principles being here I appreciate what you've shared I appreciate that you're talking about joy and laughter back in the classrooms but everything I'm hearing goes to enforcement we passed the cell phone policy that we currently have I guess three years ago now right 2022 and policy is not new and and so it's really been from then till now how do we make sure it's clearly enforced we can keep tweaking our policy but the board can't manage enforcement that's not on us right that's on on the

368staff and so I appreciate that you know having storage units may help with enforcement but I'm going to put the thing out on the table that I don't think has been talked about yet at least I haven't heard it and if I did I I apologize if I missed it but some of the options for storage are much less expensive than others and we are facing a pretty significant budget shortfall right now and so if we're going to go down the path of storage perhaps The Lunchbox or over the door but let's look at the math of that as well especially when what I'm hearing is the students are using it less and less anyway which goes back to my first point of enforcement right if the students are using less I've heard stories of

369students putting burner phones in Yonder pouches ripping them open finding magnets all sorts of things so the students are smart how do we empower for everybody to have that consistent enforcement if we need a pouch storage um let's look at one that is going to be used but let's not spend a ton of money on something that is getting used less and less anyway let's be realistic about what we need to do to support consistent enforcement of the rules that we've had in place for three years thank you and one last thing I I'll say I I wouldn't I agree with Miss Anderson I don't think I mentioned going any less strict than we have we already have Bell to Bell for elementary school middle school we have band in classroom for high school which

370I totally agree with in the in the classrooms I agree with taking away from instructional use but we got to teach our kids to be responsible adults in high school I know my time is up so if youone want SE comments on that I appreciate it but otherwise I appreciate the chance to to talk and share Miss Lady thank you uh appreciate the principles uh and understand uh one of the things I came when I first got on the board and asked for was exactly what you all did in all of our high schools this year um I feel strongly about a band I feel strongly about how schools changed in the course of my career and we lost laughter we lost joy we lost uh engagement learning um we lost self-esteem uh the detriment

371of what these instruments have done to our kids is awful and heartbreaking um yes we have a cost to Containers we'll deal with that we have to maintain and I'm going to go back to Dr miselle in terms of visibility being vigilant and being consist istent we need courageous leaders and we need courageous leaders in our classrooms and we need people who understand this and who are you were respected by your students when you do the right thing when you try to be their friend they don't respect you everyone it's simple it's simple and a couple quotes from earlier today and I think these might have been also back to you Dr miselle you have to accept what you allow in your classroom and the lowest level of behavior you accept becomes the standard we

372have to establish a standard um I I support kids having phones at lunch uh I personally support them being away in between classes um and that includes earbuds and phones and all that it's hard to do I also want to talk about the Google Doc problem and the other ways they're using this piece of technology to get around it okay I just this is an IT problem that has to be addressed where they're creating a shared Google doc that we can't get into because they didn't share share it with anyone on the instructional side but they are planning things they are passing notes just like I did back in the 1980s but they're doing it via Google doc with their with this and just back to Dr Riley's point I'm not sure how a kid

373took six pictures of a test we've got to get up out of our chairs and walk around when we're in our classrooms we've got to get up and walk around and pay attention to what our kids are doing it's hard to police but we need to enlist it to help do that um the last thing I'll say is to parents out there when you give this to your child and you don't monitor it you give them the opportunity to go anywhere in the world without your supervision and as a parent I don't recommend you do that thank you um I'll I'll take a quick turn um as school board members were asked to support our staff I mean we're here to support students and support what they're doing but one of the most powerful thing

374we can do is support staff and I think these principles here told us and one of the principles said we now have the power of the school board behind us and even though this has been a policy the problem has been enforcement and when this came down with a plan then that gave them greater power and I think that's what we have to recognize and realize that our job is to help support the staff that is supporting our students um what I heard from everyone was that staff teachers love it and even some kids I've spoken to some kids at high schools who have said at the beginning oh I really don't like this and afterwards well yeah it was a good idea I'm talking more to my friends and I'm hearing that from students

375uh I agree with what my colleague just said we have to have courageous leaders in the classroom because that's where it falls apart the policy has existed the practice of enforcement hasn't and how we can help support you to work with those teachers that are telling on each other or whatever is going on let us know what we can do do we need an srnr for teachers I mean I don't know uh for teachers to follow the plans uh because at at the end of the day the positive things that I heard were game Cher laughter Joy engagement that's what it's all about that's what we're here for and this is addictive not just for kids for adults we know it if it's hard for an adult to control this we need to help our

376kids first go back Dr Anderson oh I'm sorry Mr mine you did that while I put it up and I didn't get to I can't multitask thank you so much so first of all I'm so glad that uh for the first time in probably nine months uh we're actually engaging conversation on this we've been told to wait for the srnr and it's finally here so thank you to nardos and team for all the work that you've done over those nine months um to survey to to implement um and clearly the the principles appreciate the support of your office so I just want to acknowledge that um so that frustration aside um do also want to thank you for um putting student voice at the Forefront I know some of my colleagues um have some concerns

377with that um in terms of not acknowledging other groups but I think you've done a good job acknowledging all groups um and my biggest frustration at the start of this was that we adopted this plan uh through a budget amendment without any um Outreach to students to teachers to principles to anyone so I'm glad we're finally hearing that voice almost a year into this um so so something Mr Moon said um if we were to take a different approach um at each school I think that that goes down to the the uh purpose of having a chief Equity officer which is it's inequitable right we're giving different resources some potentially much more expensive to different schools so I I I don't think I support that at this point um whether it's a lunchbox or a

378pouch or whatever um uh um uh miss lady brought up the um uh idea about related items and that's one thing that I have not seen here which is um have we through the pilot um figured out how to deal with airpods or the note passing or things like that because when I talk to students that's you know one of their concerns is that there are many ways around this so I think that would be the first question I have for you that's why we added accessories to the policy before accessories weren't explicit in the policy because we know and we've heard from the principles in the pilot throughout the year of the same concern watches earbuds students are finding a way around that even when they put their phone in the pouch they still

379have access to it through their you know listening to music um so that's why we explicitly put in the policy that it's not just cell phones it's accessories as well in terms of enforcement that's challenging right yeah I think all of this is going to be challenging right but I think that it's doable you know I think back to when I was principal and we first had cell phones we students were not allowed to have them in schools we enforced the policy well I think well this is clearly not the last discussion um we'll have on this AB um and this just finally for this round I I like my my colleagues am thoroughly confused about um the differing opinions among staff at the table so I hope by the end of today we can

380figure out what's going on thanks thank you um Dr Anderson and one minute GoBack yes thank you I'll be quick um what you've outlined here in terms of having the ban yes what I've heard about the storage being needed as an enforcement yes I think that's where we need to get to but I also have to say this Dr Reed our direction of the board is to you and as Miss Marin said we are looking for you to give your recommendation your guidance I'm one confused that your recommendation May I what I think I'm hearing and maybe I'm wrong that it may be different from Dr Kings because I expect when staff offers recommendation it's been done under your guidance and your blessing it's coming forward with your full-throated um support because we delegate to

381you not to her office so I'm I'm confused regarding why you won't even give us an give an opinion about what we're talking about here so I what I think is important think about is my response earlier was I would Reserve comment until we uh got further into the presentation I support the recommendations uh Dr King brought this to senior leadership this was a conversation around the table with senior leadership um and the recommendations pass senior leadership muster and so uh she is bringing uh what senior leadership felt was um an appropriate rate path forward thank you with my last 8 seconds what I will say is this um and this is just my perspective perhaps it's not that of others but when there's a staff recommendation I see it as your recommendation I don't

382divorce you from that work because we delegate to you so that's the lens that I bring to anything that says staff recommends it might as well read Dr Reed recommends so that's how I view it so that's why I'm in this turmoil at present ch frish with my one minute I want to talk about burner phones I heard about that about as quickly as the policy started or as as quickly as the enforcement of the policy started rather creative I guess um the putting in the empty case was a new one that I had not heard should there not be a different penalty for that kind of premeditation or maybe an award I don't know or an old thank you for that feedback um all right well you know I think we're going to have

383another one of these conversations I'll be eager to talk to colleagues and staff in the weeks ahead um but you know my preference is to enable and more ready enforcement and I think that happens with more uniformity um and you know I think lunch is an important place for access to phones one thing I heard from a lot of parents was that they didn't mind students having the phones taken away way but they wanted them accessible in case of an emergency and so I think the Yonder pouches would be out for me um and the door hanging or the other versions of the door hanging for non you know for PE and whatnot would be my preference as well um but I do want consistency not because I don't think principes should have discretion but

384because I want to enable the easiest way to have enforcement um and and I think that's probably the best way to go but I have some next steps in there about wanting more information about any kind of report backs on the pilot and we'll see where I end up and Mr Fish on page 95 of the information that we provided you in this is um questions from the pilot to the from the pilot principles so if you look at page 95 on this there's information there but we can provide you more if you need to miss Marin yeah I I wish I had some more clarity as well I mean some of us have been in this room for 6 hours today I wish I could leave today understanding what the next step is and

385we get here often what's the recommendation if staff is recommending this then if the the board should take a consensus and I know that we have next steps but do we agree of keeping the violations as a level one do we agree with no instructional use do we agree with high school lunch only do you agree with no phones overnight if we should even give that input again I know it's hard for us to like rip ourselves away from this very intimate topic but I just what's the outcome of today so we're going to put some more more questions I have questions too but at the end of the day I trust staff if they're listening to the principles and the principles are saying you know I just how do we get past this I

386don't see why we would need another work session in April 8th I don't know what is left to dis or May 8th April 8th I don't know what's left to discuss and maybe that's a board thing maybe it's a superintendent thing but we're on the same team so can we figure out how to move this forward and be done and let everybody move on with you know life um I'd be open to taking consensus on various things do we miss Anderson so I have um a little bit of a different perspective that I want to share really really fast um and start my time so I don't get in trouble again um so what I've been hearing over and all is the phones are the problem the phones are the problem and then I saw

387I heard about a study that I'm going to track down that actually talked about the mental health issues going on with our kids are related to the fact that they have no ability to disconnect themselves from us and what's happening is we have driven them into the only place that they're not monitored 24/7 and what's happening that's so interesting to me is that I don't know about you but I was thrown out of the house at 10:00 every morning and nobody expected me to be back and no one knew where I was was and I could make a whole lot of mistakes but I knew my parents were there to protect you know to that I could go back to if I made too big of a mistake and I needed help and the problem

388is is that our kids don't have that opportunity anymore and they see the phone as the only Wasteland of when they don't have that opportunity and so I worry about having it be one more stipulation that we're putting on them as to monitoring how they pass for classes being that they can't listen to music as they walk to the next class so I worry about how close and how much we're going to have to monitor them to make that happen Dr Anderson do you another go back oh I'm sorry I'm sorry I didn't see I'm sorry I didn't see mtic said mtic said I'm sorry that's okay uh there's a lot to manage so I quickly wanted to add to the music Point uh lot of students do math with music and there's a connection

389it Works uh with when you're listening to music and you're solving math problems um some some student find it very helpful so um when I when you somebody said about taking the music away and the earbuds I was thinking about my own son who has earbuds all in his you know years all the time and and really focused um uh student is not um trying to do anything you know out of out wrong here just listening to music uh but I did want to say about the parents point part here is a big role and I think the parents voice in this survey is little bit weak a lot of parents do not support FCPS should have a policy um and some don't care and um this is actually about their children graduating from school

390and going to college and get a degree and and for the career so I feel like we need to bring parents more into this conversation because I just saw a very limited support from just in this particular survey I'm not saying in general thank you Miss Lady um as the representative on Sha the student health advisory committee I think I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about this is their priority um pretty much their number one priority of this year um that overwhelmingly they have read and been done presentations on this and I believe I don't want to misrepresent Shaq but I would say the majority of the representatives that we have put on that committee uh are very invested in in the in the Banning of cell phones during all levels of schooling um

391I just need to uplift that just because you know that's their charge that's what they've been working on they've been doing a lot of in-depth research and they don't get a seat to the table um but um I don't want to misrepresent them so I'll come back if I'm wrong but I uh maybe they were okay with lunch but I think they pretty much were arguing a lot or not arguing but having a dialogue about a ban for all day for all levels um that's all thanks Dr Anderson because I didn't think we were going to have do you want to do you want to take a few minutes and I'll call on Miss yes please thank you 2016 that's the last time the policy for the student rights and responsibility was revised the reason

392we are here just like we are with with grading and boundaries is because the policy has not been updated and even I'm tired of hearing myself say it like I am okay like can we just do the things that we're uniquely qualified to do which is evaluate the superintendent executive limitation 8 superintendent relationship with the board executive limitation 10 learning environment relationship with students executive limitation 13 Safety and Security we have the opportunity each of those meetings to publicly um hold her accountable that's where our power is as well as the governance Committee in one week from today will be reviewing that 2601 policy which would be great to update it before its 10 year anniversary that is where we need to spend our energy I'm really hoping my colleagues can consider that I've sent

393some emails out I really feel like we will get where we want to go if we could focus on the foundational things that we are charged with doing yeah just very quickly the school that used the little Lunch Box Thing how much did those cost $45 oh okay that is much cheaper than the Yonder pouch and I know there was conversation earlier regarding students accessing the um the pouch back and um the phones back and forth to put them in the in the hangers but at your school it's not as if they put it in the um in the Box the whole day they still have to do in every class okay thank you I will reserve the rest of my comments for next time thank you Mr Moon just a quick uh quick comment

394to what Miss Marin has stated about this particular policy are you talking about policy not the regulations okay I was looking at the policy 2601 okay okay understood because and as far as regulation itself is concerned annually school board reviews it and then when a adjustments or a change need to be made we Schoolboard has been making it the latest version shows effective date of August 1 2024 means that back in August School Board must have done something to make something effective as of that dat chairman F you're right we did do something last we approved the srnr which is abnormal because it's a regulation and in every other facet of our work we have the superintendent create and edit and change regulations and she does that as a result of the policy changes we

395make so to miss Marin's Point um I'm grateful that governance committee is picking up that work I may swing by for the meeting and participate uh although I won't be voting because I'm not a member of the committee but I look forward to it coming to the full board so that we can perhaps Start A New Path forward on how this part of our work is done um you know I suffice it to say I don't think that we should be in the business of doing the regulations we should be in the business of judging the superintendent based on the regulations that she does so um I really want to thank the principles all of you for being here um it's a huge chunk of your time and of your day which I know you're

396more valuable at your school site um so it really means a lot to us that you were here I'm sure you were missed um I hope you don't have any fires to put out when you go back to schools but thank you for your time and your wisdom and your words and know that we're here to get your feedback all the time not just now please reach out to us because you help inform our work um to the team that put all of this together um thank you so much and I think there's been a lot of discussion here uh please uh for you know go back to your um what is it called next steps uh and I think that the board has to discuss some issues in terms of what is policy and

397what is regulation thank you and I am very happy to say that my partner and I were oh able to finish this on time and one last word to Dr King thank you as far as next steps are concerned normally we would start to redline the srnr but we got no Direction so I just want to put that on the table so that for the next work session we can present a Redline version of the srnr thank you I'll discuss that with the chair Miss St John e