001board members please come to your seats yes e e e good evening this October 10th 2024 regular meeting of the Fairfax County School Board will come to order in honor of Hispanic herriage month we will have a special performance of De Colores following the national anthem deales is a song that is thought to have originated in Spain and has been sung in the Americas and throughout the Spanish speaking world since the 16th century the phrase deas means Many Colors the upbeat Melody speaks to the celebration of creation and and the joy of seeing the world's many colors this traditional folk song has evolved as it's been passed down through time and from generation to generation decorus is a song that celebrates the beauty of life love and unity please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance
002followed by a Moment of Silence performance of the national anthem by the Westfield High School string Ensemble under the direction of Alexandra Blaine and a performance of dores by the Groveton Elementary School course under the direction of Marissa Lugo and Natalie Adams I pledge allegiance to the flag the United States of America to justce for [Music] h [Music] [Applause] feel for oh my [Music] col [Music] for the colors all the colors are bright in the f of sunshine all the colors all the colors [Music] and Sh [Music] beautiful heart overlow my heart overflows with the Jo and the colors [Music] [Applause] let's hear another round of applause for those incredibly talented students I can't hear you at all and I can't see you other than a Time screen all right that was great agenda item
0032.02 announcements if if you would like to review a copy of the agenda please see the back of the auditorium to obtain copies of the items being presented tonight please reference the QR code on the agenda or on the website fcps.edu Schoolboard dos tonight's meeting is being broadcast on channel 99 and live streamed on the website at fcps.edu tv99 Miss seore Heiser is participating virtually due to caregiving she will be counted per the July 1st uh code change as a person for Quorum agenda item 2.03 School principles administrators and administrative assistance appreciation month Proclamation I call on Mr Dunn for a proclamation uh whereas the celebration of School principles administrators and administrative assistance month honors element middle and high school leaders and support staff and recognizes that their roles are essential in preparing students for
004Success both during their prek through 12 years and Beyond and whereas these individuals work tirelessly to create nurturing and productive environments that Foster the growth and development of our students play a vital role in shaping School culture promote educational excellence and ensure the safety and wellbeing of all students and staff and whereas principles serve a variety of critical roles such as such as instructional leaders Community Builders assessment experts budget analysts facility managers public relations experts guardians of various legal contractual and policy mandates they set the academic tone of their school by setting ambitious goals enforcing rigor and maintaining High curriculum standards and expectations for all students and whereas dedicated and inspiring School administrators work collaboratively with students families teachers and the community their leadership is second only to class classroom instruction among all School related
005factors that contribute to what students learn at school and whereas the important work of office assistance and administrative assistance is Central to any school these Personnel provide essential support ensuring that their office and school operations are organized and efficient and whereas these educational leaders and school support staff are dedicated in supporting and educating our students and it is through their perseverance and passion that Fairfax County Public Schools continues to produce students that meet High academic standards lead healthy ethical lives and are responsible and Innovative Global Citizens now therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board proclaims October 2024 as School principles administrators and administrative assistant month and recognizes the importance of school leadership and support personnel and ensuring every child has access to high quality education we're going to pause for a second
006because there's an audio problem for our virtual our virtual part participants so we'll get that straightened out and then we'll begin again don't go anywhere for for where for I'm gonna talk so that we can actually see if Miss eore Heiser can hear us miss isore Heiser she's not responding yeah for for so when you w a conversation with this is hard start for Miss seore Heiser can you hear me [Music] all right we are going to call her on a thing called a telephone uh for the for the students watching at home a telephone uh um and then we will continue to work to resolve this um the music is gone so we'll just wait for I feel like a radio show host be back after these messages your microphone's on all right we
007will pick things back up thank you for everybody's patience while we straighten out the technical issues we will have Miss eisar Heiser on speaker phone and she can obviously see what's happening picking up where we left off is there a second I I seconded before and I'll second again miss Marin thank you uh I'll call for the vote all those in favor Miss Mar this is well the clerks put the motion on the screen this is the um school principals administrators and administrative assistance appreciation month Proclamation all those in favor Miss Marin Miss Dixit Mr mavan Dr Anderson Mr McDaniel Miss Anderson Mr Dunn Mr Moon miss lady Miss s John cunning Miss seore Heiser and myself that is unanimous the motion passes congratulations agenda item 2.04 indigenous people's day and Native American Heritage Month
008Proclamation I call on Miss Anderson for a proclamation whereas indigenous people's day and Native American heritage month are recognized on in on the second Monday of October and throughout the month of November respectively across the United States and in the United States or in in Fairfax County Public Schools FCPS to honor and celebrate the history accomplishments and contributions of people of of people who were were the first inhabitants of the United States and whereas in 1990 Congress passed and George or and President George HW Bush signed into law a joint resolution designating the month of November as the first national American Indian Heritage Month in t in 2021 President Joe Biden was the first US president to formally commemorate indigenous people's day as a national holiday with a presidential Proclamation and whereas indigenous peoples day
009and Native American heritage month are wonderful opportunities for our schools and Community to honor our nation's original inhabitants and their descendants these commemorations further call us to honor the beautiful and Rich indigenous communities Traditions cultures and lives across our country Commonwealth and around the world the invaluable contributions that indigenous people have made in the Arts Public Service military service and other fields are integral to our nation and Society whereas as FCPS serves a diverse student population with many who Embrace and celebrate their indigenous Family Heritage now therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board does hereby Proclaim October 14th 2024 as indigenous people's day and November as Native American Heritage Month in recognition and celebration of the many contributions of our na nation's indigenous people to our school system community and country is
010there a second Miss St John cunning I'll call for the vote all those in favor Miss Marin Miss Dixit Mr mine Dr Anderson Mr McDaniel Miss Anderson Mr Dunn Mr Moon miss lady Miss St John cunning Miss seore Heiser and myself that two is unanimous congratulations the motion passes agenda item 2.05 lgbtqia History Month Proclamation I call on Miss Dixit for a proclamation whereas lgbtqia plus history month is recognized in October across the United States and in fairfest County Public School to acknowledge and celebrate the contributions and experiences of too often overlooked or silenced lgbtqia plus people communities and movement throughout our history and whereas the special month was founded in 1994 by Missouri high school teacher history teacher Rodney Wilson who chose October for the inaugural celebration to coincide with the national coming out
011day on October 14 and to commemorate the first March on Washington for lgbtqia plus rights in October 1979 and whereas the national PTA state that school should be a safe supportive and respectful environment for all students and that lb lgbtqia plus students are more likely than their appears to be bullied feel unsafe in school and skip school due to the safety concerns and whereas students are involved in gender sexuality Alliance GCA clubs in many middle and high schools throughout the fairfest county public school where they can Network and socialize with each other and educate their communities through forums announcements and other activities and these clubs are an asset to our schools with research indicating that schools with gsas have better mental health outcome for all students and whereas the fairfest County School Board celebrates his
012rich diverse community of L lgbtqia plus students families and staff recognizing the urgency of its charge to foster a school Community where all feel valued supported and hopeful and advanced policies that protect lgbtqia plus students and staff so they can live without fear of prejudice discriminations or violence now therefore be it resolved that the Fest County School Board hereby proclaims October 2024 as lgbtqia plus History Month in fairfest County Public School the fairfest County School Board urges all to learn more about the many historical and contemporary contribution and experience of the diverse community and to build a center of inclusivity and Equity not only during a gbt qia history month but throughout the entire year is there a second second Mr Moon all those in favor Miss Marin Miss Dixit Mr mavan Dr Anderson Mr
013McDaniel Miss Anderson Mr Dunn Mr Moon miss lady Miss St John cunning Miss seore Heiser and myself that is unanimous the motion passes agenda agenda item 2.05 Red Ribbon Week Proclamation I call on Mr McDaniel for a proclamation whereas the national Family Partnership a national leader in drug prevention education and advocacy sponsored the first Red Ribbon Week in 1988 in response to the murder of tea agent Enrique camarina in which in in which angered parents and youth and communities across the country began wearing red ribbons as a symbol of their commitment to raise awareness of the violence and destruction caused by drug abuse in America and whereas the Red Ribbon program is based on scientific and evidence-based principles for Substance Abuse Prevention and incorporates the following six prevention strategies information dissemination prevention education alternative activity
014Community Based processes environmental approaches and problem identification and referral and whereas the 2024 theme for Red Ribbon reek life is a movie filmed drug free is a call to action to speak out to support of healthy choices and emphasizes the collective impact of embracing a drug-free lifestyle it also serves as a reminder that every person is empowered to shape the communities around us through positivity bravery strength and whereas Fairfax County Public Schools is committed to fostering a safe and supportive environment that empowers students to make healthy choices through offering activities and learning experiences which focus on the many ways marijuana Alcohol Tobacco vaping and Other Drug use can negatively impact student lives including A Substance Abuse Prevention program for students experiencing substance abuse and whereas the efforts of FCPS Educators counselors and support staff are
015instrumental in equipping students with the knowledge skill and skills necessary to resist peer pressure and Lead fulfilling drug-free lives we especially commend our substance abuse program Specialists and the role they play in re reaffirming a culture of wellness and resilience in our schools now therefore be it resolve that the Fairfax County School Board does hereby Proclaim October 23 through 31 as red ribbon weak in recognition of the oldest and largest drug prevention program in the nation and encourages students families and the Fairfax County Community to unite and take a personal and visible pledge to a drug-free lifestyle is there a second second miss lady all those in favor Miss Marin Miss Dixit Mr movan Dr Anderson Mr McDaniel Miss Anderson Mr Dunn Mr Moon miss lady Miss St John cunning Miss meiser and myself that
016is unanimous the motion passes I would like to welcome all of those who are here in support of Red Ribbon Week uh proclamation to please join the board for a photo in front of the de e e e I would like to invite all those in support of the lgbtqia history uh history M proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of the dice e e I would like to invite welcome all those here in support of the indigenous people's day and Native American Heritage monation please join the board for a photo at the front of the dice all those in support of indigenous people stay and Native American heritage month to please join the board e I would like to welcome all those in support of the school principls administrators
017and administrative assistance appreciation uh month Proclamation please join the board for a photo at the front of the dice e e agenda item 3.01 Community participation the next order of business is community participation we welcome all community members who are here and those who signed up to speak this evening additional information about signing up to provide comment at Schoolboard regular business meetings and public hearings can be found on the school board's website during the sign up process community members acknowledged they were informed of the school board's expectations for proper decorum when providing comments these expectations are also available online and with the printed agenda and meeting materials in the back of the room we ask audience members to be respectful of one another shouting and outbursts will not be tolerated please hold your applause until
018the conclusion of a speaker's remarks audience members may not join speakers at the podium and should remain at their seats including when recording video or taking photos we're grateful that you are here to speak with us today speak to us today and thank you for your cooperation school board members will be listening but not responding Mr Deputy clerk please call the first Speaker Samantha Irvin hello my name is Samantha and I'm a high school students are actively highest most terrifying levels of gun violence ever I understand and I'm grateful that fax County public schools has created policies and curriculums because of this I'm telling you it's not good enough I know this isn't your fault but it is still something you need to in at the start of every single school year me and my
019friends have been shown the same it teaches us that we'll be safe if quiet and huddled in one spot with fabric over it has never felt safe guns don't care about locked to doors I read Dr Michelle Reed's gun violence prevention letter which tells us that FCPS teaches even the youngest grades what to do if they find a gun I believe that because you accept this point to the issue you're explaining it to Fourth Graders you need to accept that it needs more of your attention moreover one or two School resource officers in school are reassuring but they cannot protect the thousands of children in schools like mine in a lockdown building on this the county is testing Yonder phone pouches in certain schools that makes sense considering student performance but what are kids supposed
020to do if and when worst case scenario hits they will have no way to tell loved ones goodbye 63 people were killed or ined injured in school shootings last year four of them were in Virginia I'm asking you to have a better plan than to pray it won't happen to your students thank [Applause] you Jin Spicer thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight I work for FCPS as an applied Behavior Analysis coach and I'm here to address the impact of the teacher shortage for students with autism and intellectual disabilities these teachers face very unique and challenging circumstances as they strive to educate and preserve the Dignity of their students a typical day for the teachers I support may include a classroom of multiple grade levels sometimes K through six and different curricula both general
021education and adapted for those grade levels academic instruction is combined with communication behavior and life skills programming to meet each students needs teachers often forgo planning to accompany their students to specials to promote their students wellbeing at times providing intervention to ensure the safety of their students or others of course this is all in addition to the standard work of a special education teacher which is immense one of the most often posted positions on the instructional vacancy list is multiple disability teacher while different measures have been put into place they have not resulted in the consistent Staffing that our classrooms need a robust incentive for teachers is the only way I see this problem being solved I humbly submit that these teachers be paid on a separate and meaningfully larger pay scale and be provided
022with retention bonuses to encourage classroom consistency year-over-year with this additional compensation in place the hope is that we can retain our experienced teachers and attract new Talent as a permanent solution to a permanent need Gandhi is often attributed with a quote the measure of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable members I believe the students I support are our most vulnerable students in scps and are deserving of quality and consistent Educators throughout their years in our school system knowing that I am just one FCPS employee advocating for a substantial pay increase not for me but for the teachers I support I invite you to meet our veteran teachers they do wonderful things and I ask is our County's current strategy leading to tr staffed classrooms and would these special education classrooms fully staff
023not proactively resolve many learning [Applause] saf lonard Baka good even evening I'm here to urge you to reconsider the intent to disband HC as it raises significant issues in substance process and impact substance the premise that HC is incompatible with collective bargaining is flawed many topics HC addresses do not fall under bargaining the school board could set a charge that doesn't interfere with bargaining subjects focusing on best practices and non-bargaining issues like strategic workforce planning customer service and recruitment efforts hr's advisory nature also differentiates it from actual bargaining and its diverse membership brings unique perspectives and insights process the decision-making process lacks transparency the vague motion passed after a closed session and the absence of PR notice or feedback depart from open governance principles dissolving the committee before a formal vote is U particularly concerning
024as HRC remains legitimate until at least October the 24th as Schoolboard members you have the duty to pursue due diligence and request information about how other entities balance collective bargaining and Community input impact this action contradicts the stated belief in fostering open and relationships with the community it continues a trend of dismantling advisory committees and severing ties with engaged community members when FCPS needs support more than ever more broadly how will this affect other system and building advisory committees the decision may solve a perceived short-term issue but at what long-term cost to community engagement and trust trust that calls for actions more than words or photos I urge you to engage in a transparent process that includes input from HC members and the community postpone the decision until after a public work session where stakeholders
025can provide input there are ways to maintain hc's valuable input while respecting the new collective bargaining framework it requires creativity and not blank dismissal FCPS strength lies in its broader Community Support thank [Applause] you Roland haaka Vanessa Hall hi all my name is Vanessa Hall I'm an active parent volunteer and co-leader of FCPS Pride thank you all for recognizing lgbtqia history month because this is our history Allan Turing helped us defeat Nazis Harvey Milk defeated laws that would fire employees for being gay or even for supporting gay rights and Marsha P Johnson stood up in the face of police abuse and overreach to spark a revolution that continues today our families need to be seen in the classroom curriculum and Library particularly when 20% of students identify as lgbtqia plus of course being queer means
026one may also be Asian black Hispanic Christian Muslim Jewish and English learner dyslexic or disabled those who fight School anti-discrimination efforts ignore these facts they ignore that respecting pronouns of transgender students means that gender-based bullying decreases for each and every student and employee malicious gendered slurs have long been the tool tool of Choice by bullies whether the target is transgender cisgender gay or straight but extremist groups and supporters of project 2025 have been working against inclusivity in our community and sometimes In This Very Room America First legal is suing you all to permit bullying and exclusion of children parents defending education and moms for Liberty have tried to remove non-white non-straight non cisgender figures from our history books and libraries and then there's also the Independent Women's forum and network who have sued our school
027system long Act uh advocated to exclude children in bathrooms and sports all while actively supporting the right to bully children based on their identity no matter our identity we deserve to have equal rights and opportunities within our schools which can only be done if students can see themselves in our history classes libraries staff and school board thank you very much Allison Muni hi with my daughter's permission I want to tell you a story extend my gratitude and offer a cautionary tale first my daughter who's a thriving senior now transitioned eight years ago with a new name and new pronouns luckily she was at an amazing FCPS Elementary School where she received the support that all trans kids deserve when I spoke to you back then I told you her trans identity was the least interesting
028thing about her I proud to say that's still true when we left here we lived in Alabama and Florida where the protections for my daughter were non-existent because of the power and influence of a well organized but extremely misinformed vocal minority Florida said she could no longer get the life saving gender affirming care and so we moved back here and a note on the care to on a note on that care to address the misinformed trans kids aren't getting surgeries and no school is forcing a kid to be a different gender but thankfully you all know that you choose the hard but right path of supporting your lgbtq students because of course it is the right thing to do here's my cautionary tale as a teacher in Florida you know what I didn't have on
029my shelves books why because some parents had a fear that one of those books might make their kid lgbtq my daughter has read hundreds of books with cisgender or or non-trans characters and she's still trans books are windows and mirrors to the world they have the power to teach lessons about life but they do not have the power to change one's gender identity or sexual orientation don't give in to the pressure to ban Books thank you for publicly celebrating my daughter and other students like her your message of support sends ripples of protection around her and helps to silence those who want to take those protections away Cali ainger um I came here tonight with a lot of things to talk about but on my way here actually before I left I got a phone
030call from another parent and I haven't been able to really shake it um Fett's County needs to change if kids end up dead or in jail or in the hospital um they can't learn they can't go on they can't um be tomorrow's leaders right um I applaud everybody who came up and spoke before me tonight and thank you for all your of your advocacy I'm sorry but um we need more of it and um if you I think Fair fat County Public School is the best school in the United States you're among one of the best schools in the United States for our kids for all of our kids you're wrong and um I don't I don't even know I mean look at me with uh I'm not usually a a lack for words but
031um that's it for tonight please do better okay every one of you I mean just please help [Applause] [Music] erar Emily vanderhoff good evening chair frish Dr Reed and members of the board my name is Emily vanderhoff I'm a FCPS teacher a proud Union member and a PR and proud to serve on the board of FCPS Pride I want to celebrate the board's proclamation to recognize lgbtqia plus History Month as someone who only recently became aware of my own queerness it has become especially important to me to see our school board take a vocal stance on creating a safe and inclusive school district for career and trans students and staff I want to share a few examples of how important important it is that FCPS openly and firmly stands behind queer and trans students staff
032and families in our community and recognize important events like pride month and lgbtq plus History Month I'm just out of breath I'm not I'm not emotional um one day when I was wearing my FCPS Pride shirt a student said to me I like your shirt it represents me in that moment an FCPS student felt seen and empowered at school our freedom to be visible at work so that students can see them s reflected in the adults who serve them is the definition of meeting every child by name and by need and allowing students to feel safe supported included and empowered one time while tabling at Great Beginnings I was talking with a new teacher who visited the FCPS Pride table they had picked up a pride flag from the table and they said that they
033weren't sure how welcoming FCPS would be having previously taught in a more conservative Southern State I shared that I felt safe having Pride Flags in my classroom and that I felt secure that fcpl would back me up and having them that safety at work is how we recruit and retain the premier Workforce we need to provide the best education for our students I just want to take the opportunity to thank the board for standing firm in this moment and so and so many other moments in in spite of the opposition from those who demand that queer and trans students and staff hide our identities I'm proud to work in a school system that truly strives to be welcoming and inclusive thank [Applause] you Eric Queen hello good evening Dr Reed and Schoolboard members I'm air
034queen and I use they them pronouns I am a queer trans FCPS teacher and parent of a current and future FCPS student I'm glad to be here again during lgbtqia to us plus History Month well I'm glad that I work for a school system that acknowledges that lgbtqia 2s plus History Month exists acknowledging the month with words is not the same as taking action to ensure our community's history is taught and that our community members are protected from harm I can appreciate that regulation 2603 exists at the same time that I know that we can do more to enforce it at a school level right now there are schools where it gets completely ignored and it is our students who suffer there is clear evidence that students in the lgbtqia 2s plus Community Thrive when
035they have in supportive environments at school but if that support only extends as far as this meeting then I would argue that there's no support at all as a queer and trans staff member all I ever want to do is bring my most authentic self into my classroom and teach the students in front of me as it is now though there is no real protection for me in the same way that there are protections for for our students I don't even have the opportunity to have my chosen name listed in our online directory for some transgender staff members that could lead to being in a dangerous position it is a publicly outing someone who just deserves to exist and do their job I would like to remind you that the decisions and actions of today
036are the history of tomorrow I would love for my own part of lgbtqia to us plus history to be that I give space for other people in our community to Simply exist as they are without the need to fight and public demand the bare minimum so for the remainder of my time I will do just that exist thank you w walkie good evening Schoolboard members Dr Reed my name is Willow Walky she her member of both FCPS pride and the transgender Education Association of Greater Washington we are here celebrating lgbtqia plus History Month I'm just going to say queer from now on as a transperson born in the 60s I never learned about people like me in school I never knew how many of the people that impacted my life were members of the the
037quer community because they were forced to hide and they certainly wouldn't teach about them in school my mom told me about one of her college classes where all the black students in the class first learned that Alexander Dumas the author of The Three Musketeers that they were reading was black they learned that in college imagine lgbtq imagine queer kids that don't get to see themselves in their classes like social studies banard Rustin who organized the March that gave us the I Have a Dream Beach the first black congresswoman from the south Barbara Jordan in music class jakovsky Aaron Copeland Leonard Bernstein or theater where we learn about so many playwrights like thoron Wilder and Edward Elby or art class getting to learn about Freda Koo and Georg o'keef but for me I was a math
038kid and I loved computers Alan touring was a mathematician encryption expert who cracked the German encryption in World War II and helped create computer science and more personally Linn Conway a trans woman who was fired by IBM in 1968 for being trans continued her work hiding her identity and became a major innovator in integrated circuit design she disclosed her identity in the early 2000s and passed away um this past summer um this is the textbook I used in one of my classes in college it was co-written by Lynn Conway I didn't know I could have known don't let that happen to the kids anymore include queer history in existing classes and teach queer history thank [Applause] you George Basera please play the video testimony submitted by Stephanie Len Chris aora good evening I would like
039to speak to you this evening about the failure of administrative leadership in our school district uh we've had some disagreements over time Schoolboard members but we most of us have a very vested interest in our local community a lot of us have children who go to school here um some of us have grown up here right um I can't say that the same is true for the senior administrators the senior administrative leadership who have grown their bureaucratic departments at Gat Gate House astronomically the budget has grown from $3 billion in 2020 to $3.7 billion in fiscal year 2025 and I ask you today are we satisfied with what we've seen even though the student population has decreased with the extra money with the extra especially blo at gate house what's this money doing uh test
040scores have gone down over time if you look at them are failure rates are very disappointing um several schools are on the verge of failing and School staff are upset since uh super Reed superintendent Reed has taken her position 54 principles have left and there's been a mass Exodus of teachers as well and many of them say that the reason that they're leaving is because of a leadership failure in in the sense that the senior leadership of FCPS at gate house doesn't understand the problems and the issues that are happening in the schools in fact several principles had a had a media interview where they uh where they stated this explicitly um and I ask you tonight as our elected officials please hold our administrative leadership accountable thank you please play the video testimony submitted
041by Robert and Ricky Jr good evening my name is Robert riby Jr I'm a teacher in this County uh and the resident of the Providence District as well as a member of my PTA for public education and FCPS Pride let me speak briefly as we celebrate about lgbtq history that I know of in this County in the early 90s there was a group called Gay Fairfax that broadcast on local television that advocated for among other things um marriage equality which has since been achieved a couple of days ago was the anniversary um and uh and they had uh important guests and and and celebrated and recognized uh our community in in the metro area um in the late 90s several folks advocated for successfully inclusion of lgbtqia public ations in our local public libraries and
042with limited success but some good success about inclusion of queer folks uh and consent and and and and good things uh in Family Life Education uh in 2000 uh Dr Domin uh recognized and allowed lgbtqia Plus student groups in our high schools uh in 2012 the school board instituted a good non- bullying policy to protect career kids uh uh uh over the years we protected the inclusion of lgbtqia as well as black and disabled and Native American uh and immigrant folk in our libraries in 2014 uh sexual orientation was recognized and in 2015 non-is uh gender identity and the non-discrimination policy uh many more successes were had including in fle and in curriculum but in 2020 uh regulation 2603 was past um um protecting trans students I've run to the end of my time so
043thank you very much for listening chair frish that was our last public speaker thank you everyone agenda item four 4.01 student representative matters I call on Miss Swant thank you Mr chair good evening everyone today I'd like to address students access to extracurricular and activities in Fairfax County while FCPS provides a broad array of opportunities the reality is that not all students have equal access to these activities particularly when it comes to financial support at the most recent superintendence advisory council meeting students broke out into small group discussions with a mixture of schools at each table to dis to discuss how their High School promoted extracurricular activities and opportunities for students at their school it was really a great opportunity to speak with students from Centerville and chanelli and other high schools of how activities
044worked at their school how after school activities worked how buses were promoted and of the sort but one common point that really emerged around the room from several schools was how dance was treated for example at Westfield High School dance is considered a club rather than a sport meaning that it receives no funding and that the coaches are volunteers this creates significant barriers to participation and a girl at South Lakes and Oakton agreed in Oakton High School sa delegate chimed in mentioning how the cost of participating from shoes to Palm to uniform to travel quickly adds up making these clubs exclusive and expensive the Oakton delegate mentioned that there is a financial aid program at Oakton to support activities but the issue is that most students aren't aware about how to access it and how
045to use it she mentioned that the cheer teams receive more resources than the dance teams raising the question what determines the funding breakdown between teams and why is there such disparity I may just be giving two examples here but there are so many others when we look at Middle School sports I know that students are grateful that FCPS is uh giving those to students free for students in good standing and enrolled in at least five courses which means that students have the opportunity to participate without facing any Financial barriers while I know that this isn't feasible at the high school level as we look at the upcoming budget meeting I wonder if there's room for dance coaches who are currently volunteers to receive a stipend or some benefits to support the work and the time
046they take out for these teams on that note I wanted to revisit the Virginia Senate Bill 707 which took effect on July 1st this bill allows all public middle and high schools to establish Career and Technical education student organizations like HOSA and TSA regardless of whether they offer CTE courses while I talked earlier about how excited I am for this bill to take place in high schools it doesn't fully address the challenges that sponsors and students are now facing a Chantell high school student in the technology Student Association shared with me that even with this new bill the school does have a cap on the number of students who can participate in this organization due to the limited number of sponsors and capacity of students that they can take we discussed this at the sa
047meeting and the questions that students had is how can we support our sponsors and the time they take to put into these clubs not all sponsors receive official compensation their role is often voluntary and they bailor costs and responsibilities of running these programs unless FCPS or the specific CTE organization has stipended them again as I mentioned at Oak and Westfield the coaches for dance teams and other clubs are often volunteers I wonder if there's ways that we can recognize our coaches and our teacher sponsors for the time they volunteer and they put into these activities this ties back into FCPS strategic plan specifically goal 4 which focuses on ensuring equal access and opportunities for all students which starts by figuring out ways to effectively support our teacher sponsors and coaches before I conclude I wanted
048to highlight two upcoming events for students first is the FCPS Secondary College Fair on Sunday October 20th at George Mason University's Eagle Bank Arena where over 220 colleges and universities will be attending and then on Monday October 21st and Tuesday October 22nd FCPS will be holding virtual post-secondary nights where you can learn more about how to be prepared for your educational journey and I encourage students to get involved additionally steamology which is an annual stemfest is actually scheduled for this Saturday at Mount Vernon High School and I encourage you all to attend thank you Miss Swant agenda item 5.01 action item certification of closed meeting compliance in order to comply with Section 22- 3712 D of the code of Virginia it is necessary for the board to certify that s the Fairfax County School Board
049convened to close meeting on October 10th 2024 to the best of each board member's knowledge only Public public business matters lawfully Exempted from open meetings requirements and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the board during the closed meeting do I have a motion Mr movine is there a second Mr Moon all those in favor Miss Marin Miss Dixit Mr mline Dr Anderson Mr McDaniel Miss Anderson Mr Dunn Mr Moon miss lady Miss St John cunning Miss seore Heiser and myself that is unanimous agenda item 5.0 02 confirmation of action taken in closed meeting I call on Mr McDaniel for a motion I move to deny the school reassignment appeal of a student who is charged with multiple offenses related to
050Virginia's laws on weapons and illicit drugs related to an alleged incident that occurred in the community and to confirm the disciplinary decision of the division superintendent is there a second second Mr Moon all those in favor Miss Marin Miss Dixit Mr mavan Dr Anderson Mr McDaniel Miss Anderson Mr Dunn Mr Moon miss lady Miss St John cunning Miss seiser and myself that is unanimous I call on Miss Marin for a motion I move to excuse from attendance at school certain students identified in closed meeting pursuing to Virginia code section 22.1-cu Miss Anderson Mr Moon miss lady Miss St John cunning Miss seore Heiser all those opposed abstaining Mr Dunn and myself will the clerk read the vote 102 the motion carries the motion passes thank you agenda item 6.01 performance review financial planning el5 monitoring
051report I call on Dr Reed for a monitoring report report on Executive limitation 5 financial planning good evening chair frish and members of the board uh tonight I'll be presenting executive limitation five which discusses Financial Planning and um think we're ready to yeah turn the page please all right just a reminder that uh the executive limitation number five is around maintaining a multi-year financial plan that's datadriven comprehensive transparent and part of a long-term plan to achieve the board's strategic goals for our students so at the time of this report to the best of my knowledge information and belief we have gathered information and evidence that I believe supports compliance with the board's executive limitation associated with this topic iic again for those watching uh the full report is posted on board dos want to remind
052the board that there are four major areas of el5 and here we see item one which is focused on developing an annual budget and there are a number of subcategories but this is one of the four areas of el5 the second um third and fourth areas are listed on this slide and again these are fairly strict St forward so I don't think I need to recite them for you or any of those watching as we look at the budget timeline and again this is FY 2026 and it's a tentative timeline uh I would like to make sure that uh the board remembers that our first work session on the FY 2026 budget is scheduled for November 12 because of this tonight's presentation will not include any FY 2020 6 updates and will instead be focused
053on um new work updates or items newly added to the cell since it was last presented in March of 2024 again when this executive limitation is presented next fall it will include updates from the FY 2026 budget again the full report can be found on board dos so in looking at the first uh part of executive limitation uh five in this area it's the development of the annual budget and I really I want to remind the board that there was a um direction from the board at the presentation of the last budget that talked about looking at efficiencies and how we might appreciate those efficien efficiencies over multi-year budgeting and one of the things we proposed and the board approved last year was working on the Baldridge award process which is a very comprehensive look
054at all operations and how they connect budget-wise and outcomes of the division so I want to begin by sharing that on September 9th of 2024 FCPS was recognized with the Baldridge Spirit award at the Ohio State University for completing the Baldridge organizational profile which is the first step in submitting an application we're currently planning to submit a complete 50-page application for the award in Winter 2025 and it's um a consistent agenda item in our senior leadership team meetings recently our FCPS budget documents have received awards from both the association of school business officials and the government Finance Officers Association we recognize those recently finally in response to the Joint legislative audit and review commission report on Virginia's K12 funding our Communications budget and government relations staff have been collaborating collab ating on public facing social
055media infographics and documentation so uh in thinking about providing the board with a multi-year budget we continue to uh remind folks that this is um there's several things we're continuing to do for this area that are outlined in our full report what I will say is that the newly added evidence is that our FY 2026 budget will incorporate fiveyear projections I do want to caution all of us so um as the out years are projected they're likely less precise uh because we really don't have a crystal ball um in terms of our ability to identify what's uh going to happen uh next year much less five years out but we're really trying to take that longer look um additionally we plan to accelerate the timeline for enrollment projections so that we can use those and
056our fiscal forecast and that's been a um you know a request that was made at the end of last year so in thinking about this multi-year plan uh just a reminder and I know our board knows this number well but that if the uh Fairfax could receive the estimated 5687 million uh in state revenue um that would certainly be um appreciated and again it would be something that would happen if the general assembly were to adopt all of the jar near and long-term recommendations uh we do continue to Advocate and recently had our legislative uh breakfast which our board attended with many of our elected legislators and continue to hope for collaboration as we look at uh funding models to support our our young people in terms of timely advice to the board for indicator
0573 um I'd like to highlight that we had 114 budget questions answered during the FY 2025 budget process and this was more than double the number of questions that we had the prior fiscal year um but I think we're really working on trying to provide turnaround answers even more quickly um and I know that's something our budget committee is taking a look at in terms of process the fourth area of the executive limitation is to take all reasonable prudent anticipatory and proactive actions in securing Financial Resources for the division we continue to work on grants development and these are presented in the quarterly budget review process and on the screen is a summary of Grants uh showing an increase in submissions and a higher award rate from FY 243rd quarter to FY 244th quarter and
058this would be new information since the prior elel our FY 2025 updates will be posted on the FCPS quarterly budget reviews web page when available but this is an area that we continue to work on uh it's time and work intensive but it's important and I wanted to make sure that the work of our teams is represented this evening um and the board uh sees the progress so at this time Mr chairman this concludes the summary of the monitoring report for executive limitation number five Financial Planning and happy to take any questions thank you Dr Reed at this time I invite board members to ask any clarifying questions and provide comments Mr Moon thank you Mr chairman uh Dr Reed thank you for the presentation just a couple of quick questions uh could you refresh
059my recollection my memory as to the last time this was presented to us was back in March yes sir of this year and now you're presenting fi25 presentation in October which is seven months after the last presentation as oppos to one full 12 month cycle so could you tell us why this is being presented at this time as opposed to a marcho next year yes sir what we tried to do when we actually planned this year this is our first year where we could begin in July with the executive limitations for the entire year and when the staff looked at what made sense in terms of where in the year this is when we're actually doing our financial planning and in March I think originally financial planning had been planned for lack of a better
060term for earlier in the year but had been moved um on our work plan last year uh but this year it really fits um in October and we would expect it to stay there year over-year at this point because we're done financially planning well I don't know if we're ever done but March really isn't that's more of a financial management um time I understand that you know I I try to compare in the last presentation content of the last presentation with tonight and there has not been a really you know much addition since last time that is why I was asking because we talking about financial planning you know going forward as opposed to what happened in the past uh but with that said I understand why you're trying to do it this way but
061however more important question is this with a collective bargaining coming up we are going through right now I as I understand that you know doing a multier financial planning is that is that going to be feasible at all when 90% of our budget goes into paying for salaries and benefits and that is a subject to collective bargaining and how feasable is it for you to project five years from now what the collective bargaining is going to bring to us sole answers number one that uh expectation for a multi-year budget plan is a measurement the board has in the Strategic plan so that's the expectation that staff provide that um that was a board Direction so I think that when you ask how feasible is it to meet that direction I do think in all matters
062it's best practice to look forward I don't know that I you know I began the topic that discussion around I don't know how accurate by five years out we really are likely to be but I do know that it's um an expectation that we would have a multi-year bargaining agreement once we are into bargaining so it is very likely that we would have um information about our bargaining agreement commitments several years out I anticipate that to be true moving forward um wait to see what happens Dr Reed yes sir thank you thank you Mr Moon Miss Dixit thank you for the presentation Dr Reed um I did have a question um about the budget questions obviously we had uh uh more than double question this year and uh there were a lot of redundancies and
063questions there were it was like PDF after PDF was um hard to find information sometimes so I wanted to say if uh there is a way like have a drop- down menu or sections or a better way to submit those questions so even for um other supervisors or other other people who are submitting the questions they they can follow that process too so it's easy for our staff to address that so I I think the subject of budget question questions um is one that our uh new budget chair uh Mr McDaniel and our Vice budget chair Miss seore Heiser have spoken already to miss Burton and I about and we are looking at ways to streamline that because we recognize the turnaround for answers are that's really important as we're making critical decisions so I
064believe we're working on some plans that should streamline that moving forward and uh my second question was about the grants um which is really good to see that we have uh an quarter as of fourth quarter fi 2024 is 63 $3 million of grand were submitted and awarded were 22.9 so there's like a I can see that there was a lot of effort done yes and not that much of even though there were 75 we you know submitted but I wanted to just see how could what can we do to increase that capacity and better results and getting those Grant Awards well in some cases the decision hasn't been made yet on some of those applications so when we close the quarter those are the ones we've heard about by that date and time uh
065and some of the uh I think the grants one of the things we want to do as a best practice is go back and ask um although the grant writers often look at previously successful grants as models and templates but I do agree with you when you look at the um Roi of that work it doesn't look as sound but I I don't know if that includes the most recent Grant um that we received the $15 million Grant um Mr Norton or Miss Burton or if that's going to be in the next quarter report uh there is the the the um it is included in this um it it's not the it's a 15 million Grant over a fiveyear period oh so that makes it a so it's like three million per year as opposed
066to the the full 15 um being reflected but it it is since it's over a multi-year period so would that be part of what's accounting for the different number the lower number versus the number written for we could certainly dig into the numbers on the chart and and get you an exact answer as to if there's some anomaly for the multi-year reason thank you Mr Norton because that could now that I think about it be part of the explanation misstic it yeah yeah it could be how many grant writers do we have in FCPS Miss Burton do we have a number of grant writers approximately well in the budget office we have one and a half two positions they have other duties um that have to do with grants as well and they you know
067work on grants constantly they're constantly you know looking on federal websites State websites you know looking for you know Private Industry Private Industry looking for any grant opportunities um and then you know working with the program people to put the grant applications together yes thank you Miss buron and I know other departments instructional Services has grant writers um the office of school support and chief of schools office has folks that wrote grants right so but I think our grant writing group is relatively lean so a company of I will just give an example of 38.87 billion do budget FCPS uh has as much Grand writers which a very small business in federal Contracting will have as a proposal writer it is not even the right amount of people because there is a lot of money
068out there we we're getting shrinking budget if we just can have a good budget uh grant writers who can do for go for federal grants and I would I would think this number will increase we just need to like have intentional focus on that yes ma'am thank you thank you Miss Dixit Dr Anderson thank you I do want to start off by saying that I app appreciate some of the information that shows kind of the progress over time because that's what I'm always looking for and one of those areas is the competitive grants it really shows that there's much work and I do agree with Miss Dixit it doesn't seem proportional to our size and hopefully we can have a few more resources there um the other piece that I noticed was new is the
069accelerated timeline of the um enrollment projections because we typically are just kind of having an educated guest but being as close as possible I think would help with the Staffing reserve and some of those other decisions that are made in order to prepare for any potential gaps um and as always I know this part is not new but I do want to highlight it the budget quarterly reports I think are very very helpful documents not only does it record you know what is it that we are going to spend it on but it highlights where they're coming from it gives details in terms of how we um it gives a lot of detail of those expenditures so I just wanted to make sure we just continue to do that um and I I know that
070some of the j-lock things are a little bit more extensive but they were there before from the report that we just received in March um but they're just a little bit more details and I know we've all been kind of disabused of maybe receiving that $568 million but we can hope um but we can continue to put the word out um one of the things that I wanted to raise since we're talking about financial planning um if you recall well you may recall last July we spent quite a bit of time having discussions here regarding the summer recess um contract expenditures and planning ahead for that so we don't have that very extended discussion that we ended up having where we I think um suspended two pages worth of proposals um for contracts for the
071summer I don't think I saw any information here about how we were going to plan to not be in that position again so I believe that's going to be in our El that addresses procurement because all of those contracts come through the procurement department and um I know that uh the team is working hard to try to create the cyclical planning and also part of the concern at that time was the lack of descriptive paragraphs in terms of several of those items were actually multi-year or addendum rather than full contract so um we took that to heart and I believe it'll meet standard this summer okay so I will wait for that procurement is that seven or eight I ah it's okay you don't need to answer that that was a um unnecessary question the
072other thing as well I guess I could mention it now but it's really going to live with the same procurement as the board receives those notices that we receive via email because because we have to be notified of certain things just having the same level of detail that you tend to provide in the budget quarterly reports would be very important because I know as one board member I'm typically emailing back asking for a higher level of information regarding the use and um the funding of some of those um contracts so I want to share that there um sorry I just want to make sure oh just one question you mentioned um the bdge report as related to the follow on motion from last January are we going to be receiving additional information soon yes ma'am
073we um the profile I believe you have the organizational profile and the current 50 page project that we're working on right now you'll be receiving updates as we work through those okay thank you and the other question that I had was about the budget questions um I did notice um the big jump can you also disaggregate for us how many came from the board and how many came from the Board of Supervisors from this board versus the Board of Supervisors yes ma'am do you have that with you this evening thank you Miss Burton would you share that please yeah in fiscal 25 of the 114 71 were schoolo questions and 4 three were Board of Supervisors so about a 62 38% swing do you want fiscal 24 sure it's a good comparison um 41 from
074the school board or about 75% and 14 from the Board of Supervisors for a total of 55 and fiscal 23 um about 64% or 32 came from the school board with um 18 coming from the Board of Supervisors for a total of 50 that was definitely a low year thank you for that information um I think these are probably procurement questions I'll pause for right now until I leave you my notes thank you thank you Dr Anderson Mr McDaniel our budget chair so first off congratulations on the Baldridge award and the progress is being made I'm looking forward to seeing that continue to play out um over the next few years um I think the multi-year budgeting I know we've talked about this before but I think it's it's going to be a good exercise
075on several fronts um um not the least of which being as Mr Moon alluded to the collective bargaining side of the house U and this is going to be our first budget where we will have a collective bargaining component so it's a historic budget in in some respects um and lastly on the on the budget questions uh Miss seore Heiser and I have had some conversations with staff and we be please be looking please be on the lookout for a a memo and more Communications from us with a survey um that will be coming out here in the next couple of weeks on that front so thank you thank you thank you Mr McDaniel Mr Dunn uh thank you um uh Dr ID are you familiar with the Gibson report which was a school efficiency
076review of FCPS in September 2013 yes sir um is is the baldrich uh report or review process similar in form and substance to uh the Gibson report that was done in 2013 I think they have the same intent I had read through the Gibson report actually on my entry in and it was actually also provided by a community group um but I and I think the intent of both around studying efficiencies and mapping resources to outcomes would be consistent we haven't done a full Baldridge report here yet so I'm not entirely sure as we finish the process they just re um calibrated the Baldridge work this year so in Reading other Baldridge reports I think it's likely that it will be very similar but in um when we complete our work I'll have a better
077answer for you but it is I think a similar intent um sorry if I missed it but when when are you expecting to have the Baldridge review completed such that it can be presented any recommendations be presented to the school board when we originally talked about this last winter I think we were looking at about a two-year process so right now we're uh we completed the initial launch if you will and we're in phase one which is the 50 page U Mr Smith is um really spearheading our baldrich work so Mr Smith do you have a more of a timeline uh so we are in that first uh phase at this point and we'll be submitting our 50 page uh in the fall of 25 uh and then the way that the BGE organization Works
078uh it's a bit like accreditation as we look at high schools and for those who have that understanding uh there is a review team uh and they look at different aspects of our uh of our full 50-page submission and that team will uh look at each section with a very distinct eye toward uh Improvement uh with a very clear recommendations on how we can create better efficiencies for the entire organization so there's an external review that's a part of this that scored uh that we then will take action on and I will be keeping the board fully a priz through that scoring process um moving forward and um is it so is the entire review can uh focus on simply reviewing the 50 pages of narrative that we provide it will be more than that
079but um again this is our first time through the process as a county so and from what I gather and and I was able to go to the conference at Ohio State from what I gather will be uh provided guidance along the way in helping uh to create the report providing guidance on uh particular uh items that we need to look for uh as we're helping to or as we're creating the report uh and then as we provide those submissions we'll be getting feedback along the way from those who are going to be scoring our report uh at different intervals and at the end I would actually say the 50 page might be what am I um sort of a colloquial term for that phase of the project but it's really organized around a number
080of uh operational and goal areas were there seven I think that we reviewed there are seven goal areas that we'll review and while we're moving for the 50 page report there is an interim 25 page report that we will submit uh to the Baldridge organization to get feedback on and uh it's a rather rigorous review and they'll have expectations and recommendations uh that they'll give back to us so that we can again create better efficiencies uh with our current practice and process uh so I'm looking at the Gibson report and their methodology includes uh School site visits interviews with division staff focus group sessions Community survey and National peer data so is there any I mean do they come into Fairfax County at all or is this just on paper yeah so we'll have individuals
081come here and uh look at our processes and uh actually uh do interviews here with staff I think I may be the only member of the leadership team who was here when uh we had the Gibson report so I do remember that it was a a panel of individuals uh who came we had three reviewers who came and uh interviewed us individually they did surveys of the leadership team uh did individual interviews with members of the leadership team and then developed the comprehensive report based on those interviews and surveys as well as review of documents and other U reports that we had here available at the time okay thank you it would be great if Schoolboard members could be included in those meetings or representatives of the school board um Mr Don can I clarify
082when you say meetings like when the panel comes yes okay yes sir um uh the 568 million dollars were owed by the state um 568 I think it's eight 5688 um but uh but in any case what for for uh Fairfax County residents um what what would you do with that money right if state legislators ask you okay you you're you're doing pretty well FCPS what would you do with half a billion dollars more you know I I think we would make sure that our Educators and all of our staff our operational staff um were compensated in a manner in which they could um afford to live in Fairfax County um on that wage without having to take second and third jobs in some cases I think we would um look at our supports and
083activities uh that uh we could provide you know I think our school board rep Megan was talking about the different activities that are so cost prohibitive even today for many of our students uh I think that the ability you know we have to space our curriculum materials out over a series of years uh and I think that that's challenging the ability to provide time uh for staff to do the planning they need that's compensated again um I don't know team any other thoughts that uh I mean I I can go on all night probably but miss Burton anything that we would um facil maybe take care of health benefits in a way that is more supportive for our our staff facilities and construction oh I see Miss samansky over there bouncing out of re seat
084Miss samansky is bouncing up and down over there I was trying not to make eye contact but yes facilities I mean we have elevators and HVAC I mean Miss samansky did you want to weigh in at all certainly with any funding given to us we'll try to maximize it to the best extent possible to your point we have a bunch of Aging infrastructure and a very large maintenance backlog so I think at a high level we would probably Target that first I do think we keep when we're not adequately funded we keep moving money from one place to another and eventually the need catches up and overwhelms Us in those areas that have been underfunded uh have you has FCPS uh done any work or consultations with regard to title 17 clean energy financing available
085under uh the loan programs Office of the Department of energy I know we talked about that in our recent fax meeting and um looking at that for so and so forth um miss samansky or Mr muick do you have any comment this evening or if not we can get back to you I think we'll have to get back to you Dr Reed uh so I wanted to highlight because uh that's a that's a program that provides uh if if we provide 3% of the money right they provide 97% um which I like those odds um and that uh money can be used to replace um HVAC systems and other um you know clean energy Energy Efficiency is interpreted extremely broadly uh to replace a lot of the infrastructure in our schools upgrade a lot of
086our uh windows and other things that uh might be deteriorating and that's 97% free money there's just billions and billions of dollars available so I I I note the one and a half uh grant writers that's a very small team of grant writers and there are outside Consulting firms that you know uh sometimes um uh get paid on success fee bases so there there are opportunities to uh to engage so I look forward to engaging with you more in that respect thank you sir thank you Mr dun Miss Marin I do want to commend the activity for the grants I actually think the numbers are quite impressive especially since so much of it remains outstanding for this quarter I think it would be helpful to know what their peer School divisions do what are they
087applying for and receiving you know dollar amounts number of Grants kind of what's the ROI but I mean I don't remember any pace of Grants being obtained or reported to the board in my last term so I could only compare it to that that this is you know many times more uh beneficial um I would really you know this question about the multi-year plan you know it I didn't recall it from last year as I read it and I was like well we know that the best best we'll get is this biannual budget from the state but that has been late every year and although the jar funding is included it's a good historical marker in here you know we heard that that's going to take several years so I don't think it's a you
088know necessarily a good exercise to budget down to the granular level for five years but I think it's good to have projections and even like what would be your budget if we weren't just going to sustain the bare minimum I think it would that's something we've talked before about on the board and I think it would be good to know because already we're spending a billion dollars more than what the state thinks we need and so and we're only at bare minimum so what is it that we really need um so I think maybe we as a board can talk about it and with you but I also think this gets to having more regular meetings about the budget and financial and you know like budgeting is different than financial management as you've pointed out
089and I think you know over the years we've gotten I've seen the board get a little more focused on those two different aspects but especially with the Baldridge work you know I I also on that note it would be great to include the board more in that work like when is our opportunity to hear more about it or even is there a a role for the board in that and it's wonderful that you got this award but um I think that that would be really great uh for us to really understand that and the last thing I wanted to add was um I already submitted my comments so I'm ahead of the game okay that's it thank you Miss Marin Miss Anderson so I'm I am I do have to say that I am thrilled
090with the speed that you guys are working through Baldridge because I as now I was working with students writing the reports so it it was a much more involved process however um just I understand how tedious all of the questions are related to that particular so the fact that we are already making progress I am very excited about the the path that we have going forward I am going to guess um to my colleagues point I'm going to guess that Baldridge is going to illustrate to us that we need every penny that we have currently and every penny that we can get more so I would like to also applaud all the the grant work I know that um our our chief operating officer is also working diligently to ensure grants related to any electric
091buses that we can get as well so while I know that we don't necessarily have dedicated grant writers in every Department I do know that we have lots of staff that are looking and that's where a lot of the work is coming from so I agree with my colleagues that seeing how we can bolster that is important um but I would like to applaud the staff for what they all they're doing so I just wanted to say that I'm excited to see how Baldridge grows um with a division our size just because I know how tedious and how um extensive the process is so I can't wait to hear more updates about how things are going thank you we can't either thank you Miss Anderson I will take a turn um so thank you for
092this and I will also take some of the blame for the timing um because one of the goals that um we had for this this coming year is that everything can be done before we enter the superintendence EV valuation cycle and So that obviously necessitates the moving of some of these um around and finding an optimal way of spacing them um so that the work can be done and there's going to be some that are closer to the previous one than there uh and there will be some I think that are a little further uh than they uh you know than a year so uh but the goal is it's on track now it's all before the superintendent's evaluation including the goal reports and we're not doubling up on them in meetings we don't have
093any goal reports on the same nights as y's so progress progress progress I will say huge kudos to the folks who work on our grants because I was down in Richmond this morning literally and uh participating in a panel discussion about uh electric bus uh electric buses and specifically about what steps could divisions who haven't started this process take and the first thing I said was well you need a school board that will direct the superintendent to get it done and then you need a superintendent who will empower the operational team to make it happen and uh I didn't have to point out because it was pointed out uh before my turn to speak the number of buses that we have all but three of which are the result of Grants either from DEQ or
094from the EPA we've purchased three outright and by the end of this school year we will have 105 electric buses in Fairfax County four years ago we had zero and that is all except for three because of Grants and so kudos to our team for making that happen um I think we can always you know uh it was it was interesting watching everybody's eyes light up like uh you know opening presence when the question was asked what would we do with the jar money um I have like this Great Depression mentality I hate to even think about things that aren't like already delivered but I think it presses the point of how important it is that we continue to advocate for this money because there is so much need and when I was asked what
095else School divisions could do I said every single School Board needs to be talking about jar because imagine how many buses every School Division in in the Commonwealth could buy with a little extra money from the from the Commonwealth so um I'll be voting in compliance on this I think um the Baldridge work is exciting um and I appreciate the level of update that I'm getting on it thus far um I am not in the operational Weeds on on the um uh administration of of services and and uh classroom uh work in the division um and so I'm eager to see the reports back uh from staff's work with Baldridge um since they are obviously much more in line to know precisely what's happening um and uh I look forward to the work so thank
096you very much we have one go back Dr Anderson thank you I just had some points that I did miss um both in this year's um report and well last year's meaning last school year there were there was conversation there were state ments regarding how um collaboration occurs with the different teams to help build the budget how can we get a little bit more insight into that in this report kind of like a show your work question well I think um Miss Burton what would that look like if we we could maybe take some photos of the teams working together um the departments at senior leadership not of the people per se but of the product I think the budget well during the budget you know planning discussions with Chiefs and the Departments you know
097the Chiefs are constantly evaluating their programs and deciding if something is still a priority and perhaps shifting funds if they have a greater priority um and I think Dr Anderson is just asking that you know we we track that information so that it's available yes thank you I think you hit the nail on the head I would love to see how that can be embedded into this report and also similarly to last time when we talked about this just having greater transparency I know our budget book is heavy because it is um we have a big budget but I continue to have um community community members who want to know where things are and they're just struggling to find where things are located I am not sure I know the answer to this but I
098do want to raise this as a point and then just lastly um speaking of transparency and again in the planning and if this is not the right El please let me know I'd like to have a little bit more clarity on the plans for the achievement Gap closing strategies I know there were you know some dollars several Millions dollars um devoted to that in FY 24 and then some more last year but I don't have a good sense as to how that will be spent and last but not least um it's just a little tighter alignment with the budget priorities for the board when we get to that budget process um we have the resolution that lays out the priorities I'd like a little bit more explanation as to why certain things are assumed and
099some things are not included yes ma'am thank you thank you Dr Anderson Mr Dunn thank you um can uh Dr re can you uh describe the any enhancements to the budget questions process because I know that was discussed in I think a previous presentation or mentioned I think in I don't know that I have an answer to enhancements to the budget question process I know that Mr McDaniel and Miss seis Mor Heiser are looking at some new systems to put into place perhaps or new I think there's some type of a survey that's going out to board members to get your perspective or your opinion on what you would like to see in that process and then we'll be responsive to whatever it is that we're asked to do okay thank you Mr Dunn all
100right I call on Miss Anderson for a motion I moveed that the school board finds the superintendent is in compliance with executive limitation number five financial planning I further move that the school board approve the monitoring report based on the superintendent's reasonable interpretation of executive limitation number five financial planning as outlined in the Strategic governance manual is there a second Mr McDaniel all right all those in favor Miss Marin Mr mine Mr McDaniel Miss Anderson Mr Dunn Mr Moon Miss Lady uh myself Miss seore Heiser that is uh unanimous for board members present um and a couple away from the table if if the clerk could read the vote guess that's 903 uh with um with Dr Anderson uh Miss St John C Miss St John cunning and Miss dick sit away from the table
101Miss Baron just a point of order we only count the total number of people so the vote count should not be 12 it should be whoever's here plus Miss seiser Heiser your Point's taken okay so is that the correct the correct vote is 90 thank you that wasn't announce so thank you I do believe that we knowe when people are away from the table though in minutes so it's worth saying but you're correct we only report the vote as voted so can I confirm I only heard the clerk say 903 that is what I heard the clerk say so the vote is 90 with Miss um with Dr Anderson Miss Dixit and Miss St John cunning away from the day thank you for clarifying thank you Miss Marin agenda item 7.01 policy review uh actually
102we're going to take a a brief five to seven minute recess so people can fill out their form or fill it out online and get cookies for [Music] Dr P going to answer for me [Music] board members please return to your seats e e e board members please return to your seats the captain has turned the uh return to your seat sign on all right agenda item 7.01 policy review financial planning el5 the next order of business is the policy review for executive limitation five financial planning annually the board will review each of the 13 executive limitations nope yes uh at the time of the monary report is provided to determine if any revisions are needed moving forward the board will uh review any of the executive limitations that any time a change might be
103needed at this time board members May provide comments on Executive limitation five financial planning to determine if any revisions are needed at this time I now invite board members who would like to suggest revisions seeing none I call on Miss Marin for a motion I move that the school board maintains executive limitation 5 financial planning as it is currently detailed in the Strategic governance manual is there a second Miss St John cunning the motion is on the screen we'll now vote all those in favor do we speak do we speak to the Motions oh thank you for the cor point of order point taken would you like to speak to your motion M Marin uh yes I'll just say I think this is a sound um e and the points raise were valid so I'm
104glad to keep it going forward thank you Miss St John Cy would you like to speak to your second thank you seeing no others we will now vote for the motion that's on the screen all those in favor Miss Marin Miss Dixit Mr mavan Dr Anderson Mr McDaniel Miss Anderson Mr dun Mr Moon miss lady Miss St John cunning uh I can't see Miss seore Heiser oh yep Miss seore Heiser and myself that is unanimous the motion passes and I will now agenda item 8.01 strategic Plan update I call on Dr Reed for a strategic Plan update thank you chairman FR and members of the board as a reminder to our public each month we share an update on the Strategic plan to highlight the efforts of FCPS as we pursue our stre strategic plan
105goals so I'm excited this evening to talk about our um not our academic matters yet but it's our strategic plan uh report um so it's our strategic Plan update and this evening I want to remind our board we're focusing on goal two um in this report which is our safe supported included and empowered uh goal two and within that we're looking at positive School climate which is our safety inclusion and sense of belonging um and our disciplinary disproportionality which again is part of our um or embedded with within our Equity uh commitment so this evening we chose to profile our restorative justice practices in Fairfax County Public Schools and these practices um actually teach students important skills um which are on the screen and also talk about what happens when conflict does arise and I
106honestly think that I was listening to a podcast recently that talked about maybe that being one of the top essential skills right now now for our young people to learn is how to manage conflict and how do we um engage in a civil and thoughtful way uh when there is conflict so by focusing on these areas we feel that the restorative justice practices can lead to a more positive and supportive um School environment essentially there is a Continuum of these practices um and really they're used to address a range of needs and situations they're used in classrooms and small groups um and it's also a formal process that can be facilitated by trained and FCPS certified practitioners um that allow um participates to understand what happened that might have led to the conflict and understand
107the impact of what happened often um students uh will engage in behaviors that are not intended to harm but that in fact is the impact of those behaviors and it's very important to help our students understand the need to positively move forward and this is a process where and an opportunity for those who've experienced conflict to be heard as well as emphasizing accountability in a thoughtful way want to remind um those watching in our board that in 2024 we started an initiative that actually came from schools we had several School principles U make a request to have more training so what we decided is if we're going to work on discipline disproportionality it would be important that every school have an opportunity to have trained practitioners and this became I think again I know our
108board has talked a lot about uh this distinction between a school system and a system of schools and we want to make sure that these options are available for our students in every school uh di Shin is here this evening with me Miss Shin is is a senior manager in the office of equity and student conduct and she's really been leading this initiative across the division and very proud of her efforts and the efforts of all of our staff who agreed to attend um and participate in this training and we now are working on that goal of having two trained uh practitioners in every school because as I recall when the principles came and requested this we had wait list sometimes of several months to have a facility at or get out to a school
109and one of our elementary assistant principles said Dr Reed it's hard for a seven-year-old a second grader to remember what they did yesterday much less three months ago um so by the time the facilitator would come out to do restorative justice I mean it just it was not time sensitive so very um proud of the work Di's uh LED and all those who participated at this time we'd like to show some examples of our program in action and while they do not involve actual conflicts or decisions the video does accurately portray the structure and dynamics of restorative justice practices um so if the clerk would please play the video in Fairfax County Public Schools restorative justice practices are used to build Community Foster relationships repair harm caused by conflict and prevent conflict from occurring in
110the first place these restorative practices range from the informal development of an empathetic restorative mindset by staff and students to formal settings which include preventative Community Building circles small group interventions and responsive restorative justice conferences the benefits of restored to practices for students are that every student is seen heard and valued at London toown Elementary School Community Building circles were implemented 3 years ago we have students now that were in our third year of doing community building circles that are advocating to have you know um problem solving conversations students are more comfortable bringing up problems with each other and wanting to have a dialogue with each other I notice they're advocating for themselves especially in the classroom tier 2 restorative practices take place in small group intervention settings they're from different classrooms but they have
111they share the same problem and so with those it's a 9 to 12 week program so you have to spend the first part building that trust um in that Circle process and then getting to the root cause of you know why things are happening and then by the end of that 12 weeks hopefully we have strategies and and ways to help tier three restorative practices no known as restorative justice are facilitator-led sessions that bring together those impacted by wrongdoing to discuss the incident understand the effects and agree on how to repair the harm restorative justice is a formal tool that we used when conflict does occur that gives us the opportunity to intervene to assess and to discuss what happened the impact of what happened and what we can do in order to feel like
112we can move forward and to repair our relationships our community Twain middle school and Shan Tilly High School regularly use restorative justice to resolve situations repair relationships among students and correct negative behaviors one of the most important parts of RJ is the students have an opportunity to talk through that situation and take ownership of their impact on that situation almost every time um I know the students i' I've had worked through it they'll come back and say oh this actually ended up really well the benefits is giving students a platform to be heard um and students are learning how to manage relationships in a positive way and they need our help and especially if a student feels like they could have handled a situation better or if they feel like they've been mistreated it's a
113way for them to understand how it affects the community as well as how it affects each other and to figure out a way to come to some sort of agreement on how to move forward and this is all part of it learning the empathy learning account ibility learning reflection this is a great way to teach children the skills of how to get along and once they learn it at this age They carried on for the rest of their lives Excellence equity and opportunity so um as we continue to move through the year we're going to continue to keep our community informed um the first of our five strategic plan goal reports goal one will be voted on at the October 20 4th regular school board meeting and goal two is going to be presented at
114the December 3rd work session so we'll need to get plenty of rest before those meetings um Mr chair this concludes this month's strategic Plan update and miss shann and I are both here to answer any questions you might have thank you Dr Reed Dr Anderson thank you I'll save most of my questions for when we have that conversation at the work session but I just wanted to give a preview I would love to hear in terms of the impact of restorative justice to discipline if you could ensure that that data is provided that would be very helpful and also I would like to hear maybe in this conversation we know it's a great tool I I was train in RJ in my former district and it is a wonderful way to teach kids how to
115resolve conflict but I do know that we need permission and um consent in order to participate when there is a student conflict that we we want to resolve in this way how do we try to inform families and students that this is a good thing to engage in because if they say no obviously we don't force the conversation but how do we ensure that they have enough education to know that this is a worthwhile and beneficial activity yes ma'am I mean that's a key question Miss Shen do you want to share some of the strategies we use to work with families please good evening uh again my name is di shin and I am the senior manager for the office of equity and student conduct previously I was a restorative justice practices specialist and led
116the restorative justice program here in um FCPS um to your first comment in relation to impact um we will be issuing a um discipline practices report which does have an overview related to the impact of the pathway so that information will be forthcoming um also in terms of just how are we able to instruct families about restorative justice practices and the benefit of it for themselves and for their students we have developed within the restorative justice program um tools and resources for administrators to use in their conversations with families one of them includes a very a line by line script that administrators can use when calling families and talking to them about the benefits of restorative justice we also have developed reading lists which are accommodated and also in um and in various languages and
117then we also have our school-based facilitators through the restorative justice pathway and through their certification program part of their training includes how to have conversations with families about restorative justice and so what that means is if an if an administrator feels um that they just need a little bit more support in having this conversation beyond the resources and Beyond The Script they can be able to call on that school-based facilitator to support them in that conversation with family thank you in the last piece we have the Justice component and we have just the practices component which is the preventative part can you walk us through a little bit in terms of how often students participate is it more at the high school is it more at the elementary school and how does that duvail or
118align with some of the other programs that I know the elementary schools um engage in such as zones of Regulation Etc um so yes so what we see you're absolutely right restorative justice circles for discipline conflict and harm are voluntary um and they do of course require parental consent our central office facilitators as well as our school-based facilitators are trained in how to be able to move participants into a space to be willing to have those conversations um and to be able to engage the process we do tend to see that Elementary School students participate more in restorative justice conferencing middle school students are pretty consistent across the board but we do see that high school students tend to decline to participate in the process more than um than their peer counterparts and so part
119of what we do within the work within the pathway and then also within the restorative justice program is to ensure that facilitators have that training to be able to again support high school students in understanding the benefits of restorative practices and restorative justice and participating in it we often get the question about how does this somehow align with all of the other initiatives that we're doing specifically like responsive classroom um positivity project how does it inter um how does it intersect with where does it fit within the MTS s framework and the answer to that is that restorative practices complement each of those very well especially within the mtss framework it can be utilized at the tier one the tier two and the tier three level and you can be able to have a school
120which is implementing restorative um practice circles as well as responsive classroom restorative practice circles tend to be student Le they tend to be consensus building and responsive classroom has some elements of that but they do tend to be led by um the teacher or kind of the facilitator in that space and so what's really great about those two complimenting each other is that you get to have kind of The Best of Both Worlds you get to have to some extent that teacher-led experience but then you get to have that relationship building consensus experience with the students who are leading that conversation with the facilitator M acting as a guide and so what we tend to tell our schools when they're trying to think about how do we somehow integrate these two we tell them you
121don't necessarily need to integrate them you just need to know that they they work in tandem alongside one another thank thank you and you are going to be um offering participation year-over-year in the goto reports thank you appreciate it thank you Dr Anderson Mr Dunn uh I'm generally supportive of restorative justice but there's a fundamental flaw in this discussion which is it focuses on the people who are engaging in bullying or other practices at the cost of the victims um you know I I just don't support that rubric we have you know I keep hearing from students after students after students at different high schools they can't use the bathrooms right people are vaping there bullies in there um holding it all day doing damage to their kidneys and bodies um because you know there's
122just bad things happening in the bathrooms in our middle schools and high schools um our are because of that so many middle schools and high schools are closing a large number of their bathrooms right um and so I hear from the victims of the bullying and I feel like we don't talk about that um uh you know we we talk a lot about restorative justice disproportionality and so forth but but there you know what I hear from parents is not about these issues in this slide presentation it's about their kids not feeling safe in the schools and and then sometimes through conversations with students last year about just that some schools feel like you know they're being locked down to some extent so um you know could you talk a little bit more about what's
123being done to to end the um the inaccessibility of bathrooms for our students and to protect the victims of bullying who who may not want to engage in the restorative justice process where they have to sit across from their bully and kind of come to some um agreement or outcome when they didn't want to be bullied in the first place or didn't have a relationship with that person if I if I'm being bullied I know I don't want to sit down with the person bullying me it just results in more tension and and so forth but so thank you Mr D I think there are two questions one the safety of the halls and bathrooms and then uh the bullying and the discomfort with sitting across from the bully right I I think I'll start
124there and just want to be really clear and I think Miss Shin also shared this but um if if to actually do a restorative justice Circle requires um both parties to agree to be a part of that process so if you're someone that feels like the incident harmed you in a way that you're not um willing or it would be traumatizing for you to be in that sitting you have that choice not to be a part of that so that's a choice to be in that restorative justice Circle I think the restorative justice practices are different in the sense that those are very much so preventative um those are ref um responsive classroom comes to mind in elementary you often see Circle time at the beginning of the Day Middle Schools I have also seen
125sort of class meetings where um a lot of discussion takes place around the learning community and learning space Norms that students often in secondary come up with on their own um or not on their own it's guided but they come up with those and then um work within those and same with the high school level but I I want to be very clear that if um for the restorative justice circle after a bullying event you do not have to a student would not have to sit across the table from their bully that's not required um to go to the bathrooms we've actually um I think really improved U the safety around our restrooms in a couple ways one uh you know this board preemptively came out um on their cell phone concerns um and one
126of the things is we've restricted cell phones more whether it's been within classes or at the middle level Bell to Bell there's less um communication between students to meet up right in the hall or in the restroom and so we've really seen um I think a much more uh focused learning space within classrooms and fewer students out in a hall or in a bathroom um sort of without other people knowing about it right the meetups aren't happening as often I would also O say that many of our schools have created portable uh desks for admin staff and security staff and Specialists um we have some of our security Specialists here this evening uh they're out in Halls a lot more during passing time and during class so I feel like we've turned a bit of
127a corner on that topic and um so I think we're going to continue to make progress in that area but that would be how I'd respond to those two concerns this evening and and do you I mean you engag a lot with students I mean do you do does your engagement indicate that students feel safe especially if they're victims of pass bullying that that the srnr provides sufficient remedies for principles teachers Etc to to protect those victims I think that bullying is a really difficult topic for young people and adults honestly um one of the um experiences perhaps I cherish more than others is years ago with our former governor and my prior State I was part of a six-person uh team that wrote Our bullying legislation for the state and we wrote that at
128the behest of our Pediatric Association in that state because bullying was a public health concern because so many children were visiting pediatricians with non-specific illnesses or concerns around not wanting to go to school and you know back in the early days the Coline School event very much so tied to um how children treat one another so I think that bullying something that we take seriously here I take seriously I'm committed to that um and I know our staff are committed to that and I think it's difficult to feel safe when you've been in that situation it's also um a behavior that we want to shift for people who are bullying because we know that's the one trait that carries into adulthood trans transfers in at a higher percentage than any other uh behavioral tradeit so
129we have to make sure we intervene on the bullying Behavior as well as making sure our students feel safe thank you thank you Mr dun Miss Dixit Dr Reed thank you for the presentation I'm fully supportive of roris of Justice practices um it definitely helps an elementary school level more uh in than the kids have already gone through their uh middle school and high school so the more emphasis to get them you know their mind is Young and fresh and they they positive behaviors are easily um under you know they can understand my like my only question or I should say just a comment is that with the high school level and you shared um and uh you also shared that the students don't participate that much H it's because I think there is a
130word justice across you know there starts to come into their mind like we're doing something wrong and we are now going through this you know justice so I would just say having a positive word with restorative empowerment or something which makes make them feel more welcome that they have now power in their hand and they are doing something about themselves and they're taking charge of their own actions and uh obviously going through the whole process but that word makes you feel you know you're in charge um so that's what I was going to say and I did hear U um lot of concerns about that discipline issues have happened more since pandemic and we all have agreed that happened but it's getting better um there it was obviously a case after pandemic kids were you
131know doing what doing and then now they're coming back to school and understanding how things work and they missed that soci social interaction uh I think that was the reason I think at that time but I I think things are getting better better um so I'm fully supportive and I would uh say that um if you could put more reinforcement in the early ages I think it's going to be have better results for the other other age groups thank you y yes ma'am thank you Mr Mr McDaniel um I know it may come as a shock to learn that I was picked on as a kid growing up but I was um so I I take the bullying issue very seriously um but a question there a word was mentioned intersectionality and I think a
132data request um for that December 3rd work session um can we get more can we get some data back on the intersectionality of of kids that go through this sort of Justice process versus those that choose not to in particular and I think I asked this back at a work session I don't know March April somewhere then um but in particular and I understand that there's some uh challenges with collecting this type of data uh but our lgbtq kids in particular that would be very helpful for that conversation on December 3rd if we have it yes sir thank you Mr McDaniel Miss St joh cunning um so first of all thank you for this presentation um I've had the privilege of being trained on this and seeing how powerful it can be uh I'm glad
133to see that it's being expanded I know that this presentation is only one of the components that are School supports to have safe support and included and empowered schools um so it's not going to address the plethora of issues um associated with this but the fact that we are investing in this and that we are not not only providing it but expanding it I think is really critical and particularly when we go to the equity piece because if the students choose to participate in this then that will reduce um the incidents where they will be receiving certain discipline uh consequences and I think it's teaching children uh or or our students to be accountable um I wish you could give a presentation to the school board so that we could see it in action because
134I think unless you see it in action um or unless we sit around and uh the way I've participated in it the way it's been presented we sit around and and do uh the whole process and once you see that you see the power of it and then once you engage with the students and and are part of it it it's very powerful and it it is a time commitment but it's a time commitment that's worth it because it does go to equity and teaching skills to our kid that will be to our students that will be lifelong skills thank you thank you Miss St John cunning all right we will move on the agenda sorry Mr chair oh I'm sorry Miss eore Heiser I missed you go ahead that's okay I put my hand
135up late so I my apologies for that I was um so I I appreciate this presentation and I appreciate the thought comments of my colleagues and I also think that I think it's may be important to to also make a point that restorative justice and discipline can go hand in hand it doesn't have to be one or the other but restorative justice is a really great way to help as many of my colleagues have mentioned teach our students how to work through conflict and how to own take responsibility for their actions and learn from their actions but it it doesn't mean that there can't be discipline and having discipline doesn't mean there can't be restorative justice so I wanted to make that point but the other uh question I had um for you Dr Reed
136perhaps and I can't see the auditorium anymore so I'm gonna assume you're still there but um is what work are the folks who are doing the restorative justice or what part of the restorative justice training has some um embed embedded into it cultural competency is well and an understanding of neurodiversity and the fact that um sometimes actions and words don't always um indicate intent so I just want to make sure that the folks who are doing these trainings or um developing the practices are working with our neurodiversity specialist on that piece yes ma'am I want to emphasize how correct that is right because we have a number of students who don't um maybe recognize the impact because of their maybe action or statement because that wasn't their intent um Miss Shen do you have uh
137just some comments on your planning with our neurodiverse uh neurodiversity Specialists or our staff working with our neurodiverse students please so thank you for that question excuse me um the certification program to receive um the FCPS certification to do restorative justice facilitations through the RJ pathway includes a baseline training for how to facilitate that victim offender model um restorative justice is in fact a victim centered process um but because that training is Baseline what is required in order to maintain the certification is that those facilitators continue professional Learning and Development in order to enhance their skills part of that enhancement um means understanding how to accommodate the restorative justice process for diverse needs participants and Learners and so what that means is that the certification requires them to receive training and how to accommodate a
138circle for students with special needs neurodiverse um Specialties um also on how to adapt circles um when participants um English is not their first language there's diverse ways that we are able to accommodate circles and we give that particular training to cert um to certified facilitators so it is something that we are aware of of and it is something that is a critical part of of their training and if I have the opportunity may I address some of the other kind of like comments and questions um that came previously so I think um there was a a question or a concern around um the impact to victims and participating in a restorative justice process and one of the things that's critical about restorative justice is that it is in fact a victim centered model and
139the process is fully geared towards their needs victims when they have been harmed have about three primary needs the first is they need to be heard the other is that they have the need to tell their story over and over again and one of the other needs is that they need to be able to ask questions why what were you thinking at the time that you did that why was it me why wasn't it someone else what have you thought about since then and so restorative justice that Circle when you have the opportunity your consent to sit there and to have that conversation with another person who you're engaged in conflict with or who has harmed you is a way for you to be able to have those needs met that often don't tend to
140happen in traditional disciplinary spaces and so restorative justice gives to victims the needs that sometimes they are not able to have in other potential situations which is why it's an extremely empowering experience and I fully agree and understand um with the idea of perhaps not calling it restorative justice that is in fact a a growing refrain within the field of restorative justice practitioners that sometimes just the idea of justice has different connotations considering our justice system or we think of terms like cheap Justice sometimes there's a connotation with that that isn't necessarily related to empowerment and so we actually um at Thomas Jefferson High School there is actually a peer group of students who are trained restorative justice facil fait ators and they do restorative justice intervention specifically related to plagiarism and they do not
141call themselves restorative justice practitioners they have um initially they were considered the honor Council but they went through kind of like some focus groups and have since changed their name because they understood that that term Justice somehow had different connotations and students were hesitant and reluctant to to participate and so I think that that is something that we certainly can look into and think about at the high school level even all the way down to our elementary school students how can we be able to support them in this process perhaps just through just by changing um that particular name um and then we certainly can try to um compile some data relevant like declination um in regards to students participating and Those whom are not and I love the idea of a presentation to the
142school board perhaps not a uh we could do a mock Circle something like that certainly could be possible I think that before you go I know Miss seore Heiser has one more question actually I might had a couple more questions but I appreciate that um Mr chair so thank you for that explanation and I'm glad to hear that in the additional training there's some um work on how to help facilitate neurod Divergent students and students whose English is and you know and maybe students from who grew up in a different culture right but I think I was trying to get a little bit more also at the understanding of the restorative justice practitioners as well as the school staff on how to interpret behavior and words from a different perspective than that what may be
143neurotypical because I think it would and I don't know if that's part of the training or not and maybe this is a conversation offline but I think the perspectives matter and how we even approach talking about the incident and working through the restorative justice process so I'm happy to talk more offline but I was just curious if that's part of that training it is part of that training but we're happy to continue that conversation and think about ways that we can make sure that we enhance that um that kind of just background and training and support for our school based and our central office facilitators yeah that would be great and I would highly recommend U maybe talking to Kristen ha our ner diversity specialist as you're doing that because she I think could be
144really beneficial in in seeing if there are and it doesn't I'm so glad you're considering that already but if there are any gaps I think should be great to identify those and help with those um and same on the cultural side I think it's it's it is really important because there are so many implicit Norms built into some of the way we reflect upon and think about um incidences I think that's a a really important piece as well so those are my main points I thank you very much for the time um that was sort of my last comment and I'd appreciate if you want to CH chat more offline I'd be happy to do that thank you thank you Mr seore Heiser thank you Dr Reid thank you Mr FIS I did I'd forgotten
145until Mission mentioned it that our honor Council students from Thomas Jefferson uh were a student group that came to meet with me and ask that we provide these practices at younger and younger ages because they found them so um important awesome thank you agenda item 8.02 academic matters I call on Dr Reid for academic matters well thank you chairman frish and members of the board board it's a great opportunity to talk for a few minutes this evening about our 2024 accreditation and sat outcomes so as we continue in our second year of our 2023 2030 strategic plan we continue to maintain our Focus I'm just right the same page with you um continue to maintain our focus on high expectations uh with high support so our instructional Services team and Miss betris Huffman is here
146this evening evening uh we have just a few slides uh we'll be going into much more detail uh when we hit goal three but this evening we just did want to provide a couple uh just uh short slides and really highlight some of the improvements in our accreditation indicators and one of the things that uh you can see the little stars under chronic absenteeism uh that's an incredible incredible data point um division-wide improvement from 100 8 Schools rated at performance level two or three to just eight um performing below that level in 2024 and that's serious work on the part of staff at 191 actually of our schools um serious work at all schools but the progress was um definitely more significant in 191 of them and then in support of goal three around academic
147growth and Excellence all of our high schools set a measurable objective around access to Advanced cours work um within their school Improvement plans and this concentrated Focus honestly is translated into a division-wide Improvement for the College and Career Readiness indicator which means that 19 schools were rated at performance level two or three in 2023 to down to only Five Below level one in 2024 so we were very excited to see that progress when we look at the school accreditation summary I want to mention that all Fairfax County Public Schools are accredited um this year we did have um 98.5% fully accredited with three schools that were accredited with conditions and those three schools uh continue to make progress and in fact when you look at Fairfax County um at 98.5% of our schools being fully
148accredited the Commonwealth had 86% of schools fully accredited um and the Commonwealth had 14% accredited with conditions where we had 1.5% so we continue to outperform the Commonwealth in our um accreditation so sat outcomes we consistently outperform Virginia and Global averages for our SAT total scores and we're excited about those when we look at our um mean scores uh this recently released data uh continues to show that we perform above the Commonwealth as well as Global standards and we're really actually excited about the opportunity to uh talk about our um growth and participation rate since 2021 so we're almost back to pre-pandemic level in participation rates of our sat with maintaining a high uh degree of performance you can see a gap building again between uh Fairfax County and the Commonwealth um because uh you
149know we continue to outperform the Commonwealth and uh Global scores even while we're adding more and more students who are taking the exam and I think that's illustrates the Excellence equity and opportunity that we think is so critical uh we did show um participation rates of 5% increase um in 2024 to 69% which matches our pre-pandemic high of 69.2% and this is dis despite the developing Nationwide Mo movement to deemphasize these exams um and we far outpace the Statewide participation rate which is only at 52.4% so that puts us um the state as a whole has not seen the same progress in returning to its 66% pre-pandemic rate so I'm really proud of our staff our students and our families as they um continue uh to you know stay in the game here in our
150SAT scores we also are working on some strategies um for our students uh and programs to put into place to support work along these lines so those are really the only slides I wanted to show this evening and really I hope you as a board are excited I think the leadership you're demonstrating has shown um some dramatic student achievement gains and we're headed in the the right direction I think the community when we present goal one uh we'll also see some uh very powerful improvement with our multilingual Learners so that is academic matters this evening thank you Dr Reid Mr Dunn uh I think FCPS has a lot to be proud of um to uh be where we are with accreditation um can you speak a little bit about how uh slide three and the
151accreditation would change um with the new accreditation standards that have been proposed by vdoe well I will uh one of the things remember that V talked about is separating accreditation and accountability so I'm going to turn to uh our expert in all things accreditation and accountability Miss betris Huffman so um betris do you want to take a run at that for me please yes Dr Reed you're absolutely right um under the new uh performance and support framework accreditation for schools will be based on the ways in which they are able to demonstrate that they're meeting the standards of quality which are those Baseline operational expectations around Staffing safety security curriculum and so on um so the expectation is that all schools in Virginia will be accredited based on that ability to demonstrate those operational expectations
152where the school performance and support framework will be coming in which we've um discussed at previous academic matters in previous Schoolboard work session and we'll be learning more as the state puts out additional details on that system we'll be seen that the performance of schools by level will be dis disaggregated in a different way just to show where their strengths and needs under the new framework the state has has modeled out and again in fairfox one of the things Dr Reed has really worked with you around are how we're um prioritizing in our system the Strategic plan goals and strategic plan measures in terms of where our priorities and our focuses so we'll be learning more about how we can align and support um kind of the the thinking and the communication messaging around those
153two systems so more to learn for certain and more that we'll be sharing as that comes out what are the three schools accredited with conditions so those for this year are Justice High School oh excuse me we can certainly review those I'm trying to have the schools have we met with the schools about that first uh yes okay several times all right so um the schools are Justice High School Whitman Middle School and Samberg Middle School okay and uh Whitman and Samberg are in my District so what is being done to uh support those schools to become fully accredited again so Dr Pon and his team are working with um those schools so Dr Pon would you like to share I know there are significant plans in place and actually Justice almost got they're very
154close they're almost out uh yes uh we have a with M name we had sber sber was a math um didn't make the the minimum standards they were very close we have been working with the project momentum and they are priority school which mean that they have been meeting monthly with the Department having CTS as well making sure that we review the data they uh do receive uh different uh support that means that we have expert we have a math specialist they go and we utilize what we uh call I do you do we do so they especially go and a model for them based on the data and the needs now for Whitman is the science part the same but in the science department and at the same time we are providing um support
155on the other areas as well yeah I believe Whitman was 26 students in science off from being accredited but had reached uh that level in all other content areas but it was science and I believe it was as I said fewer than 30 students I I I know that Whitman has an incredible leader with principal flowers and uh I know that um uh Samberg has a great leader and principal Underhill um do you know that the cause was it a narrow Miss as well for Sandberg Samberg it was in mathematics and um I know our staff in all three of those schools have been working extraordinarily hard I don't know how um many stud specific number but they were very very very close uh right now if we have to take back again that they
156will be meeting uh a standards and and these uh these standards are reassessed annually so it it might be the case with this extra support that they might be accredited by next year is that correct yes sir that's the expectation are there any other um schools that are on the B bubble of moving from accredited to accredited with condition we do have charts um back in the office which I can't quote this evening but I'm happy to sit down with you and review those okay thank you oh I'm sorry one one more um just it seems not just for this set of slides but for all sets of slides we always compare ourselves to Virginia um uh which which is fine that's a valid comparison but I'd love to see if we're comparing ourselves on
157salary and other metrics to the uh schools and the Wy guide in the DMV region it'd be great to be able to look at you know not accreditation necessarily but you know student achievement and other things compared to DMV uh area school divisions as well as kind of the the top 10 school districts across the country because you know being able to see where we are compared to our peers because we're the largest in Virginia so that's um you know I don't know if the rest of Virginia is always the best comparison so being able to look regionally and nationally at school systems of similar size uh would be I think very valuable regardless of what the subject is yes sir I think we can do that I think off the top of my head
158the only data point I can think of is like our National Merit semi-finalists because we were we were just in that conversation and I know one of our neighboring counties half our size had six National Merit semi-finalists and were twice the size um and had 191 so I think you know that that's one example of a comparison and I I think we certainly have others we could provide and I think that's helpful just to um be able to share with the public the daily Excellence that is FCPS that's really the brand and um and to be able to show that in figures um and and comparisons uh helps to educate the public about you know the Investments that they're making as homeowners as residents through property taxes and other means um really is is achieving
159maximum return on investment and and it's important that we show that to rebuild trust in public education yes sir thank you Mr dun Miss Lady thank you uh thank you for this presentation um kudos to um all the staffs at our schools in their tackling chronic absenteeism I certainly have Fe several of schools that were um I think uh exceeded expectations uh in addressing that in drainville and also throughout the county um and I also want to talk about uh the Open Enrollment we've had in fairfx County um is someone who's given presentations at national conferences whenever I share about Open Enrollment I am swarmed with questions um from people who attend sessions saying how did you get that and it's just the way we believe it's the way we think and that's going to
160always continue to elevate um and allow our kids to thrive uh I want to talk for a second about the um well the other thing I want to say too is in terms of the all the accreditation which is fantastic work um is kudos to you and your staff around the data dashboards um the expect that principles on a daily on a weekly basis are going to open up the exact same data we're looking at the same things and we're we're keeping the main things the main things um and the fact that our sip goals Elementary level are consistent across our schools until we get reach our numeracy and literacy goals and and I just I want to bring that up because someone who worked in the system as long as I did there was
161no consistency in what we were doing with C go school to school um and I think this is just an excellent way to approach it um and I give you great kudos for for narrowing that Focus for us and making it the real thing um but then I also want to talk about the SAT scores I think that uh you know we we've we've heard a lot um about decline um I think it's it's fantastic in terms of our participation and when you quoted the 69% pre-pandemic and we're back to 69% in 20124 you know give or take a few you know point something um that that's important um I also want to say that when we look at the national average and the state average and probably if we put ourselves up against our
162our waybe other jurisdictions near us we're probably exceeding what's taking place just as you made the note around the Six National Merit semi-finalist versus are close to 200 um that you know you know we moved also post pandemic to a school day test day for sat um and for people that aren't as understand that are not as familiar with that we are basically allowing all of our senior at no cost to take the SAT in the same day that the underclassman take the PSAT um I bring this up because you know I was still working the first year we did that and there were a lot of students who otherwise would have never taken that test and many of those students were underrepresented or economically disadvantaged and the reason they couldn't or wouldn't have taken
163the test is they couldn't get there on a Saturday and so I I just want to uplift the fact that we're doing that but also for some of those kids they're recognizing that when they get the score back that college could be part of their future um just by virtue of taking that test um the other thing I also want to comment on is uh we don't talk a lot about ACT Testing but you know I believe our composite average pre-pandemic um and I forget the number was exactly almost exactly the same as it was for 2023 so we really while there may have been a slight drop we really just we did maintain um pre- to post pandemic um and then another thing I want to say is um I I know with AI
164um it and this is the kind of my brain working I know when I was working at Chantell I often asked our math and English teachers could you please create some questions in the format that the that the the concepts are tested or written for an SAT math question or an SAT English question uh similarly with the ACT I do believe with AI we could do more of that you know we could have teachers say create three sat questions based on the concept that I'm teaching just for practice because that's not necessarily the way we test our kids but giving them exposure even through just even formative like hey right now you're going to take you're going to do four problems that the way that this concepts are tested on the SAT but I and
165I think that certainly in the past that would have taken a long time but I do think with AI that can probably generate pretty quickly so I just want to share that suggestion because a lot of our kids don't have access and can't afford any official test prep um so if we can embed it in instruction I think that would be great um but overall I just really appreciate the work um that your team is doing and the work we're doing at at the school level um and you know putting our kids first and and making sure we're focused on numeracy and literacy thank you yes ma'am thank you Miss Lady Dr Anderson thank you miss lady actually talked about a couple of the things that I had on my list but I do want
166to Echo um her suggest question of embedding the the test format and content into instruction because it provides them with a great opportunity for practice um I I do want to talk about The Chronic absenteeism because I know some of the strategies that were utilized Second Chance buses all of the people calling the homes the constant um the emails the text messages the phone calls why it's a lot it does keep it at the Forefront for parents so I do want to make sure that I offer my kudos for um all of that work because it takes a lot of um effort on the part of the schools I do want to talk a little bit about the um sat data you know our public who's going to look at this they're not going to
167see that we are outperforming the state what they're going to see is that we are declining in FCPS and I would love for there to be some additional context provided even if we were to just provide the end to show that we're testing more kids more than ever um I think that will be helpful um just so that people understand this so that it does not necessarily cause for alarm because people are not NE some individuals who see this chart are not necessarily going to see this as um as a positive so I would love your thoughts on that I'm happy to add the N uh to that and um yeah I'm happy to add the end to that and I'm also very interested in what Mr Dunn had shared regarding how do we compare
168with our local schools that's interesting information that if you were able to be able to procure that I think it might be very helpful here as well and my last comment I guess it would be for Dr Pon regarding Justice High School accreditation status I would love to hear some additional information in terms of the specific area and the efforts and resources to be put toward um changing that um position yes ma'am I know we were working on graduation in particular which dramatically improved approved actually but Dr Pon Justice high school please uh yes um let me just check that very specific number that I can I can tell you I have it handy I was looking that uh was a um a Dropout and that was the the number uh we uh improved it
169was by by six uh last year however this year we will have all the numbers uh so if you can remember uh it will take one year so this coming year you will see the word that we implemented this year because for graduation is one year behind so they will be full credited um can you said we improve by six what did we need to improve by to not have accreditation with conditions yes because remember with certain number of students you get levels so in this case and probably B can uh help me with a very specific percentage student that they have to the maximum Miss Huffman yes to uh to reach that level two for well um Justice high school did meet the uh level for dropout rate for this year so they actually
170did improve from level three last year which is higher than 9% dropout rate to a level one which Dr Pon said is less than 6% so they they made in the scheme of dropout rate a very significant Improvement all the way from the level three which is that red um designation to the level one green for dropout rate so only the science um for a very small number of students as Dr Reed mentioned before was what uh was the determination for the conditional accreditation this year um and and I'll just throw in that while there's a lot we don't know about the new accreditation system or or what its overall uh perspective will be for our school system and and how our individual schools are reported a potential positive in the system is that it's
171no longer uh one strike and you're out type of system um as the current one is so for each of our schools that is accredited with condition it was only one indicator area out of 13 that led to that conditional and so in the new system it's more of a holistic look which might give us a opportunity to really highlight the strengths and leverage those across the board as we're looking at um illustrating our school performance yeah I I do think the one issue because I know I talked with uh principal naris actually yesterday and she was very excited about the progress they'd made around the graduation and dropping about rates but you're right it was the science and it was really close it was like well I know in At Whitman we were less
172than 30 students right and the math at Samberg so one indicator out of 13 yeah it's it was tough sure sure um and I know that science has been in Achilles heel this year for many of our schools that's an area of focus um particularly in schools in the Mason District um I'm excited to hear that you are seeing a little bit of a positive with the potential um new well not potential with the new accreditation system to come um because I think my worry and concern has been by the modeling that has been provided with that system 60% of our of schools in the Commonwealth will not be successful that's correct and so that does not while it may be more holistic it gives me nothing but heartburn um because we cannot have 60%
173of the schools in Virginia be identified as failing yes ma'am thank you thank you Dr Anderson misstic it Dr Reed thanks for the presentation uh my comment was about SAT scores first and uh the one of the things U I've seen that with my own students my own kids that they could take an SAT exam in eth grade and that would not reflect on their transcript like it doesn't get reported to college board so so like more a lot of students who are already uh taking Algebra 1 in 8th grade or 7eventh grade uh if there is a way they can start doing some of those math practices for sat in e8th grade when they go to PSS they will definitely have a better stronger way to skill sets I should say and same thing
174with Rec comprehension reading it's I think it should be started in 8 grade to really see that number uptick uh which we are looking for um and I think our students are really capable of doing that yes ma'am and the other point I was saying and it's and then kudos to the team for the absentismo looking at the math and just the math path uh math Gap has increased a bit and uh again the focus on algebra and other things we are implementing now with the Strategic uh plan it should help but I just wanted to know how we can just get to the we see that remarkable change in math numbers well we are we did reactivate the math um Resource Group to look at math curriculum we move that up a year recognizing
175that this is a situation we can't wait two years to address so I very proud of our instructional Services team uh they've taken on both social studies and math review this year uh so that we can move with uh possibly new curriculum materials for secondary math uh which in middle and high school next year and then two years from now looking at materials for elementary school so we've got a fairly aggressive uh plan to address mathematics yes ma'am thank you Miss Dixit Mr Moon uh thank you Mr thank you Mr chairman so up labor on Sat School since several colleagues of mine mentioned that I'm going to add just a few more comments to that uh uh by the way way guy does contain SAT scores they have a scor also participation rate by seniors
176so you can go I think the last one was back in November 2023 and that has 23 scores and participation rate uh you know in olden days I talk about olden days all the time don't I in Old Days our competitor competitor used to be M County we used to compare ourselves with a M County on academic achievements uh you know a few days ago when I read about abuse release from one of our neighboring school districts in Dam Virginia not the Mong County that their graduation rate was a second in the Commonwealth next to City of First Church public schools that really C my attention because they passed us they passed us so uh I do really want to see when we present some of these very you know notable notable data on student
177achievements whether we can have a comparable data to that particular School District west of us uh want to see shd sco graduation and student achievement and that's so request as you'll be presenting some goals report uh call three or call one is already done at the work session but go three hopefully you can include that information yes sir thank you thank you Mr Moon Miss s John cunning so what I would like to lift up first of all thank you for this presentation and the reduction in chronic AB ISM that was a huge lift um and I know everybody in our schools was working on that and I just really want to lift up our family liaison who I know did a lot of that heavy lifting making the phone calls explaining the importance to
178parents in their native language um and sometimes even helping pick up the kids and bring them to school so um when we look at the data as a collective board sometimes we forget the people that are down there doing the work and so I want to particularly thank family leaon for their work thank you and I I know I heard from several families actually also um from some of our high schools who made tremendous progress uh who are no longer part of um project momentum based on how hard they've been working Rec thank you thank you Miss St John cunning uh thank you Dr Reed I will now speak very slowly as I announce the next portion of the agenda which is 8.03 superintendent matters and I will call on Dr Reed for superintendent matters
179thank you Mr fris and I am really excited this uh since our last meeting we've had a lot a lot of fun together out in the schools I want to First add my great appreciation to our uh principls our School administrators and school support staff uh this month uh the work that happens in our schools is the work of our School Division so a big shout out a big thank you um very grateful to our principals administrators and admin assistants so uh last evening we also celebrated Excellence with our excellence awards big shout out to our human resources department and their organization and presentation last evening uh it was really an inspiring evening uh listening to the achievements of our staff this morning along with Miss Hall I was able to attend the Fairfax County
180digital Equity Summit and the northern Virginia Tech Council and that was an opportunity to meet with some of our um Community Partners and elected officials and reinforce the need for digital equity and learned about some new grants that we'll be writing um and really excited about that Mr sethy and Miss Hall will be working on some of that Grant work I'll o with several board members attended the climate crisis Forum uh this week and listened to some of our students and really talked about our get to Green goals as well as attending our Fairfax Council PTA um meeting with several board members and just so proud to have Community Partners like our PTA they've just been so supportive also had a chance to get out and visit some schools Cunningham Park Cedar Lane Crossfield Fairfax
181High schol school um and in fact this week Fairfax High School held their second annual multilingual career fair uh Dr Pon and I had an opportunity along with Mr plattenburg to address that group and just very very positive and then finally um I did attend the first robotics competition at Hayfield and I have to share with the public it was the greatest line I've heard all year they were talking about how excited everyone is about some of our new sports right our boys volleyball and girls wrestling and they said you know what Dr Reed we are all 100% going pro because in robotics they're all going to get great robotics jobs so they were very proud of themselves so um we do have upcoming Community conversations so look for those on our website and we
182are constituting our boundary uh review advisory committee we've uh very excited about those topics so thank you Mr fr thank you Dr Reid agenda item uh nine consent agenda our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure Roberts rules provide for a consent agenda listing several items for approval by the board by a single motion many items listed have gone through Board review and documentation has been provided to all board members in the public in advance items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member prior to a meeting the consent agenda is now on the screen is there any objection to approving the consent agenda hearing and seeing none the consent agenda is approved agenda item 10 new business the following are new business agenda items there will not be a vote
183on these items this evening but action is scheduled at a future meeting agenda item 11 board committee reports governance committee chair miss lady do you have a report yes I do thank you Mr frish um we've had three governance meetings to date and we will have our next meeting Tuesday October 15 uh our discussions have been focused on revising policy 2418 reporting student progress to parents and Guardians committee discussed the six focal points from the grading committee work and whether these Concepts should be included in a rise policy 2418 the committee also discussed dra uh draft policy 2418 created with committee members input from the current policy while incorporating the grading committee work pillars section by section at our next meeting we will continue the committee's discussion on the draft created at the 10 uh
184the October 1st 24 governance meeting with the Incorporated areas of committee consens um so I will say we have had robust conversations um it has been great work uh and I think that uh you know our focus is to make sure that uh what needs to be in in a policy is in a policy and the things that need to be in in the operational side the regulation side is actually in that side so I really appreciate my colleagues that are on the committee uh and also staff who are in attendance to help uh answer questions and support the work we're doing thank you thank you Miss Lady public engagement committee chair Miss St John cunning do you have a report yes thank you at our last meeting we had a discussion on the overview
185of the makeup of our advisory committees and where they should be housed we are going to continue to delve into um those options uh we're also continuing the work that we started at the beginning of the year to develop toolkits and orientation for our advisory committee so there will be consistency and new committee members uh can understand what their roles are and we will continue to look into the forum topic to add another student representative to serve on the board and get some student feedback on what that should look like thank you Miss s Jen cunning uh our state and federal legislative Liaisons Miss Marin or Dr Anderson would you like to update us on the breakfast earlier this week sure we were way ahead of schedule but that seems to be the new normal
186I think for our legislative briefing where the school board hosts the delegation of state and federal elected leaders who represent us in their bodies so for the state general assembly it was the house of delegate members and State Senate and then we had congressional representation so we really focused on two main topics one of them was the get the money work through uh the jarch reports findings and there is a lot of energy around that and also reality that it will take some time but uh we have some really great leadership from our delegation we have members on the subcommittee of um jayar excuse me the chairman of the jayar um subcommittee as well as members on the jlr committee that's specifically on focusing on the funding report so you know we just have to
187keep at it and this was great timing uh because the uh electeds in state will have some time before they submit bills so uh it was really positive and thank you to um I want to thank our school board Staff office our clerks and our staff AIDS and executive assistants it was really a nice team effort um and of course our government relations office with Michael Malloy and um coming up is November take our legislator to school month I know several colleagues are making plans to bring some of those elected officials in to see what they are working for to fund and support and um to the public and everyone be sure to vote early roting is open and in Virginia we vote every year and every year public education is on the ballot because
188the candidates we elect directly impact our Public Schools funding and policies thank you Miss Marin agenda item 12 board matters the next agenda item is board matters I will call on each School Board member to offer an update Miss seis Mar Heiser thank you and I will be brief I'm very excited as a school year has continued strong um I wanted to First say it feels like it's just started but the fall theater art season is well underway and so I want to be the first to start urging everyone to support your amazing High School theater Productions um if you haven't had a chance people in the community to see some of our local theater our high schools it really these are amazingly professional Productions and our our students are incredibly talented so having said
189that there's already scheduled at bradic district schools in October and November Lake bradic Secondary School will present Alice in Wonderland October 17th 18th and 19th and I think there's even a special tea with Alice for one of their performances at 10: a.m. on Saturday so come have some tea Woodson High School drama will present leer on November 8th 9th 15th and 16th and Robinson Secondary Schools Rous theater presents midso night streams opening November 15th those are the three schools located in the bradic district but there's lots of shows going on by um many great perform um theater programs all across the county so so check it out um I'd like to give a shout out to some staff members for those in the community who may not be aware we have a program called FCPS
190cares where you can go online and submit something positive that you've seen staff member teacher one of the custodial staff administrator really anybody who works with your students if you see something that they're doing that you really appreciate um please go to FCPS cares and and nominate them I know our our hardworking staff really appreciate that so having said that I want to give a a shout out to a couple that I've seen come through lately for a bradic district school and that's first the custodial team at lake bradic has received an scps cares for keeping the school really really clean and if those you know Le bradic that is over 40 300 students that's quite the job and then John charot the theater teacher at Lake bradic also received an scps cares and having
191seen um his production he stepped new into Lake bradock Theater and won a Cappies for best play so that is not an easy feat to do and then Paul Arena the intellectual disabilities teacher at Robinson I just want to share one particular comment about Mr Arena Robinson which was that Mr arena is Robinson he pours all his energy into this school through teaching coaching Special Olympics and being in the community always has a smile on his face so if you want to be inspired if you're teacher or other staff member has done something special for your student or FCPS please let people know through FCPS cares having said that have a great night everybody thank you Miss seore Heiser up next we have Dr Anderson thank you I want to start off with the kudos
192to this staff because I've had the opportunity to probably visit over half of the schools in Mason district and a question that I always ask every year when I visit to the um the principles are regarding their vacancies um because it's been staggering in the last few years um this year however has been very different so the efforts of HR the recruitment I also noticed uh let me just keep going on that thought the recruitment efforts are working I have many principles who are reporting zero vacancies or maybe one because somebody who they had hired you know they're now their spouse is deployed and they need to move or they need to it's just things that were not able to be anticipated which is a very very distinct difference from years past because parents have
193been very concerned about not having a licensed teacher in front of um their students and this year has not been the case so I really really want to say thank you and I want to ensure that we continue those efforts I see Mr Solomon I saw in the board's letter just recently about all of the recruitment efforts that will be taking place in the next few weeks from buoy State Etc we cannot do that enough so again thank you because that's been really huge for our community um I do want to say congratulations to anadell high school for being named a Special Olympics National unified Champion school I know Mr Moon who is not sitting there attended with me last year their unified event which is f fantastic I really hope um all of you
194can join when it comes again this year um it really shows how inclusive our schools can be when we are being intentional about participation um I also had let me see I'm trying to keep going here um I also cannot miss and this is kind of my little Spiel every year because these are my people the national principal month I really want to take a minute to just thank you for all of the work that you do it is incredible the amount of energy and effort you pour into your school communities um thank you and I'm just so very grateful the Mason District has terrific terrific terrific um administrators who are working so very hard on behalf of our students and so I want to take a moment to say happy Nationals princip principles month
195to you and of course all of the other principles throughout Fairfax County um we have exciting news when it comes to to music in the Mason District we have two schools who will have the opportunity to perform at the Virginia music educators Association conference in norfol Virginia next month the Glasgow Middle School win win Ensemble and the faler high school chamber orchestra will be performing so yay to both of these schools um I had a wonderful opportunity to present on Tuesday I believe to Girl Scout Troop 5510 five they were so interested about the work of the school board and they were really interested in who is the boss of the school board and I was very excited to point to their parents who were in the back to say that they are the ones
196who are the boss of the school board it was a wonderful group and please invite me again I had the best time um last thing that I want to share U that I didn't get a CH a chance the shair last time was the wonderful visit that we had to the White House and there were many school board members that were there for us to hear Joe Biden um speak and to welcome teachers and there were teachers who were um National teachers of the year it was a wonderful event we had students from Holmes Middle School and students from drainville elementary thank you drainville Elementary who were um participating along with Miss Lady Miss St John cunning Mr mckin Miss Marin and myself I think that was everybody it was just a fantastic event and
197I'm glad to be able to have participated and lastly I do want to say again another shout out to the renaming of the Bailey's Community Center to now be called the mini H patent Community Center at Bailey which was a fantastic opportunity to learn so much about this African-American community of Springdale and her contributions I am really hoping that our Justice pyramid will really take advantage of the information and of the um expertise of the civic association to really learn more about that Community thank you thank you Dr Anderson Mr mine thank you Mr chair since my body clock is still is on 4:30 a.m. right now I am um G to be very brief uh but uh this past Friday we had the um exciting opportunity to um launch our second year of the
19817 rooms program um in collaboration with the gcp uh so very excited to see um what our 150 plus um High School seniors are going to do uh to bring the 17 sustainable development goals to our community uh this year and how they can make uh our little place in the world a better place to live thank you thank you Miss Dixit I'll try to be brief congratulations to all 191 students have been named semi-finalist by the National Merit scholar scholarships cooporation for 2025 there were many Su District student among them there were also many Su District student among the 69 FCPS student that earned the advanced placement Capstone diploma and the 19 student that earned the AP seminar and research certificate during the 23 24 school year congrats to them for all all their
199well earned achievement big congrats to TJ high school student pratia kaar class of 2021 who a s District constituent for being named one of the Glamorous Magazine's college women of the year she's currently a senior at nor Eastern Boston and the magazine called her the future of stem with the side of Soul she wants to make stem more accessible for the Next Generation very proud of uh we very proud of our FCPS students working towards the ethical resp responsible use of AI and Technology indigenous people's Day celebrated on October 14 and I wanted to highlight the Fest County Park Authority indigenous people's Play Day habitat restoration event that students can participate on October 14 in Octon where they can learn about Native and invasive plant and assist with the removal of invasive species details can
200be found in my newsletter and the fcpa website thank you and good night thank you Miss Dixit Miss Marin yes I wanted to speak just for a moment about the um the ending of the human resources advisory committee the HC one of the board's um advisory committees this was actually one I know very well because I served on it in 2018 and 19 before I was elected and I just want to say I appreciate the work of the committee and it's a difficult transition and I certainly would like to see those who have been generous and thoughtful enough to be volunte continue to find ways to engage with FCPS as we move forward in this new um era of collective bargaining to find other ways to volunteer with us I do want to mention um
201I I appreciate the points my colleagues made about the benefits of having the SAT and PSAT day that was yesterday but it was also a day when 15,000 nth graders were not in school and I'm not okay with that so um I know the superintendent is thinking about options for the future so that our students don't miss a day of learning while other students complete a very important um day in milestone in their education career I was really pleased um to be reminded of indigenous people's day and I remember that I actually helped to make that happen back in 2020 due to some really incredible advocates in the community who showed us that we needed to have that um honored and so relatedly the social studies uh committee I'm really pleased that we were able
202to confirm some people on that committee to review potential social studies materials and um so not only do we need to make sure that we have expansive history included but also as we heard tonight from the history of our queer um community members and history and I'll also say for Holocaust Education to expand that and on that note I just want to share that this Saturday is Yom kipor it is the most important holiday of the Jewish year it's not Hanukkah it is Yom kapor um it's the end of a week of introspection begun at the rashash Shana holiday about how an individual would like to lead their life for better in the coming year including repairing the inequity and problems of the world so it begins at Sunset and ends at the next Sunset
203and it's traditional for no food or water to be taken so and it's also a time to remember loved ones and those who have died in the past year so yapur can be an emotionally and physically demanding observance and if you'd like to acknowledge this holiday to someone observing it you could say I wish you a meaningful yum kipor thank you thank you Miss Marin Miss St John cunning thank you I'm going to try to read this fast because it's a lot this morning I had an incredible start of my day at Groveton Elementary for their Hispanic Heritage Month celebration and you got to see some of that tonight when they sang Dees for all of you uh I attended the fifth annual lmbc Sports Club coach versus coach soccer game at Edison where the
204Edison Color Guard conducted the flag ceremony and a Claremont sixth grader Fiona Mo sang the national anthem hundreds of players most FCPS families showed up to support the club last night I attended the FCPS excellent award ceremony I'd like to highlight those winners who serve Franconia students for collaboration and partnership Kimberly Harrison from Lewis High School and the West patomic super snacks team Annie corbelli Mike Henrik and Iris Jane stuffi for Innovation and Improvement Eric Underhill principal of sanberg middle school for student achievement and success Sarah Clen from Lewis High School for equity and cultural responsiveness West PTO La Liga Nathan Bush Mike Henrik and Katherine Lodge for student achievement and success key crisis team Jessica Bamford Sean Ganley Shannon hacker Gregory hobek Caitlyn Meyers Ashley onu Mike re Natalie Schroeder Marielle santuk and Diana
205Young I'm also thrilled to congratul the congratulate the recognition received by Lewis High School and West pomac High School from the Virginia Board of Education both schools ear earn two prestigious Awards the a continuous Improvement Exemplar award and the continuous Improvement graduation in completion index and dropout rate Exemplar award shout out to Edison Eagles the marching band scored a first place in division one with a recognition for musical visual General effect percussion and color guard and to Owen love who advanced to the State Golf Tournament shooting a 73 at Twin Lakes finally thank you and farewell to Alicia MCM Mayan a beloved string teacher who inspired generations of students for 30 years she served as an orchestra director at the high school middle school and Elementary levels including Cameron Claremont Bush Hill and Rose Hill
206FCPS students have greatly benefited from her Talent as an alumni of the Peabody Institute and the juliard school she will be recognized at the Edison pyramid Orchestra con uh concert on October 23rd um I hope all of you guys have a good evening um and thank you I hope I read that within my two minutes thank you m St joh lady thank you and yes a happy National School principal appre appreciation month to all um I want to wish all FCPS principles assistant principles directors of student services directors of Student Activities and their school support staff especially those in drainville Harville thank you your leadership guidance early and late hours and willingness to be there for your school Community is appreciated by me our students families staff and Community I can't say enough for all
207the small and big things you and your staff do on a daily basis and and I hope that you will be able to join me Monday the 21st uh to celebrate you and this month um I'm looking forward to several School visits tomorrow in the coming weeks each School visit brings the hard work of our staff and students to life and reinforces the wise of my work as a Schoolboard member want to offer congratulations to Spring Hill Elementary School for being named a 2024 National Blue Ribbon School they were recognized for their overall reading and Mathematics performance and their performance rate for multilangual Learners students with disabilities and white black Hispanic and Asian students congratulations to principal Briggs and the Spring Hill staff students and families thank you to staff parents and caregivers and students
208for being an integral part of the principal searches at both Forestville Elementary School uh which is actually complete and Langley High School which is in process I want to thank principal Washington at Forestville and principal Greer at Langley for their dedication and commitment to Excellence throughout their tenure as principles I wish them well in their new positions I also look forward to welcoming and working with the new principles once they are in place I wanted to share the efforts of Marshall senior Samad karashi and other students in the center of for voters initiative and action they Lobby Congress to pass the high school voter empowerment act which directs states to to designate public high schools as voter registration agencies and requires public high schools to conduct annual voter registration drives to register eligible students expanding
209access for young people to get involved in the election and voting process he was awarded the why vote scholarship by The National Society of High School Scholars recognizing students who spread awareness and education of the importance of voting in their communities thank you to the League of Women Voters your yearly efforts of in school voter registration for our students are appreciated remember 16 and 17year old students are allowed to pre-register and their registration automatically becomes active as soon as they qualify and age to vote the majority of our fairx County Public School alumni from classes of 2020 202 2022 and 2023 haven't yet had the opportunity to vote for a president in Virginia the last date to register and ask for an absentee ballot is October 15 2024 please get registered and exercise your voting
210rights and finally I wish everyone celebrating a meaningful Yan Kor thank you Miss Lady Mr McDaniel last week I toured uh Whitman Middle in the bore primary and Elementary School and I wanted to uh duve tail off of what Mr Dunn said the principal at Whitman in particular is very impressive um there a lot of good work there also a quick shout out to Orange Hunt Elementary on their 50th Anniversary they had a celebration last week that I unfortunately could not attend but congratulations to them and lastly earlier tonight my wife sent me a picture of my daughter watching the Schoolboard meeting so people do watch this and Alice if you're still up go to bed I'll be home soon good night Miss Anderson it's been an extremely busy start to the school year and
211I didn't speak at the last board matter so I'm going to go ahead and share a little bit about what I've been doing around the community um I have been to both community and employee conversations I kicked off the year with a a School parent leader um kickoff event with Mr McDaniel which was an awesome way to kind of see what all the kid what all the parents are out there working on with the kids for the for our um PTO PTA PTSA ptso event groups um I was also able to participate in chanelli high school's homecoming parade with my colleagues um both Miss Dixit Mr mine and Mr Moon which was really fun we got to throw candy at the kids which my son also enjoyed thoroughly um I was inspired by our community
212at the educate Fairfax Alumni Hall of Fame and Faith Alliance for climate Solutions um climate crisis Forum this week or in the last couple weeks and I particularly enjoyed Chantelly High School sophomore um ARA Lee's speech about clim the climate at the climate Forum it was all the kids were just amazing um but it but her speech was was completely and totally on point so it was very impressive um I also attended the FC pta's first general me membership meeting and it was an opport a great opportunity to connect with all of our school partners and hear a little bit more about what they're hearing in their communities and what their challenges and successes are those folks always have a special place in my heart um I will o I was also able to attend
213last night's um FCPS 2024 Excellence award which was a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the efforts and achievements of our staff who produce excellent results on a day-to-day basis I would also love to congratulate Springfield District students at Centerville chanelli Fairfax Oakton and South County high schools and Lake brck second AR school who received the 2324 AP Capstone dis diplomas and AP seminar and research certificates um cheers to Shan Tilly's High School's the purple tide news magazine for receiving an All-American Award with marks of Distinction in coverage content text and presentation which we all know is important to me um from the national SC Scholastic press Association and congratulations to Fairfax High School's Peter Choy for winning the 20 20 24 election sticker contest with the city of Fairfax electoral board his winning design will be
214featured on Election stickers for the 2420 or the 24 uh 2024 election and finally I'm looking forward to attending this The Carter G Woodson's rededication ceremony on October 23rd and continuing my board work on behalf of our students families and staff I hope everyone continues to enjoy the fall weather in Northern Virginia however I hope that we are all keeping our fellow Americans impacted by the severe weather recently in mind the the pictures coming out are just horrific so I hope everybody's okay good timing thank you Miss Anderson uh I'll take my turn um first I want to uh say happy lgbtqia uh plus History Month to everybody and kudos to my colleagues Kyle McDaniel the first out bman elected in Fairfax County and Robin lady the first out lesbian elected in Fairfax County as
215well uh for their role in our local lgbtq history um a couple days after our last board meeting I had the honor of speaking at the University of Virginia's queer Alumni network 25th anniversary gala in Charlottesville about lgbtq life for uh K12 students in the Commonwealth I even had an opportunity to meet a few FCPS alumni from Oakton and South Lakes High School uh who attended the gala and are thriving as who uh as I said during the event While most incoming first year students arriving on grounds at UF UVA uh from Virginia Public Schools come from school divisions that support and uplift our their lgbtq plus students a few hundred attend UVA having never attended an educational institution that supports them for who they are and celebrates them and so I am on this
216day when we're celebrating lgbtq uh history month so grateful to be part of of a board and part of a School Division where our commitment is not in doubt and where we are on the right side of history and that we are always pushing ourselves to do better and do more so thank you all for being a part of that um I've had a fairly busy two weeks uh I had an opportunity to attend the Virginia's organized for Interfaith Community engagement uh gathering with Dr Reed and chairman McKay where we talked about the supports that FCPS is offering our students from mental health supports and how we're addressing the dangers of fentanyl uh last week I had a chance to visit Mana Elementary School's uh prek uh program with uh supervisor palchik it was a
217lot of fun to spend time with uh our youngest Learners and one of them asked where my hair was going uh and I said it was on vacation so um hopefully it comes back soon um uh also uh this past weekend we had Providence day and back to school celebration um uh supervisor palri and I co-hosted it at Marshall High School we had scores of people from the community there food trucks fire engines for kids to check out the electric School Bus which is really the hottest draw in town I must say uh Dr Reid was there many uh Community leaders and local businesses were there as well it was a great opport uh great uh event uh we had magicians and the JV uh cheer team from Marshall was awesome in you know welcoming
218everybody as they came in um same weekend I uh attended with Mr Moon um the dunloring Improvement association's annual picnic where I was grateful to be able to announce that we are moving forward with discussions for a stenwood uh school zone uh which has been on the community's mind for many many years um and then uh it might have been yesterday it's a little bit of a uh I W attended with Miss Anderson the Faith Alliance for climate Solutions Forum this was Tuesday um where we got to meet some great students who are active in the climate fight um and hear from them about what they're doing in their own schools we heard from local superintendents including Dr Reid about what they're doing um and it was a great opportunity to reconnect with former Schoolboard
219chair Elaine Tolen uh who moderated the discussions um I want to give special kudos to our legislative liaison for an excellent legislative breakfast um many of our delegates and Senators there and um by all accounts very impressed with what we had to say um also very much appreciated being at the excellence awards last night um and this morning I got up I drove to Richmond I attended an event about electric school buses it was called a teachin uh and I learned a lot um and I I also was able to brag about how well we're doing in Fairfax County so I was grateful that for that opportunity and I drove back and here I am and so um I am now the only thing standing between us in the end of this meeting and so
220at 10:48 we are adjourned for