001this February 8th 2024 regular meeting of the Fairfax County School Board will now come to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance followed by a moment of silence and a performance of the national anthem by the Rachel Carson Bella voce under the direction of uh Kristen reik and a performance of Lift Every Voice and seeing by the Mount Vernon voices under the direction of Chelsea Huber I pledge of aliance to flag United States stand na indivisible andice [Music] and bright through [Music] the [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] flag [Music] of [Music] thee and the [Music] the than for [Music] every voice and sing till Earth and Heaven ring ring with the harmonies of Liberty let our rejoicing rise high as the Ling Skies let it down loud as the rolling SE sing a song
002full of the fath that the dark has taught us sing a song full of the hope that the Pres has brought us tasting the Rising Sun of a new day be let it March on Victory [Music] is Stony the road we TR bitter the chasing Rod felt in the days when hope unborn had died yet with the steady be we not are we reat come to the place for which Our Father side we have come over a way that with tears has been water we have come treading our path through the blood of [Music] the out from the gloomy past till now we stand at last where the white GLE of our bright star is cast God of our years God of our tears thou who has brought us th for on the way thou
003who H has by thy might let us into the light keep us forever in the path we [Music] pray our feet stay from the places Our God where we BL our hearts drunk with the wine of the world we [Music] forget [Music] shed beneath our heart may we forever stand true to our god true to our native land [Applause] can we hear it one more time for our amazing student performers all right agenda item 2.02 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 since the Fairfax County Board convened a closed meeting on February 8th 2024 to the best of each board member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully Exempted from open meeting requirements and only
004such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the board during the Clos meeting do I have a motion Mr Moon and a second Miss Dixit all those in favor Miss seis marah Heiser Mr McDaniel Mr movine miss lady Miss St John cunning Miss Marin Mr Dunn Dr Anderson Miss Anderson Miss Dixit Mr Moon that's unanimous all right agenda item and myself that's unanimous all right agenda item 2.03 confirmation of action taken and closed I call on Dr Anderson for a motion I move to Grant and part the school reassignment appeal of a student who injured a staff member at school and to modify the disciplinary decision of the division superintendent as per the terms discussed in the closed meeting is there a second
005second Miss eisor Heiser all those in favor please raise your hand Miss seore Heiser Mr McDaniel Mr mline miss lady Mr dun Dr Anderson Miss Anderson Miss Dixit Mr Moon and myself all those opposed Miss St John cunning and Miss Marin any extensions the motion passes I call on Dr Anderson for a motion I move to deny as moot the school reassignment appeal of a student who threatened and intimidated students and staff at school and failed to follow the directions of school staff and to confirm the disciplinary decision of the division superintendent is there a second Miss Marin all those in favor please raise your hand Miss seis Mor Heiser Mr McDaniel Mr mine miss lady Miss St John cunning Miss Marin Mr Dunn Dr Anderson Miss Anderson Miss Dixit Mr Moon and myself that's
006unanimous I call on Miss Anderson for a motion I move to deny the school reassignment appeal of a student who threatened and intimidated staff members and injured a staff member at school and to confirm the disciplinary decision of the division superintendent is is there a second second miss lady all those in favor please raise your hand Miss seore Heiser Mr McDaniel Mr mline miss lady Miss St John cunning Miss Maron Mr Dunn Dr Anderson Miss Anderson Miss Dixit Mr Moon and myself that is unanimous agenda item 2.04 announcements if you would like to review a copy of the agenda and any agenda item that is being discussed tonight that information may be found at the back of the auditorium or on the website at fcps.edu Schoolboard /bo dos tonight's meeting is being broadcast on channel
00799 and live streamed on the website at fcps.edu tv/ ch99 Agenda item 20.05 Black History Month Proclamation I call on Dr Anderson for a proclamation whereas the month of February is the the time that we as a nation recognize Black History Month Black History Month has been recognized annually by every US president since 1976 and whereas negro history week was created by Dr Carter G Woodson and a 1926 a renowned scholar and journalist whom the school board renamed Woodson High School after an honor of his contributions and historic achievements and whereas the Black History Month 2024 theme African-Americans and the Arts celebrates the contributions and achievement of African-American art and explores how it is infused in African Caribbean and black American lived experiences in the fields of Visual and Performing Arts literature fashion folklore language
008film music architecture C culinary and other forms of cultural expression the African-American influence has been Paramount and whereas the first Africans the first Africans arrived on the shores of Virginia 400 years ago bringing skills knowledge and traditions that have created lasting culture impacting our communities today and whereas black Americans have resisted historic and ongoing oppression in all forms since the nation's earliest days and have contributed to the founding and development of this nation and Rec recogniz the importance of teaching this Rich impactful history to all students to create an inclusive and Equitable County for all country for all and whereas by resisting black people have achieved triumphs successes and progress as seen in the end of Catt slavery dismantling of Jim Crow segregation in the South increased political representation at all levels of government desegregation
009of educational institutions in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of africanamerican History and culture and increase the diverse representation of black experiences and media and whereas those of African descent have lived in and contributed to the development and advancement of Fairfax County since its Inception as evidence by the many contributions of private citizens businesses and black organizations as well as the establishment of various communities and organizations that have enhanced the rich and vibrant culture of Fairfax County including including the tener Hill Heritage Foundation which was established to preserve the rich cultural heritage of pioneering African-Americans who fought racial segregation and established the nation's first rural branch of the NAACP in Northern Virginia where Africans be bought land and worked to build a positive Community
010environment for all its citizens and the Gum Springs Community established in 1833 by West Ford a former slave who obtained land to provide a sanctuary for free and self- emancipated Africans who built their school homes and their church now therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board thereby proclaims February as Black History Month and officially recognizes Black History Month and appreciation for the contributions of great Americans who have worked tirelessly and often without recognition for the advancement of Fairfax County Virginia and the United States we encourage the celebration of the collective Ingenuity creativity cultures and traditions of black Americans and encourage participation in educational events honoring the contributions of black Americans is there a second second Miss seore Heiser Dr Anderson would you like to speak to your Proclamation I will that was
011a lot but I do want to share a few things um I've had the pleasure of speaking to this Proclamation this is now for the fifth time I remember very clearly the first time I spoke to it I sat where Mr McDaniel is sitting and at that time I highlighted the contributions of Caribbean particularly those of Haitian descent I talked about their contributions to the culture and the fabric of this nation last year fast forwarding a few I talked about the importance of teaching accurate history to not to not whitewash ugly but factual events in this nation's history I raise examples of activism as reflected in the black lives matter movement the 1619 project seeking to illuminate the root causes that perpetuate inequity Injustice and discrimination this year I want to lean into the theme
012of this of this year's recognition which is African-American in the Arts starting with music R&B rock and roll swing jazz blues were all created by black musicians techno house Funk country and disco were both direct and indirect relatives of songs that slaves brought with them over to America their work songs dance tunes and religious music would become the common language of American music eventually influencing Americans of all racial and ethnic backgrounds from rappers like the shle Hill Gang who laid the foundation for rappers like Eminem and so many others in the genre from Charles buddy Balden considered to be the first person to play what would be known as Jazz who set the groundwork for so many artists that there are too many to name black music has and continues to give our favorite songs
013a depth that can only be dug in by years of seeking Solace and solidarity and Rhymes lyrics beats and rhythms the music of today simply would not be the same without them in art Norman Lewis was truly a great American Artist and the only black abstract exposition expressionist of the first generation Horus Pippen celebrated self-taught American painter whom despite partial paralysis in his right arm from a bullet from a bullet wound in um World War I started painting in order to train his injured arm quickly gained recognition for his distinctive style depicting anti-war scenes Faith Ringold a name that many of you may have heard before is undoubtedly one of the greatest African-American artists ever her techniques range from traditional painting to Performance and mask making Ringold is a deeply political artist frequently addressing systemic
014racism in the history of slavery in her works the legend of John Michael basat doubtedly one of the greatest artists of the 20th century who found himself at a very young age in the center of New York's Bohemian life bat's mixed abstract in graffiti and poetry and political commentary turn him into the an icon of his generation lastly Joshua Johnson the son of an enslaved woman who was purchased by his father from another slave owner came to be known as the first African as the first African-American painter who made a career out of Art in the letters I want to highlight Phyllis Wheatley who published poems on various subjects religion and moral poems is the first book ever written and published by an an African-American and Wheatley was the first to achieve a global reputation
015as an African-American writer Jarina Lee was the first African-American woman to write and publish a spiritual autobiography the life and religious experience William Wells Brown published clotel and the president's daughter which was the first novel written by an African-American web de boy whose work continues to this day to take up space and explore the conundrum of the double Consciousness through his publication of The Souls of Black Folk a collection of essays and a work that would go on to influence numerous African-American writers and novelists his premise introduced in 1903 still serves as a platform for organizations fighting for equality and justice and closing I will return to the words that I have used in all of these four years now five to sum up my captions I'm sorry my comments black history is have black
016history month is in the only time that we should be talking about the contributions of Black Folk it's also not only about their contributions but it's also about the efforts to overcome the obstacles that impact Black Folk from realizing the American dream it's about naming and intentionally dismantling the structures that serve to oppress and deny it's about practices actions and legislation in the hopes of developing a generation more tolerant and inclusive than the current Happy black happy black history month thank you Dr Anderson Miss seore Heiser thank you and well I um I don't have a lot left to say after those wonderful words from Dr Anderson and and truly wonderful words I wanted to say a few things um first I wanted to say that it's often been said that black history is American
017history and there could be not a more true statement than that the story of our country and that of Fairfax county is intertwined with the stories of black people the endless accomplishments and contributions but also unfortunately the marginalization and disfranchisement which sadly continues today during Black History Month and always it is critical that even as we as a school system Embrace steps forward such as the recent renaming of a school building once dedicated to the memory of a segregationist instead to honor the father of black history Carter G Woodson that we not only invoke Mr Woodson's name but we live up to his legacy cartery Woodson dedicated his life to raising up awareness of the history and role of black Americans including the most glorious and painful aspects and encouraging every black person to be
018proud of their story and I would say every person needs to understand and be proud of the stories we are obligated to bring these principles to life in our public schools in our daily Endeavors in the classroom and here in our governance and oversight as elected body seminal to that whether it's the classroom whether it's the dis whether it's the leadership team room whether it's your office is the importance of teaching accurate history as well as continuing to discuss and talk about the structures and mindsets that lead to to the continued marginalization and dis disenfranchisement we can only build to a better future if we understand our past and if we're clear about where we are now so we know where we need to go and we know what mistakes we need to avoid so
019we can build a better and more inclusive Society on a side note I have to say I love the Arts and Music theme having a kiddo who's studying rock and roll um I love the fact that rock and roll really is a product of black music coming out of jazz rhythm and blues Boogie wogie gospel and led by Legends such as Little Richard FATZ Domino and Chuck Barry it's important to recognize where our roots are and it's important to recognize who contributed to the roots of things that we as the society love and treasure so I challenge everyone in the FCPS community and the community at large to commit to celebrating diversity supporting black communities histories traditions and culture and understand the ongoing struggle for human rights and commit to ending racism and discrimination in
020our community and Beyond black history is not just our past it's our present and it's part of a great future we can build together thank you Miss seore Heiser we will take the vote all those in favor please raise your hand Miss seore Heiser Mr McDaniel Mr mine miss lady Miss St John cunning Miss Marin Mr Dunn Dr Anderson Miss Anderson Miss Dixit Mr Moon and myself will the clerk announce the vote that vote is 120 it's unanimous the motion passes all right agenda item 2.06 custodians and food and nutrition Services Appreciation Proclamation I call on Miss Anderson for the proclamation whereas custodians are the first employees to arrive in the morning and the last employees to leave at night and our custodians rise to the challenge each and every day to ensure schools are
021safe clean and ready to receive students whereas we honor FCPS custodians field custodians building supervisors who are responsible for the daily care and safe operation of all facilities and buildings on a yearr round basis school facilities represent a significant investment on the part of the citizens of Fairfax County and FCPS C custodial employees ensure they are kept in clean and good repair and whereas by providing clean and safe School environments FCPS custodians have a direct impact on the educational success of our students and whereas FCPS custodians take pride in their work and seek additional training leading to certification as professional custodians and whereas we recognize that helping our children fulfill their Highest Potential begins with access to healthy food and balanced Nutri and nutritious meals at schol school studies show that these are often the
022most nutritious and sometimes the only meals in a student's day they improve student health making it easier for students to learn and erode in inequity while also advancing our fight against childhood obesity and whereas food and nutrition services is committed to serving the whole child and offer numerous programs to support student academic achievement within FCPS and over the lifetime over in an overall lifetime of healthy eating and whereas we honor F the honor FCPS school cafeteria staff and food and nutrition professionals who make these meals possible and operate the division's Food Services programs these essential valued employees who prepare and serve School meals help nurture and nourish our children through their daily interactions and support all of our students and whereas hard work the hard work contributions and unending dedications of our custodians and food
023nutrition services employees has been an example for us all and for and for that and for that the the FCPS Community is extremely grateful therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board recognizes thanks and extends its highest Commendation to custodians cafeteria workers and food nutritious service Services employees whose attention to detail compassion and high standards benefit all students employees and members of the FCPS Community thank you is there a second Miss St John cunning Miss Anderson would you like to speak to your Proclamation I would but I'm going to keep mine short because um my colleague has the coolest story that I want her to tell you um we have there are a few things so being a school leader I know fully and completely the importance of these essential staff to to
024the way that our schools run um at my time at our elementary school um some of my very favorite people in the world were the custodians that helped make all of our events possible so I am eternally grateful for their support um we also have some of the amazing custodial and Food Service nutrition or food and nutrition services Personnel from Luther Jackson Middle School with us tonight the school board and staff is so grateful for the amazing job they do to ensure that the facilities here are clean and ready for our use and covering all requests that we have it for Schoolboard meetings and events and we know that they provide the same level of care for our students and staff of the Luther Jackson Middle School as well so we are so grateful that
025you're with us tonight thank you Miss Anderson Miss St John cunning would you like to speak to your second yes thank you so much I am I was so excited when I was able to Second this Proclamation as many of you known I've worked in the schools for over 26 years uh I come in early and I stay late and the people that are always there with me are the custodians uh and I have a story that I have to tell but about when my children were at Rose Hill Elementary and there was a custodian that had been there forever and was lovingly and affectionately called Grandma Rose because she was everybody's grandma and the day came when she would retire and everybody was really upset about it but what they did was they made
026Grandma Rose Queen for the day and they had programs for her the kids sang uh we were all in the AUD Auditorium a mom actually made her a no kidding Queen's and dress and we had a crown for her uh and she really was the queen of that school and it wasn't just because of her dedication to her work it was because of her dedication and love for the students everybody knew they could get a hug and a word of encouragement from Grandma Rose aside from Grandma Rose there was also Mr tune and there was also Sandy at Rose Hill I'm going to move on to my time at Bucknell when we had an amazing uh kitchen manager who opened her kitchen every time Miss Rita to all the events that parents wanted to have
027if you don't know this you cannot use the kitchen unless it's opened by the kitchen manager and kitchen managers get there early and for them to stay for an elate event it's a lot and it's volunteer and Miss Rita was at every one of those events and she had that kitchen open and she was helping serve the kids because she really loved the kids and finally um at Mount Veron Woods Elementary where we have Miss Sarah Miss yessica U Mr Willie Mr Jose and Miss Annie these are custodians that do not have to help with our monthly food distribution but they do they gladly bring all that food in they give it out to the community they are the trusted adults in the building where many students and even teachers go to for advice they
028are shoulders to cry on so aside from their commitment to ensuring that our schools are safe and clean uh where people can take pride in being in the space they also are the heart of our schools and provide so much support to our students and I'm so glad that we're able to honor them I mentioned a few names of people that I knew but I know this is Multiplied throughout the entire County and I know that people have their favorite custodian or their favorite food food service person or cafeteria lady and I want to thank them for all their work although a lot of times they may think it's not being noticed we see you we appreciate it and we really value you for everything you do for our students our families and our community
029thank you Dr Anderson yes I just did not want to miss the opportunity to just lend my voice to honor um the individuals that Miss Anderson and Miss um St John Cummings just talked about um our custodians our nutrition services folks our building professionals sometimes are the unsung heroes of our building we know when they're not there but when they're doing their job at its most Peak we don't even notice but they are the heartbeat of the buildings they are the ones who allow everything to run throughout the day and I have to say as a you've never heard this before but as a former building administrator they become your best friends because you keep the same hours you're there when they arrive and you leave together and it's just a great opportunity and I
030want to say thank you to those of you who are working here to help support this meeting at Luther Jackson and who have worked all day to help support our other 200 buildings we're very grateful for your service thank you Dr Anderson we will go for a vote all those in favor please raise your hand Mr Moon Miss Dixit Miss Anderson Dr Anderson Mr Dunn Miss Marin Miss John cunning miss lady Mr M mcine excuse me uh Mr McDaniel and Miss seore Heiser and myself will the clerk announce the vote the vote is 120 the motion carries thank you very much I would like to invite students employees staff and community members yes good Applause in support of the Black History Month proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of
031the deis after the photo the guests of Staff uh will depart uh the deis area e I would like to invite custodian School cafeteria and food and nutrition service employees staff and community members in support of the custodians and food and nutrition Services Appreciation proclamation to please join the board for a photo at the front of the Das 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 those who have signed up to speak this evening community members can sign up to provide comments at Schoolboard regular business meetings and regular and public hearings of the school board on the school board's website at regular business meetings speakers May address any school related issue except those that have been scheduled for a
032public hearing such as the capital Improvement program budget and boundaries comments targeting criticizing or attacking individual students are not permitted during public meetings complaints regarding school-based employees should be directed to the appropriate School principal or other school officials speakers should not use personally identifiable information in connection with an individual student or school-based employee additionally speakers should be respectful and observe proper decorum in their statements avoiding profanity inappropriate gestures shouting and comments that run counter to the spirit and letter of the school division's non-discrimination policy which protects students and staff from discrimination based on age race color sex sexual orientation gender identity religion national origin marital status or disability speakers must limit their remarks to no more than two minutes direct their comments to the school board and should remain at the podium until concluding their
033remarks additionally only the speaker May stand at the podium they may not be joined by others speaker substitutions are not permitted a speaker may not yield their time to another individual at the conclusion of the two minutes the microphone or video will be turned off school board members will be listening but not responding we ask audience members to be respectful of one another shouting and outbursts will not be tolerated audience members should hold their Applause until the conclusion of a speaker's remarks and remain at their seats including when video recording or taking photos we are grateful to have those uh of you here to come speak at us today and thank you for your cooperation Madame clerk please call the first Speaker student speaker one good evening my name is Laura and I'm I am
034I am a high school student in Fairfax County Public Schools and I'm here on the behalf of the pride Liberation project I know how lucky I am to be a student in such a county and to be given the opportunity to learn subjects from multivariate calculus to American history with an array of resources at my disposal to help me succeed however there are things that I cannot learn in the classroom things like empathy and love and the bits of life that are not found in scientific reports or in argumentative papers these are things I only find in books in the characters brought to life and their stories that mimic my own or drastically differ and it breaks my heart to hear that there are attempts to remove these stories and experiences from Fairfax County Public
035Schools growing up I never had the opportunity to learn about different kinds of people and that just simply wasn't a conversation I had in my household but it was through the people I met in books and literature that I was able to learn about different cultures and heritages that weren't my own and about the important and significant history behind other people and their heritages and when I discovered I was queer I felt incredibly isolated um as the only queer woman Asian woman in my family and in my community and again it was through literature that featured queer people of color um that I was able to find my own confidence and the strength and realization that I too had a story and that it deserved to be heard and everyone deserves to have that realization
036and to see a character that they can finally relate to to and that they can feel comfortable and find soless in in the first 8 months of 2023 Virginia has attempted to ban 356 book titles a majority of these titles are books focusing on a queer identity over written by queer authors these are not simply just books they are resources and conduits for learning just as much as t.com or office hours are instead of teaching chemistry they teach students to be kind and understanding after all it taught me it was okay to be myself that is why I fight for diverse books and I hope you all do as well thank you Joseph Miller Melinda Vander plug Fallon good evening since my topic is Student Success I will begin with a tiny yet representative list
037of successes from the FCPS program that employs me a Korean grandfather improved his ability to communicate with his Grandsons in an FCPS High School a Bolivian mother joined the D GED program when her daughter entered an FCPS grade school Mongolian parents completed paperwork that helped their eight-year-old get into an FCPS level four Center a middle-aged Ethiopian gained US citizenship and became an IIA for FCPS an Afghan college grad now works for FCPS Ace as she pursues a degree in computer science a weager Doctor Is In georgetown's Medical School getting credentialed in order to work professionally in Fairfax County these probably weren't the kinds of student successes you expected to hear about however they provide compelling evidence of successes that had Advan both personal goals and FCPS is stated goal of fostering an educated and culturally
038Rich citizenry that contributes to our economy and social systems among these systems our K12 schools clearly benefit from these kinds of successes these hardworking students could do what they did because their English improved under the instruction of dedicated and highly qualified teachers within the FCPS Ace esol Program as a Lead Teacher who sees student results from a nationwide esol assessment tool I know our teachers routinely produce measurable student gains that facilitate similar successes for hundreds of students supporting this kind of success is a worthy investment in the FCPS community and Fairfax County as a whole extending this support to include contracts for our teachers would allow us to continue this valuable work on a more stable [Applause] basis Kelly gold good evening I'm here on behalf of the Luther Jackson Middle School Community Luther Jackson
039opened its doors 70 years ago in 1954 as the first and only High School to serve the African-American population of Fairfax County after the integration of schools it has now served as a middle school it is in my opinion that the state of disrepair that the building has been allowed to fall under dishonors this history and Legacy of what our school stands for over the last several weeks I have brought to your attention the health and safety concerns our building and grounds pose for our students and staff I have tried to find the one thing that will finally cause someone to realize the desperate need for renovation of our building but the fact is there isn't just one thing there is a long list is it the mold in the classrooms that causes unsafe breathing
040conditions the single pained windows with holes in them the original chemical storage lab that does not pass inspection the two small hallways that cause our students to literally step on each other to get to class the broken hbac system that causes classroom temperatures to fluct weight by 20° in a day or the fact that our school sits open and exposed in a hi trffic urban center where on any given day 50 to 100 people step or drive onto our property to use it however they would like I could go on and on again and again our school gets passed up on being added to the renovation queue and you keep telling us to wait yes there have been a few enhancements but by and large the majority of the building has been left untouched for
04170 years we all agree that the facility's management and renovation system for FCPS is broken but we cannot wait any longer for you to fix it lest our building be crumbling down around us by the time you get around to renovating it when Luther Jackson opened in 1954 it was the pride of the community sadly that is no longer true and it has not been for some time I implore you to care for even just the basic needs of this building thank you David Zigler Samantha Phelps good evening new and returning FCPS school board members um I'm Sam Phelps I work here in the county and I wanted to draw your attention to a critical policy that has adversely affected many staff members across our division according to regulation 5610 if an employee is absent
042but doesn't have leave to cover it the salaried installment for the monthly period is pro-rated based on the number of working days within that month this results in a significant discrepancy in the daily rates between months with December and June seeing double the daily rate compared to October and may for example if a step one Master's level 195 day teacher has to take leave without pay for 5 days due to illness in may they will lose approxim imately $1,157 125 from their monthly pay However if those same five days were to fall in June the loss would amount to $2,314 well over half their take-home pay however if the daily grate was calculated by yearly salary divided by number of contract days the teacher would lose $1,436 18 regardless of the month the leave occurred
043in as Illustrated above this policy has a disproportionate impact on those without banked leave such as new teachers midyear hires employees with disabilities and employees who have exhausted previous year's rolled leave due to the 21-day elimination period of the short-term disability policy such as new parents since we have no parental leave policy while the new leave donation policy is allowed for some possible relief it places employees in the difficult position of relying on the charity of our fellow employees addressing this issue by revising the calculation would demonstrate a commitment to the well-being of our staff and their families and would also signify a proactive step in addressing systemic issues affecting staff retention thank you for your [Applause] attention Christopher babik David walrod good evening chair frish Dr Reed members of the board thank you for
044giving me the opportunity to speak tonight my name is David WOD I am the President of the Fairfax County Federation of teachers and I'm also a spe special education teacher here in Fairfax County I'm sure that most of you are already aware of this but there is a crisis within the field of special education right now it's not Fairfax County specific it's something that's happening Nationwide but we're feeling the effects here in Fairfax County we have a shortage of special education teachers um our special education teachers provide service to our students with the highest needs they provide an essential service they provide a federally guaranteed service and right now one one out of three special education teachers in Fairfax county is either a provisionally licensed teacher a teacher that's still working on a full certificate
045a teacher trainee or a long-term substitute one out of three why is that it's happening because of burnout again that's not a problem just here in Fairfax County that's a problem around the country but we are burning our special education teachers out and so I'm asking you anytime that you're thinking we need special education teachers to do something else I want you to think about the burnout that we are causing to our special education teachers and the harm that is being done to our students if we want to keep our special education teachers we have to address teacher burnout if we don't do that what's going to be the state of special education here in Fairfax County thank you again for your service and thank you to all of you for running for school board
046this [Applause] year Kathleen Mard Mr chair that was our last public speaker thank you madam clerk agenda item 4.01 student representative matters I call on Miss Kareem thank you Mr fris recognizing the proclamations tonight I was I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the critical role that our custodians in food and nutrition services employees play in our school system their dedication behind the scenes form the backbone of our schools providing an atmosphere where students can authentically Thrive their commitment to cleanliness and serving nutritious meals often goes unnoticed yet it's these genuine efforts that make a significant impact we wholeheartedly value and sincerely appreciate their dedicating their dedication to supporting students staff and the entire FCPS community despite our limited daily interactions we treasure and are profoundly thankful for their indispensable contributions they make
047our school system truly benefits from their sincere commitment and as many of you are aware February is Black History Month and is and it is heartening to see the widespread enthusias enthusiasm among students teachers staff and administrators in FCPS in our recent seals meetings the cultural awareness committee engaged in insightful discussions covering various ways to celebrate this month we explored ideas such as countywide potlucks school showcases and social media outreach witnessing the positive outcomes of collaborative efforts I strongly encourage FCPS leadership and school board members to actively participate in these meetings as they provide a valuable platform to gain insights into the perspectives of students another noteworthy proposal that emerged from our Seal's discussions is the creation of a school board Advisory Group similar to the superintendent advisory Council this group would include student representatives
048from each High School offering aw channel for understanding and addressing student concerns Additionally the stem committee honed in on critical topics such as cyber security and digital digital footprint awareness recognizing the increasing technological advancements shaping our future the committee is dedicated to expanding stem education in Title One schools and is and it is exciting to share that classes are already in progress at Brookfield Elementary and Glen Forest Elementary moving on I recently hosted a town hall alongside Dr Anderson Miss ROM man and Dr Boyd engaging with students from regions regions 2 and six the diversity of voices brought forth in cenal concerns that demand our attention and proactive measures one significant issue raised was The Limited food options for students with dietary restrictions such as lactose intolerant Hal an kosher and more the imperative need
049to diversify food choices is evident as leaning on an empty stomach hinders academic performance propably properly labeling these food items is crucial considering that not all students have resources or time to prepare their own lunches additionally addressing lunch debt is Paramount and we must find effective solutions to alleviate this burden on students according to a 2019 survey 11.2 million children in the US live in food insecure households with one in six children facing hunger this translates to over 13 million students who rely on School meals as their primary source of nutrition however a 2021 School nutrition Association report rep found that 75% of districts had unpaid student debt student meal debt meaning many students cannot afford or access the meals provided by expanding inclusive food options and financial assistance we can ensure every student has
050the nutrition they need to succeed in the classroom moreover students Express concerns about the prevalence of vaping on school premises despite commendable efforts by FCPS to explore various Solutions the issue persists the lack of strict regulations to the student rights and responsibilities for dealing with vaping incidents contributes to its continuation implementing effective Vape or heat sensors is a promising option but we must also delve into the consequences and penalties associated with such Behavior Beyond technological solutions investing in employee training is ENT is essential empowering staff to enforce consequences and support students in overcoming challenges like vaping recognizing high school as a p as a pivotal phase in students lives preparing them for college their work the workforce and skill development is crucial it is our responsibility as stakeholders to ensure efficient support for students meeting
051their needs and aspirations during the signifant significant educational and personal growth period another critical matter I would like to address is school safety which I have previously brought up emphasizing its continued importance school safety should be a top priority serving as a foundation for a secure learning environment currently FCPS mandates schools to conduct one fire drill per month and two lock lock down drills per year while commendable steps have been taken to prepare students for scenarios within the classroom we must acknowledge potential vulnerabilities during other times School shooters often familiarize themselves with school schedules raising concerns about the safety of students during lunch or while transitioning between classes it becomes essential to strategize and establish protocols for these situations with over 1,000 students in each school we bear the responsibility as stakeholders and leaders to
052ensure their safety it is crucial to continually reassess and enhance our school safety measures to address potential gaps and ensure the well-being of every student in Fairfax County thank you thank you very much agenda item 5.01 action item proposed Financial year 2025 to 2029 Capital Improvement program I call on Mr mline for a motion uh thank you Mr chair I move that the board approved the proposed FCPS FY 2025 29 Capital Improvement program is there a second second miss lady Mr mlan would you like to speak to your motion yes thank you Mr chair so let me Begin by reading from a Fairfax County mothers remarks to this board the physical condition of most of our schools the overcrowding the lack of modern equipment and of such simple Necessities as adequate toilet facilities could not
053be more distressing my child is is happy at school and the other children are too because the principal has a wonderful staff of teachers the situation is not fair to them but by Devotion to duty and long hours of work they try to conquer their appalling handicaps it is a Triumph of Mind Over environment our Public School teachers will certainly get the front seats in heaven shortly after this testimony was delivered to this board Fairfax voters heed this Mother's call to pass the first school bond in the history of Fairfax County with 67% of the vote the date was May 31st 1950 and the bond amounted to $10.5 million to support alterations to 40 existing schools as well as the construction of eight 11 additional schools including the school in which we sit now the
054County's first high school for African-Americans so even though this testimony was offered before this board almost 70 years ago we are faced with a similar situation today yet today our challenge is far far greater in scale sagging hallways stained carpeting musty locker rooms poor poorly ventilated science labs restrooms reminiscent of truck stops these are highlights of a tour today through Fairfax County schools which offer a view of the dark dank underbelly of arguably the nation's best performing School District they are the manifestation of years of failed leadership from County and state elected officials who have forced us to economize until we bursted the seams they're symbols of the biggest crisis facing furax County Public Schools since the post World War II population boom and many of us on this board have been sounding the alarm
055about this crisis for years in spite of these conditions that our principls and teachers face in their schools and classrooms they work miracles every day and yes they are still more than deserving of the front seats in heaven but the primary difference between today and 1950 is that at that time Fairfax County's leaders were able to muster the courage and fortitude to stand up and fight for better school facilities in 1950 the County's population had just doubled in size over the previous three years increasing from 40,000 to 880,000 Residents Fairfax County was holding elementary schools in boiler rooms in partitioned auditoriums in reclaimed cafeterias the post-war growth was only accelerating and they already had 77 temporary classrooms that hosted 2200 students does that sound familiar the school board along with superintendent Woodson was willing to
056admit that they had a problem on their hands had superintendent Woodson and the school board not taken that heroic step of issuing the first school bond in Fairfax County History our school system likely would have collapsed over the coming two decades from 1950 to 1970 the student population Grew From 177,000 students to a staggering 133,000 students I'm done thank you Mr mavan miss lady uh the only thing I would add I'm a product of fairi County public schools uh and also a veteran teacher I mean a you know employee um that worked in buildings in disarray so I all I want to say is that you know the the bottom line is this comes down to economics um I have uh great faith in our staff and the efforts that they are making to evaluate
057facilities and work within the amount of money that we have at our disposal um you know I could I could go on and on but I do believe that uh you know we we we we will continue to do the best that we can do but we need to figure out a way to uh come up with more money and do better thank you very much I call on Dr Anderson for an amendment thank you I move to amend the capital Improvement program Improvement plan to add parkon Elementary School to table four priority recommended boundary adjustment on page 39 of the proposed CIP with a potential scoping of fall 2024 spring 2025 this will allow staff to address the number of temporary classrooms and projected capacity deficit at the school second is there a second
058second Mr Moon thank you uh Dr Anderson would you like to speak to your Amendment yes please um Parkland Elementary is a K5 School a K5 Title One School located in the Justice pyramid in the Mason District Park Lawn Services a population of students in which 99.7 receive free or reduced meals 80% speak a primary language other than English and 66% receive Esau Services since the 2021-22 school year parkon has enrolled almost 200 International students seeking Refuge during the 2223 school year alone parkon ad admitted 60 of those students and this year has admitted 70 to date and we are still just in February this is not a trend in birth rate or construction which could have been predicted by facility staff I cannot stress enough the overwhelm that exists at Park laon Elementary due
059to this rapid increase in student enrollment in the span of two and a half years including this current school year Pon has added 31 students to kindergarten which equals two additional classrooms that 36 students in grade 1 48 students in grade 2 36 in grade three 34 in grade 4 and 35 in grade five these are essentially two to three classrooms per grade level only in the past year and a half this unpredictable scenario requires staff to closely investigate how this growth can be managed it cannot continue as is this is an urgent need compelling further review currently Park laon maintains 29 trailers and it it is hard to tell how many more will be needed in the near term parkon has the unique characteristics of a high number of trailers and high utilization rates
060as you've read from my communication speaking to my colleagues parkon has a projected capacity ranging from 103% to 112% in the next 5 years without the modular the pro the projections range from 144% to 156% in the same amount of time and it's really important to state that this is not an impact of the Glen Forest adjustment that was done a few years ago at that time Park lawn's enrollment was 669 at roughly 85 to 86% capacity with the additional students from the Glen Forest Park Lawn was able to remain at 98% um all throughout um the 20125 school year that was a projection there was no warning of the huge influx of students that they have seen in the past um two and a half years even with the students from Glen Forest that
061would have put park laon at a total of 865 in their far beyond that at this point um I do want to ask uh Miss zensky who is back there yeah there you go thank you you are hidden there um because I know this was a concern of some but I would like for you to speak to why is it that you are in support and actually have recommended this action take place and not just for Park laon if you don't mind Miss Lady I'm also going to add ask you to speak to um coat Elementary because I believe it's the same um situation why not now and not waiting until a more comprehensive boundary discussion that the board is going to be embarking on soon sure and good evening to the board and I'm
062happy to speak more on the data sets behind coats and parkon if you'd like me to do both at the same time I'm happy to do that uh starting with coats the capacity utilization for years 23 24 is sitting at 131% utilization rate that is by far and large the highest utilization rate in FCPS the capacity utilization projection for school year 28 29 actually goes all the way up to 172 so as you can see uh there is a unique circumstance at coats where it by far and large has a higher utilization rates than other schools in terms of parkon I'll just confirm what uh you said Dr Anderson what makes parklon unique is the sheer volume of trailers so just kind of going over the data again uh the capacity is at 96 for
063school year 23 24 and projected to go up to 112 but that's assuming all of the modular and trailers out there when you don't consider that it's actually 134% uh for school year 2324 and goes up to 156 for school year 28 29 when you don't consider um modulars uh because of that you know we do recommend looking at a boundary adjustment for parkon as well I'll point out that you know we had a chance to look at closer at the modular and trailers of the 20 there's actually 29 spaces out there collectively uh of that 26 are used for instructions so I just wanted to point that out and if there's other questions please let me know I do have one more I'd like to ask you which is speaking to the process um
064Can can you speak to that please sure um we're using policy 8130 or the boundary policy that began in 2018 so um the superintendent and the school board at the time determined um given the significant interconnectedness of countywide schools and programs that all boundary changes should uh receive complete Schoolboard input and discussion so at the time that is the process we're using uh hence the amendment to put this on table four which is populated by the board that you can see um and we just describe this in Greater detail in the CIP starting on page 37 thank you um I just also want to be clear this is not a an amendment for a renovation um we're not asking to be added to the renovation queue um and we are working under the process that
065currently exists and I hope that you will all be able to support this amendment regarding Park laon thank you thank you Dr Anderson Mr Moon would you like to speak to your second yeah thank you Mr chairman uh good evening everyone a few days ago Dr Anderson extended an invitation for some of the school members to visit Parkland and I accepted that invitation and visit the school and prior to uh pandemic as a school with member sitting School Bo member I had a number of times visited Parkland but this time I wanted to a pay closer attention to uh what was described by m Dr Anderson as a SE of TR trailers and marginal classrooms as Dr Anders pointed out there are 29 of them out of 29 25 of them are actually being used
066for instructional purposes parklon as you probably know only has up to fifth grade their entire fourth graders and fifth graders are taught in modular annual trailer this is the community where with a 99% 99.7% uh of the students coming from a a fam is in poverty and many most of most of parents uh language minority parents they don't know how to advocate for themselves if the school board 12 above us do not step up to advocate for themselves uh I don't know uh whether it will be fair to put them through such a difficult horrible condition of learning uh they have six superiors for lunch starting from 10:40 goes all the way to 2:15 and just one more point I want to point out is that even though we say that trailers are for temporary
067period those are trailers at Parkland are more than 15 years old they don't seem to be temporary no child wants to have to learn in permanently temporary classrooms we got to really do something about this thank you thank you Mr Moon seeing the lights on I will take a turn this system is so irreparably broken no school board member and I appreciate the advocacy of Dr Anderson and miss lady who will have an amendment I'm only speaking to this once for both no school board member should have to bring a boundary consideration before this board period um every single magisterial District in Fair county has schools that are overcrowded uh or underutilized in every shade in between and um telling a a group of politicians to decide how those things are done is just not
068the right way to do this work um and you know it it it goes without saying but I'll say it anyways yes the kids at these schools need relief there are kids all over this County that need relief to and I hope that this is the last time that our board will consider a one-off boundary adjustment as a group um and that we will finally get this this system uh the way that we do this um corrected so that our communities and our families know that we're doing it in an equitable way where everybody benefits um because it's been done thoughtfully for everyone all right I did not see whose light went on first so I'm just going to call it left to right uh Miss Anderson followed by Miss seore Heiser I wanted to
069speak to this because I am going to be abstaining from both votes this evening um and I wanted to explain why before we got much further in the process um when these motions came forward the following moot or amendments came forward um I dug in into the CIP and I'm not going to ask why it wasn't included on the list on page 39 to begin with although I I would like to know that eventually um but there are 47 schools that are going to be over 100% capacity by school year 28 29 many of those are in my district as well and we and as the chairman said we have we all have schools that are going to be in the same boat or are already are that need to be addressed and while I
070understand this urgency um and I'm eager to hear I am eager to hear more about the ideas of my colleagues on how to move forward with looking at other solutions for overcrowding that will impact the entire division instead of focusing on just one part of that reason is that in my other world I had an awesome conversation today with someone who is a school Mobility expert because my life is weird um but she explained that research shows that school transfers are detrimental to student academic Pro progress and performance um these impacts become more detrimental with each move and I believe that if that we need to minimize the number of changes where we can this is especially true for students who come from marginalized backgrounds who are already or who who are already struggling academically
071therefore in order to move forward doing what I feel is right for the county or what I hope that this board is going to be able to tackle for the county for all of our students that are in these positions I do not feel it's in the best interest in this case to move forward with just working with two two individual schools um for that reason that is the reason that I'm abstaining tonight thank you Miss Anderson Miss seore Heiser followed by Mr Dunn I am also abstaining tonight and so I'll for both votes and um I appreciate the chance to have a conversation about this um and so I also want to explain why um for many decades way too many decades we've been dealing with capacity issues in a oneoff based on the
072advocacy of individual political elected officials three of us who can't do it or us previously as my at large role and it is not I think the best way and the most effective and efficient way to utilize our schools at some point we have to do the right thing for the long term and at some point we have to have in my opinion the ability to stop the short term to then focus on the long term and I believe this board can have the strength of character to do that and the political will to do that because at the end of the day what I want to do is what most benefits all of our kids in the long term and at some point we have to say this is the time and continuing down
073a path that has not worked and left islands and other things for 30 years has been Band-Aids for 30 years is not a good way to set us up for any long-term fixes on anything at some point we have to stop and so it doesn't take away from the Great need of these schools and many other schools and what I've learned in my four years on the board that the hardest decisions are where both of them are right and both of them are wrong and both of these decisions are right and I have to look at what I think is right long term so I wish we'd had more time for conversations I know these came this week and it was difficult to kind of get to this place it's not a place I want
074to be it feels a little bit like trying to decide whether what we're going to do with covid learning and there are all wrong answers and they're all right answers and this feels like that sameed place but actions speak Lotter than words and if we as a board are going to commit to the difficult work of building the long-term success we have to show it not just by our words by our actions so this is my action today thank you Miss seore Heiser Mr Dunn uh it it's heartbreaking to listen to parents from Luther Jackson um it's heartbreaking that to listen to parents from parkon or the teach we've received a bevy of emails this week um we live in one of the richest places on the planet Earth one of the richest places in
075all of human history so to have any schools in this condition to have even one student learning in a trailer is a travesty and uh certainly there's been been uh a history of underfunding at the state and federal level um I think the County's been very supportive through the years but we uh must do more to look at how we do construction How We Do renovation How We Do infrastructure because I sat in the facilities planning advisory committee the other night and I heard just off the tops of several experts heads ways we can save tens of millions of dollars and and shortened by a matter of years um the construction uh queue which has grown just in the last four months from 37 years to 42 years that is just unacceptable and I feel
076a f Fierce urgency of now because I know the kids the communities who are most affected are those who are least able to Advocate because they're too busy working two or three jobs and have kids that may be hungry in the evening on the weekends in the in the summer so we need to think of them every minute of every day to make sure that we are performing our job of oversight and working in collaboration with the superintendent and her team to get these facilities fixed once and for all so every child every single child learns in a worldclass safe welcoming and inclusive environment and has access to facilities that do not reflect the history of inequity in this County and in the this country thank you Mr Dunn we will go to a vote
077uh the amendment is on the screen all those in favor please raise your hand Mr McDaniel Mr mline miss lady Miss St John cunning Miss Marin Mr Dunn Dr Anderson and Mr Moon and myself all those opposed extensions Miss seore Heiser Miss Anderson and Miss Dixon will the the clerk read the vote announce the vote nine yeses zero NOS three exstension the motion passes thank you or the amendment passes sorry I call on miss lady for an amendment I move to amend the CIP to add coats Elementary School to table four priority recommended boundary adjustments on page 39 of the proposed CIP with the potential scoping of fall spring 20124 this will allow staff to address the current and projected capacity deficit student membership growth at the school and the number of temporary classrooms at
078the school is there a second second Mr McDaniel miss lady would you like to speak to your Amendment uh yes I'll speak briefly um I just want to give context I also want to um thank my colleagues for their um wellth thought out um uh comments and in in providing us a reality check around what we're doing um given what Miss samansky shared about coats being current currently at um 13 uh 1% capacity and a projection in 2829 of being 172% capacity and the reality that the Silver Line Elementary School which we thought was going to be with built within the next five years has been pushed to a 10-year time frame I felt compelled to bring this forward on behalf of my the principal the staff and the PTA um again I agree as
079a board that the these one off things are not the the way to solve a systemic problem um because there are issues and I and I and I honor my colleagues who have situations um that aren't quite there now but could be in a year or two uh at the same level capacity as coats um but I like as I said I just feel like uh given what I see is sort of a you know um we don't see uh I'll share this number too in 2019 2020 um we had 743 students this year we have 939 students and the projection for 28 29,30 students so it's just moving at a fast pace so thank you thank you Miss Lady Miss St John cunning so I want to re reiterate what the chair said um
080and what Miss Anderson said and what Miss um seore Heiser said I this is a bigger problem did I reverse it I'm sorry it is my fault it is my fault and I apologize we skipped the seconding speech I was writing down the list of speakers and I'm like oh I did not call on Kyle uh Mr McDaniel would you like to speak to your a second a question to clarify some of the motion language and then brief remarks the script that was read stated scoping of fallspring of 2024 however the language online that's being projected says scoping of fall 2024 dpring of 2025 I just wanted to get to make sure that we didn't need to go back and reread it to correct that I'm getting NOS so we're good as long as you
081understand what it is you're voting on it's okay without objection okay the language on the screen good thank you all right go ahead Mr MC Daniel um so these two came up this week um I in from where I sit as an at llarge member um I depend on the district reps to bring this stuff to me and that's what happened happened in this case and I think that both of these had a unique set of circumstances that led us here I don't want to rehash the numbers um so what I do want to say is this is a temporary patch on these two schools and I want to Echo what my at large colleague Mr Moon said um some of our communities and Fairfax are very good at advocating for themselves some of them
082are not and again at large I depend on the district members to know their schools I can't know 200 schools backwards and forwards that is is not possible but the district members can and I felt like in these two cases they did their homework um so I'm I'm fine approving both of these uh I'm not happy that we're here though and the chairman basically said what I wanted to say and in my mind and I'm saying this for the public and I'm also saying it for everybody on this dis these two are getting inside the door and the door is closing I'm not doing this again don't even call me for a vote or a second I'm not going to support it again because we have got to get our boundary policy fixed there is
083a sense of urgency um these two situations highlight the dire need for a division wide policy update followed by a boundary adjustment we all know we have to do it it's time to get it done um it feeds into Transportation it feeds into facilities academic programming and much more and the problem that I that I see while we're fixing these two tonight if we don't fix the process and fix other schools we're going to have coats and park Lawns popping up like hot cakes across Fairfax County and I don't want to be in that position so I'll I'm supporting both of these and I'm happy to Second this one thank you Mr McDaniel Miss St John cunning and I apologize that's fine um actually Mr McDaniel you took the words right out of my mouth
084uh I do agree with Mr Moon because I do serve I have served with underserved communities and I know that their voices are not heard and these two schools represent that every kid deserves to be in a building where they feel safe secure and can learn at the best and our teachers deserve that too and when you're at Beyond capacity it's really difficult I don't like that we're here and I will support these two because of what the urgency is I don't want these popping up in my district which some are very close to doing so I think we need to have the moral fortitude on this board and I think we have it to fix the bigger problem thank you Miss St John cunning we will go to a vote the amendment language is
085on the screen all those in favor please raise your hand Mr McDaniel Mr mline miss lady Miss St John cunning Miss Marin Mr Dunn Dr Anderson Mr Moon and myself all those opposed abstentions Miss seis Mar Heiser Miss Anderson Miss Dixit will the clerk read the vote it's 903 the motion car or the amendment carries thank you we are back to the primary motion as amended these two amendments there are no more speakers Mr mavin would you like to continue where you left off I would appreciate that thank you um so we've heard a lot about trailers tonight so my question ultimately to the community and to our community lead Community leaders is this if 77 trailers housing 2200 students was unacceptable to Fairfax County Citizens in 1950 why would a number more than 10
086times that amount be acceptable now today we have more than 800 trailers housing 20,000 students let that thing sink in we now have more than 10 times the number of trailers when we B than we did when we barked embarked on our our greatest building spree in history so if our students who go to class each day in a trailer were a school district unto themselves they would be the 14th largest school district in the state around the size of Arlington County or the city of Richmond let me say that again the number of Fairfax County students in classes and trailers is on par with the entire School AG population of Arlington County or Richmond city that is a travesty it is an embarrassment and it is unacceptable it is long been the case that
087our facility staff had had to sit before this board and say with a straight face and only a hint of irony that the L we are the largest trailer dealers on the East Coast our trailer situation is yet another visible and shameful manifestation of our facil crisis the leadership and yes the outrage must start with us so while I have moved and I will be supporting the CIP tonight I humbly call on my colleagues tonight to join me in helping send a direct and unambiguous message to the residents of Fairfax County County and to our funding authorities at all levels that our system is at a Crossroads and on behalf our of our citizens our students and our teachers we must no longer Toler in tolerate this intolerable facilities crisis and it is up to
088us at this dayas to find the courage and the funding to address it thanks thank you Mr mine seeing no other speakers we will go ahead and vote on the motion as amended all those in favor of voting for the motion on the the screen please raise your hand Mr McDaniel Mr mine miss lady Miss St John cunning Miss Maron Mr Dunn Dr Anderson Mr Moon and myself all those opposed abstentions Miss seis Mor Heiser Miss Anderson Miss Dixon will the clerk announce the vote the vote for the main motion is 903 the main motion carries thank you we will move on to to some followon motions I call on Miss Marin for a follow on motion I move to direct the superintendent to present to the school board by April 25th 2024 options to
089fund capital projects that maximize current funds identify new fund sources and obtain cost efficiencies recommendations should include public private partnership opportunities an analysis on the use of Swing spaces during school renovations to decrease project time and local Revenue generating options available under Virginia law though not currently used in Fairfax is there a second second Dr Anderson Miss Marin would you like to speak to your follow on motion thank you the intent of this followon is to direct the superintendent to come back to the board with information uh I've been learning over the last few weeks and months as especially with the addition of our um fantastic new facilities director that there are things happening in the field that could be happening here perhaps but aren't but I don't know what they are and the board
090hasn't had a chance to learn about them so this is an opportunity to learn more for instance swing spaces are when students and staff are moved out of a building during renovation and the benefit of that is that Renovations could go quicker which means they could also cost less money I've never heard that brought to the school board as a consideration of how we want to do the business of renovating our schools so this is really an ask for what are some best practices that this board could consider and then use to make our decisions thank you thank you Miss Marin Dr Anderson would you like to speak to your second um just very briefly because I think Miss uh Marin did a very good job of that I just want to add to this
091before coming to Fairfax County I've never been a place where Renovations happen with schools with kids in the building I remember when my high school was renovated in New York we moved out for 9 months and then we came back in and so I'm particularly interested in terms of how that could be a possibility for us and again we don't know what exists until we have the conversation about options which is why I'm excited about the information that we could perhaps receive from this follow on thank you very much seeing no other speakers we will go for a vote on the follow on motion that is on the screen all those in favor please raise your hand Miss seore Heiser Mr McDaniel Mr mine Miss Lady Miss St John cunning Mr Miss Marin uh Mr
092Dunn Dr Anderson Miss Anderson Miss Dixit Mr Moon and myself will the clerk announce the vote the vote is unanimous the follow on carries thank you very much I call on Miss Maron for a follow on motion thank you for that vote colleagues I now move to direct the superintendent to transmit to the school board by April 25th 2024 a plan to create a facility infrastructure policy for FCPS the plan will include summary findings from a review of relevant FCPS policies and corresponding regulations beginning with the list displayed on the screen and as detailed in the agenda item on board docs with recommendations for what is to be updated integrated created Andor retired and a suggested date by when the superintendent can provide draft facility infrastructure policy language to the governance committee to begin Board
093review thank you Miss Marin is there a second I second it Miss seiser Miss Marin would you like to speak to your motion as part of the CIP there is a reference to the policies that govern and direct the CIP work however there are some additional policies that could be included and most importantly these policies have not been reviewed in an integrated And Timely way since some of these policies were last reviewed our board has taken tremendous strides to do things like uh incorporate our jet goals uh increase our get to Green as education programming and Investments looking at solar on the schools we're talking about alternative energy sources yet our policies remain dated and don't reflect these goals that we want to achieve so a comprehensive policy review will offer the board the opportunity
094to then ultimately do that work to update and publish those new policies that will guide the work thank you Miss Marin Miss seore Heiser would you like to speak to your second yes just briefly I think Miss Marin summed it up well in terms of the need for the policy review and I see an eagerness on this board which I'm very excited about to really look holistically and comprehensively at our infrastructure needs our um funding our um and really get sort of our hands wrapped around the policies that relate to infrastructure but also an overarching policy that guides our decisions regarding infrastructure our infrastructure Lifeline lifespans are less than our buildings in many ways in some ways we have um as Mr Dunn calls it untracked infrastructure that we need to figure out what our
095policies and procedures are around and I think this goes really hand in hand with something I know Mr Dunn is bringing a little bit later um so I think it it's really time for us to look holistically at how are we making infrastructure decisions and how are we ensuring all of our policies that touch upon infrastructure are consistent with an overarching policy so that's the work that this will will kick off thank you Miss seore Heiser Mr Dunn I I'll be I'll be supporting this motion but I I think it's important that as we move forward we look not just to uh staff but we also look to our advisory committees and particular uh the federal the facilities planning advisory committee uh they met the other night and what I heard was that um they
096have been working diligently for years and their reports have covered every topic that we could conceivably address but their reports tend to get flushed down the toilet without even a cursory read so we have I have talked on numerous occasions about the urgency of now about the need for FCPS to break from business as usual and engage with industry because industry is waiting to engage with us and Industry is not out there in The Ether it's on fpac and so if we just read the reports if we take advantage of the advisory committees that already exist then we'll actually be able to save tens of millions of dollars and reduce our renovation cues so I ask that you know as this is implemented that it not only go to the governance committee but it go
097to cpdc it go to fpac and we actually involve the people who already are serving us and and who are doing so year after year without compensation but aren't being listened to because if we actually do if we actually take advantage of their expertise their dedication their time we will end up with a better stronger school system and we won't have situations like we've heard about tonight at Luther Jackson thank you Mr Dunn see no other speakers we will go to a vote for the following motion that is on the screen all those in favor please raise your hand missis Mor Heiser Mr McDaniel Mr mline miss lady Miss St John cunning Miss Marin Mr Dunn Dr Anderson Miss Anderson Miss Dixit Mr Moon and myself will the clerk announce the vote that vote is
098unanimous the follow on MO motion is approved thank you very much I call on Mr Dunn for a motion uh thank you uh I move to direct the superintendent to present to the school board more information about the following related to infrastructure requirements by May 7th 2024 first an inventory of tracked infrastructure requirements for each School in region and when I'm referring to track infrastructure I'm referring to the CIP presentation to the to the board Mr dun please just read the text as presented in the script and you can editorialize in your comments we'll do second a conceptual plan to repair or replace tracked infrastructure in a coste effective Fair Equitable and expeditious Manner and third a conceptual plan to establish an inventory of untracked infrastructure thank you is there a second I second Miss
099Anderson Mr Dunn would you like to speak to your motion yes thank you uh so we have a great leadership team uh Miss samansky and her colleagues uh many of whom are new uh are dedicated to putting us on the right track engaging with industry uh reducing the renovation queue or looking at it through new eyes we have reports from outside to establish new criteria uh but we can't just speak about school buildings we have to think about all the components that go into it from plumbing and HVAC which we all know was a serious problem during the pandemic to playground equipment to uh to water uh fountains these are all things and even whether it's painted the athletic fields whether our dugouts flood right there is a huge inequity I can speak of between
100the eastern and the western parts of the county and we've seen this over decades where the eastern part of the county is underfunded under resourced whereas the western part of the county tends to not always but tends to have worldclass infrastructure so there's an inequity across the county but there's also an inequity among schools right and so we need to make sure that we're looking at this infrastructure and figuring out how to address it because it has a shorter lifespan much shorter lifespan than 42 years that is the current renovation queue and so this motion is intended to establish and inventory both of the track infrastructure referenced on slides 15 to 16 of the CIP uh presentation presented by Miss samansky honor about uh January 8th of the school board in a public session you
101can find it on YouTube um and also for untracked infrastructure which you know how are we going to go out and make sure that we have the data so that as we build in this renovation queue we're making informed decisions and making sure that every child has a world class and safe learning environment we should not not live in a place where children don't have uh where where children have mold in their classrooms or bathrooms that are closed or destroyed right every child should be safe and welcome and included and infrastructure is usually the part that you see the most that you engage with the most and and will lead people to make judgments on the quality of a school and then whe whether they send their their students there so this is a passion
102for me and I'm committed to uh working tirelessly to improve not just our build but our infrastructure as well thank you Mr Dunn Miss Anderson um so the reason that I wanted to go ahead and second this is because that 400 almost $400 Million number in the CIP related to current infrastructure components that are past their useful lifespan are is a scary number particularly since it would take us a very long time to fund that um and I would like us to do understanding that we have a 42-year Innovation cycle right this second um having kiddos wait for a heating and cooling system until or to be replaced until their renovation isn't going to work so we need to have a better understanding of how we're tracking and leading in with the intention of figuring
103out how to fund those items as they move through so that way we can um ensure that we we have those kiddos that are in those heated and cooled schools because I I experienced very much limping along a system until the renovation was scheduled at at the elementary school where my kids went um to that end that's the reason that I move forward with this and I look forward to hearing more about how we're doing this now and how we could be doing it in the future thank you thank you Miss Anderson Miss seore Heiser thank you and I'll be supporting this as well and I just wanted to lift up a couple things that one thing I really like about all of the different um follow follow on that we're doing here and this
104one in particular it's as Mr Jun said there's there's differences significantly from school to school and I and um bradic District several elementary schools are getting towards that 30 40 year time frame and I've you know toured a couple that were they showed me we went to the library and it was 60 degrees and another part of the building was 80 and and I think we all have those schools right and so I think this will really put a a light on those and maybe we can help um build understanding the community around the real needs and why there's why that exists in terms of funding but I also think it's going to help bring light to the unique nature of many different schools the layouts the lighting the um efficiency of what the infrastructure
105is at the time it was put in at the time it was bought but also something I I lift up a lot for bradic district since we have two out of the three secondary schools right like we need to think about the fact that we have two schools in one building in our secondary schools right like we have a beautiful theater here for middle school but at Lake bradic there's one theater for middle and high school goal so I think and we look at infrastructure we got to see how is it being used for that building and those students and those needs and I think that'll help bring light to some of the uniqueness across the county as well so I wanted to lift up as we're doing this work let's really think about not
106just what the infrastructure is but where it is and who's in the building using it in the needs of those students so I look forward thank you for bringing this forward Mr dun thank you for the phone call and and really thoughtful explanation and answering my questions I really appreciated that um interaction and I look forward to um supporting this motion thank you Miss seore Heiser seeing no other speakers we will go to a vote the follow on motion on the screen all those in favor please raise your hand Miss seore Heiser Mr McDaniel Mr mine miss lady Miss St John cunning Miss Marin Mr Dunn Dr Anderson Miss Anderson Miss Dixit Mr Moon and myself will the clerk announce the vote the vote is 120 the following motion carries all right agenda item 5.02
107action item executive expectations process I call on Miss seore Heiser for the motion thank you I move that the school board amend the executive expectation process found on page 14 of the Strategic governance manual as detailed in the redline attachment and resume its use is there a second I second Miss Anderson Miss seore Heiser would you like to speak to your motion yes thank you I would and this is something that um that we've been working with quite a bit since we passed this strc plan and setting up a good governance structure around the Strategic plan um and as and as governance chair the previous board had sent this to the governance committee to vote on by today in terms of whether we resume the process in the governance manual or not and so the
108um this came to governance and I appreciate my colleagues and the thoughtful conversations we had around whether we resume the process and what that means is that we have executive expectations for our superintendent on our operational expectations essentially and how she's going to operationalize implementing the Strategic plan we have a strategic plan that our community spent a whole year with hundreds of thousands of touch points Community forums planning groups so that's the Strategic plan is the Northstar it is the communities our leadership our board's Collective goals for where we want our system to go the expectations are the means to those ends we believe the previous board and this board in accountability transparency and over side in ensuring our executive meets those expectations and this process leads to that once a year Dr Reed will
109report on each executive expectation to the board at a regular meeting in the public sphere the board will then vote as a body because we give direction to our superintendent as a body on whether she has met our expectations or not if she has not met our expectations then Dr re will have to come back with a corrective action plan so there is accountability it is not just presenting a report and we saying yeah this is good or not but she has to come back if it's not meeting our expectations that is the most accountability I've seen since in my four years on the board direct clear yearly consistent I think that's really an incredible process to put in in addition each board member will have the option to fill out a form to give
110individual feedback as well that Dr re can take back to her team to use in improving her work as she sees fit that form will be made available to the public so the public will be able to see what our individual ual feedback is as well in addition to that so these are a living breathing expectations each year after we vote on the executive expectation report we will have a chance as a board to decide is the expectation as written still meeting our needs do we need to tweak it do we not so there's a yearly review built in to ensure that this is continuing to meet the needs these are still our expectations for our superintendent as we go year to year so what I love about this process is it's clear it's consistent
111it's it's public and transparent it has a clear process for accountability and um fixing things if something isn't meeting standards and it gives clear board direction to the superintendent so she and her staff are clear as to what the board is looking for um and so I think this process is a really great step forward in ensuring the operations are meeting the needs of implementing the ends of our community which is 3D plan so I thank my governance committee members Miss Anderson Mr Moon and Mr McDaniel for your hard work we did take it from governance to a Schoolboard work session and I appreciate the comments of our colleagues to get us to this point today so I'll stop there thank you thank you Miss seore Heiser Miss Anderson would you like to speak to
112your second um just briefly I really appreciated this um opportunity to look at this process more carefully so that as we are all learning how everything works within this all the process that we have set up in in in this whole thing um so I would and I believe strongly L that the superintendent has been clearly in support of ensuring that she and her staff have our feedback so I am fully in and anytime anyone asks me for feedback in clearboard Direction I think that that is an excellent way for us to go so I am fully in support of this thank you Miss Anderson Mr Moon thank you Mr chairman I'm going to support this motion uh when this was first brought to a governance committee for discussion I did not support it as
113written but a at the full Bo work session since then language has improved quite a lot uh it really clarify the purpose of the voting and also provide a much more transparency of both members providing feedback to a superintendent with those points in mind I could support this thank you Mr Moon all right I will take my turn um and I'm going to use this as an opportunity to speak about this and the next vote that we're taking because I don't want to take two times um it takes a special kind of leader to ask for accountability um and um you know when you've got 12 bosses uh to be clear that you are asking for Clear Direction um on a regular basis on all of the different areas that you are expected to perform
114well at on behalf of our kids and our families um it speaks volumes you know there are a lot of people who would gladly operate um in an opaque accountability system where expectations are not clear and accountability is not achieved um but as Miss seis Mor Heiser said this provides us with an opportunity throughout the year and you're going to see this in our meetings we have the performance review section of our meetings we've been doing um but the work is divided over 133 different ex uh expectations and soon there'll be uh limitations hopefully um and we will be having detailed conversations about that work and whether we think that it is meeting um the goals of our strategic plan um and so I support this accountability I support clear direction from a board majority
115um and I support having the superintendent come to us on a regular ccal basis uh to discuss the progress or lack of progress that we're making as a School Division on behalf of our students and I also support the next vote which is to change expectations to limitations which I see as the guard rails with which we want the superintendent to operate inside of um while allowing her the freedom to go beyond that as long as she meets those um limitations so that she can be creative in in addressing the problems that we face as a School Division um and the um opportunities we have as well I will leave it there all right seeing no other speakers we will go to vote motion on the screen all those in favor of the motion please
116raise your hand Miss seis Mor Heiser Mr McDaniel Mr movan Miss Satan John cunning Miss Maron Mr Dunn Dr Anderson Miss Anderson Miss Dixit Mr Moon miss lady and myself will the clerk announce the vote the vote is 120 the motion carries thank you very much I call on Miss seore Heiser for a motion I move that the school board amend the executive expectations sorry oh sorry process and details found on page 135 and 14 to 31 of this treat governance manual as detailed in the redline attachment to align it instead with executive limitations is there a second I second Miss eore Heiser would you like to speak to your motion yes I would thank you um this is a little more of a complicated thing and again I appreciate the conversation from my governance
117committee colleagues and the conversation in the work session um and I just wanted to kind of explain for the public the difference we had um had long conversations after we finished the Strategic plan about executive expectations versus limitations and the previous governance manual when I started on the board actually had I'd believe 12 operational expectations written in those and um these are expectations of what we expect the the superintendent to do however the Strategic plan which as they said earlier we spent a year working with the community to build are what we expect the superintendent and her team to do those are the ends those are the goals there are five goals in the Strategic plan there are measures that go with each goal of the things we expect her to accomplish so that we
118know the goal is accomplished and there's pillars of things we must do well to do this work those are the ends of the system those aren't just the 12 our ends it's not Dr Reed's ends it is the community's ends it's the leadership team's ends having said that if we then have executive EXP expectations in the governance manual we then have two sets of expectations the the goals of the Strategic plan and the expectations what we expect Dr Reed to do those things can be in misalignment and those things can lead to one or the other basically be put on a shelf instead and this is in alignment with what many school systems do and some of the research that we read we are changing to limitations executive limitations are the means to get to
119the ends of the Strategic goal means and ends work in alignment together what that means is the limitations are the things that Dr Reed cannot fail to do must cannot fail to do these things it's the swim lanes that she has to swim in to get to the end which is strategic plan within those limitations she will come each year 13 times and report on each topic financial planning instruction learning environment we are giving her swim Lanes we're giving her guard rails and we're saying within those guard rails we hired you and we pay you a lot of money as our educational leader to use your knowledge experience and creativity to get to the Joint ends if you have two sets of ends what are the means to get there we don't know and which
120ends does Dr Reed actually work towards and I say this happened before when my understanding when we had the operational expectations and I think this was said by one of my colleagues they did not have a strategic plan at the time they had goals and things but they didn't have the Strategic plan when the previous strategic plan was put in place in I think 2015 2016 the reporting on the operational expectations that had been in the governance manual stopped so the accountability structure for those expectations went away because we had a strategic plan that's not what we want to do here instead we want have an alignment structure that we have clear reporting on how our superintendent is getting our system to our goals our ends in the Strategic plan and clear reporting to make
121sure she's staying within our guard rails doing it in an effective and efficient way along the way that is a house of accountability it's a house of accountability and when you have a strong house we have a strong school system and that is why we're changing it to limitations thank you Miss seore Heiser Miss Anderson would you like to speak to your second just briefly uh I agree with everything that my colleagues has has explained and the way that it made the most sense to me is that I taught in the college classroom for 14 years and I often did the best when I was told roughly what papers I had to teach but not exactly how to get there because it gave me the opportunity to be creative about how I was going to
122interface with my students and that is very much I believe the same thing that we're doing here overlaid with a ton of moments of accountability and I appreciate all of that structure that has been built into things and and I trust that Dr Reed will take all of that and create something amazing for us so thank you Miss Anderson Mr Dunn I'll be supporting this motion but I do have serious reservations about the potential consequences of adopting a framework of policy governance set out by John Carver um which I read the book and it's frankly bubus I don't think there's data in support of that um I wouldn't be supporting this motion but for the incredible trust I have in Dr Reed as a change agent and uh an incredible leader with the experience that
123our school system is darely in need of um that being said the executive expectations presentations um I don't think have been uh what we need as a school board to be able to judge uh the performance either of the superintendent or FCPS I think it's essential that these reports s that are used to judge both individual performance and system performance provide a before and after snapshot so we can say this is the change that's been enacted as a result of Dr Reed and her team uh this is the direction we're going these are the trend lines um you know in the private sector they'll often identify you know threats opportunities opportunities for growth opportunities for change um and have different Frameworks and and in addition they'll identify both their successes and their problems and their
124losses right um not Financial but just where they can do better where they've missed where they've succeeded and and and why and they'll present data as to that and so that is my expectation for the executive expectation reports going forward otherwise um we'll be back here in a year trying to figure out what went wrong Dr Anderson um thank you uh unfortunately I will not be supporting this motion this evening um for several of the reasons that Mr Dunn has shared but I really fully just first of all I do want to share the things that I agree with I agree with the with the um reports as you all know this is a piece that I dig into every time we have them because I think it's the bread and butter of our work
125I am fully in support of having that regular accountability I don't think we need to change it to limitations to a to achieve that because the Carver model the limitations they do mean something else and there are other things that come with it whether or not we're going to be adopting it it's a conversation I don't think we've had as a board I I would like to have the full picture before I commit to any parts of it and I don't think I have that and I I do reject the idea that um we are limiting the creativity of our superintendent by having the expectation the expectations because we have seen how creative she has been with many of the things that she's provided since her tenure here and I won't list them here again
126because I think we did that at the work session but um I I think this is premature and unfortunately I won't be on board thank you Dr Anderson Mr Moon uh thank you Mr chairman I am not going to oppose this motion but I cannot support it either so I'm going to be abstaining uh which was my position at the a governance committee work session as well uh I just don't see the difference between shall do versus shall not fail to do I just don't see the distinction uh and and this was just something that the prior board prior board had debate and settled on only just six months ago I do not know why we are revisiting this one at this point in time I I would have much preferred a Super Nintendo to
127go through entire cycle of going through all 13 uh a executive expectation before we did visit if necessary however this is the motion uh at the on the table right now uh but I'm not GNA vote no because superintendent uh stated that she would somehow become more creative under limitations than and expectations a I always want our superintendent to be very creative bring the most creative thoughts to our work uh uh you know if limitations give all death I'm not going to oppose that but I cannot support this either thank you Mr Moon we will go to a vote oh Dr Anderson your light is on sorry we will go to a vote uh for the motion that is on the screen all those in favor please raise your hand Miss seis Mor Heiser Mr
128McDaniel miss lady Miss St Jun cunning Miss Maron Mr Dunn Miss Anderson Miss Dixon and myself all those opposed Mr Maven Dr Anderson abstentions Mr moon will the clerk announce the vote please that's nine yeses two NOS one exstension the motion carries thank you very much we will move on to agenda item 6.01 Financial year 2025 proposed budget I call on Dr Reed the moment we've all been waiting for so thank you chairman frish and I was just waiting for Alice to get back I have to say I want to you know I'm just thrilled to have the opportunity to present the budget this evening and before I begin I just want to thank the staff who have just worked countless hours to put this together our Chief Financial Officer Lee Burton um Alice witon
129and Matthew um Norton are here um Marty Smith just all of the folks you see on the senior leadership everyone's contributed to this and I just I couldn't be more grateful um and I'm gonna really uh rely also on Alice and Matthew who are here um and oh bless you and Miss Burton was that Miss Burton sing or no it was okay all right um Miss Burton I think is online and is not um feeling well this evening either but anyhow I am thrilled to be here this evening uh the budget of course is something that we all look forward to uh because the budget is the engine from which all of the work is really derived so um this is a reminder I know chairman frish uh it's a highlevel summary of the budget
130this evening so we'll be presenting a number of more detailed slides on Tuesday at the work session so tonight's really an opportunity for me just to kind of present high level uh budget information so I want to remind our board that it's really uh the Virginia code that requires the superintendent to provide what uh by Statute is what we call a needs-based budget so it's a budget that I believe we need um to accomplish the goals that we have for each and every one of our stud students um in particular aligned with our um strategic plan around Equity excellence and opportunity and we believe the uh budget we're bringing you this evening does just that want to remind our board and our community about our Fairfax County Public School facts uh so we've listed here
131our schools demographics and um again we're a division that's growing our current enrollment is over 182,000 which again is above budget uh even though we're at 182,000 today we are projecting for Budget purposes an enrollment of 18171 next year with continued increasing uh numbers of students who also uh require increased level of supports to reach the high expectations that we maintain for them so um these demographics I think in many ways describe um our context and our strengths so given our facts within the division we have a strategic plan that we've recently spent quite a little bit of time working on and want to make sure that our budget that I'll be sharing this evening is representative of the five goals our community believe are critical for us to reach for each and every student
132and it essentially funds the work of the four pillars enabling us to get there when we think think about uh the priorities really succinctly that I want to share um one of the things I want to say is that we must think about high expectations um and we can't in any way I think deviate from those Fairfax County Public Schools um our reputation rests on just resolutely maintaining high expectations for each and every student and we must couple those with high support it's the support that's often variable um not the expectation that we hold for our students so this particular budget I'm presenting this evening I want to be really clear that we did not go out to departments or schools for new uh resource requests because we were very clear about the focus for
133the budget this year we want to prioritize competitive compensation for all of our staff members regardless of their role in the division we also needed to address enrollment growth and the Investments and students that require additional support for a variety of reasons so we've made sure that we've included um budget dollars that are directly um and strategically focused on making sure our students who require the most support receive it because we know if we provide the right level of support all students can meet the expectations we have and then finally this budget continues our multi-year initiatives and those initiatives we've had in the planning Q for the last several years we are not launching new work we're very clear this year that we want to fund the work we've planned and set out to do
134over the last several years and maintain um the phases of the plans we've already begun um we believe that's important for our staff to really be able to um double down and Center in the work that we've said we're going to do and not take off in another Direction um at this time time the Strategic plan alignment our budget office worked very intentionally with our strategic uh planning office made sure that there's an intersectionality of budget dollars to the pillars that support our five goals and we're very clear that each of the initiatives that we're continuing to fund are connected directly to our strategic plan again all of these being initiatives that our community has confirmed are important for our students I want to look at the budget summary and be clear about again this
135Cod mandated needs-based budget it is going to require um an increase in the County transfer year-over-year the budget I'm presenting this evening and proposing is a budget that totals approximately $3.8 billion which is a net net increase of 31.8 million or 8.6% over FY 24 this results in our County transfer request which is going to be 254 million or an increase of about 10 10.5% over the prior County transfer I want to share that part of the reason for the notable request size for our County and also want to preface this with a grateful thanks to the continued support of our Board of Supervisors and our County Executive who've really been steadfast partners for us here in the division and recognize the importance of Education here in Fairfax County and I really I think we're
136grateful to have such Partners in this work what we have seen however is a very limited um allocation from our state uh based on the governor's introduced budget and that's caused some great concern and is also in part responsible for the county ask we believe and we're hopeful that our general assembly uh several of whom were former board members um will be able to recognize how important these dollars are and be able to remediate the governor's proposed budget which then would likely decrease the ask of our County so what I'm presenting this evening is what I believe we need to Resource and sustain the excellent work that our staff are doing today and compensate our staff into the future to keep us competitive with the hope that as our general assembly deliberates about these budget
137topics that they'll see the necessity of actually allocating a greater amount of State funding um which will you know help us out in terms of our County transfer the compensation adjustments that um are going to be sitting in the proposed budget at this point is we want to be very clear that we want to provide a 6% compensation adjustment for all employees in the division regardless of their role we also note that there are benefit retirement and health rate changes will which will cost a certain amount of money as we buy down points to help make sure that our um health care and retirement uh rates are affordable for staff uh we're also wanting to launch an erfc Legacy deferred retirement option this is often called at the county level the drop program which is
138drop standing for deferred retirement option program but our County um has this program for their employees and for us here in the school division it would only apply to our Legacy employees who are perhaps our most experienced employees we have over 2,000 of them and it enables us to have the opportunity to have um our employees also be part of succession planning so our more experienced employees will be able to work and be able to bank their erfc um so essentially it's also an incentive for our folks who are considering retiring perhaps to put that off for a few years by utilizing this program the other piece that we're um looking at here is a market cyclical review cycle and we think it's important also from an equitable standpoint to make sure that we review
139all salary scale Cycles on a five-year cycle and that way we don't have um some groups that uh ask for a salary review which is reviewed and then other groups maybe not realizing that's an option so we're going to be um frontloading those reviews and Dr agnu Scott and our HR department along with uh Miss Lee Burton as our CFO will be coordinating those reviews and as we review them we also want to make sure that we address um those salary moves as NE necessary so this will include the first step in that um and in this case it's going to be affecting school-based office positions which we've had a lot of discussion over the SE last several years about the increased responsibilities um so for a number of our school uh based office positions
140this is an option um as a result of the cyclical uh review so we'll be taking a look at that also want to make sure that uh we really um I think um Mr walrod spoke very passionately this evening about the importance of our special education Ed pause for just a moment um if folks in the audience are having conversations if they could go outside that would be great I just want to make sure that the board is able to hear everything that Dr Reed wants to say so I think that we heard Mr walrod this evening uh talk about the importance of U making sure our special Educators our special education teachers uh feel supported um in their work and to that end the last several years we've been providing an extra 30 minutes
141for our special education teachers which is essentially an eight hour contract um and that will continue to be uh it's been funded through Esser and we will be prioritizing that as part of year end so that is a recognition of that important work the required adjustments excuse me would be those that we um have moved forward and one of the things we want to remind staff about is we did uh do a 2% uh supplemental salary increase effective January 1 which will continue uh we know that enrollment is continuing to grow and so excuse me within the details of that um this is where you're going to see a significant uh financial support for our increased number of students that require um extra supports in the classroom to meet the high expectations we have in
142our strategic plan sorry about that then we have our recurring Baseline adjustments again this is a continuity we had a several year phase in plan for our Fine Arts stiens winter cheer um our athletic trainers our schedule C retention and recruitment adjustments our High School uh 12mon DSA adsa positions and all of those piec pie es that we had as continuing um Baseline adjustments are included within the 14.4 million um under the uh recurring Baseline adjustments we're looking at contractual increases which are essentially cost escalations in major Pro projects facilities fuel um and electricity so these required adjustments total 13.6 million on this page then we move to to our multi-year investments and this is again these are commitments we've had over the last several years that we want to make sure we maintain beginning
143with our Inclusive Preschool expansion our jet goals we're now in year three our fine and Performing Art stiens as we move into competitive uh space with reg uh divisions in our region um we are looking also we've made a commitment to expanding Athletics and activities as a serious attempt to make sure students are connected um to activities we know we recognize the impact on Mental Health uh is a positive one when our students are active and our HR technology infrastructure plan is so important um as we think about being able to conduct our human resources and business processes in a more efficient and effective manner we've set aside money uh for two years and this is year three of that project again our athletic trainer seconde implementation and then our family liaison position conversion year
144two so these multi-year Investments total 7.1 million and thinking about our FY 2025 Revenue overview this again is a nod to the state revenue that we're expecting Federal and the County transfer request the total FY projected Revenue increase is 301 1.8 million and as I mentioned earlier if the state and we really believe the state will come through with more than 42.2 million then the other number slide it's the 301 at the bottom that we need so as we Advocate with our County colleagues um based on um the jayar study and other data points we're really hopeful that um we'll be able to take a look at that um those dollars but essentially uh that's our Revenue overview next I just I think a budget presentation in um February of 2024 would not be complete
145without some comment about the jarch study this is historic for the Virginia Commonwealth and it really I think while we're going to continue to maintain high expectations as a commonwealth we're actually receiving less funding per student than the 50 state average um which I think you know I think that's something we really need to think about at the general assembly level and as well as the regional average I would say that uh many of us our states that border Virginia including West Virginia Kentucky and Maryland are actually spending more per pupil than Virginia is and we here in Fairfax County we don't need um we don't need to accept that and we really believe that um here if we're going to maintain and build on the world class education we provide we also need to
146provide worldclass resources for that I want to share that if we think about um actually receiving uh the average if we just got the regional average that would be 19 about $1,900 more per student for us which would actually be it equates to $345 million so just find fing us at the average would be more than what we're actually asking for um in additional funds so I just think that's a that's quite a number quite honestly all right I want to um take a quick glance at priorities that are being planned for funding at year end again I want to begin by mentioning the special education th benit extended day contracts for the last several years they have been eser funded but we're going to this year um they are a priority for year end
147we've got some safety and security screening programs that we want to stand up also the one-time funding to support the in this case the onetime only funds which would be equipment uniforms those types of things for the expansion of boys volleyball and girls wrestling we're looking at differentiated signing bonuses for hardto fill positions also our middle school activities um Athletics and tutoring require late buses so we want to make sure we're funding those late buses to continue because when we have um extra supports again for our students to meet high expectations we have to be able to get the kids there and get them home and often transportation is a huge inequity Builder and lastly we're really looking at professional development supports as you know we're going to be barking on a new literacy uh
148basil uh whole series of materials as fall for K through sixth grade and that's a huge lift uh we haven't had a new basil in almost 30 years so this is going to be just wanting to make sure that we look at some of our year end funds um for these priorities in thinking about the budget this evening it was very important uh that our staff look at the Schoolboard resolution that was presented on January 25th and we wanted to make sure that um that everything thing that we included in the budget really was attentive to and responsive to the Schoolboard resolution uh we know that you were very clear about that and we want to make sure that we're hitting the mark with that so the Criterion rationale we began to uh we put
149together a chart um and looked at the Schoolboard resolution language on the left side and our budget Investments on the right much of which I've spoken about I did want to call out because there's been some question um in the student academic success which would be the second uh block there the second row we are utilizing our recent uh one-time funding our all-in Virginia Grant which is actually two years um of dollars twoyear uh budget to provide high dosage academic tutoring and accelerate the expansion of the literacy act as well as combating chronic absenteeism this is allowing us to pay for some of our positions our seal positions that we feel are important as we look at making sure students are attending our literacy work we've hired several folks um Orton Gillingham trainers uh literacy
150um I don't know Dr precidio exactly what those positions were called but there are literacy positions and some of our tutoring oversight those we're going to be able to utilize those all in for Virginia funds so I want to make sure that um as we present the budget folks see the value of those and that we're placing that value as well in terms of that Grant um usage so next slide please uh it's really going to be important I think for the community to stay involved we're going to have a lot of conversation about budget I'm sure um in the next several weeks and months in particular um Tuesday will be our work session where we'll have a lot more conversation a lot more questions and a lot more data to present as what sits
151under this again today is a this evening is a very highlevel um summary I want to um review the budget calendar and this again this presentation is posted on our website and the calendar um as I mentioned earlier we're going to be having a work session this Tuesday there'll be a public hearing there'll be another work session and then a a vote on the advertised Budget on February 22nd and as you see there's going to be a lot of um a lot of opportunity to collaborate again with our Board of Supervisors and County electeds uh as we approach May 23rd where we have a vote on the final approved budget so it's early days uh this evening next STS um this is really a recap of what I just said um and just really a
152lot of excitement as we move towards the final budget adoption so chairman frish that is the proposed budget for the 2025 fiscal year thank you Dr Reid we'll get things started with our budget chair Dr Anderson um thank you thank you for this um report I know that this is what everybody's waiting for and our chomping at the bit to get into it but I'm going to ask you to hold yourselves back in reserve your deep and thoughtful questions for next Tuesday because we'll have several hours in which we can dig into this budget um so please um be sure to do that I also want to offer a reminder to the community and I'm glad that you raised it that on the 13th which is also next Tuesday we will have a public hearing
153um on the budget so this is the Public's opportunity to ensure that they provide their thoughts and feedback on what the superintendent is proposing there is a second public hearing currently scheduled for the 20th if that is needed so please sign up to do that uh Mr McDaniel who is the budget Vice chair and I will be providing some additional information to the board in the coming days regarding how we are going to be working with amendments and really checking in on current budget questions um and ensuring that now that you may have some questions that are more in depth you might want to consider putting those in as budget questions they may not be appropriate um depending on the depth of information required for next Tuesday so thank you so very much for this
154information and I'm looking forward to the conversation on Tuesday thank you Dr Anderson Miss Lady thank you Dr Anderson for reminding everyone we have a work session coming up but I just did I did want to uh acknowledge that the drop program is in the budget um I can tell you as someone who just left the system less than two years ago um that when you hit your your your your end in erfc that too many of our veteran talented folks are looking at other systems who are going to who are going to give them all their years and they're also going to collect that so I just want to point that out and I'm very very grateful that that's in there thank you thank you Miss Lady Mr Moon thank you Mr chairman just
155briefly I know that we have a work session coming up on Tuesday uh I don't remember ever receiving uh a yearend priorities at the time of a budget presentation so it's a good to know what you have on your mind to bring to us at the year end you know having said that a the very top bullet item which has to do with special education teachers the 30 minute ex Day statement or pay uh using ern's onetime funding and I have a lot of questions about that so I'm going to bring that to you on Tuesday yes sir thank you Mr Moon I will take a quick turn uh I appreciate the presentation tonight I'll have questions at the work session but I think for the community watching at home um this sends a pretty
156clear message uh that we're focused on maintaining our competitiveness with other school divisions in the region when it comes to retention and recruitment which is the you know the foundation of our school system is our our talent worldclass staff so I appreciate that and um you know several of us uh and the fact that we're not pursuing new programming um in this budget just paints a picture of how focused we are um several of us are heading to Richmond um next week um and I have a feeling we'll be having many conversations about the jar uh you know study findings that you uh articulated in your presentation can you refresh my memory I know the number but I'd like to hear it from you again because I'd like to keep repeating the number over and
157over and over again how much money in additional funding if we only reach the Aver you know the the average per pupil spending would Fairfax County Public Schools be getting be about $1,900 per student which in a rough multiplier would be $345 million and does that include any fixes to the S soq formulas Alice Matthew no it does not and so the S soq formula where you know the the state school systems are underfunded by about six a little over six and a half billion doar with a B so if they followed all of the jar recommendations we'd be looking at significantly more than $345 million yes sir all right good to know good thinking talking points for our trip to Richmond next week thank you very much all right Mr Dunn um I'd like
158to build on my colleague Mr fr 's uh question because my understanding is that 345 million would be the bare minimum of what we are due from the state is that correct Dr Reed that would be correct if we met the jlar recommendations yes so not only for the staffing formula but we've been short change for years or even decades perhaps and uh of course we always talk about the Virginia Lottery being used to supplant funding rather than supplement funding um so there's a lot of issues uh although we have great uh local representatives and and hopefully they'll uh they'll make necessary progress in both the Senate and the house but I I think one of the things that I've seen in 10 years of education advocacy is that um every year we ask for
159more um and if you look historically at Fairfax County uh whenever our student enrollment starts to Plateau or even decline uh Fairfax County taxpayers start to ask um why do you need more money if the number of students is staying the same and so I think it's it's necessary to have a conversation with the public to address the changing nature of our student population 40% of students uh economically disadvantaged if I recall you know 20% in special education it's a vastly different population uh than it was even 20 years ago uh but I think it's also important that you know when we ask for more money we also make sure that we're having a conversation and and we're transparent with them and we're accountable to ourselves um that we are doing everything we can to
160achieve maximum return on investment for every taxpayer dollar because I can't say that to my constituents today I can't say that FCPS is as efficient as humanly possible um just in that fpac meeting I mentioned earlier as you know doing business a little bit differently different procurement methods different ways of Contracting could save tens of millions of dollars so that's an example where we need you know Fairfax county is different and it used to be the best in the world and it can be again but we have to be honest about that journey and be willing to change and ask tough questions and and and and and so if if we're stretched too thin if we're underst staffed then we need to think about how can we get that staff right how can we prioritize
161and we also need to look at how are we spending dollars is it you know this pot of money so every teacher gets 50 more cents or do we concentrate on the special education teachers and the title one teachers who are most underpaid and hardest to staff so um I I ask that we think outside the box we don't just do business and raises and everything else uh how we always have I also ask that we look at benefits not just pay but affordable housing there's there's opportunities out there to use FCPS County Properties to provide affordable housing for our Workforce and that's something we should be doing thank you Mr dun Mr McDaniel um briefly because I was not going to make comments but I changed my mind um if you go to slide
162well slide 11 I think in fy21 we asked County for 7.3 million fy22 it was 29.3 Million FY 23 was 102.6 Million FY 24 144.5 million now in the business World I'd call that a hockey stick and I I I am sensitive to that hockey stick it's not sustainable however what that slide doesn't show and we're going to get into this through the budget process are the needs of our student population that are also hockey sticking and our job as elected officials is to balance both of these things in a fiscally disciplined manner to Mr dun's point to make sure we are squeezing every penny that we have from a taxpayers perspective but at the same time recognizing the changing needs of our school system and I think now we've had these conversations before but
163this shows this shows right here we're at an inflection point right this cannot continue and whether that is us doing internal Reflections on our budget process and we passed a motion to do a deep dive and to look at things further U or that's going to Richmond or that's going to the Board of Supervisors we at some point really have to get this message out there and that's what I'm going to be doing over the next couple of months and I would encourage other members of this board to do the same thank you Mr McDaniel mides Mor Heiser just briefly one thing I wanted to lift up is that while I think it's OB obviously important to do a continual look right at um how we're doing things and I think this is where my
164conversation earlier about shortterm versus long-term and the amount of staff time we're going to be using which is inefficient on some short-term things we or TR also trying to do long-term right so I think we need to when we we're going to look at being efficient one thing we have to do is look at from a shortterm versus long-term lens on the action that we're directing staff to take um the other thing I'm going to talk about efficiency is you know I've lifted up for many many times that um in some of our programming some of our programs and structures were developed 20 30 40 years ago from an instructional lens and perhaps if we really had the space and I know it's hard to fly a plane while the same staff have to build
165a new plane not to take away Mr McDaniel's pilot metaphors right but perhaps it's time to look at some sort of Think Tank type work because what where we are in special education and in education generals I think it's time to build some new planes that probably could at the end of the day longterm be more efficient and effective however saying that we are also at a point in FX County Schools where I think we really have done a lot of work to be as efficient as possible when I go into schools I often hear principles saying we're operating barebones we're operating barebones we have greater needs of our students and if you look at our numbers in terms of students that do have greater needs those numbers are going up percentage wise right so
166the same number of people are Ser are are servicing students with higher needs which means we really need more people than we did before so when we're looking at are we effectively efficiently spending our money it's not a static concept right because the needs are constantly changing and therefore the amount of money we need to service those needs are constantly changing our are and on top of that we are putting more and more on what we expect public schools to do it's educating it's mental health support it's supporting families well that also causes more time and effort and more staff so I think it's really I I think it's very important to do deep Dives I'm totally supportive of that however I do want to lift up that sometimes that can't be an excuse to
167say it's got to be an and not an or right and I just want to put that out in the air it's got to be an and and I just want to point one last thing out if you look at the way guide which is the um Washington area and I forget what b stands for Education um that we're thank you that um kind of Compares a lot of our demographics and statistics or our surrounding jurisdictions when you look at Staffing ratios which is translated for class size between Alexandria Arlington Fairfax County Falls Church Lowden County Manassa City Manasses Park City and Prince William the only school system that has a higher student teacher ratio than Fairfax county is manasse City so that's huge right and so when we look at the current funding we
168have the current funding is the fact that we have a higher student teacher ratio than almost every Shing jurisdiction that we needs to be talked about right like there's only so much we can find within our own budget and we should look but the reality is the CH the expectations of school systems the greater needs of students means we've got and the underfunding historically and the old structures are causing this inflection point and Breaking Point thank you Miss eore Heiser Miss St John cunning I want to thank you and the staff for doing all this work um and I appreciate all of this work and coming from being down in the trenches to sitting on this board is a huge transition um and I I just want to point out that we all have this
169challenge of how we're going to try to do as everything that we have to do with less and from the people being down in the trenches we owe them our best efforts because every day they do more with less and I'm not saying that's a bad thing I'm saying that we have amazing teachers we have amazing staff um and it's our responsibility to be creative and find the funding and if it is you know knocking on all those doors in Richmond and with our Board of Supervisors um because there's only so much you can get out of efficiency and there's only so much you can get out so so many dollars you can get out from under the couch I mean that's just the reality and things just cost more you know so I really
170want to thank you for all the work that you've done and it's our responsibility to try to figure it out because I know the work that's being down in the trenches and I know a lot of teachers are purchasing you know those crayons for their kids or or supplies for their rooms or those snacks for the kids because we have staff that have heart and I just don't want to lose that in this whole conversation because we talk about dollars and cents which are critical and that's why it's such a hard transition for me to be here because I want to give those people what they really deserve thank you Miss St joh cunning Mr movan uh thank you I couldn't help myself um Mr Moon uh raised uh an interesting point uh and he's
171correct that we generally don't see um year end projections at this point um so and I realized we're going to get into this on Tuesday but uh in order to prepare for that can you explain or give your reasoning behind um including the special ed extended day funding there as opposed to here yeah I think um um I wanted to make sure that we call out that that's where that it is going to it is a priority and it will be funded and I'll be going into more detail Tuesday in the work session about how all the tables and the the division of where we chose to place different topics rather um the budget item Focus whether it's that within uh the Allin for Virginia Grant or a yearend or the budget or um other
172uh grant funding I think it's better to look at that holistically in that full picture but what I want to make sure tonight is that sometimes we only talk about the budget at the budget presentation but I felt like it was important to make sure that we named other priorities that are priorities for year end to make sure that um our staff understands that that's a commitment we're making so I think I'd rather present that in context um on Tuesday thank you Mr movine miss lady yeah sorry I was not going to speak again but I I I just want to say I want to Echo uh my colleague uh Miss St John cunning and just commend our our the majority of our our funding goes to staff and most of the staff are working
173with students every day I also want to thank you know Mr Dunn and other folks on this board who bring perspectives and experiences that are not mine you know I'm a lifetime educator um you know I came into this wanting to exercise my f responsibility I think it's essential that when we look at things like procurement and we look at these follow-on motions that we do make sure that we are maximizing public private Ventures etc etc but I also want to say that you know we should not be the second highest in terms of class student teacher ratio um it impacts learning uh you know we can't stay there I also want to say that if you're a first year teacher in fairfx county or if you're if you're a first year teacher now and
174you work 10 years unless you're fortunate enough to probably live at home for some of those years if your parents are in this in this County with you you you can't buy property in this County you can't live where you work and you know that we have to so that I'm very pleased with the 6% but I also understand that's going to come under scrutiny but the reality is that what people are making with different skill sets that's coming out of college um I have a nephew that's like two years out in construction management making you know over 100 100,000 you know we want to keep people wanting to do this teaching we can't have programs closing down so we compensation has to be a priority um but I also want to make sure that
175constituents understand that we do believe in our fiary responsibility even talking about the boundary reality we might find we're going to save in bus drivers we're going to save on buses we're going to save on gas we're going to save on lots of other things perhaps um but I think we just we're going to try to leave nostone on term to find money but also know that we have to look at what we're doing in terms of teaching and learning thanks thank you Miss Lady Miss Dixit thank you uh Mr chair Dr Reed um I just wanted to say that uh my colleague and mention about the the the number of students are plateaued and uh we should not be asking for money something like that uh in this context I would say that the
176cost of living just over the last few years has gone so much higher it's like an average in inflation has gone up so we cannot just say that you know because it cost us you know 100 million last year it should cost us 100 million this year because you have to pay more for everything right now so and the majority of our teachers like everybody said are commuting from far away paying more for gases um they're paying more for rents or their mortgage or everything cost money and I think uh we just cannot compromise on our you know our teachers and that's the the the basically the message was given to from the board uh to the superintendent was to make sure that our teachers are well compensated so that's not a question for us
177but I guess we have to find other ways ways to save money elsewhere thank you thank you Miss Dixit Miss Marin thank you I always love receiving the budget proposal it's very exciting thank you to staff and to our colleagues um on the budget committee Dr Anderson and Mr McDaniel so I think as a board we have a duty and an opportunity to reintroduce the community um of our schools to Fairfax County so let's remember that two-thirds of our residents do not have children in FCPS at any given time however they certainly benefit from our schools in many ways I mean we're the third largest employer in the state we are an economic driver that draws businesses to locate here um not to mention all the outstanding graduates we turn out and the facilities that
178are available seemingly seven days a week whether it's for elections or sporting activities or Community Lo Community um functions but our membership I think is is what we need to share more and reintroduce to our community as Dr Reed you say we're educating our students for careers that don't yet exist just with artificial intelligence alone we're having who knows what kind of things will'll have to purchase and opportunities and curriculum and training that's going to be needed but we also have a rate of poverty that I think people who have been in Fairfax a long time and have not had students in the system would find quite shocking um we partner with George Mason University and if you've ever been to Eagle Bank Arena for an event and we're fortunate enough to have our graduation
179there you might know that the popul the seating capacity in Eagle Bank Arena is 10,000 seats you could fill Eagle Bank Arena almost seven times with the number of students we have living in poverty in our K12 system here in our pre K12 system our special education needs we've been fortunate that in this era our children can get identified for needs early and I just would like to mention let's just one example one quick example dyslexia affects one in 10 people well now dyslexia is so advantageous on LinkedIn it is seen as an attribute but you know what it takes time to educate a child with dyslexia and we have to invest in that so I think as a board we can really continue to educate our community about the potential that our students have
180but it's going to be an investment thank you thank you Miss Marin thank you Dr Reid um we will now go on to agenda item 6.02 academic matters I call on Dr Reid thank you chairman frish um and I do um I do want to say that I think as we think about preparing our children here in Fairfax County and across this country for uh life in the 21st and I would argue 22nd century um we really the work we're doing is going to be profoundly different over the next several decades so I appreciate the board's acknowledgement of that and support um of our work that uh we're moving ahead I believe the country is watching so we've got this anyhow academic matters what an exciting night it is national school counselor week so Dr
181precidio and his team uh in recognition of that I've put together a fabulous uh presentation to share and to all our counselors out there who are watching um happy National Counselor week and thank you for all that you do so let's take a look at our school counseling Professionals in Fairfax County um we actually I think um are doing a fabulous job of making sure our elementary middle and high schools are staffed uh we have school counselors um that are a part of school communities at all grade levels and we're really excited um about the Partnerships that our school counselors are a part of which um they work closely with our administrators principes teachers Psych Coles social workers families and above all students um in a variety of roles and they are key uh to
182our students success here in Fairfax County want to briefly talk about what the school counselor role is um and again they have many responsibilities and roles but really are vital um to our Student Success and um in July of 2023 our Virginia code stated that school counselors should be spending 80% of their time in direct counseling with enforced students and 20% of their time with program planning and school support following this code and in alignment with the American school counselor Association National model our program really is designed to facilitate planning promote student personal social and emotional well-being and Implement appropriate data driven interventions as well as College and Career exploration bless you uh I believe it's Michael axler's team um under the direction of um Dr Edmond herd also that does a significant amount of
183um work in this area um in thinking about the academic domain uh our school counselors have a key role here uh in goal setting and reflection uh developing positive learning attributes and we've shared a couple quotes from students and staff in FCPS about the role of the scho school counselor in the career domain which is the second domain now I'm going to sneeze too it's must be catching um we okay we uh included again a quote from our students um and our school counselors again uh are collaborative in this career domain work uh our middle and high school counselors are hosting curriculum nights elective fairs and offering students and families the opportunity to explore course Pathways u a lot of that work actually is happening right now as we think about um our elementary students
184getting ready for Middle School Transitions and middle school to high school so our counselors are key in those transition moments our third domain is a social emotional domain again obviously to support our social and emotional Wellness um and developing executive functioning skills as well as healthy relationships tiered support for students based on individual needs needs um and providing both short-term and in some cases long-term support and collaboration uh with families teachers and administrators and communities for Student Success um and the Strategic plan school counselors are key to the achievement of our five goals and we really uh could not be successful uh to achieve these goals if our counselors weren't a key piece of that work um and finally again just grateful for each of our counselors and want to give them a big thank
185you um they're key to our work and chairman frish that is academic matters for this evening thank you very much we're not done with you yet miss SI Mor Heiser I feel really bad but I um couple things first I just wanted to lift up and say thank you to our counselors I didn't want to speak earlier when we um but um I'll just say as a parent it is uh my daughter's middle school counselor who really was seminal and getting her the support that she needed and I will say was one of the people who changed the trory of her life so I just needed to say that so Mr Brody if you're out there thank you very much um but I did have some other thoughts I wanted to lift up that in
186that I've been hearing from um various and parents and community members have as I've spoken to them um the first thing I want to lift up is the support that our councils give on social emotional executive functioning needs this is so important right and as I've heard especially coming out of the pandemic some of these needs are even greater right but we don't have the the counselor ra show I think that really sets our counselors up for success in doing this and they work hard and I'll tell you like again Mr Brody amazing right and many other Mr broes out there so we've talked about embedding some of these lessons especially executive functioning in advisory morning meetings the first question asked is what are we doing to help support our councilors in this work because
187it's so important for our students overall um success in school and outcomes and we can't expect our counselors to do it all so I think uh interestingly this came up in my uh regular meeting with SEPTA leadership this week and talked about uh particularly executive functioning skills and how important uh those are uh I think for many students the ab AVID program provides support for executive functioning um I also o sent an email um actually today off to Children's National Hospital that has a a curriculum which is actually a no cost curriculum and uh well researched it's called unstuck and un Target unstuck and on target un Target thank you I knew I couldn't remember the that's been around for about 15 years right so um I know it's being used at some of our
188schools but I wanted I send a note to Dr Kenworthy I believe it was um to uh get a copy of that and we want to take a look at that so I think that that would be supporting executive functioning skills um so I I just think that there is more work we can do um on that topic obviously in um little more to come on that so 10 years ago I beg to get unstuck and On Target in all of our schools so I'm so glad we're getting there just going to put that out there um I had to say it when you said unstuck and on target I just had to say it um I think that's great I think Avid is only available to certain students and it's a wonderful program and
189I do think that I mean when I've talked to leadership classes and I talk about executive function they're like oh we could use that and they talk about so I really would encourage you for both sort of the social emotional health and the executive functioning if figure how every student can get access to this in some way because I really think as our kids are going on to college it's one of the biggest areas where I think kids struggle in college or career so I just leave that there and I'm so glad we're finally getting unstuck in On Target yes ma'am two other things I wanted to put out for our counselors um I think there may be still some support to um help our counselors make sure students are really being exposed to various
190options right and and S of counsel on various options as they're going through upper elementary middle and high school I still hear from some parents a lot of sort of this is a One path pressure right and and I think again our counselors we don't have enough of them so they're doing the best but how do we find supports to make sure our students are getting exposed like I think what miss lady was mentioning right there's lots of great career paths and there are different ones that are right for different students um and their interest and their strengths and the last thing I'll just say this came up from a parent recently is that I think there might be a space to really help some of our staff um better help guide our parents towards
191resources at colleges that are more supportive twice exceptional students there are resources out there Facebook groups books and sometimes I think maybe if we can provide our counselors those to pass on that would be helpful yes ma'am thank you Miss seore Heiser Dr Anderson um thank you um and happy counselor's week to all one of the things that I would love for you to talk to us and actually just share with the public a little bit more is what is our current counselor Staffing formula how do we determine so I believe that's determined by S soqs although Fairfax County Public Schools has a richer um a richer ratio show I don't know if that's a Dr precidio or Dr agnu Scott question actually if you could if you could take a little bit more time
192and kind of give me all three because that's one of the things that I I'm going to ask what's the soq and what is it that we do and what is the industry standard I don't know if you have that third piece at your at your fingertips I well I don't know that we can answer all of that um precisely this evening but I I can certainly get started and then follow up as necessary so the S soqs and the state standards would say on average the School Division needs to staff at a 350 to1 uh student to counselor ratio uh overall in Fairfax we're around 310 to one um but it does vary by level and then when you talk about our staffing formulas we we probably almost need Matthew Norton to help us
193answer that question because it is a complex formula that's a little bit different at each level but at the basic level it takes into consideration how many students are in the building um with a weighted factor for how many students with special um additional needs free and reduced lunch that we have in a particular building um so that's the that's the highlevel uh formula and uh every every level is a little bit nuanced in terms of um how that formula is particularly applied so elementary middle and high school starts with that basic formula but it there there's a little bit of difference in terms of How It's calculated at each level I'm so what was that last part I I miss that there was a little bit of so the the basic the basic formula
194is number of students and number of students with risk factors uh for free and reduced lunch and then at the middle school the high school and the elementary level there's a little bit of a difference in terms of how that's applied um and I'd have to have Financial Services provide the Exact Staffing formula for that if that could be provided that would be very appreciated I'm sorry oh I thought you were saying something um one of the the things that I wanted to ask only because in one part of the slides you talked about um counselors providing lessons can you speak to and I'm thinking this is primarily at the elementary level do we have counselors at the elementary level consistently on the master schedule to provide lessons to students or is that a school
195dependent so I would have to again probably defer to Dr Presidio I do think there's some um there's some career exploration even that occurs um in the younger schools but Dr precidio perhaps you have a um clear answer to that yeah so it it again varies a little bit differently across different levels at the secondary elementary yeah so so Elementary specifically uh per our regulation um Specialists including counselors um Librarians school-based technology Specialists Advanced academic re resource teachers can be used in the master schedule uh for 10 hours up to 10 hours per week so at each School the um the the school-based uh leadership team makes decisions about how that is going to actually be uh determined in terms of the master schedule but in the vast majority of our elementary schools yes counselors
196are deployed in the master schedule delivering lessons Okay thank you um just the other thing that I wanted to add is part particularly now at the secondary level you know we've heard this so much from many students we've even heard it when we met with the dream project um from students who said that their counselors do not have time to engage them to get ready for college they do not have that time because they're so busy putting out fires handling with the crises and I I know you'll talk about that so I'm going to leave the I'm going to just leave it there and let Robin pick it up because I know she'll have some additional information she'll want to share I I just want us to be ble to be responsive to the fact
197that we are there's a lot on the plate and I know we have a lot that we're dealing with how can we be more um intentional to provide the students the support that they need by providing counselors with workable workloads so well I mean I think it's staying within the ratios obviously I think our social workers we've also talked about their role and their level of support in terms of working with families um but I think it's an ongoing challenge for whether it's a classroom teacher um or a counselor or a principal I think um they're in almost every role right now um you know our custodians who've added square footage their cleaning right like I mean every role I think we could take a look at and say what would a desk audit look
198like for that role and how could we best support employees engaged in that work role so I think with counselors um often that job description is just very expansive right and depending um on the context within which you're working uh the age of the children you're working with perhaps the families and challenges and so forth um I do think um trying to figure out how we collaborate more with Community Services as well uh because I think that uh often we hear that the counseling supports in the community are difficult for families to access they long waiting times and I think then that creates pressure on our counselors because they may engage in more long-term counseling that otherwise might be able to be referred to a community uh based support um I think we also have
199situations um you know where at secondary I think the telemental health is helping uh because our high school students are able to access the telal health in home languages um so that maybe frees up our counselors a bit to do a little more of the care you know career and College advising uh because students are able to access the telal health for more emergent issues perhaps you know I think we're looking at a variety of ways to help support the work of a counselor and I think this raises the question that I've shared with you a number of times is how do we capture that need which is why I want to make sure that I get a fuller understanding of um the Staffing formula how do we capture a need because for example you
200may have a school that routinely has crises on a regular basis which take away not just the counselor but the administrators and various teachers various support roles and you have another school that may not have that happening how do we provide the service and the additional support where we have those you know assess those um critical crises going on do we capture it do we count it how are we quantifying that kind of level of need I don't know if we are collecting that data probably not as effectively as we could maybe we could start looking into that you know as Miss St John Cummings said earlier it is up to us to do the hard work yes ma'am and that is hard because it is difficult to track and then give some sort of
201weight to all of that activity but we really need to I think that should have really serious impact on our staffing not just at the council level but across a lot of other levels as well agree and I think we're seeing some of that within our attendance work um our countering absenteeism and I I think we're going to be excited to bring you some great data here in the next couple weeks we have a number of schools and counselors that are key uh principles our family Liaisons uh but uh we're making huge progress in the attendance world and I think it's again a testament to looking at data and making sure we're doing things uh very intentionally but uh so we're collecting that data um I think emergency data or um emotional well-being data I
202think we certainly can take that back to the team and come back to you with um a way that we can better represent that I I would love to have that information thank you yes ma'am thank you Dr Anderson miss lady so um I'm gonna say whenever we ask for data we're putting that on staff and someone is a former school counselor I can tell you that in the midst of triaging my day if I had to to fill out a spreadsheet of sorts that would be a challenge I understand the ask um I will say that I have uh had the Epiphany since I've joined the school board that I really think that where our ratios are at fault are with our social workers um this the my understanding of the industry standard is
203one to 250 uh shanly we had 2900 students and we had two social workers uh now if you take out our CSS yes there were additional down there but that's only about 40 kids um yet we have counselors and what I'm saying is they find themselves doing social work which impacts their ability to do College advising Etc but I I also want to celebrate tonight right um as a former counselor you know I want to celebrate and thank our 575 school counselors in our system and our 52 directors of student services uh for everything they do every day and I also on their behalf want to provide a little brief history regarding the work so in 1957 when the Russians launched Sputnik the United States got a little concerned about somebody uh the about the
204of us falling behind in math and science so they went to Great teachers who had great rapport with their students and said we need you to take some time sit in an office and guide our kids into science and math so that we don't fall behind so the word guidance counts the Genesis of that was not when you had to have a master's degree that usually is a two-year full-time program um and over time the role has been redefined and the word guidance was replaced with word school as the work entails much more than providing guidance or as we call it academic advising um I appreciate your your presentation I think it does outline the three domains um and the where we try to live as school counselors um I always say to people in
205short school counselors are in the building to address issues that impact students ability to access learning be those basic needs learning differences um social emotional we are there to triage and hopefully get uh our students back in class um so that that's the main thing I wanted to talk about about and and also say that you know our school counselors and directors of student services are key fixtures in all of our schools while school counselors start their day with a plan too often the plan is thwarted by interruptions that require immediate attention um they manag to attend their 504 IP meetings conduct parent teacher conferences prepare for and teach classroom uh guidance lessons check in with their students and address issues that arise unexpectedly every day uh their juggling skills are Supernatural so tonight I
206just want to say thank you to all of the those who do this work please know that we see you and we celebrate your work and I also will add if you only remember one thing that I said tonight please refer to our amazing counselors as school counselors and not guidance counselors moving forward thank you thank you Miss Lady Mr Dunn um I wanted to ask for a clarification uh you mentioned Dr Reed that uh and I may have misunderstood hence I'm asking are are we limited in the number of school counselors and social workers and psychologists that we can hire and employ at our schools because of the state support staff uh limitation we're not limited but the state doesn't fund um a higher ratio so that's one of the things as a county
207we've chosen in Fairfax County to fund counseling at a higher rate which is why our case load is lower than the state's s soq um just anecdotally in conversations with um school counselors and others um they do heroic work um but you know my colleagues miss lady and Dr Anderson and others have have already said a lot of important things but uh i' just like to lift up that we also need to um look at the nationally recommended ratios for the number of social workers and psychologists per student because uh if you know just in the schools of my district um it would often require doubling at least doubling in some cases the number of social workers and psychologists to actually reach the nationally recommended ratios and if if any school system's going to meet
208those ratios it it probably should be Fairfax County being one of the wealthiest places on Earth understanding the funding limitations but the uh the the burnout and and the mental and Behavioral health problems in our schools um especially among students but also among Educators and staff are are real the pandemic um its Legacy is uh engraved upon our souls in some way and we need to provide the mental behavioral health support because um you know it's just it's a it's a very different world out there as you know and so you know as we move forward you know we can talk about academic goals uh laid out in our strategic plan like eighth grade Algebra but if we don't um provide those wraparound Services family leaon included um uh then then I think ultimately we
209will not be successful right because we can't just talk about school anymore in an age when of such anxiety such trauma um and so we really need to look at school in a holistic way and I I know you do but I just urge that FCPS consider establishing goals of trying to reach those nationally recommended ratios that was something I campaigned on and found a lot of support for um so I think if we State a goal and be transparent with the public we can actually build support both M elected officials and our constituents to convey what the problem is what it will require and then we can get the funding or other resources to actually make that happen yes sir I I will also mention we do have a um a grant that the
210team Dr pidio Mike axler Dr axler and the team wrote to support uh recruitment bonuses and retention bonuses for social workers psychologists um counselors I believe are also not counselors social workers and psychologists what I will say is it's very even when we have the positions available it's very difficult to attract candidates and one of the reasons that we're working to have a competitive wage is to make that easier as well so um all of those pieces work together and so I appreciate what you said Thank you Mr Dunn Miss Dixit thank you Mr chair uh Dr Reed uh I've put two kids in high school in the last four years and have a son right now in Fest County Public School in high school and I've seen the counselor doing tremendous work and they
211have do have a lot of workload they tend to a lot of students so even though I agree that they provide a lot of support in uh as in social emotional academic uh domain like student advising and academic advising um and but the career domain that's what I find that they are either overburdened with just too many things going on and I feel there is a need a need of a there is one uh Career College and Career specialist throughout the school one and it has got so many kids it's not catered to each student's need and where they want to go to college what their speciality is so this is a where I find a big loophole uh that we are we need to address that um counselor have to work with somebody else
212in the school system I don't know it we have to find more resource for the students because those are the critical years for them to to finalize where they want to go next some people some student might want to go to college some want to go to trade school but then everybody doesn't get the same advice and same counseling at at that level that's that's what my um personal experience has been that um is the parents who kind of really have to lot of do a lot of that college selection and work with the students thank you yeah thank you thank you Miss Dixit all right moving right along we'll let the superintendent return to the de because it is now agenda item 6.03 superintendent [Laughter] matters I slowly call on Dr Reed thank you
213uh chairman frish um so superintendent matters since last we met um I had the exciting pleasure with uh to celebrate our Grammy winning teacher uh Annie Ray and she uh I know I was GNA say I could I actually a year ago joined her parent Orchestra for an evening and played the violin and was not invited back so I think that uh but I'm sure that I don't want to read anything into that um so I also just want to give a big shout out to the custodians and Food Service workers as well as our transportation workers it's our uh bus uh Transportation hero week as well um and encourage all staff to wear yellow tomorrow to support our Drive um so we're very excited about that um and uh definitely want to join in
214the recognition and celebration for the proclamation for Black History Month as well I wanted to share that last Saturday we had our first job fair uh for teachers and it was at Lewis High School so thank you Alonso uh for Alonso Smith for hosting us we had approximately 400 candidates and extended offers to 160 at this time last year um we were in the 30s that we extended offers so we're really working hard to hire um teachers early this year also had a chance to uh visit with our accelerated certification cohort which are our um staff who are teachers and central office leaders pursuing a license and administration uh Brendan menu one of our executive principles was working with that group and it was fun to visit with them last night actually we help our
215third of four we have four quadrants of what we're calling Our Family Vision Group um and the third of four was last evening at Lane Elementary School we had a large number of uh families and this is the group uh We've convened that have two family members from each school um so we have our fourth next week and just a lot of very interesting feedback um safety update on Blake Lane the winka matics have been installed uh on Blake lay near Oakton High School that is a huge um achievement so I want to thank all staff who have participated um as well as our partnership with the Fairfax County Police Department uh we've had two graduations since we've met uh Mountain View and Bryant high school and very exciting to launch young graduates I want
216to thank the principes and staff and families and as we celebrated those students and then as far as school visits um I've had a chance to be at Stone Middle School um as well as uh speaking to the student leadership group at Woodson High School uh and heard a lot about early career planning to Mystic sit's Point our students think we need to talk about that sooner early and often I think is how they put it I joined several of our board members also at crybaby the musical at Fairfax High School last Friday um and earlier in the week the sixth grade strings chorus and band Winter concert for Rocky Run or at Rocky Run Middle School for Green Brier West Elementary they had 90 string students in fourth grade uh it was quite a
217a presentation just amazing work and that would be what superintendent matters at this point this evening thank you chairman frish thank you Dr Reed agenda item seven consent agenda our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure Robert's Rules provide for a consent agenda listing several items for approval of the board by a single motion many items listed have gone through Board review and documentation has been provided to all board members and the public in advance items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member prior to the meeting the consent agenda items are on the screen is there any objection to approving the consent agenda hearing and seeing no objection the consent to agenda is approved agenda item number eight new business the following our new business agenda items there will not
218be a vote on these items this evening but action is scheduled at a future meeting the new business business items are on the screen agenda item nine board matters next on the agenda is board matters I will call on each School Board member to speak Miss Sandy Anderson I'm passing this evening thank you Dr Anderson I want to give a quick report regarding skipped so please give me a second you guys were faster than I was um I've had the opportunity to serve on skip this year first starting with Miss U mclin and now with Miss St John who came to her first meeting this week and again it's a very exciting committee to be on as they work on um a lot of very important initiatives at this F at this meeting just this
219week there was a presentation from County staff regarding the Fairfax County opad response which included quite informative information about not only how to educate our community but also resources that are available to help combat the um crisis that is cing on right now um while the work of the committee the committee is very hard at work in developing policy but I also think that there's more opportunity to realize its goals so at the next executive committee it's going to be my recommendation that we consider um aligning the skip work similarly to the jet committee that U met a few years ago so that there could be recommendations to be brought forward to each of the bodies for adoption because that's the way I think we can move that work a little bit forward rather than
220have it just sit um and embedded in multiple documents I want to say congratulations so that's it for skipped I want to say congratulations quickly to the Justice high school girls indoor track team they are the National District Champions um I want to say congratulations to George Lynch a wrestler from FAL Church High School who was crowned the national District champion in his weight class and another shout out to Annie Ray the 2024 Grammy music teacher educate music educator of the year and high school and I will have the opportunity to go to her parent class but I will be playing nothing I am that does not happen I'm just going to be an observer um I want to also say I was very excited to be invited to Edison High School um last week
221to attend their Global stem ChalleNGe Program and their presentations focus on generating clean electric power for the regions around the world with low access to electricity their content knowledge was impressive I learned so much from the 11th graders who were um part of this presentation and they were topnotch so very much appreciated for being invited can't wait to go back and then I cap that day with going to Justice High School to judge the science fair so I started with science and ended with science it was a very very very good day and also I was very excited to be part of the Bride High School commencement ceremony um yesterday oh was it just yesterday yesterday um those students worked so hard and their diplomas mean so much to them and their parents and we
222had one of the students who earned eight of the 14 awards that were provided um the scholarships that were provided um yesterday so they're doing some fantastic work and really overcoming some significant challenges so very very very proud of you uh Bryant high school graduates thank you thank you Dr Anderson Mr Dunn up Mike uh still learning uh so uh I was I was excited to uh hold my first town hall on January 22nd uh we had a great discussion with a number of issues ranging from uh Advanced academics and Inclusive Preschool to special education and student enrollment forecasts um last Friday February 2nd I had the honor to attend a historic performance called uh Tales of nany uh the first theater production written choreographed and directed by African-Americans at Mount fernon High School I
223had the pleasure to meet the playwright Matthew Apprentice III uh director Renee Charlo and choreographer ebony Jones um I want to uh lift up uh a fantastic student at Mount Vernon High School uh Sophie cutter who recently secured a spot on the US Junior Taekwondo National Team I think that's fantastic um we've had lots of other uh Awards and uh excitement happening but I'd also like to lift up former Hollen Hills Elementary School teacher Miss Billy Miler who was recently visited by Dr Reed there's a nice little photo of her um and Miss biller Myer now 90 years old was an educator for decades including at Holland Hills Elementary School which was converted into the Paul Springs Community Center where she now resides um I also wanted to lift up the first ever Edison pyramid
224band concert which was a fantastic event with over 130 students participating so um there's a lot more coming in in the near future so uh please do pay attention and sign up for my newsletter to learn more about uh events in our community I hope to encourage greater participation by the community in school events so we can build stronger linkages because strong schools make strong communities sir thank you Mr dun Miss St John cunning thank you I also wanted to lift up the Edison um pyramid concert because it was amazing and I had also attended uh the Fairfax High School performance um as we see here on the stage the talent from these kids is incredible um also I wanted to mention that um the civics class from Twain was able to go to the
225capital they were greeted by Senator Kane Senator Mark Warner and Don berer and that's nice to know that we're going to have Future Leaders from our schools um already in the making um finally I was really excited to attend the career day sponsored by the Hispanic educator Educators Association and the Hispanic leadership Alliance yesterday at Lewis High School this organization has provided scholarships to students that are firsttime students in Fairfax County that go to um to college the students and I were inspired by a panel of Hispanic professionals including Natalia Fabo a community engagement and volunteer coordinator of the national museum of the American Latino Gustavo s Sagi a stamping engineer for Toyota engineering North America Mela salana Tores a Justice graduate and current resource teacher at the Lewis leadership program and Dr jaavan pones
226chief of schools for Fairfax County it was inspiring for these students to see these professionals thank you Miss Satan John cunning Miss Lady thank you uh did a several visits over the past two weeks I visited Hutchinson elementary school and was incredibly impressed with principal I's vision and Leadership and enjoyed visiting classrooms and experiencing the teaching and learning that is taking place last night I was at Marshall High School for the one act play Regional competition was very impressed with the performances of our students from South Lakes mlan shantii and Marshall and I want to congratulate Marshall on their Victory and wish them the best at States this morning I attended a parent coffee at Clearview Elementary School principal alquest and her team put on a great program for new and returning families talked a
227lot about uh helping students make friends um talked about uh after school clubs and how it's important for students to be involved uh in in in activities uh and also other upcoming family events this past Tuesday I was present when the Board of Supervisors celebrated Fairfax County's Fairfax County with two recognitions uh the first celebrated the Davis Center's 40th anniversary the Davis Center at Marshall High School is a students Pathway to individual education and Vocational experiences this program enables them to discover their skills and talents through a strong partnership with local businesses Community Partners families and students if you're in need of a caterer reach out to the Davis Center and place an order um the second recognition was for Career and Technical Education Month where they recognized our Academy programs and CTE classes The
228Academy open houses are going on now uh also I'm following Senate Bill 27 Public School trades incentive fund and program to help districts Implement skilled trade classes with career Potentials in high school and middle school as well as linking students to credential programs I also want to congratulate David co uh a drainville TJ uh student who was one of 40 finalists in The 2024 regeneron science Talent search from the 300 students recognized including seven other FCPS students good luck David in the finals also congratulations to the hcock Elementary School fourth graders who participated in the Lincoln oratory festival at Ford Theater this week I know they spent weeks preparing for their recitations and also congratulations to the coven Run Elementary School Cooper middle school and longf middle school math counts teams who were key in
229winning five of the seven top Awards in the northern Virginia Regional math counts competition and finally congratulations to Cooper our kids lit team that plays second at Nationals in Connecticut the kids lit quiz is an international annual literature quiz in which teams of four students age 10 13 work together to answer wide ranging literary questions great job cougars thank you thank you Miss Lady Mr McDaniel I have the script inverted I'm sorry Mr mine thank you Mr frish uh or should I say Kenny um so uh uh I want to wish everyone a Happy Lunar New Year uh uh my family and I will be celebrating at at the school board retreat uh this Saturday um but I I do look forward to seeing everyone there I will be bringing some special treats uh Mr
230moon is bringing the Soju right is that correct um but anyway see everyone there um happy year of the dragon thank you Mr movine this is what I get for highlighting the name that's next and then skipping right over it so Mr McDaniel uh my wife is watching at home and she texted me and said you've talked too much this meeting so I'm going to pass thank you for your brevity Mr McDaniel Miss seore Heiser I'm just going to lift up since we talked about crybaby the musical and how amazing it is that it's still going on this weekend so if you haven't seen it get some tickets also Robinson Matilda Jr Lake bradock something rotten coming up Irving is doing we will Irving Middle School is doing we will rock you so lots of
231amazing theater going on right now and I'm excited to go see the parent Orchestra and I do hopefully get to play play something cuz it's a lifelong dream to play an instrument and the only instrument I've played to date so far is the drums so um I'm excited I'll stop there have a great night thank you Miss seore Heiser Mr Moon thank you Mr chairman I thought that you were forgetting me and Mr Mia was going to yield Auto's time to me too so about a week ago I was able to attend one of the r Paran Orchestra I don't play any musical instruments but I was able to listen to all the great music you know being a rehearsed by a many of our talented and dedicated parents uh their concert seems to be
232on the night we have a school board meeting May the 9th so I would like to request uh Mr chairman to excuse me if I don't show up to the meeting please bring a note thank you and and since Mr meel mentioned about Lunar New Year that a Saturday January 1 according to lunar calendar uh there are I think about 10 different countries that celebrate a Lunar New Year on based upon the lunar calendar uh they Korea China Vietnam Japan Philippine Indonesia Singapore for Malaysia and Thailand and upcoming new year is year of dragon and in Korea uh we consider this particular year of dragon to be year of blue dragon blue dragon represents bravery courage I was not born in the year of dragon I was born in the year of rooster but however
233my name ilong in case you didn't know means one Rong means Dragon so I am one Dragon I am really looking forward to having a brave courageous New Year from this Saturday starting with a retreat thank you thank you Mr Moon Miss Dixit um thank you Mr chair I'm going to call Mr Moon one dragon so my mistake just wanted to say about everybody's talked about crybaby the musical I just felt I was on Broadway the students were so good and uh I was just uh Spellbound I I I was so happy to see them perform at that level there were many students uh I guess across the county there were uh students from Sali district schools as well and congratulations to the team and all the students there for doing such a great performance
234performance um also would like to congratulate uh the Sul District school Navy Elementary Shanty High School Stone Middle School Center Ridge elementary school and Westfield High School who won five of the 11 award for outstanding School communication at the school communication Conference held on January 26th Navy Elementary was awarded the 2024 Award of communication excellence in the category Best in Show which recognize a school that is excelling in web social media and newsletter that shows our schools are getting so creative with the social media and Technology I also had a great uh trip to visit to school Stone Middle School uh with Mr Moon and superintendent Reed it was really fun to record an episode of episode of the school pause and listen podcast thank you principal Williams for being so welcoming and the valuable
235Insight that you and your staff share shared with me um lastly I wanted to say about um I had the exciting opportunity to participate in the FCPS Department of it midyear virtual conference education AI plus AI with a keynote presentation from thought leaders like S Khan from KH Academy Amanda B staff co-founder CEO of AI education and of course our own FCPS Chief Information officer uh gotam setti this event was really interesting and there was lot of great topics covered I would uh request in the future if you could uh do it POS make it possible for the high school students to also participate because as the they are the one who should be learning more about AI of course we want to want as well so thank you everyone have a great night bye
236thank you Miss Dixit Miss Marin yeah well I've would been really immersed in secondary school course selection because I have arriv ride ring nth grader so I know I'm not alone and it's not just high school it's Middle School uh entering middle school and secondary school and so I just encourage our families and our students to really understand the process um I know it's it's something that um needs to be communicated uh clearly it can be a bit confusing if you're a first-time family so even even for me I I had questions so um please do pay a lot of attention to that process and U I've had some really amazing um academic achievements happening in Hunter Mill we've got some regeneron science Talent search um award recipients in Madison High School and at TJ
237and we also have National young Arts Foundation competition um recognition at many of our high schools dancing and music violin Jazz so um I feature all that in my newsletter but um there's some really great stuff happening and thank you to our teachers who recently got either new or recertified for their national board certification including um Stephanie Stewart at Hernan high school and a Stephanie of Vargas claros Marshall High School they're new uh for newly certification I cannot get enough of Annie Ray and if I had the choice to meet Taylor Swift or Annie Ray I would meet Annie Ray and I expect to do so soon um I was delighted to attend Forest Edge Elementary recently for their achievement assembly for the prek through second graders and just um a chance to honor the
238students behavior and achievements and classroom citizenship and include uh the custodian Mr Jose who's a local celebrity who Not only was featured with an honor but helped to present the honor for the best mannered in the cafeteria which included uh the winner was the kindergarten one of the kindergarten classes and then over at McNair literacy night had a tremendous turnout that's a one our school that is K2 tremendous turnout I mean over a hundred families and students at least if not more um and no one um was running around the gym they were all immersed in the literacy activities uh tomorrow night I'm headed to Sunrise Valley Elementary for their spelling be I was over at Flint Hills last week for their spelling be of K2 students the winning word was Stitchery which was a
239fifth grade level word um I will be attending Langston hughes's honor roll assembly next week as a board member and also as a parent because my ninth grader did it so happy year of the dragon and I look forward to celebrating this weekend and right here in this exact location next Saturday at Luther Jackson Middle School for their annual um celebration that is fantastic thank you thank you Miss Marin I think the swifties are going to be coming after you after after that um I also had an opportunity with many of our colleagues here to attend crybaby and before the incredible performance by our student um our incredibly talented students uh we had an opportunity to break bread with our city Partners in the city of Fairfax on the city council and on the school
240board and mayor Reid and uh had some great conversations with mayor Reid and chairman pitches from their school board about how we can continue to partner together um on Tuesday um I uh filled in for Miss Dixit our federal legislative uh liaison for a round table with Senator Tim Kaine to talk about education issues and he opened the conversation by responding to our letter to our Congressional Delegation about Title One funding concerns um stating that he would do everything in his power to protect our title funding from the cuts that have been discussed in the House of Representatives so I'm very grateful for that um on Tuesday as well I had the incredible uh Fortune of being on hand at Cunningham Park Elementary School as HDR the great engineers at HDR um brought their all
241kids bike uh program to Cunningham Park and to see a room full of kindergarteners as the curtains get pulled and there are bicycles and helmets for all of them uh was a really great way to start my day on Tuesday um on Wednesday I was fortunate to um attend the Bryant high school graduation with several of my colleagues and every now and then a student speaker just says something that is just perfect and here's the I leaned over to Dr Anderson and said that was incredible when she said this she said sometimes it feels like the world is on top of us but today we're on top of the world and I thought that was fantastic um and then uh on Wednesday many of us also participated in the FCC pta's uh meeting and um
242meet and greet with us on the school board and finally uh last week uh I was able to attend the installation of our winkl matics I don't even know if that's a thing but I found out when they were being installed and I went and thanked the workers uh because of how important it is to our community along the Blake Lane Corridor um I do want to thank our incredible FCPS team especially the office of Safety and Security for being diligent and getting that job done uh also our partners and supervisor Dalia Pal's office uh FC do V do um all of our partners that made this possible including those in the community from Fairfax families for Safe Streets um and the neighbors that we have around Blake Lane so I too will be here
243uh this weekend as we celebrate the Lunar New Year uh and the Year of the Dragon so I'm looking forward to seeing my colleagues there and others as well and with that we are adjourned outstanding that was a pack meeting