FCPS School Board Meeting - 1/11/2024

001[Music] yeah [Music] we'll get started in just a moment e the January 11th 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 hearnden high school guitar 4 Ensemble under the direction of Christopher Cunningham I pledge of allegiance to the flag FL of the United States of America to the Republic for it stands one nation indivisible [Music] for [Music] [Applause] we have another round of applause for our hearnen high school [Applause] students thank you 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

002County School Board convened a closed meeting on January 11th 2024 to the best of each member uh member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully Exempted from open meeting requirements and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the board during the closed meeting one second uh can I get um an opinion from the parliamentarian or councel as to whether we do this part of our meeting since we're continuing with closed after the meeting it my recommendation as Parliament Taran would be to go ahead and take care of the Motions that were considered during the pre the closed meeting and to follow up on any motions that are done when you continue all right do I have a motion Mr moon is there

003a second Mr Maven all those in favor Miss seore Heiser Mr McDaniel Mr mine miss lady Miss St John cunning uh Dr Anderson Mr Mr Dunn Miss Anderson Miss Dixit Mr Moon that's unanimous all right uh con agenda item 2.03 confirmation of action taken and closed I call on Miss sear Heiser for a motion I move to deny the school reassignment appeal of a student who participated in the group assault of another student at school and confirmed the disciplinary decision of the division superintendent is there a second second all in favor Miss seis marah Heiser Mr McDaniel Mr movine miss lady Miss St John cunning Mr Dunn Dr Anderson Miss Anderson uh Miss Dixit Mr Moon uh that is unanimous I call on Miss Anderson for a motion uh Mr fresh Miss Dixit did not

004have her hand raised oh I apologize uh without objection I'd like to uh ask Miss Dixit if she'd like her vote recorded differently Miss Dixit would you like to record your vote as no any objection great thank you very much I apologize Mr chair may I be recognized please yes Miss Baron hello good evening um unfortunately I'm not able to be there in person I did submit the request to be um virtually participating that gets read after the um the closed portion okay so I'm not voting in the certification or abstaining from that okay thank you all right no worries all right uh I call on Miss Anderson for a motion I move to deny the school reassignment appeal of a student who participated in the group assault of another student at school and confirm

005the disciplinary decision of the division superintendent is there a second second thank you uh all those in favor Mr Moon Miss Anderson Dr Anderson Mr Dunn Miss St John cunning miss lady Mr movine Miss McDaniel Mr McDaniel Miss seis Mor Heiser and myself all opposed Miss Dixit any extensions all right uh the motion passes I call on Dr Anderson for a motion I move to deny the school reassignment appeal of a student who possessed use and distributed for profit um a THC vape at school and to confirm dis disciplinary decision of the division superintendent is there a second I second thank you all those in favor Miss seore Heiser Mr McDaniel Mr mine miss lady Miss St John cunning Mr Dunn Dr Anderson Miss Anderson Miss it Mr Moon all opposed none all extensions none

006the motion passes uh we will continue with closed session after tonight's regular business meeting and return to officially close when we're finished um agenda item 2.04 announcements Miss Marin has submitted a written request to attend this evening's meeting virtually due to a personal conflict all those in favor of approving Miss Marin's request please raise your hand Miss seore Heiser Mr MC Daniel Mr mline miss lady Miss St John cunning Mr Dunn Dr Anderson Miss Anderson Miss Dixit Mr Moon all opposed abstentions welcome will you test your microphone Miss Marin I believe I I already did sorry about that thank you good evening no worries uh if you'd like to review a copy of your of the agenda and any agenda item that is being discussed tonight that information may be found in the back of

007the auditorium or on the website fcps.edu schoolb boardboard dos tonight's meeting is being broadcast on channel 99 and live streamed on the website fcps.edu sltv ch99 agenda item 20.05 election of Schoolboard chair and vice chair the next order of business is agenda item 2.05 the election of Schoolboard chair and vice chair section 22 uh1 -76 of the code of Virginia specifies that at the annual organizational meeting in January or July a school board shall elect one of its members to serve as chairman and may elect one of its members to serve as Vice chairman both for a one-year term and shall also provide uh and shall also approve other appointments and designations of responsibility necessary for board operations during the year I now call on Dr Reid to conduct the selection of process of the

008school board chair for the remainder of this school year thank you Mr frish at this time I will open the floor to nominations for chair of the Fairfax County School Board I nominate Carl frish for chairman of the board is there a second I second the nomination Carl fris has been nominated as chair are there any other nominations hearing no other nominations the motion before the board is to elect Carl frish as chair of the Fairfax County School Board I'll call on those members who nominated him for comments first miss lady would you like to speak to your nomination yes I would Dr Reed thank you um I just want to share I've known Carl fres for a very long time um uh personally but also have followed him and his work here on the

009school board of great respect for all the work he has done in his first tenure um and also uh watched him lead as Vice chair as a new board member um I was very grateful to him um for his support in helping uh organiz with leadership orientations for new board members uh he's been um on call uh as needed and responsive to any requests um I feel uh confident in his leadership uh he puts students first in his decision- making um and it would be honored to serve alongside of him as chair of our board thank you thank you Miss Anderson would you like to speak to your second yes thank you I guess it's too early to say ditto um however I would also Echo everything that that miss lady just said is that

010we have been hugely supported as new board members through um Mr fish's leader ship and I would be honored to serve alongside him as with him as our chair thank you Miss Anderson are there any other board members who wish to speak if you could just raise your hand then I can call on you Dr re Mr Moon uh even though it has only been about 10 days that that I have worked with Mr frish as a colle on the board I have come to a true appreciation of what he can bring to the rest of the board uh as far as his leadership and also his personality of trying to include everybody in the discussion and I appreciate that I look forward to your continuing leadership for the next six months I'm happy to

011support you thank you Mr Moon Miss seore Heiser I am thrilled and honored to support this as I was your election to Vice chair back in July um I am as the immediate past chair of the school board I will say that I know you have all of the skills knowledge and collaboration um to really do a fantastic job as chair and I'm so grateful to you I just want to say I know the difficulty of this job and the timec consuming nature of this job and so I just wanted to say thank you for stepping up to lead this board as you've been um an amazing colleague and a collaborative colleague I've been honored to be serving alongside you the last four years I'm honored to be working with you as our chair so

012thank you for stepping up is what I want to say if there are no other comments then we'll proceed with the vote which requires a majority of votes from those board members present in voting the motion before the board is that Carl frish be elected chair of the Fairfax County School Board all those in favor of the motion please signify by raising your hand and saying I I that would be Mr Moon Miss Dixit Miss Anderson Dr Anderson Mr Dunn Mr frish Miss St John cunning miss lady Mr mine Mr McDaniel Miss eore Heiser and Miss Marin those opposed I believe that's a majority at this time I am pleased to introduce the new chair of the Fairfax County School Board Mr Carl frish um I just want to say that I'm grateful for the

013opportunity to serve as chair um you know I was elected vice chair with Elaine Tolen um who was kind enough to send me a text message during our first work session as a new board telling me what was on her calendar and let me tell you it was sparse so if she's watching at home she's not I appreciate everything that that I learned from her um and and everything that um we did together as a team and um I think we all agree that the School Board needs to work with parents and staff as we advance a student- centered focus on our strategic plan and I remain as always committed to collaborating with my colleagues new and returning um to help our worldclass Educators deliver on the promise of Excellence Equity opportunity to help every

014student achieve their full limit Limitless potential in our system so I look forward to getting to work uh with this board over the year over the next six months thank you we will now move on to election of the vice chair since I am no longer Vice chair um there will be an election to elect new Vice chair do I have any nominations for vice chair Mr McDaniel I nominate Melanie mirin for school board Vice chair is there a second Miss eore Heiser I second thank you Melanie Marin has been nominated for vice chair do I have any further nominations for vice chair there being no further nominations for vice chair the motion before the board is to elect Miss Marin as Vice chair of the Fairfax County School Board Mr McDaniel would you'd like

015to speak to your nomination uh briefly Mr chairman I could probably get away with making no comments but I just wanted to be very brief in in mind uh I'm making the motion to nominate Melanie tonight because she has extensive uh public education policy experience she has Schoolboard leadership experience as the governance chair as past budget chair and as public engagement chair I'm excited uh for her uh new role and I'm excited to work with her and all the new all of my new colleagues on this board thank you thank you Miss sear Heiser would you like to speak to the nomination just briefly um I'm excited to be able to nominate Miss Marin um one of the the many strengths Miss Marin brings is being very process focused and process oriented which I think

016will serve us very well as we are a new board coming together and working out our new norms and processes so I think that will be a a real strong strength and um to her role as Vice chair and I having served alongside her for the last four years I know she's very student Focus she's she's really out in her community to represent her community well and a fierce advocate for stakeholders for the best interest of our school school system and as former budget chair and governance chair I think she brings some that leadership role so I'm I'm honored to nominate second the nomination excuse me thank you very much any others Dr Anderson thank you I'm glad to support my colleague Miss Marin as was shared over the last four years she has definitely

017shown that she is driven by process which is something that is near and dear to my personal heart and she is a whiz at ensuring that we are staying very close to the work of the school board which is to focus on the work of policy I know that Miss Marin has many wonderful ideas and will serve um in a wonderful way as part of our board's leadership so I'm glad to support all right if there are no other comments then we'll proceed with the vote which requires a majority of votes of those board members present and voting the motion before the board is that Melanie Marin be elected vice chair of the Fairfax County School Board all those in favor of the motion please signify by raising your hand and saying I I all

018right uh Miss seis Mor Heiser Mr McDaniel Mr movine miss lady Miss St John cunning Mr Dunn Dr Anderson Miss Anderson Miss Dixit Mr Moon that is unanimous uh Madame well we've just announced the vote the motion passes at this time I am pleased to introduce the new Vice chair of the Fairfax County School Board Melanie Marin [Applause] can we Max Headroom her and make her screen big for the for the audience there we go hi good evening and I am so sorry to miss this uh momentous occasion I had made plans a long time ago um but thank you to my colleagues for your unified trust in my leadership and service of the board I'm eager to join chair frish in facilitating the smth smooth workings of this newly elected board already I'm inspired

019by the energy and calls to action that our members have expressed and I am ready to help us achieve our best work together so our student staff and Community can Thrive onward to big things in the months ahead thank you very much Miss Marin all right I call on Miss seore Heiser for a motion I move that the Fairfax County School Board adopt the midyear the school board midar liaison and committee assignments as detailed in the agenda item and attachment on board docs is there a second second all those in favor missis M Heiser Mr McDaniel Mr movine miss lady Miss sat John cunning uh Mr Dunn Dr Anderson Miss Anderson Miss Dixit Mr Moon well it's not in here but um technically it's correct uh Dr Anderson's point of order about speaking so uh

020Miss eisor Heiser would you like to speak to the motion no I think this is just filling the vacancies left by our previous board on the committee assignment so um I'm happy to move it thank you Dr Anderson I appreciate it uh we'll take the vote again with no objection Miss seis or Miss eisar Heiser Mr McDaniel Mr mavan miss lady Miss A John cunning Mr Dunn Dr Anderson Miss Anderson Miss Dixit Mr Moon and myself and Miss Marin uh that is unanimous agenda item 3.01 Community participation the next order of business is community participation we welcome all community members who are here and those who signed up to speak this evening community members can sign up to provide comments at Schoolboard regular meeting business meetings and public hearings on the school board's website at

021regular business meetings speakers May address any school related issue except those that have been scheduled for public hearings such as the capital Improvement program budget and boundaries comments targeting pres comments targeting criticizing or attacking individual students are not permitted during public meetings uh 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 any 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 List their remark must

022limit their remarks to no more than two minutes direct their comments to the school board and should refra remain at the podium until including their remarks 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 two minutes the microphone or video will be turned off Schoolboard members will be listening but not responding we ask our 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 in their seats including when video recording or taking photos we are grateful for for we are grateful for all of those who have come to speak

023to us at today's meeting and thank you for your cooperation Madame clerk please call the first Speaker Elizabeth Nichols Nicholas sorry Elizabeth Nicholas uh hi um I'm Elizabeth and I'm here to discuss a very important issue with the school menu there's only one gluten-free entree nachos more and more kids are being diagnosed with celiac disease and their schools need to be able to support them with gluten-free Entre in the cafeteria I was diagnosed with Celiac when I was 5 years old and I was never able to buy food from the cafeteria except on nacho days but every day other than nacho day I had to bring lunch and Nacho Day doesn't happen very often approximately once a month I want to thank you for offering the salad bar at schools this is an excellent option

024for us however there needs to be hot gluten-free Entre in the school cafeterias for those who are Gluten Sensitive this could include nachos gluten-free pasta or gluten-free chicken nuggets as examples at least once a week since my school starts earlier and now and I am out the door at 6:45 a.m. I have less time to get ready which means packing a lunch is just an extra challenge but it would be so much easier for so many if they did didn't have to pack onch which you can help with by adding more gluten-free Entre to the cafeteria it would just help and support those of us with celiac disease or those who are Gluten Sensitive to add more gluten-free Entre to the school menus thank you so much for your time I hope you can consider

025my proposal thank [Applause] you Caleb curaga okay sandre Davis I have a son with celiacs too she's a brave young lady the results of the 2023 election were not a mandate frankly most people didn't know who we were voters came to the polls with sample ballots and voted straight D tickets with national Politics on their mind the only campaigning you had to do was to get on the sample ballot you misled voters into thinking parents were trying to ban works of literature when the concern is about highly sexualized graphic novels the day after the election a mother posted some images from a school library book her 9-year-old had brought home the post was quickly taken down pornography of course on the campaign Trail you looked afraid to be seen talking to me or simply left

026the premises because this is too hard with her here my very presence was offensive and this is exactly how you treat non-progressive students and teachers and there's no need to wonder why they leave FCPS one of you told voters that FCPS does not keep secrets from parents I hope you uh were misinformed and not straight up lying some of you filled out your Petition of qualified voters in a sketchy Manner and when called out you blamed your opponents deflecting responsibility is an FCPS specialty you'll fit right in for those of you who blame the state for FCP FCPS funding being critical underfunded how about a long overdue full independent audited of the FCPS budget the rest of the state doesn't want to pay for your over bloated Administration and neither do the locals who pay

027ever increasing property taxes four you self-proclaimed China experts were you complicit or incompetent when the TJ partnership fund received 3.6 million from entices affiliated with the CCP you pay your high price Consultants on time but you leave parents begging for reimbursements for fatee denied a recent poll shows that a high percentage of young adults support the oppressed oppressor binary with Rising anti-Semitism constituents deserve to know if their school district embeds this ideology into the teaching at the expense of factual history my hope is that at least one of you will have the courage to be a common sense moderate leader that people were hoping for in me Stephanie lanquist Aurora good evening and welcome to the new members I'd like to believe we have a lot in common we need to work together to address

028the fenal crisis in our schools all Hands-On deck pandemic learning law should also be our very top priority last year FCPS students feared poorly on their SOS 25% failed math 43% failed writing 22% failed reading 38% failed history in the continuation of heavy laptop Reliance in elementary schools isn't helping anything next I'm sure that we all see the benefit of participation in sports and expanding the middle school program and hopefully there can be debate teams at all of our high schools I hope hope that eliminating the 800 plus trailers at our schools is on your radar as well the last board seem more concerned with Contracting its own office space for $4,000 and increasing personal salaries than they were in dealing with our school trailer parks hopefully you also think that all forms of racism

029are wrong the last poort changed the TJ admissions policy to discriminate against Asians one member admitted it when she said that the new admissions policy is quote anti-asian hate to say it LOL she is right but there's absolutely nothing funny about discriminating against children based on their race the TJ selection process should be based on Merit not discrimination the last board also used hateful and racist language when they referred to the previous superintendent Scott brabrand one member said that he was quote too white to get it those members would grand stand for hours about symbolic resolutions likely for media attention and political donations and eventually promotions but wouldn't it be great if you could just make the school board boring again and work within the law to avoid those lawsuits I think Fairfax residents would

030really get on board if you prioritized the most important things like educating the children on the fundamentals and getting fenel out of our schools finally that $3.5 billion budget needs an external audit there's so much waste and there's a lot of money that you could use to other things thank [Applause] you Cassandra aloin Tama pay good evening the faf county model policy was recently reviewed by the governor and then a subsequent review was completed at the Fairfax County schools that resulted in a different application of the guidance this guidance policy was communicated mostly most recently via a post on the FCPS website while the district's policy interpretation was found to be legally sufficient I bring to the attention of this board the concerns of the implementation Fallout the policy is currently employed une equitably supports

031a protected class at the expense and at the risk of those who do not subscribe to expansive gender identifiers it favors certain students that may be excessive and may be excessive and work contrary to the laws and goals of the school and the contract between the school and the students in a period of 30 days this policy application has put my child in multiple positions of personal compromise and safety with no sound recourse for a response I propose a working group be com comprised to review the short and long-term implications of the district's model policy complete with recommendations to further the educational objectives of the school specifically I request timely communication and notification to parents about the risk that that exist at the school and undocumented exceptions to the policy usage staff training for students

032with traumatic experiences surrounding gender fluid fluidity when they do not identify with that group data metrics clearly defining the need and impact for of the fair Fairfax County school policy deviation and a fair dispersement of resource accessibility to all taxpayer funding um for the facilities that were built and no longer lawfully restrict the intent use of those facilities to students who do not identify with gender fluidity thank [Applause] you Theodora g mark Spooner good evening I'm here tonight with with a plea that this new board resolved to spend its full energy on quality education and not on ideology the last board found itself constantly not only in the local news but the national news and it didn't get there by focusing on the ABCs and moderate policies among the things that got us there were

033uh closing the schools at the behest of the teachers unions for a prolonged period of of time while other districts focused on getting back to school as quickly as possible secondly deciding that it wasn't acceptable to have even one high school in this big District that would value rigorous education Above All Else third paying huge fees to a noted race Hustler to spread his poison in this District uh keeping pornographic Literature Like gender queer in student libraries adopting the country's most extreme LGBT policy including allowing biological boys to play in girl Sports and to use their shower rooms based on the principle that the desires of a tiny minority are more important than the rights of the majority deciding that it's okay to keep secrets from parents about their kids' mental health and deciding that

034it's okay for the school board to defy laws that it doesn't agree with none of these decisions were at the core of this board's proper Mission they drove some people out of the school district and they created unwanted divisions please please don't try to outdo the last board in this direction return to the basics your constituents will thank you for it thank you [Applause] Leslie Houston good evening chair frish school board members Dr Reed and leadership team I am Leslie Houston president of Fairfax Education Association a union representing thousand of your employees welcome and congratulations on your recent electorial victories and re-elections let me express my sincere gratitude to you as you take on this important work and commit to creating an environment that Fosters learning and growth for staff and students today we find

035ourselves at a critical Crossroads where the lure of the teaching profession is diminishing this is not unique to Fairfax but it is a challenge we must confront together the individuals who have dedicated their lives to shaping the minds of our youth are now facing unprecedented levels of stress burnout and mental health challenges we the Fairfax Education Association look forward to open and constructive collaboration with the school board together we can explore ways to create a more supportive environment for our Educators and students we implore you to Champion public education and advocate for what is Right within it disregard the Skeptics and focus your energy on the priority the students protect our marginalized communities and supporting um by supporting safe and Equitable schools I encourage each of you to work closely with FEA and fcft we

036are the EXP experts in the field of Education ready to address your questions and provide guidance I urge you to continue leveraging our expertise as we collectively strive for the betterment of our education system thank you for your service and make Chuck Ronco good evening chair frish superintendent Reed and members of the school board my name is Chuck Ronco and I teach algebra and pre-calculus at F Church High School I come to you this evening an excited and enthusiastic member of the Fairfax Education Association I'm excited tonight because this evening is the first opportunity that we the public will see this new board operate in interact and I'm enthusiastic because I have had nothing but positive experiences in the meetings that I've had in the conversations that some of us have had recently I look

037forward to more conversations with you in the future and I invite you to come and and visit the Fairfax Education Association so that you can meet some of our Union brothers and sisters who are your employees all of us care deeply about what we do in and around our schools and work sites all of us care deeply about providing a caring and healthy environment to work and learn in and most importantly all of us at the FAA care deeply for the students and families that we serve the future looks bright I'm not only proud to stand here as the vice president of the Fairfax Education Association but I'm proud to stand here as an employee and I'm proud to stand here in support of my union my school and my students I look forward to

038to the future thank [Applause] you Melissa Morrison before my time begins I just would like to submit U the following exhibits these are emails and meeting notes I've had over the last 12 months with certain FCPS uh department heads Schoolboard members fcpa and members of the community you can give it to the clerk when you're finished I will thank you dear chairman board members thank you for your time and efforts and welcome to the new board I'm excited for a new start I am also very supportive of Dr Reed's five pillar strategic plan with Equity being at the center of implementing each one I'm here here today as a hearnden middle and high school parent member of the hearnden middle PTA board a taxpayer and resident in Fairfax County since 1999 an active PTA and

039Community volunteer for many many years CPA for over 25 years and a product of a majority economically disadvantaged K through2 public Virginia school you may ask what these submissions are for what is my purpose with these meetings and emails over the last 12 months months my focus has and will continue to be on the inequities experienced in the day-to-day lives of students teachers and administrators at hearnden middle school I be began by comparing the FCPS and VOE data on several metrics test scores chronic absenteeism demographics to name a few of the outliers of the closest Five middle schools compared hned and failed most of the esss school quality indicators in math and English where all the other school SCH passed hnen significantly having higher numbers of English Learners econ economically disadvantaged and special education students

040the percentage of these students to teachers is at a huge negative as compared to the closest for proximity middle schools Heron middle over has over 55% free and reduced lunch but this percentage is not high enough to receive some of the 35 million in federal Title One funding even though it has three Title One elementaries Fe into it for accreditation her the midle passed however its scores were the lowest by significant gaps in English Math and Science gaps from 19 to 42% as compared to the four other closest proximity middle schools we'll make sure the clerk gets it to everybody Harry Jackson I come before you today to share insights from the recent FCPS Family Life Education committee meeting on the 10th of January that was not publicly live streamed making one one has to

041wonder what's the committee trying to hide the committee's deliberations revealed controversial proposals particularly within the grade n sexual prevention program a suggestion to remove references to gang sexual violence trafficking and incest a midst rise in human trafficking raises profound concerns about our Readiness to prepare students for real world challenges furthermore the shift from tangible coercive Behavior to an abstract focus on language could potentially undermine the severity of such issues the committee's makeup primarily of white women with some diverse representation mirrors of broad societ challenges of of diversity discussions highlighted the necessity for more inclusive lessons on sexual behavior addressing the significant gap of human trafficking in the curriculum and then surprisingly open attitudes towards sex work and prostitution a sensitive topic was the committee's interest in Safe Harbor legislation for underage underage prostitution while protecting

042minors is Paramount we must tread cautiously to avoid unintentionally legitimizing underage sex work of equal concern was a dialogue around circumventing foyer requests suggesting a troubling approach to transparency and accountability within our public institutions the recommendations made by chair Carrie renolds including the non-compliance with a foil request regarding committee members demand our attention and action a notable presentation by Sher Zamara on faith in action brought to light the growing influence of the unarian universalism in our educational sphere this Faith characterized by this liberal stance and diverse beliefs has increasingly shaped our curriculum from critical race the to transgender policies the program's influence Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology sparking legal challenges exemplifies the Deep Impact and controversy of such ideologies and confronting these issues we Face a pivotal question should a single religious

043perspective notably one so in meshing cultural debates hold considerable sway in public education advocacy for social justice and diversity is essential but we must avoid allowing any single ideology religious or secular to dominate our educational landscape this is especially pertinent thank you Cheryl Binkley y'all just look so good I'm really glad to see you here I come to you tonight and it's the reason you'll see me fairly often I come to you as a True Believer in public education and the reason I believe is because learning in the schools have saved me over and over when I was a girl in the rugs flopped on the floor when the wind blew School saved me in SEC at end of second grade when my grandmother was shot and killed School saved me in high school when

044I didn't know who I could become or might be schools were there for me in college when I was working 40 hours a week and taking over loads to put myself through the schools maintained and sustained me when I was in seminary they sustained me when I was in grad school they sustained me when I taught and I watched my students struggling with challenges equal to or greater than mine any I had faced I watched as the schools were the Refuge and and sustenance of my students so I want to thank you tonight for being here and taking on a thankless task to provide for the students that are in our community the sustenance and the Salvation that I have enjoyed for my 72 years thank [Applause] you Robert Rigby go my name is Robert

045Rigby I speak tonight for myself I speak for no organization uh let's oh shocks oh okay um hoay for the Unitarian Universalist I'm a Quaker and we were maligned and uh thrown out once too anyway tomorrow all teachers in another School Division in this Commonwealth will have to turn into their administrators a list of all students whom they suspect be trans gender or non-binary another school board is voting now on a policy that bans trans people in sports chess club and Latin club banned on and on it forces everyone to miss gender uh all trans kids all the time it reveals private medical information and it bans all Queer related materials like this um and it SE and it it uh it separates kids and family life Life Education by gender it helps every queer

046kid as a matter of course books opt outs from the curriculum gender separation Sports names pronouns privacy they're all a package if you yield on any part of this gay lesbian bisexual TR and non-binary people will be will think you're going to yield on all of it uh that's kind of what we thought when when with a surprise thing on Family Life Education last May um Dr Reed's done great work on this uh thank you I'd like the board to do it too no one knows what y'all are really going to do if you start with a appeasement will'll assume that that continues keep respect and welcome for all our kids in books activities and Family Life Education no appeasement it doesn't work thank you please play the video submitt submitted by Stacy LinkedIn Carl

047frish is swearing in on December 13th on a stack of pornographic books that I've exposed in our Public School libraries was a big middle finger to me and to the parents of Fairfax County the books contain explicit illustrations of a man having sex with a boy oral sex anal sex and masturbation they also include a explicit description of a child being raped by his adult male cousin these depictions of pedophilia are an Abomination Carl has stated repeatedly that he thinks these books are a benefit to your children he has consistently supported all manner of perversion including putting a photo of himself at a monument in Los Angeles to a pedophile named Harry Haye a radical communist homosexual and photos of himself at a drag queen's event in Fairfax city with children where adult male homosexuals

048dance seductively for kids for tips drag is about prostitution we have laws against pornography in this country in front of minors if they can't legally buy it in town or be shown it it doesn't magically become a okay on a public school campus I naively thought that our board might do something to enforce the law and remove the books therefore since Carl wants to continue to distribute pornography to minors he has demonstrated he is unfit to hold office on this school board I'm announcing a petition to recall him from office this is the remedy we the parents will use to deal with a lawless Schoolboard chair to enforce the law and to remove remove this filth and protect our [Applause] kids Mr chair that was our last public speaker thank you agenda item 3.04 superint

049uh 3.03 excuse EXC me 3.02 academic matters Dr Reed good evening uh Mr chair so I will this evening uh have an opportunity to share graduation and diploma outcomes and um this is an opportunity for us to look at a high level um at some data and I did pass out um an additional chart to each of you we did amend a couple of the slides to make sure that we had some com uh comparisons to Virginia to the Commonwealth as a whole so for those of you who print uh the PowerPoint out you have the um amended slides to slide four actually so let's go ahead and go to the next slide please um thank you again the graduation rates are some it's a a data point one data point uh but an important

050data point for our students here in Fairfax County and I want to share fiveyear Trends it's been the tradition with our board um I'm told that we like to look at data um um over a prior set of years and not just one year at a time so this represents data from 2019 which is pre pandemic to 2023 and of course our goal is to have 100% graduation um however our five-year Trends are consistently above Statewide outcomes uh for the past four years even as we've emerged from the pandemic our graduation rates have improved more than two percentage points since 2019 um compared really to the Commonwealth wide Improvement of less than half a percent so we're feeling that at least in our graduation rate progress we're moving at a tighter clip than the rest

051of the Commonwealth we have had slightly lower rates since 2021 again as coming out of the pandemic our team has spent a lot of time having that conversation and there were some flexibilities built in for students uh during the pandemic that over time since we've returned to classes have been uh less flexible so I know that this is a piece that we're working on we also have um a theory of action around our uh ontime graduation support staff in buildings and that's showing some real promise in terms of improving uh graduation rates where we are very tightly focused on um our seniors and the four-year plans as uh students join us in nth grade so in parallel to graduation rates we also want to make sure we look at our Dropout rates and these are

052an annual report of students who did not successfully earn either a diploma a GED or a certificate of completion and did not remain enrolled we do have some students who don't earn those in within that four-year time but do remain enrolled and those would not be um captured here from this graph we see that Fairfax County Public Schools again has significantly reduced our rates over the 5 years your trend from 7.3% to 5.5% um we're also now closely aligned with Statewide rates which are currently 5.4% uh we also know that uh you know we've got some celebrations and a significant amount of work to do here um but continue to outperform the state on graduation outcomes even though our dropout rate at this point is of 0.1 one tenth of a percent higher than the

053um State average so we do have some work to do here and again our division will continue to work that um as we move forward this is a slide that was a new slide uh that was dropped in and it includes uh Fairfax County ontime graduation rate trends and Virginia Commonwealth Trends so you have an opportunity to see a comparison there again we've seen uh for our Hispanic students the greatest five-year increase ing graduation rates uh which we're very pleased with we certainly have work to do um on these rates in terms of um the graduation Staffing and if I can uh mention that we had nine high schools receive additional on-time graduation Staffing and professional development we saw overall improvements that were more than double the gains seen in other high schools so as

054we're rolling that um theory of action and strategy out we're very pleased with the opportunities um that we're seeing as an outcome of that I also want to comment if we could stay on that slide for a moment thank you I know I touched the page you guys are really good at that so I want to draw your attention um to the students with disabilities which is the very last row of the turquoise and those rates um are probably they apples and oranges and I just want to say that we're going to work to make sure that a future chart is more accurate uh but the 92% for example graduation rate also includes U multiple Pathways to that graduation it does not necessarily imply graduation of a standard diploma for example so we really want

055to there's a slide a little bit later on that uh separates that data out a little more but we do want to make sure that um while that data looks like it's improving we want to make sure we look under that data to identify the different types of uh diplomas or graduation outcomes for our students with disabilities so um we do continue to expand uh division-wide systems and strategies and are excited as I mentioned about those outcomes so this chart talks about the Dropout rates and as you recall this is an area we're not doing quite as well with um and have more opportunities if you will again looks like we're doing better um we've lowered some parts of our uh Dropout rates more more than others um but we have work to do clearly

056here again so um I do want to note that our students with disabilities in the Dropout area here as we think about this they may continue to pursue a standard diploma with or without accommodations even after they initially receive um an applied studies diploma so let's go to the next slide for that conversation these are the membership counts I thought this would be um an interesting slide as we uh changed out some slides just in terms of the actual uh full-time membership which is really a breakdown of the percentage of our student body here in Fairfax County I will also share that as of um two weeks ago or I guess a week ago Mr sethy um we were at [Music] 181,182 outs so we could go to the diploma distribution thank you Kevin so

057this is a chart as I mentioned earlier where we are looking at the types of diplomas students in Fairfax County are graduating with and we've separated our Advanced standard and applied studies diplomas and again since 2019 overall the proportion of advanced studies and standard diplomas is virtually unchanged however the proportion of graduating students with disabilities receiving Advanced Studies diplomas has increased 2.5 percentage points since 2019 and that is a point of emphasis I know it's something we've talked about um particularly with our um twice exceptional students in programming and two and a half% is not um a large large number given our student population but it is significant uh and we're going to continue to build on that we also want to um share that our students graduating um our students with disabilities graduating with

058an applied studies diploma has been reduced 2.9 percentage points since 2019 and our goal is to make sure that all of our students are able to earn um if uh possible at least standard and then um potentially Advanced um diplomas advanced studies this also I want to remind our board is one of the measurements in our strategic plan so this is data that um we're going to be charting very closely and let me see here I think that's it we jump to resources for graduation information for those of you watching at home who can't wait to see even more data about this topic and I know how compelling this can be uh here are some links uh on our website and uh I know once you start reading you won't be able to stop so

059do start early in the evening um so Mr frish that is academic matters this thank you uh we'll get started with Dr Anderson thank you so much for this information it's exciting for us to see that we're outpacing the division I'm sorry the state but I I I'm really more concerned with what's happening within our schools but before I go there I would like for you to speak to slide two there's information here that tells the public that the rates are slightly lower since the Statewide graduation flexibility was removed I I would love for you to explain to our public what that flexibility entailed so thank you uh Dr Anderson the uh flexibility primarily was occurring during the pandemic time and I'm going to uh call on our chief academic officer Dr Presidio to share

060some of those flexibilities um as I wasn't here at that time and I don't know that I could recite them accurately so Dr Presidio sure thank you Dr Reed and thank you Dr Anderson for that question um so for folks in the community who are listening tonight there were a number of different flexibility uh waivers that the state provided to help students graduate in the first pandemic year and then those continued into the second pandemic year with slight modification so the first uh major category was uh some flexibility and waivers of the verified credit requirements so allowing students to have locally awarded uh verified credit requirements um in those courses that they needed for graduation so instead of having to pass the solls we were able to do um some locally awarding of of verified

061credits and and that was a significant um flexibility waiver they also wave things like the first aid CPR requirement um CTE uh requirements for graduation um they also reduced uh the following year uh 2020 21 school year they reduced uh cut scores uh on the so's um and continued with some of the flexibilities around CTE requirements um and CPR first aid requirements so quite a few uh waivers that we received from the state during those years those two years thank you um I want to dig into the data that you provided I think this was the blue chart I don't recall what page that's on um and looking at this again we have some really some real areas of success and we have some areas that are highly that are highly concerning if you're taking

062a look at our English language Learners at our Hispanic students those rates are significantly below the other groups can you speak to what is that work that is being engaged in so that we have less of a discrepancy in next year's data so we've really zeroed in on our English learner language data and programming and Scaffolding for English language students because clearly as you've pointed out that is an area while we've improved slightly it's not we're not improving quickly enough enough to hit the mark we need to hit um in our strategic plan goals I uh would ask Dr Pon to share a little bit as he's been working with our regional assistant superintendents and School principles as well as um our um School Improvement team to share briefly the plans around our elel supports

063please Dr Pon uh thank you uh we have been working with the teachers uh and something that we find out is that 80% of our teachers actually at any point they teach talk or somehow they have any kind of relationship with a el students So based on the data we have been providing professional development uh strategies and revising also the curriculum and uh making sure that every single uh El child uh will have a intervention and for language acquisition uh something else that we have been working with is to make sure that uh we provide um support in the native language as well uh it doesn't matter if they're going to be uh Spanish or Vietnamese or Chinese uh we do have a program through ad mum that we are uh targeting those children and

064we going we have been providing support in the native language so they can acquire the knowledge in the Naro language is easier than to transfer that into engl English thank you Dr Pon we're also Dr Anderson as we move to a basil reading uh curriculum for our elementary we think that that's going to provide us some very consistent um very consistent curriculum and new professional development opportunities to support all Learners at our elementary levels and I don't know if Dr presidia wants to add anything to um the modeling and planning that ISD is doing in collaboration with our chief of schools on this topic um I don't think I would add too much to that I think Dr Pon covered it well uh we are looking at some specific English language development curriculum resources to

065support those students and uh really trying to accelerate their English proficiency and um when you look at the research base the research has been pretty clear for decades that it takes students about 5 to seven years to become proficient in a in a target language so when you think about students that maybe haven't had that amount of time in our school system yet and our subject to um not only competing you know completing rigorous High School courses but also passing those end of course tests and those s sols that are required for graduation um it can be quite daunting and when we look at our students overall um and when we look at our L data and we look at students that have developed proficiency with us they're outperforming our division averages on state tests

066and graduation rates um so lots of times you know when we look at this data we forget about the success that our students have when they're given enough time um to develop that English proficiency so one of the flexibilities that we do have from the state when we think about graduation requirements is those students can continue um to stay enrolled in FCPS and get additional time to graduate and and that's not something um that counts against them and it doesn't count against us in our graduation rate so the data you're seeing here you're seeing that those students um you're not seeing those students that are still maybe enrolling for a fifth year or a sixth year to develop that English proficiency the other thing I'd point out on that chart since we're looking at it

067is often times we forget about the importance of the intersectionality of our English Learners and our Hispanic students and when you do look at that intersectionality our Hispanic students who are not English language Learners again are performing at that division average or or or or above so a lot of this is just about getting as uh Dr Pon and Dr Reed mentioned students additional support but also additional time to develop that proficiency and meet the graduation requirements thank you so much Dr precidio um if it's possible Dr Reed can this can these efforts be provided in writing so that this can be shared with our community in terms of how we are um trying to impact this data yes ma'am thank you and Dr prid you must have been reading my notes when we're talking

068about intersectionality it would be helpful to have that be part of this conversation because we know these students are not in a vacuum so I look forward to that being something that continues um the second set of slides with the orange the one that talks about Dropout rates um again we have Hispanic students at high levels and El students at extremely high levels Dr Reed can you speak to the root causes of this data that we are reviewing this evening well I think that um the root causes I think our El student uh Dropout data is connected to our need to develop stronger models of support uh for our El students I also would share that um there are times where our uh multilingual students come very late in their education career um sometimes come

069you know at ages perhaps 15 16 17 with very few credits so as we work to make sure students are integrated into an academic program often it's difficult for some of our students who come to the division older as multilingual Learners to actually be able to learn the language and earn credit um within those timelines which to Dr presidio's Point often uh will want to stay in high school a little bit longer to be able to finish their diploma and also at times we have students that uh leave school to go to work honestly to support either themselves or their families and I think that um we see that uh that characterist istic as well I don't know if um Dr precidio you would be able to maybe comment on root causes to the data

070points Dr Anderson referred to um this is a five-year Trend and it looks for all practical purposes um like we're certainly making some progress for example uh but really at the end of the day lowering things by 2.3% over five years I mean this has been an really an ongoing challenge while we're getting a little better I don't know if you have insights as you've um obviously been addressing this uh for several years no I I I would agree with you Dr Reed I I don't think that those gains that we've made um are anywhere near uh the success that we would like to see so we need to continue to put those supports in place you know Dr Pon mentioned some of the things that we're doing with those individualized graduation plans looking for

071as much uh flexibility and support as we can provide to our students who are behind uh particularly our English language learners but but also as Dr Reed mentioned we've got to have more flexible programming for students particularly those students that might have child care responsibilities in their family work responsibilities so um we have tried to expand some of our alternative educational programs uh but we've got a lot more work that we could do on that front um we are putting in place a flexible um evening program our Twilight program to get students additional support we've got that at 17 schools right now uh but there's a lot more work that we need to do in this area I would also say I think fundamentally I mean one thing that may not seem large but I

072think is is we have I mean today for example I had several emails that come in in one language and are translatable on my email to English so that I can respond in English and they're then translatable back to the parent and I think those tools as they're coming on board that we're able to use just being able to communicate directly with families sometimes when we have our students um that are the transl lers for us with their families uh being the parent of students myself at one time they may not be accurately uh parents may not always be able to accurately get information from us so we're really working on our translation um of all documents and also being able to uh connect more effectively and we really also rely on our family Liaisons

073um and strategies but as I think as we improve those as well families will feel more connected um and get answers more quick so they're able to support their students no I wouldn't disagree and I'd expound more but I don't want to kind of use the rest of my time because I have a couple of more questions um on page eight of the document one of the things that you did provide a link to is the school level data because I always ask about what does it look like by pyramid I appreciated the link but I I think I would have appreciated the actual data so I I was able to use the link to pull the data to kind of create my own little sheet I mean I would have liked it to be

074shared here publicly that's what I mean the data is there just for it to be shared publicly when I pulled it um and I just used the 2023 data and Dropout rates and I'm taking a look as to how is it that our schools are performing by pyramids and this is how it looks and it speaks very much to what that one parent Melissa talked about earlier which is what are the efforts for our needest schools if I just may finish this one sentence please the graduation rates are as follows for our schools Fairfax County adult 15% Bryant 37% Mountain View 39% key Center 75% Justice High School 82% false Church 86% anandale 87% hearnen which she talked about 88% and then everybody else is in the 90s and all the way up to 100

075that is a huge disparity and I will say we can also put a disclaimer on the first five schools that I stated because they are um specialized centers but we have four schools that are not yet at 90% And I would love to know what the plan is for those schools yes ma'am uh we've got uh nine of the schools that we think and again the centers or the non-traditional programs I think have unique characteristics that um contribute to the less than 90% graduation rate however we do have nine identified schools for the supports that I refer to the on-time graduation support where the rates are increasing those are anandale Centerville Falls Church hearnden Justice Lewis Mount Vernon South Lakes and West pomac and those nine high schools have extra Staffing support to support specifically

076graduation in increases and Dropout decreases but those staff members are not new right is this brand new I believe it's two years they've been there two years and I think uh this goes through the office of school support which um was uh the ontime graduation program was begun by Mark green felter just prior to his retirement uh Dr precidio do you want to talk a minute about that I'm not I know that has transitioned but uh that has been a project I think for two years but at least one a little bit longer than that we we started that prior to the pandemic I I want to say we started the initial allocation and then we increased the number of schools that had that role but I want to say we started in 2019 but

077I'd have to go back and and think about that a little bit no and I appreciate that and I'm not necessarily looking for causality I'm looking for correlation I would love to see that we're saying because of these added staff members this is what we're seeing in terms of impact the data does not necessar showed that it's trending upward it it's a little bit up and down um I I am going to stop here because I know my time has expired but I I would like to really dig into this a little bit more with um whomever you will direct me to do that thank you Dr Anderson Miss SI beriser she's taking a breath because she knows what's coming I do um five years this is year five and so for the benefi you

078colleagues I feel like I need to say this again um I really appreciate the inclusion of slide seven which breaks out the percentage of advanced standard and applied studies diplomas for those maybe I'm and I I apologize if you know this information so I'm just going to share it the applied studies diploma is a significantly different type of diploma than the standard or Advanced it is basically a certificate of attendance it does not it is not a standards based diploma it does not mean you can access College it does not mean you can access federal student a PA I'm not saying we should get rid of it I'm not saying there isn't a place for it however when on slide four we're trying to compare different um categories of students and how they're um achieving

079ontime graduation and our students with disabilities percentage includes three diploma categories where every other students percentage includes two diploma categories it is not an apple to app comparison and it hides poti potentially I don't know because I don't have the number because we don't have it here it hides potentially the true graduation rate meaning a standard or Advanced diploma to what most of us think of is what a high school graduation is I.E you can access college or Technical Training or get federal student aid to do so and I'm only sounding like this because I know since you've been here I've probably lifted this up like eight times and I've lifted this up many more times over the course of now going on five years and I understand that Reg combines those two numbers and

080that's how we report the data to Virginia I get that but this is not being reported to Virginia this is being informing our own work and the reason I bring this up is because these percentages inform the need and the need informs where we put resources and if the need isn't informed to us accurately we cannot determine where the resources need to go so while I appreciate the step forward of actually admitting we have an applied studies diploma and it impacts numbers I do not think we can have a chart that shows graduation Trends by student group when one has a different set of diplomas than all the rest of them that's all I'm saying and I think it's a disingenuous data point that we cannot then base action on so and I just say

081that now because I I don't know how else at this point after this many years to keep explaining the same thing so I apologize to my extreme frustration on that slide um however I will say I really appreciate I don't want to um repeat Dr Anderson and in terms of our Hispanic students and English learners but I very much agree with her points and I think we need to really understand um the significant differences and how we can help support um those students better um in to help close some of these gaps I did have one question I think Dr proo I'm sorry if I misunderstood you you had said at one point that um the co flexibility you know was it seemed to imply it was for seniors right but the reality is that

082the co flexibility was for anybody who earned a verified credit while there in high school during that Co flexibility period so it it might impact those numbers differently than what and I just wanted to clarify that to make sure that's my understanding yeah I'd have to actually check and and see how many students that weren't graduating seniors applied that flexibility um it was really our our seniors who were graduating that that was most uh beneficial for so I'd have to check and see how many you know sophomores or juniors in those two years period of time yeah I'm not saying that there weren't any I'm just I'm just saying most of that flexibility was really aimed and targeted at students who were going to be graduating that year uh but of course if they suffered

083uh during the pandemic and needed to apply some of that flexibility they had the ability to do that off the top of my head I don't know how many students that might have applied to thank you I I would like to go back just because I I spent so much of my time explaining the same thing again in Mr F I'd like to take us to slide seven again please because I think I have your data point Miss seis moris if we look at the far right column on the right side for the diplomas awarded by diploma type what we tried to do was break out um the 2019 to 23 just students with disabilities so to determine the percentage for our student with disabilities in just the two categories we would take that far

084right column and just look at the advanced and standard which would be roughly um 86.3% of our students uh with disabilities would be in those two standards so if we take that 86.3% and put it back into the original 86.3% and put that in the original slide on page four we would see that comparison so I think we the I apologize for not taking that data point and moving it to the other chart and we will do that in the future that however is the data point specifically um 86% which actually um lower well it's not as high as the 95 uh it is higher actually than um some of our other student subgroups for graduation in those two categories can I just respond to that Mr chair I I don't disagree that it's higher

085or may not be higher I'm just saying that 94.8 and 83.6 are very different numbers and that's the point I'm trying to make yeah and absolutely true so I just want to make sure we had the number it's there you actually that was on my notes earlier that I said we actually have it we just anyway I will stop I know my time was up I'll take a go back thank you Mr dun thank sorry first time uh so I appreciate the uh data that you've shared um I think this is data that uh would benefit from a work session or much more extensive briefing um I once did a project with the national highway traffic safety administration where they defined uh even one death uh in a uh School Bus as unacceptable so when

086I look at the uh ontime graduation rates on slide two uh I I ask you know what's our plan to get to 100% right right I mean if one death is unacceptable one student one child failing to graduate from high school impacts not just that individual but all of society right in terms of opportunity lost um I mean that could be the next Einstein if they were given the right opportunities and support right um so I I would ask that you know you don't have a plan right now but you develop a plan because every child deserves the opportunity to receive a world-class education um on slide three um when uh second bullet says FCPS can celebrate in bold a significant reduction in Dropout rates over the past five years of nearly two percentage points

087um I I don't know if it's meant to be humorous or not because uh the last three years 2021 22 23 reflect increasing Dropout rates um and I don't know if that's reflective of the fact that you know during the pandemic uh to some extent we made it easier for kids um made it easier for them to pass and now we're heightening our standards again but I'd like to have a a better understanding of of what what's driving that so um yes and you will hear the plan the team does have a plan but uh in more detail for the graduation when we do the goal five presentation which is coming up here I think very shortly to your question um clearly it's not a celebration when it's not uh where we want it to

088be so I apologize for the use of those terms uh what I think we talked about just briefly a few minutes ago is this Flex ibility that the state granted around certain requirements which I think accounted for the much lower Dropout in 2021 of 4.7 and then the 4.8 and as the flexibility is gradually tightened and it's less flexible I think we've seen a bit of a progression in Dropout rates though we're still lower than we were pre pandemic so it's a long way of saying I think that's the reason why you see the chart the way it is but we have plenty of work to do and you'll see the very tight planning that sits in the go five presentation because we hope to see uh for 2024 things going uh the other direction

089thank you um with with regard to slide four I I Echo the comments of my colleague Dr Anderson um it seems we're failing an entire generation of Hispanic and English learner students um and and so I think it's it's absolutely essential that we understand that we see in right and we're able to share with our constituents um a comprehensive plan you know not just something vague and high level but something concrete with milestones and metrics and and I'd like to understand as part of that you know when it says the third bullet on page four FCPS high schools identified for Central support had more than double the improvements I'd like to know which high schools and I'd like to know what exactly was the central support it shows that you know efforts can have success

090right so why aren't we doing that everywhere if that was the pilot right can that be expanded to other high schools um and were any high schools in my district the M ver District identified for Central support so great questions we did identify as the beginning for this work nine high schools um which I will read out for you the nine high schools that we identified for support which was the extra Staffing for ontime graduation were an High School Centerville High School Falls Church hearnden Justice Lewis Mount Vernon South Lakes and West patomic high schools okay and what did that Central support consist of exactly the central support consisted of um having strategic support from central office as well as ontime graduation staff placed within the school to support uh Outreach for students and working

091with counseling administrative and teaching staff in those schools um often uh checking on homes when students stopped coming to school uh being out in the community again I think Dr precidio shared a couple of those strategies and to Dr Anderson's Point those were begun uh in 2019 is and we've gradually added more each year as um as we've been able if you have anything written just that Dr pidio has briefed previously to anyone I'd really appreciate getting something in writing again not asking for anything new but just whatever you have so I can get a more deep understanding yes sir um on Slide Five um the different award type the different diploma types I'd really like to see a breakdown by demographic data to understand you know for black students for Hispanic students for English

092learners for economically disadvantage students what the what the uh you know who's getting those Advanced diplomas who's not I'd also like I'd appreciate if you have any information on applied studies diplomas I'd like to learn more about that again offline not necessarily you free to provide that yes sir um our goal five presentation will have those breakdowns um for by diploma by demographic and the intersectionality data that I know our board is expecting so goal five will have that thank you Mr Dunn Mr Moon thank you Mr chair uh certainly we do have we still have a lot of work to do and I don't want repeat the a comments and questions already raised by my colleagues especially regarding English language Learners and Hispanic students but at the same time I must emphasize the fact

093that while other student in other student groups we have generally done at least equal to or better than the rest of the state English language Learners and Hispanic students uh we are two percentage 2% you know below you know stain numbers uh which is quite concerning and especially uh when we know the fact that substantial percentage of our student population belongs to those two groups and earlier Dr preso mentioned about intersectionality is there a way for the B to get intersectionality information for not just for Fairfax County student students but outside of Fairfax p in Virginia non Fairfax students so that I can sort of on my own be able to analyze uh you know potential reasons behind our Hispanic students English Learners being below Statewide average I.E for example whether our English Learners were

094a substantially how PR percentage of students start from level one and level two as opposed to higher level whether I don't know whether we ever have this kind of data as to uh whether our you know Hispanic or English language Learners a have a a more challenges you know in terms of family support level of fam's Financial Resources so in terms of being able to get Commonwealth wi data on intersectionality I know we're going to have the intersectionality data broken out for goal five um because staff are working on that right now but for the comparables for the rest of the Commonwealth Dr presidia will that data be available well I I have to say welcome back Mr moon it's a pleasure having you back on the board and I appreciate those uh insightful questions

095as always uh some of the questions that you you're asking we've uh inquired at the state and have not been able to get that information but maybe what we could do is work offline on the specific uh data points that you might be interested in and then we can do some additional uh requests at the state level and see what we get and whatever we do get we can share with the full board thank you I appreciate that that was that is all for now Mr chairman thank you Mr Moon Miss Dixit thank you Mr chair H Dr Reed um like there are a lot of reasons there are dropouts and as we can see this is M Hispanic students English Learners uh one of the factors I personally what I feel is when there

096is no hope uh when the students feel that even finishing the diploma or finishing school high school is doesn't lead to anything so are we doing anything working with the students showing them the career Pathways or work working one-on-one showing them the kind of a road map after graduation what are the opportunities not everybody want to go to college but like trade school and I I feel some of the students don't get those uh Insight or advice from their homes um so they're probably looking at the schools and the counselors and maybe um some some need more than others so my question would be just to what are we doing about that thank you so thank you Miss Dix I think um you're getting to the why right like why do I come every day

097and what am I preparing for and how is is relevant for me right as a student so I think um one of our big challenges I think in the county that I hear from students is our Academy courses which many students find to be very relevant and very exciting are often not accessible uh because of the length of Transportation or they fill up quickly I think you and I've spoken a little about that they the courses fill up and the weight list and so many students are not able to access those courses so I think one of the challenges we're going to need to think through as a board and superintendent and staff team is how to create more opportunities um that really are going to match the career choices of our future so um

098because I think once that relevance the motivation is different and perhaps we will see um those higher uh because it matters more to a young person for example so there are many strategies that are going to improve the data we're looking at um and I don't think it's going to be one strategy for every student uh but I think what you're raising is something that is an inspiring uh strategy rather than a we're going to send somebody to your home every day right so I appreciate that Insight thank you are you finished thank you Miss Dixit Miss Lady thank you Mr frish um I'm glad you brought upmy Dr Reed I I had written that down um as someone who spent the majority of my career except for the one year I worked in mlan

099I worked in an academy I would count TJ as one as well uh I chose those specifically I chose those schools because of the opportunity um and and it's true for some of our students they are looking forward to an autot Tech or a cosmetology or a carpentry course um and it will retain them it will keep them and as someone who built the master schedule at chanelli for 15 years it pained me to no end to have a numerous number of students on a wait list uh knowing what the what that was going to be so um I think we need to be nimble uh I think we need to think uh I I don't know whether or not it's possible um with the fact that high school start times are 805 I mean

100is it a possibility to flex a day within our academies because we only have so much space within those labs could we have a a period for kids that's after school could we start at 7 for kids who want to come in um could we you know some of these uh Academy teachers already have an at Contract which I think in terms of time of instruction I think we need to look at that from an economic perspective to be honest um because of Transportation but I'm getting I'm getting in a rabbit hole there um but I also watched in my tenure us transformed sort of this pendulum went at one point from the the the wanting to make these Governor stemies um and I recollect that in order to be Governor STEM Academy that you

101had to teach core classes um which also took up Academy space um I would argue that while they are fantastic classes I'm not going to name any specifically because I don't need my phone to blow up from former colleagues um but we do need to do something so that we have more classroom space um and so we can we can cater to some of these students who are looking for a trade and looking to us to help provide that trade um the other thing I want mention to my colleagues and I don't know that you can tease this out is our s students um we have a lot of students with um limited or interrupted formal education so I just need my colleagues to understand that a lot of students come in and roll with

102us and they have not been educated in their own country um so they might come to us at 15 years old and they they they have never been in school uh in their life um and we do we do the best we can to see those kids for who they are to honor them and and to begin to work with them and the other thing is is uh as we know we have an issue with attendance um at an epidemic level um and obviously there's a direct correlation between uh being in school um and being able to to achieve so I don't know if it's a possibility for that intersectionality of the folks that are dropping out but it's been my experience when I worked um while we drove and picked students up from school

103our social workers our counselors administrators uh we do a lot to try to get kids in our building um but really truly it's just the absenteeism for a lot of our students that that leads to that so so again my biggest thing is just that I think we need to be creative and Nimble because we have limited spaces but maybe we can figure out a way to teach courses maybe before after school so we can have more students access those courses thank you thank you thank you uh I'd like board members to turn their lights off just in case Miss seis moiser wants a GoBack go ahead I apologize to my colleagues I normally don't take Gob backs for this but spending time explain the same Point again takes a lot of my three minutes

104um a couple questions I appreciate the nine the information about the nine high schools with the central office support staff I'm curious is that that's separate from the Twilight program correct is that's correct okay so I'd be curious on that on the on the schools that have the Twilight program and I think it's newer so maybe we don't have the data as much yet but it would be good to know since we have two different programs to help support um which one is more effective right in terms of when we're looking again at resources and which one we want to expand or not expand so I think that or maybe a third option but that would be helpful because obviously um there are some real disparities in on-time graduation um I did want to point

105out I think I can't remember which my colleagues I apologize mentioned that Virginia versus FCPS and I did notice that um our econom our English language Learners are percentage wise double in the state the state is 10.9% and we are 20.5% so um that is a big difference that might impact that number a bit um to go back to what I was talking about before there's a couple data points I'd like to see I appreciate that you added the numbers actually was on my listing we have the data I'm not sure why we didn't put it there um we will next time yeah and I think that that kind of highlights my point right that's I think you said 85 83% 86 86 so that's you know eight percentage points different than what's here so

106I think that's just important to know um I would like to know I think Dr proo mentioned the local Al awarded verified credit I know there's also the special permission locally awarded verified credit and I'd like love to get some sense of how much that's been used to help students with disabilities achieve a standard or Advanced diploma because that was the purpose of that special it's called the SPAC which is a terrible acronym but um I know so I'm happy to send this in writing but I think that would be helpful because that is a tool and an it's a alternate way to get a verified credit that was supposed to help students um achieve a standard credit um standard diploma if of course they qualify for that um and just really quickly one last

107data point that I'd love to have um you mentioned something about students receiving a standard Advanced diploma after the applied studies I'd love to know how many do that what the percentag is after year 12 thank you that's it all right yes ma'am all right thank you very much Dr Reed thank you Mr we will now move on to uh agenda item 3.03 three student representative matters thank you Mr fresh good evening everyone and a happy warm welcome to our returning and new school board members I'm excited about the opportunity to collaborate with each of you in the upcoming months delving into your individual goals and collectively working with you towards the continuous Improvement of our school district just this past Wednesday Fairfax County student Equity leaders known as seals convened and delved into into

108their resp respective committees discussions included the creation of transparent information about postsecondary opportunities addressing the challenges posed by resources like Naviance that may cause confusion among students due to its navigational complexities besides that the multilingual inclusion committee is actively engaged in promoting extracurriculars such as clubs and sports to esol students recognizing the importance of inclusive inclusivity for all of our students these dedicated student Equity leaders have formed eight committees each focusing on various topics while it may be challenging to cover all the issues they are addressing tonight I strongly encourage our esteem leadership to attend these meetings gaining invaluable insight into the student perspective understanding these perspectives is crucial as effective change cannot be realized without such understanding also within seals the stem committee has begun a noteworthy initiative called Tai connects their mission is

109to bridge the gap in 21st century skills like stem CS and AI which are essential for a students preparation in various work Fields commencing next week a team of Robinson students will be teaching at Laurel Ridge Elementary followed by a program at Brookfield Elementary in February taught by students from chantilli they've been actively involved in teaching not only at local libraries but other educational institutions and also collaborating with FCPS schools to provide specialized instruction specifically to title wi schools turning our attention to the superintendent advisory Council IL they have diligently formed five unique committees specifically aligned with our strategic plan during my engagement with these committees when significant concerns to out school security students are expressing valid concerns about the insufficient frequency of lockdown drills prompting a need for enhanced preparedness in various scenarios it

110is evident that the current two lockdown drills per year might not adequately prepare students for potential threats while we conduct one fire drill monthly The Limited frequency of lockdown drill Dr doesn't match the urgency and importance of preparing students for various safety scenarios therefore increasing the number of lockdown drills becomes imperative to enhance their Readiness and response in critical situations thank you for listening thank you very much and happy New Year all right uh agenda item 3.04 superintendent matters I call on Dr Reid thank you Mr frish U just want to say with our new year and our first regular meeting of our new school board I'd like to start by saying welcome aboard and it's a pleasure to have the opportunity to serve you uh looking forward to our work ahead as we realize

111the goals of our strategic plan and meeting the needs and supporting all of our students staff and families um I know that uh the data we shared tonight is one data point one a particular piece of goal five but it's one we're taking very seriously and I believe that our plans that we'll share during our go 5 presentation and the progress we're making this year uh will be evidence of that and I appreciate your attention to the detail of that that's our mission that's Mission critical work here at this time also want to thank um many of you who showed up last night and many of our community members for our opioid uh Community awareness night um I want to especially thank Mr and Mrs Foster for joining us last night and our three principles

112uh Miss Rogers Mr Kaba and miss a from Fairfax High School goodness I knew I was if I didn't have it in front of me I was going to mess this up Fairfax and um I was gonna say West Mount Vernon and South County there you go um and other principls were there but those three principles had an opportunity to speak on stage about their experiences um very sobering and um we do care so deeply about the health and safety of our students and um just really appreciate also our Fairfax County police chief um and our uh support um staff uh that were there to help with that event last night uh big shout out to the Oakton High School Marching Band I want to congratulate our marching cougars who won the inaugural marching band

113competition sponsored by Metallica which there's some great tagline from Metallica what was that tagline something about I can't remember what the tagline is um so also want to give a shout out to two of our Esports teams that recently won the Virginia High School league championship tournament our teams from Centerville and Woodson High School and we're thrilled about that uh Woodson High School won the rocket League Championship and Centerville won the League of Legends Championship uh congratulations to players and coaches and that's a great career preparation uh for those folks who want to get into the gaming industry also enjoyed a hornet basketball game last Friday night our hernon Hornets played our Marshall Statesman and I know uh we had other board members out at other basketball games um it's definitely a great time to

114get out and watch some hoops uh do language immersion program uh the countywide lottery will open Monday January 22nd so for those community members please note the registration and plan to um take a look at that at this time Academy open houses are occurring right now and also want to give a shout out that with Martin Luther King day on Monday there is no school so do remember Monday no school for those of you excited who might be planning to come but we are excited to collaborate with volunteer Fairfax for the Day of Service the Martin Luther King Jr Day of Service uh students and families can volunteer together with children ages 5 to 12 and it's designed to have a family um event student ages 13 to 18 are welcome to serve as teen

115event volunteers it's free and open to the public registration is required but it'll be great to see many of you out there so thank you Mr chair thank you Dr Reid uh agenda item 30.05 proposed Financial year 2025 2029 Capital Improvement program I call on Dr Reid thank you um Mr frish I'd like to uh for our proposed FY 2529 Capital Improvement program presentation I'd like to call on our chief facility services and capital programs uh person Janice zaminsky to present that report good evening tonight we are going to cover a summary of the presentation on the proposed Capital Improvement program for fiscal years 25- 29 at a high level a capital Improvement program is a planning and fiscal management tool used to coordinate the location timing and funding of projects over 5 years the

116cash flow is submitted to the county for incorporation into the larger Fairfax County CIP the FCPS CIP includes an annual review of student membership and facilities data to identify capital projects newly identified needs are included in the estimated schedule of capital projects for the next 5 years and the capital cash flow tracks the funding allocation for these projects as a part of this updated membership information is done by division and by schools and is included in the CIP this is based on September certified membership for this school year 2324 total membership as the SE as of September was 18,8 students we continue to monitor the impacts of the membership from the pandemic and it remains under the F uh school year 1920 by 8,24 students three main factors that contribute to the changes in membership

117include the birth to kindergarten ratio the migration of students and the transfer of students data for these three factors have been included in the slides at the end of this presentation for reference the CIP also includes membership projections total membership is projected to remain relatively flat within the 5-year projection period of uh school year 2829 to about 180 799,000 students these are due to overall decline in membership since the covid-19 covid-19 pandemic began um it includes lower births and decline of Elementary and Middle School cohorts over time the largest cohorts of classes in FCPS are currently in the 10th and 11th grades the Fairfax County demographic report contain uh confirms this trend with a decline in the school age population between 2020 and 2025 with the recent Decline and ongoing changes in membership it's important

118to highlight the projections are updated annually in the CIP to reflect changing conditions this slide gives us an overview of our funding so funding sources for the capital projects in the CIP include the general obligation Bond as voted on by residents in the biannual school bond referendum the annual limit for General obligation Bond funding has increased over time the most recent increase is a result of the joint CIP Committee in 2021 this increased the annual allocation to 205 million per year and another increase to 230 million per year in fy2 and Beyond we thank Fairfax County and the Board of Supervisors for their continued partnership which resulted in an increase in funding to support FCPS capital projects as a result of escalation in the construction industry FCPS continues to monitor these costs as they relate

119to FCPS capital projects additional funds that impact the CIP include the FCPS operating funds funds from the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors for infrastructure management and the capital syncing fund and proffers this graphic shows information on the FCPS staff review and collaboration with the County Planning staff of countywide residential development Beyond 5 years to identify impacts on school facilities staff monitors new residential development during a plan Amendment which is a review process for the Fairfax County comprehensive plan the review process of rezoning applications and as part of the five-year membership projection set developed and included in each Year's CIP next slide so these are the types of projects you'll see in a CIP uh it includes new school construction capacity enhancements facility Renovations which is usually the bulk of the work and potential sites which

120are defined on this slide here's some examples of recently completed projects from our uh past cips and up on the screen here we have bradic Fox Mill hi Valley and the renovation at Frost Middle School this slide summarizes the capital projects identified and the Capital Construction cash flow for this year within the next 5 years these include new construction projects of dunloring elementary school capacity enhancement at Justice high school and the relocation of three modular buildings and the renovation of 21 schools including 18 Elementary two middle and two high schools looking within the next 10 years the capital projects included are new construction Andor repurposing of the Silverline Elementary School Western High School route one uh Pinewood Lakes Early Childhood Center Tyson's Elementary and the new repurposing of pyet hills and Virginia Hills Renovations include

121two new elementary schools from the existing q and site acquisition for Western High School a summary of funding for these projects is on this Slide the total fiveyear funding requirement is approximately 1.2 billion approximately 533 million is currently funded by bonds and approximately 710 million is unfunded and would be included on future Bond referenda the total 10 requirement is approximately 2.5 billion approximately 578 million is funded by bonds and approximately 1.9 billion is unfunded and would be included on future Bond referenda impacts to the schedule of projects that we often see year over would be construction bids reflecting the state of the market recent bids right now do average 33% over cost estimates and projects were either value engineered to reduce the cost and still needed to access the or and still needed to access

122the construction Reserve which was established by past project savings the increase in the County's Bond allocation to schools is going towards the increased costs and um we'll note that it's not sufficient to cover the increases additional cost increases are also impacting costs these include inflation prevailing wage legislation environmental priorities and labor materials needed to meet Pro schedules priorities will need to be given as Renovations are being deferred as part of the res uh result of a funding shortfall this slide here gives an overview of what a typical project timeline and duration would look like so for capital projects they're listed in the CIP and provided on an annual basis the school bond referendum is on the ballot every other year on the odd years for us architectural services are procured via a request for proposals

123or an RFP with information on project assignments provided to the board during the process design of bond approved projects kick off in the spring following the vote and this phase lasts a a couple years um depending on the size and the project the construction phase is started with the school board approval of contractor selection and along the way there are many um school and Community meetings throughout the project timeline and we've been working closely with the cpdc committee uh to standardize that this slide shows the process for development of a new renovation queue the current renovation queue is anticipated to have funding for planning and design by through 2031 with updated costs in planning and um plan Bond referenda so we're still in the current queue that we've been working through a new renovation queue

124will need to be developed for future Renovations this will occur in phases of which phase one is currently underway a consultant has developed a framework for work needing need needed to develop and once the criteria is set phase two will be able to assess the criteria developed in phase one and then phase three will be to implement the new queue which would be incorporated in future cips and bond referenda when complete this is a little bit of an update on some of our jet goals especially as it pertains to Net Zero Energy so the 2020 jet recommendation called for new County buildings and major renovations to achieve Net Zero Energy practices these enhancements will typically include uh photovoltaic or solar arrays uh ground Source heat pumps from geotherm Wells and other features active design and

125construction projects maximize Net Zero practices where ready and possible and we build not to preclude future installations uh an example of this might be creating enough structure uh to allow for future solar projects future projects starting in FY 26 and Beyond uh include in the CIP funding for major energy reduction me measures to gain a possible on-site Net Zero Energy ready this includes uh building in again that structure for solar Readiness the ground Source heat pumps or geothermal system um and increased insulation Beyond code to make sure we have a very energy efficient building looking Beyond just the net zero and the energy reduction piece we are committed to sustainability so here's some highlights with f CPS uh shown on this slide and include get to Green energy conservation solar energy projects Net Zero chips

126design and electric V vehicle conversion I want to switch gears and talk a little bit about our building infrastructure and maintenance so the current cycle between big Renovations is approximately 42 years at this point this is much longer than the 20 to 25 year renovation cycle identified in policy 8258 this longer renovation cycle does require uh infrastructure investments in building assets at shorter intervals to support system life expectancy so this slide shows all the infrastructure assets by category and notes those past the useful life um by average age the table also includes the estimated total replacement cost uh to clarify this is the total replacement cost not just the ones past their useful life that's included on the next slide that we can move to this slide provides a breakdown of the cost of infrastructure

127replacement requirements by type for the next five years we condensed it down into four major categories and as you can see um the total assets that we calculate Pastor useful life is approximately $379 million and so as we wrap up here's some upcoming dates to show you where we are we have at our work session on January 9th today we are here at um the school board meeting and we're going through new business on January 18th we'll have a public hearing and then on February 8th we'll have Schoolboard action and mid-February uh the Fairfax County releases their CIP and we will be included as part of that and that concludes my presentation thank you Miss samansky up first we have Dr Anderson um thank you I know we talked about some of these things during

128the um work session last Tuesday but because we have usually a larger audience for these meetings I'm hoping that you can reiterate certain points um one um I think Mr muick was the one who delivered this news regarding electric buses I'm sure the community would like to hear um what the division was able to secure um in the past week or so so yes ma'am glad to share that um we're always looking for uh grants to uh get more electric buses right now and our goal is to be uh you know completely electric bus by 2035 uh but we recently received uh approval on a grant from the EPA for 16.5 million which will get us 42 more electric buses and there's another one do at the end of the month that we're putting uh

129the final touches on right now and that's notable thank you so much for sharing because those 42 buses will be more than what we have currently in the entire electric Fleet which is 307 31 3 31 okay I I was a little bit more generous there um the other thing Missy that I'd like for you to speak to because again our community is watching this more than they do the work sessions and there's always the cry for when is my school going to get on the renovation queue um obviously I have schools which I named last week so did so many of my colleagues Wayan Oak um badier and Luther Jackson where we stand right now other the schools that I have named can you can you please share with the public what is it

130that you all are going to be doing with those requests sure in terms of adding schools to the queue right now we're still working under past guidance which is to First go through all of the schools developed in the queue starting in 2008 so the CIP that goes fiscal year 25 through 29 is still working through that original queue and during this time we'll have the ability to identify a new Quee so every school that was already completed can be put back into a new order and the goal is to have that completed before the current queue is up so that we can go right into the next round of schools and you expect that the current queue will be exhausted by my retirement your retirement it will not be completed by this 5year CIP

131but we expect it to be completed within the next 10 years 10 years thank you and other issues that the community has raised Dr Reed regarding athletic fields Safety and Security measures I know at the work session we talked about um establishing other cues again just for our public can you reiterate what will be coming from staff work along those lines yes ma'am we're um looking at a an athletic queue traditionally in Fairfax County we haven't looked at athletic facilities when we've done excuse me major Renovations or remodels we're also looking at security uh cues we have a number of security projects um so both of those cues will be in addition to a holistic review of our facility queue and that's in addition to the traffic safety queue which was um one of last

132year's um followon CIP budget um lastly and this is kind of the big question because everybody saw the big circle and I know that Mr McDaniel brought raised some really good points regarding that which I'm hoping he will reiterate here this evening um but no matter what our needs out outpace our resources how is FCPS trying to procure um additional funding because we can't do this alone what else how else can we diversify our revenue streams in order to attack all of the projects that you've outlined yeah I think you bring up a really good point I think the first thing we have to do is maximize the resources that we do have so definitely making sure we're getting the most value for the dollars we spend if it's how we award our contracts how

133we negotiate we're definitely going to be looking at ways to maximize the dollars that we have and then I do agree we need to look beyond that because we do note a definite need for resources so we look forward to exploring different Partnerships different ways to expand our Revenue thank you so much thank you Dr Anderson Mr McDaniel so Dr Anderson was we probably read my mind because I had the big scary Circle pulled up and I see that it's up so I want to just for the Public's for public purposes um this number of the unfunded does not include anything that we've identified that we need to have in terms of capacity correct this number only reflects the cash flow so that um cue that you see primarily of Renovations and some small U

134some or any site acquisition or new building it does not include the useful life of the infrastructure piece okay which is that I think that was an extra about $ 1.4 billion dollar as well yes with of it about 380 currently being passed its useful life and the red portion of both of these circles does not mean to imply that we do not know where the money is coming from this is simply noting that the bonds have yet to be authorized on the ballot but we anticipate correct funding for the bonds okay correct this is just at this point in time with the referendum that have P passed to date we cash flowed out with the expected passing bonds for this to fully become blue over the fiveyear cycle okay all right thank you thank

135you Mr McDaniel Mr Dunn uh thank you Mr sininsky um you know I I think we talked about this quite a bit uh in the open session on Tuesday but um elaborating on some points made by my colleague Dr Anderson um I think it's essential that um you've been four months in the job um and you bring a lot of of uh great experience but it's essential that we uh look at how we can do business differently um and I'd like to emphasize the importance of public private Partnerships one was used to build South County High School uh other counties in our region and nationally have used them to build a whole Suite of schools you know up to a dozen schools at a time and then sign contracts for contractors to maintain them over

13630 years which um you know gives the benefit to taxpayers and the school system of having a fixed price right and puts the risk the onus of managing that risk on the contractor rather than on the system um I think it's also important to look at expanding uh multi-use facilities uh the Lord Community Action Center combined athletic facilities with mean facilities with a library uh we should also be in discussions with the county about that actively um I also want to emphasize the importance of as a Government Contracting attorney of best procurement practices um um a lot of what I've seen with FCPS is you know good efforts but but not the sophistication I would expect given the the you know Decades of experience and the billions of dollars that get spent annually um every

137dollar should achieve maximum return on investment um taxpayers in Fairfax County simply can't bear um to continue having increasing property tax rates to compensate for the underfunding by our state government and federal government um and and I also want to emphasize on pages 15 to 16 uh and 17 we have a long infrastructure list um and I want to ask you to please make sure that you're undertaking a comprehensive audit not random sampling for statist statistical purposes but of every school because I can tell you on my side of the county Mount Vernon District um there's high in equity compared to the schools in the western side of the county it's almost night and day um and we need to make sure that all of these facilities um athletic fields um elevators Dugout scoreboards um

138and and arack systems get updated um and so looking at how to uh buy in bulk right using economies of scale rather than just oneoff purchase after oneoff purchase um can actually reap significant B discounts especially with multi-year contracts um I again I'm a Government Contracting attorney I can tell you firsthand that contractors will give you those discounts if they have certainty of cash flow so um I am happy to work with you um uh both through cpdc and fpac and through other means to make sure that FCPS increases the sophistication of its organization so it gets more bang for its buck and reduces the fiscal burden and the risk imposed on FFX County taxpayers thank you you thank you Mr dun Miss seore Heiser just brief question to follow up on Mr McDaniel I

139I want to just to be clear on that slide number 10 that you know red circle in the blue that total is what the road requirement is just a requirement based on our anticipated Bond Bond numbers right it's not what we require to have best practices in terms of renovations right we're currently in a 42e renovation cycle and best practices I believe are 25 so I just want to clarify that slide in terms of we're budgeting our requirements to what we anticipate the funding we anticipate correct the 1.2 is what we anticipate to get so the cash flow is reflected accordingly okay I just wanted to you know make make that clarify for the public that there's requirements we have to kind of get up to what we may consider best practices or or help

140be more efficient with our um systems and then there's requirements in terms of the cash flow equalizing with that is that did I capture that correctly yes you are correct thank you thank you Miss seore Heiser Mr mine thank you Mr Vish uh so um you know it's interesting because uh every time we come to these presentations uh we just uh have more shocks thrown at us and um you know comparing this presentation to ones that Mr Moon and I would have seen um eight years ago four years ago it's it's just surprising that we've gone in the other direction that that we were anticipating um and I would argue that we have uh in Fairfax County kind of ebbed and flowed when it's come to facilities but we have probably not seen a crisis

141like the one we have now since the late 1940s early 50s in the PO post-war boom um we had a few good years when Sandy Robin and I were in in in our schools when we weren't having capacity issues and we were actually closing down schools but um we are not in those days anymore so the three shocks that I I wanted to highlight and I've highlighted uh previously um if if you take three things away from this presentation I want it to be these three first um as you've heard the 42-year um renovation cycle um which is uh an increase from where we were previously um the 33% cost overruns that we're seeing on our projects um and um the fact that we only have two schools slated for solar panels after four years

142ago having promised the County 87 so um these are concerns I'm not going to belabor them at this late hour um but they were shocks to be coming back in thank you Mr Maven um I'm going to take my turn thank you very much for the presentation and all the hard work that went into it um I agree with Mr movine about the renovation cycle it's disappointing especially we had this brief moment where it looked like we were going in the other direction right um we came on some of us joined this board four years ago and it was uh 37 years um and the Board of Supervisors sought fit to provide us with more money in the bond um and you know that money would have brought us probably to 35 years uh around

143R A renovation cycle finally progressed in the other direction and then covid and uh the as you articulated the big increase in construction costs and labor and everything else has pushed projects past the 30% Mark as I discussed in the last CIP so um all is not bad though I um did a calculation based on various year cips uh and found that onethird of the tra the instructional trailers used in Providence District have been removed uh since 2020 um I know that countywide I haven't done everybody's District um I know that countywide we've we've reduced the number of trailers significantly as well that's the direction we need to be going in so I encourage that um and then I also want to uh endorse you know this CIP when the board made it the joint

144joint environmental task force directives to move us towards net zero schools and uh buses and the whole like uh to show that we take the climate crisis seriously um this CIP is the first CIP that makes an honest attempt at moving in that direction and I applaud you for that um so thank you very much for doing that um and I look forward to partnering with you in the years ahead to continue making that progress so thank you forgot I was chair for a second uh are the lights up because we want Gob backs or because we just forgot to turn them off all right thank you very much thank you very much oh sorry we have one more uh Miss Eiser just really quick I actually appreciate Mr maven's statements of you know what's

145happened in the last four years and I know um the entire country and world is struggling with the cost overruns from covid and and the the supply chain issues I guess so the question I would ask is do you know or are there are we going to continue to see supply chain issues and the cost overuns due to some of things for covid are things getting better do we anticipate some of that coming down as things sort of more normalized I just is kind of curious what your forecast is you know I know as Mr uh FR said we we inherited a 37e renovation cycle which is you know well above the 25 years that um we should be at we work the Board of Supervisors and I'm so grateful that we were able to

146get it down to 35 for a brief instant before everything kind of hit the fan um and so I'm just kind of curious coming out of this now are there is there some sort of rainbow is there some sort of you know bright lights that we can look towards is there something positive that we have or are we anticipating these kind of overruns are going to last for a little bit longer well I don't have a crystal ball unfortunately yeah just kidding um but I do think it's important important that we stay really in tune with the marketplace so that's something that since coming on board I've been trying to do on a regular basis even if it's just bringing in general contractors we're working with take aside the project that we're working on and

147just ask how the marketplace is doing not just what their level but also the subcontractor markets so I think it's just really important and prudent that we just stay on top to the best knowledge that we can and no better way than keeping up with the local Marketplace the feedback I've been getting is that we don't see it going down anytime soon I think the inflation is up and now we're at a rise and you know I will say I understand this is probably not the information people want to see with the rise and cost but we are here to be as transparent as possible and we will keep you informed of how the marketplace progresses and the best thing we can do is Catch it as early as we can and predict it out

148in our cash flows so we're making the right choices strategically the last thing I'll just lift up I know it's late is that if the reason I asked that question is if we're not seeing a potential change and obviously I know you don't have a crystal ball right and I appreciate um the work you're doing to try to stay as ahead of it as much as possible then perhaps we need to work I'm sure your team's already looking at this perhaps work with fpac on do we need to change our practices or expectations or something to adapt to the changing environment right because I don't think what we're doing now is sustainable in terms of expectations maybe it's design changes maybe it's as I think Miss Marin mentioned doing some renov I don't know the

149answer but I'm just wondering at what point are we like this is our new world and so we have to adapt to it or we're waiting for things to maybe shift in a little more favorable Direction that's I just wanted to lift that up I don't expect you have an answer to that right now but just a thought thank you thank you Mr seore Heiser Mr Moon Mr chairman could you could you remind us when you are taking on action on this one February February 8th correct yes correct February 18th and we have a joint a retreat coming up with the Board of Supervisors since you janary 17 has agenda been finalized yes and it was shared in the chair's notes today and then whether this will be part of in any fashion to be

150shed with B of yes there's ample opportunity for us to talk on the areas that we need to be partnering on that is wonderful I'm looking forward to that thank you Mr Moon all right thank you Miss samansky thank you our adopted rules of parli agenda item four 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 may may be removed but from the consent agenda at the request of any board member prior to meeting the consent agenda items are on the screen is there an objection to approving the consent agenda yes Mr fr

151to what item on the consent agenda do you object um I object to agenda items 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.08 and 4.09 items 4.01 4.02 4.03 4 .04 4.08 and 4.09 have been objected to are there any objections to discussing these items and voting on them as one main motion seeing none there are no objections we will consider adopting items 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.08 and 4.09 as a group uh yes uh just before considering the questions that were objected to uh you need to First dispose of the remainder of the the consent calendar all right so the items that remain on the consent agenda are 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.10 and 4.11 is there any objection to approving the current consent agenda hearing there is no objection the consent agenda is approved and we will

152move on to the motion that we were I don't think there is 411 did I just make that up no it's there there's a 4.11 it's just the advisory committee commitments um I'm sorry um appoint I'm sorry Mr chair I am not clear on what was just approved through the consent nothing's well the items that were not objected to were approved okay thank you all right was that just voted on the items that were not objected to get handled first first and then we move on to the objections and we just approved the items that are still on the consent agenda so here we go um there are no objections to the question uh of adopting items 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.08 4.09 and 4.11 um and we will start uh we will we will

153start the discussion are there is there any discussion yes thank you uh Mr Dunn you're recognized um and and for the parliamentarian I I don't know if we did it in the right order because you did the reverse first and then don't you have to do the don't you have to do with the I'm not sure what you mean uh the parliamentarian said you have to do the consent agenda first and then we did that right but then yeah don't you have to go back and ask if there objections to treating the objected to items as a group or not we did that as well but didn't you do that before yes the chair may just want to ask if there are any objections to treating them as a group are there any objections to

154treating them as a group yes all right then we will handle them individually buckle up all right we will start with item 4.01 alternative accreditation plan 20124 is there discussion yes Mr Dunn uh I object to agenda item 4.01 uh specifically I object to the inclusion of the alternative accreditation plans uh on the consent agenda uh we have had recent discussions concerning the key Center the Kilmer Center the adult high school Brian high school and Mountain View High School at a time when many schools are experiencing an explosion of student misbehavior and misconduct which we W witnessed recently at a Sandberg middle school security and safety Forum these schools form a critical part of the FCPS toolbox for ensuring every child has access to a safe welcoming drug-free and violence free learning environment and in

155my view it would be irresponsible to blindly approve alternative accreditation plans that have not been briefed to or discussed by this board these alternative accreditation plans highlight some troubling data such as Bryant high school being composed of over 70% Hispanic and English learner students whether these schools are achieving their mission is of the highest importance because they represent an extraordinary fiscal expenditure and they serve students who require extraordinary support so I I respectfully object because I believe this is a subject that does require careful examination to ensure that we have the appropriate data and the proper understanding before these uh alternative accreditation plans are approved thank you Mr Dunn Mr Moon your light is on do you intend to have your light on all right there being no further discussion the question is on adopting

1564.01 alternative accreditation plan 2024 all those in favor raise your hand and say I all those opposed well we haven't gotten there yet all those in favor Miss seore Heiser Mr McDaniel Mr mine miss lady Miss St John cunning uh uh Miss Anderson Dr Anderson Miss Dixit Mr Moon all those opposed Mr Dunn Mr shman I didn't I didn't vote fortive are you voting I'm okay um Mr fr did you capture miss Maron I'm sorry if I missed that we're going to redo the vote because there was some confusion all those in favor of approving item 4.01 alternative accreditation plan 2024 please raise your hand Miss seis Mor Heiser Mr McDaniel Mr mine miss lady Miss St John cunning Dr Anderson Miss Anderson Miss Dixon all opposed Mr Dunn oh sorry I see Miss Marin

157is voting in the affirmative as well all those opposed Mr Dunn abstentions Mr Moon the item passes all right moving on uh we will move on to item four uh 02 amendment of contract wdp and Associates construction testing and inspection services for Cooper Middle School is there discussion yes Mr Dunn uh this contract uh states that it is being increased by approximately 125% and it attributes the uh cause to contractor delays the fact that uh we are giving the contractor more money uh a significant increase in the contract because of its own failure to perform in accordance with the contract I find troubling and uh I committed during my campaign to work tirelessly to ensure every taxpayer dollar achieves maximum return on investment as a Government Contracting attorney these contracts this contract and others appear

158to indicate that FCPS is not utilizing best procurement practices to ensure the cost effective use of taxpayer money as at a time of increasing budget constraints I believe it's important for the board board to ensure that every dollar is effectively spent uh Miss sansky has stated that construction costs are Rising by 133% here they are increasing and we are not examining the reasons why Dr Anderson yes can I ask staff to speak to this a little bit just to provide some greater context because we're engaging in an exercise that's going to look a little bit wony to the public at this point so I think it might behoove us to take a little bit of time and offer some additional information that may um respond to Mr dun's inquiries so I'm not sure so I

159to respond to this specific um inquiry um I think the agenda item detail has the description of due to the delays I'll ask Miss samansky to elaborate um on this sure I'm happy to provide some more context these contracts amendments for um wdp and ECS these are for our thirdparty inspector contracts so it's not the general contractor these would be the folks that would inspect the work to make shirts and compliance that we need for occupancy so the delays in the construction is more of a result of the general contractor and I'm happy to follow up and give you more uh information on Cooper and some of these other schools listed but because the general contractor has prolonged the construction duration these third party inspectors are having to spend more time out there as well

160so that's not at the fault of the third party inspector so we do feel like there is an entitlement to be paid and so that's why you're seeing the contract Amendment proposed here I withdraw my objection without objection uh the objection is withdrawn all right we'll move on to the next one um Mr chairman do you want to vote on it it's been withdrawn without objection but Mr oh that's correct we have to vote it thank you very much because it's already been withdrawn from the uh consent agenda all right there being no further discussion the question is on adopting 4.02 amendment of contract wdp and Associates construction testing and inspection services for Cooper Middle School all those in favor of approving this raise your hand Miss eore Heiser Mr McDaniel Mr mavan miss lady

161Miss St John cunning Mr Dunn Dr Anderson Miss Anderson Miss Dixit Mr Moon and Miss Marin that's unanimous moving on next up item 4.03 amendment of contract wdp and Associates construction testing and inspection services for oakill elementary pres school is there any discussion yes Mr Dunn uh well I'd like Miss manky if possible to provide a similar expanation the only uh details in included in the uh one pager we received is phasing delays is this a similar situation where uh a general contractor caused delays that then the inspector endured increased costs as a result that is correct was the general contractor held accountable in any fashion for its delays this project is ongoing so I will need to get more information from my team on the corrective actions that we're taking right now understood I

162withdraw the objection has been withdrawn again um and we will if with no objection to the withdrawal we'll move on to the vote all right there being no further discussion the question is on adopting 4.03 amendment of contract wdp and Associates construction testing and inspection services for oakill elementary school all those in favor Miss seis Mor Heiser Mr McDaniel Mr movine miss lady Miss St John cunning Mr Dunn Dr Anderson Miss Anderson Miss Dixit Mr Moon and Miss Marin that is unanimous moving on to the next item item 4.04 Amendment contract ECS midatlantic LLC construction testing and inspection services for Louis Archer Elementary School is there any discussion yes Mr Dunn uh I'd again like to ask Mr Miss SMY because the proposed 175% increase in the contract value is not explained at all except

163to note additional Services requested I'd like to ask for additional information to be Pro provided to the board given that this is a significant expenditure my response is similar to that of the ones of wdp this ECS is also a third party testing agent so any delays or additional calls out to the site brought forth by the general contractor it results in more work needing to be done by our third party inspectors understood I I would like to request in the future offline uh a briefing to be provided on how corrective actions are implemented with respect to Jon contractors who are not complying with schedule or objectives um and thus causing FCPS to incur increased costs duly noted thank you with I withdraw Miss Dixit thank you Mr chair uh my question is about these

164additional charges uh if these are billable hours contract they and the the construction is delayed are they doing all this sitting there waiting for this building to be built and just building hours um I can understand a 100% increase or 50% but this seems to be uh a really large increase in terms of if somebody's providing billable services and I have built up my own house so I understand that people have you know these site inspectors come and and do their job but they don't sit there for for a long time to get the project done yes understood typically our thirdparty inspectors are called out um per the guidance of the general contractor because they're more plugged into the day-to-day construction activities so I agree they're not necessarily sitting on the sidelines waiting but because

165the construction is you know prolonged or if you're up against a tight crunch to get a project opened sometimes you need to have them come out more frequent to kind of check along the way making sure that we're meeting all the intermediate steps so that we can get to our end goal so when you do usually run up to those situations we will find the overruns um but I understand the point you graay thank you thank you Miss Dixit there's no other discussion since the objection has been uh withdrawn we will move to a vote on item 4.04 amendment of contract ECS Mid-Atlantic LLC construction testing and inspection services for Louise Archer Elementary School all those in favor Miss eisar Heiser Mr McDaniel Mr mline miss lady Miss St John cunning Mr Dunn Dr Anderson

166Miss Anderson Miss Dixit Mr Moon and miss Marin the item passes moving on item 4.09 N8 Soul Source contract Amendment Jason learning uh is their discussion yes Mr dun uh I'd like to understand uh this contract because it it refers to a soul Source contract there's not a lot of historical information provided but it notes that this uh company Jason learning is subsidiary of National Geographic Society has been providing services to FCPS since 2011 which seems to suggest that there have been a series of Soul Source contracts since 2011 so I'd like to understand if if that is a fact but I'd also like to understand why this contract was not competed why uh there are a number of companies that I'm aware of and uh I'm my day job is not in education uh

167who provide this type of service and I know of one organization in in the South County area of the mount burn District that provides these types of uh workshops and might do so uh at a much reduced price far below $750,000 so I would like to understand the broader context and history of this contract so thank you Mr dun um I will have to defer to Dr Presidio uh because it looks like it's an instructional Services Department contract Dr Presidio sure and thank you for that question or or those questions um so this is not just a Professional Services contract where we receive training from uh the organization uh from the vendor it's actually our core stem curriculum that we use in our elementary school so it's an interdisciplinary curriculum uh that we use for

168science technology engineering and math and we've used it since 2011 um that predates me in terms of the um uh procurement process in terms of how that vendor was selected but um this is Core Curriculum as well as a lot of TR TR that elementary teachers have received over the years and if we were to adopt a different curriculum um there would be additional training costs associated with that as well so um that's kind of the background on the relationship that we've had with National Geographic and and Jason learning while the National Geographic Society has a great brand I think we've all witnessed its deterioration in recent years where effectively the entire Society was sold off to Fox quite some time ago um it they discontinued the magazine aine and and it really is a

169shell of what it used to be um I have a hard time believing that um this company Jason learning uh is the only company in in the United States that can provide this um this curriculum and and I do find it troubling given the centrality of stem Technologies to uh the global economy of the future Ai and everything else that's happening that we would never take even uh an initiative to issue an RFI or request for information or how hold an industry day or hold a workshop so that um outside vendors could come in and explain why um they could provide uh the a better product for lower cost and if you go into the marketplaces I am a Government Contracting attorney many vendors will do training for free because getting into FCPS one of

170the 10th largest school district in the country um represents an extraordinary opportunity both um financially and and and reputationally so um I do continue to object to this contract because I failed to understand for something so critical as stem technology uh and and training why why we're not competing this and just continuing in stasis for for 12 years that's not a best practice Mr D you finished yes thank you Dr Anderson oh sorry Miss Anderson that's going to remain very confusing um Dr precidio can you let us know whether or not this is an accredited program I apologize can you repeat that question can you let us know whether or not this specific program is is vetted in terms of being accredited for schools appropriate for fura all the all the all the goodness that

171would make it appropriate for FCPS yes it it it absolutely is yes okay thank you thank you M Anderson there being no further discussion the question is on adopting 4. 8 Soul Source contract Amendment Jason learning may may I please be recognized M I'm sorry I mred your hand go ahead Miss Marin that's okay um I want to use this opportunity to also mention that our policy 303 for instructional materials was last reviewed in June 2014 so I do concur with Mr M um Mr Dunn that there is an opportunity here to review how instructional materials are selected and how often um we had a similar there's a similar convers around our basil materials and how often they are reviewed and selected so I um just want to put a plugin for that urgent policy

172review need thank you Mr Moon thank you Mr chairman could I ask either Dr Reed or Dr pido uh impact consequences of school board not approving this contract you're going to have to apologize to thank you Mr Moon I'll have to again defer to Dr Presidio I'm not sure which courses this is used in so again this is a Core Curriculum used at the elementary level um in my understanding uh from the procurement office is that this contract is going to expire at the end of the month and if we don't renew it we'll no longer have access to the print and electronic materials to be used in the schools our support a motion uh our support a motion provided that going forward next time you come back with a c renewal of this particular

173contract as a s Source I would love to hear I would love to hear from Dr Reed or you Dr pad you have attempted other vendors as well yes sir we'll do that thank you thank you Mr Moon Mr Dunn I'm sorry I have somebody before I go back uh Miss St John cunning Dr pidio can you tell us comparison wise other programs and how much they cost that are comparable to this that are used in either Elementary or high schools so I wouldn't be able to give you comparable programs and costs that would be something that we typically would negotiate with the vendor through the RFP process I will say that our RFP process in in FCPS is um subject of course to you know federal and state laws and quite lengthy and typically

174uh the procurement of instructional materials through a process like this can take a year uh to get those materials we typically follow the State guidelines um of looking at updating our curriculum materials every seven years that's what the state does is they update their standards of learning and the materials that we adopt have to be aligned to the state standards of learning uh both uh those instructional targets as well as the state tests um and it's quite a lot to um to go through that RFP process yeah thank you Miss St John cunning Mr Dunn Miss Anderson asked Miss Anderson asked if if this is you know accredited furpa all the good stuff is this the only option out there in the marketplace even though you haven't done an RFP uh no it's it's definitely

175not the only uh material or vendor available and and there are other options that are absoluta and credit and all that okay so uh if the board approves this tonight given the fact that we're kind of between a rock and a hard place um and and and there are our P processes that go faster than a year I mean it's dependent more on FCPS than anything else um but you could conduct an a request for information to ask potential vendors to come in with data or or just information so that you could be briefed on on Alternatives correct that's correct okay so uh so I I would hope if the board approves this tonight given the rock in the hard place that you would rapidly develop a a strategy for for engaging in an RFI

176and then a subsequent RFP so that we can see if this is the best option and it might be I'm not foreclosing that possibility but it's certainly something that should be considered would you agree I I would I wasn't sure if Dr Reed buzzed in there or not but yes yeah Dr Reed I I think that it's clear that there are multiple products out there um it's also clear this is a product that the division has used since 2011 for almost 13 years um so I would I need some real Clarity at the end of this vote on this contract about the will of the board before I set the team off to potentially run a process um as part of their Duty so I I will want some direction I've heard a variety of

177individuals on the board make a request so I I'm just asking for Clear Direction because this will be a body of work uh both for the um instructional services division in this case the advanced academic programs as well as if we end up with choosing a different uh program uh that'll be a shift um in professional development required all of which are appropriate I'm just saying it's not I want to be clear that that's the will of the board directing and then we will of course do it but I I want to get some clarity this evening on that if possible Mr chairman just a moment you'll get a go back when we finish going through everybody else Dr Anderson thank you maybe after this round of discussion we can provide the superintendent with some

178clarity um couple of things that I wanted to ask and thank you for re-engaging Dr Presidio in terms of this product um looking at the contract it's for a year so we'll be having this conver conversation again whether it's Jason learning or some other product in a year so there is some space for us to do some additional um to gather some additional information and I think two things just come to mind one as is with everything else we have been doing this from 2011 is it still having the impact that we want it to have what what are the users saying um what are teachers saying what what does the data show in terms of the impact of this product maybe it's not doing what we wanted to do and that would be an

179opportunity to seek something new and maybe it is that would be an opportunity to know that we should remain with this product so I I would be wondering I'm not giving a Direction but I would be wondering the teachers um who are being trained and who are utilizing this what what is their feedback and again not just the anecdotal what is the impact what is the data that we're going to utilize to evaluate its effect its Effectiveness that's my um Wonder yeah those those are excellent questions and I don't have all of that information this evening what I can tell you is anecdotally um feedback that I've received both from teachers and from students when I observe in in the classroom students using these materials um that they are very interactive they're very engaging it's

180a lot of Project based learning activities and um students and teachers have given us very positive feedback about the materials um they are used in our Advanced Academic Program um with those students um scoring you know above 95% Pass rates past Advanced rates I should say um on the S sols in math and science so um we do think it's a it's been a very effective product or we wouldn't bring the contract renewal request uh to the board this evening but uh board members are asking very good questions and we certainly uh can take a harder look at the product yeah I think the observations that you've just shared are are good but I think we need to kind of have some verific if ific ation of that um which will require some additional work

181if we were to go down this path thank you Dr thank you Dr Anderson Miss seore Heiser um I think this is a good discussion I think um you know there's some it's always a difficulty right in in what we ask the Das what information We Gather in preparation for meetings right and questions that we have I know it it's can be difficult sometimes um we have two meetings in a week and the lengthy agendas to to ask the questions so we have the information to inform our votes um but I think you know when we're looking at Cost Effectiveness like I really appreciate Mr Dunn bringing up you know should we do an RFP processes and Dr Anderson is this the best product um should we every you know instead of Soul sourcing from

1822011 recompete it every time it's and those are all very good valid questions and I think to miss Marin's point maybe there is some room through the policy review process to kind of answer some of those questions and have those conversations what I will say is I think um there's a couple of tensions I want to lift up here one is there's the cost Savings in potentially potential cost savings and Rec competing there's also the potential cost of Rec competing right just the extra staff it takes um nothing saying one is better than the other just things to think about there's also the potential of having maybe a better program than we have now but there's also the cost both in time um professional development redoing curriculum teachers adapting to a new program when maybe

183are used to using a program that's both people time costs and perhaps money cost and PD and there's always competing interest for PD so we're then look so I think all of those need to be balanced when we're trying to decide when should we Soul Source something that's embedded deeply in our curriculum and well used and used over again and one which should we not as far as the sort of quality control or return on investment is this still the best product is this still actually doing what we need to do that to me is the job of the superintendent and her staff right that's deeply operational and while I think we're asking really good questions and we should ask these questions um you know it is all one of the most difficult things when

184I start on this board is really understanding the role of the board versus the role of the superintendent and where that lies and where that cross is and asking the questions for accountability is important but at what point do we say to Dr Reed have you and your St staff done the work to determine whether this is something that's worth continuing or not what's that process look like those kind of questions but I if we start digging into whether every program ourselves we think is the best instructural program then I don't know how we have our staff so I think there's there's just a balancer that's really difficult to find because we and the public want to know the answers is this the best instructional program or not for any particular program but the size

185and scope of the county I don't know how we as a board would do that work work as a part-time policy governance board you know I always tell people when they ask me what why superintendent a board I say the superintendent like our CEO and we're like the board of directors so um there's a tension with those roles and there's it's difficult to find that that balance I still know I'm working on it but I think when we're looking at cost and Effectiveness and efficiencies we have to look into all of the implications of changing or not changing so I just wanted to lift that up as food for thought thank you Miss seore Heiser Miss yes I do think you know I wonder if the policy would um if we clarify the policy if

186it would clear up some of these questions but I also think that given that this is a sou Source contract it is reasonable for the board to perhaps uh vote on vote on a directive tonight that um once we pass this contract renewal or Amendment since it's midy year that we can direct the superintendent to report back with information about this particular contract or even contracts that are up for Renewal especially related to academics or over a period of time if they're 10 years you know going I think that that is in the purview of the board so I would be open to passing this tonight so our students do not have their science instruction interrupted I also want to point out we are doing a massive transition with the science of reading and that

187in of itself is a huge lift for our specially Elementary School teachers so um I I'm not willing to just you know um stop this this contract for science but I think it would be good to know um why a continued Amendment Why Not A Renewed contract um those would be the questions so I put that for my colleague's consideration thank you Miss Marin Mr Moon well thank you Mr chairman in as much as I respect uh my colleague Miss seis hyers a a comment on operational aspect of what you do versus on the palace level uh there was a reason why we put a threshold I think long ago it was less than $200,000 I get that since since then it's been raised to $200,000 uh if a contract amount goes above that threshold

188it should come to the ball for the B to approver because ultimately ultimately Bard is going to be responsible Bard is going to be held accountable for its action that's what you are being asked to take on action approve not approve modify that's what you are being asked to do and and I am as I said earlier I'm not willing to support this one tonight but going forward for something like this and the next one that is going to come up next contract I'm going to support for the same reason but I think B has a responsibility to to get to get to get more information from superintendent and other staff and and and be able to review what you are doing and and if a superintendence is seeking uh some directive some direction from

189the board it may not have to be it does not necessarily have to be tonight uh Mr Dawn or somebody else could certainly present this as a Forum topic and have a fuller discussion rather than tonight because I didn't know that until just a half an hour ago Mr dun was going to have several items removed from the concent agenda that brought my attention to it and I I am happy I am really glad and appreciate that Mr dun as a new board member bring a new approach in how we do our business as a b thank you Mr Moon Miss seis Mor Heiser I just briefly since Mr Moon referenced me specifically in per I just want to kind of respond I don't disagree I I'm well aware of the contract thresholds and the

190changes we dug into that I don't disagree with the board having oversight and we're responsible what I was saying was that we're not the instructional experts and so the level of understanding instruction we need to let our staff do it doesn't mean we don't ask the questions which is what I said in my comments as well but there is um there's there's a balance between figuring out how deep we can go instructionally and how not and so I just wanted to clarify my remarks to make sure I was clear in what I was trying to say I do well well aware of the contract threshold and changes and the reasons why we had many conversations in the last four years about that and made some changes as well in the last four years so thank

191you for reminding me of the history that you had and um we just need to figure out as a board where that balance is and um and I think it's it's very helpful to review these contracts I also think um it's probably helpful to do this to make sure that our staff knows our questions so they can come prepare to answer them as well so we can get full information um as we to help us prepare for the vote thank you Miss eore Heiser I'm going to take a turn on this one I spoke I sidebarred with Mr dun just now about Mr Moon's idea on a forum topic and so rather than doing a motion after this particular contract I'll be talking to Mr Dunn about how to submit Forum topic so that we

192can have a broader more detailed discussion than we want to at this hour all right there is no further discussion the question is on adopting 4.08 Soul Source contract Amendment Jason learning all those in favor raise your hand Miss seis Mor Heiser Mr McDaniel Mr mline miss lady Miss St John cunning Mr Dunn Miss Anderson Miss Dixit Mr Moon Miss Marin with Dr Anderson away from the table moving on to the next one uh item four .09 Soul Source contract Amendment edupoint Educational Systems is there discussion Miss Microphone yes Mr dun uh I I would just like to make the same point with respect to this contract as as the last one uh this is an eight-year contract started in 2017 my concern is that it's a $2.8 million contract and given uh the proclivity

193I've seen tonight and over the past 10 years as an education Advocate um I fear that next year there will be you know a one-year extension and a one-year extension one-year extension after that so I would you know I can defer this topic to The Forum and I'll withdraw my objection but I do ask that you know just in general uh we we look at long-term contracts and whether there are other service providers who can provide more bang for the buck rather than just continuing indefinitely so I withdraw my objection there being no further discussion the question is on adopting 4.09 Soul Source contract Amendment edup Point Educational Systems all those in favor please raise your hand Miss seiser sorry Mr fr I just saw that Miss Marin had our hand raised I'm Sorry Miss

194Marin my apologies I was Voting already okay Miss seore Heiser Mr McDaniel Mr mine miss lady Miss St John cunning Mr Dunn Miss Anderson Miss Dixit Mr Moon Miss Marin and uh Dr Anderson away from the table all right uh we will now move on to uh item 4.11 additional advisory committee appointments oh that was that was included in the uh yeah okay so we're we're done all right uh thank you very much getting back to the the primary script here agenda item five new business the following are new business agenda items there will not be a vote on these items this evening but action is scheduled at a future meeting the new business items are on the screen item number six agenda item six board matters next on the agenda is board matters I

195will call on each School Board member to speak Mr Moon Mr chairman just to briefly I am happy to be back to the school board so that I can work with the other 11 board members many of them are doing this for the first time uh even though I had done this for 20 years you know returning to the school board I surprisingly requiring a lot of adjustment in my own life especially with my day job I think time demand has increased quite a bit over the last four year period but I'm hoping that it won't take it too much time before I get fully adjusted to new lifestyle uh having said that having said that uh you know if you haven't read this story I would like to share a a one quick story

196with you about a one of my former teachers uh from Dan TC Williams Senior High School Mr Lis kones legendary now we have to call him legendary because he passed away on January the 4th uh he had taught until he died at the age of 91 for 65 years wow what a life he had loving his more than 6,000 students and I was fortunate enough to be one of those 6,000 students in my junior year in his algebra 5 back then pretty calculous class thank you Mr kones I was happy to visit your class back in 2016 and invite you to our Great Beginnings to be introduced to more than 1,000 new teachers in Fest County in 2019 thank you Mr Moon uh Miss Dixit I'm thrilled to introduce myself as a newly elected school

197board members and a s District representative on the Fest County School Board uh Su district has been been my home since 2004 where I had the privilege of raising my family I'm a proud mother of two FCPS students and I understand the importance of Quality quality education and it impacts my children um our children's future uh little background my husband and I immigrated from us uh to to us from India and we are really appreciative of the magnific uh magnificent opportunities uh living in Fest County um I'm a small business owner and also a nonprofit co-founder and I've been very actively involved in the community volunteering being involved in the ptas as a PTA leader and this has really I guess uh prepared me to uh today be in front of you and and be

198a board member um I want to thank you all of the people and the and my fellow board members for you know I I look forward to working with all of you I want to thank uh to Stella who actually helped me um you know introduced me to this position and kind of guided me through this and uh I'm especially thankful to the Su District uh all the residents for giving me this opportunity and I hope to serve all of you um and a quick shout out to O Oakton High School marching band who won Metallica marching bad competition to whom the band trolls and this they got an they will get an award of $115,000 um thanks to all the parents students and community members who voted for them uh Goku g and I

199hope uh 2024 brings you a lot of love uh laughter and joy thank you Miss Anderson as I was getting ready tonight to figure out what I wanted to share the number 11 kept coming up the last 11 months have been a whirlwind as someone who believes wholeheartedly in the importance of supporting your community it took me the last 11 months for me to realize or to understand the leap that this role was going to be for my family and me the last 11 days have proved that all I really saw was the tip of the iceberg um with so many nuanced opportunities below the surface of what this position looks like from the outside I am eternally grateful for the guidance that I've received so far along the way my predecessor Laura Jane con

200offered me the best mentorship and cheerleading possible and has answered all of my crazy questions my Executive Administrative Assistant Stephanie Sheridan took the leap to continue to serve with the people of Springfield the Springfield District and ensure continuity for our office to my 11 colleagues on the board who have already proven themselves invaluable we are all so different in so many ways and so alike in the ones that are the most important our desire to ensure that Fairfax county is the best school system possible for our kids I have had way more than 11 meetings um talking with County officials several of our regional assistant superintendents members of our leadership team involved community members out there doing good work and our amazing superintendent perhaps my favorite that I had the privilege of was speaking with

201the fifth grade Scouts that are part of troop 68 who stayed engaged in our conversation for way longer than 11 minutes to the surprise of their parents I so appreciated their time and attention and for sharing what I had already suspected our kids want to understand more of about the decisions that we're making to help keep them safe um they want to be part of the conversation and we need to listen to them that was reiterated last night at the hardest moment of the last 11 days um I was trying not to Channel all of the Springfield I know I'm working on it um when I attended our community conversation to raise awareness at Edison High School and heard from the Foster family about the loss of their son to fentanyl we had students as

202young as sixth grade stand up in the audience and ask us to make sure that their friends knew what they needed to know to keep to stay safe many of us on the board were there and we were listening very carefully so despite this ended on sad note I am amazingly excited about the adventure that we're about to start on and I'm looking so forward to working with all of you so thank you you are Dr Anderson thank you Miss Anderson that was really lovely that was really nice I don't know that yet to that is yet to be seen um well on a lighter note I do want to say Happy New Year to everyone very excited to be back on this board and I do want to extend my thanks to the Mason

203District for your um trust in me to do this work to represent you I am not here to represent what ricardi Anderson thinks I'm here to represent and fight for what the Mason District needs and what they need to have happen um from our school division so thank you um I do want to say to everyone there are a lot of opportunities on Monday on Martin Luther King Day to participate in various days of service there's a plethora of information on the Fairfax County website weite and I do know that many of our schools have been posting opportunities as well online and with students so please take OPP take uh the chance to engage in that time it's not just a day off um as we are pivoting into the second quarter which is quickly

204ending I'm sorry we're pivoting into the third quarter as the second quarter is quickly ending at the end of this month I do want to remind our parents there are two great opportunities for you to make sure you are tracking how your students are doing please be sure that you are on parent view and sign up so that you get weekly emails however often you want them so you don't have to go to see how your kids are doing the email is sent to you on a regular basis as well as um the relay light speed where you can identify and review where your students are spending their time when they are using their FCPS devices it is an invaluable resource for you to see how much you YouTube your kids can actually engage in

205during science class just another reminder to our high schoolers um who are in the process of applying for financial aid there are many fbsa completion um assistants this is the federal student aid form um College access Fairfax and FCPS have partnered to offer families with assistance in completing this document January 20th at Justice high school January 30th at anadel high school February 20th also at anadel high school um as we are engaging in the capital um Improvement program as we are engaging in the budget program I do encourage the Mason District and others to please come out at the public hearings and provide us with your feedback share your voice because that needs to be what informs our work and lastly I too am very excited to work with this group of colleagues especially tonight

206as I heard how people are approaching this work and I see the variety of skills that so that you all are bringing into this work it really warms my heart that we are um going to be diverse and not only our skills and our thinking but it only strengthens the work that this board can do when we have this diversity of thought so I'm very appreciate appreciative and very excited to um Embark with you all in the next four years thank you Dr Anderson Mr Dunn uh I'm I'm honored and humbled to have the opportunity to serve my community and Fairfax County uh to make sure that every single child regardless of where they come from who they are who their family is receives a world- class education uh FCPS uh when I was growing

207up uh overseas I'd never lived in Virginia I didn't know anyone in Virginia but I had heard of Fairfax County as having the best schools in the world so when I graduated from law school and my wife graduated from getting her masters in social work uh we knew where we were going to live there was absolutely no question and um you know moving to the Mount ver District 20 years ago was the best decision we ever made all three of our children attended FCPS from first grade through 12th grade and they received outstanding educations but it's hard as a parent uh now now days uh the threat of random gun violence the threat of fentanyl overdoses that we saw last night uh with the heartbreaking story of The Fosters um The Dangers uh overseas that

208seems to be infiltrating our society Rising intolerance and hate um Wars that seem to be proliferating um my children are entering the military so that's a particular concern to me um you know Rising terrorism just the threats never seem to end and at the same time we face um numerous challenges in the wake of the pandemic uh Rising anxiety mental and behavioral stress um you know the learning loss that resulted during the pandemic even though FCPS and the prior School Board did the best they could um and and then of course the budget constraints we face with possibly a soft Landing or possibly a recession but and in all of that I see strong glimmers of hope we have an absolutely incredible superintendent um and an absolutely incredible staff um talented and dedicated Educators who

209despite the fact that they have too M too many administrative burdens and aren't paid enough uh they're working their hearts out to make sure that every kid gets a world- class education despite all the challenges that I just described um and you know everyone from bus drivers to the genders to the cafeteria workers we're all in this together and and I am um cheered on by the fact and inspired by the fact that I have 11 colleagues who um I'm still continuing to get introduced to but am continually in awe of um all that they've accomplished and all of their insights that I'm I'm constantly in listening and learning mode not just being new to the board but also uh listening to all of their ideas and suggestions and and all level of them frankly

210serve as mentors to me of how to be a better school board member and how to be a better human so I appreciate um their service I appreciate their their models and I hope that I can emulate um the incredible predecessors I have in Karen Corbett Sanders Dan stor and and Chris amonson to deliver to the uh Mount Vernon District all that they hope for for their Community for their schools for their families thank you thank you Mr dun Miss Marin yes one second thank you uh I too want to congratulate the Oaken band I voted for you yay band I will always support a marching band especially one backed by a rock but an awesome rock group um so tonight in this season a lot of our high schools are hosting curriculum nights where

211our Rising ninth graders will go to start to look at their schedules and my own daughter was one of them tonight and I haven't yet heard from her how that went but it's did allow me to talk with her about her intentions for high school and you know I impressed all the opportunities that she'd have in front of her and one thing I said was you know your current principal U Mr Dr miselle over at Langston you know he he sees you every day or he sees the students and and then you're gone and you know I said these teachers and these staff get their whole lives and they care so much about you and then you go off and do whatever you do and they might never see you again and I just you

212know I hope the public thinks about the kind of person it takes who can do that job give their hearts to something and just let it go and you'll be lucky if maybe you see a few of those students in the future but I also wanted to reflect on the the role of families so you know the families are key and and I was um discouraged to hear one of the public comments tonight that you know we don't uh support families we don't welcome families but it is the families coming to curriculum nights understand the academics with students that is what's going to help them succeed and so you know when I hear claims like you know FCPS has to get our drug get drugs out of school problems of drugs of violence they're not

213going to be solved within our school walls they're going to be resolved outside in the community and we need the family's help so I'm I'm just um I'm glad that so many people are going to the curriculum nights and participating in all the ways that people do I also um wanted to reflect upon you know the experience that it's it's kind of a new day for school boards and yeah the it's it's quite a different tenor these days but but I am very thrilled to be back for a second term and as I said earlier when I was uh humbled to be elected as Vice chair I'm inspired by this new board's approach to work and its commitment to Excellence I learned a lot from tonight's discussion about our contracts and I think we have

214lots of interesting uh views to share so I'm really excited to continue the work uh finish off the second quarter theater Seasons coming Sports Seasons and I'm just delighted to be here um with chair Carl fish to continue this work among us all have a good night thank you Miss Marin Miss St John cunning thank you I I'd like to begin by thanking my family my friends the colleagues on this board um and everyone in the Franconia district and really in my situation throughout Fairfax County that made it possible for me to be here tonight um uh like Miss Anderson I did not anticipate what was going to happen the past 11 months in terms of running for a position um a little bit about me in my background uh I'm from Al Paso Texas

215I'm the daughter of a Mexican immigrant mother and a Mexican-American father with an 18 generation history in these United States I am the proud product of a great public education beginning from Head Start through high school where my debate Coach inspired me to apply for a debate scholarship which helped finance my time in college Miss Rita Harland was an amazing coach for so many people and I she changed the trajectory of my life just like I know teachers in Fairfax County are doing for the students here um I went from being involved in FCPS as a parent three of my daughters graduated from um FCPS schools and through that I became a language interpreter a family liaison a family engagement Reg representative and my last position a community school coordinator to sitting on this Das

216that's something I would have never imagined um I say that so that I hope that other people out there not just parents but maybe students can maybe see this as a place where they can come to because believe me this is never where I saw myself I'm humbled that I'm here and I'm honored to be serving with so many amazing amazing colleagues the staff wow you guys Blow Me Away you guys are amazing um we have a a superintendent that is so committed to making this the best system in the United States she wants this to be a model for everyone to follow if we can do that we know that our kids are going to get the best of everything all of the roles that I mentioned that I was were roles of service

217I served teachers I served students I sered families the title of Schoolboard representative does not in any way Elevate me above my constituents the teachers the school staff or families it only means that I have a greater responsibility to continue serving all of you to the best of my ability to ensure that Fairfax County Public Schools continue to provide safe Equitable inclusive schools where all students teachers and families feel valued and respected thank you Miss St John cunning miss lady good evening I want to begin by saying that I'm honored to serve in this board with my esteemed colleagues as the drainville magisterial District representative a lifelong learner I've thoroughly enjoyed our orientation training and I'm grateful to leadership team staff and returning board members for their time and patience answering questions a product of

218FX County I was so excited to return as an employee and extremely proud of my 27 years of service as a counselor and director of student services kids were at the center of my work each and every day and I endeavored to make that the case in my work on this board I'm excited to continue to learn more about fi County from this seat and particularly our drainville community and schools I look forward to collaborating with my fellow Schoolboard members to support and partner with our superintendent in fairfx County Count's new strategic plan and meeting students families School staff and community members at different events across the county I want to thank our office of community relations for organizing Community conversations to raise awareness about Fentanyl and Other Drugs that took place last night at

219as in high school overdoses in our country are up 400% over the past decade and we must educate all our students on the risks of fentanyl as we teach support and Empower them to reach out to a trusted adult when and if they or one of their peers is engaged enging risk behavior it is my hope that this message will reach all of our families and students while there is great debate regarding age appropri of discussing the sick reality in our world I commend the sixth grade boy who stood up last night and asked for training for his peers we are all in this fight together now some good news from transville I was delighted to be present at the announcement of Ferris Thomas as the new principal of Franklin Sherman Elementary School starting January

22016th Miss Thomas has spent 18 plus years in FIS County and most recently served as the assistant principal at Chester Brook I was especially happy to celebrate this promotion as I was a former colleague of Miss Thomas at mlan high school congratulations and I look forward to working with Miss Thomas in the Franklin Sherman Elementary School Community the Cooper Middle School symphonic band made history by being the first Scholastic band from Fairfax County and Virginia invited to the Midwest international band and Orchestra clinic in 20 years this event is the Super Bowl of music education events and features the best bands and orchestras from around the world to prepare prepare for and qualify the students learned 14 pieces of music in four months including two World premieres as a former Performing Arts administrator at chantilli

221I remain in awe of the talent across art system the hernand high school marching band The Pride was invited and performed the 20 performed in the 2023 Pearl Harbor parade in Honolulu Hawaii having chaperoned the Chantell marching band on this trip years ago I know what an amazing experience this is for our students congratulations to the pride of Herman of hearnen as we approach this weekend I hope that we will all pause and reflect on the amazing work of Dr Martin Luther King Jr and honor his memory by continuing to fight against bigotry and intolerance and find ways in which we can live and work together in respect and honor each other as Dr Reed mentioned earlier if you're looking for a family event for the Martin Luther King Day holiday consider volunteering with give

222together a collaboration between FCPS and volunteer fairfa at Martin Luther King Jr Day of Service thank you thank you Miss Lady Mr mine thank you Mr frish so it's it's wonderful to come back to so many uh new and fresh faces and also some old faces of course not no older than um Mr Moon himself it's uh good to see you sir um but also some some old friends uh Mr Smith Mr precidio Miss Kennedy Miss King and and and and other folks uh who have stuck around so thanks for being here for us um but I do want just use my time to um express my profound thanks um not only to Mr frish um and the old board members yes you the four of you are now considered old as well um but

223also to our clerk Miss setlo um Mr Jackson and and Tara for for all the work you've done over the past two months I don't know how you've done it well I do know you haven't slept um but um really just all of us could not be more thankful for all the events and or orientations and um certainly Mr Ho with all the the tech issues getting us up and running um we we really do appreciate it so um thank you to everyone I'm looking forward to a stimulating uh next four years and I think tonight's been been a a good start so it's it's great to um work with uh such a wonderful group thanks thanks you thank you Mr Maven Mr McDaniel thank you um I have to admit I I I was

224sharing with my colleague from the bradic district over here I did not realize this was an introductory session that we were all going to go around on but um that being said um my wife sent me a a video clip of our four-year-old in bed with the cat uh tonight and it was very cute video and I was sharing a picture with Dr Reed that my two-year-old took this morning a selfie um and as I've watched my own kids grow up I see the opportunity that they're going to have being Fairfax County students and every time I see pictures of them I'm reminded of the job that we all have and the responsibility that we all carry to all kids across Fairfax County to Mr dun's Point regardless of where they live and I'm honored

225to be a part of that Journey uh for the next four years um I I do have two well one item additionally some of the community is aware of the passing of the Fairfax IND ACP Branch President Michelle Lee she was not only the longest serving board member of the county branch of the NAACP but she was also a longtime uh PTA leader she served on the Fairfax County Council of ptas in many roles including as vice president of training she also served on her local PTA board at Edison High School and on the Virginia PTA board she touched many lives through her selfless volunteering uh she's been described as a a true servant leader and I know that the board joins me in keeping her family in our thoughts and prayers thank you thank

226you Mr McDaniel Miss seore Heiser thank you and first I just want to say I'm really excited to be back on the board serving in a new role as a bradic district representative so just a couple words to my um bradic District constituents for those who don't um know me as well as um as as my at large may know or don't know that I've actually been a resident of the bradic district for 22 years um I moved to the bradic district when I was pregnant with my son and my daughter was a toddler they both spent their entire um educational career um in FCPS schools in the bradic district um Kings Park Kings Glenn my daughter was the AAP program at Keen Mill my son was at Hunt Valley for a little while and

227the enhance autism program I see a Hunt Valley teacher in the audience before um coming back to Kings Glenn and they both graduated from Lake bradock my son in 2022 so I'm really excited to serve the district dist that I've called home where I've worked I've lived I've raised my family so thank you for that honor of serving the district but I also um am really glad that my service for the next four years will be informed by the countywide lens that I've had for the last four years and I think it really helps to have that balance between making sure the needs of my district are met but also understand that we are one school system I think Mr Dunn mentioned that so thank you um in that I wanted to say um I'm

228I'm really glad to hear how powerful the the town hall was I was not able to be there because I was at the acsd meeting which I'm the liaison to but I did go to the previous Town Hall that we held and I understand it was incredibly powerful and I I really encourage all of our families to look at the materials we have on um substance abuse and especially on the fentol crisis it can happen to anybody and it's um incredibly deadly and it is valuable lessons that we can all as a community wrap our arms around our kids to help keep them safe so um on a lighter note I did want to lift up a couple things that are coming up soon for those theater fans like me um Lake bradic SEC um

229Secondary School the middle school is doing Rudolph the Red-nose Reindeer for anyone who's missing the holidays um Frost Middle School is doing Puffs young Wizards Edition both of those are this weekend um in addition to that um Robinson Secondary School theater is doing a student directed showcase on January 13th um for those of you who are huge theater fans like me there's actually a website on FCPS you can Google FCPS Performing Arts calendar and all these will pop up it is the best theater locally not that I'm biased that you can find um and it's great to support our um young growing actors and actresses and thespians so just lift that up as well I'm really excited to attend some of these events in the bradic district and be out and about um I want

230to thank my new colleagues I'm really excited to work with all of you I'm really excited to the fresh perspectives different experiences we are really a group of so much talent and knowledge and experience I'm really excited to learn from you as I work alongside you and I just wanted to you know I have to say give a thanks to my colleagues who are not here from the past four years um it has truly been a trial by fire that we've gone through in the last four years and I think what that board went through is unlike no other and um I just want to thank them for the work they did thank you Miss eisar Heiser I will take my turn Happy New Year to Providence District families um since our last meeting I

231had an opportunity to attend a variety of holiday concerts at Providence district schools um but I want to be a little personal tonight um my earliest memory growing up I was about three years old and um my two older sisters were already in school and my younger sister was one years old and when my mother would put her down for a nap we would get the latest books that I received in the mail we had a mail order Book subscription and I did not understand how the Postal Service worked at 3 they just arrived and there were new books to read um and they were always a surprise and so my mother would open the box and then we would pick a book to read and we would read it together before my nap my

232um my mother passed away on November 30th and the last time I spoke to her before going back to California to be with her which was the last time I spoke to her she congratulated me on being reelected and said she was proud of me um but she didn't know why I was doing it again um so why I do this you know people are like you've got no kids why do you do this because I want kids to be attracted to learning the way I was by the experiences I had growing up and I want to avoid the experiences that made learning more difficult for anybody that I possibly can and so I am excited to be working with this board it's already been said we have a lot of unique talents and we're

233going to put those talents to the test believe me um and you know I start first started talking to miss Marin um about being Vice chair and working together at vsba this year in November and we've had a lot of really great conversations about structure and how things operate and what our priorities should be and how the Retreats are going to shape up with the governance committee chair um and I very much looking forward to doing whatever we can as a team to help this team succeed in the year in the six months that are in front of us um and with that I will say I'm looking forward to honoring Martin Luther King day um on Monday um at the First Baptist Church of Vienna with Dr Walton and many others in the community

234um and we're not adjourning because this board if you've forgotten have one more item to take care of En closed um but I will say good night Miss Tolen if you're watching um you can go to bed now um and we'll be back to close this meeting officially after closed so um we'll be back we are in recess until we return from Mr chairman you may you may want to make a motion again to go into a close session I don't know if I have to make thank you just a moment we do not need to make a motion to go back into close because we did not adjourn closed so um what is the that'd be great we've never done this before I I think the board has but my understand I mean we've

235never done this if we've if we're REM motioning closed we've not done that before all right my understanding is that you recessed the correct closed meeting so you can just reconvene and uh thank you so we will reconvene and closed and we'll be back to finish uh and close out closed thank you