FCPS School Board Meeting - 10/26/2023

001this October 26 2023 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 South Lakes High School treble Ensemble under the direction of Jessica Irish I pledge of aliance to United States [Music] by [Music] of and the home [Music] [Applause] of in order to comply with Section 2.2 3712 D of the code of Virginia it is necessary for the board to certify that since the Fairfax County School Board convened a closed meeting on October 6 2023 to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully Exempted from open meeting requirements and only such business matters were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or

002considered by the board during the Clos meeting do do I have a motion Miss cor Sanders is there a second Miss Som all those in favor okay we have Miss seiser Miss Owen Miss om Miss Marin Mr frish myself Miss Dar kofax Dr Anderson Miss car cor Sanders is there anyone that does not agree okay that motion passes thank you okay then we have agenda item 2.03 confirmation of action taken in closed I call on Mr fris for a motion thank you madam chair I move that the school board approve and award a contract for Labor Relations administrator Services according to the terms and conditions discussed in closed session and authorized of the division superintendent or the director of the office of procurement services to execute deliver and administer the contract on behalf of the

003school board is there a second Miss Marin thank you all those in favor Miss cobt Sanders Dr Anderson misset kofax Miss Tolen Mr frish Miss mirin Miss am lur Jan Cohen and rochest heer Heiser any opposed okay that motion passes um miss bski and miss Keys gamara have submitted a written request to virtually attend this evening's meeting due to a medical conflict and a personal conflict respectively all those in favor of approving Miss bakari's request thank you that is all members at the table all those in favor of approving Miss Keys gara's request okay that is all members at the table um I would like to call on our um student rep Miss gri for an announcement the board would like to recognize troops 695 in the audience from Shanty Virginia from school's pop Elementary

004Rocky Run Middle School and shant Tilly high school here to receive their Merit citizen badge please stand to be recognized Miss Kum um I believe they're representing a number of elementary and middle schools as well as the grades 6 through 10th is that correct yes and there are 17 of them yes that's amazing congratulations great thank you for your showing of citizenship if you would like to review a copy of the agenda and any agenda item that is being discussed tonight that information may be found at the back of the auditorium or on the website at fcps.edu schoolb boardboard do tonight's meeting is being broadcast on channel 99 and live streamed on the website at fcps.edu TV channel99 as a reminder to all board members in accordance with our vote on September 28th All sponsors

005of proclamations will have two minutes to provide comments while other board members will each have one minute we will employ this practice tonight and moving forward after reading tonight's proclamations the boards with board will invite those in support of the proclamation to join us for a photo agenda item 2.05 West Springfield High School Maintenance building naming Proclamation I call in Miss Cowen for this Proclamation thank you whereas Mr Bob little has served as an assistant softball coach volunteer and Facilities maintenance employee at West Springfield High School since 1988 helping with practices and facility grounds and equipment maintenance whereas he has instructed and mentored many athletes and coaches and continues to do so serving them generously dutifully and Faithfully whereas without seeking recognition Mr little Works tirelessly and joyfully to ensure West Springfield facilities are safe

006clean and beautiful for all who attend school events creating and fostering an environment where athletes and students enjoy competing and taking part in many extracurricular contests whereas he serves as a role model in his worth work ethic and professionalism working upwards of 40 to 50 hours a week managing projects repairing irrigation maintaining mowers and lawn equipment and taking the initiative to make things right before an issue occurs and whereas Mr little is a proud supporter of the Spartan Community the school's number one supporter spending countless hours attending athletic events and supporting students now therefore be it resolved that the maintenance building at West Springfield High School be named The Bob little maintenance facility in honor of this exemplary coach leader volunteer colleague friend mentor and citizen do I have a second second Miss Cohen would

007you like to speak to your motion I would I will tell you the two minutes would not even get through the first letter that was sent about Mr little um I'll just take a few clips though from some of them that really stood out West Springfield High School could not function over the past few years without the daily efforts of Mr little said one of the people who sent a letter about him another person said 13 years ago I started coaching at West Springfield on my first day I met Bob little he introduced himself and said to let him know if there was anything I needed day in and day out Bob would stop by practice to see how things were going one day he noticed I was having some trouble locking up the shed

008I mentioned that the lock was just finy but still worked the next day when I showed up to get ready for practice the lock had been fixed that is a perfect example of how much Bob cares I'm not the first and certainly won't be the last person that he has helped without being asked these are the little things that Bob does for everybody another letter said in the spring of 1988 Bob retired from his job with the federal government I told him he was always welcome to come out and help whenever he wanted the next day he was at West Springfield softball field and he has never left one person mentioned in PE class in every PE class that goes outside and passes by where he's working there's always a student calling out to him

009this person ended their letter by saying I don't know a Kinder or more giving man than Bob little we are so fortunate Mr little that you have helped keep West Springfields looking as beautiful as it always does but more than that that you serve as such a fixture um to our staff to our students who have the honor to get to have you be their favorite Spartan so we were so honored to have the opportunity when Mr mukai reached out we couldn't think of anything more deserving so thank you so much and uh I hope you enjoyed the football game last Friday and the new Bob little maintenance shed Miss seiser Heiser would you like to speak to your second I would thank you just briefly um I I I read the same letters that

010Miss Cohen had read and you know letter after letter page after page of just glowing remarks about the contributions Mr Lil has made to the West Springfield High School Community as volunteer since 1988 I mean that is just astounding to me the number of years Mr Lil has just shown up in ways small and ways large to to maintain the fields to make sure that the games go off to make sure everything is in tiptop shape um and one writer said to me and that Mr little epitomizes the word service he seeks no recognition for a service but is motivated to help the school and the students in fact one of the letters talked about how he we'd even help out at the concession stand to make sure things were running fine the concession stand

011was in good shape and wouldn't even take a free hot dog when offered which is just incredible when you think about it and you know that he would spend his whole day you know volunteering to maintain the field and doing whatever the school needs to be done and then come back in the evenings to support the students at their games and support the concession stands um Decades of time to take care of fields gyms courts equipment pitching wherever help is needed even helping to take down a tree that had fallen on somebody's house in the pouring rain um I've never I mean reading these letters I've almost never in my life heard about somebody who for decades just dedicated their service to the students in the school out of the goodness of their heart he's

012been a regular Presence at a wide variety of games and truly one of the most selfless and dedicated people who demonstrate such a deep love for the West Springfield Community this community is so lucky to have the service dedication expertise and kindness of mid of Mr little I I was astonished at reading these letters and I'm so grateful to Mr little to what you've done and what you've given to West Springfield and to our school and to our students so I am honored and happy to Second this thank you Miss Jette kofax would you like to say something yes just briefly um I repres Present part of the West Springfield uh district and I just want to say to Mr little um I don't know you but I thank you for all that you've done

013it is as my colleagues have said um amazing what um you have done for that community and I am so happy we were able to have this gesture of renaming part of West Springfield um after West Springfield High School after you um just thank you for your service to West Springfield to the entire Fair County Public School Systems and to all those listening take a lesson from Mr little and help us with our schools because we need people like Mr little on our team and on our side so thank you so much thank you very much okay seeing no other board members that would like to speak um we will move on to our next um Proclamation oh I'm so sorry um let's call for a vote on that Proclamation all those in favor Miss

014seiser Heiser Miss Cohen Miss omes Miss Marin Mr frish myself Miss D kofax Miss Dr Anderson and Miss Corbett Sanders and we have um Miss delik bski online and that's it all right see I knew it would be Anan unanimous so excellent congratulations okay let's move on to 2.06 Student Activities student Athletics and activities month Proclamation I call in Miss Marin for this Proclamation National High School Activities week was first proclaimed by Congress and President Ronald Reagan in October 1983 in recognition of the significant Place extracurricular opportunities have in the growth of our high school students and how these programs and experiences help students to learn learn to set and Achieve goals to organize their time effectively and to enhance the social skills that are needed to enjoy and succeed in life whereas the national

015Federation of State High School associations expanded this week to National activities month in 2012 to properly celebrate the contributions and benefit students experience by participating in athletics and activities such as speech debate music drama and other student groups and whereas Fairfax County Public School stresses the importance of providing a well-balanced activities program to augment the learning activities in the classroom and provides opportunities for student growth and enrichment in a variety of extracurricular areas including Athletics Student Government safety patrols performing groups journalism drama General and special interest clubs and honor societies so now therefore be it resolv that the Fairfax County Public School Board does hereby Proclaim October 2023 as student Athletics and activities month in recognition of the many achievements by students participating in School athletics and activities and the generous contributions efforts of the

016athletic coaches and trainers Club sponsors Student Activity staff parents faculty and school communities who support them is there a second I'll second thank you Mr pish Miss mirin would you like to speak to your Proclamation I think this Proclamation covers it all I'll leave it at that Mr fr uh yes it does but I'm going to give more because why not um thank you madam chair and thank you Miss Marin uh for sponsoring the student athletic and activities month Proclamation it's my uh pleasure to second the motion during October and throughout the school year we all work to celebrate the many benefits that high school students experience through their participation in activities uh such as speech debate music drama and other activities as Miss Marin read in the proclamation the national Federation of State High

017School associations expanded this week to National activities month in 2012 but I think I speak for everybody when I say this really is a uh year-long Endeavor uh the intention of this special Proclamation is to draw awareness to these uh the values and needs of inter Scholastic activity programs uh I am well aware of the importance of these programs not only is my partner a high school choir director but activities like speech and debate help me find my way in high school uh while our attention is turned to student Athletics and activities month I want to say Dr Anderson and I had a blast attending the FSE Church High School homecoming football game uh last week and I am very much looking forward to attending a few of our upcoming High School theater performances um

018which I will now plug shamelessly for uh some local high schools I will be attending the Falls Church High School production of Annie um and if you go see it you will not have a Hard Knock Life uh yeah that's right um and that runs from November 16th to the 18th um I will also be attending the Marshall High School production of the laramy project which runs November 9th to the 11th and I recently had an opportunity to speak with the cast of uh at Marshall and commend their drama director uh Bernie Deo and his crew for taking on such a powerful work so in conclusion uh and therefore happy to Second this Motion in recognition of the many achievements of FCPS students participating in uh Athletics and activities and the generous contributions and efforts

019of their parents care caregivers and the entire School Community who support them okay seeing no other board members that would like to speak I do have to put in a little plug for our new athletic activity Middle School across country I was able to attend the first um one of the first meets and um was overwhelmed literally overwhelmed with the camaraderie the sportsmanship Etc that the students were exhibiting and um I'm just so thrilled that we have so many activities across the county um to support this and some new ones um with that I will call for the vote on this Proclamation all those in favor Miss cor Sanders Dr Anderson Miss Dara kofx Miss Tolen Mr frish Miss mirin Miss om Miss Cowen and Miss ress Heiser Heiser and Miss picari there are anyone

020opposed thank you okay Red Ribbon Week Proclamation I call in Miss seiser Heiser for this Proclamation thank you whereas the national Family Partnership a national leader in drug prevention education and advocacy sponsored the first Red Ribbon Week in 1988 in response to the murder of DEA agent Enrique kamarina in which angered parents and youth in communities across the country began wearing red ribbons as a symbol of their commitment to raise awareness of the violence and destruction caused by drug abuse in America whereas the Red Ribbon program is based on scientific and evidence-based principles for Substance Abuse Prevention and incorporates the following six prevention strategies information dissemination prevention education alternative activities community- based processes environmental approaches and problem identification and referral whereas the 2023 theme for Red Ribbon Week celebrate Red Ribbon Week be kind to

021your mind live drug-free is a call to action to speak out in support of healthy choices it also serves as a reminder that every person is empowered to shape the communities around us through positivity bravery and strength whereas Fairfax County Public Schools is committed to offering activities and learning experiences which focus on the many ways marijuana Alcohol Tobacco vaping and Other Drug use can negatively impact student lives including an Alcohol Tobacco and Other Drugs Intervention Program for students experiencing substance abuse now therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board does hereby Proclaim October 23rd to 31st as Red Ribbon Week in recogn recognition of the oldest and largest drug prevention program in the nation and encourages students families and the FCPS Community to unite and take a personal invisible pledge to live a

022drug-free lifestyle thank you is there a second second thank you Mr kofax Miss seiser Heiser would you like to speak to your Proclamation I think the proclamation speaks to itself but I just wanted to share a few words that um the national Family Partnership was founded over 30 years ago as a Grassroots organization of concerned parents and is a leader in drug prevention um and it's really important in all times especially in this day and age with the fentol crisis and the OPA crisis to lift up the importance of drug prevention and really in talking to our students to our community about the dangers of fentol opioid and other drugs while FCPS is committed to educating students and families about the dangers of substance abuse and providing support for those experiencing substance abuse issues and

023supporting the health and wellness of our students in general in light of the devastating toll of the rise of opid overdoses in Fairfax County and Nationwide it is more important than ever that we lift up the issues we've held Town Halls we've met with families who' tragically lost children to this epidemic but we recognize that schools cannot do this alone we need the entire community and organizations such as National Family Partnership to help us combat the rise in the opiate epidemic to help us educate our families and our students to help us help our families have conversations with their students at home help our communities wrap their arms around our students and themselves about the dangers of drug abuse and especially how dangerous and deadly fentanyl can be and how it can be disguised and

024hidden and even a few dusts of some fentanyl can be deadly it is so vital I have met with some families who've lost children to this epidemic and it is heartbreaking so I'm glad to be able to lift up this Proclamation today thank you Miss turna kofax would you like to speak to your second yes um the goal of Red Ribbon Week is to empower individuals our students to make informed decisions about their health and well-being in hopes that we can prevent the harmful consequences of drug abuse too many have lost their lives in in the fight against drug trafficking and abuse and we must continue as a school system each and every one of us um the parents caregivers teachers coaches mentors counselor to be Role Models so we can encourage our students to

025make safe healthy choices I do too want to thank the national Family Partnership for sponsoring the first Red Red Ribbon Week over 30 years ago and for their continued work as a national leader in drug prevention education and advocacy I and so many of my colleagues up here wear the Red Ribbon tonight as a symbol of our commitment to this cause thank you Miss Corbett Sanders yes thank you um as somebody who remembers the original proclamation of the80s and the approach was just say no to drugs and we thought that would solve the problem we now know that it is critical that when our children or community members self-medicate that it's to address deeper and uh more difficult needs and so it is so important to what we've done tonight to recognize that we need

026those wraparound services and those supports for uh people that face uh drug additions and I'm so pleased that Fairfax County Public Schools addresses this not only through its education programs but also by having the supports in our schools with our aods our social workers and counselors and so I'm very happy to support this tonight miss am yeah thank you um and thanks to my colleagues who spoke so well on this um I'm happy to follow that I I wanted to extend even uh further perhaps and thinking about how we can make uh drugs a non-option for kids right it's it's kids end up exposed and sometimes unfortunately it is in our schools that that's the case I know Dr Reed that's certainly a priority to increase our investments in athletics and Student Activities um and

027things that give kids an alternative to what they spend their time doing um because a number of kids also resort to these things um not only through because of mental health challenges uh that are supported by such activities but also boredom and and finding these things in school um so I want to kind of encourage us to also think of how we might help kids dream big and imagine the Alternatives because once they're able to see a a future that is different for themselves they'll no longer choose it as as an option and they'll recognize the importance of it Beyond just the health risks that we continue to to preach about um I also just wanted to point I'd be remiss really not to mention kind of the equity dimension of of how we address

028uh the uh challenge substance abuse challenges within our communities um you know how we assign urgency to when we respond when we commit resources when it when it comes to matter I know no doubt it's increased uh and concern in the community as a result of some of the fentol exposure but I know that in some of our communities it's it's been a consistent concern of parents um that have brought it up and so I'm hopeful that we can keep that lens in all the work that we do just like Co exposed some of the ugliest that's always been a part of some people's experience um this is another one of those that I'm grateful is a recognition since the 80s uh but I hope that we'll manifest through action as well and making sure

029that it's always urgent uh regardless of who it's impacting oh and finally I want to shed light on the fact that we actually don't have sufficient Community County resources right now to support kids who are suffering through addiction uh you know the the we don't have the right kind of facility especially for kids in in in uh K12 to work through this as a as a health issue and really um find Solutions and the ones that we have are are have long waight lists and are just insufficient so I just wanted to raise awareness on that point and hopefully folks who are Advocates who are uh who care about this issue can help us uh raise further awareness and advocacy to on the county level and the state level to try to find solutions that

030are long-term and really help kids make that turn in their lives because we've seen heartbreaking stories as a board of kids who want to fix this want to get out of the addiction but the resources just aren't there right now so anyway I appreciate us being able to Spotlight uh this challenge thank you Miss am um seeing no other board members that would like to speak um I have a couple of comments um I wanted to make sure that the public is aware that um we have Substance Abuse Prevention Specialists um within each of our pyramids and they work with the schools they work with the students they work with families and the communities across each of our high school pyramids um if you as a parent have any questions or concerns about your student

031or want to know how to talk to your student please reach out to these professionals I have had the um pleasure of work working with um Kelly Ranken in the Langley and mlan pyramid and Diana Vera in the hearen pyramid and they are incredible resources Our Family Resource Center also has regular webinars um for parents and families on this topic um so please take advantage of that and also um this Saturday is National Drug takeback day so there are many many locations across the county where no questions asked you can show up at the police stations Etc and turn in and many of our pharmacies and turn in um unused drugs prescriptions Etc um our own Kelly Ranken will be at Tyson's emergency um on leeburg Pike to between 10 and 12 or 10 and

032two on Saturday for that purpose as well all right so with that I will call for the vote on this Proclamation all those in favor Miss Corbett Sanders Dr Anderson Mr kofax myself Mr frish Miss mirin Miss om Miss cwin Miss seiser Heiser and miss pakari that is unanimous okay um Proclamation 2.08 disability history and awareness month I columnist seiser Heiser for this Proclamation thank you whereas the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 was founded on four principles inclusion full participation economic self-sufficiency and equality of opportunity for all people with disabilities and FCPS is committed to the principles of equity excellence and opportunity for all students whereas Virginia recognizes October as disability history and awareness month to increase public awareness and respect for persons with disabilities inform the public concerning their many contrib utions to

033society ensure accessibility for persons with disabilities encourage health promotion to increase Community awareness of the needs of persons with disabilities and emphasize the abilities and rights of disabled persons whereas over 28,000 and approximately 16% of FCPS students receive special education services and research has shown that students with disabilities encounter more difficulty being accepted by their peers making friends and becoming involved in school schol community- based activities and clubs the non-disabled students and whereas since it is a civil right of people with disabilities to be included in society we must ensure they are included in the FCPS Community by increasing knowledge and understanding of disabilities promoting positive Attitudes by creating a culture of respect and inclusion and ensuring the school curriculum and Norms events and processes are accessible and inclusive of disability history and disability norms

034now therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board does proclaim October 2023 as disability history and awareness month in recognition of the many contributions and strengths of people with disabilities and to promote an inclusive School Community is there a second second thank you Miss Cohen Miss Heiser Heiser would you like to speak to your Proclamation yes I would thank you very much um we mentioned the number of students with IEPs in our school system but we didn't mention that approximately 700,000 Virginians under 65 have a diagnosed disability while we often talk about the challenges students with disabilities face and being included and involved in activities My Hope Is that increasing awareness will change the culture in our schools to allow for these students and their talents and abilities to be fully included in

035our school and our community my hope is that not only do we increase awareness and accessibility for everyone to have the opportunity to F Fully live their lives and fulfill their unique potential My Hope Is that we lift up the mutual responsibility for accessibility and adaptation it is about time we stop looking at a person with a disability and asking them to change to fit into our world is it about time that we say what can we all do to mutually adapt and expand our world to be inclusive of the lived Norm forms of people with disabilities imagine spending your whole life being asked to be somebody you're not that is very difficult My Hope Is by bringing this forward we ensure that our curriculum and our books highlight disability history and experience as well

036as reflect disabled persons with within all stories we need to make sure our books and stories talk about people with disabilities as doctors scientists teachers neighbors as just part of the community as a norm My Hope Is by bringing this forward we'll move from the medical model of disability where we expect people with disabilities to adapt where we provide help for adaptation and accessibility my hope is to move past the social model of disability which states that people with disabilities are more disabled by the society they live in than the the condition of their disability and my hope is we get to the Civil Rights model where people with disabilities can live their full lives that is my hope that is my dream and I believe that FCPS can be a Trailblazer in this [Applause]

037work thank you Miss Heiser Heiser Miss con would you like to speak your second I always have a hard time going after RNA um you know I I Echo everything that you say and I believe while we can be a Trailblazer here in FCPS that we still have a long way to go and a big piece of that is making sure that people with disabilities have a seat at every table where decisions are being made that instead of things being chosen for them decided for them that they are part of the conversation and that means how we design our playgrounds not just making them accessible but making them inclusive it means our field trips need to make sure that every kid can participate fully um just like the kids standing next to them um it

038means that our kids should have access to every sport club extracurricular um activity all the electives should be available to all of our students we have work to do and we've come a long way but we have a lot of work to do and so I've been proud to be part of a board that I believe in the last four years has continued to make sure that our students with disabilities are in the conversation and um you know proud to have a superintendent who believes that accessible playgrounds ought to be part of our CIP and um we are getting there but it is painfully slow um and I look at kids like Jake and Finn and um for them their time here in FCPS is done and so they didn't have the opportunities that a

039lot of kids did who went through so it needs to happen yesterday so that we can make sure that all of our kids are able to graduate feeling like they have been not only a meaningful part of everybody's story in FCPS as they've gone through their Journey um but that they've really left their mark because they've been given every opportunity to do that so thanks very much thank you Miss cor Sanders yes thank you and didn't want this evening to go by without recognizing that it's been 40 years since the Davis Center was [Applause] established and the Davis Center provides much needed transitional planning and supports for students with disabilities but that's only one portion of what we need to do for our kids so so this afternoon I uh actually today I went down

040to Richmond for the uh joint initiative between Chef the higher education organizations in the state of Virginia the Chamber of Commerce and the governor's office to focus on Career and Technical education and one panel was about the economic imperative of ensuring accessibility and inclusion of our uh students with disabilities and it focused on two things one that we have over a 100,000 jobs that go unfilled in the state of Virginia and many of these jobs would be filled if our students were given the opportunity to gain these skills and they talked about the importance in the health care area in the welding area and um the critical role they play for the US Navy and so I urge each and every one of us as we go forward from tonight and every day to talk

041about how not as a deficit mindset but instead with a mindset of opportunity and inclusion that our whole society benefits from um and we want to make sure we do this but we also will need to change at the federal level some of our laws which limit the earnings of Stu of people with disabilities for them to get continued benefits and so um I know we talked about our legislative program this week we may want to be making some amendments to it to address this need in particular thank you thank you Miss Carver Sanders U Miss am yeah thank you and I guess piggy backing off it means that they have a place on this board board table and in the leadership of our of our division and schools as well um you know when

042we look at the built world the physical world around us we see how public spaces and places can be inclusionary or exclusionary we feel welcomed in or we feel left out and I want folks to reflect the next time you're out for a walk notice the small ramp at most intersections between the sidewalk and the street these are called curb Cuts today they're everywhere but 50 years ago this wasn't the case a student activist named ed Roberts was a wheelchair user who couldn't use the sidewalks or public facilities because these spaces were not designed for people like Ed Roberts back then something as simple as a curb cut or a wheelchair ramp was a dream but Ed and a group of friends were determined to make a change and so that their so that their

043school could be more accessible for everyone and now we all benefit from their advocacy and activism and of course the movement didn't stop there my colleague shared the American Disabilities Act and its changes over 30 years ago and the improvements it's made and we even have some not all textured sidewalks that help those with visual impairments now too I'm proud to be part of an institution that celebrates diversity in its many forms I know we could always be doing more for students who feel overlooked or out of view we take this moment to uplift and celebrate all our students and the next time you're out for a walk I want you to think about those student voices who changed our world for the better and who and and remember students that you can do the

044same and I'm hopeful that we can let it Inspire us towards the still needed changes cuz I'm certainly awaiting the day when FCPS finally adopts full inclusion for students in our schools and I know Dr Reed you're going to be the one to do it so I'm looking forward to that thank you Miss Marin as a school board we have a duty to fulfill the law the American with Americans with Disabilities Act and the individ uals with disabilities Education Act are preeminent in our work uh it is unfortunate that the federal funding never seems to quite meet the need and this is a pattern for years despite that we try to educate our students and I've come to learn that we have to meet the legal requirements like I said of the law and legal

045definitions and certain accommodations that support our students and also staff with disabilities but I also have come to see that we could perhaps in some cases use terms like people have different abilities because really everyone has different strengths so for instance dyslexia 20% of the population has dyslexia well dyslexia can actually be a superpower and I I love to look at the campaign called made by dyslexia because it shows that if you have a dyslexic brain you could do things that people without a dyslexic brain can't do so I really want to encourage us to look at people for their strengths uh we all have weaknesses but we also all have strengths and as far as history goes I'd love to see our students learning more about amazing people who happen to have disabilities and

046led incredible lives like Judith human who passed away this year who was integral in helping pass the American Disability Rights law habin GMA I read her biography she is a blind deaf woman who also graduated from Harvard Law and finally Temple grandon who did so much to elevate uh you know the autism and animal behavior we have so much to learn and I hope that as we look to expand our teaching in FCPS to all sorts of areas that we've neglected in the past for whatever reason that we do include the stories and learning about these people thank you thank you okay seeing no other board members that would like to speak I do want to make a couple of announcements um to make sure everyone is aware that this Saturday October 28th is the

047real assistive technology for everyone conference um sponsored by our assistive technology ology Services um Department in the department of special services so that is at West Springfield High School this weekend um also one of our incredible Community Partners the special education PTA is sponsoring a zoom presentation on October 30th from 7 to 9: um you can register at their website fairfaxcounty septa.org it is feeling lost find your way when your child's needs take you on the road less travel so a huge thank you to Our Community Partners and our staff for putting on these um incredible conferences and resources for um families okay with that I will call for the vote on this Proclamation all those in favor Miss corett Sanders Dr Anderson Miss kofax Dar kofax M Tolen Mr frish Miss Marin Miss om

048Miss Cowen and Miss Riser and miss pakari that is also unanimous okay with that that is the end of our list of proclamations I would like to invite those that are here this evening in support of the West Springfield High School Maintenance building renaming proclamation to please join the board for a photo e I would like to invite those here in support of the student Athletics and activities month proclamation to please join the board for a photo e [Applause] I would like to invite those here in support of the Red Ribbon Week proclamation to please join the board for a photo e I would like to invite those here in support of the disability history and awareness month proclamation to please join the board for a photo e okay our next agenda item is community

049participation 3.01 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 business meetings and public hearings on the school board's website at regular 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 criticizing or attacking individual students are not permitted during public meetings complaints regarding school-based employees should be directed to the appropriate School principal or other school officials speakers should not use personally identifiable information in connection with an individual student or a school-based employee additionally speakers should be respectful and observe proper deorum in their statements avoiding profanity inappropriate gestures shouting and comments that run culture to counter to

050the spirit and letter of the school division's non-discrimination policy which protects students and staff from discrimination based on age race color sex sexual orientation gender identity religion national origin marital status or disability speakers must limit their remarks to no more than two minutes direct their comments to the school board and should remain at the podium until concluding their 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 audience members to be be respectful of one another shouting and Outburst will not be tolerated audience members should hold their Applause until

051the conclusion of a speaker's remarks and remain at their seats including when video recording or taking photos we are grateful to those who have come to speak to us today and thank you for your cooperation Madame clerk please call our first Speaker student number one who I believe is ver ual good evening um my I'm a student alake radic today I would like to bring your attention to the many of many Palestinian students and families in FCPS contrary to what people in the US might think what is happening in Palestine is not due to religion so it is not anti-semitic when someone is supporting Palestinians it is simply the support of basic human rights when we can all agree that every life and soul in this world deserves to live both Palestinians and Israel IES

052have lost many innocent lives but as the US continues to take moments of silence for the is lost Israeli lives no one seems to acknowledge the thousands of Palestinians that are being wiped off of this Earth no one is being asked to condemn the actions of the IDF and no one is showing empathy to my people on October 10th during my history class I was a victim to the awful words of my teacher he claimed that Palestinians are terrorists and when I responded to his false claim it further escalated the conversation and I was brought to tears when I told my school's admin about this all they had to offer was an apology the county has stated that they will remain neutral on this topic but every everything I have heard or seen has been

053very one-sided where they support Israel many members of the school board have been making statements in support of Israel they spoke about how the Jewish Community has been suffering these past few weeks but not once did they mention the constant suffrage of children in Gaz since 198 1948 not once did they did anyone mention the rights of islamophobe I and anti-arab comments made by students and teachers here in FCPS these statements have made me and many others feel silenced and censored as if what we have been through these past 75 years does not matter yesterday an announcement was released saying that many Jews felt the that the map of paltin made them feel unsafe like it is eliminating them but there was no statement released when I reached out telling FCPS that a teacher called

054Palestinians terrorists or when a student shouted that Palestinians deserve to die in a classroom why does it only matter when Israelis and Jews say that they feel unsafe and not when Palestinians and Muslims are actually put in an unsafe situation at school while the public school system may try to silence us this will only make us speak out Brady Kyle Brady Kyle Tess test good evening school board members my name is Brady Kyle and I am a senior at South County High School and one of the senior players on the South County boys volleyball team I would like to thank you all for the opportunity to speak here on behalf of my team and behalf of all of other volleyball clubs in this dist uh County although I won't have the chance to participate in

055next year's Sen I believe underclassman student athletes should continue to have this opportunity and to participate in boys volleyball clubs as a school sponsored sport rather than just a club sport volleyball is a sport of teamwork communication and good sportsmanship it is a sport that challenges its athletes encourage them to think quickly on their feet and provides a safe environment for friendships to grow for decades volleyball has been a primarily female dominated SP School sponsored sport in the high school setting however in the past few years multiple high schools in our County have been able to create boys volleyball clubs among the many are Lake bradock West Springfield and South County the South County boys volleyball club has seen great success since the starting of last year compared to last season the team had twice

056as many players trial and participate in the team itself and so this proves that there was a much increasing interest and that our club had to create two more teams to accommodate for the amount of student athletes that participated making boys volleyball a school sponsored sport means that we will be able to continue expanding our influence and provide a safe environment for boys to make good friendships and stay focused support for funding will provide our athletes with much needed equipment gym time transportation for away games hosted home games and much more all of which we struggle to obtain we strive to impact the lives of other boys in our district through this volleyball program but as a school sponsored sport there's opportunity for improvement and we Chase opportunity with your support we can improve our

057school sports programs and the program of other high schools for the benefit of future generations of high school athletes thank [Applause] you David [Applause] walrad good evening chair tholan Dr Reed and members of the board thank you for providing me the opportunity to speak tonight my name is David WOD and I am here tonight representing our educational staff as the president of the Fairfax County Federation of teachers on October 1st an important change was made the administ the administrator pay skill was changed providing a much needed raise to our longest serving most experienced administrators by doing this our administrators were shown that Fairfax County Public Schools see the value of their knowledge experience and connection to the community FCPS demonstrated to our administrators that we want them to remain part of the Fairfax County Community

058for their entire career recruiting new Talent is important but retaining that Talent is even more important every time an administrator leads for another District Fairfax loses that experience and leadership as a teacher I fully recognize the value of a skilled knowledgeable and experienced leader this value however is not limited to our Administration our experienced teachers serve as team leaders Department chairs sit on school Improvement and Innovation plan committees serve as mentor teachers help lead curricular teams write curricula and utilize their own long-term connections to the community as important as it is to retain our quality administrators for their entire career it is equally important that we that we retain our teachers for their whole career every time a teacher leaves for another District or leaves the classroom due to money concerns it's the students that

059suffer I ask that as you think about compensation this year you think about how to demonstrate to your veteran teachers that you value them the same way that you value our veteran administrators the vote you're taking tonight on adjustments to the pay scale effect of January 1st are timely and appreciated but it will take more to help stem the tide of teachers leaving the classroom prematurely thank you for your time this evening Maya Mii hello um thank you for letting me speak tonight my name is Maya Mei I was born and raised and educated here in Fairfax County and I'm here as a young person as a human being to talk about Equity because I've noticed a lack of equity in our education system and from some recent statements from some of the school board

060members as elected members of the school board you have an obligation to shape the next generation of responsible educated and upstanding citizens right now I believe you're failing this Next Generation as a Syrian American and a Muslim woman I noticed there are a couple of things in the fair that fairfox County doesn't necessarily teach kids these days you don't teach them that Muslims invented the first Compass you don't teach them that Arabs invented algebra you don't teach them you teach them about Henry Ford and he invented the car you don't teach them that he brought over Arabs to the United States into Michigan to help found the Auto industry you teach them about the Sykes Pico agreement but you don't teach them that the lant area of the Arab region was United under one constitutional

061representative government and there's so there's so much more Nuance to these facts but you don't teach that either you're not teaching students about the contributions of Arabs and Muslims to this world and this helps reinforce these disgusting stereotypes that all Arabs and Muslims are terrorists that they're barbaric that they're Savages that they don't deserve empathy that they don't deserve Humanity that they're Human animals and this is a direct quote from the Israeli defense minister that's why he called Palestinian people and some of you have released statements that do not acknowledge the 6,000 Palestinians that have died 3,000 [Music] children thank you thank you for your remarks thank you Shelly Arabi hello so um two and a half years ago I received an email that made me angry enough to write to you guys and so

062I'm going to read it to you and then I'm going to read the response said we have four children in Middle School two in high school and our children have been at home for more than a year and I'm shocked by the failure of the overall System including mask mandates grading elimination and now race anti-race nonsense the most recent survey received was last straw I said who's behind scheduling of in-person classes mask requirements and now ridiculous inclusion of race discussions the response I received was that anti-racism anti-bias survey and related policy work is Guided by government and division division policy and the Fairfax County government's One Fairfax policy commits the county and the schools to intentionally consider Equity when making policies then it further says this um policy is there because FCPS exists in a

063community where racism and bias continue to live then it referred to the 2019 youth survey of the FCPS students in which nearly half of the students reported they had been subject to disparaging remarks about race or culture with a greater percentage of students of color reporting as victims so I read the 246 page Ed survey report there's a section called the linqu behaviors and victimization and there's a lot there is in fact a large percentage of students of color reporting they had been victims of aggressive behavior but the truth is the next same page says the same group had the highest percentage of admitting they were the ones who had committed aggressive behaviors we do not have a racism problem we have a behavior problem the One Fairfax policy is a radical anti-American socialist policy

064that should be eliminated we didn't vote for it we didn't review it and we didn't ask for it and the idea that you're establishing policy based on done things that we never no parents saw that I am aware of oh time's up sorry so please what never mind thank you Alexandra hello good evening my name is is Alexandra hu and I'm here tonight to speak about Schoolboard policy at the October 12 Schoolboard meeting Schoolboard member Laura Jane Cohen read a statement on behalf of the entire school board that focused on the quote vicious attack by Hamas on Israel and the impact on members of our local Jewish Community the next day my school board representative Carl frish sent an email appeal to residents of our district referring to quot quote terrorist attacks in Israel and

065asking us to donate to a religious organization that provides among other things money to Israeli soldiers no such assistance is provided by this religious organization to gazin who have been under siege and constant bombardment for 19 days my question is a simple one why are members of the school board issuing statements on geopolitical issues and asking for donations to a religious organization this violates the narrow purpose of your role which is stated on your website as setting General school policy and establishing guidelines to ensure the proper administration of FCPS programs instead you are using your elected positions as a platform to advance your own personal religious and political agendas why aren't you focusing on closing the coid learning gap for all students why aren't you encouraging superintendent Reed to hire more dyslexia Specialists 20% of

066FCPS is roughly 190,000 students are dyslexic yet there's only one position for a dyslexia specialist and it's vacant in 2019 the school board agreed to fund security vestibules for all schools yet this hasn't been done why not simply put I like many others in your districts I'm asking one that you do the job you were elected to do and two that you not use your role as a platform form to advance your own personal religious Tas tese tus tesfe Amanda Campbell good evening I speaking tonight as president of Fairfax County Special Education PTA as we approach the upcoming election we would like to inform the community that we send a special education candidate questionnaire to all Schoolboard candidates please visit our website at fairfaxcounty septa.org to view the responses we received the OCR finding last

067year put a significant burden on our special education staff and continues to have an impact as of September's acsd meeting FCPS had 500 provisionally licensed teachers in special education classrooms and 262 long-term substitutes our staff have loudly voiced the need for salary increases for some time and so we support the 2% salary increase you are voting on Tonight We additionally ask that you keep in mind the importance of IAS phas and PHT in special education classrooms and ensure that retention and recruitment plans explicitly include them as well with regards to the legislative priorities you discussed this week we appreciate the board taking into consideration supporting work at the state level to ensure the implementation of accessible and trauma-informed emergency procedures for all students FCPS is current procedures which require students with Mobility impairments on the

068second floor of a building to remain in a designated room until the fire department evacuates them is an outdated pre- 911 procedure we appreciate the work being done currently within FCPS to update this regulation and absolutely support such work at a state level as well at the state level we also ask you to consider advocating to remove student attendance as a criteria for school accreditation we understand the concerns regarding chronic absenteeism however tying accreditation to attendance disproportionately impacts our students with the highest support needs for example key Center and Kilmer Center both public day schools with populations entirely comprised of students with disabilities have chronic absenteeism rates of close to 50% punitive approaches to attendance will not help improve the attendance rates of students dealing with significant Medical needs including students with chronic medical conditions

069and FCPS homebound students thank you Cindy [Applause] Walsh gender dysphoria can be the solution to adolescence that has nothing to do with gender that is why it is popular it is an excuse to not date anyone and not have to explain it it allows students to hate their bodies and to do so in a click and to reinforce self-hate they can also use gender to reject anyone's advances students may not understand how to reject someone gracefully or how to accept that rejection right now they can change to a gender using it to say no for them nobody in Fairfax tells you there's nothing wrong with you to not date anyone and dating is not necessary in Middle School School born in the wrong body teaches students that their body is no good the way it

070is because they must accept someone else they must be someone else to be loved students must learn to accept their bodies and themselves as God made them to be surgery will not fix a sad heart the messages teach self-hate it starts from students who hate their body to hate themselves to self harm to severe depression the problem is they are teenagers most students in high school hate some hate some something about the way they look but will remember wistfully as they age to become that way again thanks I will can we call the next speaker please Emily vanderhoff good evening chair Tolen Dr Reed and members of the board my name is Emily vanderhoff I'm a first grade teacher at FCPS and a proud member of my union fcfd I'm speaking tonight to ask you

071to approve the proposed 2% salary increase for all staff to go into effect January 1st 2024 as you all know staff retention is critical now more than ever we are in a moment when more and more educators are leaving the profession we are stretched thin we have had schools as recently as last week with up to 10 instructional vacancies central office staff are being deployed to fill the gaps foregoing the important work that they do to support schools this morning I count on 173 instructional vacancies and we're almost a quarter of the way through the year we also know that around 30% of our staff live outside of fairfx County many of them in districts who haven't had the same challenges making the state match for pay increases in the past few years each time

072we leave money on the table by not meeting the state match more and more employees consider leaving Fairfax for our neighboring districts they perceive that staff are more valued in districts that can take full advantage of every state funded raise as a representative of fcft I can share that compensation is a top priority of our membership our members have been actively engaged at all levels from local to State supporting funding for public education and especially competitive staff pay we are also advocating and supporting C candidates at the state level who are prioritizing making the Lo local Composite Index LCI more fair by accounting for the cost of living so that Fairfax is not so uniquely challenged even in comparison with The Districts directly bordering us I share this to show that we know the challenges

073this board faces when it comes to funding pay increases and the different bodies controlling our funding in this case um I commend Miss buron and her team for finding the funding to meet the state match within our existing budget and I urge this board to take this step to improve pay for your employees thank you Sher cuffle and just a quick reminder for the audience if you're taking a video you need to be in your seat thank you good evening board Dr Reed tonight I will not be dressing a particular policy instead I want to ask you all a question do you believe in God as I said in my first address to the school board I'm a Christian and believe the Bible Genesis 127 says so God created man as in mankind In His

074Image in the image of God he created them male and female for thousands of years society and Academia have recognized that there are only two genders I choose to follow the science I do not believe that gender is fluid or intersectional therefore I cannot complete the FCPS substitute teacher training course affirming that I have a heart for those who struggle with gender dysphoria it's a difficult place for them to be I pray for them and want to help them to be the person that God created them to be and not harm them by giving them drugs and chopping off perfectly healthy body parts which the medical community now calls gender affirming care Luke 17:22 says it would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than

075to cause one of these little ones to stumble is FCPS causing any of our little ones to stumble is the policy that allows biological males with male body parts intact to share locker rooms with females is that harmful to our kids sharing hotel rooms on field trips keeping kids pronouns from their parents I come back to my original question do you believe in God do you have a personal relationship with him because you can through his son Jesus Christ and one day everyone in this room will stand in judgment before him will he look at the policies that you support and say to you well done my good and faithful servant thank you you and may God bless all of you Andrew James Drake good evening I'm Andy Drake and my children go to South

076County thank you for not only this opportunity to express my views with you but also enabling me to show our youth that it is possible for them to affect change I'm a proponent of Fairfax County sanctioning boys volleyball as a school sport over 35 years ago I started a boys volleyball team in my high school in Upstate New York so today I'm surprised that our County does not support boys volleyball even though Virginia does a stated reason restraining change is perceived lack of interest to the contrary last year when my son and his classmates established a boy team to be sourced by Soo students we hoped 12 would show up but there were 30 so we had to make two teams in year two this year we had over 60 students show up we've had

077to add tryouts and cut some so we could because we can only manage three teams we play in the Nova High School boys volleyball league which includes Fairfax slowen Alexandria and Arlington schools over the last year this league has increased from 35 to 49 teams there are other leagues and clubs nationally last year six more States sanctioned boys volleyball as a high school sport interest yes five other quick issues volleyball is a valuable as a lifetime activity that emphasizes teamwork and communication a boy program would support the girls program we have female school players supporting our practices and two of our boys are managers for this girl the girls team and it's routine for the boys and girls to get together to casually play volleyball boys volleyball is inexpensive Title 9 can be managed and

078accommodated lastly it's ironic that Fairfax County just hosted the NCA boys volleyball national championship it still does not sanction it for high school students please support support this small change that can significantly impact and improve so many students High School experience thank [Applause] you Vanessa Hall Vanessa Hall first I wanted to say thank you for all the time you've put in this week um I failed to do so on Tuesday when I spoke because I get very nervous when I'm up here thank you um I'd like to recommend that you pass the raise for teachers in my decades in FCPS as a parent and an alumnist I've seen the lengths that teachers will go to uh for their students and families including performing significant uncompensated work this is one of the many reasons I've spent

079hundreds of hours supporting teachers in and out of the classroom unfortunately there is an FCPS teacher who uses students as Pawns in political games repeatedly violating social media policy and FCPS regulations by sharing student work disability information gender identity and more on Instagram Twitter and Facebook all without parental consent or permission not only that the same teacher secretly recorded and publicly posted on YouTube disciplinary discussions with School principles which meant that privacy and safety of even more students was violated there were at least four disciplinary hearings meetings for repeatedly violating policy and regulations including pulling a child out of another teacher's class for a personal conversation as a parent and trusted volunteer I take all students safety seriously if I see something I say something however I almost wish I hadn't said something in May

080because my family has been endangered as a result of Retaliator retaliatory actions by this teacher and their allies merely because I asked that they be reminded of the rules because of her their retaliation I had to contact both the police and school SRO to keep my kids and family safe no one deserves to be retaliated against for expecting a teacher to keep our students in school safe however reporting was the right thing to do because all students deserve to be safe especially our most vulnerable students they learn best if they're safe and respected in their school no FCPS student including my own deserves to be the center of a misguided Revenge plot by a teacher who repeatedly and flagrantly refuses to follow Alex golly who I believe is virtual all right Alex should be up

081okay spe I'm call past couple of years have been difficult for educators and support staff alike especially in sites like the Burke school where you have the added risk of injury that comes with serving kids who need the most help education's already a difficult enough profession no matter what part of it you work in and at times it feels thankless regardless of how many pizza parties are thrown in the Teachers Lounge while the raise is welcome a 2% increase is nowhere near enough to make up for the struggle FCPS workers have faced especially in recent years for the sake of time I will not name these struggles but you all know what I'm talking about all that being said vote in favor of the race I'd also like to add that as an Arab American

082with araban Muslim Students with the escalation in violence in West Asia and heavily biased media coverage it's starting to feel less comfortable and welcoming for us do better to make us feel safer here please play the video submitted by Andrew Diamond Drake hi I'm Andrew Drake from South County and I want to share a season highlights with you so you can say yes to boys [Music] [Applause] [Music] vol [Music] [Applause] y on [Applause] [Music] come on [Applause] can you please play the next video for Lauren Mahi these remarks are from a friend hi I am an FCPS parent and I am here to tell you that you are all falling short at your jobs you can do better try harder there is room for improvement now wait a minute I know this isn't true I

083know you work tirelessly for our communities how you felt just now that's how in so many ways the school system talks to us the families of students battling health challenges this is a problem that boils down to two things one lack of dedicated advocacy currently there seems to be no individual or team within FCPS tasked with understanding and addressing the educational needs of children with complex medical conditions while we have experts for various learning challenges there is a noticeable absence of expertise when it comes to supporting the educational journey of students facing health issues two treny focused approach the school system's prevailing perspective on absences inadvertently creates additional hurdles for students and parents already grappling with medical complexities this approach manifests in the form of a barriers to homebound Services the process is often convoluted

084and overwhelming resembling a maze rather than a clear road map for families in need B attendance policies families in the midst of medical crises are further burdened by attendance policies including Daily Calls frequent trips to obtain doctors's notes and the pressure to bring unwell children to school solely for attendance purposes then actually unenrolling children even those in the process of obtaining homebound services this has a huge impact on a student's feeling of belonging to the school Community C unsupportive attitudes messaging often implies that the child or parent needs to try harder exemplified by emails highlighting a child's chronic absence in bold letters stating that there is room for improvement please reconsider the current policies and establish a dedicated team of experts to address the educational needs of students with medically complex conditions by recognizing their

085unique challenges and providing tailored support we can ensure that every child regardless of health status receives the education they deserve thank you madam chair that's the last public speaker okay we are moving on to agenda item 3.02 strategic plan I'd like to call on Dr Reed good evening Madam chair and I am thrilled to bring our strategic Plan update this evening and one of the things that uh want to thank also Amy Hunter who's here uh Amy you want to raise your hand am's our um math Guru that's uh the uh how do I say The Mastermind behind our fiveyear multi-year plan uh to achieve our algebra by 8th grade uh goal and Dr Presidio is also here um to support this report um one of the things that we've committed to with our strategic

086planning updates is to make sure we have small bites once a month at board meetings so I'm thrilled to have a chance to share this one with you goal three on our strategic plan is specific to academic growth and excellence and goal three is also a goal that all of our schools in Fairfax County are being responsive to this year the measure I'm going to share this evening is specifically the successful completion of Algebra 1 by 8th grade we know that this goal is going to be monitored by several measurements in particular a key academic Milestone around successful um completion of Algebra 1 by 8th grade uh we're going to take a look at uh the fact that if we're able to have our students do that their access to Advanced coursework and Science and

087Technology courses is really significantly improved a Rec recent study from NOA uh found that after taking algebra one by grade 8 student enrollment in advanced math in ninth grade increased by 30 percentage points and in 11th grade by 16 percentage points so we know that algebra in e8th grade puts our students on a trajectory of more advanced math courses which in a more math driven uh future career path at this point is really a significant data point overall math scores in 10th Grade rise as a result of Algebra 1 completion in 8th grade as well and we know that all of our students were able to um complete this uh access accelerated courses at a greater rate we're really excited about the fact that I want to remind our board and our community that algebraic

088thinking does begin even in preschool um so I mean what could be more profoundly important than algebraic thinking um at this point we' like to share um a video uh that put together by our collaborative teams at Key Middle School and Kilmer Middle School and these are members of our algebra access networked Improvement Community um I think we need to go back a slide um to do that um this work has focused on increasing the representation of students who participate and are successful in Algebra 1 by the end of 8th grade so if we could go back a slide and play the video that would be great thank you [Music] one of the reasons it's important for students to take algebra in 8th grade is it allows them to access additional courses at the high

089school level there's dual enrollment courses that open up there's AP cours workk IB coursework they do need to be able to think logically problem solve find errors correct errors those skills that we learn in a math class I think applicable to all the jobs out there that we don't even know exist yet FCPS recognizes that to prepare each and every student for eth grade algebra requires curriculum changes starting an elementary school while those changes are taking shape many Educators have already begun working toward this goal using Innovative practices key and Kilmer Middle Schools are part of the first cohort of the algebra Access Network Improvement Community or ack the first cohort includes four middle schools that are working together with instructional Serv services staff to have more students take algebra in the eth grade the

090Educators and instructional services staff meet collaborate share ideas and then take what they learn back to their individual schools where the ideas are shared what results is a continual cycle of planning executing looking at data and sharing results we're working on a cycle where we make small changes and then by the time we meet again we're going to report back on whether or not that small change has been effective and then we can see what the other schools are doing too parent key one of our change ideas is really increasing communication between our families and our School site we're also looking at how can we increase that conversation between student and family and really fostering that not just what did you do at school today but encouraging students to you know bring that conversation to

091these are my glows these are my grows this is what I'm working on these are the supports in place that I can take advantage of to help me so our small change that we came up with our meeting in September was this idea of tracking these students who jumped from math 7 to algebra in 8th grade we have a list of those students and we're progress monitoring them just to see if anything obvious any patterns come from that that we can see what we can do to help those students who didn't have the pre-algebra background I think something that we still have to figure out as a group is how to intervene and get those kids caught up the work of the cohort is already proving effective in increasing enrollment when I first started taking

092Algebra I thought algebra was going to be very hard I was kind of nervous I was really nervous I was nervous too I thought it was going to be hard because there was going to be a bunch of letters numbers and symbols that I had to deal with my seventh grade teacher I thought it was going to be hard so I didn't want to do it but she encouraged me to now I understand it more and I can do the work without asking for help I think algebra is still hard for me but it's definitely taught me how to problem solve and think differently excellent and opportunity so um I think it's a good reminder that we do have division-wide alignment um in completing algebra by e8th grade and what you saw is really one

093of uh our schools or two of our schools that are on our first cohort it's actually a really carefully designed plan as we're phasing this work in over the next several years it's a definite focus on working with staffs and all of our schools and bolstering courses to make sure our students are fully prepared for this challenge um one of the things that we began this year with um was that our middle schools were required to create a goal around addressing algebra by 8th grade or one of the leading indicators for this measure and every Elementary School developed a CP goal with a math Focus that addressed a specific need of their students so this is really a very carefully scaffolded strategy to bring about success on this measure want to speak also to the

094algebra Access Network Improvement community and this is something that uh you heard a little bit about on the video um one of the things participation at this point includes four middle schools in cohort one and we'll have 11 middle schools in cohort 2 um the network was created in response to data that reveals misconceptions about Open Enrollment in middle school and access to Algebra 1 uh by grade 8 our community this uh Network uses Improvement science techniques and the network Improvement community structure and I have Dr Hunter here with me who is as I mentioned the Mastermind and I think we'll be able to support thoughtfully responding to any questions you might have um so in terms of staying informed I want to remind the community and the board that on November 14th during our

095goal 3 presentation around academic growth and Excellence we will have further data on this goal and we'd be happy to answer any questions you might have at this time thank you Dr Reed um Dr Anderson do you have some questions yes thank you thank you for this very interesting report um I can't remember the slide number but one of them talked about students successfully completing the course can you speak in terms of how that is being evaluated what does success look like successfully completing Algebra 1 that would be pass in the course I don't know that we said a grade determinate did we Dr Hunter I think it's a c minus and then also that they're earning so I think it's a c minus and that they're also earning end of course credit so passing

096their end of course exam okay thank you one of the things that I definitely want to raise in this area is the inconsistencies across our schools um in terms of grading we have some schools where the formative is 45% and the summatives are 55% we have some schools where it's 9010 while this is common place at our high schools it is also common place in our middle schools so I I would love to ensure that that c minus at place at school X is the same C minus as school y so I would love to hear what your thoughts on making standardizing that very important marker that we're utilizing to evaluate success here so thank you Dr Anderson I think one of the things the end of course exam is going to be that is

097consistent so that is a piece of consistent data uh Dr Presidio is heading up a grading um Equitable grading practice advisory committee and might want to speak a moment to grading at the middle level or not if not I'll continue down this path yeah I I think we probably need to provide some more information to the board about that work that's happening we did some I think good work as a committee last year and then this year we're going to reconvene that committee at the end of first quarter um and look at the impact of some of the grading policy changes that we made last year but again I do want want everybody to know that our goal is consistency and Grading scales from school to school and classroom to classroom um and that's true

098for all of our high school credit bearing classes which obviously would include algebra one at 8th grade so um I think we took some good steps uh last year and we've got more work to do this year thank you in the end of course um exam that you've discussed is it separate from the so no it is okay I just wanted to be sure thank you um one of the things also that was shown on the video is how apprehensive some of the kids are about engaging in this work and um I would love to hear in terms of what are supports that are being provided so that the kids who have missed that pre-algebra course they feel comfortable that they feel that they can be successful yeah that's actually a great um I I

099would say like a a struggle and something that the the schools in the algebra Access Network and proven Community really work on and so I think that's why this community itself is really helpful because it gives School leaders they bring together a team of key personnel and they really talk about the root causes for Why students aren't enrolling in algebra and why or maybe even math seven honors and sometimes that just has to do with student self-efficacy like do they see themselves as a math person and then the school will decide what are the minor or like small But Mighty and meaningful changes that we can make to improve for example self efficacy so like one example was um a school just made the small shift of talking about students transitioning rather than skipping content

100so just that like small shift in language really sort of helps students realize like oh I can transition and someone's going to help me along the way you saw that schools are you know monitoring students who move from maass 7 to Algebra 1 and making sure that they fill in whatever content they need so the beauty of the work is that middle schools are already doing this work and it's not just in the nick either like you know middle schools across the county are doing this work but the middle schools in the Nick are really testing out ideas on how to make this work and I think the result will be that they'll have a community of um you know a collective responsibility to take all of those students when we get to that point

101and support them from wherever they're coming from so we're kind of building a a a pipeline or like a foundation to support students as we start to phase in Algebra 1 for for more students over time thank you that was very helpful and you actually set up my next question quite nicely how are we determining which students participate are they self- selecting teachers are selecting or is it all of the students at keyan um Kilmer so right now schools are really taking um a a school-based approach they're deciding what's best for them we are really serious about Open Enrollment and one thing that Dr Reed mentioned was the misconception that exists in our community about open enrollment is open enrollment means that if you're in sixth grade and you want to take math 7 honors

102you can take that course without a prerequisite same with algebra 1 if you're a seventh grader who took maass 7 but you want to take Algebra 1 as an eighth grader you can take that course but we haven't really had Clarity in the community about what open enrollment really means and so the work of the schools and the Nick is really discussing and norming on as a team like as a school how are we helping students see number one that they have this option how are we communicating with families our is our language conveying that you can do this course it's a choice that you have and then instead of a teacher for example saying like I don't know if you're ready instead it might be hey if you want to take this class here

103are some things that you should work on so that you can be successful and then passing that information on to the teacher the next teacher to say here are some scaffolds or supports that the student might need I think that's I think that's really important because some students without the Outreach from staff will never see themselves in these classes so I'm looking forward to that continuing consistency of the Open Enrollment process um lastly the cohorts as you've described there's two in the first and 11 in the second um and there's still left four and the first I'm sorry four and the 1 11 of the 2 so we still have a few middle schools not yet um um spoken for how were those two how are the schools being selected and what is the timeline

104for these cohorts that's a great question so when we started the The Nick the Strategic plan as it is now wasn't in existence we were still working off of the goal from the prior strategic plan so we started it as a voluntary program like would you like to be part of this and that was really critical because we weren't really sure what it was going to look like from our end so we wanted to make sure that we dedicated time and and you know coaching to those schools so those four schools that we started with we we really kind of tested the model out and then the Strategic plan came into place and we had a bunch of schools want to join so then we had those 11 schools join um capacity does limit my

105team and being able to support what is now 15 schools we go out and we do coaching visits with them I have one next Wednesday where we talk to them about where they are with their plan and support them along the way and it is an issue of capacity the hope is actually that we can start to pair up schools to support each other and then gradually release from the schools who have been you know doing this work longer like key and Kilmer and then hopefully bring in new schools as we go um the benefit though I I don't want to sound like the work isn't happening in other places the benefit of us bringing in those goals with the Strategic plan from the Strategic plan into the sips is that we actually got to

106take some of the techniques that we were doing with algebra access group and then sort of do a softer version with the rest of the middle schools when we did sip sessions this summer so um we wrote up documents to say like here are some sample strategies and actions that you could put in your school Improvement plan and those were all sort of fielded from the Nick so it's still it's it's like a soft roll out to the other schools and then I think once we bring them into the Nick it'll be more formal and they'll get more dedicated support um shoot I lost my place the second cohort that has already begun then yes we started it um the second cohort started in Late July August okay yeah thank you MH Dr re what

107are your plans for the remaining schools if they have not yet self- assigned well I think there's such excitement that they're going to be self- selecting um for next year at this point we've got 15 uh 15 schools which is just more than half of our middle schools and over the uh several year plan we'll be phasing in the remaining schools over the next two years okay thank you I think those all my questions appreciate it thank you Dr Anderson Miss am yeah thank you happy to follow some of Dr Anderson's points um and and this is great to see you I'm really grateful I know Dr Reed this was one of the vision Visionary points you brought up uh even before you joined us in this Division and how it's tracked as a civil

108rights point and how critical it is um to that end I am curious about kind of the you know we we came to the understanding as a school board when we were doing TJ Admissions and all that that obviously the admission process itself has revisions to be made but it's a pipeline challenge right and so we need to look from much earlier of how we're preparing kids which includes access so that brings me to ask um in terms of advanced math even at the elementary level my you know I I my dream would be that kids who want to opt in advanced academics so long as they maintain a certain grade level can stay within it rather than us telling a kid who really wants to do it you can't do it because you didn't

109pass an arbitrary test in second grade uh or arbitrary might not be fair but it's still in second grade um to to assess your qualifications so that's the broader Advanced academics conversation but I am curious what specific steps and I know this is kind of programmatic how we're handling it maybe at later years but specifically Elementary up uh in ensuring there's access to that advanced math because we did identify that some schools don't have that um and that there's no way right that they're going to be prepared like their peers would be if that's not even an option in their school so I think you know one of the keys to the uh work is it's really prek through2 transition and elementary schools are also working on this um as well as our middle schools

110and again I just want to clarify that algebra and eighth grade is not necessarily an accelerated track it's really just basic um where our students really would be matriculating just on a traditional trajectory I don't know Dr Hunter do you feel like you want to add anything about the elementary Journey yeah I'll just add briefly I mean in the video we we tried to couch the video as like there's some good work happening already and there's more to come so um get ready but you know in the video it did say like we're in the process of drafting a plan like we're pulling together plans and really that will have to address some curricular changes in elementary for the standard level because as you mentioned right now an advanced math track does prepare you for

111Algebra 1 and grade eight but we need to make sure that the standard track does and then provide additional rigor and extensions for students and you know who need that extension Beyond um what we would provide in the standard track so that's what we're working on right now yeah and that's great to hear so please please please make sure it's a component you know it's one thing to change our practices and you know offerings but if kids don't even have it that's a whole different access Equity issue um and then the other piece is I just kind of wanted to speak to the uh Al algebra in seventh grade right as an advanced option um I'm assuming we're still vetting kids for that right was or is that has that changed at this point no

112we're not okay so kids can choose that no at this point there is still a current process for Algebra 1 is algebra one honors as a seventh grader there is still a process okay or criteria I should say yeah is do we have like research that justifies that you know if we do move towards everyone in eth grade if a kid wants to do it in seventh yeah I mean again we're exam speaking as one of those kids who was prohibited even though all three of my siblings did it yeah we're looking at all aspects and really so just to be fully transparent our original plan was to leverage the 2023 standards adoption um with the Virginia Department of Ed but that got moved up a little bit so we're kind of clamoring to reassess

113and accelerate accelerate our plan and we're examining all of those options to make sure that we have more open Pathways yeah I mean with this and with Advanced academics Dr Reed I really think if we if we I mean we don't want to set kidss up for failure right but if kids are able to prove their capability they're doing well in the regular class and then maintain a certain grade point average whatever in those classes there's just no reason why we'd tell them because you didn't pass this test you can't do it well I I think there are a lot of Fairfax students where math is their Friday Night Lights right I mean it's a it's a thing I mean I math limits 84% of our career choices it's a determinant in the AI world

114the upcoming algorithm around Quantum uh it's hard not to be excited about mathematics yeah um so I just want to offer that as a potential way of rethinking how we do this um for algebra in seventh grade and advanced economics more broadly and then finally just on the pre-algebra thing because I know that was asked my understanding is pre-algebra isn't actually it's it's kind of a misnomer a little bit it's more like fractions and percentages just making sure that the basics of math are solid so you can apply them in algebra am I wrong about that uh I mean the the pre-algebra course right now as it exists with the remember new standards the 2016 standards is a pretty robust course it's a survey course so it's different it includes you know geometry other topics

115probability statistics and things that you may not get um in the same depth as you would in a a traditional Algebra 1 course but there are valuable standards in that course that provide a nice um scaffold to Algebra 1 I think that um the question that that that we have is how do we I mean what middle schools are doing right now is when they do have students go from Mass 7 to Algebra 1 they're compacting content and they're picking the most Salient and relevant standards from the pre-algebra course to ensure a nice bridge and they're doing a lot of intervention so I think again what we need to examine is how do we build a course pathway sequence that begins as early as kindergarten or even prek and really starts to develop that um

116algebraic thinking along the way and highlighting it and making it very visible and known so that it doesn't feel like such a a mysterious you know like the students were said I I wasn't sure I could do it you can do it so we're we're just trying to really examine all Pathways and all approaches so that we can really develop algebraic thinkers by the time they get to grade eight yeah no I'm really glad to hear that it's changed and that you all are thinking of how to adopt it or adapt it even further so thank you all for this work I'm excited to see where it goes thank you Miss C Sanders thank you um just a couple of quick questions um first you talk about four and 11 but we never got the

117list of who the four and the 11 are happy to share that um and I would be very interested because obviously I would like to know which ones are in Mount Vernon well miss Corbett Sanders we will get you a list um in our Friday letter tomorrow okay thank you I also um think it's really important to point out um when we adopted our strategic plan we were very intentional in addressing uh in our strategic plan the importance of meeting kids where they are and so we recognize that students come into our system at various uh points of algebraic Readiness and that they move around because uh especially students who are living in poverty have a higher Mobility rate and so my question is what are we doing to address the unique needs of those

118students who enter our system at a later date and what are we doing from the standpoint of remediating or mitigating some of the learning loss they may have had or learning delays by um entering into our system at a later date midd school are you at any grade is kind of what you're talking about yeah we have kids who move in um that may or may not have interrupted learning MH um and they come to us some it's easier in many ways if they come to us earlier on because we can do the scaffolding necessary but when we talk about um algebraic Readiness in eth grade um and if a student comes to us in sixth or seventh grade what are we doing to Pro to provide those scaffoldings and oh sorry go ahead I'll

119finish well no I one of the things we actually sometimes have the reverse issue as well where we have students who come in from out of country or other divisions that are more ready for I mean they're ready for algebra much earlier than we're we've been ready to teach it so um I think the uh students who have gaps or have missed content I think the uh comment that Dr Hunter made around Salient points and compacting critical content um um is really really a critical strategy I don't know if you want to elaborate on that yeah I mean we have we have a variety of interventions that we uh train teachers on and that we promote in beginning in the early grades and then we have you know supports in middle school and I think

120that schools are all very um aware of the need to take students from where they are and and help to find again like the most critical content that we need to remediate or bolster to get them to the next level and we do a variety of professional development with schools and and teachers on um like how to do that so I think that's a really General answer but I you know but specifically there are points along the way that we have really robust like you know you've probably heard about a avmr Advantage math recover we have a tremendous number of teachers who are trained in that that's a great um great intervention especially for students who might be coming in who have um who have interrupted formal education we have courses at the high school

121level and the Middle School level to address students who come in from those in those types of situations so there's a variety of of strategies that we kind of work with to to address those needs so Dr Reed as part of your um Friday letter in addition to the list of schools and where they fit into the uh schedule of four 11 and then the additional 10 that uh to be provided these supports I would also like a more detailed um response uh that gives a little bit B more um response to the targeted interventions that we do provide I know that there's been a lot of push for onetoone uh tutoring and there have been some different services available we do do some tutoring online um but that tends to be taken up by

122uh higher level Learners and so I'd like to have a better um more detailed response on what we're doing because it's not only to get them to be able to enter the algebra classroom but then as they uh as we add more robust mathematics that we want to make sure that we continue those scaffolds yes ma'am we'll have that thanks Miss Marin I just wanted to put a plugin for please please communicate and educate parents about how students are being taught math I recently tried to help my fifth grader and it was very tough and the thing was I just kept saying leave the ones column blank and he needed to see a zero there and then it all got worked out so please you know I've seen schools do family math nights I know

123it's tough sometimes to get parents' attention but we want to help our kids and it's it's different now so thank you yeah great suggestion and who wouldn't like to spend an evening doing math the family that does math together stays together that's exactly what you were thinking yeah thank you and I am all in support of family math and night thank you um I was also thrilled as we were developing our strategic plan about this very intentional selected measure it's very important um for many of the reasons my colleagues have spoken about but of course there needs to be a little bit more so I do want to probe a little bit about the algebra students who may or may not be ready for Algebra 1 in seventh grade um and Mr amsh was talking

124about this is the Iowa Test still the tests that we do that's the test to see whether or not the ready there's a Readiness level the yes the Iowa the IAT is part of the criteria one of the Criterion is to pass Six Advanced um and then it's uh scoring in in the 91st percentile or above on the IAT and I'll just remind everyone that we often have families who appeal to their principal for that process and we let that be a school-based decision okay yes so that's much the same for my duration on the board I do want to mention one thing Dr Reed that um you know in so many of these things that there is an equity issue and lots of schools uh do prep extensively for their children for their students

125to take the Iowa test while some schools do not and I think that can impact the scores significantly um just as practice on any any team volleyball or sport um improves your outcomes I think that's important to know I do not want to take anyone's test prep away or people who concentrate on that I think it should be a part though of the curriculum leading up to that those testing times thank you for that feedback thank you okay um I just have one question myself and it's a little bit of a Different Twist um and talking to some of my um middle schools are so excited about this work um but also as we continue with this work and we're shifting courses and who's taking what and we're moving kids up into these more advanced

126courses what are you seeing as far as I mean I know it's not always the easiest to hire a you know secondary teacher with a math you know lure much less somebody that's trained in in addition to some of these special areas you know special education you know some of these special accreditations that you're talking about what do we need to do to make sure that we have the right staff in place to be able to do this yeah so I think the first is that we're going to need to invest pretty heavily in professional development I think we can all agree and that does begin in kindergarten right because we have some fantastic kindergarten teachers and they may not be realizing they're doing some algebra already so I think that's number one we'll need

127to make an investment in our existing staff and we've actually started conversations in my office with um HR with other relevant stakeholders we're not really sure we're trying to figure out who but around this issue of lure because it it could pose a challenge for us so I think that that's something that we as a school district are going to have to look at carefully how are we recruiting um Math teachers who have the lure to not only teach algebra one but teach some of the even you know teach 7eventh grade content um and so I think that that's part of something that we can look at more you know in depth as a as a county um and then maybe even incentivizing um additional endorsements thank you I appreciate that I know it's an

128issue thank you Dr Hunter um okay seeing no other board members with questions uh we will move on to um academic matters agenda item 3.03 so Dr Reed yeah thank you madam chair and this evening I am thrilled I mean this is exciting as almost as exciting as algebra um but I'm thrilled to share just a highlevel overview not the detailed report but it's foreshadowing our goal three report that we'll have an opportunity to more deeply um explore on November 14th uh but this evening I just want to give a high level look at our annual Pass rates and a accreditation outcomes for this past spring so I want to start with um our annual Pass rates on the state assessments and as uh is our way here in Fairfax County we look at three-year

129comparisons and we also look at how we are doing compared to the Commonwealth of Virginia so as you can see in the chart um we had some significant initial gains between 21 and 22 coming out of our coid pandemic and now we're seeing a bit of a um what I would call sort of a steady maintenance of those gains and we also know that it's going to take us a couple years to reclaim uh the ground that we had prior to the pandemic but we really are feeling um we're feeling good that we've maintained the gains that we have and we also know that as we are able to conquer some of our current non-academic challenges like absenteeism and supporting uh strong mental health that that's going to continue to have um us improving scores

130both this year and in the coming years and these particular Pass rates do include all so and VAP tests vaap tests taken over the uh past year summer fall and spring the next slide breaks down our vaap scores or our Virginia alternate Assessment program tests a little bit more over the next over the prior three years I want to remind our community and our board that approximately 99% of our students do take the SOS and that about 1% of our student body in Fairfax County takes the Virginia alternate Assessment program the three-year Trend also I think is quite interesting because it illustrates a significant change in the format of the exam that occurred in the spring of 2022 you can see in 2021 our vaap score were 80% or above or close to 80% in

131the spring of 2022 the US Department of Education directed that the VAP Chang from a portfoli based assessment of aligned standards to a multiple choice assessment and this change in format has affected obviously the results um again we have a fairly small percentage which can be moved very quickly when you have fewer students stud as you're in but one of the things that we're really going to be thoughtful about is how are we supporting our students who take this exam now in this uh multiple choice format rather than in the portfolio format previously the next slide is our um again our annual Pass rates uh three years by our student groups and again since 2021 we continue to make progress and and overall our performance Trends have leveled out and are remaining stable at this

132time our English Learners have seen the most substantial improvement over the past three years and still have substantial Improvement um to make um additionally we want to note that um Fairfax County consistently outperforms Virginia for most of the reporting groups again with significant notable strengths want to summarize again at a high level and again we're going to go into more detail November 14th but just want to be clear about our summary of accreditation um schools out of our uh the percentage of our schools that are accredited are 99.5% with a 05% accredited with conditions which means really that all 195 of our schools are are accredited so accreditation was not or was not denied at any of our schools so I think that's really um a testament to our hardworking staff in a wide variety

133of roles and we're very proud of the work our staff continues to do in supporting our students teaching and learning again um on the high level of 2023 accreditation indicator performance level outcomes want to remind our community and board that we do report six School quality indicators for elementary and middle school while we have nine School quality indicators for high schools this was also the first year that we had a CCC indicator that counted and I really want to commend all of our um High School staff uh because this was a new uh data point that uh was announced fairly late last year that this was actually going to be counted towards accreditation it's called our college career Civic Readiness index and we um have gathered a group of our high school principls and DSS's

134and and central office staff to work on the completion of that index even earlier in the High School uh careers of our students um but just this is a again a highlevel uh report on this performance level one means the school met the state standard level two means the school perform near the standard or is improving and level three means the school perform below the standard so again this data looks very promising and it's also clarifies um those areas that we're going to need to work on I will say that our chief of schools office is actively partnering with our chief academic offices instructional services and special services team to support Improvement strategies and monitoring gear to address the specific needs at each of our schools I want to report that we also have been

135active in the Virginia growth assessment fall testing and this is a um participation chart so we're thrilled in green is reading and yellow or the Golden Rod is mathematics so we're very close to 100% of our Fairfax County students across third through eighth grade participating in the VGA assessments uh the reason that our seventh and eighth grade percentages are lower is because um we do not test the vgas in Algebra 1 and geometry it should also give you a sense of how many of our Algebra 1 students um percentage wise we are at so um we think this is again very promising these VGA assessments are still relatively new um they were required by the Virginia General Assembly in 2021 and the results are not used as part of school accreditation but they are another

136way to inform the supports that teachers provide these results will be shared with families via the US mail in November something to look forward to this coming coming month and finally uh there is a public reporting of school performance data on the Virginia Department of Education website uh link to the Virginia school quality profiles so that is academic matters Madam chair thank you Dr Reed Dr Anderson just one quick question because I know we're going to have a work session on this the data that's you that is being shown is that adjusted or or unadjusted Dr [Music] presidium so it's both okay because there's different rules for the so results and different rules for accreditation um so it it's actually both so when we're looking at the um so results um those are uh adjusted

137the SOA results are are not adjusted I missed that second piece the SOS are adjusted but the S soas are not okay thank you Miss tyer Heiser thank you and I know we have a work session also so I'm just going to one a glow as we used to say it before so old language and also um just a preview of something I'm going to ask at the work session um but for the glow thank you for separating the and VAP scores and explaining the difference in the VAP scores that is as you know something I've been asking for for probably four years and I'm thrilled thank you Dr pido um for having that on there so I appreciate that um I would love to have an idea I know you mentioned 1% of our

138students are taking the VAP assessment which is what it's supposed to be I'd love to get an idea of how many what percent of our seniors graduate with an applied studies diploma versus um a different diploma and compare those two percentages yes ma'am I know you won't have it today so it's a preview for what I'd ask the work session thank you thank you Dr Reed I don't see any other board members with questions thank you very much thank you all right we will move on to agenda item 3.04 student representative matters I will call in Miss kareim thank you madam chair good evening everyone since our last board meeting I've had the opportunity to attend the high school principal ass association meeting also known as HSPA where I shared various resources that address common

139themes raised in student meetings one important topic is prayer rooms while it's a part of our school Improvement plans for all FCPS facilities to have a prayer or meditation room these spaces don't always fully meet the needs of our students we're seeking understanding from staff regarding the significance of prayer without unnecessary scrutiny additionally we aim for these prayer rooms to be accommodating students are not asking for something extravagant they simply need a clear space for their prayers some students have voed concerns about tables and chairs occupying the space which cannot be easily moved to address this I've met with the mlan Islamic board and a few other students together we drafted a one-page document outlining the importance of prayer and how to be considerate of our students needs I shared this document with the HSPA

140in the hope that it can be distributed to all high schools while this represents a small step it's a move in the right direction to make our students feel valued no matter what the situation is even when it comes to the issues our community participants brought up today equality is at the core of this issue all students and Fairfax County deserve to be heard valued and respected in addition to sharing information about the prayer room gu guidelines I also presented a checklist used by Woodson administrators to establish a student driven problem identification and issue resolution program this program is supported by the Department of Justice and involves a student group known as Spirit which collaborates with doj officials to address various School issues the checklist used by Woodson administrators has proven highly effective in ensuring

141that students be feel heard and valued moving on I've previously discussed the importance of portrait of a graduate presentation of learning also known as popole emphasizing how crucial it is for students in terms of their academic development in life beyond school when the POG Poole experience is implemented accurately it becomes a practical strategy that aligns perfectly with FCPS equity commitments 2 3 4 and five as outlined in our strategic plan it serves as a powerful tool to promote equity and guarantee that every student has the opportunity to Excel and reach their full potential the POG pole career days at Woodson have been particularly helpful in guiding students in exploring their interests and potential careers it's essential we expand this career day beyond what's in high school as it is POG pole focused in the future

142I hope to collaborate with the HSPA for this initiative during the recent student advisory council meeting delegates had the opportunity to engage with their region Regional assistant superintendents FCPS leadership and other senior figures in our County some of the issues discussed included student to counselor ratios concerns about food waste from free and reduced lunches and consistency and Grading policies and many others another update I have regards technology Youth Empowerment a 501c3 nonprofit organization founded by the seals this organization aims to bridge the gap in stem educ ation particularly in tidle one schools with our most recent student representative from Justice high school they have expanded their collaboration to two more schools which are Glasgow Middle School and Glen Forest Elementary both of which are tile one schools they will s soon begin teaching activities involving

143Finch Bots arduinos and other engineering and computer science activities in these schools looking ahead I'm working with Dr Anderson and we will be hosting a town hall meeting next Monday with regions 2 and six to discuss various issues from grading to other pressing matters speaking of grading it's an ongoing concern that I'd like to bring up again to seek some to seek support from other leadership it's crucial that we bring consistency to this matter and centralize our grading systems as each School currently operates based on its individual needs colleges evaluate applicants based on their school grading policies however we must address the disparities such as anandale at a 9010 split and Edison at a 955 split and other high schools with highly unreasonable grading splits this lack of equity poses challenges for our students in

144their pursuit of e Excellence before making any changes we must ensure we have solid and concrete evidence for our new implementations it's essential to base our decisions on data and research to promote fairness and support of our students effectively a relevant example of the importance of evidence-based decision-making can be found in California in the 20145 school year the San Frisco the San Francisco Unified School District altered the way algebra was taught postponing it until 9th grade instead of offering it in middle school this change aimed to address racial achievement gaps in advanced math courses however the outcomes of this change were at best mixed despite the initial intention to reduce achievement gra gaps between racial groups the results fell short of expectations in some cases the research was presented as a support as support of

145the policy even when its actual findings contradicted the assertion it is in our best interest to gather evidence that will be effective when making decisions and lastly on agenda item 6.01 regarding the fiscal year 2024 revised budget it's noted that state aid of 19.7 million is allocated for supporting the changes FCPS is making for its employees however we also have the option to use this money to assist employees who sponsor after school clubs extracurricular activities or other student organizations that require some effort sometimes finding volunteers to sponsor these clubs can be challenging and there's no finan cial in incentive furthermore we could also consider allocating money to student groups such as the student advisory Council or the student Equity Ambassador leaders to support their initiatives thank you thank you agenda item 3.05 superintendent matters I

146call in Dr Reed thank you madam chair I will be somewhat brief this evening I know we're running late um I do want to share that I did complete the six Regional uh Community conversations and this week uh finished up at Hughes Middle School and Langley or actually those were my employee conversations were at Hughes Middle School and Langley High School uh finishing our third and fourth employee conversation and my fifth and sixth Community conversation was at Madison High School on Tuesday evening and last night at Liberty Middle School so uh really want to thank everyone that came out and shared their thoughts and comments and concerns um have had a number of uh School visits since last we met uh teret Elementary School had a chance to uh visit their kindergarten classrooms and very

147impressed with the use of the conscious discipline program and kindergarten classes uh Clear viiew Elementary School really had an opportunity to visit preschool classes including preschool autism an early childhood special education class and early childhood um Head Start class so a lot of excitement at our very youngest Learners want to remind our board that we're in the process of Hiring Our tutors for our high impact tutoring program and we're thrilled as we continue that uh work that we began a year ago I had a great visit at our finance park with Board member Miss daret Kovac and we had a chance to see um our middle school students in action uh learning about finances which is a good thing uh had a chance to visit with our f CCPA and attend our fcac champions of

148character awards and then the Langley High School concert was amazing Miss Tolen we had a chance to along with principal Kim Greer uh listen to an amazing performance want to also share with our community we're so pleased that 17 of our secondary and high schools were named to the AP School honor role by the college board and uh want to remind our community that TJ applications are open now and there is a a meeting the or actually the applications must be started by 4:00 Wednesday November 15th with a deadline to submit the application by Friday November 17th at 4 pm please visit the TJ registration page for more information and if you're a parent and uh haven't had a chance yet please do complete the federal impact Aid survey which is available online in CIS

149and parent view um so thank thank you madam chair thank you Dr Reed agenda item 4.01 performance review executive expectation number three relationships with families and communities before we move on to the performance review of executive expectation number three relationships with families and communities a motion to revise our process so that forms will be optional while the governance committee is considering the executive expectations process and that there will not be a mandatory vote on each executive expectation was postponed at the last meeting without objection the motion is postponed indefinitely I see no objections so the motion is postponed indefinitely at this point I would like to call on Miss am for a motion for the board to fully consider how to provide feedback on Executive expectations I move to defer the decision to the next

150school board on whether Schoolboard members vote on Executive expectation compliance and policy reviews and the use of the executive expectations forms the governance committee shall discuss various options for accountability on Executive expectations and the use and content of the form including consideration of V voting on Executive expectations and bring recommendations forward for the new 2024 28 board this will be discussed at a future work session in preparation for a vote by that board by February 88th 2024 in the meantime the superintendent will continue providing executive expectation compliance reports at regular meetings as scheduled and school board members will offer feedback through the next steps process or an electronic version of the current feedback form which will be attached to the next steps thank you is there a second I'll second it thank you Miss seiser

151Heiser Miss am would you like to speak to your motion yes thank you um so we tried this last meeting but I think we're at a better place um and you know I think this time we're going to be able to model a spirit of collaboration and good faith amongst colleagues there was a lot there were many many conversations for I'm sure what amounted to ours so I want to thank my colleagues for their work on this and getting us to a place where we can come to some agreement around the best process without a board any board member feeling disrespected constrained uh in how we do this and I want to um first thank Dr Reed who came up with the Visionary idea of how we set this up to begin with um in

152moving us towards a better accountability system for our school uh for FCPS in having conversations with her on a regular and consistent basis uh and what this will do is Dr Reed will continue presenting her executive expectations we will then be able to provide feedback and each board member is able to do that either through the next steps process which we typically use at a work session where we have a Google doc everyone documents kind of their thoughts people can indicate support for the different next steps to to uh offer some sense of consensus for Dr Reed uh so that she knows what to move forward with in in modifying what she's presented uh or I suppose uh the same feedback form that we used in the previous meeting uh which is optional for folks

153to attach a electronically as well so this provides maximum flexibility to offer sufficient feedback to Dr Reed after she presents um but does defer the the idea of a vote so we would not be voting whether or not she's in compliance this early at this stage uh and and we would hold that um theoretically now until the end when we evaluate her but the governance committee will be reviewing this entire process and determining for the future board what is best for them because we also don't want to uh overp or uh decide for them the way that they would proceed with this process so I'm grateful to all my colleagues I know Miss Tolen Miss seore Heiser Miss Corbit Sanders and others have spent a lot of time um helping me have these conversations with

154folks as well um so I look forward to a successful night where we're able to streamline this and work together thank you Miss CER Heiser would you like to speak to your second yes um I would I know this has been a a tough and painful process and I know it's um anytime I think when we're looking to implement something new it takes time to find a place and this is truly a compromise um for the time being until the governance committee can really take a look at this process and come back to the new board with um a process I do believe that having accountability for the system and accountability to make sure that we our superintendent and her staff are maintaining not just the goals of the Strategic plan but the expectations this

155board has laid out for her is very important and so I believe that we'll get to a good accountability place where we can make it clear for our superintendent staff whether they're on track or not and how to address things if they're not on track so I think these there have been many conversations about this I think the next step process for now will be a a um a good place to provide some of that feedback and I will just say that I don't know where we're going to land but I don't want to foreshadow that we're going to land in any particular spot but we'll wait till the governance committee comes back and we'll see what they say um and I'm also glad that we have a date certain February 8th by which this

156vote will happen so this won't be hopefully taking much longer so I do appreciate especially Miss Tolen Miss Corbett Sanders Miss amsh Dr Anderson Mr fris and all the conversations we've had um you miss miss bski I think I've talked to everybody about 18 times and I know Miss Miss to has talked to them many more times than I have um so I appreciate all the hard work that everybody has put into finding a place where we could Truly find a compromise and move on to the good work of actually thinking about what the reports are and how to ask questions about the reports and get some feedback so I think for for this moment in time this is a good place to land and um I'm looking forward to what the governance committee comes

157back with for the new board to put in place thank you um Dr Anderson would you like to make comments was on from previously um Miss cor Sanders just want to thank the makers of the motion for this um but especially I want to acknowledge what this does do which is IT addresses a frustration that many of the members of this board had when they came on four years ago that um very soon after they were brought on to the board they were expected to provide feedback on a superintendent whom they didn't have as much experience with and so what this does is it captures the um comments and the experience of the outgoing board um in a way that the new board will be able to have informed decision making and so I just

158think that it's um as you say uh Miss seiser Heiser a compromise but I actually think that that's what good governance is all about is that we all come together to work towards a um common understanding and hopefully this sets up the next board for Success okay I don't see any other board members that have comments um so at this point in time time um I would like to call for the vote all those in favor of supporting this motion Miss cor Sanders Dr Anderson mRNA kofx Miss Tolen Mr frish Miss Marin Miss om Miss Cohen Rog seiser Heiser do we still have Miss bakari with us I cannot see her yes I vote yes thank you and Miss pakari Miss keys is here as well oh thank you Miss Keys Kamara for joining us

159okay so miss setler would you like to announce the vote please miss Keys gumara is that an affirmative yes okay yes then the vote is 110 so it it's unanimous thank you okay so that uh passes um since the motion passes uh Dr Reid will present her report on Executive EXP expectation number three relationships with families and Community stakeholders which is nice following her board matters um board members will then be able to ask questions or make comments um after the board asks questions um they will be able to provide feedback through the board's next steps process or could potentially fill out the an electronic um expectation form which will be included with the next steps both of these these documents are available um to board members in the um the meeting Google folder that

160you have the entire list you know for the public the entire list of proposed next steps and any um executive expectation forms will be shared with Dr Reed after this process is completed and will be posted in the library section of board docs for the public to view so I will now call in Dr Reed for presentation thank you madam chair and so this evening I will be presenting executive expectation three uh relationships with families and Community stakeholders and you have this in front of you I think that this is one of the um EES that's very important in terms of make maintaining an organizational culture that facilitates collaborative trusting and responsive Partnerships with the um all of our diverse stakeholders um this is a key I think to uh the functioning of our school

161division is interaction and with our community and making sure that we have timely communication um and open communication I think with our um our families and our stakeholders internally and externally so this evening I want to share that um I'm certifying that the information we're providing is correct as of this evening October 26th um and to the best of my knowledge I believe I am in compliance with uh the board's ex executive expectation around this topic the indicators I want to be um will be sharing in the past year 2223 we held and I attended a total of 87 Community meetings um that were organiz organized by the office of communications and community relations including all of our pyramid um Gatherings meetings also on specific topics separate from just Community forums we did provide special

162accommodations during these meetings as we were trying to be very thoughtful about our uh community members attending including language interpretation Child Care um as well as handouts and resources that were translated and having um translators on site of these 87 meetings 15 were strategic planning Community forums with breakout groups in English and Spanish and three of the 15 strategic planning forums were virtual with one of those being um Spanish language only again all of these meetings had interpreters uh child care and American Sign Language uh we also at the fall of this year as I mentioned earlier held a series of uh superintendent Community conversations one in each region as well as employee conversations uh we held for in a north south east west want to share with the board and our community that our

163Central website has had 34.5 million page views annually and 68.7 million uh page views for our school websites uh we provide regular training for central office staff and School web curators um and also attend to ADA compliance at this time we are doing a full redesign on our FCPS website and are going to be looking for feedback not just from you as board members but also Al Community stakeholder groups um students and our staff another key that we've done with our um Central website has been um and this I think was in particular Dr Anderson's request early on is a text to speech available on our FCPS website which increases accessibility as well as School web pages in English Spanish and Korean we have an Intercultural engagement team that's been fully established and has fostered

164equitable enhanced Outreach access um so we really have made this a priority uh we have a calendar toolkit as well in multiple languages division-wide newsletters are translated and enotify uh we have an Intercultural playlist for informative voice recordings which was created in FCPS on an espanol YouTube channel to keep all information organized uh we have employee news which reaches more than 40,000 employees while the division newsletter is distributed to more than 320,000 families and community members that's a really broad reach um our Instagram account reached 20,000 followers in August of 23 and Facebook has reached more than 100,000 followers uh We've added LinkedIn into our content calendar and started a presence on next store for targeted Community uh Communications and our YouTube channel saw 24 .7% increase in the past two years and has added

165a multilingual channel for educational videos about key um Communications yielding 47,600 video views and a th000 subscribers uh we continue to work on the stories of our student staff and division we've also um begun retooling work on the student registration welcome centers um we've uh begun completing transcript evaluations and with we're also working on online registration as a key support for our families um the online registration system was one of the barriers our military families shared and so that online registration process is something that we're working uh to continue to add to and incorporate so that all our families that move in and out of the division have access to courses and commet timelines uh with their online enrollment uh and registration process we also have um supported our dedicated resources and supports for military

166connected families and um our strategic plan obviously was a key piece of last year's work and a significant Community engagement we're going to be working with the family panels this year which will include families representative of each school and we've um provided translations of handbooks enrollment forms and a variety um of of other important documents within the division family information phone lines at the Family Resource Center are used to provide general information and 22,000 contacts were made with uh families on these lines we also deliver an FCPS multilingual podcast in English Spanish Korean and Arabic to provide timely information to families in the community so I one of the things I heard um in the last executive expectation report is that we needed more uh direct links to data or um examples so this particular

167executive expectation has a number of uh links for you to take a look at any of those the talking points tool is another free easy and safe way families are communicating in home languages um which is again a real priority as we engage with all members of our community and uh there are multiple Pathways for businesses Community groups and government and governmental entities to engage with our division and support our students um our ignite Partnerships continue and our business and Community Partnerships as well so uh it's important to stay connected to our uh County Executive Brian Hill and uh County Executive Hill and I try to stay uh in communication weekly and I really appreciate his support and guidance um in the county he's been a tremendous uh resource um we have a number of

168Outreach and Partnerships teams as well as advisory councils um the ud's office again continues to uh provide service to families and we're beginning the implementation of a let's talk resource uh which actually monitors um emails and I wouldn't say monitors emails but monitors the responses uh so that we have a better sense we have a lot of sort of bracketed email boxes meal mailboxes that emails go to and it's really helping us because we've had such an increase in our um volume of emails to make sure that we're able to have teams uh be responsive to those and have added resources in those areas to provide support there so um I think really I'll stop there I think you've got all the data and I'm happy to answer any questions um if you have those

169and I believe this is posted right on the Madam chair on the public site so okay we do have several board members with questions and comments um just start with seiser Heiser thank you and I'll I'll put some more on the next steps but I appreciate the report and I appreciate the detail that's here um in response a couple things that I just would love to kind of see um perhaps As you move forward digging a little more into is the amount of usage of both the Family Resource Center and the office of the buds um in particular the office of the special education on buds but really both of them the the famous Resource Center provides great webinars I know there's a YouTube page but I do wonder how much are we're getting the

170message out to families about how much it's used and what's there and I mean I constantly have parents like oh I didn't know this existed right and I think it would be really one thing to look to as we're looking at that engagement is how are we getting that information to and measuring the usage of some of these things okay um especially I will say one of the things that families one of the big areas of concern is transition out of FCPS and there's some webinars on there but parents regularly don't know how to navigate that process and I know it's come up and same with the on buds I I'm always a little surprised at how much it's utilized in comparison to the services when I when we get those data reports quarterly about

171the usage and reports I'm always surprised at the low number of okay they have I think one time early my term I think I said I got more special education reports than they did and so I think that's something maybe to look into is how can we expand the knowledge of those offices and the use of those offices because they are great resources y That's great feedback thank you yeah thank you Dr Anderson thank you thank you very much for this information um it is very helpful one of the things that I know you um you spent quite a bit of time talking about because it takes a lot of time is the community conversations in which you've engaged um I think they um staff has done a really great job in ensuring that there

172are interpretations available so that families can access just two followup things there that I'd like for consideration when we're talking about the availability of inter of interpretation Services um I I think we're not as consistent as we need to be across all meetings um obviously for these me meetings it's very intentional and it happens every time but meetings such as um CIP meetings Renovations the language of the invitations say as available which will discount parts of our community so I would just look for that intentionality to be across the board um and I forgot my second thought on that um the other piece that I wanted to also talk about the text to speech again I am very very grateful for that but I'm also I would love to see if we can even capture

173usage of that are people clicking um that function so if you can um have that be part of the conversation that would be great um another point that I just want to raise is um in this area as we're talking about being Equitable I I'd like to hear a little bit more in terms of how we're going to really be intentional about the equity part of the stakeholder um communication which is which lead leads me to a couple of things that we've talked about you know false Church High School Turf um the Region 2 meeting that was um eventually moved to Glasgow I'd like to see some of that int intentionality so that we are being really mindful of what is happening in the community um I think oh and the last piece um going

174back to the community meetings I would love to see what how does that become a two-way discussion because we're in the room parents share a lot what's the loop back what does that look like when they provide pages and pages of information and I know that some of the concerns that are raised are individual but for the things that are more Collective right what can families look um to have after that meeting occurs great question and we've added as you know um Donna as a role to be at those meetings so that we can collect those data points and and get back the feedback loop both to individuals as well as being able to have a list of the parents that attended to send something back this fall which is a step further than we've

175been able to uh do with registration so we're looking forward to having a more systemic um followup to the group who attended and then those specific uh needs that have been raised often on a card that a a Community member or family has left with us that we can then make sure those get distributed to the Departments for followup yeah that feedback look will be great to maximize that time because I know the community looks forward right to those opportunities I'll just put the rest of my comments in the um form but I do have a quick process question um for the chair I I believe that the next steps form we're supposed to do the typical voting how does that work if one chooses to do the regular form since that's an option so

176since we just passed that we're going to have to do some discussion about that um so let's fill this out this time and really take a look at it we'll figure that out um and how that will all be collected the intention is that it would all be collected and available um for the public and for Dr read so thank you okay thank you Dr Anderson um Miss cor Sanders and then that will be followed by Miss um keys gamara I see your hand up there thank you Dr Reid for this and I especially appreciate the clickthrough opportunities and what you've provided us I've got a couple of questions and one of the um components of this plan is timely and open Communications and I know we're very good at broadcast communication ations when something's

177going on we can get messages out and provide messages to the community updates to what's happening and I'm particularly cognizant of this because of what occurred where uh there was a um swatting incident at um Carl Sandberg and the community was made aware of what was happening during that day I guess my question is okay that's one piece of the feedback mechanism but it's after the dust has settled and people are feeling fragile because their lives have been disrupted by a um threat in the community perceived because of the way it was reported where is our feedback loop not only for our parents and students of checking in how are you doing we know this was a traumatic experience what can we do to support you but also for our teachers because our teachers and

178staff in that building were traumatized so what are we doing to ensure that [Music] we have that continuous um feedback checking in and really ensuring that we walk the walk of a caring culture well you know I don't know that that's been a strength in terms of the coming back after the fact and checking in so I'll make a note of that to be more intentional about that that would be great thank you now there's a second piece on page eight item five we talk about engaging students and parents to fair Fairly address uh community conf conflicts and ensure Equitable inclusion we've heard a lot of comments tonight in the public uh speaking the community engagement as well as in speaking with community members and seeing it on social media um that our community here

179in Fairfax is struggling to deal with the conflict of what's happening geopolitically elsewhere and some are feeling very vulnerable and that their voices aren't heard some are feeling that way as uh members of the Jewish Community some are feeling that way as members of the Muslim Community and when we talk about engaging students and parents uh and Guardians to address Community conflicts this is an area where I think um because it comes back into our schools it's really important that we create fora to um allow for that Community dialogue amongst students but in a safe space because our students aren't feeling safe right now in be to be able to um Express their concerns and their fearful of um experiencing anti-Semitism and islamophobia and so I I'm wondering what you the school system is doing

180to ensure that everybody feels safe secure and included in our schools so I think at this point we've put out a statement um a couple weeks ago um related to um the topic you're referring to at this point we put out a statement we've worked with our um school principals on statements uh and are responding to community members as uh we receive information and I think the key is going to be continuing to provide communication and being clear that we're not going to tolerate hate speech or violence um on our campuses that we need safe learning spaces our core Mission as you know is education and we want to make sure we focus on safe learning spaces and uh providing those and ensuring those so that each of our students uh feel welcomed and respected

181on our campuses thank you thank you uh Miss Keys gamara yes thank you thank for uh this report I'm hearing a little feedback I'm not sure if it bothers you guys but I think we're good we're not hearing it okay great um so Dr re um Dr ricardi did um referred to one of the things I wanted to talk to talk about with respect to clear communication around facilities and um what we were told in the cpdc meeting as you know we've been working on the engagement process is that we want to have translation but we don't always have it and I'm hoping that you can put it on your radar as to perhaps there needs to be um um I don't know if it can be available virtually or in another way but in

182in my particular business if you don't have translation services and people are present who want to participate then you don't have a meeting and I understand that's that's harsh but I'm wondering are we exploring other avenues to make sure that that particular need can be met we certainly can absolutely we certainly can explore other avenues for that so so I'll make a note of that and uh see what's possible yeah I iate that I as we have extend conversations in the last night there was significant concerns uh that entire swaths of a community could be eliminated that process when we're trying to build up engagement um so I'm I'm happy to work with moving forward for as long as I'm here and perhaps Beyond um the other thing that stuck out to me in that

183meeting was that there would seem to be in terms of our facilities a two- week period for um uh notice and and sometimes longer and so um this isn't necess probably not something you were aware of but the committee will be recommending that we standardize that time period um I think I want to look at two other things one is effective communication and and some of my colleagues have um alluded to this or perhaps discussed this and so I'm wondering what accountability measures we can set for ourselves to make sure that we're one not just reaching the same people all the time um that those who need interpretation services are actually being included and encouraged to participate and is there there accountability measures in place or that you're looking at that can help us to

184be able to know how effective our communication is being so I think great question I think the let's talk tool that we're working on implementing right now in several departments uh will help us get to that um and I think if that's a uh a key and I it's part of our Equity commitment then we're going to have to identify tools that are going to enable us to be more clear and more transparent with you and the community on our ability to reach um all of our uh family members and stakeholders so more to come on that I think that's a discovery we're going to need to be on this year I I know it's ongoing work um and I appreciate the efforts that have occurred uh thus far but um I'm I'm concerned that

185our community is becoming more diverse and um you know I think we plan as to how we're making sure that we're having effective communication as that growth takes place uh the last category I I want to deal with is the the the misinformation that can occur and a plan to address that I was at one of your community meetings this week and I always appreciate that um and I know you don't like to correct people and and that's very polite um but I also know that other people in the room are hearing the misinformation so I I just throw this out there for For Thought um because I worry sometimes when information that is incorrect is is stated publicly and uh others don't have an opportunity to get the accurate information then people go and

186repeat that somewhere else right and can create um I don't know something we have to go back and correct when um we didn't deal with it the first time it was s yeah I think that's a fair point and on the particular topic I think you're referring to was a committee setting thresholds around title one and I honestly in that moment I was uh had to think is there a committee that is thinking that's what they're doing right so um I think if it's a clear like no I have to make sure we say something because you're right otherwise it gets repeated um so I think that's that's good advice for sure I just I just offer thought because I know it comes my office hours and I'm sort of there trying to think where

187did that come from um so at any rate I I offer that as possible way to try to make sure that we're not only communicating but we're communicating effectively and we're con we're uh addressing the narrative that impacts all of us yes ma'am thank you thank you Miss Ames thank you um I definitely want to be a little bit more thoughtful and I know that we've built in some time uh with this new process to have the next step situation um but I for now I just wanted to emphasize some points that were uh raised maybe take a different flavor on them uh you know Dr Reed what what we do with language interpretation I think is just outdated at this point I've brought it up before that one budget year we looked at a

188very um cursory overview of just what the needs are and it was 98 million dollar short of what we would need to meet the um needs of our families and I mean we're you know we're talking it should be to the level where schools have immediate access to that kind of thing a newsletter that's sent out to the school Community some of our schools are more than half Spanish speaking I mean it's it's insane that that's not available uh immediately you know at all times on the at the school level and that's just Spanish I mean there are so many languages spoken by our families in significant numbers um so that's a key one that I think we have to make some progress on um um even to the point where I mean ideally in

189a system this diverse we would have even our Schoolboard meeting broadcasts like being multiple you know like offered in languages and whatnot um but let's start at least at the school level and then I think on that intentionality piece and consistency I think that you've done a great job with some reorganization in our division already and I know it's a fine balance with change management of like what how much how fast um but I do think that some reorganization reorganization or consideration of that internally could be useful we have different Community Partnership silos in our division you'll have the you know office family Partnerships and then you'll have this random other office doing Outreach and then the schools do Outreach and so it's kind of like who's doing what right we're totally doubling up on

190resources here so I think some thought there would be well worth uh your time in in the remaining time that you have for this year's evaluation um and then I just had questions about uh you know making sure that in this climate in all times that kids have a means of reporting discrimination and I know that that's something we've talked about making sure they have that tool I understand you know again was supposed to be deployed this year perhaps hasn't been I just wanted to ask for an update on where we are on that so currently where we are is on the wiring of the backside of the system and that's that let's talk tool so there is a process for reporting concerns and what we want to do is capture the reports and so

191we're wiring the backside of that so that we're able to uh capture and collect those reports in real time so all the reports right from any um Source uh and in particular wanting to make sure that student reports are captured and addressed so I think it's um right now it's a process of making sure we have that backside work done because we're not what we'd like to do is be consistent and how those reports are made so that we can look at patterns perhaps across the division um and make sure that we're able to provide resources and support in real time okay when can we uh I've been very patiently waiting and asking extraordinarily patient um I would think um let me see what we can do by the end of next week in terms

192of getting you in next week's Friday letter sort of the what I would call the functional path of what a report looks like where it goes and How are um cataloging and maintaining it and addressing it no I appreciate that I mean I think this time more than ever right I our kids are experiencing all kinds of stuff absolutely um okay thank you y thank you Mr M Mr frish thank you for the thank you for this report couple things um page eight uh let's talk um thank you um my understanding is that this will soon replace uh client communication that uh for the I mean it's already replacing it elsewhere in the division that it will soon replace or eventually replace it in the School Board office the number of times that Schoolboard members

193have been locked out of being able to deal with their constituent Services because client communication is down for the afternoon or whatever um you know I've heard very promising things from the people who are already using let's talk and I'm excited for our Schoolboard offices to be able to have something that is uh more current and you know technologically savvy uh to deal with our constituents um so I'm looking forward to that rolling out further second um you mentioned the new website that's being worked on to help us connect with our families um I don't know if you mentioned that there will be a mobile app component to it um uh and it's good to hear the focus on accessibility one thing as we um you know design this path forward that I think is

194important I know the interviews are underway with different uh facets of the school division and the school Community to determine what is needed for the website um one of the things that's been most frustrating has been uh going to a school website and finding no pertinent information about what's happening in the school Community you'll find that information in their newsletters every single week they'll send out the information but it doesn't make its way to the website so if a parent or Community member wants to see what's going on at the school um and they're not signed up for the newsletter they're just not finding it and so my understanding is that the technology we're looking at for the new website allows a central mechanism for updating these websites so that they're more up to date

195um I think it would also be worth considering how do you Empower individual schools to uh understand the importance of keeping this information current on their websites um so hopefully we can look at that and then finally the Family Resource Center um both chair Tolen and I have had lunch at the the center with our center staff they are incredible um and they do tremendous work and they maintain a really great library of resources for families um one thing that I've talked with them about um that I'm eager to see if they'll try out uh is taking their show on the road and doing um you know mobile um Resource Centers in the various pyramids around FCPS so that they can take it from dunloring to the community great so I I'm very encourag encouraged

196by the direction that we're going um your community conversations are Testament to the willingness to listen um and I think that's how we start this conversation thank you thank you okay thank you um I have just a couple things I was going to point out um to follow up on Mr F's comments about the Family Resource Center I noted in the report that you gave us that um one of the things that they are doing is supporting and collaborating um in the implementation of our opportunity neighborhoods right and so that just made me um make that connection with our recent conversations around Community Schools exactly um that and this is just one piece um you know in this whole family engagement um report where you know as we're moving forward thinking about Community Schools and

197how we could possibly Implement them most efficiently and effectively you know let's make sure we look at all this great work and figure out how it could be ped or combined or made even more efficient to um provide those kinds of resources to our students um you know one of the things that you mentioned in here too I will make a note about is um just keeping the board informed of concerns um repeated concerns and of course additional data information Etc that it comes up in some of these presentations um you know I just want to thank you for being so um careful about doing all of that um you know sometimes it's a bit overwhelming when you open as a board member open your email and just see you know what's going on but

198I I I do feel like I I know if there are safety concerns issues whatever across the whole County um and I think that's very important and I um thank you for that and for your very thorough now Friday letters right so thank you very much all right thank you thank you okay um as a reminder to board members and it's kind of get back to Dr Anderson's question um you have a next steps document um in your folder and we'll follow our usual timing for next next steps documents um that you've got the three business days so up until 5:00 p.m. on October 31st first um to enter anything that you want to enter in there and then um an an additional three days beyond that to go back in and just log in

199your support or agreement on you know anything that other board members have put in there if you also want to use the electronic form um based on what we passed tonight you have the option to do that um and that gives you an opportunity to just make additional comments or wonderings or um you know questions about the um the executive expectation report and those we will just have due um we're thinking at the same time that we have the um the next steps um comments so that's Friday November 3rd so and we'll send this all out to everybody just as a reminder um the next agenda item that we had listed was the policy review for ex executive expectation three um relationships with families and Community stakeholders um since the board um earlier this evening

200passed this motion under agenda item 4.01 um deferring this policy review of the executive expectations we will not be handling this agenda item tonight okay now we are moving on to agenda item um 6.01 an action item for fiscal year 2024 revised budget I would like to call in Dr Anderson for a motion thank you I move that the school board approved the revenue and expenditure adjustments as detailed in the agenda item is there a second second thank you Miss Corbett Sanders Dr Anderson would you like to speak to your motion yes please um this action will provide a 2% raise for our teachers bus drivers instructional assistance principles central office staff all FCPS employees it's important to be clear about how FCPS is managing this compensation increase the state's calculation metrics place a greater

201burden on our on divisions such as Fairfax County the total cost of the 2% raise for all employees in FCPS is $3.5 million the state provides about 5 provides exactly $5.3 million or approximately 177% of the funds for this 2% raise therefore FCPS needed to raise 25.2 million to actualize the 2% adjustment that is not a state match but rather the funding burden rests largely on local funds this lopsided formula continues to be a part of the board's legislative agenda and I know we're looking forward to an opportunity for that to be corrected a state budget amendment um a recent state budget amendment resulted in FCPS being allotted $14.4 million as reimbursement for support positions due to the flexibility allowed with those funds the $14.4 million is being allocated to the 2% raise the remaining

20210 .8 million will be coming from Staffing Reserve at this time typically such action would have been posted for new business and voted on at a subsequent board meeting but the limited notice and timeline provided by vdoe required for the board to both present and act upon this this evening which is a departure from normal board practices at this time I would like to invite Miss buron to provide additional clarification on the posted document before I conclude my remarks Dr Anderson I'm not sure what else I would add because you pretty much covered everything that's in my notes I think there were a number of inquiries regarding the Staffing Reserve impact why was that flexible for us to utilize if you can speak to that a little bit since we didn't have the benefit of

203additional discussions um this recommendation repurposes 10.8 million in Staffing Reserve currently we have about 190 positions remaining in the Staffing reserve and that the Staffing Reserve as you know is budgeted every year and for fy4 310 positions were included all of the original positions included in the fiscal 24 approved budget were distributed to schools in an attempt to ensure early hiring due to the national teacher shortage so the Staffing Reserve was depleted by the summer of 2023 so we recommended that an additional 200 positions be funded uh at year end and that was approved on August the 31st again right now we have about 190 Staffing Reserve positions remaining because we did not exceed the enrollment projection in September which at the time we were concerned about um which is why we proposed the additional

204Staffing reserve the recommendation assumes that the value of 100 position positions or 10.8 million be repurposed for the 2% salary increase we believe we will still have ample positions um about 90 should additional staffing needs arise this year although normally few positions are allocated after October because of the potential disruption of adding teacher positions once the school year has started um typically after October we allocate about 25 positions thank you Miss Burton just to conclude my comments um I do want to say oops I hope that my colleagues will be in support of this motion as we heard earlier from several speakers how we spend our money is indicative of what we value additionally I ask for continued consideration for differentiation compens compensation for staff and hardto fill Fields such as special education where the

205number of vacancies are numerous also as we heard tonight in Title One schools where a staff turnover tends to be uh more significant while the 2% raise is a start it is clearly insufficient in ensuring our professionals are compensated at their full value nor does it bridge the gap enough for our family Liaisons drivers IAS and others to earn a wage that allows them to reside in Fairfax County so I'm looking forward to your support thank you Miss C Sanders yes thank you madam chair I'll be brief this is a a motion that allows us to retain teachers at the status quo essentially because this 2% is being enacted across the state and we cannot afford to not adopt it however I do want to bring people's attention to the importance of continued advocacy and

206work at the state level because the jlar study was very clear that we fall below all of the neighboring states in state level funding for public education k12 and the greatest needs are in the area of special education and our um students with free and reduced meals who um are not necessarily addressed in the state um the s soqs to the level that we need them to be additionally we were very excited about the concept of fully removing the support cap but it's not clear in the budget language that was adopted in Octo or in uh September that that will be a permanent relief of the support cap and so I urge my colleagues to support this this measure tonight but to advocate for the state to address the um the needs that were laid

207out in the jlar study thank you thank you Mr fresh thank you um I think Dr Anderson and Miss Corbett Sanders for their detailed explanation of why we're here um and have this unusual timing um not only as Dr Anderson indicated because of the unexpected procedural changes by the Virginia Department of Education but also because of the uh very much delayed um budget legislation from the general assembly and the governor um but here here we are nonetheless and I support this 2% raise because our teachers and staff are the backbone of our school system uh and this vote follows three years of pay increases for all staff um in our school system that the board has prioritized and if we want to retain and recruit world-class Educators and School staff um we must comp continue

208to have competitive compensation um we're just beginning the process of developing the school systems uh 2025 budget uh with Dr Anderson as budget chair and Miss Corbett Sanders as Vice chair and I'm hopeful that we will do even more to demonstrate our appreciation for these dedicated Educators by further increasing pay to address the national teacher and School staff shortage uh in addition to increased pay I think we must continue to find innovative ways to make um the work of our Educators and School staff a bit easier um and you know to be clear teachers and School staff deserve a lot more than we're giving them uh in this pay increase um but this vote is a step in the right direction and it shows that we value their hard work and recognize their dedication to

209our St our schools and our students so I will gladly vote yes thank you mRNA Kofa yes just briefly I too support this two% raise um for the many reasons my colleagues have stated um I do want to point out um as corpit Sanders did the jlar study that's been out there this is not something new for those of us that have sat on this board for many years this uh the points made in this study about Virginia being on one of the lowest paid States for teachers in the United States is an abysmal statistic to hold and um we for years have known that it is our local Revenue that is even getting us the Minor Adjustments that we get this 2% is different than that um and so I will support it but

210we cannot continue to be last in the nation of this and with with the pay for our teachers in particular so um it is something that we will continue to fight for those of us who are on this board to The Bitter End with our state legislators and those who may be moving on you will be hearing from all of us okay I don't have any other board members that would like to speak Miss Miss tol I'm so sorry I had forgotten to ask um Miss Burton to also inform us of a question if I may have her complete that Miss buron can you talk with us as we're talking about recruiting and retaining teachers what it what is the action of our neighboring school districts um when it comes to this work um yes

211based on our conversations with the the finance Folks at the neighboring jurisdictions um Alexandria Arlington Prince William and Lowden County are all doing a 2% increase on January 1st and you know one of the things that you should know is that we've you know of course been looking at the 24 salary schedules of the air neighbors compared to Fairfax and for fiscal 24 we rank four of eight wavy participants in the bachelor's Lane and we rank seven of eight wayy divisions in the Master's Lane so it is imperative that we at least main maintain what they're doing as well as you know ideally be able to have that as a priority in the future thank you thank you Dr Anderson um I am very happy to support support this um increase in pay for our

212staff um I as as some of my colleagues have said it's not enough we know it's not enough but at least it is one small way to show our appreciation um to our staff I do want to also thank um Lee Burton and Alice Woodington for um preparation of these documents um I know it was a short notice um you know given what Dr Anderson explained with our timeline um but I did find and maybe this is after two years of working with you on the budget that I immediately had some questions and as I dove into it all of my questions were answered um in the document so thank you very much for preparing this and putting this together so with that oh miss Marin you added yourself to the list please go ahead

213thank you I'm very glad that Dr Anderson explained the math that's involved in providing a 2% raise to our staff that is more than well earned and deserved and I do hope that the state can be more specific when it talks about what a match is while it's great to have a little bit of money having 177% is not a match by definition or in in actuality so um I also want to just put out a plug for the other things that the School Division can do to support our staff by ways of compensation U particularly around leave I was talking with a 30 30-year veteran teacher in our school division yesterday and she relayed the need for flexibility in using leave so for instance must it be differentiated between sick leave and annual leave

214can't we just you know treat our staff as professionals to use the leave whether they're sick or they need to go to a family event or they have something else so I would I would love to have the superintendent consider that and then also I've heard um over time about reinstating the job share option where you know two staff members can share one job especially as people have become a accustomed to more flexibility and working from home and people want to be with their kids and their family and they don't want to be in traffic you know what can we do and especially when we're trying to get in as many people as possible doing job share where people can work part-time and uh get a living you know a living wage at a part-time

215rate I think these are things that we can do um especially if the state is not going to provide in actuality true matching funds so we can fully fund our Educators their worth I'd love for the superintendent to please consider that uh going forward thank you thank you Miss Marin okay so with that I would like to call for a vote on the motion U which is displayed on the screen um all those in favor Miss cobt Sanders Dr Anderson misset kofax Miss Tolen Mr frish Miss Marin Miss om um Laura Jane Cohen Roger Heiser Karen Keys Kamar and Stella parari and with that Madame clerk would you please announce our vote the vote is 110 it passes thank you thank you okay number seven consent agenda our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure Roberts rules

216we're good seven um provide for a consent agenda listing several items for approval of the board by a single motion many items listed have gone through Board review and documentation has been provided to all board members and the public in advance items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member prior to the meeting the consent agenda items are on the screen is there any objection ction to approving the consent agenda hearing and seeing no objection the consent agenda is approved agenda item 8 point agenda item eight new business the following are new business agenda items there will not be a vote on these items this evening but action is scheduled at a future meeting the new business items are on the screen screen agenda item nine board committee reports

217there are no committee reports tonight um agenda item 10 board matters besides oh missmer Heiser I'm happy to skip it given the late hour but I didn't know if you want a report from PEC because we did meet this last time absolutely so I'll be very very brief just that the public engagement committee met and we discussed um um the final touches on the advisory committee handbook now that we have our strategic plan we um went through and aligned it with our strategic plan and um excuse me made a few um edits and so it should be coming to you and to the vice chair um within this week to schedule for a work session so we can take that off of our agenda after two years of working on it and move on we

218also got a little preview of some thoughts on the website design redesign so it was a great meeting and we're going to move on to talking about our um committees the next part of that Forum topic so that was my report fantastic thank you moving ahead okay moving on to board matters I call in Miss C Sanders thank you madam chair I wanted to thank the business community that so often steps in when a child or a school needs supports this week I want to give a special shout out to day violins the Day family family have been stalwarts in our community sharing the joy of music education with thousands of students in our bands orchestras and one-on-one lessons over multiple generations and this week Dave violin stepped in twice for the schools of the

219West pic pyramid co-owner Jenna traveled across the county to support the community in which her husband was raised and her sister-in-law teaches I want to thank you secondly on a more serious note I want to extend my prayers to the community of lewi toown Maine as they deal with the terror which was re which wre havoc on their Community during a youth event at the bowling alley and a local uh restaurant here in Fairfax County we've had a couple of incid where students made threats about gun violence parents I implore you to speak to your children about the impact of these caress words on our community these words bring fear to our fellow classmates and the staff in a building I had many members of the community reach out to me and share the fear

220that their children and colleagues shared with them with that I would like to read one comment in particular and please bear with me having dedicated over 15 years of my life and my teaching career to the students it is with grieving and disappointed heart that I write these words unless you've experien it experienced it yourself no one will ever know the thoughts and feelings that go through a teacher's head when those dreaded words come across the PA system teachers follow lockdown procedures first there's confusion sets in and you ask yourself is this a drill was this scheduled did I miss an email and as your brain processes these thoughts on in fact uh the fact stands out that your principal's tone of voice there's no emotion no intent intonation and just monotone then you act

221you go through the protocol you've practi raced over and over again you call out to your colleagues did you know about this is it real who's got the front door the back are we okay and as you go into shelter out of the corner of your eye you see the police cars lights flashing more cars than than you've ever seen before on a school campus oh God is this real hurry hurry silence the phones text Mom keep your heads on straight calm stay calm over and over reminding yourself the cops are here I'm not hearing any gunshots please dear God let the officers figure this out and 16 minutes of agonizing takes place before you hear a voice a key in the door as the handle Jingles oh thank God it's an officer clearing the

222room a sign of relief we know now that that was a prank a few days later the tears start the numbness is gone and it hits you you are grieving you're grieving because 1,400 children lost their innocence in mere minutes and for the parents who wake up in cold sweats and you're grieving for yourself and your colleagues there's also disappointment the disappointment in the lack of check-ins with staff on how they're doing as parents many of the members of this board check in on family and community members in the aftermath of tragedies tonight I ask parents to speak to their children about the dangers of these senseless pranks as they call them I'm asking the superintendent and his and her leadership team to ensure that we check in with staff when they're faced with these

223type of threats and we need to ensure that we honor our commitment to creating and presenting preserving a caring Culture by making sure we do the follow thank you thank you Dr Anderson thank you for that just my notes um one of the things that I wanted to raise in my board matters tonight is um concerns that both Mr fr and I heard in visiting with false Church students which is the fact that the cap of the AP I'm sorry AP and IB exams is at six and some students are more ambitious and would like to have the support that we provide with having the additional assessments be paid for at this time they do have to purchase uh and pay for themselves um any assessments beyond the six and for some of our students

224that really presents a significant challenge because the fees are um $98 I'm really hoping Dr Reed that based on the conversation we had earlier and and elevating it here that we're able to find some accommodation to offer Equity to our students and being able to reach high and Achieve and having our support to do that I also wanted to talk about some school visits that I um engaged in in the past last couple of weeks had the opportunity to visit a music class at anadale Terrace um where the enhanced autism class was being led by Miss Linton who is such a fabulous teacher and goes above and beyond and is trying to learn and grow in music therapy strategies to use for her students so that she can differentiate and be involved in the IEP

225goals that students don't have in music but could have in music as they do in um adaptive PE and so I'm looking forward to having that conversation with you Dr Reed I have not yet it's really just I think a fascinating um space for maybe for fex County to be a leader because we don't have um music goals typically I also observe a very unique program last night at annandelle high school an organization called stop child abuse Now scan has been providing the strengthening families program for 5 years under anou with FCP PS the program is a 7-week interactive series parents and teens they work with facilitators to build communication skills and to strengthen bonds through games projects and discussions last night's curriculum focused on peer pressure the students were in one room engaging with

226the facilitator and the parents were in another room also having that discussion with the facilitator but from their perspective and then coming back together to really build understanding with each other it is such a rich opportunity um for our students and families and this was entirely LED in Spanish um there will be other sessions that are in other languages and maybe English but last night's session was in Spanish and our family liaison are so integral to the success of this program and so kudos to them for doing some for engaging in such a meaningful way um with the community the strengthening families program is a collaboration with scan administrators family isons food pantry liaison and nonprofit organizations um and I think I've already read that um dinner and child care was also provided for the

227participants and it's really a time for the families to commune and they don't typically get that time but they do during these Series so I wanted to make sure that Dr Reed you were aware of how impactful that program could be and how many of our schools really need um such supports um also talked about Mr fr mentioned earlier we attended home we attended homecoming at FAL Church High School it was fabulous Mr frit was on top of the pyramid um with the cheerleaders he was [Music] not but it was just a great time the Jaguar Spirit was hard to quelch because even though there was rain they were out there cheering and really drove the rain away it was really a great time and I also want to say thank you to Mr Powell

228and the staff at Glasgow Middle School for the terrific Inspire conference and I had the opportunity to present with Mr Powell and engaging with the community and ways where they can benefit um and support their children like every single parent they just want to know what are the tools what are the strategies so that our students can be as successful as possible so I appreciate the time that the staff puts into that because this was a very early Saturday um but it was worthwhile because our parents and students benefited thank you Anderson thank you um Miss Keys gamara would you like to participate in board matters I would thank you just give me one second I I wasn't sure the order you were going through but I do have something I actually like to give

229a really quick let me turn my camera on if I can just give you a quick report because I like um our um other colleagues to know about cpdc we've had two meetings working on community engagement so just quickly the important thing is that we have been reviewing a document with respect to facilities to make sure the community members are fully have an opportunity to be fully engaged and we will be sharing that document shortly um with respect to my board matters um I want to say it's been fun to um run around the county I had an opportunity to participate in the hearnen high school homecoming parade as well as the um South Lakes High School um homecoming parade um and the South Lakes High School um race to benefit the the food pantry

230so miss Marin and myself uh were um people who helped greet some of the folks coming and we got to say Ready set go it was it was all very complicated um but enjoyable um I also had an opportunity to go to a couple of uh Dr Reed's Community conversations uh one was where we got to hear some employee concerns which was really helpful and then um was it wasn't last night this week I went to Madison um and we heard um significant concerns and I have to say I was very very proud of some of our students who were from Rachel Carson from all over the county um and they spoke eloquently to Dr Reed um about their concerns about the environment as they held up a a sign that said we are running

231out of time I think uh if we had been able to hear it as a board we would have all been very very proud that our students are educating themselves they're articulate um and they are really embracing advocacy um speaking of that I had an opportunity this morning morning to hear a review of the Lewis leadership program their annual report uh in a meeting and it was um I I was beyond overjoy to see uh young people who have really embraced the opportunity to uh develop themselves to serve their own Community uh one young man described his project which to re was to reach out to other young men to encourage them to participate in learning um so that was really really cool and I I hope that we all get an opportunity to hear

232um the progress that has been made in just one short year um I think that's pretty much it I do want to say that um I my heart goes out to those in Maine and those who are very concerned as doc um Karen cor Sanders mentioned from the various communities and so certainly I hope that we continue to support one another um I am very distressed that we are dealing with so much pain um and I do hope that we can make progress together and um utilize the resources that Dr Reed has previously lifted up uh on behalf of our families thank you so much thank you for uh giving me this opportunity Madam chair I wasn't expecting you to call me then but happy to go so thanks thank you very very much Miss

233seiser Heiser sorry I thought we're just going down the line so um well thank you I will be brief I um wanted to lift up a couple things I first wanted to mention that um I've actually been out of town and sick for the last week and a half but I wanted to mention where I was out of town which is at the college autism Summit and I was actually presenting um at the college autism Summit and I lift this up because I think it's really important as we talk about students with disabilities we talk about that transition piece and what are we doing not just to transition to the workplace what are we doing not just to transition to our great um programs at pulley Davis and step but what are we doing intentionally

234to make sure our students are ready for the challenges of college and that's the challenges of the different atmosphere at College which is still in some ways a very Zero Tolerance atmosphere the challenges of the executive functioning challenges Independent Living challenges negotiating with living in close quarters in in dormitories I I don't know how much we intentionally in our transition Services focus on that and I think it's a really important place to focus because the college retention rate for students with autism is 37% so 37% of students with autism Who start college finish in four years so I just wanted to lift that up as something really important especially when you consider I think it's now one in 40 currently have autism children in school so this is a huge need so I apologize for

235missing the homecoming games last week but this is where I was and I think it's important work to present on um what I would consider um really important thoughts for college administrators and I it was interesting to see the fact that there were zero K12 administrators at this Summit and I think it's something that we may want to look at either this or other ones of K12 administrators going to hear at the college side of what supports are like and what supports exist so that can help inform what we do on the on the school side so I'll just leave it at that I the last thing I just wanted to add is that um as our community is hurting as people around the world are hurting and as innocent people are dying I am

236hopeful that we can continue to provide a safe environment um where all students feel safe and comfortable coming to school where students and staff and the community can have difficult conversations in a respectful way and where we can support each other and um lift up each other's Humanity thank you thank you Miss I want to note October is Filipino heritage month and Cancer Awareness Month both of which are important to many in our community this week is also de muos when many of Mexican and other Heritage honor their ancestors I also appreciate and won't repeat the robust comments made about the main shooting lives over which we mourn just that I just as I did when mourning the lives of both in Israel and Palestine last meeting I would like to recognize the struggles of

237all our students loud and quiet minority or not Jewish Muslim bahai Christian or anything else Palestinian or Israeli our words and rhetoric have weight the emails we send out as board members have weight they can be a source of healing or a source of pain they can humanize or they can justify violence it's not easy for me to say this but it is shameful that four of my colleagues decided to send wholly one-sided statements that make zero mention not just of the thousands of Palestinian civilians killed of which 3,000 are children but of the harms felt by our own students students you all claim to represent and meet in our schools like the Palestinians abroad are they not human enough don't get me wrong it's important to call out the hate kid that hate the

238hate that kids are experiencing I'll be the first to say tonight that the Nazi swastika at South Lakes and the bullying in our County are abhorent and must be called out and I'm glad it was but in your deafening silence let me remind you we are seeing the results of dehumanizing Palestinians here at home it's not lost on our entire student population that a six-year-old child wadia was just stabbed by an adult he considered a friend 26 times screaming you Muslims have to die the instruction here in FCPS erasing Palestine or teaching it through ignorant and hateful commentary at the hands of our own staff across this County here in our schools is also abhorent it is institutional racism and Erasure about which our silence is complicit in this context I want to applaud each

239and every one of our students who have had C who have been courageous and taken a stand hundreds are joining in humanitarian walkouts across this County at Oakton High School a Jewish student wrote to me about this calling what's happening to the Palestinian people quote disgusting and disturbing holding a sign that says a quote a Jewish voice for peace he says I feel this way because I can't stand to see women and children Lo losses of their homes families and their lives my heart goes out to the Palestinians who have to deal with this every day may God be on their side during this difficult time against the state of Israel and his Palestinian peer at Oakton says 4 days ago my family was informed that while my uncle was at the market buying food

240for his wife and three young children he tragically lost his life by an Israeli air strike similarly my mother lost 10 of her close relatives grandparents Sons wives and children because of an air strike let us take a moment of silence to pray for our betterment and let us take a moment of silence to remember Wadi and all the innocent lives lost in the occupied territories of Palestine and Israel thank you Miss Baron yes I was at Madison High School earlier this week to attend Dr Reed's Community conversation and a very hot topic is grading and I know that came up today as we discussed um one of Dr Reed's reports and you know our students can't wait I'm aware that there's been a committee working on the grades for some time but the fact

241is that we need to have a a more specific grading policy in FCPS so you know as students are applying to college right now the confusion the emotion the consequences of students having different grading systems every year we cannot tolerate that as a border or a system so I do Advocate very strongly that the the superintendent worked to swiftly put in place a grading system that makes sense and supports our students U one Community member asked tonight why a Schoolboard member would respond to geopolitical events and the answer is because our community and Fairfax is the definition of diversity so when significant events take place across the globe we hear in Fairfax pay attention and some of us are intimately connected my heart goes out to our community here knowing that so many of us

242are impacted by the pain and suffering of hate and War education can help ease this pain educating children about controversial issues is hard but we cannot deem it impossible I've heard students and families asking for better education in our classrooms based on reliable facts that are presented from different perspectives and experiences and I know that teachers want to best serve their students in these times but they too need the guidance on how to do so and Grace from the community as they attempt to facilitate such learning the point point is not to get students to decide who is right or wrong it's to understand what's happening try to make sense and try to learn so the future can be better and more peaceful the communication I've received these past four weeks confirms that too many

243people in our community feel misunderstood unheard and disrespected addressing this is the work before FCPS and the community though if we want to provide our children with the strongest Foundation upon which to build their education in future I'd also like to address a more local issue um there is talk of a casino coming to rest which is home of the South Lakes pyramid and supervisor Walter alorn has stated his uh reiterated his opposition to such an idea uh this is being talked about because of laws that the general assembly passed but it is opposed by our local Reston leadership of Ron Association Reston citizens Association so I do want to inform the community that this is out there and it's something where voices are needed to uh maintain the communities that we have invested in

244I want to mention I also was at some PTA meetings in the last week at Carson Middle School and Langston Middle School I want to say kudos to the South Lakes High School students who we saw some of whom tonight performing The National Anthem they participated in an amazing production of Carmin barana which if you know it's a very complex undertaking and it was spectacular last night was the Vienna Halloween parade probably the best weather that's ever been on Maple Avenue and I always love to hear that Madison marching band uh lastly before tonight's meeting I headed over to the FCPS dyslexia open house as it is dyslexia awareness month and I'm glad the board was able to uh address that tonight as well as we recognize disability uh history and acknowledge that uh those

245contributions thank you you Mr fr thank you madam chair um earlier this month I had the honor of welcoming members of the Korean Embassy along with Dr Reed uh my Schoolboard colleague Stella pakari and former School Board member IL young Moon uh for more than a decade FCPS has received great grants to help support our Korean language programs from the government of Korea and I know we are grateful for their continued partnership uh since our last meeting I've had the pleasure of attending events with students and staff and parents around the county um about two weeks ago I spoke at the Davis Career Center's 40th anniversary celebration at Marshall High School and want to thank uh principal Chad Clayton for his work organizing the event um it was very well attended it was uh very

246inspiring um earlier in the day I met with Marshall High Statesman theater director Bernie Deo and the cast of Marshall's upcoming performance of the ly project which runs November 9th to the 11th last week Dr Anderson and I met with the student government uh as she mentioned at Falls Church High School uh we fielded really great questions about curriculum uh about the renovation project and a number of other subjects um they really kept us on our toes um the next day Dr Anderson and I also attended superintendent Reed reads meeting to update the community about the Falls Church uh High School renovation project where um we as a school system were uh eager to report that the the scope and intent of the renovation project remains intact um and we now have a lot of

247other questions to follow up on so we will be doing that in the days ahead also in recent weeks I had an opportunity to meet with the newly installed uh Marshall Road Elementary School principal Matthew Chapman uh and so certainly congratulations to him and uh special thank you to all of our principles uh since it is National principl month finally my staff Aid Beth Thompson and I had lunch with the team at the FCPS Family Resource Center which offers free webinars confidential consultations a lending library and resources to help adults support the success of their students um they really do incredible work and I encourage everyone to check them out and learn uh more about everything that they have to offer our families thank you madam chair thank you Mr frush um I too wanted

248to focus a little bit on um some incredible sustainability efforts I've seen by students um recently um Dr Reed and I um were at a conversation with the mle citizens Association um a focus on student questions and we had a wide ranging um conversation but it started out with um two two uh first graders in a daisy Troop that were very concerned about um how to reduce cafeteria waste and primarily how to you know save food in the cafeteria that is not being eaten so we shared information with them about you know other schools in the area that have um our you know food sharing programs Etc um but as you know we had at our Schoolboard meeting um a couple of meetings ago young woman from greyf Falls Elementary School also talking about um

249her interest in reducing food waste in our cafeteria so I did connect with um our new food and Service uh food and nutrition service director Mr Sako before I went out to Great Falls to meet with this um student and I was actually thrilled too to hear his long list of initiatives coming up um which is really trying to have us be more environmentally um sustainable um in our cafeterias and one of the things they're really looking at um and my student was super happy to hear about is looking at having bamboo utensils instead of the plastic utensils that we currently have and then of course the whole move to build up our scratch cooking and the bank of recipes and um one of the things they're doing very soon is launching scratch made grilled

250cheese sandwiches um eliminating the plastic wrapped pre-made sandwiches that we have so we're making making some progress but I'm really proud of our students um bringing all this forward too um our lanly um I'm sorry our drainville area um PTA leaders met last week and um our um parent leison from Langley High School um Julie Therman gave a bit of an overview for everyone about the role of family leasons and how family leison can work with ptas ptsas Etc to help them um reach out to our families um she discussed the um monthly Ally Saxon service opportunity which I really want to highlight um in October we had 350 students participate um during this service project that is um done during um Saxon time and um her description of the number of the types of

251projects students are working on got all of my PTA leaders across the the whole drainville District super excited about trying to emulate a a program like this so if anybody else has any questions about doing something like that just let us know um I would just like to mention that tomorrow I will be sending out a newsletter and it will um feature a story about a young man I met at greyf Falls Elementary School um who's doing um some excellent work um on artwork to promote bece and this is the sixth grader um once again a young person has showed me the caring and kindness that we all need to exhibit to make sure our school Community shows the care for one another that all of our students and staff need I am honored to

252work every day with these young people thank you this meeting is a j