FCPS School Board Meeting - 2/23/23

001foreign good evening everyone the board is currently in closed session and our meeting will convene at 7 15. foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you all right foreign thank you [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign this February 23 2023 regular meeting of the Fairfax County School Board will now come to order please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance a moment of silence and a performance of the national anthem by the Spring Hill Elementary Harmony Ensemble under the direction of Deborah Rudd flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God and liberty and justice for all the dogs [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] the ones [Music] foreign [Music] I know [Music] [Applause] thank you Spring Hill that was beautiful

002agenda item 2.02 certification of closed meeting in order to comply with section 2.2-3712d 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 February 23 2023 to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully Exempted from open meeting requirements and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the board in the closed meeting do you have a motion Miss Corbett Sanders is there a second miss omish all those in favor please raise your hands that motion passes with this McLaughlin away from the table agenda item 2.03 announcements Miss McLaughlin is absent this evening if you would like to review a copy of the agenda

003and 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 backslash School Board backsplash backslash board docs tonight's meeting is being broadcast on channel 99 and live streamed on the website at fcps.edu backslash TV backslash Channel 99. I call on Miss togby for an announcement the National Education association's read Across America is an annual reading motivation and awareness program that calls for every child in every Community to celebrate reading on or around Dr Seuss's birthday parents teachers students and members of our community all come together to celebrate the joys of reading and to encourage it to become a habit schools schools are places where every child is welcome and encourages students to delve into diverse books from diverse authors that

004will appeal to an increasingly diverse student population National read Across America day is on March 2nd and it is a day to celebrate being able to read so head to the library curl up on a couch or just become a bookworm thank you Miss togby agenda item 2.04 resolution honoring Public Schools week the board would like to invite each recognition recipient for a photo after the reading of all the recognitions I call on Miss Tallinn for a resolution whereas the Fairfax County School Board expresses support for the designation of the week of February 27th through March 3rd 2023 as public schools week and whereas this year's theme hashtag here for the kids brings together families Educators and community members to shine a light on public schools and their partnership with parents to ensure success in

005the classroom on the sports fields and in the Arts and whereas the Fairfax County Public Schools offers over 1200 High School offerings 34 advanced placement courses 37 International Baccalaureate courses 40 dual enrollment courses the AP Capstone and IB diploma and whereas the Fairfax County Public Schools Career and Technical education program prepares students for a wide range of post-secondary experiences and careers with a core program of CTE courses offered in every middle and high school including business and information technology family and consumer Sciences health and medical Sciences marketing Technology and Engineering education and trade and industrial education as well as offering six specialized high school academies offering Advanced Technical and specialized courses in cyber I.T computer science Automotive culinary arts education construction trades entrepreneurship nursing fire fighting and EMT Dental careers biotechnology criminal justice JROTC cosmetology

006engineering TV media production fashion design veterinary science and more and whereas the class of 2022 had a graduation rate of 94.2 percent and reported earning over 145 million dollars in scholarships for college and whereas Durham Public Schools week the school board honors roughly 181 thousand students and over 25 500 dedicated employees working in 199 schools and centers and now therefore be it resolved at the Fairfax County School Board expresses its commitment to our students families Educators and staff to prepare students to succeed in a diverse and changing world I so move is there a second I'll second Miss bakarski Miss Tolan would you like to speak to your resolution yes thank you just a couple of interesting statistics if you didn't already know um public schools in the United States as of 2021 there are

0079 98 577 Public Schools 76 percent of all schools in the United States public school students there are over 1.2 million public school students in the united in Virginia just in Virginia and last year there were 3.3 million public school graduates across the United States the hashtag here for the kids is a nice tagline but it really gets to the heart of what we do here in Fairfax County we work to provide each student a path for them to make the most of their strengths and guide them to go beyond their challenges we provide parents caregivers and families a vital role in their students journey in FCPS we work together with our community to make Fairfax County a destination for families businesses and anyone joining us here in Fairfax County we know that companies relocate

008here in part because of our Fairfax County Public Schools Mr Frisch and I heard this firsthand yesterday at the Tysons development meeting we are thankful to our taxpayers our real estate taxes and sales taxes pay for our schools here in Fairfax County and we are thankful to our taxpayers and the Board of Supervisors for working with us to celebrate our Public Schools I just have to say as a FCPS parent my sons attended FCPS K-12 all the way through they were ready for college and the academic demands of college from day one I see our Langley students sitting here I've got one son that went through Langley um and now my children excel in their chosen careers I still think the teachers the counselors the athletic coaches the trainers and the Fine Arts teachers and

009many many more that helped my sons in academics and extracurricular activities that set them on this road for success and provided The Social Network for them to grow a strong healthy young men and contributors to our society and I hear many families in FCPS that say the same thing so thank you to our staff our students and our community together we have built a successful and strong public school system thank you Miss picarski I'd like to speak to your second sure uh good evening everyone I'm honored to Second this resolution in support of public education tonight as a first generation American access to high quality Public Schools was imperative to my future and not of my sisters indeed public schools are the Bedrock of our democracy David labry in 1997 an educational historian argued that

010there have been three overarching goals of public education in the United States since its Inception in the 1800s Democratic equality social efficiency and social Mobility a democratic equality goal aims at educating an Engaged citizenry capable of actively participating in a Democratic Society ensuring a world-class education for every child regardless of the zip code in which they live the language spoken in their home or their ability creates the greatest equalizer to opportunity and a path to their lifelong success we are indeed at a Crossroads when it comes to the future of our Public Schools we must continue to stand up to attacks that are eroding public trust reinvest in our Educators and students and Champion the ideals which they represent represent I'm proud to send my own children to our wonderful FCPS schools with our national

011recognition as one of the best school systems in the United States and I call on all of us Community parents teachers students to continue to and fight to fight to improve our Public Schools together whose doors are always open for all students and change lives for the better thank you Dr Anderson thank you thank you while much of what I wanted to share has been has been said I did not want to miss this opportunity to celebrate Public Schools as a former public school teacher as a former public school administrator and as an individual whose own children attend public schools in Fairfax County as was said public schools have become the great equalizer I'm not sure they begin in that way but we are certainly there now regardless of income level regardless of race language

012or ability Public Schools can be the place where I will most disadvantage students are able to springboard into the world to have experiences that are productive in the work world and in the college world so my ask for this evening is that we honor these public schools by doing whatever it is that we can to strengthen them fully fund them support our teachers let's not erode their expertise in the work that they do with our students our most precious Commodities so I ask us to continue to put forth every effort to support our public schools because for many of our students it is the place that makes the most difference in their lives thank you thank you and I will just Echo the sentiments all of my colleagues here today of of how amazing it

013is to have a strong public education system that provides every student the opportunity to find their best path to success and that is something that is important for our community for our society for democracy and really for our Humanity so I'm I'm pleased to support this resolution thank you and with that I will call for the vote all those in favor please raise your hands that's Miss Keith gamara Miss Marin Miss Amish Miss Tolland Miss Corbett Sanders Miss dear not Koufax Dr Anderson Mr Frisch Miss Cohen Miss mccarski myself that motion passes that is unanimous agenda item 2.05 National Social Work Rec month recognition I call him Miss Cohen for recognition as a proud aunt of a for of a soon-to-be School social worker I'm really honored to be able to read this one March's

014National School National let me start from the beginning March is National Social Work month and this year's theme is social work breaks barriers embodies how social workers help Empower students families communities and our society to overcome hurdles that prevent them from achieving better well-being School social workers are professionals who are trained to examine and address life's challenges in a holistic way they have expertise in many areas including mental health human development Behavior trauma and family systems School social workers in Fairfax County Public Schools use their training experience and skills to provide services to Children families and School staff members to remove personal and environmental obstacles for supporting student academic performance they are committed to helping every child achieve ensuring Equitable access and opportunity building relationships to strengthen student and family engagement and supporting mental health

015Wellness mental health Wellness to help students succeed in school and life thank you agenda item 2.06 National athletic training month recognition I call on Dr Anderson for recognition March is National athletic training month and it's a time to recognize the important role certified athletic trainers employed by Fairfax County Public Schools play in keeping our students safe this year's theme is there's an A.T for that it reflects the multi-faceted role FCPS athletic trainers play in promoting the health and safety of our student athletes before during and after practices and competitions nationally certified State licensed and medical professionals FCPS athletic trainers provide comprehensive athletic health care services including conditioning injury prevention injury treatment and rehabilitation services and FCPS high schools fcps's 44 athletic trainers consistently go above and beyond to support our athletic programs and without question

016our essential members of the fcps's activities program during the 2021-22 school year FCPS athletic trainers provided care to over 9 500 individual student athletes treating more than 19 700 Cuts scrapes bumps bruises sprains strains and fractures even when faced with unprecedented circumstances fcps's athletic trainers play a vital role in our overall efforts to support athletic opportunities for all FCPS students a short video will be played tonight in recognition of the athletic trainers please play the video now in recognition of national athletic training month the FCPS athletic training program wanted to shed light on some of the roles and responsibilities our athletic trainers manage on a daily basis hey are we good to go outside there's an at for that I need some ice I don't like go really bad in gym class there's an at

017for that what do we do if there's no 80 on site then let's go over our emergency action plan meeting AAP there's an at for that I'm a week out of surgery the doctor said I need to start rehab there's an at for that I didn't know this said necessary my Fairfield City there's no chief of that discover concussions there's an 18 for that actually acting up again yep there's an at for that I'm having left shoulder pain and chest pain and I looked it up on the other MD and it said I'm having a heart attack does that hurt yeah oh you have a rotator cuff screen there's an at for that oh Mr athletic trainer which stretches will open up my hip and make me faster there's an A2 for that before I

018need to be tested there's an at for that our athletic trainers also provide additional support to athletes parents coaches and staff including but not limited to those listed here talk to your athletic trainer today and see what they can do for you foreign thank you um Miss Cohen before I let drama just say a few words since I skipped over your chance to speak to your resolution I do I just very quickly I don't see her here Heather Murphy Dr Murphy where are you oh yes you're so far the lights are so bright um I do want to say I'm so grateful for the work that you all do I see it all the time when I go to Games Etc with my children but I had the opportunity last year to bring my daughter

019for us to watch her work there was track going on kids from all over the division and it was just so wonderful to know that you were there to take care of our students and I think there was tracking one field and Lacrosse in another and so the work that you do is so integral to having our students be safe on the field and I was just very grateful to have the opportunity to see you at work so thank you for the invitation and I'm looking forward to coming back again very soon to see you out this spring the rest of you athletic trainers thank you for all of your work it is highly appreciated and I'm so glad that this video shows that there's an 80 for all what all of what ails us

020so thank you again and congratulations on this week one before we take our pictures Miss Cohen if you'd like to speak um I just wanted to say thank you so much our social workers um there's not a list long enough to really Encompass what you actually do um your mediators your vital members of local screening and IEPs your trauma-informed caregivers and case managers and Specialists and you're kind of like flight attendants you tell us all how to navigate the system the ins and outs what we need how we can connect with outside services and I think the most important thing to me is that our social workers are such an important Lifeline for our kids our biggest goal is when our kids graduate that we're able they're able to identify at least one trusted adult

021in the building and I can't tell you how many times it's you guys so thank you so much for what you do we know that you shoulder a lot in your work for that and um we we would not be able to do this without you so thank you thank you I would like to invite the athletic trainers students and staff to please join the board for a photo at the front of the diocese and I ask that my colleagues remain at the Dias for the next two photos for our other groups that we're recognizing so athletic trainers come on down and those who are supporting them is there an at for that foreign [Music] me if you're here this evening in support of national Social Work month please join the board at the dies

022for a photo thank you [Applause] that was our final photo yeah Madam chair that was our final photo the next order of business is community participation speakers must limit the remarks to no more than two minutes in length at the conclusion of two minutes the microphone or video will be turned off school board members will be listening but not responding to individual speakers the school board will not hear statements involving issues that have been scheduled for public hearings such as a 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 refrain from using personally identifiable information in connection with an individual student or school-based employee additionally speakers should

023be respectful and observe proper decorum in their statements avoiding profanity inappropriate gestures shouting and comments that run counter to the spirit and letter of the school division's non-discrimination policy the school board welcomes community members to provide comments at its regular business meetings and public hearings on school board deliberations School related issues or particular topics all statements should be directed to the school board and speakers should remain at the podium until concluding their remarks as a reminder speaker substitutions are not permitted a speaker may not yield their time to another individual before or during their remarks shouting and outbursts from the audience will not be tolerated we are grateful for those who have come to speak to us today and we thank you for your cooperation Madam clerk please call the first Speaker our first speaker

024is student number one good evening my name is Caleb Ludlow I am a senior at Langley High School and I'm speaking here tonight on behalf of sanctioning boys volleyball as a high school sport so volleyball is the fastest growing team sport for boys and young men in the United States the game's popularity among young men has soared by 22 percent over the past five years in the total of the US not including Fairfax County volleyball is also considered one of the top 10 safest sports with the concussion rate being incredibly low but will still need our wonderful trainers to help with splinted fingers um and in my opinion when compared with the multiple other sports I've played it's one of the most positive in terms of cooperation and fun and team building there's been a

025recent push for boys volleyball and in an effort to make the sport official many schools in Northern Virginia have raised awareness by creating interest clubs this led me to start my school's interest club with my brother to promote the sport that I wish had been officially sanctioned when I was a freshman I was amazed by how supportive my school's Administration and girls volleyball coach were in allowing us to practice in our school's auxiliary gym and where our school's colors and names in the multiple Club competitions around here there's something special about playing for your school last year I played for a club attached to another school and after playing this year for my own School it is far more rewarding to play with your classmates and friends and wear your school's name I would I

026mostly want the interest club and team that I hope to start to become something more when I'm in college and I want all the young men in Northern Virginia to have the chance to play volleyball in high school thank you thank you our next speaker is student number two foreign and I'm a sophomore at Langley High School I'm also speaking here today on behalf of making boys volleyball an official High School sport So currently there are 73 high schools in Virginia that sponsor boys volleyball and in Northern Virginia as you probably already know Northern Virginia makes up 40 percent of the population of Virginia yet there's no schools in Northern Virginia that do sponsor boys volleyball so why is Northern Virginia lagging behind this fall I played in the Nova High School boys volleyball league

027with my brother Caleb which had a record high of 35 teams with more than 380 boys which is a whopping 200 increase from three years earlier while in this league I felt more positivity from both my team and from opponents than I ever have in any of the other sports I play such as soccer or basketball so how can we implement this in schools first to address the issue of interest about one year ago a petition was put out in Northern Virginia in support of making boys volleyball an official High School sport this petition garnered over 2500 signatures along with the 200 increase in the Nova High School boys volleyball league as well as many others who may have not expressed their desire uh for volleyball vocally there's plenty of Interest additionally boys volleyball would

028be inexpensive to implement in high schools because of the existing equipment from girls volleyball the additional costs could easily be covered by fundraising and player signup costs I've played volleyball since I was eight and I can confidently say that it has been the most positive Sports environment I've been a part of I've made great friends and amazing memories through volleyball as I'm sure many others have the decision to make boys volleyball an official High School sport would provide a valuable Community to so many and I truly hope you can help us to implement it thank you thank you our next speaker is student number three president of the woods and boys volleyball club I've been fighting for four years to have volleyball recognized as a sport and I'm still working towards that before I graduate

029this June there should be equity in sports and there clearly isn't um uh for me personally has been really exciting to see how volleyball has grown at Woodson uh my freshman year I always begging my friends to play volleyball with me uh I think I only had four other people play with me and if you know anything about volleyball that's not even enough to play a game um last year we had around 25 people and this year we have over 50 people which means we had to have three teams um what has really been great uh volleyball has given me the opportunity to be a leader and become friends with people who I otherwise wouldn't hang out with um in the end I it really makes you I wonder why Brill a bill Curran continues

030to tell us boys that we can't have a Varsity Sport and that I hope after this evening you'll all be asking him the same question thank you for your time thank you our next speaker is Teresa Kano I'm good hi um first of all thank you for letting me come tonight I've never done anything like this before um I'm a parent of a seventh grader at Glasgow and a fourth grader at Belvedere um and have been very interested in serving our community in the Mason District area in particular I've served on the PTA board and elementary school for three years and even when I'd outlived my term I still helped to volunteer within the community um right now we have a big decision to make about Middle School athletics um and I did hear that

031we were we were considering doing Middle School athletics initially basketball at the secondary schools and we in our area are really really pleading and praying that you will consider the Mason District area as one of the first schools to have a program like this as you know most of the schools if not all the schools in the Mason District are Title One pyramid schools with greater than 60 percent free reduced lunch kids um most families don't have the money or the means of transportation to drive or to afford to have their children play sports my daughter's fortunate enough that her parents can drive her all the way to Fairfax County two times a week to play basketball but there's nothing in our area that allows her to grow in that sport um because of this

032our high school sports do tend to fall behind competitively to other Fairfax County Public Schools and I also know that in particular the secondary schools already have a rising freshman program where they can participate as 8th graders in some of the Freshman teams so they already do have that Advantage within their school system not only do we have the financial and social limitations but we're also the only region with six seventh and 8th graders within our middle schools so we have the largest population of students in the middle school so we would have a greater need oh thank you our next speaker is Harry Jackson last month local Mother suparna Tata took a courageous stand rejecting socialism and championing American values days later activists for red for Ed several of them in this room at

033this very moment smeared miss dutta a Hindu American woman of color as a white supremacist a white supremacist here's a history lesson that we need here right here in Fairfax County considering the current board's acceptance of anti-israel anti-Semitism and its Embrace of One Fairfax with its equal outcomes Equity initiative and anti-merit socialist tenants incompatible with academic excellence socialism and democracy are not compatible in the name of socialist ideals of equal outcomes FCPS has been the news for withholding National Merit scholar awards from students and withholding honors designations from student transcripts at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology these actions clipped the wings of our best and brightest with a disproportionate impact along racial lines affecting our Asian communities socialism and the clipping of wings were two critical policies of the Nazi regime yes

034the Nazi regime under socialism the Nazis sought to achieve an equal distribution of wealth with party members and Wealthy Industrials receiving preferential treatment leading to the deepening of class distinctions as the wealthy continued to get richer the Nazis also sought to indoctrine Children and Youth into the Nazi ideology through their Anthem poetry literature and physical training this including clipping children's Wings Nazi officers physically restrained children from excessive movement or oppression to teach children discipline and obedience back then it was into instill in children a German national identity and loyalty to Nazism today it is designed to build social justice Warriors socialism leads to government corruption and mismanagement of resources fails to reward hard work and efficiency and lead to lack of motivation and Innovation with mental health and SAT scores plummeting is exactly this dumbing

035down society that we are seeing today in Fairfax County Virginia thank you our next speaker is Helen Miller my name is Helen Miller February is love the bus month coincidentally my daughter a junior in high school was almost hit by a driver as she exited the school bus at our stop last Wednesday by a driver who drove around the stop bus on the right side that is the side that the students exit on and onto the shoulder almost hitting my daughter she jumped out of the way just in time but the car barely slowed down with the help of Ms Tolan which I greatly appreciate these incidents have been confirmed by FCPS transportation and this car and driver were in violation of the law the driver is guilty of reckless driving Transportation found this because

036the bus has a side camera however they were not able to identify the car or driver why because the school bus does not have a stop arm camera which would have taken a picture of the license plate numerous other school systems large and small already have cameras why not FCPS I've tried to bring attention to cars blowing past stop school buses since 2016 and was told then that it's a community issue so the schools wouldn't send any schools bus safety reminders who will take responsibility for school bus safety then it's a community issue as I've been told but apparently no one's responsibility yet it's everyone's problem we need Community Action from everyone and we need a Communications and enforcement strategy stop burning cameras are an enforcement tool that helps extend our stretch police capacity and

037ID cards in violation at the source money has been appropriated for cameras the Board of Supervisors approved stop arm cameras unanimously in 2013 10 years ago as for communications here is a reminder on the law on roadways with two lanes two lanes with a center turn lane and four lanes All traffic in both directions must stop for a stop bus on a roadway divided by a median all Lanes traveling in the same direction as the bus must stop for Road stop the bus even if there are multiple Lanes you have the authority and you have the money stop delaying and do it now thank you our next speaker is Norma margales [Applause] good evening I've been informed that the chief Equity officer Naruto's King is conducting several focus groups to develop an equity strategy within

038FCPS that will be submitted to this board for your approval we all know that this board is the equity Crusader based on the several speeches and contracts that you continue to award to your federal Equity Consultants well yet when it comes to providing students with the tools to succeed this board has turned the pitch for example why are you not taking any action to implement the after-school math and Robotics Club so I propose to you several months ago you all know that education laws and the math Fields is severe particularly among students of color why you have not implemented any measures to address the lack of use by Hispanic students of turo.com you know that this service is scarcely used by low-income Hispanic students while you have not said a word about what is going

039on with the National Merit recommendation Awards Scandal Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology this week I send you an email a link to access the recent article by Miss astronomani with the four-year findings of 2 000 emails that prove that the principle Miss Amber notabus the director of student services Mr cruisarca some teachers and some counselors willfully willfully delay the notification of this important award why you haven't implemented a plan to integrate computer science from K to 12 from K to 8th grade you know very well that the students with disabilities such as dyslexia have the right to use on credits in computer science to obtain their diplomas instead of foreign languages the Virginia code prescribes these rights yet the students like lack the basic Foundation including vocabulary to undertake these classes starting

040at High School I guess this board prefers to award contrast for Consultants it is clear that this board thank you our next speaker is Lori Prendergast good evening thank you for allowing me to speak my purpose here tonight is to talk to you about the need to recognize boys volleyball as a Varsity Sport in Fairfax County as many of you may or may not know volleyball as a Varsity Sport is actually a sanctioned sport through vhsl in Fairfax County for some reason it is not a recognized sport I am a parent of a senior he just he just spoke a little while ago he's been playing since fourth grade I'm also the head coach of the underground Woodson boys volleyball program it has been amazing experience to see this sport grow so quickly in the

041region as my son mentioned four years ago we could barely muster a team we were begging borrowing stealing players as we could this year we had over 50 players I actually had to turn players away at one point we had three teams this is not unique to Woodson this is across the board at every single High School here in Fairfax County now we have been working at least myself other people have been working for six years to have our athletic director approve this as an as a Varsity Sport we have been met with denials stonewalling ignorance phone calls not returned refusals to have meetings for most of my players they are this is not this is the only sport that they have some of them are from broken homes this is a great way for

042them to have an outlet for them to come that they would never really have an opportunity to have it's camaraderie and teamwork and I'm asking the school board to give Bill Curran a call ask him why he's denying these boys the access to an incredible sport that is growing not just here but nationally once again I just thank the board for the time thank you our next speaker is Steve tunley I'm the father of a 2022 graduate of South Lakes High School is now a freshman at the University of Virginia where she's majoring in chemical engineering when she came home for the holidays in December I asked her about her first semester she said she that she had gotten a 4.0 GPA and it was the easiest four months of her life how could that

043be I asked she said that the IB program at South Lakes had been so rigorous that her first semester at UVA had basically been all review of what she'd learned in high school I picked up my son tonight from soccer tryouts for Herndon High School I saw white kids and African-American kids and Hispanic kids and Asian kids laughing fist bumping high-fiving each other and generally having a great time in 10 plus years of attending Fairfax County Public Schools events I've never seen a fight never seen a shoving match never heard a racial slur ever seen a boy acting inappropriately with a girl it's a much better world than which that which I grew up in I've got to believe at least some of that is because for example anti-bullying campaigns from elementary school and other

044social and emotional learning programs that are taught in Fairfax County Public Schools indoctrination I don't believe indoctrination is happening and frankly I don't mind teachers sharing their opinions on political and social topics with my children I believe my children benefit from hearing from different political views cultures religions and I'm not threatened by that I don't want my children to be exactly like me I want my children to be better than me in closing I'd like to thank from the bottom of my heart every teacher and other Fairfax County School employee that have in some small way contributed to my children's educational social and emotional development I couldn't be happier thank you our next speaker is Kevin Engel Kevin endo our next speaker is silk fundaro foreign ER and I have been driving bus for Lake

045Braddock for the last six years I would like to take a moment to thank Dr Reed to recognizing us bus drivers yesterday during the strategic planning meeting in meant a lot to us thank you so much it was um bus driver appreciation day yesterday the last time I spoke to you I spoke to you as an individual tonight I would like to address you is the chair of bus driving attendance advice Council you heard from two of my colleagues at the last meeting who wished to voice their own opinion on collective bargaining I speak for the ones who have elected me to do so and by the rules of our bylaws um this fall many of our peers started to ask questions about collective bargaining and even reached out to now retired representatives of the

046teams for answers few were given many of my peers started to approach the team Representatives like me and our Council we decided it was our on our best interest for everyone in transportation to give them the option to speak their thoughts and reached out this is a very simple and non-biased Survey to gather information via we approached our best resources our diverse group of co-workers and get help to even translate that into seven different languages in English to make it easier to understand from the 49 that responded a rather good turnout for surveyors done quickly in the very few resources 70 percent expressed their wishes to have their own voice heard if you had the chance to to be included in the work team earlier or had the chance to educate our co-workers on collective

047bargaining the numbers probably would be higher thank you all for your patience and your willingness to listen to all of us we truly appreciate all of you thank you our next speaker is Diana Smith Diana Smith our next speaker is Dion Dixon good evening between 2019 and 2022 the average SAT scores in FCPS fell 33 points from an average score of 12-18 to 1185 while it might be convenient to blame the global pandemic the national average only fell by nine points and the Virginia Statewide average actually Rose five points during the same period also during this period the reading Sol pass rate dropped from 81 to 79 percent mathematics from 86 to 74 percent and science from 84 to 72 percent you have lost focus on your purpose here this County's quest for equal outcomes

048for all is a race to the bottom we are all born with different gifts different skills and therefore different abilities in life pursuing equal outcomes for All In Math Science literature and social studies can only result in the top performers being stunted in their progress while the less gifted set the pace of instruction everyone is forced to learn to the level and at the pace of the least capable pupil in the class equal outcomes did not produce the internet the iPhone or the electric car equal outcomes will not produce a revolution in green energy or navigate us through this economic recession what physicist author or Statesman will fail to make their great breakthrough because you denied them access to Advanced academics in your quest for equal outcomes if children are not encouraged to continue to

049excel in areas where they are gifted why would they continue to put in the effort if they are rewarded the same no matter their level of effort they quickly realize that maximum return on their work is achieved by contributing the least anyone who has studied history knows that this philosophy is unsustainable and portends the collapse of even the mightiest Nations the evidence shows that you're helping no one thank you our next speaker is student number four our next speaker is David Hatcher so board members aren't we all so proud a relatively new district superintendent is now a national rock star for endorsing racial discrimination local TV stations newspapers wire Services CNN Fox and the UK Daily Mail all Herald her instant stardom first she supported the brain dead campaign against Asian American kids and others

050at several high schools keeping National Merit scores and achievements hidden now showering a sole source contract on her confidantbai half a million dollar sole source contract less 10 so he could unveil his equity-based centered strategic plan when Equity remains amorphous sole source over four hundred thousand dollars any audits to measure success hmm now I learned we have a new experienced Chief experience and engagement officer whatever that is and something I'll learn more about in future speeches we know Dr Dr Reed is merely following predecessors Dr Karen Garza resigned abruptly under a conflict of interest Cloud took a job with lesser pay at an FCPS vendor and placeholder Scotty braband whose misguided coveted decisions led to a severe drop in s.a.t scores among our kids dropping 27 points in four years National National scores averaged about

051the same flat in Virginia other places Rose 14 I predict you'll long regret the comment equal outcomes for every student without exception some of us see that as code for critical race Theory racial discrimination and cultural Marxism but hey good material for future speeches what do you think you'll you'll be called by the school board for thank you our next speaker is Vanessa Hall you get to me hi um I'm Vanessa Hall I have two kids and FCPS in the Woodson pyramid I wanted to say that I'm thrilled to see Excellence equity and opportunity as Pathways to success for our students seeking the best for each and every one of our kids is essential to Preparing them for positive life experiences both in and out of school however I really want you to think about

052the definition of Excellence during strategic planning meetings many have felt that Excellence is not well defined or its interpretation can be exclusionary especially when success is typically measured by standardized tests or includes classes that are inaccessible to many Learners if we measure Excellence via test scores or the number of National Merit finalists we produce how can kids who test poorly like my dyslexic daughter ever expect to achieve Excellence for example did you know that state sols are administered registered in English for our English language Learners therefore we're not testing their subject matter ability which is why you see that students with more years of English do better on the sols all students deserve Equitable opportunities for excellence Beyond a test score I ask that we look to Excellence in the broadest sense it is the

053quality of excelling or being one's very best that means that each and every student is given an opportunity to achieve Excellence regardless of background income ability language or gender if we focus solely on test scores then we leave behind disabled dyslexic English language Learners and so many others to achieve the goal of Excellence Equity comes into play giving each student the support and resources they need to succeed Equity does not bring anyone down rather it recognizes that we do not all start from the same space and that additional resources can bring every student up to ensure that they have the opportunity for excellence in school and Life Equity is a critical tool for excellence and thank you all very much for supporting it thank you that was our final speaker we also have one video

054testimony submitted by Heather grinberg my name is Heather and I'm an FCPS school bus driver of over 16 years I and my colleagues have already spoken at length to most of you about the intricacies of our jobs as they pertain to collective bargaining so tonight I'd like to talk instead about what's simple from the code of Virginia section 40.1-57.2 c as presented to the collective bargaining work group where no collective bargaining resolution has been adopted employees in a unit considered by them to be appropriate May initiate a request for bargaining we've presented to the board the results of a survey sent to Transportation staff showing that over 70 percent of respondents would feel best represented in our own unit a simple amendment in section 6A of the draft resolution for bargaining units number four transportation

055pretty simple and if that Amendment were made what would happen next the resolution would still pass we hope that would still happen I think the administration unit would begin the process of choosing their Union that would still be the same instructional staff would go about beginning to choose their Union yes that would still be the same a slightly smaller operational unit would start working on choosing the union that they would like that would be the same and then Transportation staff would start choosing the union that could best represent us that's it us choosing the association that would best represent us does nothing to harm or detract from any other unit it makes you wonder how anyone could be opposed why would you be what Dominion does any other bargaining group have over us in our

056needs we are adults professionals and we are telling you that no one knows what's best for us except for us by the way that same survey showed that 95 percent of respondents in transportation want collective bargaining to pass in some form so please I'm asking you to pass collective bargaining but do so with the one simple amendment that we are asking for I thank you thank you agenda item 3.02 strategic Plan update I call on Dr Reed for the Strategic Plan update so thank you madam chair thanks Laura for bringing this up um it's my pleasure this evening to provide an update to the board uh the first round of community forums have been completed uh beginning on January 30th we've hosted 12 Community forums it's been a very busy month since then and I

057want to thank all of you who've attended those we've had I think a great turnout we've had 325 people across the county that have shown up in an additional 250 who've utilized our let's talk connecting feed to provide input I want to say that we're going to be hosting a additional Community forums this spring and we're going to continue to work to provide feedback to inform the plan finally I want to thank all our community members family members students and Educators who participated we have over 150 staff members who either facilitated or were part of organizing and planning in addition to the 325 so close to 500 folks were involved in just a lot of work we have some key Milestones all day yesterday we had the core planning team and again a full house

058and thank you both to our chair and vice chair for attending the team by the end of the day we're able to craft draft goals measures and pillars which will enable the supports for our goals to be met and today we had our principals our central Office Team and admin team provide feedback on the draft goals measures and pillars developed yesterday so I want to also share that these are going to be provided and shared with stakeholder groups to solicit feedback with our alignment team and our faith-based team and we'll also be part of a feedback process with our parents families caregivers as well as staff the next slide shares the timeline for that feedback and we're really excited about the opportunity to hear what our community thinks about the work that really has been

059informed by tens of thousands of voices because as you recall we had close to 90 000 student voices as well as part of this conversation we're continuing our student voice meetings and our principals are going to be conducting um reality check topics based on the draft goals I encourage you and anyone watching to continue to keep up with our website our occr team has continued to do a fabulous job of updating all the data and the process register to attend a future Community forum and of course tune in to Thursday evening board meetings where you'll be receiving a regular update finally again we've had over 250 submissions to our let's talk app so I encourage community members staff or students to utilize that for further feedback and that's my update for this evening foreign thank

060you very very much Dr Reed um saying no Miss Tolan that's okay sorry I was just really fascinated by the reality checks can you just talk a little bit about how that works like they're checking those things how does that feedback get back to the does it go back to the core planning team like how does that work so what's going to happen in the reality checks is essentially there are a variety of modalities for that but it's really what it's says right it's a check on the reality like we have draft goals now draft measurements from which those goals will be measured and draft pillars which provide those supports for us to achieve the goals so the reality check is going to be different groups saying does that resonate with what they believe the

061direction of the division in terms of our 2030 North Star goals ought to look like and be able to provide feedback on phrasing framing different measures things that perhaps you know are a check-in and feedback and that information will go back to the core planning team as well as to you as a board at your next work session or Retreat where you're going to be looking at data received thank you Miss Marin yes I just wanted to share some feedback from the community based on the community Forum that I hosted was it last week you know I think it attracted people who perhaps hadn't been engaged with the school division before and it was just overwhelmingly positive people said that they learned a lot they enjoyed looking at the data although it was something a

062very different approach that they'd been in you know usually it's a q a or perhaps a PTA meeting they've been most involved in but people were just really invigorated and um just talking with one another so there was a thirst for that in the community I hope we can do more things to allow people to get together who might not usually get together and to talk about the real content of what's happening in schools thank you thank you Miss marinate I have heard in many ways it's an opportunity for our community regardless of perspective or point of view to come back together and engage in dialogue that really will lift up our student experience thank you Dr Reed and I will just take a brief turn to say I'm really thrilled to see this process

063I've participated in the virtual forum and I've also went to one of the in-person forums and I agree with what Miss marriage just shared that it was really wonderful to see people not just kind of hearing in a one-directional way but really digging into the data and talking in small groups and grappling with what do they want to see for our school system in a very student-centered way and what I really do also like is the checks because I think what I've heard from the community members is within the core planning team or in the forums what happens now do I get to see where all my work goes do I get to see how this gets compiled so I think having the voices of people and one thing I really appreciate is the people

064from all different perspectives and points of view coming together basing it in data but also basing an experience and being student centered in that way but many people have asked coming together to think about what our goals what our objectives what are those pillars that those build on and then see seeing you know the synthesis of all of that from all of these different voices to come back to say does this still kind of Meet the direction you thought were going so I'm really thrilled to see it I'm excited to see the board dig into this at our next Retreat as well as we um walk hand in hand with our community in this process and and get to the end where the board really works with you to take ownership of a plan for

065our system so well thank you madam chair I think the the strength in it will be the diversity of input and feedback so there's a lot of strength and diversity yeah um with that I see no other board member wish to speak so I will call on you Dr Reed for agenda item 3.03 academic matters thank you madam chair um this is a particularly timely topic and thank you Dr Presidio for noting that February 19th through 25th is engineering week celebrating engineering so we thought it would be a kind of a fun idea for the board and the community to think about Early Childhood which really is our very youngest Learners and having an opportunity to think about our access to steam Engineering in our early childhood special ed programs as well as our early

066childhood computer science so we have a short video I believe that we're going to watch about our youngest Learners engaging in engineering Laura one two three push steam is perfectly designed for pre-k the Pre-K is the best environment because the kids at that age it's their first opportunity to be at school most of the time and so if we can create an environment for them where they feel safe to make mistakes where they have Hands-On materials to explore it can really help them develop those creative incredible thinking skills oh it went all the way to what are those numbers I mean [Music] steam is just the acronym for science technology engineering art and math it's just a fancy way to say Hands-On learning with open-ended materials so steam materials can literally be anything that the

067kids are able to explore experiment with problem solve with so maybe we can use this with the Legos so today we were at the crane pieces and at first they weren't really sure what to do with them they're like there's a string there's a hook it has this wheel I'm not really sure once they figure out the mechanics of it through their natural exploration I was able to bring up examples from real life or from our curriculum ever seen something like this in real life before uh yeah I guess where he made an immediate connection to a tow truck and then it empowers them that they're coming up with the answer it's great for their social emotional skills as well because they're gonna have that confidence so when they're going on into school they know

068I can solve a problem did it work yeah yeah so what did you have to do to make it work house right there and rocks right here yeah growing up in school it was the teacher tells you the problem and then the teacher tells you the answer and you just have to remember it and you I never cared I didn't like school so naturally I became a teacher but when you're introducing these steam materials and they're having Hands-On learning experiences they create their own problems so they have an intrinsic need to find the answer for that they want to learn they want to know the answer they're looking to you to help guide them so this one spins these this one sends these how can you add these in so that they can spin and

069just seeing that growth and watching their minds work how can I figure out this problem and you can see them across their room and you're like and you have to you it's so hard because you love them so much you want to just solve the problem for them and I think that's all of our Natural Instincts like I have to just like step back and put my hands behind my back and say okay just don't see it just be just don't bother her you can do it given that space and giving them that time and the tools they are capable of amazing things foreign [Music] I think that the um the video really speaks to the excitement of the inquiry learning the making meaning uh the problem solving and want to share that this year

070as of this year 100 of our pre-K in early childhood special education students are also now engaging in Steam learning and this Milestone has been achieved through a partnership and a collaboration across the offices of Early Childhood Department of special services and our instructional Services Department I think that's really exciting for our youngest Learners to be exploring new ideas and have new experiences in a really safe space we're also excited as they begin practicing their portrait of a graduate skills because 15 years from now and Sloan you didn't put that in my notes that would be probably 2038 we're thinking this is represents a class of 2038. so we're excited about their future um graduate skills When I Think About Steam education and problem solving skills it's so critical to start with our youngest Learners

071the late sir Kenneth Robinson talked about our kindergarten students often could come up with over 250 uses for a paper clip while many juniors in high school when surveyed could come up with five so when we think about our very youngest Learners there's just a Fearless creativity that I think is inspiring for all of us and the sooner that we can really be thoughtful about problem solving and inquiry activities I think the better um let's go ahead to the next slide Laura please uh the impact again uh is tremendous um there are State and Division priorities that we've been talking about this evening and across the last several months through our strategic planning processes and in the Years prior uh here in Fairfax County Public Schools we know that the foundation of Early Childhood is

072critical we've included that as part of our fy24 budget request and believe that it's just essential that our youngest Learners come to school with these opportunities so with that I will end academic matters this evening wonderful um Mr Frisch thank you I've been to some of our elementary schools steam labs and they're fantastic I mean what was captured in the video is pretty accurate how are we going to expand that over what period of time so that every student has an opportunity to take advantage of of this are you talking about expanding Early Childhood or expanding steam Labs across elementary schools yes all right right so because it's an equitable approach to making sure that every student has access to this no it's absolutely critical and what's interesting I think is that one of the

073sort of buckets that has is beginning to emerge as a goal in our strategic plan is the importance of early childhood experiences and as we know here in Fairfax County we're only serving 30 37 percent of our income eligible Early Childhood Learners which leaves us quite a little bit of room to make progress I will also say that as the Strategic plan begins to evolve the critical thinking skills the creativity and problem solving and collaborative work styles that are a part of steam projects and Labs as you're referring to Mr fresh I think if that becomes a stake in the ground as part of the Strategic plan that's going to move along that progress in a significant way you mentioned the the Gap we have to close in early childhood education I think in a

074previous work session you said that your goal was that we would close that Gap be 30. correct what would that goal look like if it also included the types of experiences that we can offer those kids that goal again is related to our income eligible Early Childhood Learners would require approximately 40 new classrooms a year and our early childhood office as well as our instructional services department and cabinet with our facilities team continue to work through what those scenarios could look like we have to be pragmatic and not look at the Gap as too large to begin making steps and when we think of plans over time what we know is we need to phase in each year and have a benchmark goal so that we can continue to make progress doesn't happen overnight having

075said that I also think that when we think about Equitable access to programming it doesn't matter whether that program is in the classroom or outside the classroom as we've heard this evening it's really critically important to the development of our young people and future graduates in Fairfax County thank you Mr anakovax you know I can't let you speak about Early Childhood without saying thank you for recognizing this and for working forward and for highlighting this I was not even aware that we were having these steam lives in the early childhood um realm but also speaking to your earlier presentation um as you mentioned uh Miss eismoreheiser and I are on the core planning team and what I wanted to say is you know I I've been part of two core planning teams with a previous

076uh strategic plan that the board put together and now this one so I I have had that great privilege to watch the the teams come together in different ways and one thing I I did speak to Kenneth about yesterday I said what's very interesting to me the first meetings were were harder than they are now and so you are having very um diverse people with diverse thoughts and ideas coming together and understanding as they delve into the data as they look at what's before them coming together and saying this is what we need and there was a lot of synergy yesterday afternoon as we worked on our on our projects I not just by luck of the draw I picked my favorite color that morning which happened to be pink because I had it on

077and that was the Early Childhood group that I got here so so but this was a random thing so you know just working with that group of people hearing what you're speaking now I I just love seeing the dovetailing of what's happening because you're already listening to what you know is happening and we're moving forward and that's what we need we need parallel tracks we need to say this is what we're planning for the future but this is what we can do now and this is how we can incrementally move forward to that greater goal so thank you thank you thank you very much Dr Reed I'm very excited to see the work that you're doing as Ms Jenna kofek says we're building a plane and you're still flying it so I think that's wonderful

078thank you very much I will move on to agenda item 3.04 student representative matters and I call on miss talking thank you madam chair good evening and happy Thursday everyone I want to thank the students that were here earlier today to testify um your voice should always be at the table for the decisions that are pretty much made that directly affect you guys so it's always great for me to see students here and it makes me very happy that being said it has been a great last few weeks on Monday I was able to join supervisor sturge and Miss Corbett Sanders as well as the members of the Mount Vernon High School JROTC and local Girl Scout Troops at the Mount Vernon estate to lay wreaths we got to hear a bit about how George

079Washington envisioned the future of this country but we also got to hear about the background of the Mount Vernon estate and how much of it was built off the backs of the enslaved people there during the time so in addition the Girl Scout Troops also LED or also laid reefs at the memorial of those who were enslaved and later buried at Mount Vernon on Sunday I was able to join Dr Anderson at the McLean Community Center to hear from author and Pulitzer Prize winner Nicole Hannah Jones thanks to miss Marin who was so kind to not only secure tickets but to pass them to us it was such an amazing experience and I truly truly will treasure it for the rest of my life prior to the Q a I was able to have a

080couple conversations with a few of my peers at Lake Braddock and Edison about how the documentary really taught us about how the contributions of black Americans almost touched everything that's here today and it's I'm just really grateful for the experience and I'm so glad I was able to go last week I was able to attend the mental health Town Hall that was hosted at Lewis High School it was such a powerful conversation but also a really needed conversation the questions that students were asking were questions that kind of always been in the back of my mind and I'm sure the back of my minds of some of my friends and classmates in attendance we had Dr axler secretary Cardona and Surgeon General Murphy I think something that really resonated with me was when the numbers

081from the cdc's report talked about how much kids were struggling we really were not surprised I saw a few shock books of this on the faces of some of the adults in the rooms and I was kind of surprised that they were surprised um and I honestly I really hope that that conversation is able to serve as a catalyst for a change within our own division when it comes to these mental health conversations and yesterday I was able to join our Sac members at Woodson High School as they gear up for their presentation to Dr Reed and the leadership team a big discussion that was had was the language within the SR more specifically regarding dress code and the delegates were able to express their concerns but at the same time we're also really glad

082to be able to communicate what they want to see in next steps so really big shout out to the speakers who are able to join us in addition they also had a conversation about the phone policy that was super candid it talked about a lack of consistency within the implementation across the county but they also talked about how they believed that the policy kind of works backwards and isn't actually as effective as it was hoped to be and I kind of just sat there and took all that information in because my own experiences with the policy of course like aren't the same experiences everyone across the county but something that I did realize was as I was kind of like sitting there and thinking to myself was that how are we supposed to have students

083learn and understand how to be independent and their own self-advocate if we kind of have our teachers in a way kind of serve as like babysitters during their lesson plans of like oh so-and-so wonderful in the back of the classroom let me pause my lesson walk all the way back there make sure that they understand the policy or tell them to put their phone in the phone Locker or whatever they called it um and I just I kind of realized how much of an interruption that actually is during my class time um personally I would say my biggest concern is that we categorize advisory time or study hall time what it might be called in different schools as instructional time which means that there's no phone usage when really in my opinion students are the

084creator of how they want to use that time if I want to go see my teacher during that segment of advisory time I'm allowed to but also if I want to do homework in my advisory period and listen to music or something I'm not allowed to do that because I'm not allowed to be on my phone during that time so I think there are many examples of this in this type of treatment and I think it's a conversation that we actually have to revisit in addition to the SAC meeting yesterday I was able to join the cord planning team strategic planning conversation each group was very passionate about how we developed our goals and our Visions for this process which was very energizing that is all I have for today but I will say I'm

085very excited to be joining Miss Cohen at Lake Braddock tomorrow I will be putting my stallion pride aside during my visit there and of course the next round of community conversations in relation to strategic planning I believe is going to be happening in March or late spring around that time period so please continue to stay up to date with that with the website to learn more and as always thank you so much for your time and have a great end to the week of CPS thank you Miss togbe Miss Marin I see you had your light on did you need to be recognized yes please if that's okay that's fine I just wanted to um validate what you're you're sharing with Tommy not that you need it but I'm just something came to mind where

086um I was meeting with Madison robotics students who spent 20 hours a week after school working on Robotics and so what you're talking about about students time you know I'm hearing that too like why can't students work on those things during the day how are we looking at time so I hope that we can look further into that Dr Reed and colleagues thank you Miss Marin agenda item 3.05 superintendent matters I will call on Dr Reed thank you madam chair and it's my uh great excitement this evening to announce we have passed our 100th day of school this year and uh we had quite a celebration across the division last week and we are in our 24th week of school it's hard to believe um since last we met I've been able to take in

087several athletic events I joined our Centerville Community to watch the Centerville and South Lakes basketball team's play is really an exciting game as well as the Marshall Community where the Statesman won a district basketball game over one of our Arlington High School colleagues so lots of exciting playoffs coming up as well in a variety of sports happened to be at Robinson Secondary school this morning and principal Tracy Phillips was proud to share that their wrestling team had just won the state championship again I believe for the third year in a row so they they were beaming I want to say that last week I had a fabulous visit to Cooper Middle School to meet with some of our middle school students who've really taken to Heart Community Service and providing supports for our neighbors in

088turkey and Syria who have been so dramatically affected by the recent earthquake and these young people are just working really hard to collect both donations of monies and foods and just everything clothing housing materials and I was just really impressed with their heart and their inspired work many of whom had family in that area during that time and I think just realizing that what happens in any part of this world touches people excuse me touches people in our own County and I it's you know it's just inspiring to see our students respond in that way speaking of other are impressive student stories I had an opportunity to visit Luther Jackson Middle School last Friday and principal Raven Jones and her students showed me around and I will say my most exciting time was in a

089hydroponic Greenhouse Engineering Group where Vivian shared with me the hydroponic work and I will tell you that for seventh graders to be doing Hydroponic and understand not only the hydroponic aspect but they actually are going to be putting live tilapia in a tank so that there's fish fertilizer that's automatically with two gallons of water they can raise the equivalent of an acre's worth of lettuce with two gallons of water a week so there are so many exciting things our young people are doing that I think is just altering I think the course of our world in so many ways um recently actually recently being today uh chair uh Sizemore Heiser and I also visited Laurel Ridge Elementary School as well as Robinson um and at Laurel Ridge it was really exciting to see our young

090preschool programs and our preschool autism programs and just have an opportunity to see our youngest Learners work on communication skills and so many other opportunities some incredible artwork and um just uh we were in another classroom a fourth grade classroom where they were doing a kindness project looking at the character trait of humility and I just thought what a powerful lesson to learn at a young age and remembering February 17th was National act of kindness day last weekend I had the chance on Saturday to attend the Woodson pyramid string of palooza and I've never seen so many cellos and violins violas on one stage it's a wonder we didn't uh do any uh anyhow there were a lot of students on stage and a lot of excitement in the crowd and then in the evening

091Robinson Secondary the middle school program put on The Adams Family and I will say it was a fabulous opportunity also just in terms of recognition want to remind folks that February 15th was school resource officer appreciation day and just want to give a shout out to all our school resource officers and all the work they do to keep our schools and our meetings and us safe and you know providing just a lot of service in so many ways quietly and often in a thankless way so thank our sros as well as our bus drivers who were here this evening National driver day and finally I think Ms togby talked about our Lewis High School visit with our secretary of education and our Surgeon General and just how exciting that was and Dr axler as well

092um I was very I know principal Smith uh kicked us off and just has such a deep commitment to this topic and I want to thank our board chair and vice chair as well as supervisor Lusk who attended that event we have work to do but there was a great energy in that room so that's what matters this evening so thank you wonderful thank you Dr Reed we'll move on to agenda item 4.02 school year 2023 24 calendar follow-on motions the next several follow-on motions were not voted at the February 9th meeting and yet postponed to today's meeting so I will start by calling on Miss Corbett Sanders for a motion thank you madam chair I moved to direct the superintendent to work with the county executive to develop a plan for the promotion of

093enrichment and or recreational activities that may be available to our students for our students to participate when schools are closed for professional work days and extended periods of time is there a second thank you Miss Corbett Sanders would like to speak to your motion amen excuse me thank you madam chair as you all know we spoke extensively about the calendar at our last board meeting and it was a robust discussion and quite a bit of it was about the impact of um some of our extended periods of time where kids aren't in school on our families and so this really is a partnership with the county in ensuring that our kids are given opportunities to participate in enrichment and recreational activities and provide some relief for working parents thank you Mr Colfax would you speak

094to your second I just appreciate Miss Corbett Sanders bringing this forward I think there are opportunities to do this just like there were opportunities before there were no middle school after school programs for a while and we got those together so I look forward to seeing what we can do in the spirit of One Fairfax to bring this together thank you Miss Marin yeah this in a matter of child care has been one that just continues to step be stagnant in our County um just recently there's a whole thread on a local Facebook group um in the honeymoon district and people wondering you know on the calendar days when there's teacher work days why can't there be school-age child care and people are saying Melanie what can you do and I said well it's the

095county and I feel like I've gone around and I know many of us have gone around and this system of where we have child care not to mention Early Childhood also you know just throw that in there in the counties you know Universe of things is it time to examine that because um the solution there has been no solution I myself as a parent sat on a sack list for my children and when I called and asked I was told there is no solution to expand space and that's just not we can't just keep saying to people there's no space so you know I had wondered too even if we you know there was talk of at one point reverting back to half day Mondays could there be you know um school-age child care or

096programming or something like I just feel like we've got to get innovated here and Dr Reed I think you're all about Innovation and finding Solutions but this has just been stagnant for at least a decade so I support the motion [Laughter] I was wondering Miss Tolan I am in full support of this motion as well and you know and I appreciate what Miss mayor is saying um it's a bigger problem even than what the motion is is talking about and just looking at our own calendar days um I was on a meeting this morning A Student Success meeting with um you know resting cornerstones in Herndon cornerstones and I heard it on communities you know a lot of community organizations that provide before school and after school care but then there's the issue of you

097know how do the kids get to the school from that location I mean on and on and on there's just all kinds of logistics and we had a long um conversation about how you know there were a couple School representatives and then all these County and not-for-profit organizations how do we all work together and communicate together across the organizations so everybody knows what everybody else is doing and we can support each other but they're just we need a concentrated effort on it because there's so many Logistics that are getting in the way so in the county our size you know there's it's great that there's all this stuff going on but it lends us to um you know some of the confusion and the issues so look forward to you know working on this thank

098you for bringing the motion thank you Miss Tallinn so you know the board members who wish to speak I will call for the vote the motion before us is on the screen all those in favor please raise your hand that motion is unanimous with Miss McLaughlin away from the table to that motion passes I will now call on Miss Amish for a motion thank you I moved to direct the board governance committee to work with the superintendent on developing a new calendar policy or to revise existing regulation 1344 to devise a comprehensive calendar policy that includes but is not limited to which factors are considered calendar criteria how they are prioritized in ways that are Equitable and fair what roles various entities play in informing the process and the timeline by which this occurs and

099to present this draft to the board early enough for it to be approved before any future calendar discussion or development thank you is there a second second Dr Anderson missile Mash would you like to speak to your motion yeah uh thank you I I think the this year's calendar process last year's calendar process are very obvious examples of the need for outlining what our criteria are uh indicating and uh committing to consistency around what matters and developing it uh and especially in centering fairness around how we do it I think that being able to codify that in a place that's clear and accessible is also transparent and and helps us arrive at our goal of ensuring we're keeping in mind all members of our community when planning uh in big ways like the calendar you

100know for some vacation is a great opportunity to enjoy some Recreation and luxury time for others it's a struggle with burdensome expenses having to worry about child care and dipping in the money that otherwise is not available the way we calendar is the difference between whether people feel included whether they feel like they don't belong so there are major implications for it and how it impacts employees on on all levels of the pay scale and certainly for uh our students and our community and how they experience uh school time or not so in prioritizing learning and recognizing what the needs are moving forward and and that our students need most I hope that we can be more thoughtful and intentional in developing these various components all four pieces and I know I'm confident that Dr

101Reed and her team will uh be very thoughtful in making sure that we do this better the next time so uh with that I hope that my colleagues will support this effort and I know I've heard uh support around the table at our various work sessions already oh and I want to thank staff for emphasizing the importance of this I know other divisions have examples uh Mr Smith in particular thank you for your work in in brainstorming this and I look forward to the collaboration that's going to happen to make this possible thank you Dr Anderson would you like to speak to your second yes I will briefly do that thank you to miss omish for this this is exactly the kind of policy that I've been yearning for as you all have heard me

102say last year this year the year before I have felt that some of our calendar decisions have not been clear and consistent and so this is an opportunity for us to not only have factors that help to drive the calendar but to prioritize it and to have transparency in terms of how is it that we've arrived to the decisions to which our calendar which our calendar illustrates because right now when I am asked I don't have these answers when I ask here I don't have those answers are not necessarily given to me so I think this is a great opportunity for us to really hone in on what is it that is driving the decision making behind our calendar I think we're way more than overdue in having such a policy will help to mitigate

103some of the time that we spend developing on the calendar and maybe not having three and a half hour meetings around it as we did just two weeks ago so I hope that there's support for this calendar from our colleagues I too have heard a lot of people feeling as if it's also overdue so I'm looking forward to the vote thank you thank you Miss toland did you wish to speak that's okay no worries laughs I was good at this calendar policy right so so you know the board members who wish to speak I will call for the vote the motion before us is on the screen all those in favor please raise your hands that motion passes unanimously with Miss McLaughlin away from the table agenda item 4.03 fiscal year 2024 2028 Capital Improvement

104program follow-on motions I will call on Mr Frisch for a motion thank you I moved to direct the superintendent to develop an annual School traffic and pedestrian safety Assessment program that addresses School traffic and pedestrian safety concerns resulting from severely congested kiss and ride lines bus traffic and other issues this annual program would mirror the capital Improvement program's method for addressing capacity deficits with a menu of potential mitigation strategies and an equitable queue of schools with the most pressing needs implementation timelines and an update on pending current and recently completed remediation projects is there a second I'll second miss picarski Mr Frisch would you like to speak to your sec to your emotion Excuse me yes thank you uh from Oakton and Vienna to Tysons and Falls Church School communities across Fairfax County face significant

105Road and pedestrian safety concerns that too often result in tragedy this motion directs the superintendent to develop an annual comprehensive plan to prioritize and address these critical safety concerns tonight's vote demonstrates this board's commitment to keeping our students families and staff safe it will result in an annual review of the road and pedestrian safety issues in our school communities providing a framework to prioritize mitigation projects it will make it easier for our board and the communities we represent to monitor progress and for our hard-working facilities and transportation staff to collaborate with our partners at vdotfc.fcpd and the Board of Supervisors in November several of us took part in a world day of remembrance event at Oakton High School with Fairfax families for Safe Streets at that point in 2022 vehicle crashes had killed 22 people

106on Fairfax County's streets and highways the most in more than a decade I went to the funerals of some of those victims students from Providence District traffic violence is heartbreaking for the friends classmates families colleagues and communities of its victims this motion will not solve every road or pedestrian safety issue we face but it is a critical step in the right direction and I am proud to offer this motion it is the product of numerous thoughtful conversations with staff and my board colleagues to refine its scope and broaden its impact for that collaboration I'm grateful thank you Ms bakarski would you like to speak to your second sure just very briefly I do want to thank Mr Frisch for working with staff to come up with what I believe is a very systematic way of

107looking at all our schools across all our districts we all know we have pockets of issues but this will give us a way to really kind of hone in our time and prioritize what we can do and use our resources effectively um Mr Frisch is correct it is imperative that we do whatever we can to keep our students and our staff and the areas around our schools as safe as possible thank you I see several board members wish to speak Miss keys gamara yes thank you I want to thank Mr fresh for um discussions regarding this and looking at this issue in a more comprehensive way um it is um critical I think as we bring issues to the Forefront that are of concern across the district for us to um utilize our resources to

108address the concerns in a way that can benefit as many people as possible so I know that's not where you started and so I just wanted to say thank you for moving the needle a little bit because as an at-large member I know sometimes I may have to poke a little to encourage and I thank you for um I thank you for this motion today and I appreciate your work thank you thank you Miss Cohen yeah I I too really appreciate it I was just sitting here trying to list out my schools that I think have a kiss and write issue and I ran out of paper um so you know a few off the off the bat that have caused some really serious issues and and especially where we have kids crossing streets at

109places that we don't have a crossing guard or we do at certain times but not the times when kids come my only request in this is when we say other issues I just want to make sure that accessible parking spot locations is a part of this we know that this year we've been really fortunate that we had a parent who brought to us um an issue where because of the kiss and ride line it it eliminated the ability to get into the handicapped spots and so then they couldn't drop their child off in a safe manner at all so I'm so appreciative of Mr Fanshawe and the team for reminting that super super fast as soon as it was brought to our attention but I know we can't expect everybody to bring that so I

110just want to make sure that we have an eye to that when we're looking at those safety issues and the only other thing that I would ask is just working hand in hand with the safe routes to school person because in a perfect world we are not have as many having as many people utilize cars we're biking we're walking we're scootering all of those things and so in in a per and using our wonderful buses for our bus drivers who weren't here but um and so I hope we can cut down on kiss and ride traffic that way but I I do appreciate just how comprehensive this is that the safety isn't just about kiss and ride but it there is just such a drop off and pickup issue at the vast majority of our

111schools so thank you for bringing this Carl thank you Miss Tolan yes thank you um thank you Miss count for bringing up the safe routes to school position it's my understanding that that person is coming on board next week so franchise that's right right it's something like next week we have a tall order for that person every time like Miss Cohen was saying I have a huge list of you know schools that have issues near the school with a path or um you know a a sidewalk that's missing where people are trying to walk our bike to school and so I keep saying that person is going to solve all these issues for us but I appreciate this motion um giving it maybe a little bit of organization around you know that work that needs

112to to happen I also um you know really appreciates um in my discussions with Mr fresh over the last week that he included bus traffic in there you know you heard from one of my constituents earlier this evening that we had um you know a near tragedy um at a Langley High School Bus Stop you know just last week and um you know that that whole that's part of our transportation system and um you know that's just another area that we need to be looking at as well so I appreciate you including that I think most of our districts are similar to drainsville and that we've got roads ranging from you know four lane highways with a median Town we've got cars getting on and off the Beltway you know two lane roads you know

113with horse trailers and you know landscape trucks and speeding delivery trucks you know on those roads and so um you know having some concentrated effort and really looking at these situations and coordinating efforts with our County and Board of Supervisors will be excellent thank you I will fully support this motion thank you Miss Corbett Sanders I do want to thank Mr fresh for working with me because um as he so eloquently said this affects every one of our districts across the county and uh not just our elementary schools but it's also important for people to understand that so much of our students safety is dependent on Partnerships with Virginia Department of Transportation who runs the majority of the roads in Fairfax County and so Fairfax can't put up a sign although I've had some suggestions

114of putting up our own signs and just winging it I don't think that that is something we want to do and so we have VDOT we have Fairfax County Department of Transportation we have the enforcement piece which is chronically understaffed and so as part of this I hope that we will also provide to our principals standard Communications mechanisms that can be sent out to our families about safety in kiss and ride safety on our streets safety about our buses because as we heard tonight we have had people asking for those and they had some principals send them out some don't so if we could have a standard Bank of Communications on each of these subjects I think would be very helpful and could facilitate some of this so thanks again and I will be supporting

115this thank you Dr Anderson thank you what a difference two weeks makes two weeks ago when we were here having this conversation I had a follow-on motion as well to address um similar issues at Belvedere and as Miss Cohen shared I could have listed many many other schools as well but it's the most egregious one because it spills out into such a major highway also two weeks ago Miss omish had a follow-on motion to absorb these two motions and here we are so thank you Miss omish for planting the seed and thank you Mr fresh for following up because it was helpful for us to take a look at this issue on a much more comprehensive level because it is impacting many schools throughout our division um one of the things that I do want

116to ask Mr fenshaw what I'm very excited about mirroring a CIP process I'm hoping we don't bring into this potential protocol some of the disadvantages of the CIP process which is school board members jockeying for position for the queue so what a how do you foresee having an objective measure to identify what needs to be taken care of first rather than having us again try to lobby for which one of our schools should be first in the queue and I ask this knowing you're working on a renovation queue process I want to make sure that we're carrying some of those Lessons Learned or the lessons that will be learned into this work uh thanks for the question um I mean we are very early in the process um but I will say that studying traffic

117and and pedestrian there are certain criteria that the Departments of Transportation go by and I think that's probably one of the things we're going to have to rely on as we rank or grade these sites so I mean I think that's I'd start with the the good engineering basis is the probably the way to accurately describe the problems that we might be looking at thank you so much I'm definitely looking forward to an objective set of criteria to determine um how we allocate limited resources I also know another issue that has been plaguing off schools is the reduction of the crossing guards um as they are exiting you know their tenure they're not being replaced by the police department can you speak to that a little bit Mr fenshaw uh I'd have to I'd have

118to get back to you because I'm I'm not uh up on the crossing guard issue okay well I'll please just keep that as part of your um as part of your work because as I was speaking with staff to determine what possibilities are there for Belvedere and other schools who have this experience of um kiss and ride lines Etc the lack of crossing guards became a significant issue in the fact that the police department was really reducing how they are allocated throughout Fairfax County so thank you and happy to support thank you Dr Anderson Miss Marin yes thank you it's um ironics we were just talking about school-aged child care and the role of the county and transportation is even more of a quagmire of of issues and I've been no stranger to it in

119the last few years I've had one parent get hit by a pickup truck on a crosswalking our kid from school a grandparent the same um and you know over my time I've seen sidewalks that are just all bumpy there's no way to walk take years to get paved over signage you know I think that you know this is another place where we've got to get clearer about who's responsible for what and time and money and who who owns the work and making sure it makes me cringe when I walk to a meeting with parents and community members and the principal is standing there with this group on a corner of the road that's our instructional leader and that person is now being tasked with being you know part of the traffic control and that is

120not our job and so the rest of the community needs to step up and take care of that so you know I'd love if this motion includes you know what's the maintenance time right we've got the condition of crosswalks the signage the lighting but then where's the regular review of what could be done to enhance things because we know more kids are walking they need you know more signage I also think that when we do renovation projects it's critical to be sure that the planning is done we had an issue where at McNair Elementary upper we had a gorgeous new building and the crosswalk was in a place where the community wasn't accessing it fortunately we worked with the county but it took quite a while to get a new crop to get a new

121crossing guard I will say too though we have to keep the communications going with our families because we can't have parents Crossing in the middle of busy roads if we've got crosswalks so that's that's that but the other thing I wanted to mention is a potential idea is you know an app for reporting maintenance needs I know the town of Vienna had had something like this and it was really helpful like you know there's a downed power line there is an out light maybe we could do that and take some of the communications that we get and just forward it straight to that maintenance so um so I very much support this motion thank you for putting it together and the collegial way in which you Incorporated our feedback it was really great thank you

122thank you so you know the word Moses wish to speak I'd like to call for the vote the motion before us is on the screen all those in favor please raise your hands Miss Keys gamara Miss Marin Mr mesh Miss Tolan Miss Corbett Sanders Ms darinette Koufax Dr Anderson Mr Frisch Ms Cohen Miss mccarski and myself that motion passes with Miss McLaughlin away from the table thank you all I would like to call on Miss Marin for a motion the board moves to direct the superintendent to develop a plan to update the Ed specs for renovations and new construction projects to include food preparation facilities that are most capable of delivering fresh and diverse food options is there a second second Dr Anderson Miss Marin would you like to speak to your motion this is

123a really exciting uh trajectory of what the board has helped put into place you know I think coven really dampened the progress that was going and bringing the salad bars to schools um but now the we've received a report from last year's follow-on motion that myself and Miss Corbett Sanders put forth really trying to get a sense of how can we get better food in our schools we know supply chain has been an issue but that aside during covid we know that our kids want good food and I was even at Marshall Road earlier and they have a composting program which is amazing which the PTA is paying because there's no way you could compost that amount of food on site but they're seeing a lot of cafeteria about food thrown in there not as

124much home brought food but the cafeteria food the kids are not enjoying and it is going right into composting that we now have ptas paying to responsibly take care of although they do we have a lot of schools that do Reserve unopened items and then donate that to to children and families and need which is wonderful but um you know I think that some really exciting steps are afoot and I welcome Dr Reed to share what those might be but this gives a broad enough approach so that we can talk about how to get better options how to get more diverse options we know our students with like Halal options so um I think this is a good next step and uh I'll turn over Dr Anderson thank you Dr Anderson did you speak to

125you a second oh I'm so sorry I thought you asked Dr Reed to speak at some point that's fine thank you go ahead Dr Anderson okay thank you I'm very happy to support this um this follow-on motion for the very same reasons that Miss Marin articulated we have a lot of possibilities in our kitchens we have a lot of Renovations taking place so hopefully some new construction and it's time for us to turn to talk about how can we have spaces that may be more than just reheat kitchens not necessarily from scratch but something in between that offers some greater Alternatives um to our students rather than what we're offering right now not just in the types of food that we offer but also the quantity of food that we offer because we've also heard

126here about how some of our high school students are lamenting the portion sizes it's just insufficient for them even our middle school students so I'm hoping that's also part of this option and also as schools are gardening you know the lettuce that they're growing right here at Luther Jackson which I hope you had a chance to taste um when you visited um their little lab back there um as schools are gardening as you know we visited with Miss peas and carrots throughout the openings of the um salad bars we just really need to have options that are also a little bit more reflective of the diversity of our student needs it's not just peanut butter and jelly anymore for us so we need to have a space that can help us grow into that as

127well as food recovery which is Miss Marin also shared this is a program that can be exponentially beneficial to our um to our community but we don't have the space or a process or even an intentionality to create an opportunity to recover food that is not being utilized that we could pass on to others so I'm very hopeful that this will help us to think a little bit bigger when it comes to our food options thank you Miss Cohen Empire here to sell compost in the spring from the schools um yes I just want to say that this is awesome and I think this is part and parcel of conversations that we've even had about expanding kitchen capabilities um at some of our alternative schools and centers which have definitely been not utilized at all

128and you know just one point to what Ms Marin said about the supply chain shortage I was just reading this article about a month or so ago that talked about that the school systems that had more fresh resources did not suffer from the same supply chain shortage issues and the rub is that those are not going anywhere anytime soon so I saw the other day went to Giant there's none eggs so you know I think you you you see that we go in these waves where everybody's trying to buy milk or eggs or and eggs are eight dollars and something you know a carton so I think if we can create in this huge system some something that's a little bit more self-sustaining and gives our kids opportunities as as Dr Anderson alluded to the

129number of schools that are doing these outstanding gardening programs and getting their kids involved we went to Centerville Elementary School a couple of weeks ago and they've Incorporated this whole system where kids have all of these responsibilities and they and eggs yeah and you know they have chickens yeah um I'm not sure which game first but they sorry um but it is all you think of all the science units that can be done around it you know all it is just amazing to watch how some of our schools here in core have Incorporated all of this and if we can benefit them by saying hey we'd like to use your lettuce this week um I just I think it would be incredibly cool so thank you so much for doing this Miss Marin and Dr

130Anderson uh something I'm really excited to support thank you Miss Corbett Sanders yes thank you um just a question about this motion because I do support it in concept my question though is um a lot of what we're talking about some of it goes into the Ed spec some of it goes into our Scholastic programming some of it goes into um you know how do we address some issues as far as what is the what are the food services and a revision of Our Food Services programs to have more fresh food so I would ask that this plan before it's enacted actually come to a work session with a comprehensive discussion about the peace parts of it so that board members can hear about it can have some input into it and really expand it

131Beyond just that Ed spec piece it's more of a visioning piece I think and I I presume that's what you're thinking right Miss Marin or would you support that goodness Maron you know we worked yes and we worked to really tailor this for the CIP which is so facilities based so there were more programmatic pieces that Dr Anderson and I and others are interested in so um perhaps that could be part of it but for the CIP we tried to stay within those parameters so could I ask Dr Reed would you be willing to bring this back to us in a work session to have a more comprehensive discussion about it doctor we go ahead okay um yeah thank you Miss Corbett Sanders and Miss Marin because I think we've gone back and forth on

132this follow-on in terms of its direct connection to the CIP um and I agree that a broader visioning around how we talk about our food and nutrition programming is also relevant so I think we can do both both the follow-on mission okay and um also the interconnectedness um the food web honestly right yeah thank you there is a forum topic pending around this food nutrition policy that play goes hand in hand with this follow-on notion it's Corbin Sanders did you Miss bakarski oh yeah you kind of stole my Fender I was going to talk about that programmatic uh um yeah we've got the Forum topic on school nutrition which I think will be a holistic opportunity for us to have a conversation so I think Miss Marin for being collaborative on that and giving us

133a chance to have that conversation in a work session and I think this really is specific to the CIP and where I do believe we are going to be ending up so why prolong the where we need to be so I will support it thank you thank you Miss Tallinn thank you um I am excited about this motion and just wanted to also point out that we have Ed specs for Outdoor Classroom spaces also at all of our schools that are renovated moving forward and we had the um you know State money that we're using to put Outdoor Classroom spaces in our schools that are not near renovation time and those Outdoor Classroom spaces will include edible Gardens so it's a number of my colleagues have mentioned it's a great opportunity to couple the work

134going on in those edible Gardens with our salad bars and what's happening in our cafeterias I do know that we're hiring someone new and food and nutrition services shortly and I hope that we will you know find someone that's going to be creative about um you know big picture pulling all of this stuff together and I do want to say I was at Hutchison Elementary School yesterday that is um it's one of our schools with you know 87 percent free and reduced meals 1100 kids in the school and so um you know it's one of our cep schools so over 900 kids generally go through that lunch line every day and the salad bar was mobbed I mean they were very organized about having the kids go through but it was taking some time so

135I'm really hoping that I understand that we're slowly slowly you know getting um very methodically the salad bars back into our schools but I hope for some of those really large schools maybe they can have two salad bars so just throwing that out there dream big anyway you appreciate the motion thank you mrnado Koufax yes thank you um maybe I'll take this opportunity to ask Dr Reed to talk um and um as I spoke to miss Marin um two weeks ago when this was here because previous boards have worked on the fresh food initiative but haven't gotten to where we are I know we are currently working with our partners at real food for kids and um previous members of the school board Ryan mcelveen in particular I know it has been meeting with you

136and the real food for kids people so if you can just give us an update whatever you want to share whatever you're ready to share as far as where you see that because that does contain this facilities piece and what your thoughts are on that thank you Mr Annette Kovacs and I really want to thank um Lee burden and Marty Smith as well and Maria Perrone for the work she did prior to transitioning to a new role in human resources and it's true we do have an executive director of food and nutrition posted and we're really excited about the opportunities to look at our food and nutrition program having said that one of the things we recognize is we have eight Central kitchens across the division and the current Central Kitchen at Falls Church is

137being remodeled right now and Mr fan Shaw and Mr Smith have worked with Miss burden and miss perone and our real food for kids Partners to look at equipment that needs to be purchased that would allow us to do scratch cooking within the Falls Church Central Kitchen which we then can deliver to the schools served by the Falls Church kitchen and we're looking to provide much many fewer processed foods and we're really excited we recently did a zoom video call with Boulder Valley is that right right Boulder Valley because they're really noted for their fresh food and healthy non-processed food protocols and we're really excited about we spent an hour on that column we're going to continue to work with them to really be thoughtful about healthy food because when we talk about mental health

138really a healthy diet rest activity all those things contribute to mentally healthy ready to learn young people and it's really important as well as our food choices we know we've had significant interest in halal food offerings and wanting to make sure that we're able to find stable resources for purchase so that our supply chain can stay current so we're working with Community Partners as well in that Arena so just really excited for the direction of where our food is headed at this time so thank you and thank you for working with them again and reaching out to them because it was something that was had a real momentum stagnated for a while so thank you for picking that ball back up and I will support this thank you and I will say as someone who's

139not yet met Miss p and Miss carrot but I'm hoping to meet them on Monday I am very very excited about this and there's also Mr broccoli no I didn't mean to leave out Mr broccoli I'm so sorry to Mr Brian broccoli's been popular it is a whole I will say broccoli and carrots are probably more of my favorite than peas but I don't want to insult Miss P but I wanted to say that I think I really appreciate the conversation around that Miss Corbett Sanders raised and miss bakarski and miss Marin around how do we have holistic conversations around some of these topics that include our Ed specs or include our Renovations that also include our policy and I think this is maybe a great way to put a little plug-in for policy governance

140that I know Miss Marin and I have talked about and others on the board have talked about where we have our operational expectations that you would regularly report to the board on and one of them could be around um you know food nutrition or student wellness and this could be part of what you report on so I look forward we have a a bit of a time set aside in a work session coming up just sort of start digging into policy governance I know the idea was to finish our strategic plan and then really dig into that work from there to build out from the plan but just a little plug that I think that would give us a I think you called it a steady Cadence for really hearing about these big picture issues

141so with that I very much support this idea and this motion I thank you Dr Anderson Miss Marin for bringing this forward and I will call for a vote the motion before us is on the screen all those in favor please raise your hand that is miss bakarski miss Colin Mr Frisch Dr Anderson mRNA Koufax Miss Corbett Sanders Miss Tolan Miss omish Miss Marin Miss keys gamara and myself that motion passes with Miss McLaughlin away from the table I will call on Ms darinette Koufax for a motion thank you madam chair I moved to direct the superintendent to bring a plan for Performing Arts Warehouse to be used to catalog and share sets props costumes equipment instruments and other related items I will second this motion thank you Mr Colfax would you like to speak

142to your motion yes yes four years now members of this school board and previous boards have been working to find a performance art warehouse this is needed to provide more Equitable experiences for our students and for promoting stewardship of the environment many of our schools produce the same show titles each year with rights and royalties costume sets props theatrical equipment schools and programs are sometimes spending between five and thirty thousand dollars to produce these shows primarily using their own generated funds through ticket sales and booster and PTA fundraising efforts but due to limited Space Storage in our schools after a production is complete set pieces props and costumes are often discarded as there's simply not enough room to host them these are valuable resources that could be cataloged stored and shared amongst schools saving on

143human and fiscal resources as well as promoting more Equitable experiences for students and promoting stewardship of the environment staff has previously estimated that this system of sharing storing and reusing could save FCPS up to three hundred thousand dollars each and every year I want to give a special thanks to our FCPS Theater Arts and dance education specialist Miss Tara Taylor who has been educating both board members and staff for years about this outstanding need in addition Ms Sizemore Heiser and I've talked to Mr fanchon Dr Reed about this long-standing issue and they have shared their support in providing us with the plan and we look forward colleagues to your support on this initiative thank you and I will just speak briefly as well because I think you covered it very well but this is a

144long-standing initiative that is both an issue that promotes equity and is fiscally responsible as it saves as Mr Colfax approximately three hundred thousand dollars a year but it really it to me is also equally important that it's it's promotes Equity it costs you know some schools spend fifteen thousand to thirty thousand dollars on building a set in costumes While others have five to ten thousand dollars many of the schools you know in different years perform the same musicals and plays and it would be very beneficial to schools to be able to share the sets the costumes the props it would help equalize where some schools have many more resources through booster funding to build more elaborate sets and costumes than other schools may have so it really helps equalize that this not only has an

145impact on the quality the production the students can perform but also on their ability to perform in what what I would call their Super Bowls and their Championship Games vhsl competitions the Cappy's Awards it does make a difference in the overall look of the production when you have our student critics come into criticize they talk about the production the lighting the sets all of those pieces so it helps equalize that field so more of our students can be able to be nominated and succeed lead in their Super Bowls and their competitions the vhsl competitions the Cappy's Awards and um so I really do thank Miss Tara Taylor who spent I think a year talking to us about this and and the equity is going to bring in many years before that with my colleague Mr

146Knight Colfax and others on the board as well but um and it's also I will say very environmentally friendly because instead of throwing away some of these sets we are storing them cataloging them and reusing them in a way that um you know promotes environmental stewardship as well so I'm very excited to Second this motion um I see myself go ahead Miss Orange uh thank you so much and uh I appreciate you all uh taking the initiative and bringing the idea um I guess I didn't necessarily have the opportunity I guess it wasn't posted last time so I I'm just wanting to hear a little bit from staff maybe just as background I um but you know this is I know we received an email like two days ago I think on this or I'm

147not I think it's still a worthwhile effort to learn more about so I just want to hear a little bit from staff about what it's going to require um so that I'm informed yeah thank you Miss Amish um I know that Mr panchon and I have discussed this topic and we've reviewed a plan it was actually a three-year plan I believe put together in 2015 um to do the very same thing we're discussing and I think sometimes things get stalled because they're competing priorities but one of the things that I think we need to be thoughtful about is we may not be able to find the perfect place right away but we can look at where could we begin the storage of some of the sets and costumes and so forth so Mr fanchon I

148um we support this and believe that it's an important Equitable access move because even just my you know my kind of moving around the division watching different shows we have so many talented young people across the board that really differentiated access to what I would consider sets that are built or props costumes that type of thing and I think it will really provide an opportunity to save resources that could be otherwise allocated and I believe that we think that we can at least put some stake in the ground on this as we plan forward so I think I think it's the right thing to do excellent uh well thank you both for catching that in that case and I look forward to you know hopefully things don't have to wait for a board motion to

149happen if they were waiting from 2015 but I'm grateful that they were brought to the fore thank you Miss Amish Miss kieskamara yes I I appreciate this um I I read it this morning um didn't have an opportunity to discuss it so um and I appreciate the idea of sharing our resources I think it's an excellent idea I'm I guess I'm wondering if the board will hear anything in follow-up to this I I I appreciate I believe this this is a request for a plan um I know in terms of things being Equitable oftentimes there are things like location um that may come into play whether transportation is available those sorts of things so is there is there a place for the board to kind of hear what your best thinking is in response to

150this and how this might work as a follow-up I would expect that um again this is sort of my first experience with follow-on motions but my understanding is that we collect those follow-on motions and then it's an expectation that you hear back about what happens with those follow-on motions so um I would expect that we're going to continue to do that work and at such point that the board would expect a response I would be responsive to that so I'm happy to provide an update ideally we would review things like this annually and kind of at a calendar time so that we know that this is the month we're going to review that give staff a Target as well to make sure as they are thoughtful about their work but absolutely I mean I hope

151we do more than just a plan I hope we actually begin the implementation of this oh absolutely I'm not objecting to anything I I just think in terms of I'm not quite sure where the need would be um and whether the locations where that are available would be close to the need you know I just kind of feel like uh go ahead Miss darinette yeah if you don't mind I I think what we're looking for and and we will I think staff can blue sky this better than I'm going to explain this now but what happens is after these Productions are done and they spend hours and monies there's no place to store them at the school so what we want is we want a storage place maybe several places where these pieces can go

152in bulk in parcel saving the woods saving the costumes saving all those things that we mentioned because right now you know my daughter was involved I'll just give you personal I tried to give costumes to places to people you know because she's done with her dance and they're like we don't have a place to put them we don't have anything so we are just looking for the very beginnings of this and hopefully in the plan it will talk about how you know we can have transportation assistance to bring this to and from so I I know they'll do better than I just explained that there is a real need there because basically we're just trashing a lot of stuff or we're reminded every year oh I'm not doubting that at all I'm sure it is

153and um I'm hoping that there will POS possibly be like a online catalog of what is available um so that so that people can just they may even decide what show they're going to do depending on what they can get access to but hopefully there will be an online component I fully supported I just hadn't had a chance to right guess it at all um and you know I'm hoping that we consider those things like location where we may have schools that have a higher or frm and that sort of thing that may determine where the need could be so just look forward to hearing a follow-up and throw those things out as a consideration I think the other thank you Miss keys gamara we're also thinking like marching band often has large pieces that

154really other marching bands might be able to use and so forth I love the idea of the online sort of library because I think that's important I also want to share that Saturday night at Robinson I met a couple that came to the show and had helped produce the sets even though their children had graduated because they loved doing that and I started talking about this idea and I don't know if they were formal boosters right theater boosters but they're really excited about helping so I think we have also a number of Volunteers in the community that when organized would really you know be excited about the resource reallocation I guess for lack of a better term it's just about sort of convening those those groups and boosters so I appreciate thinking about that so

155you just when you said that it I thought of grand involve and those types of organizations that you know they may there may be a group of people who don't necessarily want to go in the classroom but they're really good at Logistics I'm thinking military for some reason but at any rate I think we have lots of resources when the within this community that could help and I just wanted to suggest how we might think it through thank you Miss keys gamara saying no one else who wishes to speak I will call for the vote the motion before us is on the screen all those in favor that is Miss Keys gamara Miss mayor and Miss Amish Miss Tolan Miss Corbett Sanders Mr kofax Mr Frisch Miss Cohen Miss bakarski and myself with Miss McLaughlin

156and Dr Anderson away from the table that motion passes agenda item 4.04 fiscal year 2024 advertised budget I will first call on Dr Reed to share a few remarks thank you madam chair it's my pleasure to speak to the proposed fy24 advertised budget we believe I just want to thank our staff that have worked so very hard on this budget and it's everybody behind you who's contributed in some way to this budget development with a special thanks to Lee burden and Alice Woodington and I believe I saw Matthew Norton come in and Marty Smith they're Intrepid uh Chief Operating Officer this is a solid budget that really supports the Excellence equity and opportunity work that we are endeavoring to do and as you know the operating budget totals 3.5 billion which is an increase of

1577.6 over the FY 23 approved budget and we believe the needs expressed within the budget are needs that are going to meet the vision mission and goals of our Fairfax County Public Schools I would like to ask Lee Burton if there's anything she would like to say on behalf of the team or any details that you would like to add at this point Miss Burton um no I don't have anything else to say you covered it off thank you [Music] who is Martin thank you Dr Reed I will now call on Miss Tolan for a motion I move that the board adopt the FY 2024 advertised budget as detailed in the agenda item is there a second second Miss pokarski Miss Tolland would you like to speak to your motion of course um fy24 may

158be another challenging year due to the impact of the pandemic and limited new Revenue but as a budget committee chair so far I'm generally pleased with our budget development process for fy24 I'm also thankful for the help of the budget committee's Vice chair Stella pakarski it has been a pleasure to work together over the past few months I also want to thank our colleague Karen Corbett Sanders and Michael Malloy for keeping our budget team abreast of the state budgeting process as we move through this work there's going to be some fun times ahead with that um in October the budget committee conducted a work session to determine School Board priorities for the fy24 budget at the work session school board members shared themes for the fy24 budget and based on the work session results we

159proposed a school board budget resolution identifying these priorities that was unanimous unanimously adopted at the November 14 2022 regular meeting um the resolution asks the superintendent to continue focusing on a needs-based approach for school Staffing as well as concentrating on the school boards to treat strategic budget priorities as follows student academic success and closing achievement and opportunity gaps Student Health and Wellness a long-term approach in hiring and retention of the workforce and ensuring all students have access to best practice education and safe and well-maintained Facilities it should be noted that on Tuesday of this week the county executive delivered the County's fy24 advertised budgets and in that proposal the superintendent's FY 24 proposed budget is quote fully funded in the sense that the county executive funded all recurring costs as identified in Dr Reed's proposed

160budget the retention bonus including the governor's introduced budget is non-recurring and if that survives the general assembly deliberations it may be funded with FY 23 carryover either with the Board of Supervisors or fiscal board um we have a joint meeting next week with the Board of Supervisors to discuss the budget scheduled are to discuss the budget this is scheduled for February 28th the County Board of Supervisors have just begun the review of the budget with final funding levels determined in early May we will all be involved in public meetings during this budget process with our Board of Supervisors counterparts Additionally the House and Senate budgets were released last week the two bills vary significantly and neither proposal provides funds to address the vdoe calculation error recall that the calculation error results in a reduction in

161state revenue to FCPS of 12.7 million dollars that was included in the governor's introduced budget for fy24 further no hold harmless proposal has been initiated even though the calculation error affects all Virginia school divisions the Senate and House budgets currently result in a net negative impact to FCPS ranging from 30 million to 39 million dollars including the loss of the 12.7 million the general assembly is continuing their budget deliberations and they are scheduled to adjourn this Saturday but all signs are pointing to them not having a final budget by then a brief recess or a possible special session is likely so at this point in time we do not know what our state revenue would will be currently no amendments or follow-ons have been proposed for this budget I want to encourage my colleagues to

162read the budget questions that have been submitted to date many of them ask for in-depth information about this budget and other topics the final budget approval is scheduled for May 25th 2023. and in closing just a huge thanks to Dr Reed our budget team that she mentioned Lee Burton Alice wigington Matthew Norton Mr Smith and um they are also colleagues looking into some potential areas we've heard from the public at our budget hearings about athletic Trainers stipends for Fine Arts teachers salary increases for senior principals and directors and those are things that are being looked at currently under discussion and we'll be talking about that more as we move forward overall it's good news budgets raises for our for our employees step increases as well as initiatives that provide needed support to our students thank

163you everyone thank you Miss Tolland Ms bakarski would like to speak to your second sure I'm not sure there's much left stall it did such a wonderful job but I will thank Miss Tolan for all her hard work she really has worked hard the last few months and of course our budget team as well and Dr Reed I appreciate all of the hours that all of you have spent um to to setting the priorities for this budget season and I believe Dr uh superintendent Reed has done a good job on her first budget cycle to ensure that these priorities were met in this advertised budget we began this cycle in October when colleagues were asked for their individual priorities and we were able to come and discuss these in our work sessions to come to

164a consensus chair tolin and I then compiled and communicated the many questions and comments to staff and Dr Reed that were asked and shared for their consideration most of these centered around academic success and Workforce and staff issues the comments that could become budget questions were summarized and submitted as such from the budget committee so please be aware that staff will be working diligently in the coming months to gather this information that was requested by the board and have it for our consideration I hope my colleagues tonight will vote to support this advertised budget that's focused on student academic success health and wellness competitive compensation and retention of our teachers and Workforce and Safety and Security I look forward to what will certainly be a continued busy budget season thank you Miss kiesgara Miss Marin

165yes I'll start up from from the top so it's disappointing that the state doesn't have these numbers for us because you know we're trying to do our job and we can't do our job if the people higher up the chain don't do their job so um you know politics is tough right to compromise but we need a budget and last year the governor also did not deliver a budget on time and it delayed us again this is a bad pattern we cannot effectively govern our schools and do our job if we don't have our budgets and our staff is you know class a super doing everything they can and we just get stuck in the mud so that is really disappointing also disappointing is that the state is not covering the loss that was mistakenly

166it's a mistake on them we do lots to prevent losses on us but it would really be nice to have that state leadership in rectifying that mistake so in another category another one in the category of working together I'm really pleased that the county has risen to this level of support it's no secret that everything seems to cost more money and and people need more support so I'm just really pleased that this is the starting point so um so thank you to our chair and vice chair and to the superintendent and the county executive and the supervisors for for coming out with a budget that says that they support our Public Schools um Dr Reed I did have one question that I'd appreciate you addressing at the end of my um my speaking which is

167about interventionists I've been hearing from staff that all these these people that we employed that that schools chose to employ with the Esser funds that are of course going to have to have an off-ramp what do we do because that work is not done right we know the kids just can't say okay like that's it you've done you've reached your maximum this is ongoing so I'd like to hear how we're going to off-ramp from Esser I'd like to hear a little bit more about that and then finally about music stipends um you know our teachers stood here in our last meeting and they've since sent data this data is astounding I mean we all know that teachers work work extra every teacher Works extra so just in Hunter Mill the overages of hours of high

168schools where I either represent the student or even the band staff one of the band directors is a friend of mine the overage of hours ranges from 385 hours which is 48 eight hour days so about a month and a half that our abandoned at the lowest and at the highest over 700 hours that's 87 and a half days that's almost three months of work in addition to their daytime so it is it's such a shame that um this was not this right sizing of stipends was not realized sooner but I think it's an opportunity to talk about how we um compensate these staff who is part of their job their I mean tonight we had a teacher up here with her students singing you know this is part of their curriculum and what they

169do so I'm I know Dr Reed you've been very receptive and many of us on the board have been troubled by this so if you could please speak to that question about the intervention as an off-ramming the SR funds and then also what we're doing for our music stipends to keep performing arts and keep our very amazing staff here in Fairfax thank you thank you Miss Marin I think the off-ramp of Esser positions is again is challenging not just for our interventionists but other positions I know one of the things that we really worked hard to do was not hire positions with those funds because we knew you that at some point those funds wouldn't be there and we may not be able to accommodate further budgets so they're going to be choices I think

170that we'll need to make moving forward in terms of comparative decisions around which positions we're going to be able to continue funding in which not so in terms of the intervention specifically we do know that our Ester dollars I believe will still run through next year it's the fall of 24 that they're completed I'm just doing a double check fall of 24 so for next year one of the things that we're really going to need to be attentive to is what I try to call our Roi a return on investment on a number of positions in terms of their impact in terms of the student experience right and our strategic plan I think is going to make things much clearer as we look at key goals and then measurements and as we look at how

171we're able to meet those men measurements and meet those goals I think the types of positions we're going to be able to fund moving forward and maybe more challenging budget cycle is going to require a lot of conversation but I believe for next year the yester dollars will remain intact as far as the stipends I think you're correct a having had an opportunity to meet with Tara And also to hear from a number of you on the board and staff we recognize the inequities currently that exist around our fine and Performing Arts stipends and it is our intent to look at a phase-in or a roll-in plan to make coal those stipends because we really do value those that work and we know that learning happens both inside and outside the classroom and that our

172fine and Performing Arts are core to our educational Mission here in Fairfax County so we are going to be able to as Ms Tolan shared we're going to be providing more detail tells to you about what that looks like in the next several weeks as we approach may but we are we do have I think a pretty concrete plan to address that I appreciate you bringing both topics up well thank you and I think the challenge is that you know it is such a large School Division and people want to see something happen and it's just it takes time and it's hard to to voice that to people who you know they we want because we want to give them you know everyone here wants to give them more and I will put another um

173request into for our guitar teachers who currently have no stipend so I know you had that as part of your your review well that's correct and I know dance as well one of the things these fall under the category really of retention of our staff and I think that as we look at how we're allocating the retention funds that we've set aside I think there's space clearly for this uh this work and it's necessary I think you've all been pretty clear about that with me thank you Miss Marin Miss Amish yeah thank you so much uh you know when I was having some conversations with Ms stolen about this I should start by saying I am grateful for the back and forth conversations I think it is a big win where we are with the

174Board of Supervisors and where things are headed um while being mindful of where the state you know where we are with the state and unfortunately the lack of support there um but I did want to just name I guess you know through our work sessions in the discussion there was some conversation around how we might prioritize at least my advocacy was think trying to be a little bit less arbitrary with what we choose to prioritize this time around given that we don't have a strategic plan I can't speak up for every cause out there that I'm not even aware is being neglected but I'm worried that that is likely the case in a lot of areas and and one that immediately comes to my mind is language and translation which were 98 million dollars short

175of the need that was that was you know estimated by staff when Dr Ray Brown was here last cycle so I I just I think I I hesitate with where we are in that and that it hasn't changed I know that there are things people are raising for your consideration I'm hopeful that those will reflect themselves and we're you know in the future uh when we have the opportunity to work on this again um but yeah I want to name that because I I don't feel in good faith that I believe all of these to be the priorities of where we are because I don't know that we've properly assessed the needs to identify the urge to allocate urgency fairly I think that's always where I'm I'm finding tension so I'm very grateful for us

176prioritizing staff that's an obvious area of urgency I think for a division we've talked talked a lot about that but perhaps for other pieces I'm I I I I don't know so but I'm grateful for the work and I know that all of these things are important um I just don't know where to put them in my fairness picture but thank you so much so miss Amish the language translation I do want to share that we are looking at also some technology supports for that in ways that hopefully we can do it um more efficiently at less cost but it's not a topic that we're leaving unresolved so I do want you to know that that is a high priority at this point as well thank you Mr fresh thank you um Echo the concerns

177about the state budget um Miss Marin um it'd be great to know what we're getting and I hopefully they lean a little bit more towards the Senate's more robust support for public education um I'm also Mike I continue to be concerned about the governor's lack of leadership in addressing his nearly 13 million dollar math error for our school system and far larger percentages of other school systems budgets um so I'm I'm quite hopeful that our legislators can rise to the challenge that's been abdicated and solve that problem for us and for public education and public schools across the Commonwealth um superintendent Reed can you tell us a little bit more about the 15 million dollars for our literacy uh program yes thank you Mr Frisch uh one of the key priorities honestly is I've entered

178the division is our early literacy work the implementation of our science of reading and we know that in costing out materials professional development a robust and I think at scale rollout that that's actually I think a conservative number for cost in terms of what we're going to be able to purchase for that amount but the state is in the process of selecting a list of available materials I got exactly where I wanted you to go I knew I did I walked right into that but as soon as the state comes out with their material list which we had hoped actually to see a year ago is my understanding then we're going to be able to have a process to select and those dollars are a set aside for us to begin our foray into that

179experience and professional development is going to be a key to the that Effectiveness and of course our friends in instructional Services have been filling the void of the lack of per approved materials from the Commonwealth with materials for our Educators as well as the professional development yes sir um so hopefully um our friends at the Virginia Department of Education will finish that work and we will be able to invest These funds I know that we've been waiting for quite a while so I'm looking forward to that finally um I'm excited to see the 3.2 million dollar investment in our year two jet uh joint environmental task force goals when we started when this board started in 2020 we could confidently say that the facilities and transportations Department's Energy Efficiency work was saving us eight million

180dollars a year that could go back into classrooms and today as we sit here that figure is nine million dollars so we're making progress and these that's what these these Investments are about yes the wonderful side benefit is that they are good for our planet and for our Public Health but they are also good for the taxpayers and for the school system which is always looking for ways to invest in our students and their success thank you Mr Frisch I would just say a few brief words I appreciate both Miss Marin and Miss Amish lifting up some long-standing needs and I appreciate Dr Reed's statement that there's there's room in our budget for and as many priorities reflected um and I also want to lift up my colleagues have said about our real need for

181the um for the state to address the math error um as well as I hope we get the literacy information soon so that way we can um move on with our own literacy programming but I did I'll be remiss if I didn't have a chance to say thank you to you Dr Reed to um Miss Burton and Alex Whittington and our staff um to and especially to our budget chair Miss Tallinn and our budget Vice chair Ms bakarski for all of your hard work in getting us to this point and I I do also want to um thank our Board of Supervisors for as Miss Marin said showing their strong support for Fairfax County Public Schools and their system so I'm very grateful to their support as well as they are fully funding or recurring

182costs and that is um very exciting and very appreciated and I just want to say for someone who's been talking about these stipends I think since you're day one Dr Reed I think I gave you the whole packet of stuff I think on day one and knowing what some of our astronomic jurisdictions are doing for our um Performing Arts teachers it is a retention issue because I know Louden has multiple layers of stipends for different for a music director for a technical theater director and we have one that I think doesn't come close so I'm really excited about that and thank you for lifting up guitar as someone whose kid was in guitar for seven years it is really important and I'll just say you know as our Performing Arts programs are rebuilding coming out

183of covid a lot of our teachers are working even extra to do Recruitment and pyramid concerts like you mentioned the strings palooza and that is on top of their regular shows that they do I know at Lake Braddock I see the theater teacher there I think every day until five or six running some rehearsal or the other so thank you for addressing that and thank you to our colleagues on the budget committee to our staff for working so hard into our Board of Supervisors um did you want to speak to that right I I would be remiss if I didn't thank Miss Tolland and Miss picarsky as well they've been fabulous to work with and chief executive Brian Hill has been a tremendous asset to me and my first year walking through the budget process

184and he's been extraordinarily thoughtful in teachings and teaching and guiding and really providing thoughtful feedback so thank you chief executive Hill I really appreciate it so thanks awesome thank you and with that I see no other lights are up so I will call for the vote I will call for the vote for the motion which is on the screen before us all those in favor please raise your hands vikarski Miss Cohen Mr Frisch Dr Anderson mrnat Koufax Miss Corbett Sanders Miss Tolan um Miss Marin and Miss Keys gamara all those opposed all those abstaining Miss Amish that motion passes with Miss McLaughlin away from the table congratulations to our budget chair and vice chair thank you agenda item and congratulations to our budget staff how would you miss thank you Miss bird Miss Winnington thank

185you agenda item five consent agenda are adopted rules of parliamentary procedure Robert's Rules provide for a consent agenda listing several items for approval by the board by a single motion many items listed have gone through Board review and documentation has been provided to all board members and the public in advance items to be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member prior to the meeting the consent agenda items are on the screen is there any objection to approving the consent agenda hearing and seeing no objection the consent agenda is approved agenda item 6 new business the following our 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 agenda item

1867 board committee reports I call on Miss keys gamara for a comprehensive Planning Development Committee update and then miss Tolan for a report from the skipped committee Miss Corbett Sanders for governance committee update and Miss Cohen for an audit committee update Miss keithamara thank you the cpdc met on January 30th 2023 we were pleased to welcome new member Dr Carolyn pitches to the committee who will now represent Fairfax city school the Fairfax city school district on the committee and I'd also like to thank Miss Toby Sorensen for her long time service on the committee we will miss her she was extremely knowledgeable and always had insightful comments for us we've been working on ensuring Community engagement on CIP projects and other Rhythm Renovations the committee along with fpac chair Katie Herman continued its we all

187continued our robust conversation and review of protocol to ensure proper Community notification and public engagement concerning Capital Improvement projects both the facilities team and the office of communications and community relations played a critical role in preparing a revised document for the committee to review and discuss we'd like to thank Chuck Fanshawe and Helen Lloyd for their participation and provision of information for review next steps we look forward to reviewing a more concise description or graphic that clearly articulates and depicts who in the community should be notified about upcoming capital and Improvement projects and when they should be notified and the how and what of opportunities they will have for input and engagement in the process the committee looks forward to bringing a draft forward for Board review and discussion soon we also had an opportunity

188to discuss Kent Gardens Elementary School Miss Elaine tolin helped us to understand the issues that she's been dealing with and we've been utilizing both fpac and cpdc to work with Ms Tolan to try to make sure that we can support her in her efforts we heard those issues and concerns raised clearly and multiple times during the CIP public Hearing in January we want the community to know that we are not just monitoring this situation but are actively working with staff to determine what Solutions can be applied to address the concerns we've heard from the community and I'd also like to thank Ms Tolan for inviting me to tour Kent Gardens to see the problems that they are dealing with firsthand thank you thank you miss Kiss Camara Miss tollen for a report on skipped yes

189so the script committee met on February 1st I want to give a shout out to Dr Sloan Presidio for um participating in the presentation that was given that day on the opportunity youth program I'll run through a few things on this but Dr Presidio if I missed anything please jump in at that meeting at the beginning of February the opportunity youth the people talked about the plan that they have they're developing an action plan to engage Educators businesses government and non-profits and involve Youth and Young adults to align resources and initiatives to create an education to Career system that better connects Fairfax youth ages 14 to 24 who are currently not in school or working trying to connect them to in-demand careers there are five goals in the report that they presented at the beginning

190of this month establishing clear and Consolidated ownership and accountability for a collaborative network of organizations and programs to support these opportunity youth lower high school dropout rates and an improvement in on-time graduation rates to provide consistent Regional re-engagement Outreach and navigation support to help opportunity youth access quality programs and services increase local capacity in high quality low barrier and high impact Career Development programs and services for opportunity youth increased business engagement to help develop untapped youth Talent into reliable sources of skilled workers Fairfax Futures is recommended as the coordinating organization and a definition of their role will be coming as a group skips unanimously approved this plan in addition at the same meeting we had a report on progress toward having the county work with the National Organization My Brother's Keeper skipped also approved moving

191forward with this work myself and Miss McLaughlin serve on this committee and we are currently working with the board chair to get a work session colleagues on skipped work and topics for the whole school boards that we can give everyone more specific information on all of the skip topics thank you Miss Tolland Miss Corbett Sanders at a work session and so it was a very busy month our work our committee meeting really focused on preparing for the work session which included uh reviewing the electronic signatures policy which is now scheduled for Action two weeks from now the remote participation policy for school board members to be able to participate remotely in meetings and that too is on the agenda in two weeks for Action the school board member uh Professional Standards policy which after our

192discussion on Tuesday we'll go back to the governance committee with some additional work the recognitions and resolutions policy also discussed in depth on Tuesday and we'll go back to governance for additional work we also talked about the way that going forward we suggest setting priorities for the governance committee on an annual basis once the new governance chair is selected they will work with the superintendent to establish two categories per year where all of the policies within that those categories will be reviewed we also talked about the need to make some changes to our governance committee governance manual and we will continue working on that thank you thank you Miss Corbett Sanders Miss Cohen thank you audit team took some names and kicked some butt this week we had we did the internal audit status update

193we looked at what recommended follow-ups were there we looked at the succession planning and leadership development audit report and we looked at the a few of the schools that have been part of the business process audit summary and then last but not least we were able to send policy 5410 back to governance and we'll do it all again next month that was an awesome summary thank you agenda item 8 board matters not that the rest weren't awesome also agenda item eight board matters next on the agenda is board matters and I call for some excuse tomorrow thank you as you know we didn't have board matters last time and some things I can't help but share so hopefully I won't sound like an Auctioneer I was happy to join at the end of Jan in

194January the making us visible bringing Asian American history to K-12 schools that event was so much fun I love the books with all of the diverse characters and um it just warms my heart I had an opportunity to go to a few graduations both Bryant and Mountain View graduation which of course is a celebration that we all get to have together with our families and our students and got some really good pictures as well I was happy to see some of my colleagues at those events um had went I've gone to I think I'm up to five strategic plan um events which are always good because I get another chance to review the data so that's awesome let's see I attended the Langley pyramid Rise Against hunger service event um and um it's always fun

195to see the community come together and let's see I think I've covered this page oh and I also had an opportunity to go to a PTA the Fairfax some FCP PTA um one of my favorite for this month that was last month was the fabsy let the little light shine showing at Lewis High School oh my gosh just brought tears to my eyes about how students rose up to really fight for their schools and it was student-led and it just it's very educational to understand how a community reacts to change and so I I understand that it's available on PBS I didn't see it there I saw it at Lewis High School very worthwhile to participate to get an opportunity to watch that I think it's I think it's an education for all and I've

196asked um I would like for our board to watch that that movie actually um I I'm also um I'll try to wrap this up I don't want the Bell to ring um Dr Anderson and I had an opportunity to participate in a panel on the state of black education with a a buyer Congressman buyer Emma fan it correctly Lord okay congressman's buyer um at any rate what a robust conversation I I was we were there with the president of uh George Mason um a representative from Nova um some a representative from the black parents association with Arlington um our our community really cares about this issue guys and they care about our school board so I just I wanted to make sure I mentioned that because people are paying attention and then lastly I will

197say last night there was a virtual meeting on teen drug abuse with representatives from all over the region talking about what they are doing within our schools and one thing they emphasized and I'll stop was the importance of having social and emotional supports available as our students to assist them in making better decisions this is a real crisis I know that our board is concerned about this but it was sobering to hear the information they had to offer so thank you and I hope everyone has a good weekend thank you Miss Marin yes the last few weeks we've had a number of safety issues I think happen in the school Division and one of them was close to home um for me and the conversations have been interesting you know parents trying to to figure

198out you know should I send my kid to school what should I do what can I do what is the school doing and I've been reiterating that the schools are doing everything that we can to prevent violence to prevent bullying um I know there's more that can be done in some places but what I've really realized is that it's up to the adults to do what the schools can't which is of course um you know be with children outside of school hours and you know it really broke my heart hearing about some of the things that happened across the School Division and you know I'm trying to to share with people I think these one-on-one conversations really small conversations is what it's going to take to face each other in a respectful way and figure

199out how to live together so that our children can see that being modeled so I thank staff for all that you've done to put Safety First for our children and our staff and I just want to keep doing more to help your job be more focused on academic instruction um I do see we have um we had Educators here tonight I know collective bargaining is on the agenda coming up I continue to support bringing that resolution to the table and bringing forth what was um worked on by those involved last year I had a nice time the last few days talking about climate change activism and work in the Madison pyramid I met with the Madison student mad climate Club when they were trying to calculate their carbon footprint and we ended up talking about

200once again how you know they're meeting after school to talk about these issues and they really want to explore them during the school day and they're not finding that their science classes really are getting to the heart of climate change instruction and certainly helping them figure out the jobs that they're going to need to help combat this so I hope Dr we can do more to incorporate that and then similarly the Madison robotics Club these students spent you know I said 20 hours a week in this club and certainly we could incorporate that and in fact in some places robotics is a course that students take so um but those students were generous in attending the Marshall Road Elementary School science share which is kind of a low pressure way to just have kids come

201and do kid created science projects and share and it was really fun and that is such a cool Community they're doing a lot with composting one teacher talked to me with worms in her hand and like yes that's what it's about so and finally basketball season continues in Earnest South Lakes one tonight hot off my my phone for my husband says 71 to 59 so they will advance tomorrow postseason to the next round and it is hard to keep up with all the basketball challenges happening among the elementary schools between the Middle Schools Kilmer and Thoreau but I plan to attend as many as as I can with my son asking me for concessions everywhere we go to get candy and soda so supporting those booster clubs all right good night thank you Miss Amish

202thanks I was thrilled just today actually before this board meeting to join a bunch of young students or middle schoolers at Glasgow Dr Anderson's school to talk to them a little bit about what it's like to be on the school board what it means uh to Advocate to the school board and and what their role in that can be um I also uh wanted to celebrate we didn't have the chance to do this last time because we cut off board matters but how amazing is it that we had a gold medal uh Olympic winner from our high school Marshall uh Ilia Malin yeah that's incredible um and and just really it's a testament to the kind of encouragement and inspiration that kids can get from our schools and communities um on a perhaps less exciting

203note I I do uh want to make sure along those lines and supporting Sports and and what our young people uh find uh their successes in Dr Reed I know we heard from a number of our young people today uh our students about potentially recognizing volleyball as a boys sport in our high schools vhsl and whatnot so it seems like something to look into perhaps and I know you're a huge supporter of Athletics and how that impacts mental health and and student engagement so I'm I have no doubt that that's a common interest um so I'd love for us to look into that uh there's also a lot of history in February uh you know a number of community members reached out to me just a few days ago was Japanese day of remembrance something

204for us to certainly reflect on as we learn our history and and think about it uh the days when you know Iwo Jima uh unfortunately happened and set a record for really what uh I hate to say human evil is capable of and so that's something just to remember especially actually in advance of Holocaust member state which is coming up and just so many moments for us to think about what human beings are capable of uh and how we can turn turn The Tide and turn the trajectory to make sure that we're building better for the next generation um especially I think in light of uh even the today is the anniversary of the uh arbory murder three years ago of Ahmad Arbury in Georgia and uh just just being thoughtful about kind of what's

205going on and especially in light of you know I I was really reflective uh there's a lot of this advocacy around where the next FBI headquarters is going to be and the board of supervisor is advocating for it to be in Fairfax and whatnot but but it really pushes me to think about how people's experiences with law enforcement with the surveillance state are just different and what it means to be an inclusive community especially in light of just the recent Washington Post article this week about how Malcolm X's family is suing the CIA and FBI for wrongful death for 100 million dollars in Damages so just thinking of the different paths people walk in the same community and and what it means to shape a narrative of us not just of some I think is

206is really warranted on a different note um I know a number of our families are Rec or just recognized Ash Wednesday some of uh whom are amongst our own staff um so hoping they had a blessed experience and I do hear the the time but um with that have a good night everybody thank you Mr mesh Ms Tolan thank you um I do want to just start talking about a couple of things that weigh very heavily on me we've discussed this already this evening traffic and bus safety we heard Miss Miller talk earlier this evening about the car that passed a stop school bus just in this past week and we escaped a near tragedy please to everyone everyone in the community please drive safely near our buses near our schools and our kiss and

207ride lines Etc the lives of our students and family members are just too precious to risk so please slow down um as this Keys gamara mentioned substance abuse is is at a crisis level here in Fairfax County we did have pyramid by pyramid meetings with our substance abuse Specialists and County um counterparts and the discussions need to continue you know as we deal with this as as a whole Community across the entire County so looking forward to being part of those discussions and part of some of those Solutions um you know our skipped Behavioral Health Group talks about this as well and so I'll look forward to having more in-depth conversations with the board in our work sessions um on a later note congratulations to some outstanding drainsville teachers from region one two and five

208region one outstanding Elementary School teachers Marine mayor an ESL teacher at Hutchinson Elementary School region one outstanding professional employee is Tara Dutton for a reading teacher at Forestville Elementary School the region II outstanding school-based professional employee is Sarah espanol a speech language pathologist at Marshall High School and the Region 5 outstanding Elementary School teacher is Kristen sigley a fourth grade teacher at Coates Elementary School I've had the pleasure of shadowing students recently at Langley High School Herndon High School and at TJ and we'll be doing that in a week or so at McLean high school and we'll write up you know what I've learned attending those high schools with the students um once I finished my trip to Mclean I do have to point out one of the the most fun things that I was

209able to do is watch the Namaste Club dancers at TJ as they prepare for international night that club has I can't even imagine how many a couple of hundred students male and female all preparing these incredible dances which was really fun to see I was able to see haycock Elementary School's National History Day presentations and was just blown away by the high quality of those presentations and I have lots and lots of other things to talk about but I've heard the Bell already so have a have a nice evening everyone thank you miss Corbin Sanders thank you and thank you Miss Tolan for raising up the opioid crises that our County and our country is facing I read a statistic that opioids are the biggest source of death of any category for people under the

210age of 50. and so it is affecting us in dramatic ways not only our students but our our students families when somebody in the family is addicted and so we have to lean into this crisis we also have to lean into the crises on traffic safety and I have asked repeatedly and I will continue to ask that we modify our um driver's ed courses to include more in-depth language and instruction on traffic safety both pedestrian and speed and buckling up but on a happier note um this weekend I hope to see my colleague Miss darinak kofax because West Potomac will be playing Hayfield um in the basketball Aqua Quan finals um and they will be put that's what the boys will be doing and the girls will be playing Edison and so we have both

211of us share these schools so it will be fun to see these kids on the court I also urge people to come out on March 14th to the Mount Vernon estate and have your voices heard about any about the changes to the history and social studies curriculum for the state of Virginia that is the public hearing for this area of the state I think there are five separate public hearings and so please have your voices heard I also the following night on March 15th I will be holding a budget town hall with supervisor stork and with that good night everybody and thank you for all you do thank you um I will start with Miss Cohen so I just tricked you thanks very much I wanted to say Miss Burton left but we we did

212have three birthdays this last in the last week we had Miss Burton Carl and rachna so happy happy birthday to you guys one year younger I have no doubt um thank you to the Rotary Club of Fairfax who um hosted me I guess it was last week it could have been three weeks ago I'm not really sure but um it was lovely and I so appreciated the robust conversation and really good Earnest questions about um you know what's actually happening in our schools and so I I appreciated the awesome dialogue that happened um we had our Springfield District strategic plan Community Forum um as you wrapped up the round one and it was great to see so many people come out appreciated that on a gorgeous night to give up your time and come help

213us um also was able to get out to Newington Forest Elementary School and Bonnie Bray Elementary School just great visits and so much excitement going on in the classroom uh we we had such a we had such a good time The Kindergartners taught me a thing or two um also had our PTA PTO Roundtable which had I think the largest number of attendants that we've had all year and so really appreciated people coming out and spending their time um to have these conversations and and it was it was great they asked a lot of wonderful questions and the last thing I just wanted to mention is like so many of you um I had to go my husband and I to parent night as part of driver's education where you have to get there by

214seven or they lock the doors you know they won't let anybody else come in late and um and the presentation that we were given about you know what the program is and what the expectations for our kids was you know very eye-opening there were some pretty graphic um videos that they showed about with some people not wearing their seat belt and um and they talked excessively extensively about speed and how rattled they were by some of the things that have happened in our community and how they really are doubling down with the kids and each of the instructors shared a personal experience that they had had losing a former student in a high-speed accident and so um I I do just appreciate that as awful as some events have been in our community that our

215instructors are able to to utilize that to try to make our kids understand and help them know that some of these dumb decisions that you make when you're 16 17 just making sure that they are not life-ending decisions so I really did appreciate sheet Mr Seuss and Mr Nieto at Lake Braddock thanks for a great um sobering night and last one for me so I was really checked that off done with that oh that timing was great miss bakarski thank you I like mosquitoes gamara um had the opportunity to go to the Mountain View graduation so congratulations tells those students it's always inspiring for me to attend that graduation and hear their stories and their struggles and what they had to go through to actually graduate I also had the opportunity to go to the

216Concord District championship for indoor tracks so lots of incredible athletes from my schools um who who just did incredible things in all the different races in general it was actually a very light week for me as the picarskis were hit with the Norovirus and it did not leave anybody unscathed so in addition to that I I was able to go to the Oak Hill PTA meeting a couple nights ago and I want to thank them for giving me the opportunity um to connect over the important issues that we're working on I know next week will be much busier thank you Mr Frisch thank you yesterday I attended the Tysons Community alliance's launch event with my colleague Miss Tallinn we were joined by supervisors palchik Alcorn and Faust along with many Business Leaders and community members

217in celebration of the new organization there are more than 120 000 employees and 27 000 residents in Tysons it is clear that the growth of this community the one Evan and I call home won't be slowing down anytime soon in order to best serve the needs of this ever evolving Community the Tysons Community Alliance launched to build Bridges between residents businesses Fairfax County government and Fairfax County Public Schools as the board's Manchester representative for most of this area I'm excited to see the alliance take off and I'm looking forward to seeing how they helped shape the future of Tysons speaking of the community this week I also attended Mosaic Elementary School PTA their meeting to discuss Road and pedestrian safety issues related to the school's major renovation project along with the adjacent Blake Lane Corridor

218we had great turnout with more than 40 parents present and highly engaged in our conversations about student safety I'd like to thank Fairfax County or Fairfax families for Safe Streets the team at facilities and transportation services our office of Safety and Security Supervisor Dalia peltric's office and Captain Hansen from fcpd for joining us in the discussion on a final note I will be rounding out my week tomorrow by attending Woodson High School's International night and the FCC PTA student Reflections Awards I'm looking forward to celebrating the achievements of our students with my colleagues tomorrow evening uh have a good night everyone thank you Dr Anderson all right it has been busy I want to also talk about some of the visits I've had but before I get there I do want to bring up the

219fact that I appreciated the volleyball advocacy that we saw this evening in November of 2021 I had the same conversation with Bill Curran and Mark greenfelder about boys volleyball because there was advocacy there and it wasn't feasible then and I sent them another email for us to take another look because I think it's time for us to turn every stone to make that a possibility for our students I know we all have limitations but let's just get creative there um I had the opportunity to visit the two newest principals in Mason District Beech Tree Elementary I visited with principal Clark and also here at Luther Jackson visited with principal Jones and I have to say both of these visits were really wonderful our principals are learning our students they're learning our schools they have their

220pulse to the needs of the schools and are making changes that are positive and really welcomed by the community so I'm very excited to see what these two wonderful educators will bring into our schools and therefore the division on a long-term basis um I also had the the opportunity this was two weeks ago um one of the most exciting things that I've had to do to date um at Annadale Terrace principal bedia invited me to a learning walk where they were observing student engagement obviously this speaks very nearly and dearly to me as a former School principal because I think learning walks is an opportunity to really share what is happening in a school and to really hone in to the impact of the professional development that you provide and to really evaluate what is

221the impact on student achievement and it was wonderful to be able to participate in that discussion not to say that everything was great but everything was a learning opportunity and I think it's just one of the most effective ways to move teacher practice and I thank you so much principal bedia for inviting me to that wonderful event it was very impactful I do want to say congratulations to a couple of folks hopefully I find my page here the Region 2 outstanding elementary teacher Miss Christine hasea from Sleepy Hollow and also the Region 2 outstanding secondary teacher Miss Annie Ray from Annandale High School congratulations to both of you and also to Westlawn Elementary School for being presented with the 2022 Award of communication for excellence this award celebrates the creation of excellent websites newsletter and

222social media content that informs and engages its readers special recognition though to miss Alana dushak and Cindy Chote who was substituting at the school at the time for their fantastic work and that effort we have lots of events happening in the Mason District so we have the that was the Bell okay lots of events read in my newsletter thank you Dr Anderson Koufax speed reading this is already mentioned but it Bears repeating how wonderful it was to hear from the special panel on youth mental health held at John R Lewis High School with the U.S Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona Surgeon General Vivek murtha CDC director for the division of Adolescent and school health Kathleen ether and Dr Mike Alexander the acting director of intervention and prevention here at FCPS I was so proud of

223our students who share their insightful and candid questions with our honorable panel and as Dr Dr Reed mentioned last week FCPS will receive 13.5 million dollars as part of the Department of Education grants to provide early intervention and Prevention Services thank you to our amazing bus drivers for getting our children where they need to be every day we appreciate you not just this week but each and every day so thank you so much February 15th was a school resource officer appreciation day and I want to thank all of our sros who help keep our schools safe for our students I want to thank to everyone who came out to both strategic planning Community forums at Edison High School and West Springfield High School over the last few weeks we appreciate your time and input and

224after several reschedules Dr Reed and I recently got finally to do Region Three schools we visited Lynn Brook Elementary in Hayfield Secondary thank you to principal Kathleen sane at Lynbrook and interim principal Matthew mile at Hayfield for hosting Dr Reed and myself it was wonderful to meet so many impressive high school students and I can just say just such adorable and excited Elementary School students and finally congratulations to the graduates of Bryant high school February class 2023 I was able to witness your graduation and hear your impressive stories with several of my colleagues and we all wish you the very best in your next chapter and good night thank you I'm not going to repeat many of the events that my colleagues and I have been at together um so just a couple things I

225wanted just to mention in addition in addition to the mental health Town Hall that I was honored to be able to attend alongside our superintendent and Mr Anna Koufax I had the honor of being able to judge the regional Scholastic art awards at Mason and they're all on display at I mean Nova for the rest this month and when you walk in to see our students art it will blow your mind away I wanted to buy the pieces because they were so amazing and very professional and it took me a long time I almost missed my next appointment trying to to judge and I and I sent an email to all you all in chairs notes but I did find out that we are able to get digital prints of the ones that the school

226board selects as winners to be able to hang up at the school board office so we're in the process of looking about the cost of printing and framing but I think it'd be super exciting to have our students we've selected and the artwork was was so if you have a chance to go look at it please take a go take a look at it I enjoy this treaty planning core team meeting I enjoyed interviewing Keenan Hicks a Boy Scout and his answering his very interesting questions on how to keep our students safe in our schools and finally I just had to share I had a really lovely visit with Dr Reed this morning at Robinson Secondary School and Laurel Ridge as an at-large member my goal with Dr Reed's our school visits is to try

227to take you to see some of our different programming that we had so I thought it was really useful to take you to a secondary school model to see so similar to Mason District with sixth grade and Middle School in region four we have two of the three secondary schools and so I think it was interesting to hear about maybe the challenges of Middle School sports in a secondary school model where it's all the same facilities and then to go to Laurel Ridge Elementary School to see the preschool autism class the CSS site and the enhanced autism class as well as the Spanish Immersion it is a school replete with programs but I my favorite moment was after when Dr Reed was walking with the principal people at Laurel Ridge and these two students walked

228by and the principals said to them she's in charge of all the schools and they walked and as soon as they got behind Dr Reed and I could see their faces that are like and that was the highlight of my day so with that this meeting is adjourned