FCPS School Board Meeting - 12/15/22

001foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign thank you foreign this December 15 2022 regular meeting of the Fairfax County School Board will now come to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance a moment of silence and a performance of the national anthem by the Chantilly High School chamber Coral under the direction of Evan Ayers one nation under God say can you see why the dogs [Music] wave [Music] [Applause] from thank you if you would like to review a copy of the agenda and any agenda item that is being discussed tonight that information may be found at the back of the auditorium or on the website at fcps.edu backslash School Board backslash board docs tonight's meeting is being broadcast on channel 99 and live stream on the website at fcps.edu backslash TV backslash Channel 99. the next

002order 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 and 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 be respectful and observe proper decorum in their statements avoiding profanity inappropriate gestures shouting and comments that run counter to the

003spirit and the letter of the school divisions non-discrimination policy 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 outposts from the audience will not be tolerated we are grateful for those who have come to speak to us today and thank you for your cooperation our first speaker is Lynn Hotchkiss our next speaker is Robert Rigby I am vice president for advocacy for the Fairfax County Council BTA thank you for the work that you have done on all of these following let's continue the dial half of all lifetime mental illnesses are identified by age 14. students usually do not receive

004Mental Health Services they need and those they do receive they receive only in school the increase in student in poverty English Learners and the impact of the ruling of the office of civil rights of the federal education department make the need even greater the NCR ruling will impact the workload of special education staff as their fund sending will cause a pay cut and this will impact whether the staff remain with us please continue to increase the number of mental health and nursing staff also keep as a focus the day-to-day services for students with disabilities that are being impacted by stress on staff as well as the compensatory services the impact of the end of the pandemic on food insecurity and child hunger will last long it's important to maintain consistency and easy access to nutritious

005meals thank you for bringing back the salad bars let's continue the input from as gcpta members have also spoken about the effectiveness of the lockdown drills and their impact on children we appreciate the listening and working together let's continue and to all PTA members see the Virginia PGA website for registration for our Capital day webinars that will be in January online and in Richmond thank you for letting me speak thank you our next speaker is Cameron Ward foreign I want to discuss an issue that I think we all should agree on and that's government transparency at the October 6 school board meeting Dr Anderson asked to introduce a controversial resolution the contents of that resolution are not relevant here but what is relevant is that she also announced the board had been collectively working on

006the resolution for more than a month since everyone had already had a chance to weigh in it was fine to introduce and vote on this resolution the same day it was not fine because the public had not had a chance to comment Virginia has an open meeting law for that reason to quote the general assembly ensures the people of the Commonwealth free entry to meetings of public bodies where in the business of the people is being conducted the Affairs of government are not intended to be conducted in an atmosphere of secrecy since at all times the public is to be the beneficiary of any action taken at any government level the provisions of this chapter shall be liberally construed to promote an increased awareness by all persons and government activities and afford every opportunity to

007citizens to witness the operations of government I'm not a lawyer but this board secretly meeting electronically via email to discuss and transact business certainly goes against the spirit of the Commonwealth open meeting law holding open school board meetings is just just to take performative votes with predetermined outcomes and read from speeches that have been pre-approved by lawyers is not right it's wrong and expensive because parents are then forced to foyer foia your deliberations and then taxpayers put the bill please please stop doing that thank you our next speaker is Dave Hatcher excerpts from a recent speech by a college President and National Treasurer to see the problem with American Education reflect on a bar graph that compares the number of students teachers and school system staffers since 2000 the number of disk staff has grown

008by a whopping 87 percent the growth in the number of students and teachers around eight percent the graph shows a major change in how we govern ourselves and how we live education is fundamental and it has changed radically and has changed everything else one way of describing this change giving a different answer than we have ever known to the question who owns America's children public education is as old as the nation but only lately has it begun has it begun wanting to supplant our family and control parents the political success of governor juncken and his girl Friday rock star Elizabeth Schultz has largely dominated right now but we do have children being turned against their country and Ours by large-scale revisions of History claiming ours is a time of irredeemable Injustice evidence schools statues and

009streets being named being renamed all around us 1984 lives cultural Marxism who owns the child then the choice is between the parents who raise the child or the school systems more likely than a parent to want to engage in a social engineering asset in wanting to revolutionize Society this political back this political battle simmers with dishonesty criticizing public education translates to criticizing teachers but the numbers show that the system works in the opposite way detriment of teachers and for the bureaucrats teachers unions claim that they defend teachers and children's at most that's only half true being that these unions are defending school systems systems that have grown by thank you our next speaker is Holly hazard I'm chairman of the members of the board I should have played the lottery because I've got two speaking

010spots today I don't know that that's ever happened I representing for public education I want to take a moment at the end of this year to reflect on the amazing progress that Fairfax County Public Schools has made this year first the board found and hired one of the most inspiring skilled creative and Brilliant leaders that I have ever met in Dr Reed already we've witnessed a remarkable cultural transformation she started her tenure by listening and meeting with parents from each of the 29 high schools she's cast a wide net for input on an ambitious strategic Plan called attention to the appalling statistics on teen drug overdoses and is seeking ways to curb them she's addressed the particular needs of military families and has identified serious gaps in pre-publica pre-pre-k education second our schools are recognized

011Nationwide for their Excellence for example Justice high school was selected as the national demonstration school with the national associations of black Educators four Fairfax County Public Schools have been recognized as purple star schools third on a large-scale assessment such as the Sol's uh SATs acts Fairfax County Public Schools students are performing well above State national and Global averages fourth we have a cacophony of programs for students interested in almost any Endeavor including Auto Collision lab whatever that is veterinary science programs Health Sciences Information Technology classes HVAC classes and of course band dance as we saw here at chorus arts and even our own Fairfax County Public Schools Bakery fifth this board has led our our division out of one of the most challenging periods in educational history with no road map the board has also

012stood up against unprecedented ignorance hate and misunderstanding of our LBGTQ plus children and with fairness and respect stood strong against book bands shaming and ostracizing our vulnerable youth I would say like to say happy holidays to all and here's to our continued success in 2023. thank you our next speaker is Stephanie Lundquist Aurora good evening your fle advisory committee has proposed illogical changes to the FCPS sex ed curriculum parents are overwhelmingly disagreeing with the committee with very few exceptions they are telling you that they don't want their fourth grade Sons learning about nocturnal emissions wet dreams in front of girls or their fourth grade daughters learning about their menstrual cycles in front of boys they do not want their fifth graders to suffer the embarrassment of learning about intercourse in a coed environment they do

013not believe that complex gender identity issues are the school's jurisdiction and they object to the school board exchanging the word girls and boys with assigned male or female at Birth but you you've already heard this ad nauseum in the last two regular school board meetings and in emails and in surveys you at least need to be transparent with your constituents about when you intend to vote on this very sensitive issue I've recently sent two emails asking when you intend to vote want to miss Cohen and the other to massage more Heiser thank you Miss Cohen for responding earlier today I do wish your answer were more informative you simply told me that the vote had not been scheduled so why not what's the hold up when will you schedule it when will you vote why

014won't you tell us I also sent unanswered emails on December 1st to miss kieskamora seismo Heiser and Miss Cohen FCPS Pride an organization that the board officially endorses on its website sent a libelous email to its membership earlier that day in it the sender accused several FCPS parents including me of being anti-lgbtq I am telling you now and have stated many times publicly that this is simply not the case you should not endorse organizations that libelously villainize parents to try to frighten others away from vocalizing very justifiable viewpoints like objections to co-ed restrooms in coed fle please vote no on the proposed changes to the fle curriculum work harder to be more transparent and do not continue to support the bullying of parents with whom you disagree also I see most of you aren't wearing

015masks anymore please do the right thing and expunge my son's existing political mask suspensions thank you our next speaker is Shelly arnoldiers hello again um my name is Shelly arnoldi I'm a mother of four high schoolers the FCPS is 124 page student rights and responsibilities document defines haste speech as any form of expression intended to humiliate or incite hatred um in addition the document provides a disciplinary action to be taken for using slurs or hate speech during the last school board meeting a parent referred to you all as groomers because you're introducing sexual materials to young children and Miss Marin pointed out that slurs were not acceptable are any of you familiar with the Constitution or the First Amendment um hate speech and slurs may not be nice ways to communicate but every American has

016the right to say what they want within the law you cannot use the student rights and responsibilities to make the law or break the law and you cannot restrict the speech of parents it's we the parents who elected you and trust you to take care of the thing most precious to us our children the Ford source and Kellogg foundations had research firms discover how to make radical agendas for moderate audiences study participants turned a dial up and down to record their reactions to different phrases and words the study showed that repeating the word equity which a few few listeners could Define but which sounded innocent enough worked Fairfax County Schools uses Equity everywhere in your budget strategic planning and other program documents which means one of two things none of you actually knows what you're

017doing or you're all trying to hide radical agendas in 2014 uh there was a school sport participation during adolescence and mental health early in early adulthood study done and it was posted on the National Library of Medicine the results stated that involvement in school sport during adolescence was statistically significant predictor of lower depression symptoms lower perceived stress higher self-rated mental health in young adulthood FCPS does not funny fund any athletic programs for middle schools and funds a fraction of the high school sports please start spending money on Sports and after school activities and stop funding counseling and special for special needs thank you thank you our next speaker is George Becerra our next speaker is Zoe anagnes our next speaker is Karen Ramsey I want to thank the board members and Dr Reed for giving

018me the opportunity to address you this evening I've worked for the county for 20 years as a special education teacher for 16 and as an instructional coach before the special education teacher shortage began before the pandemic because the workload is impossible special education teachers are expected to be experts in specialized instruction and procedural knowledge Advocates and lawyers are highly trained and well paid they will be able to find fault with any IEP because teachers are not lawyers special education teachers often lose planning time preparing for and hosting IEP and eligibility meetings doing kta testing and report writing and numerous other procedural requirements in addition to planning for instruction the pandemic only increased the workload with temporary learning plans constant updates to IEPs to add virtual and face-to-face hours and documenting the need for progress of

019students requiring recovery services at times special education teachers even now or instructional assistants are asked to substitute for general education teachers the teacher shortage increased greatly during the 2021 school year and continues today because of the shortage I started this school year with 18 students and two different different grade levels and across six classrooms my school wasn't assigned anyone from central office to support my school is still short two special education teachers a teacher Resident was hired in October and supports one of those grade levels however I'm still responsible for all the procedural requirements board members I plead for your help any pending necessary action due to the recent civil rights agreement cannot be left to just special education teachers and school teams central office staff and any other available administrator staff must help all

020school teams for review IEPs and correct whatever mistakes were made during the pandemic thank you very much for your time thank you our next speaker is Aaron St Germain I'm here today to speak about the proposed changes to the Family Life education curriculum in particular this terms assigned mail and assigned female at Birth are not only inaccurate they're confusing and nonsensical to most children how I wondered could FCPS recommend such radical language would experts support this and why to get these answers I looked at the sources FCPS is cited in their justification but what I found was not a peer-reviewed article or a recommendation from developmental psychologists or Educators but rather an opinion piece written by advocacy organizations so I decided to learn more about them and what they stand for and here's what I

021found the first organization that FCPS looks toward to educate our children is advocates for youth this organization has their own education standards sex education standards called the feature of sex shed which has the pleasure which I had the pleasure of reviewing here are some highlights starting in third grade eight to nine-year-olds should learn about sexual feelings and masturbation as well as the role of hormone blockers on young people who identify as transgender starting in grade six it's anal sex which is necessary because in grades nine to ten the children learn to describe effective ways to communicate desires as they relate to pleasure and sexual behavior the second organization FCPS looks toward educate our children is called sex ed honestly they describe themselves the national organization that promotes unfettered access to sex education for young people

022and believe me they mean unfettered answer has a website for teens full of information including an article titled anal sex from stigma and myths to facts that does our kids a favor by recommending lubricant for anal sex the third organization that you look toward educate our children is called sikhists sexual sex ed for social change in February 2022 they had a webinar called the p word porn literacy and sex education where the moderator said porn can be good if sex ed is good they said we have to be aware the beautiful ways pornography was invented to be a Fantastical wildly unrealistic tool it's not about making kids stop watching porn it's about being literate I don't know about you but it sounds to me like she's advocating for porn and not our kids thank you

023our next speaker is Stacy Langton our next speaker is Harry Jackson oh good evening school board that was a very interesting talk from the previous speaker hopefully you might do some review of your fle program looking that you're not see considering you're not using and is your best standards that's just one example I'm just thinking about the other ones like the books that you have in the library the other ones promoting prostitution looking at pornography but that just beside the point um other things that just think about like how good of a job have you been doing the last two years when you have SAT scores during your tenure dropped by 27 points while the rest of the Virginia goes up by 14 points I think a lot of parents have had it that you're

024not really sticking up that you are degrading the educational education the quality of Education within Fairfax County and I think they're going to they're going to rep that's going to be seen next to November's election uh marginalization parent groups using the r word in the presence of a student Advocate come on not only that but in your personal capacity it's been a rough week hasn't where you actually will omit information going before a judge and then having done sticking CPS on a parent that's actually trying to get wait wait hold on a second Mr Jackson I have to stop you um under section c on page 59 of the governance manual the school board welcomes this is a limited public forum and we welcome um against my time your time is pause at one minute

025please reset it one minute please this is a limited public forum Mr Foster on page 59 of the governance manual it says that the school board welcomes community members by comments at its regular business meetings and public hearings on school board deliberations School related issues or topics related below such as the capital Improvement plan does this relate to what you read it's not a capital Improvement plan excuse me Mr Jackson does this relate to what you read in the governance manual Mr Foster it does not please keep your comments related to um public hearing the school board deliberations so there wasn't a violation you just paused me because it wasn't a violation it was in violation Mr Jackson so I'm asking you to please keep your topics related to school board deliberations School related issues

026or particular topics as listed in the governance manual thank you okay bye I've only had one more minute to go regarding that that was interesting um wow also notice that yvettes had a decrease in student attendance but yet you've had increased answer funding to increase funding per student that went up like 88 million dollars and where do those extra fundings go oh let's talk about another highlight you had an increase in human trafficking throughout throughout the throughout FCPS where you actually had Esther funding to font to find what about 700 miners that you didn't even use that funding for I think when parents when they find out about this will be shocked they'll be outraged and I think that this is going to change during the election in November next year thank you oh and

027by the way it's we should be having also the camera on the face of parents and hopefully you have new school members that will actually engage with the community and not where they have to have advertisers on the back of their shirt anyway uh Harry Jackson will be coming for your seats thank you that was our final speaker thank you agenda item 4.02 strategy Plan update I call on Dr Reed for the treaty Plan update together good evening and it's my pleasure this evening to provide a strategic planning update Laura are you my all right let's go to the next slide um yesterday we also had a work session with our consultants and I appreciate um the planning that the team did so that we're ready for a retreat upcoming for um for you as

028a board because I know that's been a request so we're working very carefully to be thoughtful about the retreat content and options we have let's go to oh thank you Laura we want to let you know that as we closed out we actually had over a hundred thousand responses from our students which is an all-time high and I really want to thank our staff across the division who supported this work in each and every one of our students who took the time to respond to this so there were 45 670 in the grades three to six and close to 57 000 in our secondary students grades 7 to 12. um we're really excited uh to share those results they'll be available in 2023 actually which is right around the corner so it's hard to say

029that we're headed to 2023 but we're really excited to look at that data Laura um I also want to share that principal-led focus groups finished last Friday and we really again principals and staff have just had a lot on their plates and I just uh really appreciate each of their attention to detail we yielded honestly over 4 500 responses and our principals actually I think learned some really interesting things from our students and we're excited and they're going to be included in our student voice report which the board will have an opportunity to review review the data as will each of our planning teams our core team alignment teams in our faith teams all will have a chance to review this data the planning meetings to date we've already had seven convenings across five teams

030and we review as a Cabinet every Monday with both Mutu Hawaii and Kenneth Jones so we are on it if you want to acknowledge people I really want to thank our team particularly Marcy Neal and Dustin Wright who are our project co-champions Alicia Martinez our project manager Dr nardis King Dr Grace Taylor Dr Francis Ivey Dr Iona spikes who are all co-champions of teams George pacera who's a co-champion of our core planning team Dr Sloan Presidio Megan Roman both co-champions of our instructional teams Lisa Hall and Douglas Tyson our co-champions of our faith team and Noel komenko a co-champion of the family team along with Renee lahuffman Jackson so just a really broad group there are many folks on the leadership team that have taken leadership roles in this work and I'm proud of each

031of them and what they've done also a thanks for Beatrice Huffman Gotham Sethi and Lydia haruda for their data work it's been an all hands on deck project and I couldn't be prouder um here are the community forums as an update for our community I want to make sure that everyone's aware that we've got a lot of opportunities ahead for communities to join you as board members as you host and participate magisterial visits as well as at large opportunities for the community to provide feedback and lastly I do want to say that we added three additional virtual community meetings and they'll take place in mid to late March lastly stay connected I really want to thank Helen Lloyd and our office of communications and community relations who are working really hard to craft a landing

032page for our strategic plan updates and we should have the data and information all in one place so we're excited that that work continues so tune in to Thursday evening board meetings and School Board strategic work sessions to hear updates as well as attend a forum and that is the update this evening thank you very much Dr Reed and please thank your staff and our team for their incredible hard work and effort they put in it it is much appreciated it's seen um I will take questions from my colleagues so I will start with uh Miss Marin and Miss Tolan thank you Dr Reed this is such an exciting Endeavor the process and the ultimate outcome which will then continue the process can you just explain a little bit more about the expectation for those

033Community meetings that you put up for for the new year you seem to have you and your team have led so much community outreach already how are those ones different should people attend that have been to previous meetings what is sort of the ideal type of input or experience you want to try and put out there thank you Miss Marin that's a great question we have I have as you know um been involved in a number of community meetings right 28 of them most recently in the evenings however this is these are Community meetings specifically focused on our strategic planning work so if community members want to be a part of that large community voice and collaborative Spirit that's going to set our 2030 North Star I think this is a great opportunity to come

034out or be a participant in a virtual whichever you know feels best but to to show up and and have a voice in this process I know that the facilitators for those Community conversations are going to be presenting some data as well it won't be as deep as the full day commitment work but there will be an overview of the data and the process and an opportunity to provide input that's directly and specifically focused on the Strategic plan you bet thank you Miss Tolan thank you I don't really have a question of more of a comment I guess um you know we've had the presentation at the work session the other day and then your presentation this evening and I I just wanted to step back for a second and uh you know in the

035past month over 100 000 students have given input to this plan um the principles that I talked to them that ran their focus groups you know were excited about the things that their students talked about and hundreds of community members um from FCPS instructional leaders 70 of them school-based which I was really excited about and then General community members and families gave input the Consultants have a huge job ahead of them over the next six weeks or so five weeks to compile all of that survey data all of the information from all of the meetings and then turn it all around and come back to us at the end of January February so that we can begin our next set of meetings so that's pretty amazing I'm looking forward to that I was very happy

036to participate as a board member after being invited in one of the strategic planning teams once my teaching and instructional expertise to the instructional Focus team thanks to Sloan and our Dr Presidio and Megan Roman for running that and that team has already spent over 16 hours of work like the color planning team also and I'm really looking forward to getting all this additional data and Analysis next February so we can continue that work so really just a huge thank you to you Dr Reed and the planning team and our Consultants for taking us through this process it's a really exciting time for the division yeah thank you Miss Tolan and thank you to the board members too for your participation I know that matters a great deal to the staff and the community so

037thank you Miss Corbett Sanders I actually am going to Echo much of what my colleague Miss Tolan mentioned about just the sheer amount of data and actually look forward to the reports that will come out in January I also wanted to reassure the public on the the transparent nature of what's going on and you're responsiveness because you listened when you heard about the disparate you know that they're not disparate but that the distributed nature of all of the data being in different places and you responded with okay we're gonna have a centralized place for it and everybody has access to it and we're going to make sure that people have access not only to the data and the planning documents but also into the conversations and uh if you could clarify I believe there's a

038significant number of community members involved uh both in each one of our planning teams as well as our faith-based leaders do you have a number of the total well I know we had uh close I think right around 140 members at instructional core planning team the alignment team we had I think close to 40 members same with the faith team um so it I mean there are hundreds of voices and remember we're going to be sending also a survey to families and a survey to all staff which those come out after the first of the year so literally there will be tens of thousands of voices of data for me yeah so we have a hundred thousand students we have hundreds of people participating in each of these teams and we have both in person

039and virtual opportunities for the community to participate and it's my understanding uh chair seismer Heiser that we've already set a retreat date for the first part of February which all of our Retreats are also public and transparent to anybody who wants to come and so I very much appreciate your work in responding to questions and willingness to adjust to ensure that we continue to that process of continuous Improvement so thank you and I look forward to the data you're going to share with us not only from the students but the principals and the planning teams thank you thank you so you know the board members I see Miss talk you wanted to speak so I'll give you a turn thank you um I had a couple questions so well first of all thank you for

040the presentation very excited for all the feedback from principals teachers students and all that um I had a question about the community forums so will board members be present at them and will it be like a similar approach to the community conversations in the sense where like it'll be a large push for not just community members but faculty and students so it's a great question Miss togby I think there'd be a little different the community conversations were much less structured really I was there to hear from the community I think the community conversations around the Strategic plan will be a little more structured because I think that there's a real high interest in us sharing at least briefly some of the data that we're looking at and then allowing for feedback from the community staff

041students anyone in that magisterial District that wants to attend I think one of the real benefits both of the community conversations and of this process isn't so much the didactic interaction between division staff and Community or division staff and students or so forth but it's the ability for the community to hear one another and I think it's a powerful Community Development experience when we have a chance to hear one another and not just hear from the division if that makes sense so I think that's a a powerful opportunity for us to experience a space together and it is my understanding that school board members will be attending okay good to know and then on the note of like hearing that kind of push for students at the same time I think it'd be really interesting

042to see if we've maybe tried contacting leadership organization or sgas at every individual school for these Community forums in a sense to push because I know if you get your weekly student emails that tell you what's going on in your community if I read Community Forum about strategic planning that wouldn't really ring a bell for me but if we really push that through maybe leadership classes and get them to advertise it on the school specific social medias maybe that'll be a great push for students to show up I think that's a great idea and I think Miss Neil just captured it yeah thanks miss talking thank you I'll just briefly say I want to say thank you to to you to our consultants and your team for the incredible hard work I know when we

043the board started this process back at our first retreat in August talking about looking at our strategic plan and and we um jointly decided to re-engage with the community and re-engage to see really what we needed to do to help create a preferred vision and future going forward and we in September at our Retreat really sat down and went over the schedule and the purpose of each of the meetings so it's been really wonderful to see what was presented to us as here's what we're going to do in in this school year which seems so ambitious come to light and I know from the outside it looks like it just happened but from you know I know your team has worked very very hard and I really appreciate the chance to be a part of

044the planning teams for the board to be part of the planning teams as well as for the board to be able to have its own planning team moment to dive into the data and together with our community listening to their thoughts with our staff help guide us on best practices with treaty planning and the board coming together to really think about what is our Preferred Future collectively as a board with our staff with our community and what do we all want to see for our children going forward so I'm really excited about the continued process um so thank you for all that so with that I will also Turn to You Dr Reed for an academic matters update thank you madam chair and I I want to say that many hands make light work so

045it's the team that has done the lift the heavy lift with the Strategic plan but I couldn't be prouder and I also want to say that we did say we do it and having a hundred and two thousand plus responses is I think pretty impressive that's going to be statistically significant so anyhow I am presenting this evening for academic matters uh several data points around our Esther funding and how we've utilized that to address learning loss and I want to thank ahead of time Dr Presidio and Noel clemenko for putting together and Mark greenfelter this data set so Laura if we could go to the next slide thank you I want to make sure that we understand that and there is no one in this room or the division this Commonwealth or country that won't

046say that the pandemic created some academic challenges for us our students did not in general perform as well and we absolutely acknowledge that I will say however that as we work to improve the academic prowess of our Fairfax County Public School students we have been utilizing our Esser dollars to support primarily our reading and Mathematics work and the graph I have up here does share that the rate of our academic recovery is outpacing the Commonwealth as a whole our reading performance in writ large is nearly back to pre-pandemic levels after one year and we know this is going to be a multi-year journey but we feel like after the first year we've made significant progress and again that's hats off to our incredibly hard-working Educators in every role within schools our teachers instructional assistants our

047food and nutrition folks and make sure our health and nutrition is where it ought to be and our custodial of Maintenance having our facilities clean so we can keep as many kids in school as often as possible our drivers who make sure things happen this is an all hands on deck division-wide effort but it's paying off our math performance is progressing towards a pre-pandemic baseline And if we continue at this rate we should be back where we need to be within the purview of our Esther dollar window next slide please Laura thank you these are a number of strategies that we have employed and I think this is a fairly clear chart notable is the summer school programming in 2021 Fairfax ambitiously served 34 000 students which was a tremendous gain in enrollment to provide

048supports for students prior to returning to the classrooms in the fall of 2021 and this past summer 32 000 students were served and again these were strong supports I know upon my arrival in the division I had an opportunity to tour a number of our summer sites and there was a significant amount of work going on on the left side of this I want to be able to share that of the approximately 102.8 million dollars that's been allocated directly for student academic and wellness support that these are some of the strategies that have been utilized in terms of the Esther funding our hourly pay instructional materials and professional development have been significant this week I had the opportunity to meet with Noel link climenko Colleen Eddy and Amy our math Hunter Amy Hunter and we

049had about an hour of the most Lively math discussion I've had in quite a little while and there are really ambitious plans for our not just recovery and Mathematics but just a renewal and an excitement about what we're doing with mathematics in the division and I'm looking forward to sharing that with you as well as a theory of action and data dashboard for our indicators and our movement towards eighth grade Algebra minimally for all students not the ceiling but a floor for all of our students so we're thrilled with the work and the funding is enabling us to really put into place I think some practices that likely will do us in good stead far into the future last slide please Laura and here are reading and math identifications and this is our current impact

050analysis I want the board to know that we're not looking at just annual data we're looking at real-time data in our instructional services department and what's really exciting this year is that our regional assistant superintendents and our regional administrative staff are working directly with principals and teachers on the student work and achievement school by school classroom by classroom and I think that that's yielding results that you see with decreases in our highest needs assessment data and strong increases in our work around again recovering in both reading and Mathematics so I believe that was the last slide and big thanks to again instructional Services Dr Presidio Mark greenfelter Noelle clamenco the team um pretty exciting work so there you have it academic matters and I'd be happy to take any questions thank you Dr Reed for

051that information I will take some questions my board members Miss Marin yes Dr Reed hello again so I'm wondering how to kind of combine a few Reflections from this evening you know I think we hear parts of people's experience sometimes it's positive sometimes it's not and people want more and then we see your database presentation here showing us that students are are doing quite well and I well they're getting right they're doing well it's not um a situation that some might paint as you know um as what it they paint it as and I'm just wondering how you know when I listen to our many of our speakers today in collective bargaining the things that they're asking for are things that are not in our control as an education system their societal things their revenue

052structures for taxes they're how community and Society values education their colleges of Ed so I'm wondering how to take the momentum and the positivity and the data that you're presenting into the upcoming strategic planning conversations that you just presented on as an opportunity to educate the community with data about where our students are and not to say that everything's perfect but to say that it's also perhaps not awful things that are within our control I just see a lot of connections here and um that's very encouraging data now I know I mean with my own kids I know they don't quite fit in there just yet but like I want us to be positive in building public education up and not constantly talking about all the things that are wrong so many of which are

053not in our control as a School Division that doesn't even control the revenue generators you know people are asking why can't we fund staff raises with three billion dollars that's not we don't even control that money so anyway I just ask that you think about how to educate the community and bring them along in the excitement you've generated with the data that shows that there is momentum and change happening that's good for kids thank you Miss Marin and I I think what's really important and I know the board the reason I'm making these reports is because you want to know are the things you're investing in making a difference we've talked about Roi the return on investment the impact that you want measured our program evaluation that you're not just curious about but expect and

054what I'm showing you this evening is real-time data that says what we are implementing is making a difference in the right direction I am not here to tell you tonight we're there I'm here to say that the data is moving in the correct direction and I think that it was wise on the part of our leadership uh well before I got here to realize that the Esser dollars we need to have them last through several years because the pandemic was not a one and done one-year issue and we're not going to recover in one and done so we need to be patient which is not always our highest virtue myself included we need to be patient and understand that the several years we've of trauma we've all lived through may take us several years to

055climb out of but if we do it in a thoughtful way we'll do it in a less stressful healthier and more sustainable way and I'm proud of all of our Educators and the work they're doing and I know you are too thank you Mr fresh thank you so I've seen this data a couple different times a couple different ways and one thing that strikes me is that it just doesn't it doesn't speak to the work that's being done by Educators in the classroom can you talk a little bit about how our educators are using these Esser funds whether it's with instructional materials what have you what happens when they have a child who is behind how are they helping do close how are they producing the results in the classroom that lead to a presentation

056in our board meeting wow well that's a big question isn't it so let me share an example from our math conversation we had this week I heard about a lot about our what's called avmr training which is work around um math instruction pedagogical instruction and we've had over a thousand teachers already sign up and this was a here's an option right that we're able to use Ester dollars and well I think that was a year ago and another 1200 this year am I correct in that actually you've got a microphone you want to talk about that for a minute please to respond to Mr Frisch's do you feel comfortable with that sure so um Dr Reed was starting to talk about avmr which is an example of something that a lot of our elementary schools

057have invested in it really gives our elementary teachers not just what to do with kids but really builds their content knowledge so that they can apply what they learn in avmr to help a student who's struggling but they also are deepening their own understand of mathematics so that they can apply that in while they're teaching their whole class instruction a lot of times we find that elementary teachers don't have as much content knowledge about math as some of our you know obviously as a math teacher for middle or high school so by having those Sr dollars and by being able to provide that training and those opportunities because that kind of training is not just you go and you learn but you go and then you try it you get feedback and so it's a

058little bit more intensive and Esther dollars is allowing us to do that with more teachers provide more training and build the efficacy of more teachers so then what is happening actually in the classroom is really more intentional they're able to understand where a student's deficit is and Target in more closely because they understand the progression of learning does that does that help yeah I mean and the reason I'm asking that question is because we're stuck on this idea that we're going towards this goal of getting to the pre-pandemic benchmark and if this is working right now imagine what we'll be able to do when we reach that pandemic Benchmark and begin working on the gaps that preceded the pandemic something that we've wanted to do for a long long time and so when I see

059every school having its Esser spending and Improvement plans on the websites these examples of how it's being used in the classroom speak to exactly what's happening in our schools and how that money is being spent for that purpose um so I think it would be good for us to remember like this this is an equity lens on the classroom um and what that means is it's giving Educators the tools they need to offer enhanced differentiated instruction so that the kid who's further behind gets the help they need and the kid who is excelling is getting even more tools to excel even further that's correct Mr fresh I I our dream is that as we complete this s around in the next couple years that we're going to see a closing of the gaps and a

060soaring of a ceiling because I think so often we've just compressed and created a standard level and I think if we move to the space where we're able to be more personalized utilize our multi-tiered systems of support effectively provide that early literacy Foundation there's no telling what our Fairfax students are able to do thanks thank you Dr Anderson thank you for this information um just kind of going pivoting a little bit because this is also a question that I get asked quite a bit and this is a good space for you to talk about this um you've talked about the Esser funds the ones that are targeted towards the academic Endeavors to help to close the gaps and to deal with the learning laws I would love for you to be able to also connect

061the dots to talk about how the Investments and the social emotional side have impacted the academic gains that we're seeing here in this recovery process so great question Dr Anderson thank you and I I think you know one of the things Fairfax County has prided itself in is attention to the whole child right there's not just that academic side but the social emotional um and the final Performing Arts all of those play a role in a really amazingly uh a Mountaintop education experience so I know that our instructional services division is utilized Ester dollars to create a more centralized approach to social emotional learning the new advisories the Middle School recess opportunity of course those aren't Esther funded but those have been I think tremendous in their approach in terms of providing time for students

062to develop those social emotional skills I know we've had a number of materials crafted to support instruction in the classroom around social emotional learning having had the opportunity in fact you and I were at Glasgow watching and experiencing recess where students are actually talking to each other right and it could also be a little less screen time that's helping our students kind of take it down a notch while we're in school um but I the Esser approach to social emotional learning I think has been really a strong supporter of our academic work students learn better when they feel safe right intellectually emotionally physically um Nicole or Noel sorry Noelle do you have anything you want to add on the scl piece yeah I don't have as much to add um on that piece I will

063say that that could be a future academic matters I think it could be a really interesting to take a deeper dive because I don't think we spend as much time talking about that fair enough that makes sense because I think people are also looking for those connections because they all lead to the goals that we have which is a high academic performance for all of our students also the other piece that continues to happen I know we all know that these plans live on the school's website can you also articulate because I know there are other ways that these plants and how Escher funds are being utilized to help students are being articulated to parents at our schools so the Esther plans this year I really um this last spring they were aligned and worked

064on really much more centralized and we talk a lot about what's tight and what's loose in the county but I think the Esther planning was something that really became much tighter the structure was tighter while the options were loose but those I know are being shared at curriculum nights they are on websites and they are being reviewed most importantly I know each of you have done data conversations with schools within your regions or if you're an at-large member you know and data talks that are more division wide but I know the yester dollars are part of that and the Esther plans are part of those conversations so I appreciate board members attention to Esther plans as well they've been integrated actually into our school plans not they're not separate which I think has been a

065key to their success and I raised this because very often I don't think our community is as mindful that these plans are being shared and communicated in other ways it's not just you have to go to the website and to dig into all of that data because we know how easy sometimes it is to navigate the FCPS website um so I just wanted to make sure that people were aware that the principals are taking good care to communicate this information out in um in other ways my last question you shared data that was division wide which is very helpful in your disaggregation of it did you find that there were pockets of students or pockets of schools that were not meeting that were not making the gains or not making as as can you put

066that slide back up I think it was the first one please not right we have I just want to know what you thought I don't want to put words in your mouth so what I will say uh Dr Anderson is that not all schools have the same rate of acceleration right can you speak a little bit in terms of who those schools are what kind of students there are and what does that mean I think you know what's interesting and I'm gonna have to go back to my let me take a moment here to remember because I sat in on one of the data conversations oh I sat in on the data conversation around early literacy and I was actually a little surprised and Noel you have my permission to lean in and correct me

067if I don't get this right um thoughtfully but if I recall what was interesting to me is in let's use reading as an example K through six it actually our third through sixth graders were recovering at a higher rate than our younger students our kindergarten through second was that correct Becky you recall the same thing and I actually in my mind intuitively I thought that our youngest Learners would tend to recover most quickly and that our intermediate Learners would have had you know they would still be accelerating but it would have been at slightly not quite as quick rate but in fact that wasn't the case in reading so I would say our youngest Learners and you could have all kinds of theories um a theory we had as we some of our youngest Learners

068had to learn in school um as well right like if they weren't in a classroom in kindergarten and maybe um mixed in first grade then as they came into second there were some other sort of we had to get the SEL or sort of um attention uh developmental attention skills and so forth um going so that we could focus on academic skills so I would say for reading our intermediate students are making growth and maybe they'll surge through the winter right when we look at our midpoint I would also say that the students who in some cases well actually let me pause for a minute Becky you've been shaking your hand let's ask Becky boinick who is a our lead Raz I think she has some thoughts about our students perhaps where we struggled more

069than not yeah well I think because there were some surprises honestly so you've highlighted some great points Dr Reed I mean the I ready definitely showed us as Dr to read outline that our upper grade students accelerated more in the year than our k12s and just wanted to share the other pieces when we do look Dr Anderson at our data we look at it two ways we look at whose met our benchmarks right whether we're talking about past proficient pass Advanced on an Sol or whether we're talking with iready the 40th percentile so we look at how many students are at those benchmarks but we also look at growth because our schools that may still be lower with their achievement but are showing accelerated growth that means what they're doing is working and we want

070to honor and celebrate that the other thing that we've done across regions is look at those schools that are high achievement high growth or maybe their achievement's not there but they're very high with their growth and then just going back and looking at their sip their school Improvement plans and talking through their strategies and actions to unearth well what were the high level strategies that you employed that you then account for those results because those are the things we would want to replicate across schools and connect schools who maybe didn't have those rapid gains so that they can benchmark and so let me like if I can paraphrase we had this grid right four quadrants and the four quadrants um had schools that were low performing High acceleration low performing low acceleration High performing High

071acceleration right for and every school was plotted on that and we went through those by region and we know that if it's a low performing school with low acceleration we're implementing more resources right now in a school that is not performing and not accelerating so our regional assistant superintendents it's not just we're handing out the same amount of money to all schools in the same amount of time and resources from our instructional Services we're actually looking at every single school on the grid and saying here is where we're going to focus right now and what I'm really excited about it is visiting classrooms where we have perhaps low performance and high acceleration that are really making moves and making sure that we're understanding what they're doing so we can replicate that strategy in other schools

072and in some cases it's also honestly just experience of Staff right because we have to remember we've started the year and that goes to some of the comments we heard earlier this evening we've started the year in some cases with substitutes in classrooms and I want to say last year even with the progress we've made I want to remind us where we were last year we were still out for four to seven days when people were sick right like so the intermittent attendance last year was not a fabulously perfect Academic Year so to make the progress we're making we're actually we're excited so more to come on that Dr Anderson I'm very interested in seeing that quadrant that you just described data gets more data but I I do want to hone in a little

073bit if you found that in your exploration that Staffing was one of the barriers what does that mean to you in the short term and in the long term well I'm glad you asked that question it's probably um one of the things we're designated for schools that maybe most specifically are going to need our most experienced folks so we're taking those data points we're doing that root cause analysis to say why do we see that what could we do and then our teams pretty much putting it on the line and saying this is what we need to do and we're doing it a lot earlier we're like we're not waiting until May to bring you a report like people are looking at this right now well I cannot wait to see that and my final

074question is regarding the role of parents in the recovery definitely probably more at the elementary level than at the secondary parents are wanting to know how can I help my child because if the school has realized that my child has these gaps and deficiencies and they're using tutors they're doing all kinds of things in the building I I don't the parents who are speaking with me are not feeling as if they're getting enough Communication in terms of how they can support those Endeavors at home how can we make sure that we are articulating what those tests not just what the tests are but the results and then the accompanied strategies that parents can do themselves at home to help the acceleration so this morning actually I was out at Forest Glen Lisa is that the

075name of the school is that Forest Glen Glen Forest sorry darn it Glen Forest Elementary School visiting the parent liaison parent literacy program and it was really fabulous to see parents coming into the schools and learning more about what is happening you know in terms of classroom instruction for our youngest Learners I will say that I think we could do more to provide parents that experience I know after our last work session we're talking about how do we put like kindergarten grade one grade two if not the pacing calendars specifically online but at least expectations topically so parents can feel like they have a sense of are we kind of on point and I think one of the ideas we are looking at is within those grade level spans maybe linking to resources that parents

076might consider but we also want to kind of just take a break here for two weeks and kind of put things down so that we can come back really rested re-energize staff and students and families and just be excited for the start back up in January 23 but more to come for parent resources okay thank you you bet thank you Miss Corbett Sanders thank you Dr Reed you often speak about innovation and I actually think similar to what Mr Frisch offered the beauty of the Esser funds is that it has allowed us to innovate in ways that we may not have done in the past and so what would be very helpful is perhaps by the end of this year having a look back and saying okay of these things that we've done these are

077the ones we want to stay we want to keep in our best practices and there are a few different ones we we've had our school Improvement plans for years and actually parents are engaged in the development of a school Improvement plan at each one of our sites and so or they're supposed to um I've actually sat on school Improvement planning committees as a parent and so knowing that that's an important part of the process and knowing that we have uh published our Esser funds or s or plans and that as you spoke to tonight we are doing a quarterly review by school on where we're at in that and that allows us to triage problems and also share best practices when they're working so would it be possible to kind of get a a look

078back from you at some point of these are best practices that we built into the system these are things that we know worked these are things that didn't work and we shouldn't do anymore it's possible if you ask me to do it I have of course we will get it done absolutely I mean not over the holiday secondly even Academic Year not calendar year correct good thank you um the next piece is we know that we have a lot of data we've seen a lot of the data in the strategic planning process we saw a lot of the data here we've seen the data on our performance uh with the naeb as well as actually National and internationally normed larger data sets so um we know that the VGA is coming out soon right will

079you be using the VGA data to inform the esserwork yes you will would it be possible to have a briefing on how we're going to use that VGA data yes I'm getting the nod that it would absolutely be possible okay so we will get that to you that would be wonderful I am obviously particularly interested in the schools in my district but I believe that it's something that all of my colleagues would share you bet an interest in and then finally the last piece is regarding um the Esser funds we know that they're coming to an end but one large portion of the Esser funds that you actually didn't have here was the gift of time for our special education teachers knowing that they have more on their plates we couldn't actually give them time

080but we did give them a stipend and I would love to see as you go forward in developing your budget your proposed budget that you take that into account thank you yes ma'am thank you Miss keys gamara thank you um I really appreciate this conversation tonight I know previously in a work session we talked a little bit about um where Esser funds how Esser funds have been used and at that time I asked for you know just a short summary that parents could easily access to understand I felt like today's presentation was a step in that direction um but I also agree with some of my colleagues who talked about you know and I've always said this that this is an opportunity as you refer to it um there's a lot of good stuff going

081on in our schools the question is do people know it and when they don't know it they describe it in a way that is less accurate than is really beneficial to the community to really moving together toward a particular goal so I took a quick look on our website and just as our funds learning Lawsons cetera and I really didn't find anything you know it was really quick so if I missed it please forgive me um but if I you know as a parent I would if I'm looking at this huge investment I'd want to be able to look online and and easily hear first of all what is your perspective with respect to how we're going about making this investment and then the kind of information that you provided today um my colleague sitting

082next to me talked a lot about those things that we can't control this is one of those things that I think we can and it's truly um to everyone's benefit right I just I could see parents breathing a sigh of relief I don't know what the viewership of the school board is I'm guessing it's a lot less than how many families we have in in FCPS and so I I really want to make sure sure that we make that information accessible right and you know there's areas of growth there's areas where we're doing really well we we need to have that in my opinion um more easily available um so um the other thing I you know I'm listening to some of our comments tonight and you know there can be a negative approach or

083negative view of equity but I know that we have been working on an equity policy I'd love to see that um address we've had several meetings public meetings regarding this but it really is the idea of how we've talked about it as a board is guiding these decisions and I think the more that we can communicate that so that people actually know what we're talking about so that we don't have to combat what it isn't um is helpful a part of that also was mentioned by my colleague Dr Anderson with respect to SEO I'd like to have that on there and lastly if I can just squeeze in you know a parent's corner right in that information this is how you can participate this is how you can help so thank you I tried to

084make it succinct yes no and I don't make the bell ring but anyway I appreciate that Miss keys gamara and I think we have opportunities on the website and I'll have some time the next couple weeks so I think we'll have a chance to take a look at that I also want to say that what I was talking about with the quadrant in school schools that you know are accelerating at different rates I think the where we think about Equity as something Beyond a policy right when we think about it as our work we know that we're going to have to support schools differently we need to provide what each School in each context and each and every student need so that we get not just to where we were before the pandemic because I

085wasn't good enough that wasn't working for all of our students prior to the pandemic right what we want is an education that provides what each and every child needs to achieve their potential that they would like and their family would like and I think that's also part of the evolution of our chief Equity officer and the department Dr King is leading we've talked a lot in the last several weeks about it's not just around responses to incidents it's about the education that each and every student has and has the opportunity to have I don't know Dr King if you want to talk a little about kind of really the focus on what happens education only in the attainment opportunities that are available for each and every student it's not just response you know to incidents

086so Dr King you want to take a minute and just kind of talk about I'm excited about the evolution as we shift to more action that's integrated into the work of the division so Dr King thank you I'm Dr Reed you know our team has had the last couple of days through retreat with Dr Williams around how we can push our way into the academic side and not just be responsive to the cultural right cultural is important and we are going to continue to be thought partners with our principals when they have issues around culture but if we want Equity to be at the center of all we say and do we have to see equity in all that we say and do in Fairfax County Public Schools and so we are working as a

087team to reimagine what our Equity office can look like you know I always tell Dr Reed that um Mark greenfelder did a really good job building OSS right and they gave schools the support that they need we want to see our Equity work permeate through the district in that same kind of way so that each department is keeping Equity at the Forefront of what we do to support our students in Fairfax County thanks thanks Dr King thank you Miss McLaughlin Dr Anderson's um line of questions I I would say going forward where my concerns continue to be is as a large division it's often been said that we're A Tale of Two counties and so I do think based on the National Data that has come out about the impact of the pandemic we know

088that students in poverty had the greatest losses and we haven't necessarily seen the same games um and and Dr Anderson even made a comment about what families can do we know families with means mitigated it during the pandemic and continue to mitigate post-pandemic so um I it would be helpful to kind of have staff really look at this and and um again after the break well after the break I am all about the everyone needs to rest and recharge um the other thing I will say if that chart um can come back up uh that showed uh the three years in comparison to Virginia you know I'm kind of a stickler about making sure that our PowerPoint slides speak for themselves and so uh that slide the very bottom says three-year comparison and it says

0892019 to 2022 so that's a little confusing for people if they don't understand really what we're talking about is school year 20 school year 21 school year 22 are we talking about school year 19 to 20. and then which was pre-pandemic um so I I think and each of the bars should be labeled because again it's just it's kind of counting on people to understand how to read it but so I was um Fair Point wanting to really see how we can continue to improve the way we communicate out and people understand what's there um and then I think it would be very interesting again looking at the the Delta when you look at where we were against Virginia pre-pandemic bar there was about a three percentage Point differential and now when you look at

090this past year um it's a six percentage point so to what you're saying is yes we're making our gains faster right um however again we are the largest and highest performing District in Virginia so sometimes comparing ourselves against the whole state isn't always where we're going to want to compare ourselves so I would say maybe looking at uh maybe the 10 largest school divisions with similar poverty rates again I know a lot of our larger School divisions in the country tend to also be set in areas with higher poverty so that would be my other suggestion for Meaningful and Analysis Fair Point um Miss McLaughlin yeah it's not compare ourselves to the rest of the Commonwealth but okay got it we're into the playoffs right final four group all right we're on it yep you

091bet thank you thank you Dr Reed and thank you to your team for the academic matters and folks on the Esther funds and learning lawsuit and really addressing some of the issues that um we here and our families in our community wants to know and I just think um one if you could share this presentations with the board after that would be great but I I really think having an academic matters section on the website even there where people can go back and look or maybe if it's searched by Esser or search by whatever the topic and I know we talk about El students I think that might be also a beneficial thing so people can kind of track what we're talking about so yes ma'am thank you so much I appreciate it um and

092with that I will move on to agenda item 4.04 student representative matters and I call them Miss togby thank you madam chair good evening everyone and happy Thursday and happy winter break Eve I can't believe that this is going to be the last time they're all that we are all together before the end of 2022 and wow what a year it has been I've only joined you all in this my in my capacity since early fall but I I'd like to think that I've been fighting to make strides for student voice long before then alongside my peers and in the midst of it all time and time again I have to say that I have witnessed the voices of teachers administrators bus drivers and more kind of Fade Into the background almost um the working

093conditions that they're in are also the conditions that students are learning in and that I am learning in and for far too long I've watched those teachers counselors like my trusted adults all of whom I trust all of whom are staff members stretch themselves far too thin I've left my school at hours pretty late because of various activities and I will still see them in their classrooms whether it's grading creating lesson plans or tweaking certain things and they've already been at school from eight to three already um Nora the student earlier really said it best when she said that it's important that we stress that we haven't really seen a lot of teachers say in the post-covered era that we're living in and because they're stretched so thin the more and more responses that responsibilities

094that are being handed to them that's they can't handle it it's it's too much and employees deserve to be heard at the decision-making table and I really can't stress that enough if if I was asked to go visit all of my teachers from my freshman year there would only be one teacher that I could visit at my school and that's that by itself says a lot education Recruitment and Retention programs are necessary for this exact reason but please correct me if I'm wrong but if I'm correct it would cost more money to go out and recruit people when we're very strong on saying that we support our employees but we're failing them in that aspect when they will move for better situation scenarios where's the support for their mental health where's the support when teachers

095post Amazon Wish lists in groups out into the community changing the way that we select and train and compensate our employees is a big part of the system that needs changing and it's also necessary in educating all the kids in our division teaching is one of the most important professions but the current system that's designed discourages our best and our brightest from entering the profession which in turn deprives our kids so I ask I'm honestly kind of begging you guys to be completely honest if you look at the learning and teaching conditions of our students and teachers when reflecting on testing data and you draw conclusions like what can we do to increase these test scores why are we looking at high numbers of Staff members leaving the county think about the working experiences of

096our teachers and like the learning student learning experiences of our students when a teacher is given an unmanageable class size with students that can be loud and disruptive that's class time that's being lost when a teacher is burnt out because of countless reasons and they choose to sacrifice their leave time to take care of themselves for just that day a class period could be behind and that could ruin a unit when we're not getting the best lessons or instruction it's because teachers aren't being given the guidance and support that they need it's not just about the compensation of teachers and you know that but it's the respect and honestly more specifically the lack of respect and not just from students from members of leadership even at their own schools and they need an opportunity to

097actually be heard I want to say that what's best for my teachers my admin and my admin assistants my counselors bus drivers custodians all staff is what I want to see and it's also I want to see what's best for my peers too and as always thank you so much for your time and I'm looking forward to a great start together in 2023 thank you Miss togby as always for your wise words I will call um agenda item 4.05 superintendent matters and I call on Dr Reed thank you madam chair um excuse me and thank you Miss togby um for your comments um as we're getting close to winter break I just want to take a brief moment to share a couple events that I had the opportunity to attend recently December 2nd had the

098opportunity to attend the women's basketball game at West Springfield High School and have a fabulous moment because they were retiring Carol Lawson's Jersey and that was uh I think kind of a historic event she was a West Springfield High School graduate who went on to play for Pat Summitt at the University of Tennessee and as a college baller who grew up watching women's basketball kind of come to Center Stage Pat Summitt was somebody that I think I have every book she ever wrote and to have someone who played for Coach Summit who then went on to earn two Olympic gold medals and become an ESPN analyst and it's currently they had women's Coach at Duke University it was really kind of a fun moment for me I had a chance to send a picture that

099we took to a former student athlete that I coached who had played at Duke Lee Morgan who actually held the three-point shooting record for a number of years so we had kind of a fun reconnect moment although I don't know if it was a great moment because I realized Lee is uh in her 40s now that I was coach here so I know okay I won't go down that road the other thing is I had a chance to watch our Oakton girls basketball team square off against South Lakes or actually I think they played um Yorktown so maybe I've got the wrong notes here they played Yorktown and oh my goodness I will also say that at halftime the Oakton dance team is amazing it was kind of a moment I was sharing with several

100staff that I thought maybe I could do a cameo appearance it's kind of a little get ready for winter break I was talked out of it I got no traction at all on that um so I did have an opportunity to see the Herndon High School and Middle School choirs at the Reston Town Center under the direction of Dana Van slyke and Susie Kraft fabulous it was a little windy and cold but the voices were amazing it was fabulous I also want to recognize Justice High School honored by our national black school Educators Alliance conference and also our very own Dr nardis King who's the president of that National Association so appreciate that Dr King um and that was a fabulous conference I just want to say that we've got staff all over doing amazing

101work Fairfax County Parks is offering camps during winter break so for any community members watching I think it's an opportunity they'll be focused on cooking dancing Athletics engineering nature and more hopefully math um and the Flores Elementary student Lego team won the Regional Championship and I haven't had a chance to get out and see what they uh created but I'm sure it was exciting and then one of the highlights of my experience since last we met was Dr Presidio and I had an opportunity to host Nestor 3 Community conversation this week we had a number of community members join us in person and online and had a fabulous conversation and that is my report this evening so thank you thank you Dr Reed and remind me not to schedule a board staff basketball game anytime

102soon yeah so I'll move on to agenda item 4.06 Capital Improvement plan and I'll call on Dr Reed for the introduction I will be introducing for our Capital plan Mr Chuck fan well actually I'll introduce Marty Smith to introduce the team to present that thank you madam chair good evening Dr Reed and good evening Madam chair and board tonight we are excited to bring forth uh the capital Improvement program and we're very excited to share it with you in a different way than we've shared in the past we know that we have the presentation this evening we have a work session scheduled for January 10th and in the meantime and between the presentation and the work session we'll have an opportunity of had conversations with board members uh regarding the CIP and we will be

103building those conversations into the presentation for the 10th we've got lots of great things planned for the 10th before I turn the evening over to our interim assistant superintendent for facilities and transportation services Mr Chuck Fanshawe I do want to take this moment to first of all introduce him to the community it will be his first presentation before the board he's no stranger to the community he's a member of our of our very own community unity and has very quickly made a name for himself within Fairfax County and with our friends on the Planning Commission and with within Fairfax County government and I do want to thank him for his uh dedication and service to Fairfax County Public Schools he has brought an immense amount of talent to the position he has brought a unique

104vision and perspective to the role and I am grateful to have him within this particular position and so with that no pressure Mr panchal but I will turn the presentation over to you this evening and again we will have a high level presentation and know that we will have a full work session to discuss many different aspects of the CIP with the school board thanks Marty no pressure um and if we could pull the presentation up thank you okay next slide please uh good evening a capital Improvement program is a planning and fiscal management tool used to coordinate the location timing and funding of projects over five years the program includes an annual view of current student membership and Facilities data to identify projects such as new construction capacity enhancements that include modular and or

105additions and Renovations along with potential site Acquisitions newly newly identified needs are included in the estimated schedule of capital projects for the next five years and the capital cash flow tracks the funding allocation for these projects over the past five years the CIP has constantly evolved to improve communication and transparency through additional maps and tables membership and facility capacity data information on the asset management program and environmental sustainability at FCPS along with new resources and an appendix with information on each facility we continue to present this information through the CIP and own the facilities and membership dashboards next slide please this year includes some new sections in the CIP the asset management and environmental sustainability information have been pulled from the resources section to create two Standalone sections on these important topics the resources section

106has been updated to reflect the adjustments to the 2021 magisterial districts references to the ongoing process to update the capital project Community engagement process are also noted and update updates to the process continue the purpose of this communication process is to enhance and improve the community engagement for capital projects next slide please information on recently completed capital projects can be found in the proposed CIP beginning on page 50. completed projects include additions at West Potomac High School and Madison High School next slide and Renovations at Washington Mill Elementary Hughes Middle and Herndon and Oakton High Schools next slide please the certified students the certified September student membership is used to produce a five-year projection that adjusts to shifts in membership Trends as they occur the covid-19 pandemic has had an impact on the overall FCPS

107membership FCPS experienced a decline in certified September membership of approximately 8 900 students from school year 1920 to school year 22-23 I'll also note that total membership has increased by approximately 1 000 students from September 2020 to to November 2022. the proposed CIP includes a five-year membership projection program capacity utilization potential solutions to consider for each school with a capacity deficit and a five-year Capital Construction cash flow next slide please fundings for funding sources for the CIP include the general obligation Bond as voted on in the bi-annual school bond referendum operating funds and from the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors for infrastructure management and per offers Bond funding is used for major capital projects such as Renovations additions new school construction modular modular buildings and site acquisition the annual limit for General obligation Bond funding

108has increased over time the most recent increase is an annual allocation of 205 million dollars per year and the upcoming increase to 230 million dollars per year we thank Fairfax County and Board of Supervisors for their continued partnership which results in increased funding to support FCPS capital projects as a result of price escalation in the construction industry we continue to monitor these costs as they relate to FCPS capital projects School construction projects approved in the November 2021 school bond referendum are included in this CIP transfers from the FCPS operating fund of Thirteen and a half million dollars are used for routine and major maintenance and 2.7 million for overcrowding an annual transfer from the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors of 13.1 million for infrastructure management has been increased to 15.6 million in fiscal 2023. for

109offers or voluntary conditions agreed upon between Fairfax County Land and Land Development applicants for offers can address both on-site and offset impacts and once accepted they become a part of the zoning regulations applicable to the property unless subsequently Changed by a development plan or new zoning Amendment proffers often include cash contributions which are allocated to projects related to increasing the capacity of schools impacted by development FCPS received just over four million dollars in fiscal 22 from residential development in Fairfax County that had an impact on the capacity of facilities next slide please this slide is to summarize capital projects identified in the Capital Construction cash flow the FY 24 to 28 cash flow identifies the current and anticipated funding and schedule for the following projects new school construction of three elementary schools and one high

110school three new and or repurposed school facilities the construction of an addition at Justice High School relocation of five modular buildings renovation of the schools remaining in the queue acquisition of land for one new High School more detail on Project cost and schedule are on page 46 and 47 of the proposed CIP next slide please the total five-year requirement is approximately 1.4 billion dollars approximately 470 million is funded by bonds and and the remainder is unfunded the tenure requirement is approximately two billion dollars with approximately 514 million dollars funded by bonds and the remainder unfunded information on this slide can be found on page 46 of the proposed CIP next slide please the total five-year requirement for infrastructure replacement and these are major buildings components like air handlers chillers boilers Etc is approximately 380 million

111dollars of which 150 million is funded by the County transfer major maintenance and approximately 230 million are unfunded information on this slide can be found on page 200 of the proposed CIP in the new asset management section next slide please get to Green is the Environmental stewardship program for FCPS and supports student-driven environmental stewardship programs in FCPS currently there are 148 FCPS Eco schools registered with the National Wildlife Federation Eco Schools USA program 54 schools achieved Awards through the Eco Schools USA program including the only schools Nationwide with permanent green flag status which are Catherine Johnson Middle School Centerville Elementary School and Flint Hill Elementary School the FCPS energy conservation program has allowed the division to reduce energy expenditures by approximately 69 million dollars and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 39 percent solar power purchase

112Agreements are continuing to progress with two schools awarded a power purchase agreement contract in 2022. more solar projects are expected in 2023 and will result in solar installations at no initial cost to the division FCPS follows the jet recommendations starting with the 2021 Bond projects to incorporate Net Zero design elements with a goal of achieving Net Zero Energy facilities as we evaluate the full cost impacts we ensure design choices to make us Net Zero ready FCPS received its first electric school buses in 2021 as part of the jet commitment to provide carbon neutral student transportation by 2035 with eight electric buses in operation we anticipate an additional 20 arriving in 2023 . information on this slide can be found on pages 232 to 240 of the proposed CIP next slide please today we are presenting

113the proposed CIP as new business this proposed CIP is scheduled to be discussed in much greater detail at the school board work session on January 10th a public hearing is scheduled for the proposed CIP on January 12th and School Board action is scheduled for February 9th the board will have an opportunity to provide feedback and staff will incorporate changes to the CIP along with the concurred amendments from school board action and that's the end of my presentation and before questions I do also want to note that Miss Jessica Gillis is with us this evening she's our executive director for facilities planning and we do want to thank Miss Gillis and her team specifically Brian Shuster for their work on the CIP it's a Monumental task at the beginning of the year to work to not

114only do projections for our budgets but to also produce the CIP and the office does a magnificent work and if there are questions that we're unable to answer this evening again we have the work session on the 10th and Miss Gillis will be available to answer questions as well thank you and just I'll just piggyback on that reminder we do have a work session scheduled for January 10th on this but um so I'll go ahead and take questions from my colleagues now but if you don't get your questions answered we have plenty of time on January 10th so I'll start with Ms keys gamara yes thank you uh Mr fan shall we I think we spent some time together last night on the schools committee and um we fielded a number of questions um which

115kind of goes with uh some what my comments are today um going into this work session I I realize in as a result of other meetings as well as last night that the average person even those that are involved in government have no idea how we're making these decisions um and I also realized that when I look at how we talk about bonds we certainly may not have laid out as well as we can or perhaps this is an area of growth and opportunity as Dr Reed would refer to perhaps help the community understand that I would love to see a graph of the life of a bond right um so perhaps it would help if we had some charts for this upcoming work session uh to understand um first of all you know we

116may even we may identify that something is needed right but then how long does it take to actually get a bond the request for the bond set up what's that process look like then once we get that Bond um how long does it take for to identify and get those funds set up so that you know people in the community start to see some improvements we are you know our bus fleet is one of the largest in the nation and I think the maintenance of our buildings uh Rivals that but I don't think that we have communicated it as clearly as we could in as simple a way as we can such as a graph or you know a flow chart Etc and so I'm just going to offer that as something that might actually

117help our discussion on January 10th because we were we had the opportunity to be with the Planning Commission and a number of other folks and a lot of the questions they were asking I'm going but hey we're doing this obviously these are our more some of our citizens that are more informed and involved in the governmental process and they didn't know so perhaps this is an area where we can help to clarify that um and and we just go in these meetings and say pull up the website all right thank you very much Mr Financial did you want to respond I think it's more commentary but I wanted to give you that opportunity if you wanted to say anything okay no thank you and I I appreciate the uh that Simplicity is is much easier

118to follow um and I think we have opportunities to present things simpler less is more thank you thank you Miss Tolan yes thank you um always very interested to see our Capital Improvement program I'm happy to say that you know we've got a renovation undergoing at Cooper middle and renovation is about to start at drainsville elementary and Herndon Elementary School so that's all very good for drainsville um I will be asking a lot of questions we've already been talking in depth across the division for Kent Gardens Elementary School one of our most crowded elementary schools and I'm also working with our Capital Planning and Development Committee with with Karen keys gamara and fpac um and we'll be asking for some changes to the plants that they're highlighted in there um so I'm looking forward to

119we um for the public too we do have um to what we call two by two conversations with the board coming up in the beginning of January so we'll all have opportunities as board members to have a very specific comments to our facility staff about the CIP so looking forward to that um I am hoping that we can also make a kind of simple for our public what we're doing the work that we're doing around the renovation queue over the next months and um you know and maybe talk a little bit about how the public will be engaged with that I don't know Mr fanshaw if you have any comments you'd like to make about that yes thanks um we are in the initial phases of kicking off uh to develop the criteria for the

120next queue and we'll be having discussions as we roll that out and then including a engagement plan so that we make sure we hear from the community as well so that that's in its initial stages it will follow after our CIP work is done but it's integral to it's really the integral to next year's CIP because it's uh all part of the process right exactly um yes so those of us with McLean high school will be very interested to see how that you know the building um analysis pans out um also you know living injuries right next to Tyson's Mr fresh and I have done lots of work with constituents on Tyson's development so I know the CIP is supposed to be a five-year look at planning and to really help with the immediate needs

121around Staffing and you know what we're doing the short term can you tell us like there's a little bit of long-term stuff you mentioned a few 10-year things um where can we really see the longer range work and planning and looking at development entices and other areas of the county and how we're going to have to plan longer term with our enrollment numbers Etc so I I'll take a little bit of that I think that we have opportunities every year as we work with our colleagues at the county we know that we have an annual presentation to our board that focuses on growth and development within the overall County so that we can make better decisions about what our needs might be for students in schools and so we will certainly continue to engage with

122our our colleagues at the county as we think about growth and as we think about where those residential units will be coming on on board and how we can best think about all of the options available to us in the CIP to meet the needs of our students and as we've talked about those options range from anywhere from looking at individual space within buildings and reassessing what those instructional spaces look like all the way to trailers modulars and then new construction Renovations and and boundaries okay um I've also asked already for some um you know we have some community members that have done some analysis or just looking at our development happening in the Tysons area looking at the numbers of students that are protected and how that compares to our numbers in the CIP

123so I hope we'll be having further discussions on that um and my last comment is on the environmental side I know a couple of us were a little surprised to find out that the dunluring plans were not Net Zero so can you talk a little bit about that and what the planning is around Net Zero so I can sorry we have I think I'd like to also use time in the work session to go into this a little more detail and I think what I would want to lay out is what it takes to get to Net Zero and then some of the choices we're making along our way to make it easier for us to get there and I'd actually have to do more research so I could give give you a good answer

124on this as well okay thanks I look forward to the work session thank you and I would also add that as Mr Fanshawe shared earlier we're looking at um that Net Zero and then thinking about what Net Zero ready also looks like and we'll be able to speak to that in the work session as well thank you Miss Cohen yeah happy to just give a little preview of some questions um coming up for the work session but a big one certainly I know you know it's coming but uh Stella and I had last year a follow-on that in this CIP that we would have a proposed location for Western High School um I know there's been a lot on the plate but I'm hopeful that in the work session you will be able to give

125us an update I am I'll confess disappointed to see it on a 10-year timeline when it was bonded over 10 years ago already so I just you know I think I would say those of us who are really counting on trying to get some of those schools some of our high schools some capacity relief are really counting on that Western High School so we'll be excited to learn more about it um also glad to follow Miss Tolan in adding to your Net Zero conversation the Willow Springs renovation um just wondering about what green components are happening there and conversations too as we go through um your two cents on potentially changing the way that we design some of our school Renovations so either going to a more standardized process where there's three types you choose

126from and this is what works best for this site or whatever but to to maybe better streamline a little bit some of the especially the space utilization on some of our Renovations so again I appreciate all the hard work I know this is like we're throwing you into the lion's den right away welcome to it but um but we appreciate everything that you've been doing and look forward to the work session thanks I look forward to the discussion as well thank you Miss Marin thank you Mr Fanshawe for stepping in and being our acting assistant superintendent um I've really appreciated your enthusiasm and professionalism so um one thing I I do want to share about Net Zero is um you know you inherited this directive but I look at Arlington and they have Net Zero

127schools I was actually in Durham North Carolina this summer and had hoped to put together a little slideshow for staff because it was so inspiring what the government is doing there they're trying to be by 2030 either carbon neutral or on completely renewable energy and my good friend happens to work there and I got to see the installation of a geothermal system the only downside was that it happened to be for um dealing with Juvenile Detention but at the same time look at the best facilities for the students I'm most in need and the geothermal was not outrageously I mean I think it was under a million dollars and I know we have one I would like to know the reasons why we can't or maybe just let's just figure out how to do it

128I also would love to hear more about the bond and Dr Reed I will come after that in a second about the school bond because I think that's one of those things that the community doesn't know enough about and we have some great Advocates on our bond committee and our community members who step up to do that advocacy but I know also there was some work that was going to happen with a better communication strategy for our the bond projects that was mentioned so this is again just one of those opportunities to keep informing the public because all this stuff doesn't happen with any of that three billion dollars this is all from the bond that comes from the votes that only happen every so many years for so many schools so um Dr Reed

129I would love to know either tonight or perhaps for our work session I recall that you did some amazing work with bonds Bond work in your previous position I feel like there was a number like a billion dollars in there was that right it was a lot bigger than our 200 million bonds so I would love to hear what your experience is how you go about maximizing the bonds because we it seems like we could use some fresh ideas so perhaps instead of putting on the spot tonight if you could share that at the work session I'd really love that information um and lastly someone recently asked me what I would do if I could do anything in education what would I do would be to make smaller classes smaller classes smaller schools if we

130could do that if we could plan for that what does that look like in this document I'd love to see us really think big and get more towards what we know is better for kids and staff thank you thank you Mr Frisch thank you um also just previewing some topics for the coming conversation I'll be interested to hear more about the planning around the queue plan as well the plan for the plan around the Q plan also the subject of Net Zero the draft CIP does indicate that we have a commitment to energy carbon neutrality by 2040 we can't get there if we don't build Net Zero schools and it uses an interesting word by our commitment to zero waste it uses the word aspiration the board did not vote for an aspiration the board

131voted for a commitment to zero waste by 2030. so one thing I'll note before um yielding my time is that the board's commitment to Net Zero facilities by renovation project and new construction was not um something done lightly it was a directive of the board so if we're not capable of doing that the steps towards that are not to be taken without coming back to the board and having that conversation um and I for one um would you know look forward to hearing more about how we're going to make dun Loring and that zero school I know we have other facilities that are close to it and it would be great if we started making some progress there as well so I'll just leave it there thank you thank you Miss Corbett Sanders and chair

132I will be very brief um we know that inflation is pretty significant we know that the cost of goods has gone up and that our labor costs have gone up so when we have our discussion in January I would like to have some sort of trend analysis of what um what the current costs are versus where they were just a few years ago because we were so excited to see increased bonding at the generosity and the partnership with the county but it looks like it's all being eaten up in increased cost we'll be able to speak to that and and you're right with the increased costs we've done some of that analysis and have noted that we've seen uh as much as a 30 percent increase in costs for many of our jobs and as

133we think about the overall CIP and the cash flow we'll have some some good analogies that we can share I've been having conversations with a few board members about uh and I think that as Miss Keys gamara talks about making things simple uh trying to help our community understand that our CIP and our cash flow is a lot like when you create a budget to do anything that you might do within a renovation that you might have in a home that you that you own and so we can use that as a bit of an analogy and so when we think about Net Zero and increased costs we will be able to bring some items back for the board to consider where those priorities are and how they think the dollars should be directed for

134particular projects great thank you Mr nicofax thank you thank you Mr Fanshawe and Mr Smith for this presentation I want to highlight to my colleagues the staff and the public and item on page eight that can possibly be repurposed to help our youngest underserved children we have a bonded property in the Franconia District on the Route 1 Corridor that was originally stated to slated to be in elementary school because of overcrowding in that area it's reference to supinewood Lakes Community and was originally funded by the bond referendum in 2013. but right after that Bond approval process for this property the Department of Defense had a realignment that resulted in over 11 000 jobs being relocated to Fort Belvoir and shortly after this FCPS was able to secure Federal grant funding to construct a new Elementary

135School on the Fort Belvoir base alleviating the immediate capacity need for the previously bonded School Dr Reeds and she has come in has shared with our board a white paper Mr Smith and his team have put together last spring about how we may use this bonded site as a standalone pre-K school and why it would be so impactful to serve as a model for potential other Pre-K sites around the country study after study have shown that for every dollar we invest in pre-k education there's a 7 to 13 percent return on investment with the greatest impact being seen which from our with our children from disadvantaged backgrounds many of us on this board have long lauded the significant impact a quality pre-k program can have on our children and our children as they come to

136kindergarten ready to learn if they have such a program however it is most unfortunate that many FCPS children come to our doors without this experience we have for years worked with the county the skip team the federal the state legislators to get the funding needed for slots for our underserved students unfortunately after many many years FCPS in Fairfax County are only serving one in six children ages birth to four I want I will once again share this white paper with you if you can't locate it I am looking forward to talking about this and talking with you my colleagues about this about accelerating this project as we approach our CIP work session thank you Miss McLaughlin uh uh Mr fan Shaw thank you so much for being here this evening and presenting um and I

137know it's late so the only thing I want to just put a fine point on uh since I had the pleasure of touring Braddock schools with Dr Reed and took a very careful note that every property she was inquiring on what open classrooms might exist and where we might be able to get early childhood education services in them so following along with Ms darnak kovac's comments I do think that we are really well positioned especially Dr Reed with your passion and having now been on the skipped committee for you know since its founding seven or eight years ago at this point um we we really need to I think get a plan of action in place for that so uh you know I I I hope Mr Fanshawe maybe with some consultation with our fpac

138advisory committee uh they too I know have looked at where we have underutilized space and and uh and this might then go to um again programs Dr Reed is identifying sometimes where we have vacancy and where we have need or not always one and the same but I think that's part of putting together this Rubik's Cube to finally expand and increase um the the early childhood education and I think I sent an email recently about some other school divisions that are have also been taking some real active steps to to opening up more of these classrooms for kids so thank you oh shoot I did remember one other thing sack school school age after after Child Care yeah school age child care so that is something pre-pandemic uh Mr Fanshawe um I've been working with

139both um the former Braddock supervisor and the current Braddock supervisor because we have some very extensive wait lists in the Braddock district and I'm sure throughout the county for many of my colleagues and I know that the that the County government that runs that program we're understanding the the critical need that our families have for it and so I again don't know if there's time but I wanted to put you and Dr Reed um and my colleagues aware that if not I would like to see an intentional meeting set up where inviting Chris Leonard the deputy County Executive who used to oversee neighboring community services that we really do again an assessment of what our wait lists look like at each of our Sac sites around the county and how we're going to help our

140Working Families on that one it got unfortunately sidelined due to the pandemic but here we are and it's another tremendous area of need and I will say that uh your predecessor and your seat knew that one of the things we were pushing on is how do we open up um those classrooms that Sac likes to use for instruction during the day so it's kind of a little bit of a quid pro quo the county wants more sax base but then they want to keep those Sac classrooms dedicated and we can't afford to lose instruction space so I actually think Pre-K and Sac could be a really good marriage of using rooms during the day and after school and before school thank you move on to agenda item 4.07 fiscal year 23 mid-year budget I call

141on Dr Reed for the introduction thank you madam chair I'd like to introduce Marty Smith again to introduce staff to present the mid-year budget thank you Dr Reed and again uh good evening Madam chair and board we are excited to bring our mid-year budget adjustment to the board and I'm going to turn it over to our assistant superintendent for financial services Liebert foreign chair Sizemore Heiser school board members and Dr Reed the mid-year review offers an opportunity to revise the fiscal 23 budget based on new revenue and unanticipated expenditure adjustments since the year-end budget review in August and the data is as of October 30th of 2022. on page one for the school operating fund Revenue there are a couple of changes the beginning balance changes due to a sales tax increase um and at

142Fairfax city tuition payment increase totaling 3.3 million plus an expenditure decrease of 1.4 for a net change of 4.7 million the changes are due to fiscal 22 adjustments that occurred after year end the other Revenue change is for the idea grant that resides in the school operating fund and that Grant award increased 1.6 million also on page one in section 2 are the recommended expenditure changes which align with the revenue changes revenues going up 6.3 million and recommended expenditures are 6.3 million as well leaving no additional funds available the idea EA Grant expenditure changes align with the revenue changes both of those are 1.6 million in section B the recommended expenditures include an allocation to the Staffing reserve of 2.4 million for 50 positions the fiscal 23 budget included 500 Staffing Reserve positions but the

143Staffing Reserve is currently depleted so we'd like to have a little bit of flexibility if we have a need to rise throughout the rest of the year the second item is the special education compensatory Services 1.6 million is being set aside to establish the special education compensatory Services fund this is just the beginning of course and we'll be setting aside other funds as they become available to provide the support needed to ensure students recover from learning loss um item D is the warehouse rack shelving replacement funding of a half million is included to support the replacement of the warehouse rack shelving located at the Fort Center the shelving was inspected this summer and replacement was recommended by a third party vendor the reason is is primarily the condition and the age of the shelving and

144then the last item that's being recommended is an additional supplement for the trades for tomorrow funding of 0.1 million is included to provide additional hourly funding for student interns in the trades for tomorrow program this program you know is a grow your own that offers opportunities to have FCPS students participate as apprentices and trade in industrial education opportunities to join the FCPS Workforce after graduation the original plan was included in the budget in fiscal 19 and at that time we thought that we would have at least five students but we've been having about 15 students and they actually had this year had started turning kids away because they just didn't have the capacity to have more they didn't have funds in the budget so we're recommending 128 000 be allocated to that program so that

145all of those students can participate so that again the total expenditure adjustments are 6.3 million in the operating fund the remaining Pages detail changes to the other funds School construction again there are expenditure adjustments for projects after the year end that results result in a decrease to the beginning balance of 1.3 Revenue increased by 2.6 million to recognize the city of fairfax's project for HVAC at Fairfax High School and also the insurance proceeds from the Woodson fire of 1 million transfers from the county increa include County increases include 17 million 9.5 million of that is for the infrastructure thinking reserve for Capital Improvement items and Stadium restrooms at 7.5 million also on page three is food and nutrition services again changes are due to adjustments reported after year in and they result in a decrease

146to their reserve of approximately 0.6 million plus they got a small Grant award for equipment of eleven thousand dollars moving on to the ace fund on page four there's a slight increase to the beginning balance about a thousand dollars and that too was an adjustment after year in there is also a decrease of 15 000 in the adult ed and family literacy Grant for a net change to the fund of fourteen thousand dollars also on page four are the grants and self-supporting programs there's a slight change to the fiscal 23 beginning balance due to adjustments after year end of twenty two thousand and the 10.8 million increase is due to new Awards or adjustments or increases to the current Year Awards details about those awards are also on page four on page six is the

147school Insurance Fund which is workers comp and risk management in this fund there's 144 000 change in the beginning balance uh due to your end adjustments and there is a corresponding increase to the funds allocated reserve and that's followed by the health and flexible benefits fund a decrease of 1.3 million to the fiscal 23 beginning balance due to adjustments reported after year end and this change also results in a decrease to the reserve of 1.3 million foreign on page six is the erfc fund the beginning balance reflects a decrease of 27.9 million to the fiscal 23 beginning balance due to adjustments reported after year in investment income is down by 51 million but offset by less fees of 4.8 million for a decrease there and these changes a lot of them are due to timing

148since the final portfolio values are not available when we do your end um as a result of these adjustments the 23 mid-year ending balance is projected to be 3.2 billion a net decrease of 74 million as compared to the 23 revised budget and then finally on page seven is the opeb trust fund uh the beginning balance reflects a decrease of 10.1 million due to a year-end adjustment this too is an annual occurrence due to timing of year-end and determining a final portfolio values and the adjustment results in a decrease to the projected ending balance to the fund of 10.1 million in the appendix you'll find fund statements for each fund and they reflect all the changes that I've just shared with you about mid-year thank you very much Miss Tolan yes I just wanted to

149remind board members that we have this presentation this evening and that we have action on this agenda item on January 12th so we have time if people have specific questions on different things that we can Stella and I can you know take care of getting those questions answered for you um I do want to just assure the board and the community also um we had originally received a draft of um this year and proposal looking at the Staffing Reserve the warehouse or acts and trades for tomorrow and um Dr Reed along with our budget staff did a very very thorough review of you know what was happening across the district and we're very very thoughtful about what we should be doing in this mid-year review and so that is the presentation that you're seeing this

150evening I know there are a lot a lot of internal conversations that happened and I really do appreciate the you know start of our fund setting aside some dollars for our OCR and Recovery that we need to do for our special needs students thank you and again I might remind the board we do are taking action on this on January 12th as um our budget chair Ms Tolland said I see Miss McLaughlin um yes just quickly uh Ms Burton I wanted to make sure I understood um the talking points you said about our food nutritional services so you said there was uh 600 600 000 differential in their Reserves yes they had some adjustments that were reported after year end that added to the expenditure level and so that comes out of the reserve when

151that happens fund um we know that during the pandemic the reserve was depleted and then the board needed to provide 10 million dollars due to a lack of a reserve so what is the status of the reserve now the reserve currently is a very healthy the state of the federal government requires that we have at least three months of operating expenses in our reserve and I believe that we have at the reserve that we have currently exceeds that and we have put together a plan with the state and the federal government as to what how we will reduce that Reserve to get it in line with the three months that they require so the reserve is in excess of three months and they're not allowed to keep more than a three-month Reserve correct okay so

152if that's the case then when the reserve improved did the 10 million dollars of our operating funds that we gave them then come back no it did not why is that well we use those funds to provide paid continuity for March of 2020 till the end of the year into the fiscal year yeah I I understand that but I I recall that basically lent taxpayer dollars to a self-sustaining fund and now they've built up their reserves and the 10 million dollars we took away from the general fund meant it didn't go to our other operating needs because it went to food nutritional services so now that we I mean that's 10 million dollars we could have used for reducing class size for a step for Cola I mean so I'm just trying to understand do

153we have the legal ability to have them pay back the general fund that the board granted that is something that we would have to check with them because they are very clear about the funds that are in Food Services have to be spent on Food Services but I mean it's it's worth a conversation because we did do an allocation from the school operating fund to Food Services so we'll reach out to the to the state and see see if that's something that we can contemplate well to my colleagues at a minimum I mean I think that's a really important thing to do because it was with consternation that while Loudoun County and Prince William County did not have to give a bailout because they managed their funds in a way that that their reserves carried

154them through the pandemic and we didn't so 10 million dollars is 10 million dollars that we can still benefit from and I don't want it locked up in FNS if they've got a reserve now they're trying to spend down I have to say Dr Reed I'll leave it to you and your team to work with Ms Burton and Mr Smith but I mean the good news is they built back their Reserve now it turns out they've got more money than they need to do meanwhile I'll end up because I know people are tired and it's long but Dr Reed this is also really good news that if they can't get the money back then put it toward getting our salad bars up and running as soon as possible and you know honestly I think we

155need to start doing some round tables with our kids and really hearing about what we're hearing from our families and you know I I appreciate the hard work of our FNS team but my colleagues I would encourage you to send your feedback to Dr Reed and Ms burden because I can't be the only board member who's hearing concerns that our food is not recovered to the Quality it was before the pandemic so thank you I'm sorry for going over thank you Miss McLaughlin I was just going to Echo what you said and I think even one of the community conversations where I was present Dr Reed people mentioned that I think that the statement was when is our food coming back was was the statement so I do agree that I think there's some work

156to be done to bring our food services back to where they were before so I appreciate you bringing that up Mr appreciate that and with that I will turn to agenda item five action items there's actually no action items on the agenda for this evening so Madam chair might be recognized yes Miss mayor yeah I so I see that this is the second meeting in a row um so now for all the month of December that we've had no action items on the agenda other than just certifying a closed meeting on December 1 and you know hearing so many people at the hearing tonight asking for Action to vote on collective bargaining it just seems like a disconnect so I'd like to know uh can you can the chair clarify what the timeline is for

157for action on the collective bargaining thank you Miss Marin well as you probably know the board just saw the red um just received the resolution um the finalized resolution when we had a closed session on it before it came to this public hearing at the end of November I don't have a date in front of me we have two closed sessions scheduled in January there was some follow-up that the board requested that we have closed session scheduled in January we do not have a vote scheduled yet because we want to see what the result of that closed session is as the board processes the work we had a working group that worked on this resolution for quite a long time but the board had not seen it was not part of that working group as

158I'm sure you know and so the two dates of the closed sessions are in chairs notes from last week as well as this week but there's not a vote scheduled yet as we work through the process with the board thank you for the updates um yeah I mean clearly I don't believe the public knows about you know those the meeting dates which will be listed and closed um as closed meetings but I also want to express my expectation that given the lean action agenda items now and into the new year that we keep our posted schedule for critical topics especially in February on February 9th with our Capital Improvement plan and the school year calendar and then February 23rd in the advertised budget and my concern is that you know if we're talking now that

159the collective bargaining vote is going to go into we're looking at that February time frame now we have really big things and I'm just concerned we've had this month of no action and we've got a lot of action coming at us and I just hope I am ready to do that work and I hope the board is ready to stay committed to the schedule that's been put out I think it's our duty to keep on track well as I'm sure you've seen there are months where we have more actions the way the ebb and flow the board work goes and usually budget and CIP is in January and February and we work on that through there the timing of collective bargaining was the timing of when the work group finished its work so I would

160just like to respond actually it's against Robert's rules to interrupt so I will give you a chance to be recognized um I will say that I do hope this board is up for the work and I believe we are so miss Marin you can be recognized sure and Roberts Rose also prefers to call not talking to me and you um saying you um well I would like to point out that actually it is not usual to have an entire month of no action items that is um not usual so that's why I'm concerned so again I just raised that because we could be headed for a lot of big decisions needing to be made in a very short time and I just hope we can keep to our schedule we've had a lot more work

161sessions scheduled fewer action items and now we have a lot of work ahead of us so I hope that the chair and vice chair will consider that along with the superintendent's planning thank you agenda item six consent agenda are adopted rules of parliamentary procedure Robert's Rules provide for consent agenda listing several items for approval of the board by a single motion many items listed have gone through Board review and documentation has been provided to all board members in the public in advance items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member prior to the meeting the consent agenda items are on this screen is there any objection to approving the consent agenda hearing and seeing no objection the consent agenda is approved agenda item 7 new business the following a

162new 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 8 board committee reports our next agenda item is board committee reports and I call on first Miss McLaughlin for an update from the public engagement committee all right my colleagues I'm going to give you an early holiday gift and just go super fast because I'd love to go deep and uh talking about our back-to-back uh PEC meetings so anyway the bottom line is we are looking at um the fall 2000 or 2022 uh family engagement or family return to school survey and just trying to get an understanding of the results from that and then we also will be looking at the survey

163results from Esser as well as the Strategic plan engagement process project management plan [Music] so we also just talked about in general what happens with our surveys and if it turns out that we have a very small response rate what is sort of fcps's directive of what's considered too small of a sample response do we then extend the survey to go another one to two weeks with board members being able to push that help the system push it out for our families to get more of that engagement and not just our families but in surveys like the calendar where it's the employees as well and students so um anyway it ended up being a robust conversation about what are our practices what are the decision points from our office of research and strategic Innovation but

164then also from our office of communications and Community engagement um and or and so anyway there's just a lot there and I I do want to express my appreciation to the uh the public engagement committee because um everyone's been really invested in the work so thank you thank you I'll call him miss toland and miss McLaughlin for a skipped report so I will take that one on our skip teen met last week we had two presentations one from the behavioral health Team and one from the early childhood team both teams were looking for skips to endorse the plans that they presented there were considerable comments on the general nature of the behavioral health plan and then ask for more specifics to be added so that clear next steps to develop goals and measures would would

165be present I also asked for a focus on Workforce Development in Behavioral Health as we move forward um the team is going back to incorporate comments as best they can and the revised plan will be presented to the skipped executive team in January for approval Megan and I are on that team along with Sloan Presidio Francis Ivey and Michelle Boyd The Early Childhood team including fcps's Lisa Pilsen presented a plan that focused on Outreach strategies to our underserved parents Lisa is working with a team of research professors at Mason University for this work they're planning to develop teams that will reach out and work alongside families to figure out how best to provide early childhood education to that population Mason has to work like this in the city of Alexandria as well their depth of

166expertise and passion for this work was palpable and skipped endorsed their plan um the the work will occur through two new structures a family Council and a Family Partnership hub a meeting summary is posted on the county skipped website and board members you did receive an email today with a summary in all of the materials that are out on that website attached to make it easy for you to see on what happened at the meeting thank you thank you Miss Tolan and thank you for the written update as well I'll call Miss keys gamara for a comprehensive Planning Development Committee report we held a cpdc meeting on December 8th where we were joined by Fairfax County staff for their annual review of major Planning and Development activities in the county it was an extremely thorough

167and helpful presentation to understanding the land use and development process our committee recommends that the entire School Board be given the opportunity to hear this presentation we also reviewed the framework for Capital project program Community engagement with representatives from occr staff reported that the framework is currently an internal document that has been published on our website in our efforts to improve Outreach for all land use matters including CIP our committee was concerned that this internal document did not adequately notify the community about the potential impact of FCPS development process projects Mr Chuck Fanshawe was in attendance and agreed a motion was made and accepted that we the committee asked for a document that specifically addresses when public Community public Community notices necessary and what triggers the need for that notice for specific development projects that

168are not currently being addressed I also attended the Planning Commission schools committee meeting last night with Mr Fanshawe and Mr fanshaw did an excellent job in helping to explain where we are in developing a document that addresses Community engagement we plan to collaborate with the school's committee and the Board of Supervisors to make sure that the community is as opprised as soon as possible of any school-related development within the community thank you thank you I'll call on Miss Corbett Sanders for a governance committee update thank you madam chair the governance committee met yesterday and discussed five Transportation related policies a no change policy on salary guidelines and new policies on school board Professional Standards and virtual participation I want to thank assistant superintendent of facilities and transportation Mr Chuck Fanshawe and the director of Transportation

169Francine Furby for the their work to develop these policies they provided the insights of the transportation staff and how the existing policies can be improved policy 8610 is close to completion and the committee has set the next meeting to finalize the policy pending additional input from our alternative programming staff consensus on policy 8611 vehicle replacement and policy 8612 on security safety and emergency procedures security of buildings and grounds and the no change policy 4610 on salary schedules and guidelines was reached these policies will be put on new business at the January 12th meeting and ideally adopted at the second meeting in January there was robust conversation about the two new policies we've set a goal of completing these two policies at the next meeting of the committee thank you and finally I'll call Miss Cohen

170for a report of the audit committee our committees have been busy this month saving the best committee for last this month in audit we first had our auditor general Esther Co deliver her FY 22 annual report we then had the local school activity fund audit report and the FY 22 continuous monitoring Q3 and Q4 results both delivered by Luke Robertson we then had our sr3 continuous monitoring results delivered by Joni white and then finally we covered the FY 22 legal audit delivered by Miss Danielle Moore and just as always my comments after audit we just have the most amazing Office of the auditor general team uh everybody just shows up ready to work and I'm so grateful for our staff who interacts with them in such a positive manner I know um on the surface

171it's not the easiest thing to have audit come in to your department and say that they want to look at something and I always appreciate that our staff approaches it with such enthusiasm and collaboration and on this one certainly want to reach out and thank Ms Burton and Mr Foster for um for their assistance with these particular audits thank you agenda item nine board matters next on the agenda is board matters and I call on Miss Keys Kamara thank you so it's been a busy month um just this past week let me see where I want to start with the educate Fairfax update um I think I mentioned um well you guys know I'm the liaison but there's a project going on right now related to identified newcomer students in Fairfax County who are supported

172by the FCPS homeless liaison office and those numbers of those students continue to grow these families have difficulty securing essential needs such as clothing medicine Emergency Food hygiene supplies Etc so educate Fairfax is their donate they're accepting funds that will be used to purchase gift cards from a variety of stores for the FCPS newcomer families in need to provide for basic or emergency purchases throughout the year your donation can be made securely online our checks can be mailed directly to educate Fairfax the information for both options is available on our website last year we collected over sixty eight hundred dollars the deadline to contribute is January 6. um this year I attended this year this month it does feel like a year um attended the msaoc meeting um where we focus a lot on the

173parent advocacy handbook which has been distributed uh nearly 15 000 hard copies have currently been distributed of course you know about the cpdc meeting I just mentioned to educate Fairfax I also had my spread the word inclusion virtual Forum I have to thank Miss Veronica Jennings of the Special Olympics she was amazing she gave us a presentation on how to improve our cultures but also how to incorporate programs from Special Olympics and we got we answered as many questions as we could but it was a really great conversation and I'm just grateful for some of the people I've had an opportunity to meet in this journey so we had a good time it was probably part one we can't cover everything there's just so much information but I want to thank Miss Jennings for are

174offering to help and partnering with us and so we had lots of parents on the line who were saying how can I bring this what can ptas do how can we participate so stay tuned I think we'll see some changes thank you Miss Marin thank you good evening I think I've been doing a lot of listening out in the community as well I feel like it's in in the air I was excited to meet with cornerstones who has a number of events who are present in our community but just talking really like how do we really help the kids that we see are struggling how do we take all these resources that we have and we talked about that here we have so many so much information and resources and programs but but how are

175we really identifying those kids that maybe are on the cusp of just succeeding and really get them to where they need to be so I'm excited to to do that that work I also well I've been so pleased to see about the science of reading being implemented for our K through second graders I've been you know talking with parents similar to me who have a child who struggles with reading from third grade and above and particularly when it comes to dyslexia and you know just talking about what parents and families are going through when we have students who are beyond that second grade what's happening in schools how can we we create a better process and experience with the IEPs the individualized education programs this really comes from what was discussed in our work session

176and I remember something Laura Jane Cohen said which was you know parents feeling like they need to come into meetings with binders of information and you know that very week I went into my own meetings with those binders but um you know just so I've been thinking doing a lot of processing around how those connections are made and also just being you know School Board member Elementary School parent Middle School Parent a lot of things going on connecting a lot of things I'm seeing that I'm hoping to um and share you know among parents what they're telling me and texting me this morning you know like well what period does the Middle School start at and you know is there an exam today or not and so in real time seeing um and now that

177I'm in these two schools getting a lot of of input that I hope is helpful to our work and it's just helping me see things from the inside so um those are my Reflections and I hopefully I'll have time to reflect on the year but Happy New Year happy holidays and we'll just keep going in Mr meesh I want to first start by thinking and congratulating Dr Reed on Surviving a half year with us um it's uh you know exciting to think about how much we've been able to do in a short period of time with you and also one more time just congratulating our athletes really with both of those things combined I was thinking about even early on some of your remarks about how Athletics can be used to drive students and how

178data shows us right it increases their motivation which ultimately improves their academic performance and especially thinking of that not only with the young people who showed up today um uh and our musicians and everyone who did but uh even with watching the World Cup um you know if I'm sure as a global as an increasingly Global Community I hope that that's something on everyone's radar but really celebrating history with uh Africa uh making it to the semi-finals for the first time uh was really really big news uh was exciting for us in our household and I know for a lot of kids across our County um with that also want to congratulate every uh kid who heard back from colleges today uh really big news obviously for some of our seniors and remind everyone uh

179who perhaps didn't get the news they were hoping for that hope it remains there's a another cycle coming up obviously and um we're rooting for you uh to to land wherever your dreams will grow if that's the path for you uh and and really it's a celebration of what FCPS is capable of uh you know I was just talking to my family about kind of my own brother and what's going on and um my the older brother reminded me that uh this is actually all to credit FCPS FCPS is what built this you know today we celebrated my uh our youngest um going to the College of his dreams or getting accepted and uh that started a story in FCPS from my dad who came speaking no word of English and that's just one example

180in FCPS he grew to become you know who he is and then raised a family that threw FCPS uh have been able to um in our short uh lives so far accomplish our goals so um I I really hope to see that you know for all of our kids and uh I'm looking forward to continuing to support the academic uh work that the great academic work that we do um I also wanted to thank our our staff for coming out for the public hearing today I know you know we had a we had a tough evening um in hearing not no doubt the urgency which I I certainly want to continue to push for but perhaps even some of the the friendly tension that exists in trying to build a path forward uh for everyone's

181rights and making sure that uh for now we have heard all the voices I know I want to certainly do my best to do the right thing I know that the commitment of my colleagues and and we're going to try our best to navigate that uh to see how we can do right by everyone finally um as we enter the holiday season just you know health and safety top of Mind especially with obviously the 10th anniversary of Sandy Hook haven't been just yesterday but keeping that in mind I know uh wishing everyone happy holidays there are so many to cover but in any case and a blessed New Year thank you Miss Tolan yes at a meeting recently with a McLean weeblo troop to talk about local government we are talking about how important hiring

182a superintendent is and so I want to Echo what what you just said I was thinking about as we close out this calendar year of 2022 I want to note that Dr Reed has now been with us for six months during this time she has held meetings in every pyramid been to countless sporting events parades classroom presentations and has on top of that had time to spearhead a new strategic planning process begin a new budget cycle and get to know our legislative priorities she hired an interim assistant superintendent of facilities blogs with Community every week about the Amazing Adventures she has had across FCPS and keeps the board informed of issues like I have never been informed before Dr Reed thank you for a very busy Whirlwind of six months I wish for you the

183same wish I have for all of my Dreamsville students staff and Families a wonderful holiday season filled with fun food and drink and time with your loved ones after a busy few weeks at school and community events I'm closing out this year at Churchill Road tomorrow to see the steam cart provided through an educate Fairfax teacher Grant to kindergarten teacher Miss Clark and to practice yoga with students and their social worker Mr Smith happy holidays to everyone please everyone get some rest the Whirlwind will pick right back up when we get back in January thank you Miss Corbett Sanders chair it's been an amazing couple of weeks last week I was happy to join Dr Reed and vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a fellow Notre Dame Alum uh Chris Grady at

184Walt Whitman Middle School where students solved a steam challenge in which the students in Mr shabazz's eighth grade engineering two class demonstrated their solutions to a problem that the Admiral had presented to them the week before it was wonderful to be at Fort Belvoir for their holiday celebration as well as uh join with Chief Bailey in his toy distribution to students in the in need on the route one Corridor as well as the Safety and Security discussion in Mount Vernon High School where my colleague Ms darnak kofax joined me forward to joining Dr Reed next week in meeting with the historians and educators of Arlington National Cemetery I know their work is especially important to the 14 500 military connected students in this County uh chair Sizemore Heiser and I attended the County's legislative briefing

185on Tuesday we appreciate the County Board of Supervisors inclusion of our school board priorities and their legislative priorities as well a particular note is the recognition by the County Board and the Fairfax delegation of the needs of additional supports for our students in crises in particular the need for inpatient beds for students who may be addicted to opioids Mr Malloy and I will be working with chair seismer Heiser in preparing remarks for the Fairfax delegation public hearing on January 7th I also want to give a shout out and warm wishes for a wonderful retirement to Mr Eugene Jordan whom retired last week from Mount Vernon High School after 54 years of teaching chemistry 19 of which were at Mount Vernon High School I know a man after your own heart right Dr Reed I want

186to conclude by thanking George Mason's Shar School of public policy and Dean Roselle I was honored to be recognized along with Alexandria's mayor Justin Wilson delegate Ken Plum and the retiring executive director of the Council of governments Chuck Bean last week at their Regional elected leaders dinner and happy holidays to everybody I wish you Joy and prosperity and love with your loved ones not only in the couple of weeks of the holiday but all next year thank you Miss bakarski that but I'm mixing it up today okay um well it's been a an extremely busy last couple of weeks I've had the pleasure of going to multiple holiday concerts string choir band and ever you know everything and it has been wonderful to see the um the students perform and their wonderful talents I also

187had the opportunity to go to Chantilly High School with our real food for kids challenge winners from Franklin Middle School where Chantilly was able to actually cook and serve the winning dish to their high schoolers so that was yeah that was very exciting for the middle schoolers to just kind of see all their hard work and creativity kind of come to fruition and actually be the nutritious meal that is being served in our cafeteria so I'm excited for a lot more um you know in terms of our food services and nutrition and I know that's something that Dr Reed you've been working on and I am very excited to see more changes there I had the opportunity to go to a few schools as well I visited Center Ridge where I've got to see this

188incredible reading room that a few teachers had just volunteered and had completely transformed to make it much easier for other teachers to go in there and really pick what they wanted by genre and so on and so forth so that was incredible and it was all volunteer time I was able to go to key Center in the stairnet colfax's district to learn a little bit more about that program and got to attend a music therapy class which was really a treat to see um I was also at Oak Hill and at Westfield with a doctor with delegate Shin from the house of delegates and I just had the opportunity to show her all the wonderful things that are happening in our schools and ways that we can partner with our state um officials to really

189help and benefit our schools because there is a lot that we do here but there is a lot that can be done at the state level to help with our work that is needed and at Oak Hill I had the opportunity actually to go into a professional development Workshop during the day where a master teacher was actually modeling reading and this uh to to other teachers they were taking notes and then they would get to practice their skills and then there would be a debrief which really was you know a wonderful way to build in that happy holidays everyone I can't believe I ran out of time and happy new year I'm excited to see all of you in the new year Miss Cohen thank you I got to start off the last couple of

190weeks by going out to visit Cedar Lane and then went today to go back for their Winter concert and the kids were my students I shouldn't say kids young adults they were amazing it was so it was just great uh really incredibly talented kids I also got to be a guest reader at oakview's book fair and that was super fun by the way there's a new don't let the pigeon book out for everybody wondering what I want on my holiday wish list also got a chance to go to the Google Reston site where Miss Meredith and I got to see our very own Joyce Matthews heralded for all that she has done to promote Computer Science Education in FCPS and Beyond and it was just awesome to get to see her celebrated in the manner

191in which she should be celebrated um also had the opportunity to take Dr Reed though apparently she won't claim it it to Waples Mill Elementary with also with Miss bakarski and then it and we went to Franklin Middle School where in a very timely nature we got to be a part of the unskilled workers and the skilled workers who were trying part of Newsies who were trying to convince the unskilled laborers to come and join their Union so we had a preview already to what was going to happen tonight um also had the chance to go see the award-winning Lake Braddock symphonic band who we got to recognize tonight and who has my very favorite trumpet player in it at their Winter concert which was amazing and then chorus like Brad at chorus with um

192my other favorite cutie uh got to have their Winter concert which was amazing it was a master work and it was just it was really really cool um and then had the opportunity to be with Miss homage part of the faith team strategic planning Faith team and that was such a cool experience and we really I know we're both looking forward to the next meeting in March um and then sort of closing the week um we recognize this year uh yesterday the 10-year anniversary of Sandy Hook with a vigil outside of the NRA and I had the opportunity to be joined by Miss bakarski and Mr Frisch and a whole lot of our gun violence prevention Advocates including a lot of my fellow Moms Demand volunteers for a very somber but also hopeful and very

193action-oriented morning of um just fellowship and and being together and turning that grief into action and it was just such a reminder of um how fortunate we all are to be able to spend this holiday season with our own kiddos and I hope that everybody will have some meaningful time and peaceful time thanks very much Mr Frisch thank you um earlier this week excuse me uh delegate Marcus Simon and I visited shrevewood Elementary School a little late but this was the culmination of our take your legislator to school month tradition uh since it was spirit week we donned crazy socks in celebration of the coming winter break we toured the building visited classrooms spoke to students and staff we also spoke with principal de smyder about the implementation of our science of reading based literacy

194curriculum as well as social emotional learning and staffing issues on Tuesday evening I attended Oakton High School's winter choral concert from Modern acapella songs to Hanukkah Christmas and other winter Classics the students put on a marvelous show I'd like to send a special congratulations to oakton's choral director DJ godinez uh the hard work certainly paid off with winter weather coming in full force many people are pulling out their winter coats the office of supervisor Dalia palchik is in partnership with the Providence Community Center and other groups in hosting a coat drive beginning next week and continuing until January 19th if you have any new or Gently Used winter coats hats or gloves you can drop them off at Providence Community Center one last note as Miss Cohen mentioned yesterday we joined dozens of friends and

195Neighbors at a vigil in remembrance of the 26 students and Educators who lost their lives to gun violence at Sandy Hook on December 12 2020 2012. since that day 10 years ago 279 additional victim of 189 school shootings have lost their lives across the country here in Fairfax County we're doing everything we can to keep our students and staff safe from building Security vestibules on every campus and conducting a comprehensive safety audit to reviewing our curriculum and professional development from informing parents annually about their legal responsibility to securely store their guns to closing the gun ban loophole that for decades barred guns on school grounds but not on school property that didn't include education facilities like Gatehouse so we're doing everything we can to keep our our kids safe and with that to my colleagues

196the superintendent our staff our students and other families I hope everyone has a safe healthy and restful winter break happy holidays to anyone who is celebrating thank you Dr Anderson thank you earlier this month I had the pleasure of attending Kick It Up night which was a staff versus student soccer even at Glasgow Middle School it was timely given the events of the World Cup and yes lots of people in my home were rooting for Morocco I also had a chance to attend some terrific theater programs in the Mason District I was here to see The Brothers Grimm spectacular thought here at Jackson Middle School and last week actually after the kickathon came went to Falls Church High School for their production of Chicago which was amazing it was so awesome I was very excited

197to just hear their talents they were just phenomenal um last week I also had the opportunity to visit Falls Church High School with Congressman Donald Byer we had a great conversation with the student government class and it was they were so impressive they had such thoughtful questions regarding school funding green initiatives supports for English language Learners I think he got more than he bargained for with that group and and also mental health of course we also had a chance to see the construction and progress and very excited that some walls are coming up outside there's some foundations that are happening but it's a huge effort and looking forward to seeing more and more of that building be completed um also had a chance to see a door decorating contest that was in progress at Falls

198Church High School as a former you know School principal this is something that I missed I don't get a chance to see some of those events in the building so thank you Dr Nowak and all the students and staff at Falls Church I was very pleased today I want to say thank you to all of the folks who came to speak before us for the collective bargaining public hearing and I know there was some tension as Miss shared but we're looking forward to working those out for the benefits of our um of our community I do want to start to highlight to the Mason Community that the strategic planning forums which are being scheduled and eats magisterial District the Mason meeting is February 2nd at 6 30 which will be taking place at Mason Crest

199Elementary School not only one of the schools that has geothermal but also will be the next recipient in lines for solar panels so yay Mason and I'm also a proud parent of the Mason Crest Elementary School type Tigers tomorrow I will be at Poe Middle School in the morning for their winter holiday concert by their various performing arts groups I do want to give a shout out to a recipient of the 2022 Governors award on volunteerism and community service Ortho Virginia that has been supporting schools and FCPS for over 40 years they've been providing service medical services to our school athletic teams and I want to thank Mr Ellenberger the retired director of student activities for submitting that I wish everyone a very restful and joyous winter break and a Happy New Year it's McLaughlin

200great I'm Dr Reed I want to begin by expressing my appreciation to your region teams this week I had updates with Region 2 Region 4 and region 5. and it's not easy when there are so many board members and yet they have continued to carve out generous amounts of time to meet with us as board members give us these monthly updates and all three of them I conveyed how much I appreciate the fact that as our society is still trying to recover from the pandemic this is hard work and our families are are still trying to heal their children are still trying to heal and the amount of compassion that I'm continuing to see in my interactions with the region office as they take the cases that come to me as a board member I

201really wanted them to know that it's appreciated and I wanted you to know how hard they're working um to do that each and every day um and I you know I do want to convey to you and your leadership team in general um I know I am I have a reputation for sometimes asking tough questions um and uh sometimes I don't smile enough while I'm doing it so I do want to make sure again you and everyone's here especially late this evening you every one of you I know the Deep dedication you bring to this work every day and um I I wanted to express my personal appreciation that you all do work extremely hard often behind the scenes people don't realize all that you're doing to support Dr Reed and us on the board

202level and so uh even though I will continue to do better in the new year as I um raise my questions to you I do hope you know it comes from a place of camaraderie in that I know every one of us cares about this system our employees our kids our families and so finally I do want to say to my colleagues I wish you all a wonderful happy holidays and to all of our families uh please know that you as well as our employees especially in our schools we appreciate everything you're doing every day to help our kids find joy in learning again and being able to find and achieve their best and brightest Futures and I hope that that we can find time over this winter break to really enjoy that time with

203our loved ones and come back excited for uh 2023 it's hard to believe thanks again you guys Mr Colfax thank you since I am uh Miss Sizemore Heiser and I are in the last two sitting between your cup of cocoa and uh and you're in your winter break a little bit oh or other things maybe I'm looking at some folks over there that may be having it but but anyway um I do want to say I thank you so much for um your hard work this past calendar year we really do appreciate you and everything that you do to make our board the very best that we can be and we know sometimes we don't make that easy but we hope during this coming year we will work together and we will continue to have

204a strategic Focus as we move forward in our work processes and I wish you and my colleagues and all the families and teachers and everyone out there a warm and wonderful holiday season take time to relax and enjoy with those you love most so happy holidays and happy New Year thank you and since I'm the last one standing between you and your bed I will just say that um as someone whose family moved here and didn't have a tradition of celebrating Christmas or winter holidays for our family the big holiday was Diwali in October but as a child growing up here I loved Christmas time and the holidays I loved all of it and it took me a long time to realize why I loved all of it and it's because no matter how divided

205or frustrated or tense things were you walked around and there was decorations that weren't there a month before and there was happy music that drove you nuts at times but that wasn't there the month before and there was just sort of this Aura of joy in the air and so I hope you all for all your hard work and all that we've caused you frustrations and all the efforts and that you put into and how difficult it has been um this year take some of that Joy that's just in the air and feel it so happy holidays this meeting's adjourned