Fairfax County School Board Meeting - 9/1/22

001so hmm okay so [Music] do [Music] okay all right this september 20 september 1st 2022 regular meeting of the fairfax county school board will now come to order please stand for the pledge of allegiance followed by a moment of silence and a performance of the national anthem by the lake braddock singers under the direction of andrea harmon oh say can you see by the dawn's early light what's [Music] us [Music] were so gallantly streaming and the rockets [Music] through the night that our flags does that store spangled yes [Applause] [Music] of [Music] gray [Applause] agenda item 2.02 certification of closed meeting compliance in order to comply with section 2.2-3712-d of the code of virginia it is necessary for the board to certify that since the fairfax county school board convened a closed meeting on september

0021st 2022 to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the board in the closed meeting do i have a motion miss corbett sanders is there a second miss omega all those in favor that is miss picarski miss cohen mr frisch dr anderson ms darren at kofax miss corbett sanders miss tolin miss omesh and myself with miss marin away from the table and miss mclaughlin voting virtually thank you agenda item 2.03 ms mclaughlin has submitted a written request to virtually attend tonight's meeting due to a medical conflict all those in favor of allowing ms mclaughlin's virtual participation say aye raise your hand that is unanimous

003with ms marin away i would like to welcome that motion passes i would like to welcome and recognize former school board member pat hines who's in the audience this evening miss marin is absent this evening if you'd 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 streamed on the website at fcps.edu backslash tv backslash ch999 agenda item 2.04 childhood cancer awareness recognition i call on dr anderson for the recognition the american childhood cancer organization the american childhood cancer organization or acco has designated september as childhood cancer awareness month to spotlight the types of cancers

004that largely affect children and to help raise funds for research and family support according to the acco 15 780 children under the age of 19 are diagnosed with cancer every year in the united states approximately 20 percent of them will not survive the disease a diagnosis turns the lives of the entire family upside down acco offers support information and advocacy through their community of families survivors and friends affected by childhood and adolescent cancer they are dedicated to improving the lives of children and families living with childhood cancer and engage in this life-altering struggle fcps students being treated for childhood cancer participate in homebound instruction while they are undergoing treatment or recuperating we are joined tonight by jay coakley who is in his 40th year of teaching for fairfax county public schools jay retired from fcps

005after 30 years of teaching physical education and returned as a part-time physical education teacher at woodburn elementary school it was at woodburn where jay met a little girl named ellie who had been diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in the spring of 2013. by the time she entered kindergarten that fall ellie had lost most of her hair and was wearing hats to school every day jay noticed her affinity for fun and cheery hats and organized a hat drive to provide ellie with a broader selection of hats and ellie's hats was born now thanks to the hard work of the individuals who like jay took an interest in ellie and her hats thousands of kids across the country who are battling cancer have received new hats and so much more ellie's hat was much more i'm sorry

006heli ellie's hats does much more than send hats to children with cancer they've helped to provide financial assistance to local families who have children with cancer they recently reached a milestone of three hundred thousand dollars in donations to families and hospitals ellie is now in the ninth grade and will be celebrating her 14th birthday this year on behalf of the board i'd like to encourage everyone to visit the website for ellie's hats at ellieshats.org and the american childhood cancer organization at acco.org to learn how you can help i would now like to invite jay coakley and supporters of this recognition to join the board at the deus 4 photo while that's happening i do want to share one quick connection to this when i was a principal in loudoun county my counselors put together an

007ellie's hats drive and this was 2015 and i remember this drive brought ellie to our school to collect the donations so this is just a wonderful way to connect what's been happening here in fairfax county with what has happened elsewhere in other jurisdictions around virginia so thank you jay for all of your work please come on up thank you agenda item 3.01 community participation the next order of business is community participation speakers must limit their remarks to no more than two minutes in length at the conclusion of two minutes the microphone or video will be turned off school board members will be listening but not responding to individual speakers the school board will not hear statements involving issues that have been scheduled for public hearings such as a capital improvement program budget and boundaries comments

008targeting 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 spirit and letter of the school division's 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 an outburst from the audience will not be tolerated we are grateful for those who have come to

009speak to us today and thank you for your cooperation our first speaker is meera avayar mira our next speaker is jeanette corcelius greetings my name is jeanette corselius and i am a music educator and alum of fcps i am a member of fva speaking as an individual as labor day weekend is upon us i wonder as to why this school board still hasn't passed a meaningful collective bargaining resolution yet the ban was lifted 16 months ago this board has been delaying and kicking the can down the road for far too long we are not begging or pleading we are demanding that you pass a meaningful resolution and hold the hearing as soon as possible educators love what we do but love doesn't pay the bills every day i watch my fellow educators perform heroic and

010herculean tasks and yet we are paid 20 percent less than other college educated peers virginia's educators are some of the lowest paid in the profession because politicians value business interests over workers rights but i am seeing school districts like richmond take ownership in changing the culture rps starting teachers salary is the same as fcps now and they gave new teachers an eight thousand dollar bonus they passed a resolution in december of 2021 and 90 percent of the units voted in favor of the union they are in the midst of contract negotiations arlington passed their resolution in may we are tired of waiting and we are sure that educators will leave to the surrounding jurisdictions that pass resolutions 71 percent of americans are in favor of unions the highest in six decades face it unions are

011popular in a time of greed corruption and hoarding of wealth choose to be different dare to be different value public education and our workers we need collective bargaining now thank you our next speaker is stephen mccullough stephen mcculloch our next speaker is shawna yashar i'm here on behalf of the fairfax county parents association to renew our request that every fcps employee that has one-on-one contact with children complete annual criminal background checks it was a mere 10 years ago that usa swimming banned coach rick curl who ran the largest swim club in the area for child sex abuse he was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison afterwards usa swimming instituted safe sport protocols that include monthly background checks monthly girl scouts boy scouts youth groups local youth sports programs all require a minimum of

012an annual criminal background check the cost to do this is between eight to ten dollars i had two conducted in the last month for the volunteer activities that i do alone yet fcps sits back hiding behind the state regulation that only requires background checks be conducted upon hiring that's pure negligence this past winter in opposition to senate bill 739 which is now law which requires in-person school five days a week and a parental opt-out for masking this board repeatedly argued to the press in court papers and even went down to richmond and into the general assembly that they needed to have local control here's your chance to prove that you know what to do when you have local control make criminal background checks an annual requirement don't make parents seek help from richmond once again

013our children's safety necessitates that fcps put basic safeguards in place to ensure that convicted pedophiles like the glasgow counselor don't slip through the cracks again you have nearly 3.5 billion dollars in your budget use it for this basic safety check and stop waiting for others to force you to act thank you our next speaker is pat hines all right good evening thank you very much school board members dr reed and leadership staff it's nice to see you again on this side of the dais i won't lie about that i am pat hines former school board member current teacher in another county and i continue to be a community advocate for racial and social justice in our school system my connection to tonight's agenda which i thought i was going to have to do is the

014challenge materials review committee that's an example of the board doing its work to accommodate individual requests without compromising fundamental community values and that's really the theme of what i'm where i'm going tonight when i left the school board we had some unfinished work i know you all know that because you have finished a lot of it thank you and i for myself i continue to work in in the with community advocates on racial and social justice issues and one of the groups that i work with is fam free and anti-racist mind and stephen mccullough was supposed to speak before me he didn't get noticed that he had speaking slot tonight for some reason that he missed that so anyway free and anti-racist minds fam is a group of current former current and former teachers students

015and parents many of them are or have been equity leads in the buildings they are serious about the work i joined them because when i was on the school board i was impressed with their advocacy and their commitment and their knowledge of the system when quality zuccari will come up in a little bit to talk a little bit about fam's current advocacy we have a campaign for truth in education you will hear more about it what i can say tonight about that is that teachers need clarity and support in doing this work students deserve the truth in school taught in a respectful age-appropriate way but holding nothing back and this community expects you to represent their values by leading this important work you guys got started on it the anti-racist policy was going strong a

016couple years ago but it seems to have fallen off please rely on your community advocates and your community partners thank you thank you our next speaker is shelley arnoldy hi my name is shelly arnoldi i'm a parent of fourth west potomac high school i'm here to ask you to stop wasting our taxpayers money on things that are hurting our children and dividing our communities i would like you to focus on education reading writing and math i'm here to ask you to eliminate divisive policies training and curriculum promoting anti-racism anti-bias and diversity or equity cancel the 2.4 million dollar contract with panoramic education for social emotional learning screening there's a conflict of interest with the contractor and it's a very divisive contract i would like you to start teaching children what they have in common with

017each other focus on individual liberty self-reliance and human dignity discipline children based on behaviors not skin color equality not equity i'm here to ask you to cancel the policies regarding covid it's a complete waste of money fairfax county has all the data they've had zero deaths 85 hospitalizations of of school-age children there's no effect please stop recommending vaccines quarantines or tests your recommendations for kids to get vaccines have done more harm than good stop promoting masks they do nothing to reduce transmission cancel policies involving gender identity prevubescent children do not care about sex and do not need to be questioning their genders you're making it harder for kids to learn english america has become very accepting of the gay community and there is no reason to push the concept on these children you're making children

018doubt their gender and sexual orientation and confusing them allowing kids to use bathrooms and locker rooms based on their preferred gender is going to create a lot of chaos focus on awareness and the dangers of anti-psychotic anti-depressants anti-anxiety medications ssris most school shootings are caused by children that are on them thank you for your time thank you our next speaker is jenna [Applause] white good evening i'm the returning vice president of communications for the fairfax county council pta i'm also a long time member of the trauma informed community network in fairfax and one of 60 local adverse childhood experiences or ace interface presenters as local leaders in our schools and communities pta members are ready to work jointly with the school board fcps and other community groups that share our values and goals community groups

019that share our values and goals and recovering from the impact of the covet 19 pandemic last summer i attended the national pta conference where u.s navy seal from florida spoke about his frantic work to get afghanistan family evacuated and settled in the u.s he told us i did what any good navy seal does i called in the local pta pta members are local families teachers students staff and community members collaborating locally statewide and nationally the millions of pta members work for every child to fulfill their potential through public education today we all got data from the naep outlining the impact of covid data also comes out regularly detailing challenges to the mental wellness of students and staff we have these and many other concerns and our focus is on the hard work to engage around

020solutions fairfax county has over 170 local active local ptas which means we have 170 local 501c3 nonprofit organizations to run by local volunteer leaders the fccpta will continue to invest their time and their voice to engage alongside these local units for positive change in public education as partners like that navy seal as a community we have a tremendous amount of work to do and a short window of time we are surrounded by complex and challenging circumstances we are committed to the day in day out hard work required by partners thank you for your service as elected officials and happy new school year thank you our next speaker is marianne burke good evening this is an education bill of rights proposed by for public education and you should all have a copy a free high quality

021public education is a key pillar of democracy and a right established under the virginia constitution a public education is also one pathway to our aspiration of a just and equitable culture and country in which each child has the opportunity to explore and to excel to the best of their ability and desire in pursuit of the right of an exceptional education children have the right to learn in a safe inviting and nurturing environment free from prejudice bias bullying harassment shame or extreme forms of discipline and to be challenged with materials guidance and learning opportunities that will stimulate and satisfy their intellectual curiosity build their critical thinking skills and equip each student with the education needed to prosper as a productive member of society and parents have a right to engage in the experience with transparency including

022the opportunity to comment on education programs and materials and volunteer in and outside the classroom as appropriate and with respect for all students teachers administrators and the school system and teachers and staff have have the right to work in an environment that is respectful is free from harassment values their training and professional experience allows for individual create creativity and provides them with the resources support and time needed to provide an exceptional education opportunity for each child and the community has a right to engage with the school system as appropriate to ensure that the policies and programs accurately reflect general and evolving community standards for the classroom that have been determined to be the most beneficial to the education of students particularly those that relate to literature science and social studies also the universal agreement is

023not a standard for a robust educational experience in fact unconventional evolving thank you our next speaker is dr zhu kerry peace good evening to the board administration and the community my name is kweli zukari and i'm here today on behalf of free and anti-racist minds or fam a local organization that advocates for anti-racism and which is deeply concerned with the state of education in this county i'm here today to call for truth and education a genuine truth since the u.s educational system's inception historical lies and racism both intentional and systematic have been infused into and across curriculum the nature of that racism and deception has evolved over the last century becoming more subtle but no less detrimental to the minds of all american youths it now often exists as overarching racist narratives which are still

024prevalent in fcps curriculum i witnessed this as an fcps student from k through 12 and i continue to witness it as an fcps parent i applaud the board and the curriculum department for implementing equity and cultural relevance initiatives during the past few years albeit they've been small and limited we insist that you now advance a larger effort to make substantial and expeditious change within a defined time frame as well as have the courage to include substantive anti-racist reform so we call for three things increase and expand the con the current curricular cultural relevance reform efforts implement anti-racist curricular reform across all subject matter along with accompanying professional development anti-racism is confronting and rooting out racism unapologetically and courageously facing a true and authentic history of this nation is not easy and may make someone comfortable

025yet it's necessary if we as a community and broader society can heal collectively and third there's one substantial thing you can do right now declare your support for teachers who incorporate these values cultural relevance and anti-racism into their classrooms or maybe they want to but are afraid tell them you have their back may fcps be at the forefront of justice within a local and national social and political climate that begs for it instead of falling behind what this generation demands thank you our next speaker is frank mallard good evening there are many fcps issues creating alarm for parents students taxpayers community members as well as dedicated teachers and administrators most issues deal with parental or guardian authority and notification related to their children's health and well-being i compiled a list of some worrisome issues and

026included questions and asked bev madeja if she will get back to me with your answers possible misuse of essa funds every student succeeds act title 1 programs there is very clear language which indicates the implementation of programs activities procedures and the engagement of parents and family members of title 1 students are you able to prove that you're not misusing essay funds by failing to notify parents if a child is confused about gender identity family life education issues number two a note from fcps for teachers in grades five human growth and development the quote unquote the reproductive system says that the lesson is intended for students whose sex assigned at birth is male there's also a lesson for students whose sex assigned at birth is female however students may choose which lesson they take based on

027their gender identity teachers and counselors are encouraged to work with students to decide which lesson is best suited for them parents are not mentioned please clarify students are allowed to choose the lesson they take based on their gender preference and if parents are notified of their sex id decisions if not the same as assigned at birth fcps resolution on human trafficking awareness month that's number three follow-up how many students have never returned to fcps and how many have never been accounted for meaning they haven't returned and why not we understand the most vulnerable are hispanic children i will provide miss beverly medeja with my contact information along with any relevant materials thank you our next speaker is cindy walsh lgbtq academic circles use john money's idea that gender is neutral at birth and can be

028switched they fail to mention the most important point in his experiment was that as adults both david and brian reimer took their lives because of what they endured in the name of science the boys were born as bruce and brian reimer bruce had a botched circumcision bruce's parents raised him as brenda brenda wore pretty dresses was introduced for traditional feminine roles brenda was also given hormones and bottom surgery to transition to female money's science was that brent brenda and brian had to perform sex acts on each other and watch porn brenda rejected this experiment as female brenda decided to become male and brenda became david please stop calling trans surgeries life-saving it did not save their lives gender fluidity ended it a gun and an overdose were simply a means to an end to stop

029spending time with a pedophile their deaths were because of gender fluidity and what they were forced to endure years later david shot himself and brian overdosed on drugs excuse me rest in peace brian and david reimer thank you our next speaker is holly hazard holly hazard our next speaker is david walrod good afternoon ladies and gentlemen of the school board um thank you for giving me a couple minutes to speak today first of all i want to thank you for your continued support of the lgbtq plus community especially our students members of the lgbtq plus community come out at their own pace and at their own readiness for many in the community coming out to their families a treasured memory an opportunity to grow closer a beacon of support for others being open about who

030they are is led to being condemned and turned away this phenomenon is the reason that 40 of the population of youth experiencing homelessness identifies lgbtq plus and why the suicide consideration and tempt rate among lgbtq plus youth is twice the number of straight teens it should be a student's choice as to when and how they come out to anybody including their families as educators our job is to provide a safe learning environment for all of our students including students for lgbtq plus fear-mongering and hate should never get in the way of standing up for folks who are marginalized i also just want to remind this board that in february 2020 each of you expressed your support for a collective bargaining for your staff and it is my hope that moving forward that you will continue

031to show that same support through your staff members thank you very much thank you our next speaker is margaret summers our next speaker is george becerra and our final speaker would be corey haynes thank you madam chair thank you agenda item 3.02 superintendent matters i call on dr reed thank you miss uh sizemore heiser um i want to say we're on the ninth day of school so we've had a great nine days so far i did spend the first day of school visiting six schools and one in each region and was able to see firsthand the excitement beginning at 6 30 in the morning at lake braddock with our marching band and dance team and chair and just a lot of excitement about school beginning again and i think there's nothing like being in a

032school on the very first day the promise is amazing very joyful time i'd like to give a special shout out to our custodians and all of our buildings and our maintenance staff i was in schools again this morning and our schools look fabulous and our grounds folks that have been out taking care of the weed whacking and leaf blowing and there are leaves dropping already and just mowing and the schools look really nice right now and i think one of the things that is so important about this county is everyone in each of their roles seems to care just a little more and that makes a difference our students and our families and staff i know appreciate that i also like to congratulate our transportation team our transportation team really even as they're still understaffed

033they did manage and i'm proud to share that they were able to have 97 percent of their runs on time on the first day of school and that right there is amazing we actually have 764 runs a day with a fleet that's almost the same size as the greyhound bus lines so to have 97 of those routes on time on the first day of school while they're still finishing routing a big shout out to transportation director francine furby and her team and i did have a chance to tour the oh dear what is the stone hedge no stone cross stonecroft uh transportation area and got to see some of our new electric buses sorry i was on the wrong continent once a day um anyhow that was an early morning i wanted to share a

034special kudos to our music department at cooper middle school they recorded music that nasa is going to be including with the artemis rocket launch this coming weekend and that's pretty amazing that fairfax county music is going to go to the moon right um you know it just really talks about the value of the arts right to the arts that blend with our science and engineering and mathematics so this began in may last year and they worked hard over the summer so i just want to say that learning happens in and outside our classrooms and our learning spaces are just fabulous i've had a chance to engage with stakeholder groups as you know i've scheduled 25 pyramid meetings and community conversations i think i've done five of those so far it's just been really enjoyable had

035a chance to also be present for the robinson and south lakes football game last friday night and that was a great deal of fun in particular i mean football was fabulous but the halftime with our dance team and marching band and cheer squad they're just so many people that make those events a success and just really grateful also for our athletic staffs so tomorrow as i put out my weekly reflections i think we're going to have for the first time our enrollment demographics by region that we're putting out and staffing so that folks can both our staff internal and external can see our staffing in real time so at this point i would say the last thing i want to do is congratulate our department of financial services i know uh lee burden's here this

036evening and we are talking about year end and i want to note that um the government finance officers association of the united states and canada the gfoa has awarded fairfax county public schools a certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting for the fiscal year ending 2021. so um this is uh this is pretty exceptional honestly and i'll continue this to say that this certificate of achievement is the highest form of recognition in the area of governmental accounting and financial reporting and fairfax county has earned this recognition 27 years in a row that's pretty amazing quite honest that's a history of excellence so there you have it that's what matters at the moment so thank you dr reed agenda item 3.03 student representative matters i call on miss togby thank you madam chair good evening

037everyone happy new school year we finally made it to the 22-23 school year which i certainly think will be a memorable one i want to shout out all the students who have reached out to me and spoken with me you all are incredibly inspiring and the true forces inside of all of our buildings i also want to thank all of our amazing staff members across the county together i know that you all will make this school year one of growth and achievement for all after the long weekend we will be approaching the third week of school with today marking the end of week two i think we can safely say that students are starting to get in the groove of things again with the addition of new policies and such as of last week the

038student rep fcps instagram account launched and i am super grateful to be using that platform to not only communicate but engage students with engage with students i actually have already started i did a fcps student rep takeover today where students got to see a day in the life which was really fun and i had the pleasure of attending the oakton cougar kickoff today where i met with many students and was made an honorary member of many of their clubs which was very thrilling experience for me since our last meeting i've gotten to meet with many board members to discuss my thoughts and ideas for the upcoming school year each meeting so far has left me feeling more inspired and excited for this year one big topic that i've been able to cover is the fact

039that not many students know that there is even a position of student represents being student representative and many don't even know who the members of our school board are and sure enough that stems from being a civic education issue so a large part of my use of the social media platform will be to educate and inform them not just about the board but opportunities from attending community events with me to speaking at board meetings and since our last meeting i've attended events such as the equity symposium leadership kickoff and great beginnings all of these events have been fantastic memorable experiences and most have allowed me to speak on student voice and the importance of it so to wrap up i just want to say that i have a lot of excitement for all the partnerships

040going on and i cannot wait to see what we accomplished this year wonderful thank you you've clearly hit the ground running so we appreciate that thank you agenda item 4 action items agenda item 4.01 confirmation of action taken in closed meeting i call on dr anderson for a motion i move that a recommendation to revoke the virginia teaching license of the teacher identified and closed meeting be forwarded to the superintendent of public instruction is there a second second mr meish all those in favor that is miss kiskamara mr mesh miss tollen miss corbett sanders mr nick kofax dr anderson mr frisch miss cohen miss picarski and myself ms mclaughlin and myself with ms marin away from the table that motion passes i call on miss bakarski for a motion i move to expel a student

041who was in possession of a statutory weapon on school property and was under the influence of a controlled substance while on school property is there a second mr frisch all those in favor again ms picarski miss cohen mr frisch miss mclaughlin dr anderson mr koufax miss corbett sanders miss tollin miss omesh miss kisgamara and myself with miss marin away from the table that motion passes agenda item 4.02 fiscal year year-end budget review i call on miss corbett sanders for the motion thank you madam chair i move that the school board approved the revenue and expenditure adjustments as detailed in the agenda item is there a second ms tollen miss corbett sanders would you like to speak to your motion yes madam chair thank you very much i will ask for a point of privilege in

042my remarks as the outgoing budget chair to be able to review the last year's activities and provide brief comments on the unprecedented nature of the amount available with this year's year in motion i remind my colleagues that budgeting is both an art and a science as we make projections for enrollment employment and operations after a difficult period of time this year's budget has been good news on the number of fronts with increased funding from the state continuation of esser funds and continued collaboration with the board of supervisors that resulted in full funding for the budget adopted in may during the course of the last year with this motion for coupled with this motion for expenditure of year-end funds we were able to address outstanding i apologize i pushed the down button too far we were

043able to address outstanding follow-on motion funding from motions taken since 2017 with the exception of middle school start times which we will begin to address with this year in motion we adopted the very first school board budget resolution identifying fiscal year 23 budget priorities reflecting the input of all of our board members the resolution early in the budget process allowed the board of supervisors the superintendent and the county executive to dialogue early on about the needs of our system and as you know a priority for this board was to address the critical needs of the school system as we navigated out of covid priorities include mitigating and remediating the impact of covet 19 on our students academic achievement learning loss and achievement gaps investments in literacy and the science of reading as well as investments

044in school counselors nurses psychologists behavioral interventionists assistant principals special education leads in elementary schools and the recruitment and retention of world-class educators including compensation professional development and planning time and environmental sustainability in response to the bus driver and substitute shortages we were able to also increase out-of-cycle raises for both of these employment categories additionally changes were made to ensure that we were amongst the top of the huawei market for bus drivers with the annual budget the school board reached consensus on additional priorities for year-end funding in the follow-on motion to the budget adoption for the year-end review which was presented as new business on july 14th typically we would have adopted this motion at the end of july however with the changes to the school board calendar this date was moved to our first board

045meeting of the school year thus tonight although the amount which is similar to last year's end is higher than earlier years it is due to a number of factors tied to the pandemic these include but are not limited to the impact of the great resignation and our ability to fill positions throughout the system including substitutes a lower cost of benefits as a result of the one month health benefit premium holiday and people postponing services as well as lower student enrollment numbers as a reminder year-end funds are non-recurring funds and thus a best practice is not to build these funds into recurring costs such as salaries the motion tonight includes funding for security enhancements security vestibules interior lock replacements and the security audit bath bathroom upgrades to older facilities and is a match to the board

046of supervisors funding for bathroom facilities on our ball fields major maintenance backlog investments title ix improvements to our softball fields outdoor classrooms and a pre-k play spaces as well as sensory rooms young scholars in richmond materials studies for middle schools a study for middle school start times and an independent audit of our school security it also allots monies for bunny for bonuses in line with the state budget for the soq positions while extending it to include all teaching staff as well as operational staff and contracted hourly staff a separate line item allows for incentives for our substitutes the year-end also replenishes the staffing reserve by 190 positions which is essential because we have exceeded the budgeted slots of 310 by 40. thus there will be 150 positions in reserve to address growth and other systems

047needs funds are also being provided to cover ace funding driven by increased cost and lower enrollment as we emerge from covid additional funds are allocated to address expected inflation and fuel energy and paper uh which as well as addressing everyone's wishes that we were excited about the progress we will make in one key area which includes the security audit and electric buses i hope that my colleagues will support this motion tonight and finally i would like to thank assistant superintendent lee burton budget director alice whittington and my vice chair elaine tolland for the great teamwork over the past year i am confident that you all will do incredible things in the next year it has been an honor to work with you thank you miss corbett sanders ms tolo did you speak to a second

048yes thank you i just want to thank you for that comprehensive review of our year and uh what we're voting on tonight i just wanted to add some additional comments to highlight some of the end of year plans that we have i think it's very important to note that a number of the things that we have in this budget are things that we don't really have a choice about whether we want to fund them or not so first on that list i would put this staffing reserve um and i have to say just being out at back to school nights across drainsville we have so many classes sitting you know right on the edge and you know what i'm hearing from principals is they're seeing um you know additional families coming in every day so

049i think that having the staff reserve available is going to be imperative the fuel electricity paper inflation is just the cost of doing business but is also a very good reason for us to be looking at ways to conserve and reorient our use of these resources our cost share item on electric buses is a good example of this as our food and nutrition program adapts to a return to more normal operations we must continue our annual upgrades of their equipment in addition we have made decisions to fund other items of high interest safety and security in our schools is a huge imperative and the need for a periodic third-party review of our work is just good business so i'm very pleased to see that we will get this underway asap employee bonuses workforce needs in

050my opinion need to be our highest priority now and moving forward we are in a business that requires huge investments in human capital and as the entire world looks at changing workforce trends we need to be right in the middle of these discussions and on the forefront of changes to ensure that we maintain a strong workforce to ensure the continued success and academic achievement of our students the employee bonus is just a down payment on this and i include the recruitment incentive for substitutes in here as well to support our athletic programs which are so important to so many of our students we are partnering with the board of supervisors to provide stadium bathrooms at high schools that do not have them this is a strategic investment in our overall county ability to provide athletic

051facilities we are also upgrading softball fields for our women's programs and improving outdated turf fields a few other items we are supporting our young scholars program with funds for materials in need to further help these young learners advance to their full potential continuing our pipeline of advanced learners is a priority i have been vocally supportive of over the years a number of board members are interested in middle school start times and changes and we are funding a study to look at creative ways to implement this with minimal cost i'm also excited to have the set aside of three million dollars to be available for new items that dr reed deems necessary as she takes a look at our organization she has already asked for a full review of our hiring processes around background checks and

052communications with police departments and i am sure we will see additional needs as the year progresses and we are just in the development phases of our fy24 budgets thank you miss tollin mr frisch thank you first i'd like to thank chair corbett sanders and miss tolen for their hard work on the budget this past year also miss wiggington and assistant superintendent burden i just want to highlight one little piece of this this investment tonight if you look at item e and we talk about electricity inflation we're going to be spending 4.7 million dollars because in additional expenses because of electricity inflation and i raised that because um the work that fcps has done over the years to conserve energy uh saves us eight million dollars a year and so when we see investments like the

053one million dollars in our side of electric bus purchases by the way we'll have 28 by the end of spring which is exciting yes it's good for the environment our kids will be on buses that they're not breathing diesel exhaust they're quieter there's less noise pollution etc a lot of benefits but as a school division we have a fiduciary responsibility to invest our dollars wisely and when we invest in these green technologies when we do better with conservation when we transition away from diesel and other dirtier fuels we save money and that's money that can go directly back into the classroom as we've been doing for years now so i appreciate all the work that's been done on these year-end expenses and also appreciate all of the work of my colleagues who came to consensus

054on this it was not easy but these investments are very much needed so thank you thank you mr fresh miss keys gamora thank you thank you i too uh thank my colleagues and miss burton's shop for this presentation and all the hard work we've had over the past year with clarity to understand where we're moving and working hard to make sure the community understands why we're investing where we're we're investing i was a little struck by the electricity inflation number but i know that's that's a reality that we can't um necessarily control uh along with the fuel inflation uh those are the two a little sticker shock there for me but i i do want to applaud um the sub recruitment investment here um because i think there is a real focus on um there

055is a real focus on making sure we we have um top class folks working in our in our classrooms in order to achieve student success i did have one one question and perhaps this isn't where it would typically be but i don't see a category for uh continuing costs for collective bargaining is that something is would that typically be in here miss burden and the fist current fiscal fiscal 23 approved budget included some funding for positions to support collective bargaining um but we we've not allocated anything additional for that okay so i just didn't so we send the right message we heard a lot of people today uh testifying about that concern but that is something that we are uh allocating funds for thank you ms keith kamara dr anderson thank you so much i

056do want to echo the sentiments of thanks to the budget team and also miss burden and her team i did have a few questions because i think our community's been looking at these very closely and there are some outstanding questions that i want to get some responses to very excited about the recruitment um bonuses for employees and to get more substitutes but i think there was a question regarding the date of distribution if the if the board passes this budget this evening miss burden when should employees expect those bonuses as identified in item a and the second part of that is do we have any employee groups that are not going to be receiving it i know that there's a demarcation for contracted and hourly employees currently we're planning on following the same timeline that

057we did with last year's bonus which means that it will be paid out at the end of november we are still working with the hr department to determine the appropriate threshold for hourly employees all ftes and hourly contracted employees like bus drivers parent liaisons and food services will receive the thousand dollars hourly non-contracted employees will receive 500 but we are still working on what the appropriate threshold is and to be eligible for that bonus thank you so much i know that's going to have significant impact on our bus drivers particularly as hourly employees i also had a question regarding item c the stadium restrooms again very excited none of the schools in mason district have stadium restrooms and this has been an issue and the document that was provided to us dr reed i believe

058on monday it said that there were two options of prefab versus um brick and mortar and maybe this is a question for mr fanshawe in terms of what are the pros and cons of these two options thank you that's a excellent question the um both are i guess really it's the one we can get quicker is the prefabricated still a very serviceable and maintainable unit it takes longer to go through the permitting and construction prod process for a brick and mortar facility would it look the same is it same cost same quality yes i mean it is and i think they'll look good they will match their surroundings so it won't look like it's out of place okay thank you and the other piece that i noticed in that document it says that the fcps

059fund source would be school bond i thought we were using year-end funds for that that confused me a little bit it's at the bottom of that one pager dr anderson i believe that's coming out of the construction fund because it's being funded with state construction dollars and so those funds do not go in the operating fund they go in the construction fund and that is on page eight i think in your document the board item thank you i was just referring to these one pages that we got and that's why i think i was confused because i'm thinking maybe there's an error on this one pager and that's what you're confirming i see the bullet that you're talking about here that is an error and we will correct that super i appreciate that um also

060i had some questions regarding false church again all of this is based on these documents which we did not have too much earlier but it's perfect timing because they're very quick so i'm taking the time to ask my inquiries now false church high school which is undergoing renovation i did not see where they were included for the stadium bathrooms or the um but they were included for the softball field i would think that the renovation included both of these but please confirm which that the stadium bathrooms will be included in the fall search renovation but the softball field is separate and will come out of this these funding i think it's um is that year-end or school construction i don't remember yes sorry dr anderson so we are transferring 1.5 million dollars to the school

061construction fund so the cost and the accounting for the softball fields will reside there the stadium restrooms are separate um the operating fund is contributing seven and a half million and just as a reminder for the board the county is also given seven and a half million for i believe it was the 15 uh bathrooms right and i think that's my question on the list of 15 schools false church high school was not included for the stadium bathrooms that that's correct the stadium the stadium bathroom is in the renovation thank you but then their softball field will be out of this year-end just like all the other schools and that's not part of the renovation correct okay thank you so much um lastly i was also very excited about the recruitment incentives for substitutes i

062thought these were very interesting and creative ways to get our substitutes into the building i particularly appreciated the focus on those hard to fill days which are fridays they always are so thank you for being so um so intentional about making sure that we can have sub days available and having that recruitment as well as your second part of the initiative which is the recruitment uh i'm sorry which is the incentive for day's work i think that's really going to go a long way for our folks um i'm super appreciative of the substitute recruitment i would love for us this may not be the time but at some other point to talk a little bit more intentionally about the recruitment for teachers i've mentioned this before hard to hard to staff physicians such as special

063education teachers really retaining our staff and title one schools where we tend to have signif well more turnover than in other places and also going back to have those conversations we're recruiting teachers that look like our students i know the conversation to recruit male teachers of color has been a discussion with our previous superintendent i would love to get a sense of where we are on those discussions just to get an update dr reed it's my understanding that mr smith and the hr team are working on data collection to look at options for contracting with partner agencies and organizations to achieve that goal oh wonderful so we look forward to having that discussion with you all sometime soon yes ma'am thank you and also not to put you on the spot but i'm very curious

064if you have given any thought yet regarding the superintendent reserve i'm still thinking it's early in the year there's just so much it kind to narrow it down will be a lot to ask i want to make sure i ask all my questions here you answered that one oh and also one last question that was raised to me that i wanted to be sure that i received an answer from my constituent very excited about our focus on ensuring that we have sensory rooms in our schools but i think the inquiry was it's 250 000 for one room can you give us a sense of what that would mean because that's what's in the budget for um burke school because it also shared that the equipment would be procured in another way or using other funds

065so when you look at the the line item for sensory rooms that we we do have a much smaller estimate for burke school alone and then with those additional funds we would be looking at using the the burke model excuse me i'll get a little closer uh using the burke model for sensory rooms and other schools and using those funds to be able to put sensory rooms in other buildings so we're not looking at spending all 250 000 on one sentry room at burke oh okay so the first 40 is for that room but the 250 is for multiple spaces throughout the division correct we will use the burke as a a sort of proof pilot or proof of concept and then uh see where we can put century rooms in other schools thank you

066that that very much clarifies things um just lastly i just want to say i'm super excited that we're going to begin this conversation on the middle school star time not begin really pick up because we've had this conversation before and i would really i'm very curious to to see what we can receive from this outside independent kind of consultant to help us work through this very difficult issue because transportation staffing for bus drivers is a real issue and all of us are highly invested in that middle school start time adjustment as soon as possible so very excited that that's present and i know mike thank you dr anderson very interested in doing that thank you thank you dr anderson with that i see no one else wishing to speak so i just want to say

067a quick thank you so much to our outgoing budget chairman oh i apologize mr not kofax my apologies no worries um i i just wanted to say that i'm happy to support this year in budget i do want to thank lee burden and your team and i want to say congratulations on the well-deserved honor that you all received thank you and congratulations as noted by miss corbett sanders and miss tollen the funding here came through thoughtful processes throughout the year we are fortunate to find ourselves here with this year-end funding we had conversation with staff community members and through our own conversations many of the things such as stadium bathrooms have been needed but not been able to be funded before so this is really good to see this other items though that are smaller

068and dollar amounts can have truly big equity impacts specifically the ability for more schools to fund after school programs such as lego robotics and giving us more intentional support for our young scholars program i too am excited to see the study about middle school start times i was on the board and i was the chair when we were able to pass high school start times it was always our intent to continue to do this for the middle school and i'm hopeful we are very close to doing that thank you all again for your hard work budget team elaine and karen and again steph thank you mr not kofax and i apologize that's why you're not looking at my notebook um i just want to take a just a brief moment to thank our outgoing budget

069chair ms corbett sanders and ms tolland for your incredible hard work and partnership and this wonderful budget that we have that's funding so many priorities um to really to reach the needs of some of our most needy students including translators and interpreters for our students as well as additional support for our special education teachers because we know how difficult it is to recruit and retain our teachers we want to provide them that extra support that they need our sensory rooms there's so much good stuff in here and i would just say as a you know just finished lake braddock parent which is the largest high school in virginia without and has no stadium bathroom i'm actually really thrilled about that i know miss cohen is sharing that excitement with me as with mclaughlin um so

070i just want to thank also miss burden and ms whittington for your hard work i'm very excited about this and just thank you very much for everything you've done to get us to this point so with that i will call for the vote all those in favor say the motion before us is on the screen missing today if you could put the motion up thank you all those in favor that is miss bakarski miss cohen mr frisch dr anderson mr kofax miss uh corbett sanders miss tolin miss omesh uh miss keith gemara and i don't see um and miss mclaughlin and myself that is unanimous with miss marin away from the table great job agenda item 4.03 school board liaison and committee assignments i call on ms cohen for the motion i moved that the

071school board confirmed committee assignment confirmed committee liaisons and assignments as detailed in the agenda item i'm so sorry is there a second second miss picarski miss cohen would you like to designate someone else to speak to your emotion or would you like to speak to it oh i just wanted to take a second to say thank you i know that these are not easy and none of us are always all the way satisfied um every year and i know that it takes a lot of work that you two put in to try to put people um in the best spots for them to be successful so thank you for your hard work thank you miss picarski would i just speak to your second yeah i'll just say ditto that it is difficult to do these

072but there's a lot of work that the board does outside of these regular meetings and work sessions um and i for one am excited to try new things this year so thank you thank you miss kitamar did you wish to speak your light was on thank you um seeing no other board members who wish to speak i will call for the vote the motion before us is on the screen all those in favor miss seismorizer i'm sorry did you just yeah thank you um and i appreciate all the work that's gone into these appointments obviously there as ms picarski outlined there's so much work to be done uh and behind the scenes we spend hours and hours and hours doing this work um because it's necessary and with great joy and i certainly didn't want

073to be in this situation and i hope this doesn't turn into a back and forth and i hope i'm not misunderstood but i hope that my colleagues can appreciate that i feel compelled to share um because it otherwise feels like being stepped all over repeatedly keeping a smile on my face um and again i do thank everybody for being a part of this because this is always complicated nobody walks away with everything they want nobody walks away getting the appointments they're most interested in and at the end of the day we assume the responsibilities that are assigned ultimately imposed on us but because we understand the importance of this work and our commitment always is to the kids and that's why we show up and we continue to show up and we have a commitment

074to it um and so this is i'm not coming at this with just sour grapes i i'm identifying the challenge that for the fourth go at this consistently i am seeing the single board member who has not received a single leadership opportunity nor my preferences in this process and and i say that not to spotlight myself i i'm going to show up and i'm going to do this work just like i have every year and my commitment and my competence certainly in this work has spoken for itself and the record speaks for that certainly being the chair of a previous board advisory committee before being on this board presenting to the school board in various capacities before that but i say it because we're a division that claims to continue wanting to invest in our

075young people and that set that claims and our values of wanting to raise a generation that will come back to serve and come back to to buy into the fcps promise the fcps mission and to want to improve this system and we have a student rep who consistently reminds us of that student voice and so it's important to me that we're consistent and i've pondered i've asked questions i've never been given a good answer and so i won't call it ageism because i don't want to resort to that but it sure feels like it and i hope that we can be reflective i'm going to continue again showing up and doing my role to improve this system but this is a system of cultivating young leaders and believing that people with different perspectives add value

076and that we have blind spots at times that we need to reflect upon so i'm sorry to make this a scene i've bitten my tongue three four times but i but i really believe in the importance of being self-reflective of that across the division because it's what we're promising our own kids and that's what we're preaching to them to stand up to be leaders to come back to serve um and and i have no other answers but but i appreciate the work that's been done again and i will be showing up and and being present and and continuing to fight for our kids in the various roles that i've been assigned uh despite them not being any of my preferences but thank you thank you mr maesh if no one else wishes to speak miss

077keith's camaro just briefly um i i do appreciate mr meshes and passion plea um and i just i i hope that our board we're here we'll hear this as a a call to further discussion i think we've done a lot of work to try to make sure that we're working together and we've made a lot of progress but maybe this is one of those areas where we really need to come to the table and try to make sure that we're hearing one another so i know that was difficult to say mr mesh and um i just i for one um am happy to meet everybody at the table so thank you miss mclaughlin yes i hope the uh board and the audience can hear me okay um we can hear you wonderful um i do

078want to convey my appreciation um for miss omesh's honesty um this evening but i did want to speak as the longest-serving board member um along with miss kofax about any concerns that there may be ageism or any kind of prejudice or bias in how board members are given opportunity um in my 11 years i have never served as a vice chair or chair of this board i it took me probably more than one term before i was given an opportunity to even be a chair of a committee and it's not always um easy when that happens but i want to speak to this board um i'm really proud serving alongside on this board that i have seen such an effort to really respect the 12 of us as best as possible recognizing our time commitments

079our ability to step on and take more work um in all capacities and so uh ms amish i'm sorry um that tonight you're feeling that there has been a bias in how you've been able to help contribute to the board i think that all of us want to ensure that we can have those honest conversations um but you know even again being such a senior member um one may look at my my leadership of the last three years and it's not always reflected that way but i don't take it personally um i just try to really make sure for again our public and each other that um you know we we work toward building strong relationships with another but it it concerned me tonight that the public might walk away if no one says anything

080that we're okay or that we condone or we agree that there's some sort of prejudice going on this evening with our appointments and i for one um want to assure everyone watching tonight or otherwise that i really greatly appreciate our board's efforts to every day try and respect and do the best we can with one another so thank you miss mclaughlin dr anderson yes very briefly i want to thank uh mr meish for her statements and i just wanted to echo what ms keys gemara shared clearly there's some communication that we can be having as a board and i'm hoping that this is an opportunity to um really compel us to have those discussions because in no way do we want for any one of our board members to feel the way that mr mitch

081is feeling this evening and i think there's some space there for some discussions and some clarifications and i'm hoping we take advantage of that thank you dr anderson seeing no other speakers i'll call for the vote i see the motion before us is on the screen all those in favor that is miss picarski miss cohen mr frisch dr anderson miss darren at kofax miss corbett sanders miss tollen miss keys kamara and miss mclaughlin with miss all those opposed miss amesh that motion passes with miss maron away from the table miss corbin sanders yes would you like to be recognized yes uh madam chair i would like to be recognized as you know we've been having a sidebar conversation about whether i should ask without objection if we can move item 6.08 from new business to

082action tonight that is the action item that we discussed on tuesday which we which is giving instruction to the superintendent to begin the process of building a plan for engaging the public in uh in the renewal of a strategic plan for this system rather than as a miss corbin sanders without i don't know if we have a explanation we need to so my question is before i ask that if i can just ask dr reed whether she can begin that work and then i will not ask for the without objection dr reed our typical process is to post on new business for the um community to see right the action and then take action two weeks later will that stop you from doing the work of working on this treaty plan as we talked about

083as we wait for the project plan for the project plan it will not stop me from doing the work thank you very much ms corbett sanders agenda item five consent agenda our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure robert's rules provide for a consent agenda listing several items of for approval by the board by a single motion many items listed have gone through board review and documentation has been provided to all board members and the public in advance items may be removed from current from the consent agenda at the request of any board member prior to the meeting the consent agenda items are on the screen is there any objection to proving the consent agenda seeing and hearing no objection the consent agenda is approved agenda item six new business the following or new business agenda items

084there 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 ida 7 board committee reports the next item on the agenda is board committee reports and i call on ms tolland for an update from the skip community thank you um dalia palchuk supervisor from the providence district and um and i participated in two i'm two hour round tables this summer with county and fcps staff and private service providers in order to give input to staff developing a multi-year blueprint for our overall county needs and i just wanted to bring the board up to to speed on the fact that those round tables happened over the summer and you know where we're going from here um the goals of

085the round tables were outlined as follows from increasing awareness among key stakeholders of current issues related to and efforts to address youth behavioral health in fairfax county number two identify and gain support for ways in which organizations and sectors across fairfax county can all work together to contribute to these efforts and to identify strategies strategies to amplify and broaden these efforts to address system-wide gaps and weaknesses and lastly to identify potential legislative initiatives to recommend that the board consider to address youth behavioral issues in fairfax county i'm dr michelle boyd participated in these meetings along with stefan mescal and mike axler as our fcps staff representatives the big takeaways that i had just very overarching i'll share with you tonight and i'll send this report to each of you um through email so that you

086have that list of goals um the big takeaways were really that you know of course our needs no surprise are acute and immediate particularly around substance abuse and ways to catch children early that are having difficulties so that their issues do not escalate into severe problems we have a serious shortage of resources publicly and privately available to work with these children and families and really need to work at look at how we strengthen our tier one supports the providers we do have in all sectors are doing incredible work but they are overwhelmed number two money alone will not solve these problems we must be creative in our solutions and our use of funds for example some of the things that are ongoing training pediatricians to see early signs of mental health problems growing our own

087programs for psychologists and counselors perhaps looking at a partnership with gmu to do some of this work fcps was generous in our budget this past year to try to attack some of these issues and staff is still struggling to find qualified people for all of these positions um and number three we must work closely with our partners to craft a state and federal legislative agenda this fall so um we'll look forward to working with miss corey sanders and mr frisch on this um to work with our state and federal delegation to further things like just an example being able to have neighboring state certified health specialists work in virginia like right now they can't do that our county staff is preparing a report to the board of supervisors on the results of the roundtable discussions

088and i will it should be done by early october i'll get it to all of you thank you thank you um ms tolin agenda item miss corbett sanders this is board committee reports did you have a committee report we don't generally ask questions at this part but you're welcome to ask a question if you like all right um ms toland thank you so much for your dedication to this work and the work that you did over the summer one of the areas i see that you've put together a list of areas where we need joint action something that i would encourage you to add to that list is the availability of inpatient beds to support students or children with substance abuse issues it came to my attention recently that there is not a single facility

089within fairfax county that provides those services for inpatient and so it is critical that we actually um have a focus on that and something else that we've talked about in the past that i would urge that gets added to the list which is um in the state of virginia a child who is 14 years old or older who decides that they don't want to accept substance abuse counseling or support is able to make that decision and i really think that as we talk about the importance of partnering that we do something to address that concern because we obviously want to make sure that we provide those supports to every child who may be attracted to or may be addicted to drugs because the the real challenge today is that um oftentimes they think that they're

090taking one drug and it's actually another and that something like uh of the overdoses are linked to fentanyl so thank you miss corbett sanders agenda item eight board matters next on the agenda is board matters and i call on ms picarski all right thank you i hope everyone had a wonderful start to the school year my kids did was all very excited to see them go back to school and i was able to visit londontown with dr reed so that was nice to bring her out to my neck of the woods to see the wonderful things happening and we also had a wonderful community conversation last night at chantilly that was um that had a great turnout so thank you to everyone who came and of course thank you to all the teachers and administrators

091um bus you know drivers and everyone who really made the last two weeks um a success i i know i shared with a few of you that i went to the pool last weekend with my kids and i had many parents and and teachers actually coming up to me and just saying it it really feels like we're back into a normal regular groove so that was um it was great to hear and i know there's lots of good work happening this year um i'm looking forward you know i've been going to back to school nights i'm looking forward to continuing that i've been able to go to a football game and and some other sports activities to see our students we have a [Music] grand opening of the new sully district community center on september

09217th and they have a wonderful program that day it is very exciting for my district so i hope community members will come out bring their kids and see this new facility that the county has been able to to provide for our community i'm very excited and of course i'll be there with my own kids i do have um office hours this month and that the details for that are in my newsletter so if you're not signed up for that please go to fcps school board website and sign up i would love to to talk to you and i just say you know to anyone in the community when you see me out and about back to school nights or just you know sports activities that may i may happen to be at with my kids

093or any other activities please come up and introduce yourself i love meeting um people and i love chatting uh with all of you and hearing uh your ideas and your experiences and it's often at those odd events when i'm at a swim meet or something with my own kids that i have really some of the best most in-depth and and really helpful conversations with our families and i'm thankful for that and i'm looking forward to a another wonderful year thank you thank you mr picarski ms cohen i just wanted to say that it's been such a great start to the school year and i was really excited to get to kick off um the first day of school at lake braddock with dr reed and ms seismore heiser and my children did let me go

094get a selfie with them so i felt like it was a winning mom moment with teenagers and sangster i so appreciated being invited to get to not only welcome all the sangster families back but get to help some of our kindergarteners find their classroom on their first day and definitely starting that day with my senior walking out the door getting to shepherd some kindergartners into their classrooms was man it was like a real gut check about our journey in fcps and i also want to say thank you to cardinal forest and irving and then again to key center and lake braddock for hosting dr reed's town halls i look forward to the next one that i'll get to join you at west springfield and i so appreciate everybody who's taken the time to come out

095to those i know that it is really hard especially at this time of year to be able to extend yourself and and do go the extra mile but i was so pleased at our my home school our base school at the number of people who showed up and at key center the number of folks who were able to come out and who brought their children especially under some extraordinary medical circumstances for some of their kids it was incredible to hear their story and get to be with them so i'm really looking forward to getting my voice back and and in the next few weeks of school and i will just say i'm hoping that the bruins are up i'm getting texts from my husband with the lake braddock football score so go bruins mr frisch

096that sounded painful uh so last week i had the opportunity to welcome dr reed to kilmer middle school and kilmer center we were able to step into a few classrooms sit down and chat with some students and we also had an opportunity to join some new seventh graders at lunch which was very enlightening they said things were going well they were a little shaky on moving from classroom to classroom but they were getting the hang of it only halfway through the day we also had an opportunity to visit with the cafeteria staff as they were preparing eminently to get food into the lines for our students and perhaps the highlight of the day going to kilmer center and having a student in an art class take a photo of us with assistive technology so i

097want to give a shout out to manny uh for the great photo if you want to see it you can check it out on kilmercenter's twitter account it turned out really great and we're all very proud of him um and after kicking off the first week of school miss tollen and i took a field trip across state lines to maryland and visited montgomery county's bus depot in bethesda where they're moving very very quickly to transition their almost as large bus fleet as ours with no additional cost to them they will be upwards of 300 electric buses at the end of next year they will have all 1400 of their buses replaced with electric alternatives in a dozen years um so i look forward to sharing with my colleagues how they've done that and it should

098lead to some enlightening conversations but it was great their electric buses are just like our electric buses they're super quiet they ride smoothly they don't have diesel air pollution coming in and the kids there call them tesla buses too and in closing i just want to say it's been great seeing students back in the classroom teachers back in the classroom staff back in our buildings looking forward to the the superintendent's community conversation at mclean next week and at falls church the week after um and as we wrap up this second week of school i just want to wish all of my colleagues a happy labor day and all of our families at home a happy labor day as well thank you mr dr anderson and ms mclaughlin thank you it's been very exciting to see

099all the students back in the school buildings i've been very excited for mine to return back to the school buildings they're excited to learn excited to reconnect with their friends the start of the school year is always awesome it always has marked my calendar and so i i would love to be able to continue to be part of that tradition um the open houses the back to school night football games all of the things my colleagues have previously said are really have really marked the excitement around returning back to our buildings um our students so far in mason district have had a wonderful start to the year and they're ready to dive into their studies and to recoup learning losses that we know that they're still working on under the very capable tutelage of their

100teachers i do want to say welcome to timberlane elementary parts about 20 of timberlane is now in the mason district due to the redistricting that just took place and i'm excited to get to know that community and to visit your schools very soon um to the parents of annandale terrace and luther jackson i know you're waiting with baited breath to have the announcements of your principles and that is coming very soon and i'm excited to be at annanday annandale terrace next tuesday for that announcement and luther jackson is coming very soon i also want to thank the parents and families who came to glasgow last week to come to a very short noticed meeting with dr reed and myself and miss marin was also in attendance to speak about the concerns that have been happening

101and as dr reed shared in that meeting a full review is underway and she has committed to returning to our community about the findings once that's been completed and i know we have work to do in this area and i will actually articulate some of the things that dr reed talked about which is ensuring that we have a system of checks and balances and a broad sense of accountability and i know this is what the community is looking for us to deliver and i believe we're up to the task in ensuring that we are increasing the confidence of our parents and our schools because if we don't have that it makes the work that much harder um i also want to remind folks that the community conversations coming up with dr reed false church is

102actually here at luther jackson and not at fault church they're busy with renovation the space is not conducive and so that will be happening here on september 13th so please be sure to join us and to register on the fcps website and we will be having the justice high school and the annandale high school community meetings on november 21st and 29th respectively so we have a little bit of time i hope everyone has a wonderful long weekend and happy labor day to all thank you miss mclaughlin i'm not sure if i know you're having some connectivity issues are you there all right we'll come back to mr mclaughlin if she's able to connect miss corbett sanders yes thank you madam chair um joy that is how i would describe every conversation i have had with

103students teachers parents joy they are so joyous because as miss picarski said we are back and we have this semblance of normalcy and our students are learning and thriving and we know that there is going to be lots of good things happening in our schools it already is in just the eight days that we've had so far or nine days that we've had so far so thank you dr reed thank you to all of our teachers our ias our food service and our ultimate ambassadors being our bus drivers who are the first to see our children as they start their school day and the last to see our children as they uh joyfully jump off the bus and hopefully are sharing great things that have been happening with their in school with their families i

104want to send a special shout out to our facilities folks not only for the incredible work they do to make sure that all of our buildings are ready for opening but i want to thank them for the hercule herculean task that they have undertaken to make sure that those buildings that were under renovation were ready to accept students they may not have been fully completed but they have done amazing things especially at washington mill and at west potomac where our students are truly enjoying the new classrooms that they are having their math and sciences in so thank you very much and finally i do want to urge everybody to participate in our upcoming town halls the uh ones for where mount vernon students attend uh in region three but are not located in region three

105are hayfield on the 12th of september edison on the 14th of september and on the 3rd of october i'm pleased that dr reed will be coming to the mount vernon magisterial district with a visit to mount vernon and then to west potomac on the 27th and back over to my colleagues in franconia with louis on the 10th as well as our south county pyramid on the 21st of september thank you thank you ms corbett sanders miss tolan so i have had a wonderful time visiting the drainsville schools for a wide variety of welcome back school events cookouts back to school nights resource fairs and just general school visits and i've been like miss colbert sanders wowed by the excitement across the school community staff students and families are so excited to be back and every

106event that i attended the administration was seeing a record attendance thank you so much to everyone who helps make our first days back to school a success our bus drivers our teachers our nutritional staff our custodians and more and i do know also that our construction staff was working day and night at cooper middle school to get them ready to open um for school this year i'm looking forward to seeing people in in drainsville at school visits next week or throughout the fall please make sure to join dr reed a continuing theme here on her superintendent community conversations she's coming out to all of the high school pyramids to learn about our communities and to learn what your priorities are so please make a point to attend the meetings are for all schools within the

107high school pyramid elementary middle and high schools and translation services and child care are available and when you register please see my newsletter for the drainsville high school pyramid dates and look for your school's emails to register and i do hope it's mr first mentioned to see all of you at the mclean high school meeting next week on september 8th i would like to point out that tonight was a very good night for mclean high school we passed several key improvements including bathroom renovations we have a continued roof replacement on new business so that will be coming up shortly um stadium bathrooms girls softball field upgrades etc um he has uh taken off for the evening but i wanted to give a huge thank you to chuck mancha our interim assistant superintendent for facilities and

108transportation and justin moss our director of facilities and maintenance for visiting mclean high school with me yesterday to see firsthand some of the building issues we're struggling with and i look forward to continued efforts with them we're we are having a few bus issues in drainsville but there's improvement each day and i've been tracking this with principals and transportation please keep letting us know if you are having issues with your buses congratulations to mclean high school graduate max feinberg for making it to the american ninja warriors stage two of the finals he's the farthest he has ever been way to go max um and go cooper cougars uh dr reed mentioned them with their incredible um work in music we will hear them in person on our october 6th meeting thank you have a great

109weekend everyone thank you miss tola mr meish all right um i want to start off by thanking all our staff for an incredible start to the school year i've certainly heard a lot of happiness and excitement for what was the successful time as dr reed has outlined with so many successes 97 of our buses being on time is just the start of it but really and a congratulations to dr reed as well for starting off successfully uh with her first year with us here which brings me to the next point of on tuesday we had some really great discussions around what uh the vision will be for where our division is headed and i want to make sure the public is aware and following some of those conversations so that your input can be incorporated

110as we go along i know dr reed is attentively listening to many many people over the past week and coming weeks um and and had the you know privilege of hearing some of those conversations just at the septa one the other night uh and and of course we have many many more scheduled but i say that to say that that's initial conversations to inform her of course of what the concerns are but it seems like from tuesday that we're going to be starting a strategic plan process from the beginning and that's how our board seems to want to move forward so with that in mind be sure to keep a flag up and look for when we start talking about the development of that process to make sure that your voices are included in that

111and then finally as we turn this page of new beginnings i didn't comment on the year end piece earlier but just want to kind of flag as we continue to think about budgeting i know i had a conversation with corporate sanders earlier today about how we can incorporate some of this in our legislative advocacy but perhaps just considering uh hopefully a bit of a philosophical shift where on the equity issues and in reaching those families who we've maybe done the the uh um poorest job of reaching uh rather than perhaps deciding what programs are good for them uh and continuing to fund those supporting translation interpretation services so that we can empower those families to speak up for themselves and not assume that they just are disinterested or don't care because we don't hear from

112them so i'm hoping that my colleagues can join us in further investing in translation interpretation services i know the projection for that from our previous budget conversations in may and june uh neared a billion dollars in terms of what the need is and what our deficiencies are so no matter how much we spend we're still falling short so hopefully we can all commit to that in this coming year but thank you all and let's have a blessed year thank you miss keith gamara yes i i want to take a couple of different directions here one of course i feel the excitement of the year i i think the start of the school year is the most wonderful time of year second only to the holiday of your choice but um and i think every there's

113a lot of parents that do a little happy dance when they see that bus come and when i see them now i i do it for those who still have children in school but as i was thinking about sharing today i came across this quote from leonardo da vinci that said learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts never fears or never regrets and i just when i came across that i thought that's why we're happy because learning is a real opportunity and i'm just grateful that all of us are joined in those efforts with community and parents and so many others that care so much because that that is truly the great value that we have and get to enjoy together as we endeavor to make sure that learning is happening in a

114healthy way i too got an opportunity to be involved in some of the first day visits with dr reed had some back to school moments really enjoyed being at cunningham ham park where a number of teachers were set up to greet folks and show their wares it was it was quite exciting um i had the opportunity to be at first baptist church of vienna with dr reed i didn't know she was going to be there but it was really quite neat to see such an institution point out the importance of sending our children and entrusting our children to our schools and so i was happy to be there and i of course enjoyed being with septa and a few other things but i'd like to end by acknowledging uh one of the icons heroes of

115fcps we had an opportunity to recognize dr larry bussie just a few years ago who died suddenly who has served our community i'm not quite sure how many decades i think four um and so i wanted to again say thank you to him for contributing so much for challenging us in so many ways and for his family who who graciously lent him to us for that purpose of learning that mr davinci spoke about so thank you i hope we all have a great year and uh good night everybody thank you mr not cofax thank you um i happy new school year everyone um i too was thrilled to join dr reed and principal coonan at uh forest hill with the falcon families forest hill elementary that is there were lots of hugs to go all

116around you could see the joy the children the little hugs around their knees we were even getting them they were so cute as we were standing there welcoming to them to school with all of the teachers that they recognized and loved and so thank you for that and i was just happy to be there i was also happy to join dr reed at her second community conversation at key center for our special education families this parent group was candid they were personal about what the fcps has done for some of our neediest children and while improvements can be made there was much gratitude expressed for the staffs of key kilmer and our other special education centers and how they are assisting these families not only provide educational opportunities for their children but provide lots of

117love and care for these families i look forward to seeing more families at upcoming back to school nights as well as the community meetings thank you miss corbett sanders for announcing those dates so i don't have to do that and um happy labor day to everybody enjoy this uh last uh official weekend of summer great i know i it is quite early but i promise i won't talk long to make up for it um i know i stand between you all and your bed i just wanted to also say happy new school year i was very very excited to join dr reed and miss cohen at lake braddock very bright and early with the marching band and the cheerleaders and the student government association and the dance team it was a really festive atmosphere and

118kicked off the school year well and it was even meaningful because when i walked back into my neighborhood i saw all the young ones the little kindergartners and first graders getting on their bus and and you know the little ones where their backpacks were almost bigger than they were you know and it was just a really nice sort of yin and yang of seeing the high schoolers and middle schoolers excited to come back and then little ones getting on the school bus for the first time to go to school um so just the excitement is it's in the air you can see it with our teachers you can see it with our students there's just exciting learning happening there's exciting connections happening with football games and marching band and clubs and activities and theater it

119is just really really awesome to see i also enjoyed being able to go to uh the first i think of dr reed's community conversations at tj and listening to the families over at tj and kind of hearing their thoughts and concerns as well as i'm going to the special ed pta meeting where dr reed also spoke um and i look forward to going to many more community conversations and maybe a football game or two and i just wanted to throw out for all those families who have their kids back in school i hope that your hopes and joys for your children are realized this year i hope there's lots of amazing learning that happens in and outside the classroom and please know that we are all here to partner with you please let us know

120how we can serve you and with that this meeting is adjourned you