Fairfax County School Board Meeting - 7/14/22

001county school board will now come to order please stand for the pledge of allegiance followed by a moment of silence there will be no performance of the national anthem this evening as our student musicians are enjoying their summer break but they will return in the fall agenda item 2.02 certification of closed not [Music] to the best of available members knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the board during this closed meeting do i have a motion moved by miss uh cohen seconded my miss corbett sanders all those in favor that is unanimous with miss keys gemara away agenda item 2.03 announcements no i if i could ask the board

002clerk to please work on turning on our great our screens yep ms keysgamara has submitted a written request to virtually attend this evening's meeting due to a personal conflict all those in favor of allowing her virtual participation all those in favor okay that is unanimous with miss keys gemara away item 5.02 appointments to school board citizen advisory committ committees has been postponed to the september 1st 2022 meeting if you would like to review a copy of the agenda and any of the agenda items that are being discussed tonight that information may be found at the back of the auditorium or on the website at fcps.org school board slash board docs tonight's meeting is being broadcast on channel 99 and live streamed on the website at fcps.edu tv ch99 tonight we welcome our student representative for

003the 2022-23 school year michelle toggvi for her first meeting we are excited to have you and we are so happy that she is here with us and we will of course hear from her later this evening agenda item 2.04 introduction of chief experience and engagement officer i call on mr frisch for the motion thank you i move that the board appoint lisa hall as the chief experience and engagement officer and authorized the chairman to execute a contract reflecting this action is there a second seconded by miss maron mr frisch would you like to speak to this yes um i'm excited about this position and this individual uh miss hall brings 30 years of experience to this work um and truly understands that communication is not just about what you put out it's about what you

004do with what you take in and i think that's a critically important job and it goes along with our new superintendents thinking around robust community engagement and working with the community so very excited about the position very excited about miss hall joining us and uh looking forward to moving forward great miss marin yes i agree it's exciting to have this position uh it shows the growth and forward thinking that we're trying to do in our school division and also the continued work on our communications and community relations work so i'm very pleased to see that after all those efforts to collect community input and engagement that we're actually using that good feedback in the best way possible so i'm very pleased to move forward with this tonight thank you thank you miss corbett sanders [Laughter]

005two weeks ago all right uh miss mclaughlin yes thank you um i just wanted to share with the board and dr reed and the public that i'm very excited for her uh to be hiring this individual to join her team and i'm very supportive of that i do have some concerns and questions that i just didn't feel i was able to get fully addressed before this vote so i'll be abstaining tonight but i wanted you all to know that it isn't with any less enthusiasm great seeing as there are no other folks um who need to speak i will go ahead and call for a vote all those in favor of the motion all those opposed all those abstaining that motion passes with miss keys gemara i believe away from the virtual screen at this

006moment and i'll call on dr reed for an introduction thank you thank you chair for karski it's my pleasure to introduce lisa hall as our new chief experience and engagement officer her as mr frisch pointed out almost three decades of experience working with community engagement and public relations and the ability to really deeply understand the experience of our students staff and families our skills were i think in very timely at this time in our division and at this time in public education so it's my great pleasure to introduce miss hall who i believe is joining us virtually this evening to make a few comments miss hall thank you dr reed uh thank you so much and thank you to the school board um for allowing me to be part of this new journey with uh

007with fairfax and having trust in me for this work even though fairfax county public schools is a large division the focus is the same the right of each and every student to receive an excellent and just education experience that prepares them for life beyond high school whatever path they may choose as your chief experience and engagement officer i will also be focused on working collaboratively with leadership staff students families and the community to create a roadmap to a fairfax where each and every individual uh feels seen heard safe and welcome a place where each of us feels we belong this work will require a commitment from each and every one of us and i'm excited to get started in the coming weeks first though i want to share a little bit about myself and i

008usually hate doing that but um during this time during my time uh in my previous con uh position i was always excited to hear the where i'm from writings from our students each learner has their own story and continues to have their own story and it's the same in fairfax each person whether staff community members no matter who you are we all have our own stories and it's our job to not just tell the stories listen to the stories but also base our decision on those stories and those experiences and it's a different lived experience that will continually shape how they learn how the students interact with and respond to the world around them where i'm from is a meaningful way for students to provide others a glimpse into their stories i always thought i

009want to write my own and i i didn't uh and then as i consider what i'd say this evening i realized i'm sharing a bit of my story would be just one step in building one bridge of many bridges to come in fairfax so where i'm from i'm from robert and beatrice bobby and beede veteran and student baritone and soprano i'm from you're a youngblood right from eight kids packed into the station wagon on a sunday morning filing quietly into church no excuses i'm from the long red porch the snowball bush crabapple fights barking dogs lawn mowers and racing car engines on a saturday morning from those saturday groceries trips to supergiant with coupons and collecting snh green stamps from back to school shopping in the basement of that same store i'm from big pot

010dinners that stretch like spaghetti chili and chicken and dumplings i'm from freckled strong and strong-willed siblings some who integrated their junior high with a protective mom and a white german shepherd in tow i'm from cornrows and from hair braided by many fingers including a loving mischievous silver-haired grandfather from calcutta who filled the air with laughter when he rubbed those whiskers against my cheek and then gone too soon i'm from indigenous people up north and black and indigenous people down south i'm from stifling hot summer days with strawberries on one side of the house grape vines on the other and other vegetables in the back i'm from a corner candy store uh the big pickle jar with a big pickle jar and green apple jolly rancher sticks from the rec center swimming pool and karoon tables

011i'm from discarded and rehabbed bicycles flying down a long steep hill no hands or brakes i'm from spider webs in my face at 5 30 a.m before making that perfect toss of the washington post each and every morning i'm from two full-time i'm from two full-time jobs and at least three part-time jobs between two parents to make ends meet including selling wallpaper working at a gas station and selling shoes i'm from colleges not a question from pell grants and three part-time jobs and internships to get through college from life lessons and etched memories more than 50 years later that's the house your mom and i tried to tour but the realtor came running out to tell us we couldn't i'm from listening observing and learning i'm from taking what i use and trying to fill

012in those gaps from the example of keeping an open mind from asking what do you need from never saying i can't or we can't i'm from look out for one another from we can do better together to the board and the fairfax county public school schools community this is the lens to which i will operate i look forward to being out there in the community hearing the unique stories as we assess and address needs while also building relationships trust and some much needed bridges again i can't wait to get started thank you for allowing me this time thank you miss hall i want to congratulate you and thank you for sharing your story and allowing us to get to know you a little better you are going to be feeling uh feeling a critical need

013that we've heard time and time again in this system so i for one am excited to see you here and looking forward to getting to know you thank you [Applause] agenda item 2.05 resolution honoring sean mcdonald i'll call on mr frisch for the resolution thank you whereas sean mcdonald served as the fcps interim assistant superintendent of human services for 22 months and whereas mr mcdonald served in this interim role longer than anyone in the history of fcps whereas he cultivated the talent of all members of the hr leadership team to include the offices of talent acquisition and management benefits services business services and equity and employee relations whereas he worked tirelessly to advocate for the rights health and safety of all fcps employees during an unprecedented health emergency and whereas mr mcdonald pioneered here uh

014heretofore unimagined processes as the department of human resources responded to covet 19 such as employee vaccinations diagnostic and screening testing leave procedures workplace guidance on health protocols and managing employee accommodations and whereas he envisioned unique hiring strategies to support online learning to include substitute training the creation of classroom monitors and virtual school staffing models to support the return of students to school and whereas his leadership led to increased flexibility across hr processes and procedures for example enhanced compensation strategies augmented recruitment activities and redeployment of covid affected positions in our job match program and whereas his passion for the rights of fcps employees was influential in the entire northern virginia region and whereas mr mcdonald is an innovative leader whose positive impact will be felt for many years to come now therefore be it resolved that

015the fairfax county school board extends its highest commendation and deepest appreciation to sean mcdonald for his steadfast leadership and tireless commitment to our employees families and students and is grateful for his continued service to fcps in his role as executive director iso move is there a second second seconded by dr anderson mr frisch i know you'd like to speak to this sure um although i have a feeling it makes sean very uncomfortable to have this kind of praise i will say [Music] it was the longest 22 months in recorded history i'm sure [Music] and through it all you were calm and collected you kept the trains moving and we all very much appreciate that um i think the first thing you notice is how calm and collected sean is and then you realize how hard

016working he is to boot and that is a tremendous combination we are excited that you are still with us um we're extremely grateful for your service um and you know there's no way we could repay you for all that you've done so thank you dr anderson oh absolutely mr mcdonald i'm so very happy to be able to second this motion um to be the hr superintendent doing a pandemic is no small task but to step up to do so when it's not necessarily your calling is selfless which is what you did mr mcdonald is the epitome of calm especially during difficult times and there were many i recall my many conversations during that period when i was chair and as you helped myself and miss mclaughlin and i'm sure she'll speak to this resolve numerous

017complex issues one of the things that i've always appreciated mr mcdonald is your willingness to get to yes it's not whether or not we should do it but it's how we are going to do it despite of history and tradition and so that attitude has really afforded you a huge amount of respect from myself and from the rest of this board your leadership has been exemplary as you have worked to take care of our staff our students and our entire workforce during a very difficult time your flexibility has been very much appreciated i am just so very grateful to have had the opportunity to work with you and i thank you for your service during this time and i'm so very glad that you stepped up during a time where we really needed your calm

018energy and your approach and your flexible attitude thank you miss corbett sanders followed by mr mclaughlin yes thank you madam chair what can we say about sean we can say so much about him um i got to know you initially when we were dealing with a federal shutdown and we saw families faced with an absence of paychecks we saw kids not being able to buy lunch and we saw a real need in fairfax county to address the needs of our community while also addressing the needs of our school system to have excellent talent in each of our schools and that is when i realized that this quiet humble man was an innovative powerhouse who brainstormed and came up with a great ideas on how we could best marry all of these competing challenges for a

019win not only for fairfax county and its students and families but it became a model that was used across the united states during that federal shutdown so when dr brabrand said i need an interim superintendent and i'm thinking of appointing mr mcdonald i said well that's a no-brainer of course because this incredible man who is bright capable humble and compassionate always putting the needs of our community first and frankly oftentimes putting the needs of our community and our students ahead of your own needs because you worked tirelessly over the past 22 months and so i'm just so appreciative of not only what you've done over the past 22 months but what you've done over the past five years of service that i've actually seven years that i've known you and i know that you are

020looking forward to having more time with your family and so uh we reluctantly say to you you know great you're taking you're going back to the executive director position but we will forever be grateful for uh your innovation and wisdom so thank you ms mclaughlin mr mcdonald um i know we have a long night ahead of us so actually in support of you so you can get home earlier i'm going to keep my remarks brief um but just to say beyond all of the accolades that my colleagues are bestowing on you um having seen for a decade uh four different assistant superintendents uh when you stepped into the role it's not just your dedication and hard work but your immense kindness for our employees to feel safe and knowing that you truly are so dedicated

021to helping them i can't think of a better leader and you are just as everyone said a tremendous asset to fcps i have personally enjoyed working with you twice now as the staff the school board liaison to the human resources advisory committee you are a joy to work alongside of i am so glad that we will continue to benefit from your many talents but thank you for just always having the most remarkable smile that it certainly brightens my day whenever i see you i appreciate it miss cohen followed by mr neck cofax you know i wouldn't let it go by without getting to sing your praises um i remember at one point in the pandemic which i feel like it was like dog years like 27 and a half years ago at one point turning

022to you and saying like isn't there someone at home who would like to you know see you um and you begrudgingly said yes they would like to see you at some point um i've i've truly never known anybody who um stepped up in a way that was like this is not the job i want to have but this is what um i've been called to do and there's not an email that's gone unanswered a phone call a text every person when they have come to i think any number of us frustrated about various things that fall under your department to a person always say to me sean mcdonald's wonderful and and some tough cookies who have not felt that way about everybody in fcps always go out of their way to say um how wonderful

023you are and we we see it firsthand so we're just so grateful that you are staying with us because this would be like a saab fest if you were going so don't let anyone else ever steal you but i just can't say enough about during this time that nobody wanted the job you have done to get us to where we are and the grace that you've shown and i think dr wilson hopefully um would agree in just the care you've taken to be able to hand it over and we see it and we're so grateful so thank you so sean it was the best of times it was the worst of times the best was having someone who is calm measured hard-working dealing with all of the human relations issues that come up when we

024have never experienced a pandemic like we did you are selfless you are hard working i everyone has sung your praises tonight and they are well deserved and i'm glad to see that smile on your face because lots of times it was just i i know how very difficult it had to be where you you were you took on a role because you believed that that's where you needed to be at that time and so thank you for that thank you for everything that you've done thank you for being here and i am glad you will be continuing with us and i hope to see that smile more often so thanks miss tollin followed by miss marin sean i just want to thank you for being there day and night um every time i had an

025issue and reached out um you not only answered my questions but often convene others in hr to make sure i had whatever in-depth information i needed and i really appreciated it you've helped us so much to creatively work with our salary skills as we tried to put our budget together over the last couple of years and as our workforce needs changed in ways we never expected and that was so appreciated so i cannot thank you enough for stepping up for hours and hours of work months that turned into months and months and almost two years in this interim position thank you so much for everything you've done to benefit fcps sean you have set the example of perseverance loyalty and professionalism um and during the most challenging time in human relations not only in public

026education but any global workforce hr is a very tough field right now we actually just discussed at our public work session on tuesday the nationwide shortage of available talent both for instruction and operation in schools and um indeed your long-term acting position reflected the dire need in hr 8 and of itself and during those 22 months there were many occasions where i very consciously was grateful for your presence so thank you for remaining with fcps and we are so much the better for it miso mesh followed by massage more i love that we're all sitting here with straight faces saying the interim position of 22 months um sean i i i can't thank you enough i think you know folks have emphasized pieces of this but i want people to realize we we have been

027in an hr crisis that education has not seen in in modern history and what it started you know we had subs and then it was the bus drivers and then it was special ed teachers which is a consistent issue and you had to manage all of that in addition to resolving the challenges we had with esy and then putting out fires with the classroom monitors and totally transforming the setup of our system and you having to hire all those people by a certain date so i i just i want to thank you so much for that and as folks have shared the even keel you know um uh stable can do attitude uh that you've had i i have to speak to i mean from the days of when i was just a community member

028on the hrac uh working with you as the staff liaison until today uh you know laura jane mentioned the piece on responsiveness with to data questions um but just trying to find solutions i i was you know i'd walk into your office if i had a question i know that sean is going to keep it real he's going to tell me what's possible and what's not and i can trust that i don't have to push and continue to beg for the thing to happen uh and that really meant the world because you believed in the importance of this work you believed in the collaboration necessary to make it happen and you were always willing to find that solution even if even if it wasn't so straightforward all the time so i i'm incredibly grateful for

029that um your sincerity your responsiveness you're answering the call to duty that clearly was so necessary this year um and then finally just have to say in our meetings when we'd be going on and on for hours and someone's like um i is mr mcdonald around for a question i i you know and some question that is so in the weeds that requires numbers and calculations and you'll just pop up and everyone is fully expecting you to be like a sleep on zoom but you you come up and say actually i do have that number so thank you so much for for your diligence your sincerity and all the incredible work you've offered i will keep it short i echo everything my colleagues have said i just have one question for you you don't have

030to answer it right now but i want to know what your like your meditation or your yoga routine is because you are the most zen person in the face of the most utmost crisis and people coming at you and as mr meisha said you know five hour zoom meetings with one question that you randomly get to answer you know i just want to know that but honestly sean it has been an honor and pleasure to work with you i'm glad you're sticking around and thank you for teaching me what zen truly is mr mcdonald you were certainly the right person um during a very difficult time even though i know you didn't you know you hadn't planned on that or wanted that or any of it but it was a very difficult time and you

031put in very long days you came up with innovative solutions you worked with our employees for whom it was also a an emotional difficult time working through the pandemic and you did it with a smile you did it with patience and you did it with with just i think love for the system and for what you do and for that i am extremely grateful to you i thank you um and we are very lucky to have you and to have you staying of course with us so thank you and with that we will go ahead and take the vote all those in favor motion and that is unanimous with miss kisgamara away from the table um if you would like to join us up front and staff we'd love to take a photo with you

032oh wait a minute wait a minute do you have i'm sorry do you have any comments for us with mr mcdonald yes thank you i appreciate that and i will i will keep it very brief um and good evening and uh thank you for this recognition was an honor to have had the opportunity to serve as the fairfax county public schools assistant superintendent of human resources for almost two years while i was the face of hr throughout my time in this role the dedicated hard-working team of individuals that make up the human resources department truly deserve our recognition and we're unsung here at superheroes of the pandemic and i am very grateful to each and every one of them for their dedicated service and i did want to lift them up this evening my almost

033two-year journey provided an opportunity to support dedicated people who make a premier workforce and make up the premier workforce here in fcps and also serve an amazing professional served as an amazing professional growth opportunity there are a number of individuals that i'd like to thank and i would not like to leave anyone out but i apologize in advance if i do first i'd like to thank members of the board not only for the recognition for giving me the opportunity to take on this role and rise to the challenge and giving me grace as i learned and navigated the unknown i'd like to thank michael drager d holly brown catherine carroll and mia devers they are outstanding dedicated directors in the department of human resources and without them i would not have been able to make

034it through the past two years they have they i could have asked for a more talented and supportive group to the department of human resources team members as i always uh would open and close every meeting thanking thank you for your dedicated work and making a difference for people within our division each and every day members of the leadership team thank you for being great mentors and collaborators to dr wilson specifically thank you for your your leadership and we're so excited to have you as part of our department of human resources we appreciate your warmth and caring approach and we're in very good hands to marty smith your caring spirit shines through in all that you do and i thank you for being an amazing coach and mentor and finally to my parents and my

035partner i would like to thank them for providing unconditional love and understanding throughout my journey especially on those toughest of days being there to listen and cheer me on meant the world to me once again thank you [Applause] all right agenda item 2.06 south county middle school 10th anniversary anniversary resolution the board will invite each recognition recipient and their supporters for a photo after the reading of the recognitions have completed and i will call on miss corbett sanders for this resolute okay miss corbett sanders actually that is a mistake we will call on miss cohen for this resolution my apologies okay we we share south county just like we share this resolution that's right whereas south county middle school proudly celebrated its 10th anniversary on may 10 2022 and its foundation built on the mission

036of its first principal marcia manning to produce capable connected and contributing citizens for a global society and whereas for 10 years south county middle school has provided a positive learning environment for providing an academically challenging education to students through general education and advanced academics level 4 center program an honors program and a special education program and whereas south county middle school works in partnership with faculty parents students parent teacher student organization members and the community to benefit student success and achievement in the classroom and on the school grounds by providing students with access to a variety of elective offerings through fine and performing arts career and technical education and world languages programs and through diverse and robust after-school programs and whereas the dedicated faculty of south county middle school continues to stay abreast of technological

037changes and use technology to support the 21st century learners with each student receiving an fcps issued laptop to access dynamic resources and participate in learning tailored to the students individual needs and whereas south county middle school continues its mission under the leadership of principal peter kawanaki taking great pride in displaying the horse character traits of honesty ownership respect service and effort now therefore be it resolved that the fairfax county school board honors the south county middle school on the occasion of its 10th anniversary commends the school on its history of providing educational excellence and enrichment opportunities to the students and staff and conveys its most heartfelt best wishes for a successful anniversary celebration iso move is our second second did my miss corbett sanders miss cohen would you like to speak to this well as

038evidenced by the fight that there was a near arm wrestle over who got to present um the resolution i think that i can definitely speak from my colleague when i say we feel so very fortunate to get to represent south county middle school peter you are amazing the environment that you have created is amazing your staff is incredible and being able to go through the halls and every student knows you knows who you are smiling high fives you know nodding at you and you know them and and more importantly you know what they're coming to you with you know their story and you see them for exactly who they are and try to help them in those two years really become who they need to become to be successful not only at south county high

039school but in in life going forward i have rarely seen anybody who is as excited about the journey that middle school students are on in their lives than than you are your kids are very lucky your patience um and just general enthusiasm about the short time that you get to make such a positive impact it is seen in every single thing that you do so we're very excited to commend south county on 10 years but i can't wait to see what the next 10 looks like miss garvin sanders yes thank you madam chair and i thought i would give a little bit of background but i also want the audience and everybody to know that um this is actually part of a a three-part celebration of the 10-year anniversary of south county we know that

040the legislature passed a resolution and that will be presented and be in the halls of south county we know that next tuesday the board of supervisors will do this and today we're doing this and that's really important to understand that context for what i'm about to say it's often said that it takes a village to raise a child and that in times of need innovation is essential to problem solving south county middle school is an excellent example of this when south county high school opened as a secondary school it became apparent that the school was not big enough to accommodate the rapid growth that the southern part of fairfax county was experiencing however as you know the bonding process and the facilities demands of this county are extensive and building another school in south county

041was not part of the plan however close collaboration by the school board and my predecessor supervisor dan store with the local community the board of supervisors and the park authority came up with a solution that did work in 2008 the fairfax county board of supervisors allocated 10 million dollars to the school system to build an addition to south county secondary school which as you know is now a high school due to the opening of the middle school which this addition which was packed uh packed middle school students in the over capacity uh of the building was not sustainable so that same year the board voted to build a new school in said and state saved 35 million dollars by using the development plans that had already been implemented in another middle school and they also

042swapped land with the fairfax county park authority so that there was room for a building right next to the high school so 10 years ago as the front doors opened south county middle school principal marsha manning greeted the students and established the mustang legacy of encouraging every student to be the best that they can be and ensuring that the sense of community with the south county high school continued this of course was facilitated by the close proximity of the two schools which are essentially a single campus and the school's commitment to academic excellence and student enrichment is demonstrated by the establishment of the advanced academic center program a few years later and the guest authors that have visited the school and extensive after school programming principal manning's vision for the school had been built upon

043the leadership has now been built upon and extended by the leadership of principal kalnowke kalnacki we so appreciate your leadership your sense of joy that you bring to the building and to the students every day and your tireless efforts during the past two years of covet thank you excellent mr kaneki congratulations to south county um our you know we go way back for rocky run so i was very happy to see all the wonderful things you are doing but definitely not surprised so um congratulations again and with that i'll go ahead and take the vote all those in favor that is unanimous with mesquiz gemara and miss mclaughlin away from the table agenda item 2.07 stratford landing elementary school cafeteria renaming resolution i'll call on miss corbett sanders thank you madam chair whereas john adams

044has served stratford landing elementary school as the building supervisor and custodian for 45 years earning the 2010 fairfax county school's outstanding operational employee award collaborating with multiple departments through two renovations and one building addition preparing the building for summer programs and the start of school maintaining a safe environment for students and staff and whereas mr adams responded to teacher needs in a timely manner securing needed items moving furniture setting up for special events reliably opening the building for teachers to have an early start to their teaching day and whereas mr adams interacted positively and patiently with all students using the proper blend of friendliness and authority and was constantly aware of and responsive to students needs in the school and the cafeteria and whereas mr adams willingly volunteered to help before anyone requested his assistance

045the suggestions he provided to help make after-school activities flow more smoothly and his daily presence in the cafeteria during breakfast and lunch helped to instill a sense of respect and responsibility in the students and whereas mr adams continued to keep the grounds of stratfor landing well maintained and manicured so that the outside appearance of the school was as inviting as the inside now therefore be it resolved that the school board of fairfax county virginia honors john adams with the naming of the stratford landing elementary school cafeteria as the john adams cafeteria in recognition of his service to the entire stratford landing community through the caring way he has maintained stratfor landing and served the students families and community during his time as custodian and building supervisor at stratford landing elementary school iso move is there

046a second second second did my miss darren at cofax miss corbin sanders would you like to speak to this yes thank you very much we often talk about the caring culture of fcps and the importance of having a caring adult in the building for our students to succeed mr adams epitomizes that that culture and the importance of a caring adult not only for our students to succeed but our teachers and administrators to do so as well for over 45 years mr adams has touched students lives greeting them in the cafeteria in the morning and at lunch seeing them in the hallways and on the fields and parks surrounding the school his knowledge of the stratford landing community has been essential as the school has transitioned in both size and composition the cafeteria that will bear

047his name is a gathering site not only for the students in the school but the community which meets their meets there often in after school hours for community events thank you so much mr adams for being here tonight and for sharing your talents i am sorry that your siblings are not able to join you here at the dyess but i hope that they will be able to do so when the sign goes up at the school and we wish you all the best in your retirement mr not cofax it's always humbling to be able to learn about and recognize the valuable contributions of members of our fcps staff our schools would not be the safe and welcoming buildings they are without the dedication and of our fcps building managers and custodial staff it's clear that

048you mr adams went above and beyond for over four decades to ensure that the stratford community was always safe and the building was ready for its staff its students and their families i congratulate you on this well-deserved honor and i thank you for your service to fcps for 46 years it was really truly heartwarming to see the outpouring of love that came from the stratfor landing community who want who want to honor your outstanding devotion and love of this school we wish you all the best thank you so much for your dedicated work and with that i'd like to go ahead and take the vote all those in favor of this motion please raise your hands and that is unanimous with miss keys gemara away from the table [Applause] let's go no yeah i would

049like to invite mr john adams the stratford landing principal kevin morris former stratford landing principal maureen marshall and staff to please join the board for a photo and i asked my colleagues to please remain in front of the diocese for the next photo we'd like to invite everyone in the audience who's here in recognition of the south county 10th anniversary to please join the board at the pho at the dies for a photo all right agenda item 2.08 annual school board organizational arrangements and before we go on with this order of business i did just want to offer a few comments as this will be my last night as chair um i just wanted to [Music] thank all my colleagues of course for the opportunity to serve this year as chair i know it required

050a bit of nudging at the beginning to accept but it was an extremely gratifying experience and i did learn a lot and i'm very thankful that you all put your trust in me you were flexible and many of you were good count counsel for those um that have done this before and have started longer than i when i needed somebody to you know run some ideas past so i thank you all for that i think we've accomplished much together this year of course bringing back our students to in-person instruction during the most tumultuous public health crisis of our lifetimes investing a once-in-a-lifetime infusion of money to support the learning loss and the social emotional needs of our kids and conducting an extensive national search and appointing a new superintendent dr reed the public doesn't see

051of course the behind the scenes work that is necessary all day every day it seems like sometimes but i'm thankful to all of you for putting in that work and your passion of course for the mission of what we do here i also would like to thank our staff for your working with me and being always responsive uh and collaborative and i hope that through our work together we have better refined that critical relationship between superintendent staff and board because it is necessary that we work as a team for the success of our students of course miss bev made i cannot finish tonight without thanking you profusely for being always right there being joyful keeping things light and and funny and so extremely hard working i don't think people know or see just how much

052you do at all hours of the day to keep this train going so i thank you for supporting me immensely lastly i can't say goodbye from this position without thanking my teammate miss sizemore heiser i think we've made a really great team don't cry there's it's a long night we've made a great team to working together i've enjoyed it um and i you know you you've been you're constant how can i help attitude that you you brought to every single day um really was just an invaluable partnership to me and your support either from always whipping out a tech device when mine always seemed to fail to a pencil to the much more difficult work and the problems that we have to struggle with and deal with and bring to the board and work through

053you have been just just amazing and there's no other way to say that so i thank you and i thank um the board i thank you for all your work you are incredible um advocates and stewards for this system and thank you for the opportunity and with that the next sort of business is this agenda item 2.08 the annual organizational motion section 22.1-76 of the code of virginia specifies that at the annual organizational meeting a school board shall elect one of its members to serve as chairman and may elect one of its members to ver to serve as vice chairman both for one year term and shall also approve other appointments and designations of responsibility necessary for board operations during the year and for this part and i will call on dr reed to conduct

054the selection process for the school board chair for the next school year thank you ms pikarski at this time i will open the floor to nominations for chair of the fairfax county school board i have the pleasure of nominating miss rajna sizemore heiser for chairman of the board is there a second so ms rajna sizemore heiser has been nominated as chair are there any other nominations hearing no other nominations the motion before the board is to elect ms rachna sizemore heiser as chair of the fairfax county school board i'll call on those members who nominated her for comments first ms pikarski would you like to speak to your nomination i i sure would in addition to what i've also said of course i sang miss eisemar heiser's praise as vice chair because she was an

055incredible partner and she is well poised to be the next chair of the school board she is a team player she always puts the mission and the reason we're here ahead of anything and everything and i feel [Music] just so much better knowing that she will be in those conversations out there front and center with the things that are happening and i fully support you you have all my trust i am here for whatever you need always as you know but you're going to do a great job and i'm very excited for the next team that will lead the board next year thank you mrs corbitt sanders would you like to speak to your second yes thank you superintendent reed for this opportunity to second messimer heiser's nomination for the board chair we often hear

056about the value or non-value of experience when we select leaders in public office i do believe that experience matters and miss seismer heiser has the experience on this board necessary to take on the role of chair having served as the vice chair in advance of my services as the chair of this board i know how important it is for someone to have this experience to understand what the role of the chair is on a board that has a flat organizational structure such as ours in fairfax county the role of the school board chair differs from that of the board of supervisors chair in that it is an administrative and organizational function which ensures that the work of the board is done in a transparent and efficient manner which ensures the effective engagement of the community

057in our decision-making processes and it is collaborative i would like to speak to the opportunity that this board has every year at the organizational meeting we have extensive conversations during our retreat this past monday about the importance of reflection and recommitting ourselves every day to the important work before this board in doing so it is clear that we all share a commitment to academic excellence in putting students first and ensuring that we have the best in class workforce to achieve the fcps promise for every child in every school doing this work takes time and commitment by each one of us and requires dedication in the board leadership positions to ensure that the work of the board progresses it also requires us to build on each other's strengths and listen to the unique perspectives of each

058of our colleagues this past year and i know going forward rachna has demonstrated a willingness to reach out to each one of the board members seek their input and listen i know going forward she will continue to do so as we collectively approach this work i know she understands how important it is to create a board culture that allows each of us to bring our best thinking to solve the problems that come before us in a way that ensures each child in our schools are provided the opportunity and resources necessary for them to be successful and give back to our community additionally i believe that ms seismer heiser's experience as a vice chair is especially important this year as we bring on board our new superintendent and ensure information concerns of the whole board are

059shared in preparation of the board calendar work sessions and board meetings i believe that ms seismar heiser's experience in the fields of education law and human resources and her proven advocacy for inclusive schools are strengths that will aid her in this work and after this vote we will vote on the vice chair position and i will speak to that then do other board members wish to speak i i will start with miss darren at kofax thank you ms seismer heiser your accomplishments have been well noted by your colleagues and i want to thank you for your outstanding work this past year as vice chair i truly appreciated the teamwork that you and stella demonstrated i appreciate your follow-through and attention to detail as the vice chair to keep our board informed and moving forward you're

060always there when you pick up the phone to answer questions or concerns on board matters and to help us heard as we say hurt us cats because that's what it's like you are ready for your next challenge and i am happy to support you thank you mr frisch i flipped a little switch to turn on the light without even thinking for a second that you don't see the little lights so i don't this little light of mine will have to shine another day um i am uh grateful that miss sizemore heiser is putting herself forward uh or allowing herself to be put forward if for no other reason people will finally be able to say your last name miss rashna heismore sizer etc in all seriousness i have appreciated working with you over the last

061two and a half years as a thought partner on all sorts of different policies um i've known you for a long time as a tenacious advocate and i think the broader community will like what they see with you as chair um and i know you're not afraid to pick up the phone and i think that is the one of the most important uh traits of a school board member uh and a chair of this board so i appreciate you um allowing yourself to be put forward for this and uh look forward to working with with you to advance student success in the year ahead thank you miss cohen uh i this is a one of those full circle moments in life when the first time that i ever the first time i met rajna it

062was here at a school board meeting and she was testifying um about kids like mine and i remember sitting in the back row with my mom and after you spoke we chased you out to stop you to tell you how meaningful your testimony was to both of us and it's pretty cool i will say to be able to be on the other side of this deus right now and instead of you being there with your two minutes to talk about everything that needs to be done in the school system you have continued to be a major part in everything that we have done and all of the um incredible progress that i think i really believe has been made not just for kids like ours but for every kid in this system and so i'm

063excited let's go we got it um we're ready and stand ready to support you thank you thank you miss mclaughlin i know we've got a long night ahead of us so again i will try to be brief but uh you know i had the pleasure of meeting miss rajna seismer heiser when she was my constituent in the braddock district more than a decade ago and she was an incredible special education advocate then and to now have the opportunity over the last two and a half years to share this work and collaboration together i so deeply appreciate every day that we've been able to work together and as my esteemed colleague mr first said it is very true that you are so willing to pick up the phone and call and anyone who knows me knows

064that i have an irish side and there are times when we have conversations that uh rajna is very patient to listen to my passion and uh so i i am very excited for you to serve in this role as chair and uh i will certainly do my part as 112th of this group uh to make it as seamless as possible for you and just really appreciate your willingness to step up and take on this responsibility and to her amazing husband who i see sitting in the audience craig um thank you for uh sharing rajna and i know that this also means that you won't have as many nights to enjoy her and you've always been an incredible partner and that's appreciated too if there are no other comments then we'll proceed with the vote which

065oh i apologize sorry it's a delight mistake as well thank you um yeah i first want to start off by thanking ms picarski of course for her service uh for being a compassionate leader someone who was honest and really tried her best to wrangle all of us in a tough tough time uh and was pulled in so many directions so thank you for for uh instilling a sense of fairness in our board and of course ms seismer heiser who was by her side i'm excited to support you rajna i think you know you've done a lot of work to bring us together behind the scenes having those conversations in advance to try to have a cohesive team dynamic and i've really appreciated your going out of your way um to entertain my ideas to brainstorm

066together and i'm looking forward to doing more of that in the in the year ahead that we have together so uh looking forward to supporting you thank you ms marin i did the same thing carl did thank you miss picarski for your leadership and all your hard work this year as well as chair of vice chair soon to be uh miss seismer heiser i look forward to working with you and thank you for all of your hard work and being such a great listener and working for all kids thank you thank you miss tolin i also want to extend a huge thank you to stella picarski for the hours and hours you have spent as our chair i would greatly greatly appreciate it um and miss seismer heiser i have called it all hours of

067the day and night as well um and she has always picked up the phone and be willing to have a great conversation on whatever the topic is on keeping me filled in on everything so i so appreciate it you've done a great job as vice chair so i'm very confident that you'll do a great job as chair and i look forward to working with you if there are no other comments then we'll proceed with the vote which requires a majority of votes from those board members present and voting the motion before the board is that ms rachna sizemore heiser be elected chair of the fairfax county school board all those in favor of the motion please signify by raising your hand and saying i i believe i have to announce each name saying i or

068you've got it you've got it all right those opposed those abstaining at this time i am pleased to introduce the new chair of the fairfax county school board ms rachna sizemore heiser wow thank you um thank you so much i will try to keep this brief but those are famous last words for me so um but i have learned a lot from miss picarski one of those is how to be brief i would be remiss if i didn't start by thanking miss picarski and stella has been an incredible chair and and for you all may not know the amount of work and time and effort and energy she spends day and night and we've had many 1 a.m conversations um and she then goes on to continue working after i go to bed she has

069i can't even tireless is too small of a word to describe how she works and i have learned a lot from you in terms of how to wrangle cats and to do it with a smile and how to make sure everybody honestly sees her feels heard and is seen and how we bring everybody together so thank you for teaching me all you taught me this year and i'm going to miss you i'm going to call you every day and every night anyway so thank you for what you've done um i'll keep this reef colleagues i really appreciate your faith and i'm humbled by your trust in me i i i'm here i'm just going to tell you that i want to keep working with you all i i ran on a platform of strengths focused

070education and i want to continue that as my role as chair to make sure that you all can bring your strengths and you also feel heard brought together and we can collaborate because together we can do great things and with a new superintendent together with your strengths and your passions and working with each other we can create a world-class system that is ready for the 22nd century and so i'm excited i'm humbled i'm honored my door is always open my phone is always open my zoom is always open i don't know what else my teams maybe is always open please i know that i'm here to help you all bring your passions to help you all succeed and hopefully not wrangle cats but create a great system so thank you all [Applause] at this time

071i will open the floor to nominations for vice chair of the school board miss mclaughlin yes i would like to nominate my colleague miss darynette kofax is there a second i would like to second that motion tammy darren at kofax has been nominated for vice chair are there other nominations hearing no other nominations the motion before the board is to like tammy darren at kofax as vice chair of the fairfax county school board ms mclaughlin would like to speak to your nomination i would thank you um as many know ms dear now kofax and i began our board service on january 2012 so as we marked over a decade of working alongside one another i can say with deep certainty that she brings such care and dedication to the work and that when i think

072about how we can best position our board going forward particularly in this new year uh with a new superintendent i am very excited about ms dearnett cofax's nomination because as our board of 12 has hit more than its two and a half year mark together we really have an opportunity here to bridge some of the history that our that our board has had over uh many years but also the fresh perspective that we've gained from our new board so even though as a result of all of this it will mean more work from his near-neck cofax what i do know is that uh like our new chair miss eisemer heiser ms darren echo facts you always always treat everyone with tremendous respect and you make it very easy to want to be able to bring

073concerns or discuss tough issues and while you also have a wonderful passionate side that i personally appreciate you you you again always look to ensure that people um experience a sense of personal dignity when they bring their diverse perspective and i can't think of anything more important when we're doing such difficult work so i really am honored to be nominating you and uh thank you for your willingness to step forward and devote time to this work ms tollin would like to speak to your second yes thank you i encourage my colleagues to support mr not cofex's candidacy for vice chair i've had the pleasure of knowing and working with tammy over the past three years she always brings her very best to the board and this has the best interests of our students and community

074in mind she was very generous with her time as i conferred with her on how to deal with many new situations when i joined the board most recently tammy was the chair of the audit committee i've served on this committee since taking office tammy did a great job of learning the ropes and jumping right in to provide us leadership on the committee she collaborated well with all of us and brought the whole board through some tough topics and audit reviews tammy and i have had numerous conversations about the role of board vice chair and she's ready to take on the challenge this year with a new superintendent starting and another year of work to move forward after covet 19. she has onboarded a new superintendent before and she has been through a strategic planning process

075for this school district once before tammy is ready to do this work this year i have warned her that my mode of operation to stay on top of recent scheduling and logistics for the board is to call the vice chair all the time so get ready you've been forewarned however i have gotten to know our this past year's vice chair quite well uh since i used that mode of operation so uh miss seismohizer you may not be completely off the hook um you did a wonderful job as our vice chair this year i look forward to working with both of you thank you are there other board members who may wish to speak miss picarski yeah thank you of course i had to take the opportunity miss darren at kofax um you have been a

076great um source of information for me this year as we've um had to go through some you know difficult issues and a good source of information just historical information about the system and really it has been an invaluable resource to me and i think it's going to be an invaluable resource to massage more heiser as we onboard and bring in our new superintendent and start some of these things that this board has been waiting for such a long time and what better way to do this next chapter if you will of this board strategic planning and where we want to go what our vision is than bringing people who have done it before and all that you bring along with you and some of our newer members so i'm very excited you all are going

077to be a great team and i'm really looking forward to this year thank you miss cohen followed by miss corbett sanders thank you so much uh as miss tolan said you were the first board member i talked to when i thought about running for office and i so appreciated your time and your guidance i wish you would have discouraged me a little bit more but um but i so appreciate it and um i feel like i have been just so fortunate to get to know you over these last couple of years especially knee partners at our our team building exercises so i just i'm i'm so excited about the journey i'm always grateful that not only do you bring the history and the knowledge but you also are not a person who says well we

078already did that so we're not gonna do it we already tried that um you're always ready to say okay well um we tried that before it didn't didn't work but you know maybe maybe we can bring something new to it this time or how do you see it differently and i so appreciate that i think um you've been a steady calm presence as mentioned on audit but just on the board in general uh in this rocky storm and definitely one of the first people i call when i um when i feel like i need to make sure that i'm fully understanding all of the pieces of it and and somebody who has been a great comfort during some of the craziness that we've gone through so thank you so much miss corbett sanders yes thank

079you chair seismohizer doesn't that sound nice um when i made uh seconded the motion for you to become chair i talked about the importance of experience and what i didn't fully talk about was the importance of partnerships and that close collaboration and partnership between the chair and vice chair is so critical uh and many may not realize that tammy has stepped up into that chair three times and each time she has gone above and beyond the call of duty each time we've had unique crises that we thought oh that could have never happened and the grace and sense of humor that she brings to some tense conversations is important but there's also the unique awareness of um the history of what has happened not only on this board but in our communities tammy and i

080actually first met when we were both on the advanced academic programs committee well over 10 years ago and the perspectives that we each brought were unique but we also have the pleasure of sharing the highway of our two systems about each other and so i have a unique perspective i think of how tammy partners and i know that you will be an excellent thought partner an excellent business partner and a excellent person to help calm down certain situations so i am very happy to uh see you step up into this position miss marin yes i wanted to thank mr kofax already for her wisdom and leadership and bringing that to bear in the work that we've done when we were on the budget committee and otherwise and i appreciate her passion and her tolerance of

081mine and even when we are not quite the same wavelength we continue to work together so i look forward to that model in the next year thank you for stepping up thank you and i will make my remarks after the vote so if there are no other board members who wish to speak i will go ahead and call for the vote this vote requires a majority of votes from board members present and voting the motion before the board is that tammy darren at kofax be elected vice chair of the fairfax county school board all those in favor of the motion please signify by raising your hand and saying aye those opposed abstaining the motion passes at this time i am pleased to introduce the new vice chair of the fairfax county school board tammy darren

082at colfax and before you give your remarks as chair i wanted to not speak before the vote but i just wanted to say i welcome you i am so excited to work with you i think in this moment in history your knowledge and your experience in serving as both chair and vice chair previously will be invaluable in onboarding a new superintendent and invaluable to me as i step into this new role i have really enjoyed getting to know you better this year and your counsel and your advice and your humor and i will just say when i started this board there was a lot of conversation on the board table and in the community about newborn old board and i never liked that because we're a board right and so in the spirit of one

083fairfax i feel like now with a veteran board member and one who got elected more recently we are now finally one board and i love that imagery and i am so excited to learn from you and to work with you as a partner and i apologize in advance for the 1am calls with that i will turn the floor to you mr and echo facts thank you rachena and everyone for your comments i really really do appreciate it i first too because i did not get to thank miss picarski for your steadfast leadership as both the vice chair and the chair over the past two years these are complex positions on this board and they require patience they require open-mindedness and perseverance and you possess the right mix of each of those to be successful you've

084navigated our system through covid in a superintendent search and much more while managing many personal and family responsibilities and you do it all in a calm demeanor and with a big smile i thank you for your service on this board i have truly appreciated your work as the chair now go and have a well-deserved summer break if you really need that so but again thank you all for providing me with this opportunity i am both uh humbled and honored we are a school system that has challenges but we have even more successes we have inspirational leadership amazing teachers administrators staff and students we are bored with passion as you've heard a lot of passion and many opinions and diverse ideas on how to reach our goals and though these diverse and varied opinions may make

085the road rocky a bit at times everyone's combined input creates a discourse that can inspire new and innovative solutions to our challenges it is my wish and i will work hard to bring out the strengths and leadership abilities in each and every one of us so we can be the best board possible i will work to respect other people's opinions keep everyone informed and move us forward in a strategic way i look forward to working in partnership with each and every one of you in the coming year and i thank you again for allowing me this opportunity thank you congratulations [Applause] and now i call on miss darren at colfax for the motion see not prepared i move that the school board authorized organizational arrangements and appointments as follows and this is a bit lengthy

086number one designate the 20 2022-2022 23 calendar of regular business meetings which are typically held on thursdays the board's calendar of meeting dates will be based on the school year and will be published in july as detailed in attachment a of the agenda item special meetings board committee work sessions and other special functions will be scheduled liaisons and committees will be organized to support the board's work committees of three board members consider student disciplinary cases in closed cases typically on tuesdays number two set the salary of the board members at thirty two thousand per year and that of the board chairman at thirty four thousand dollars a year and reimburse all board members for travel expenses in the conduct of official business official business including attendance at meetings at that same time at the same

087rate as employees of the board number three compensate the student representative for attendance at public meetings not to exceed fifty dollars per day and reimburse for related travel expenses at the same rate as employees of the board number four appoint dr francis ivey deputy superintendent to serve as the superintendent designee to attend any meeting of the school board that the superintendent cannot attend number four appoint beverly medeja as interim clerk of the school board and laura cornell is deputy clerk of the school board each with a corporate security bond as required by the code of virginia number six appoint deputy clerks of the school board for a limited purpose of signing titles to school division vehicles and counter-signing payment warrants as detailed in attachment b of the agenda item number seven appoint agents and deputy

088agents of the school board to examine approve an order payment of financial obligations at the school board and to approve disbursements made from all petty cash funds as detailed in attachment b of the agenda item eight appoint agents and deputy agents of the school board to examine approve and order payment only in connection with educational employees supplementary retirement system of fairfax county known as erfc as detailed in attachment b of the agenda item number nine authorize the chairman and clerk to sign all legal documents of the for the board other than those requiring the signature of some other officers and authorized the vice chairman to sign the app in absence or unavailability of the chairman and the deputy clerks in the absence or unavailability of the clerk number 10 authorized dr francis ivey deputy superintendent

089and marty smith chief operating officer either of whom may act without the other to execute official documents including those relating to state federal and impact aid requiring the superintendent's signature and those relating to the virginia department of education reports documents requisitions and other official correspondence in the absence or unavailability of the division superintendent effective through july 31st 2023 and 11 retained the following outside law firms as assigned and managed by the office of division council the firm of hunt and andrews kurth to provide legal general legal advice and litigation services the firm of blankenship and keith to provide general legal and special education advice and litigation services the firm of franklin and pro pro copic to provide workers compensation services the firm of michael e kinney plc to provide general legal advice and litigation services

090the firm of jackson lewis to provide general legal and advice and litigation services the firmers of sans anderson to provide general legal advice and litigation services and such are the firms that are deemed to be necessary from time to time is there a second second mr not cofax would like to speak to your motion no ma'am it's quite self-explanatory miss bakarski would you like to speak to your second no are there any board members who wish to speak i will call for the vote the motion before us is on the screen adam clerk would you put the motion on the screen please there we go all those in favor please raise your hand and that is unanimous with miss kiskamara away from the table agenda item 3.01 community participation the next order of business is

091community participation speakers must limit their remarks in no more than two minutes in length at the conclusion of two minutes the microphone or video will be turned off school board members will be listening but not responding to individual speakers the school board will not hear statements involving issues that have been scheduled for public hearings such as a capital improvement program budget and boundaries comments targeting criticizing or attacking individual students are not permitted during public meetings complaints regarding school-based employees should be directed to the appropriate school principal or other school officials speakers should refrain from using personally identifiable information in connection with an individual student or school-based employee additionally speakers should 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

092the 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 and our outbursts from the audience will not be tolerated we are grateful for all those who have come to speak to us today and thank you for your cooperation our first speaker is kathy lee [Applause] okay okay good evening my name is kathy lee and i'll be a senior in the next fcps school year i am also a member of the pride liberation project during my sophomore year i figured out i was queer and only disclosed it to a few of my closest friends although i had

093gained a bit of support i mostly felt anxious and confused with myself i wasn't comfortable with my identity and i constantly lived in a state of fear of being added to people i didn't know i also didn't have any knowledge about it which made me even more frightened since i was something i didn't know although i eventually came to understand who i was i can't say the same for other students during my fle classes we learned about a plethora of topics yet i can't remember a mention of the lgbtq community my high school attempts to make up for the lack of representation with slideshows highlighting influential queer figures in history and advisory yet students laugh and treat it as a joke because being queer is an insult i can't find the courage to come out

094to more people because i do not want to want to be subjected to bullying many other students share my concerns of not feeling comfortable in their identity due to the lack of representation this has only caused more mental health issues and fear in school according to the survey 90 of queer students hear homophobic remarks and greater than fifty percent attempt suicide with such alarming statistics it only makes sense for it to be changed we need lgbtq students to be fully represented in fle curriculum because brief remarks aren't enough we need to speak about the identities of the queer community how much longer are we going to wait for representation how much longer will students stay closeted and live with fear just like i did i know change doesn't happen automatically and you'll not see me

095in another light because of my identity however if you implemented the reforms suggested by fle at cac you will be taking a small but meaningful step forward in accepting queer students if not decide as a quote of hate and fear directed towards the queer community will never change i hope the decision to do what's right is unanimous thank you thank you our next speaker is rivka visardo lichter good evening my name is rifka viscardo lichter and i'm a student organizer with the pride liberation project if you've heard of the pride liberation project you've probably heard this statistic about a million times fifty percent of queer students in fcps are depressed and at this point you're probably tired of hearing it but i'm here to tell you why it's essential that you don't ignore this as

096a queer student fcps who has and continues to struggle with depression i can't tell you how important it is that you realize the significance of this statistic 50 of queer students are depressed let that sink in and that doesn't count the closeted students or those who are afraid to disclose their mental state in the wake of the dobbs decision we need urgent responses from this board especially considering that 50 percent of queer students are depressed our reproductive health is being taken away and that only furthers the need for a more inclusive sexual health curriculum i ask of you one simple thing to implement the reforms that unanimous unanimously made it out of fleacac specifically codefle which most other school districts in the state have adopted you have a choice to continue to exclude queer students

097from their own fle classes and further this statistic or you can take a step towards inclusivity by adopting the reforms suggested by fleek thank you very much thank you our next speaker is an icon [Applause] good evening my name is anaya khan and i'm a rising senior in fairfax county i'm also a member of the pride liberation project and a queer student being a queer student in fcps has been a complex tapestry of constant emotions from having teachers who chose not to respect my pronouns no matter how much i asked to having teachers that let me hide in their classrooms whenever i needed it um these past five years have as an out and proud student were defined by the highs and lows of each and every day of high school the fact remains queer

098students are struggling we have been struggling we're fighting for our right to be heard to be represented to be able to feel safe almost constantly i have friends who get called slurs regularly i have friends who keep forgiving casual homophobia because the person just didn't know better i shouldn't have to say this but this shouldn't be happening um i've sat through countless epile classes throughout my years in fcps and we started out by being divided by gender girls in one room boys in the other and there was a distinct lack of discussion of trans non-binary and queer identities the only sexualities mentioned were gay bisexual and transgender when you're someone who spends their time in queer spaces with a lot of queer people you find that those are not the only those are not the

099only identifications that a queer student can use um queer students are not seeing themselves represented in our curriculums queer students are feeling dysphoric in these classrooms and queer students need gender neutral fle desperately your flea cat committee has recommended co-ed fle classes yet they still have not been established trans and non-binary students are living in a world that keeps growing more and more hostile towards their identities and currently the board is not helping them i'm asking you this as somebody who wants to be able to see other queer students live freely to live safely i want to see queer students who are younger than me and those still like discovering their identities that they aren't an anomaly and that they're worthy of learning about themselves without being outed without being discriminated against and they need

100to be able to learn about themselves safely please protect our rights and our identities protect queer students thank you our next speaker is steve tunnley steve tunley our next speaker is kathleen mallard he's here just wondering should i wait for some people to return no okay good evening board thank you for your time and attention welcome dr reed i wish i had more time to welcome you but we're limited to two minutes and i've i've saw your interview with some students you want to meet with them more regularly i hope maybe on you could also meet with parents concerned citizens regularly as well i you know i think it will just make us all feel better because these two minutes that we have before the board are always somewhat disconcerting i'm here tonight to talk

101about a variety of things the board has seen this book before it's a very important book it's the genesis of our family life education i have a handout for you dr reed this is the um result of the collaboration between three questionable people margaret sanger the negro project eradication of the black population along with hugh hefner editor of playboy magazine which included child porn we didn't realize that and alfred kinsey the mad pedophile scientist that is the genesis of our family life education in our public schools um i also have another handout which is this is a a group of us have put this together and you'll get one this is not the recent one we'll have a more recent one it's a review of all of the fla lessons i was very concerned when

102my daughter in 12th grade no seventh grade was going to learn about bestiality you know i didn't know uh fisting whatever didn't know what that was so anyway i joined this group another thing is i think it's very disrespectful for the people behind me here's something about margaret sanger um that's about it except oh i did want to mention to you i know you're concerned about careers thank you our next speaker is anandaya sampath uh good evening my name queer high school is with the pride liberation project i'm speaking today to urge this place for the speakers to speak please go ahead um good evening my name is anandia sampath and i am a queer high school student with the pride liberation project i'm speaking today to urge this board to adopt the foe csc's

103recommendations to make equality classes co-ed when i was first questioning my sexuality i was scared to talk to people around me i was very afraid of judgment and almost ashamed i didn't feel comfortable with myself and i tried to rationalize it and bury it when i did try to talk to people while a few were supportive there were people who were dismissive or told me that my identity was something i would grow out of because of this for a while i thought it would make everything easier if i kept my hands to myself or never came out this led to a lot of anxiety and i struggled to find people that i could open up to about being queer i started to invalidate a lot of my own thoughts and feelings in order not to

104feel out of place or unusual around people it took me almost two years before i finally started to analyze and accept that my feelings were valid one of the things that i realized later was that a lot of people were going through the same things that i was going through for example i have queer friends who struggle to talk about who they are due to a lack of accepting atmosphere or due to fear of judgment there are so many queer students in need of acceptance support and assurance that their feelings are valid and their voices are heard it is because of this that is so vital that the flvcs recommendation to make ethylene classes coed is applied separated ethylene classes would alienate transgender and non-verify students it would lead to more kids feeling lonely and

105feeling like they don't have anyone to relate to it would contribute to more students mental health struggle you can either accept this reality and continue to leave queer students feeling alone or you can take a step towards acceptance by applying the epilepsies recommendation and work to create an inclusive supportive environment i urge you to make the right choice thank you may i remind the audience to please be respectful while speakers speak and allow them to speak thank you our next speaker is sayaban green our next speaker is amber iglesias in march 2022 fcps quietly changed their discipline reporting procedures so that incidents are coded and stored in sis all parents should check their discipline tab for their kids in parent view parents were not informed of this change and upon exhaustive search of the fcps

106and veto websites it is still unclear why the change took place i was only informed of this change after reaching out to the region for executive principal and members of this board i can assure you the system is implied is applied inconsistently and has the potential to adversely affect marginalized communities after weeks of researching i still do not have the answers to why fcps changed the procedures or even what the threshold for reporting is i am asking fcps to publicly release the following information prior to the next school year why was the discipline referral system changed in march by maya why i mean is this an fcps initiative is this a new state requirement is this an old state requirement that we must follow again because something was rescinded or is this a new federal

107requirement who has access to these entries and what specific data is reported is it down to the individual student what agencies are they reported to and how is fcps protecting the data of these children and finally all of the 2021 2022 discipline referral data sortable by month with demographic information and disability status this breakdown is important to monitor which schools have an issue with disproportionate discipline families cannot properly advocate for their children if they don't know about this practice or where these requirements come from it is imperative for fcps to publicly release the data for families to understand how their children are monitored before the start of the school year so we can protect our children with disabilities and the children from marginalized communities thank you our next our next speaker is chris older hello

108and thank you a very timely topic right now is banning of books and schools anne patchett is an accomplished writer and she wrote a book called truth and beauty about her friend of many years who had recently died anne's book was required reading for incoming freshmen at clemson university and local parents believe the book to be inappropriate reading for their incoming freshman teens so the following excerpts are from ann patch's speech to the clenson incoming class she said this those who oppose the assignment of this book and i quote they want to protect you let's take a few minutes to think about what other things you're going to need protecting from if stories about girls who are disfigured by cancer and humiliated by strangers and turn to sex and drugs to escape from their their

109enormous pain are too disgusting and pornographic and i have to tell you the holocaust is off limits the russian revolution cambodia vietnam the crusades all represent such staggering acts of human depravity and deprivation that i could see the virtue of never looking at them at all and i would act out and the holodrome and we should all know about that in this times and patrick goes on to discuss the difference between a primary source and a secondary source her book being a primary source she says this some secondary sources claim their votes they're sorry proclaim their points of view so loudly and with such passion you might be tempted just to take their word for it you might be tempted not to do the work of checking see for yourself if you go through dutifully

110taking other people's words about what's right you're going to put yourself in a position to be led down some very dark roads and i'm running out of time so i'll say that she ends with i'm glad that you no one took my book away from you because you now had the chance to learn from lucy as well as i did thank you and keep reading thank you our next speaker is diana smith diana smith our next speaker is leslie houston um good evening i'm from reston i'm melanie maron is my representative i have two comments and two requests my first comment is a reminder that the school board was elected by an overwhelming majority of fairfax voters all individuals have a voice but the ballot is the community's voice and we selected you all to

111lead us for the past three meetings have been many speakers about the pronoun policy because of their concern i read the 116 pages and much of the accompanying materials in the section acts for which students may be disciplined it says students may be disciplined for using slurs based upon the actual or perceived gender identity which includes but is not limited to militias of dead naming or malicious misgendering the policy on pronouns is clearly directed at bullies at throwing slurs and not inadvertent mistakes so i'm in agreement with it common sense and training will protect and inform on the use of this policy and limit its execution for acts of true maliciousness three the ssr is missing an opportunity to correct another gender injustice one i have felt for 70 years the pejorative use of the

112word girl needs to end girls should not be a term of belittlement as it is commonly used in the athletic arena i asked for a ban on the pejorative use of girl in the slr and finally four i think there should be a code of conduct for comments most speakers especially the students are civil in their expression of their viewpoints but some speak with vile terms and innuendos that are homophobic or racist or just ugly often distressing many in this room i suggest a policy be written for civility and get these students to help with it and when broken thank you our next speaker is leslie houston good evening chair sizemore heiser school board members dr reed and leadership team i am leslie houston the president-elect of fairfax education association i want to take this

113opportunity to thank my colleague kimberly adams for her dedication while leading our union the past three years during a worldwide pandemic she guided our members through the most challenging of times in february of 2020 fea board members were working on priorities that had been set the previous year and by mid-march our lives and the lives of our colleagues were changed and would never be the same as our board met daily and worked diligently to make sure our students our colleagues and their families were well and had food and the supplies they needed president adams was working behind the scenes as covet persists and people were dying we knew returning to school was not safe president adams was the face of fairfax education association she endured death threats hateful emails and disgusting insults but she continued

114to rally our troops she continued to stand for fea and she continued to profess we are the strongest and loudest voice for all fcps students and employees tonight i want to thank her in this forum because she has spent so much of her time for our students and our employees fighting right here being the face of a union is not easy but president adams did it with humility and grace thank you kimberly for a job well done thank you our next speaker is sherry cuffel good evening i want to address the policy that recently was passed that was just mentioned about students being disciplined up to suspension for maliciously misgendering or dead naming another student i think because this is very subjective based on the actual listener as an fcps substitute teacher for 11 years

115i have many stories to tell but i would like to share just one i have a student that i've known she's grown up from kindergarten through middle school who decided she wanted to be a he let's call her sally not knowing this i called her sally when i saw her at the beginning of the school year she just looked at me and then turned away it wasn't until two weeks later that another colleague mentioned this student by a male named sam this colleague went on to say how brave sam was to find his true self but that's not really the whole story because sam dresses like sally sometimes anything goes back to sally she's gender fluid and every day it changes how am i as well as other students supposed to know which gender they

116go by on a given day students face so many challenges today the last thing they need is to be worrying about getting reprimanded for a pronoun and you as the school board have the power to change that policy according to number seven of the board's rules and regulations the board will review create amend adopt policies any policy may be reviewed amended adopted or rescinded by the board at any time i please would ask you to consider to amend or rescind this policy and let's focus on reading and writing and math and just to be clear i have no malicious intent toward any student my heart goes out to students who struggle with gender dysphoria i do not want to help to harm them i want to help them it is a very difficult place to

117be and now fcps has training that says participants will recognize that identities are fluid and intersectional i cannot do this as it goes against my religious belief that god created only male and female thank you thank you our next speaker is joel coulter good evening my name is jewell i'm a community member as well as an advocate for equity in fairfax county schools alongside these students and organizers behind me i'm saddened saddened by recent events and the possibilities that arise as well as the current problems students from marginalized communities face so what many of us want to know is how will you the stakeholders respond in light of recent events to protect students when will our county take action take a stance as well as stop giving in into our education being politicized and demand

118action from our state when will we truly listen to our students students and community members have been demanding we make our schools safer for students of all groups we've been demanding that sros be taken out of schools for years and now there is research and data supporting that student resource officers aren't as helpful as people may think in dangerous events and they create more hostile environments but not for our cis white students right so students who don't happen to be cis and white are left to wonder will we be listened to will we protect be protected and no we will not be protected by sros we will be protected by actual policies and plans that are equitable and made with student voice and perspective on the forefront an easy example is our family life education

119a course that was not met with all students in mind and won't protect us and when will we change when will we change our family life education to be co-ed and importantly to teach more of comp's receptions we need family life education curriculum to not center cis people so please we ask you to take a stand with us support us and protect all students in our county thank you thank you our next speaker is kimberly adams good evening past chair picarsky chair sizemore heiser school board members dr reed and leadership team my name is kimberly adams and tonight i address you for the last time during my term as the president of our union the fairfax education association some in the audience may be happy about that and for the rest of you i will

120miss engaging with you on behalf of our union and in the best interest of both staff and students and like mr mcdonald i am returning to my position within fcps i leave this presidency knowing that i did everything in my power to protect staff and students during this worldwide pandemic our union still strives to make progress on issues that were facing our members even before this pandemic disruption because that's what this was a full disruption of our lives cutting some lives short separating families interrupting learning and causing trauma for all in its wake i am proud of the work we were able to accomplish with dr brabrand and his leadership team and as leslie houston said there is still much work to be done the fea looks forward to collective bargaining with you dr reed

121your leadership team and this school board our fcps staff are also counting on everyone in the community to step up and support the pursuit of educating our students in a post-pandemic new normal we must all acknowledge the variety of loss and work every day to address it at home at school and in the community we will be successful because we are focused on the goal of improving our schools ensuring that students are prepared for their futures thank you all for your tireless work on behalf of the system because we are stronger together thank you our next speaker is bethany heim bethany heim our next speaker is vanessa hall hi um hi i'm a member of fleacac the family life education curriculum advisory committee i've heard people most of whom are not fcps parents grossly misrepresent

122the committee and curriculum frankly they seem to want to eliminate fle altogether thus i must address their primary points first flea cac is composed of fcps parents students and guided by health professionals we volunteered because of experience interest and a desire to support students we discussed subjects thoughtfully with varying viewpoints then made decisions for the better emotional and physical health of the students second claims about fle are incorrect minors are not sexualized in fact fle does the opposite by giving students the tools to understand their rights and responsibilities make good choices and know the importance of consent currently gender identity and sexuality are not permitted to be discussed in k-6 so claims otherwise are also incorrect the committee unanimously voted for mixed gender fle because it's been successful around the country and in virginia students

123feel underprepared by single gender fle feel it causes suspicion and ignorance it supports students who are gender non-conforming or transgender and most students will be in heterosexual relationships so learning and discussing reproductive health together will enable them to communicate about health and expectations together finally by law fle curriculum is abstinence-based few know that and those who are complaining about it ignore that point parents should talk to their students about sex and reproductive health as well but most don't because their own education on the subject may be inadequate or non-existent please support mixed gender fle or coed fle which is a better term empowering students to make good choices is key to their social emotional and physical health fle is a difficult topic that needs to be done with care and the fcps professionals who teach

124it take their duty to students and families seriously and thank you guys very much co-ed fle that was our that was our final speaker miss madea do we have a video tonight all right we will move on agenda item 3.02 superintendent matters i call on dr reed thank you um chair size more heiser gotta find my all right well it's been a thrill to uh be here for my first full meeting um this evening and it's been a fast-moving two weeks there's a lot to focus on in this incredible opportunity to lead such a lighthouse district or division i want to share that over the past two weeks i've met many staff members and had an opportunity to meet with michelle tugby as our new student board representative and really looking forward to working with

125her so welcome michelle and just looking forward to the partnership i've also been to cedar lane esy program on the marshall road esy site and would like to thank tom lundy and katie shea for highlighting their uh programs and what uh wonderful things were happening in their building it's always such a pleasure to be out with our students last week we also i had the opportunity to attend the swearing-in ceremony for mr jeff plattenberg the new superintendent of schools for fairfax city and had the opportunity to be present there for him yesterday i joined several of our board members in visiting excuse me the open house in spring village estates and just really so impressed with the foundation for applied technical education the fate program and they are celebrating this i believe is their 11th

126student built home in that community featuring universal design elements that also make it a smart choice for prospective buyers and had an opportunity to have cherlin one of our rising juniors i believe at lewis high school show [Music] us around and kind of the things that she enjoyed building so it's really an exciting afternoon today i was able to visit two more schools the key middle school esy program and students working on credit recovery at edison high school and it was fabulous to connect with donnie elijahuan at key and caitlin saxton at edison and had a chance to tour schools and was really excited to sit in on an algebra credit recovery course so we all know how excited i get about math so the students were using the distributive property as we were factoring

127today it was a lot of excitement this afternoon i also attended the engage every student initiative launch at the us department of education and really heard a lot about how so much learning occurs outside the classroom outside the school day whether it be summer breaks or during the school year so it is an event that celebrated national summer learning week this week so i want to recognize that it is national summer learning week and was excited to see all the learning we saw we had an opportunity to recognize sean mcdonald earlier and dr sherry wilson they're hosting a virtual instructional job fair on july 20th so anyone listening that's interested in being an educator please connect with us at the virtual job fair so we also had several fairfax county teachers travel to poland to

128help ukrainian refugees that was an exciting story i actually saw on one of the news shows this past weekend exemplifying a caring culture lee and meredith hedrick our teachers at woodson and annandale high school respectively and went to poland to assist with ukrainian refugees and the world central kitchen lots of excitement so i also want to announce that we had 77 high school students who left school during the pandemic have returned to school because of the combined efforts of fairfax county public schools in edgy futuro which i think is fabulous that students have had an opportunity to return to education jorge figretta says edgy futuro believes in the power of community and being engaged community members so really proud of that partnership and their bilingual outreach team that has worked with 160 fairfax county public

129school students high school students and assisted with return of 77 so a lot of excitement along those lines and wanted to congratulate lake and elementary the students led by second grade teacher consuelo bachelet were awarded a 1200 eco audit grant for creating a community food garden which will they will then share with a local food bank so lots of excitement and partnership work going on um thank you chair seismizer thank you and welcome dr reed to your first meeting superintendent yeah it's great to be here thank you thank you and i just want to welcome miss tugby to your first meeting as our student representative we're very excited to have you and i want to call on you agenda item 3.03 student representative matters so i call on ms togby thank you madam chair good

130evening everyone i want to formally say welcome to dr reed and thank you to this wonderful school board for such a warm welcome i am so excited to work together and i know that this year will be a great year so quick little introduction as stated my name is michelle togby and i am the student representative to the school board for the 2022-2023 school year i attend south county high school down in region four so ghost stallions and a fun fact about me is that i genuinely love icebreakers i would most likely be the only person in the room who does but i love them today i prepared a few things in regards to my vision for the upcoming school year and what i would like to accomplish during my election i made it clear

131that what i'm passionate about is what the students are ready to see and are also passionate about that includes transparency within student voice and ensuring that all opportunities are made accessible to students across the county next i want to expand civic education within our county because we've all seen these last few years that students are not only ready to stand up but to stand out and it is about time that we provide them with the resources to do so lastly i want to focus on maintaining an equitable lens we need to stop carelessly throwing around the word equity especially when we have struggled to meet the meaning of the actual word a few things about what i am currently doing the board of student representatives applications went live the second week of june and ended

132last week and over the course of the last few weeks i've met with students to discuss what they want to see one main point that i've heard frequently is the issue with our online campus after our teachers were able to build and develop a curriculum during the times of the pandemic having our students adapt to the structure of our online platform unintentionally discourage and limit students courses are still largely self-directed outside of lectures that only occur once a week and we know that students are capable of going or going past that post pandemic but we can make those classes more like traditional courses in the sense where it includes more lectures maybe even meeting two to three times a week we could even go as far as offering class lecture time during the school day

133out of all the kids who have done online classes that i've met they've all said that the online campus can and should be better there are a lot of classes that can gain interest out of students is base school but not enough students have signed up so in turn the student looks at our online campus to give them the opportunity to take the class that they're interested in so when we don't provide specific courses we are truly limiting them for example i can say that i have wanted to take class online and in person and i've had to look at the online campus schedule and i've seen that the class that i would like isn't available online so after our teachers were able to again build that curriculum during the pandemic turning onto that online

134platform and not seeing i guess the same thing as i would in person is really difficult so i'm very glad that i was able to discuss this in a bit with dr reed and i would also love to get a forum topic on this so i will be sure to follow up with you all in regards to this and thank you all so much for your time and i'm looking forward to having an amazing school year thank you and welcome again agenda item 3.04 fiscal year 22 year end budget review i call on dr reed for the introduction thank you chair sizemore heiser i would look like the year-end budget review is prepared and ready for discussion um our chief finance officer lee burden has put together a budget review summary sheet and um i'm

135wondering if you have any questions or would you like us to walk you through it please um miss burton if you'd like to come down to uh present thank you i hope sorry about that i thought i was presenting from my seat no worries chairman chair sizemore heiser members of the board dr reed the year-end review provides an opportunity for final revisions to the fiscal 22 budget and provides carryover information and other revisions to the fiscal 23 approved budget before i jump into the details you should know that the purpose of the quarterly budget review is to provide the school board with information about the funds under their control once the urine is approved by the school board and it is slated for action on september 1 at the regular school board meeting it is

136forwarded to the county for inclusion in their year-end packet for any necessary adjustments to our fiscal 22 budget and fiscal 23 budget the data in this report is as of the end of the fiscal year june 30th 2022. on page one of the attachment the summary identifies the changes to fy22 based on revenue increases and unspent funds and followed by increases to fiscal 23 for routine changes for commitments and carryover plus identified investments through school board follow-ons and superintendent recommendations the revenue variance from budget to actual is an increase of 8.5 million that is attributable to increased sales tax and reduced state aid due to enrollment that was under projection um the net of sales tax because a sales tax goes up basic aid goes down so sales tax went up basic aid came down

137and the net of that is 11.9 million um there are also unspent federal funds that that are to be carried over a very small amount and we also had some decreases in community use tuition and other fees resulting in an overall net increase of 8.5 million under section 1a on the summary chart as far as the expenditure balance goes first we cover routine carryover funds by replenishing the reserve funds that's fuel contingency as well as the school board flexibility reserve there are encumbrances or undelivered orders that are routinely carried over school and project carryover for multi-year projects and then department carryover the total amount of revenue increases in expenditure savings is 90.9 million of fiscal 22 funds available and this expenditure variance represents about 2.5 percent of the total budget and is a little larger

138than normal due to the pandemic and attributed to greater vacancies and turnover in contracted employees and lower costs in hourly and overtime in salaries and benefit savings details begin on page 2 of the board item moving on to fiscal 23 revenue and the details of that are on page 3. the state budget as you know was adopted very late and final notification of allocations from vdoe were not released until june 6. you adopted your budget at the end of may the state included in its budget additional funding for a thousand dollar bonus for all soq-funded instructional and support positions and their share of that is 18.1 million other state revenue increases total 7.2 million and are largely due to funding provided for support positions and also some funding to hold harmless the sales tax reduction

139brought about by elimination of the grocery tax it should be noted that fcps is projected to receive 24.2 million in formula based school construction grants this funding is accounted for in the school construction fund but it is state revenue which is why i'm making a note of it here and that fund is expected to fund security vegetables at schools outdoor classrooms updating restrooms sensory rooms replacing interior locks and bringing non-ada compliant early childhood playgrounds into compliance the fiscal 23 recommended expenditure adjustments include an employee bonus funding of 33.9 million supports the payment of a one-time bonus to active employees it'll provide a thousand dollar bonus for contracted employees to recognize the continued impact of the pandemic on education and to promote retention a 500 bonus is will be provided for hourly employees including substitutes based

140on a as yet to be determined minimum threshold of work days and those allocation plans are currently being developed we also have included a staffing reserve replenishment recalled that this was one of the follow-ons at the adoption of the fiscal 23 budget our fiscal 23 budget included 310 staffing reserve positions we have had of course increases in student enrollment over the last year and there is potential of course for more growth through september we have completely depleted the 310 positions that that we have included in the fiscal 23 budget and so we're asking for funding of 20 million to add another 190 positions to the staffing reserve to be able to address the potential for student enrollment that we may see this fall we need as much flexibility as possible in this area and that

141is the best way to do it at this point in time we also are there was a follow-on at the adopted budget to provide a transfer to the construction fund for stadium restrooms that's 7.5 million this is through a cost share agreement with fairfax county they will partner with us to fund the installation of permanent restroom facilities at 15 fcps outdoor high school athletic state stadiums another follow-on included a transfer for major maintenance one-time funding of 7.1 million is requested to address the backlog of major maintenance initiatives you may or may not remember that in fiscal 2014 we reduced the major maintenance budget by 3.6 million with a promise that in future years we would add an additional 3.6 million to major maintenance at year end we have made good on that promise every year

142and this year we are adding a little bit more so that the total is 7.1 million fuel inflation additional funding of 5 million is required due to the recent economic impact of inflation resulting in rising costs for diesel fuel and unleaded gasoline the actual gasoline blended rate has risen from 253 in july of 2021 to 5.60 in may of 2022 an increase of 3.13 or 123 percent so we need to include some inflationary funds to address the volatility of that market we also are planning on having our electricity bills increase and have included 4.7 million to address electricity inflation dominion energy has notified us that we are going to see a rate increase of about 25 percent uh in the upcoming year we have also included a recruitment incentive for substitutes we continue to experience

143less than 100 fill rates for substitute jobs and on fridays it's um even it's it's far less than it is on other on other days that we need subs this funding of 3.5 million will support a monetary incentive for subs in fiscal 23 only a plan is under development to establish criteria to receive the recruitment substitute incentive during this year funding of 3 million is included for the superintendent to address any unforeseen division-wide and continued pandemic needs paper inflation 2.5 million we have included that to address the impact that inflation is having on the paper mark market we utilize a county contract for paper and the county has negotiated a temporary price increase which will be held for 60 days beginning july 1 and the cost of paper has increased from 29.70 a carton to

14444.81 cents per carton it's likely that there will be another creek increase after september 1 so we have proposed this amount to be able to address that inflationary increase and and just for the record we do have two or three inflationary increases but the world was very different it was it was different in a lot of ways but it's different than today's world when we started beginning building this budget last july august so we did not include massive inflationary increases in the in the budget as proposed in january there's also a transfer to food nutrition through the food and nutrition services fund for equipment replacement this is a five-year plan this is year two of that plan and it will support computer equipment and software upgrades at school sites and equipment upgrades at the food

145service warehouse and large kitchen equipment and related supplies we also have a transfer to the construction fund for title ix softball field upgrades we need 1.5 million to replace eight softball dugouts to ensure that they are title ix compliant you know we would have included this in with against the state construction funds but the state construction funds specifically prohibit usage for athletic facilities so we've included that in your end as a result we also have 1 million included for fcps's cost share for electric buses that was also a fall on at the adopted budget at the end of may and then finally there was a follow-on about a safety it's not finally i've still got a couple more um i thought it was finally the safety and security review that was also a follow-on and

146we've included uh a placeholder estimate of one million dollars because my understanding is that plans are still in development for that but it will be you know using a third party and they'll do a holistic review of safety and security protocols and procedures at all 190 fcps sites we also have a transfer to the construction fund that was a follow-on motion for 0.8 million to support the scheduled replacement of synthetic turf fields at oakton falls church in woodson um and i misspoke there that one was not a follow-on um so strike that young scholars extracurricular extracurricular enrichment of 0.5 million that too was a follow-on and that was for lego robotics and algebra manipulatives and then a transfer to the adult community education fund you know you you probably know that their in-person participation is

147down so they have a little bit of a gap which is is pretty pretty routine and so that's 0.4 million that also was included in that follow-on motion and then now finally the middle school start time study of 0.3 million and that was also a follow-on and is included to update the 2020 study on the operational requirements to create healthy start times at middle schools on page six is the beginning balance after all revenue adjustments and expenditure adjustments are approved we are left with a remaining fund balance of 21.9 million to be set aside to fund the fiscal 24 budget as the beginning balance which is the same amount as in 23. that's we try to do the same amount every year but there's a two-year lag so the fiscal 22 year in actually funds

148the beginning balance in fiscal 24. there also have we have some grants that reside in the school operating fund instead of in the grant fund and that's primarily idea and esser funds and so the school operating fund grants of 154 million is primarily sr1 sr2 sr3 any of those funds that have not been spent although recall they're all allocated because um the state would not allow us to include placeholders so back in august uh of 21 was the plan for the three years and but but a good deal of those funds have not yet been spent and so they are being carried forward into fiscal 23. the remaining pages detail changes to the other funds and provide some supplemental information i don't typically review these funds because they all represent multi-year programs whose funds flow

149from year to year with fund balances stabilization reserves and those kinds of things as required urine fund statements are attached there's also a supplemental appropriation resolution which transmits to the county the changes to the fiscal 22 budget and then a fiscal planning resolution which represents the transfers from the operating to other funds and again action is slated for the regular school board meeting on september 1. thank you very much miss burton i'll call my colleagues with questions mr frisch um no questions i do want to point out a few of the things that you mentioned that i'm particularly excited about and i do appreciate you uh presenting to us today or this evening um you know this follows a good new relatively good news budget um and i'm grateful to see that we've made it

150work in terms of getting as many of our uh requested investments in as possible so i appreciate your work your team's work obviously our budget chair and our budget vice chair um but you know that was a lot right you just went through a fairly extensive document with everybody but some highlights for me include the 33 million dollars in bonuses for staff um substitute incentives to get more substitutes engaged in our system the safety and security review i think that something is on everybody's mind um the investment in young scholars and uh an additional study on middle school start times um and uh money for our finishing our security vestibules uh project as well i do want to point out you know um a plug for electric buses um you know we've got eight now

151we've got ten more coming we've got ten more coming after that that's 28 electric buses and it should not be lost on anybody that in this expenditure that we're talking about here we've got five million dollars in fuel inflation and a one million dollar investment in money to get additional electric buses this is money that we have to pay to get the grants to get the buses right so this is a uh basically a matching grant that we will be using this money for and so as i say every time we talk about spending money on green initiatives this is about saving money in the long run so that we can invest those funds in um student success in the classroom and the added bonus is that we get to live leave a better world

152to the future generations of students that will walk through our doors so very excited that we're able to continue doing that we have a long way to go 28 buses out of 1600 so thank you very much for helping to make this early progress possible thank you dr anderson followed by ms mclaughlin thank you for this in some ways very exciting um presentation but also very sobering the inflation pieces are just really they hurt and so i wanted to ask because i didn't see anything in here any provisions for any inflation and food and nutrition services in that world because i would imagine we would feel it there as well yeah well you know food food and nutrition services um is in a really good place right now and that is primarily attributable to you

153know a huge increase in participation over this past year based on the fact that meals were free free to all and also an increase in the federal reimbursement rate so that our fund balance is is in a good place now but as you said we are absolutely experience inflationary increases in the cost of materials um as far as trays you know silverware it's not silver but you know what i mean um and and especially food those are all things we still continue to struggle with uh some some supply chain challenges and inflationary increases is is another component of that so we're we're okay right now um we'll see what the future brings i'd like for us to be a little bit more proactive if possible because we also know with the end of the meal

154program that the waivers that we've had for the last two years will have a lot fewer students in our cafeterias which will also tighten the belt of the program so i would love to see some consideration for those inflationary um prices increases that will be happening given the reduction in revenue for us to kind of be thinking ahead and not to be caught flat-footed um on those food and nutrition services will not be caught flat-footed what's that we will not be caught flat-footed thank you so much the other question that i had is um you mentioned the replacement and i lost where it was on my page but you talked about the um the replacement i think to the construction fund um that had to happen every year as per a major maintenance yes thank

155you why is it pretty much almost twice as much as it has been in the past because the backlog i think is 72 million dollars okay that's why so the amount that you quoted which was what 4.9 was just the minimum that was decided in 2014. no my understanding is is that ms wigginton jump in if i'm wrong but my understanding is is that historically about 6.6 million had been budgeted every year in major maintenance but due to cuts we had that we it had to be reduced down to 3 million and with the promise that at year end every year if funds were available we would bring it back up to the 6.6 that it was that it had been historically and we're doing that but we're going even more towards that because of

156the backlog of major maintenance projects okay thank you so much for that the other piece that i want to talk about briefly are the positions you talked about how the 310 positions have been from the reserve funding were utilized entirely this year and you're adding 190 positions can you speak a little bit to how we are trying to reduce the um the dependency on the reserve positions are we looking at positions that are constantly being used every year and moving into the base budget as a as an offset because the reserve is supposed to be an emergency not a year in and out that we're relying on it funding the same positions over and over again yeah i mean in general it doesn't fund the same positions again and again mostly because we have so

157much turnover that you know anybody that we hired with staffing reserve of course can be slotted into another position uh in a future year um it's you know it's we've we've never seen times like these i mean you know we've we had a 3 000 student increase from september 30 through the end of the year this year and so we were we were our staffing had been pulled down a bit because of our enrollment um in in the previous year but with recognition that we have 3 000 more students we've had to allocate additional staffing to schools um over the over the past two or three months and so it's it's surprising to me that we used it all but 3 000 more kids i mean i know that can swing your budget it's all

158about distribution you know if they came in packages of 25 it would be very efficient but they don't and i would also add miss burden that we also use the staff and reserve to mitigate enrollment losses this past year we know that we use the staffing reserve to mitigate enrollment decreases and so we know that we used the reserve to support counselors in schools to support our student social emotional needs and so the staffing reserve while it has been focused on enrollment increases we also use some of those positions to mitigate enrollment decreases thank you very much mr smith um i think that's it for right now thank you um ms vernon as always great job great miss mclaughlin follow-up miss corbett sanders um thank you miss burton i i did note this is like

159a 25-page document so you certainly have a lot of information you had to present this evening there is a lot of in my mind some unmet need we're finally trying to get to so in that part i'm really encouraged and and hopeful um one of the questions i wanted to just get a little more clarity about is uh the state giving a one-time bonus and if i heard you correctly it's for like soq funded positions correct yes it is for soq uh instructional and support positions but of course we we are providing um the thousand dollar bonus to all active contracted employees like ftes bus drivers who aren't ftes but but they're hourly contracted but they might as well be food service employees family liaisons those are the three major categories that aren't ftes but

160they'll be included in that group okay um yeah so the when i was trying to just follow the math on the document is so the state decided that the general assembly and that that line item says they'll give us 18 million but then our line item is going to be 34 million no 34 minus 18. we're correct i was going to get there that's okay so just for everybody to understand the delta is 16 million on our operating funds in order to fulfill and provide that to all employees as opposed to what the state does so uh it's just it's a when you look at the numbers to my colleagues like it's it's the number that jumps off the page and so um i i look forward to having deeper discussions with you and dr

161reed to just understand it because i really am concerned given the economic landscape this is great now but where are we going to find ourselves for fiscal year 24 and so uh you know i feel a little bit you know interesting these unfunded mandates again so the state thought isn't this nice of us to do and meanwhile it doesn't really cover all school employees and since you don't want to have two different class of employees being treated differently we their nice generous offer of 18 million is now costing us another 16 additional dollars that we wouldn't normally have spent correct but just to be clear the the 16 million is not all of the staff people that fall outside that defined soq instructional and support it's um only a piece of it would be that

162so for example um if we're supposed to have through the soq um uh and i'm making these numbers up uh a hundred uh first grade teachers but you know every every division in the commonwealth exceeds the soq i mean does a better job than what's required but we have 120 obviously we're not going to give 100 people the bonus but not the 20 and how would you even determine what 20. but so so the the local share is not for the people that fall outside that definition it's air share of the thousand dollar bonus um to give you an example this is you know almost a 50 50 split as far as what the state's providing and what what we're having to kick in for a local share one percent of salary that is you

163know the lci is applied to that is cost us 25 million and 5 million is what comes from the state and 20 million is what comes from local so the fact that it's you know a little more than half is a big win yeah i i did note that considering normally we're looking at about a 20 percent that we get from them um do you know if other jurisdictions are doing the 500 bonus for i think it's the hourly and substitutes i don't know we'd have to do some research and yeah and get that back to you dr reed i think that for the hourly and substitutes uh the 500 bonus i think it's important that we kind of look to benchmark what's happening around the region because you know again i i think with

164such an important commitment to our full-time employees and i'm also mindful that and i've had employees say this to me they work 40 50 60 hours a week they get a thousand dollar bonus for the year and then someone who's a substitute teacher and did x number of days got 500 bonus and when you do the ratio even if just hours that they devoted working for our public school system i just does everybody understand the delta that's giving me a little pause there yeah i mean as i said the plan is still in development and i think one of the things that i mentioned is that um for this bonus we are including a minimum threshold of work days for that 500 bonus the hourly and the subs it's not yet been decided um but

165we're definitely you know the plan is under development and we're looking at that just because as you said the the issue of somebody working one day versus all five days yeah i appreciate that ms burton um and dr reed when we were we've we've had this conversation previously about this and i think the threshold of who was going to get a 500 bonus gave some pause um in the community so i i i really think we're going to need to flesh that out better just in fairness to um all of those who are working you know year-round for us or you know in their full-time jobs the state's clear intention was retention was to let people know we value you exactly so um and then finally um dr reed uh miss burden i'm sure you

166know this warms my heart uh to see the progress being made on our joint program with the county for supervisors on the stadium bathrooms so if you could maybe just give us an update because i know we had directed the superintendent to work with the county executive and and the details and so it looks like things are moving along very well i think this is an important partnership i know the community is counting on us for it and so ms burden i just want to express my personal appreciation to see that being announced tonight so thank you thank you miss corbett sanders i just wanted to personally thank um miss whittington and miss burton because the two of them have been an incredible team in really listening to what this board's priorities are and working

167with uh ms tolland and i to develop this this structured approach which allows for us to actually provide and this is really you the two of you ladies and now with dr reed providing a coherent story about how to best meet the needs of our students and families and what's really important about what's presented up here is that the differentiation with the year-end funds which are really one-time funding opportunities and that's why you'll see much of this is a heavy investment in facilities and infrastructure i think that it came up to like over 92 million dollars in the in allocations in just the last year which is close to a full bond cycle so i just really want to offer my thanks for that and look forward to working with our colleagues between now and

168september 1st if you have any questions to please send those questions to ms burden with a copy to ms tolland and i so that we can make sure your questions are answered and that we are able to have a successful board vote on september 1st thank you and my apologies for not calling on you first but as a budget chair thank you ms corbett sanders um miss maron followed by miss tollen and i'll give my apologies to you as well yes thank you miss burton mrs wiggington and the team i had some specific questions about the just one second here the um the state revenue the 7.2 million that i was thrilled to see there is an attribution there for some outdoor classroom funding so i was wondering if you happen to have at your

169fingertips or the top of your head what amount would be allocated to that you might recall that i had a budget question about that it was question 23 in which your office responded that it could be anywhere between a half a million to 1.3 million that could allow for every fcps school to have outdoor learning space so again my question is has that been clarified is it 0.5 1.3 well it's we had we are assumed we're right now planning for that to come out of the state construction funds um which is in the bond construction so you don't really see it you don't see it in the operating fund that i just went over but we have tentatively slated as an estimated placeholder two million dollars for outdoor classrooms that's even better that's fantastic i

170can't tell you how many times parents are just they're clamoring for outdoor learning they want their kids outside students want to be outside and we have amazing facilities that have that space so um but of course too that includes the training the professional development so that's fabulous news and on that similar vein in our conversation talking tonight about sustainability and these outrageous inflation costs which i will talk about in a minute mr smith i was curious about the pilot that's been going on in some of our schools to move away from gas-powered lawn equipment and move towards electric-powered equipment i had been talking with mr plattenberg before he departed so i'm not sure what the status of this is so if you have that available tonight i'd love to know how that's going and if

171that further investment to move us away from fossil fuel powered lawn maintenance equipment and towards renewable and clean energy how that is going if known so i don't have anything available tonight but what i can say to the board is that we are i've been working very closely with the teams when we look at the items that are in the construction fund with the dollars that are coming from the state with our follow-on items that are related to safety and security we'll be providing the board updates prior to september prior to the votes that you can get a very good sense of where we are with progression timelines and so we can certainly provide that as part of our update but we're working to provide some comprehensive updates to the board on all of those

172follow-ons as well as uh timelines of how we're going to spend those construction dollars okay well i look forward to that but just to be clear if i'm remembering correctly there was a pilot i think nine schools total that were moving away from using that equipment so i would specifically like to hear that status update yes we'll provide that okay i can't wait and then finally on this piece about inflation i feel was it last year or the year before when um i was making remarks about the incred increasing cost of health care and now to look at the 4.7 million projected um and it's actually kind of a a bit of a punch in the stomach that it's from dominion because they are such an investor in our electric buses and so this is

173where that really true authentic community partnership comes into play you know we can get all the electric buses we want but if well we can't but if we could right but if we've got to spend all this money on electricity so you know i asked you know i put forth to my colleagues to the superintendent um to our educate fairfax um staff and and board members you know how can we really advocate to our general assembly in this political climate but also to our business partners that you know you can't do one thing on one side and then slam us on the other side and that's money that we can be spending so um that's really disheartening and i think we need to voice that and say our public education dollars instead of going towards

174instruction 25 percent increase expected and overall electric costs to dominion energy so um there's a we got to figure something out better um there so thank you for raising that to our attention tonight miss burton thank you thank you miss tollen and again also my apologies for not calling you as budget vice chair that's quite all right um i just had a couple things i wanted to add um miss burden we did talk a little bit in response to ms mclaughlin's questions about the substitutes um so we'll look forward to getting more information on that um we discussed the other day that um we may not have a bonus for the substitutes in that i forget a 33 million dollar amount that you're going to pull that out to a separate line item along with

175its the substitute incentives and really look at what we might do there um yes that that was what we discussed but since then we've had a chance to meet with the human resources staff and um and decided that a better route would be to take a look at the subs and the hourly folks and put forth a minimum threshold that should be worked in order to to receive that bonus the incentive plan is under is is currently being designed to deal with fridays and also the frequency with which one agrees to substitute and we hope to have that plan available prior to september 1 when you all take action on this okay great thanks for that information um and mr smith you talked a little bit about timelines on some of these additional items including

176the safety review is that something that we'll also see in early september yes we'll be providing an update on the safety review i've had a conversation with mr vacarella he's around here somewhere so he understands the scope that we've been discussing regarding the rfp and so we would be bringing a timeline to the board so that you get a better sense of when we would put that rfp on the street and when we would actually begin that particular assessment so it is our intention to provide updates on all of these items prior to the votes that the board has more information before voting on september 1st and and then will we also see something about the scope of that work for that review with regard to the timeline we will just be at the beginning

177stages of developing that scope uh but certainly as we work to develop that scope develop the scope of the particular rfp and what we'd be looking for in a security assessment we can share that information with the board and as we do with most security related items we would be securing that in a secure secure manner right i understand um i also was so excited that we got that 24.2 million dollars from the stage i know it's a little bit less than we were hoping for um you know for that construction and maintenance but i was super excited to see upgrades for indoor bathrooms um on the list for a couple of our schools that have been waiting a very long time for renovations so i am looking forward to hearing more about that i

178see mrs deeds is over there so we'll look forward to more information thank you so you know the colleagues that wish to speak um i want to thank just briefly thank our budget chair um ms corbett sanders and our budget vice chairman tolland for all their hard work this year and continuing uh moving forward with miss burton and thank you miss burden mr swinnington your entire staff for all the work that you've done um i just wanted to say i know it's it's got to be difficult to work through this budget get to the year end and realize the impact of inflation on the work that you've done and having to adjust for that so i appreciate that i know i think it's important to communicate out to the public the impact that's it's happening

179to everybody inflation gas prices but really the impact it has when you look at a system the size and scope of our system the significant impact that has so i just appreciate your work and very calm of just oh yeah it's inflation let me add it in so we got it covered yeah i appreciate that um thank you so much dr reed thank you thank you i just wanted to thank um assistant superintendent for financial services lee burton and marty smith and alice wigenton the director of office of budget services for their thorough report and um also the board chair and vice chair for budget and really it's really been a thoughtful detailed process and i think a lot of information to digest but very excited about the possibilities that the resources will enable us

180to accomplish so thank you thank you steph thank you agenda item 4 0.01 confirmation of action taken in closed meeting i call on miss cohen 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 mr frisch all those in favor please raise your hands all those opposed abstaining that motion passes oh two abstentions that motion passes with miss mara and miss bishop staining i move to deny the student the school reassignment appeal the student who possessed used and distributed thc the active ingredient in marijuana at school and to confirm the disciplinary action of the division superintendent is there a second miss corbett sanders all those in favor that is dr anderson miss

181tollen miss darren kofax myself miss picarsky mr frisch and miss corbett sanders all those opposed miss cohen miss mclaughlin all those abstaining miss omega and miss marin that motion passes i'm missing thank you i call on mr frish for a motion thank you i moved to deny the school reassignment appeal of a student who possessed a statutory weapon on school property and to confirm the disciplinary decision of the division superintendent is there a second miss corbett sanders all those in favor that is dr anderson miss marin miss tollen miss mclaughlin miss darren at kofax myself miss picarski miss cohen mr frisch miss corbett sanders all those opposing all those abstaining mr mesh and miss kiss kamara that motion passes moving right along agenda item 4.02 fiscal year office of auditor general general risk assessment i

182call on miss darren at colfax for the motion i move that the school board approved the fy 23 a oag audit plan is there a second miss tollen miss jeremiah colfax would you like to speak to your motion yes um i want to begin by thanking um esther coe and her fabulous team of danielle moore joni white luke robertson khalid abudia and hailey flanagan for all of their hard work this year this was the first time i had the opportunity to serve on this committee and i also had the privilege of being the chair i was so impressed with the work of ms cohen her team for their professionalism and their detailed work ethic i want to thank also the two citizen committee members dan warco and john shames and of course my colleagues who

183served on the audit committee with me rashna seismer heiser elaine tolin and karen keys gemara for the fy 23 audit plan we began discussing with school board members in the fall of 2021 what they would like reviewed then ms coe shared with leadership team and the oag team the initial results of these conversations in the spring of 22 ms co held additional meetings with the board members and did an independent review and analysis of all suggestions from board members and staff she presented a review along with a draft of the fy 23 plan to the audit committee on the april 20th audit committee meeting the audit committee then shared the fy 23 audit plan with the school board during a june 16th work session i believe the work that we've decided upon is well balanced

184well thought out and some of the items include that we'll be looking at include the special education hr and professional development i.t and cyber security and our esser spending the complete plan is attached under the agenda item and i look forward to everyone's support of this plan as we move into the new school year miss tolin would you like to speak to your second yes please um i'm happy to second this motion and encourage my colleagues to support the proposed audit plan for fy 2223 i've had the pleasure of working with esther and her team since i joined the board esther and her team are hard working professional and flexible to meet the needs of the board in addition the audit committee has two citizen members as mentioned that are audit experts and they help

185guide our work in our decision making the plan presented to us tonight represents the areas of the fcps organization where oag will look at the existing processes for adequate design and efficient and effective operations and implementation the special education program review is the one area listed where we will have an outside consultant working with us to perform the overall review please note that changes to this plan can occur throughout the fiscal year as needs arise as we saw this year when we added that the audit of our legal department use of outside counsel and i applaud um mr ko and her team for the flexibility of meeting our needs throughout the year i want to thank all of you all of my board colleagues for putting forward audit topics for consideration it is through that

186communication and other channels such as staff input and benchmarking with other school districts that the list we see tonight was derived although we cannot do it all as mr nikofax mentioned this audit plan is well balanced looking at different parts of the fcps organization i am proud to say that you know one of the areas that we're looking at is succession planning and succession planning is done by you know all private sector companies and school districts historically have not really done this and given the size of our organization um the trends that we're seeing in workforce etc i think it's so forward-thinking and important that we're taking a close look at what we're doing here as far as uh you know succession planning and training of our leadership the other one i wanted to point

187out and i'm excited about is the participation of the audit team on our esser expenditure review this is continuing from the last year and i think is a great example where our audit team works hand in hand with our programs and other parts of the organization to collaborate on making sure that we are monitoring the spending of that federal funding in the best manner possible and we will learn a lot from this year's audits as we always do and this will give us an opportunity to really look at items like project management to be in a significant discussion about that um that you know we have many of us on the board that would really like to look at project management across our departments and um what some of what we'll learn from the audits

188that we have planned for this year and you know our work this year with dr reed will prepare us for looking at that in a subsequent year thank you great thank you miss mclaughlin thank you i i do want to say um to ms koh that i really do appreciate your efforts to continue to deeply engage the board on the audit plan um sometimes audit isn't considered particularly sexy for board members let alone the public but nothing could be more important when we are all as a team from the superintendent to her administration to this board and your office trying to ensure that we really do operate as effectively and efficiently and successfully as possible and if we don't then our very best of intentions to deliver on the fcps promise to every student and

189every employee doesn't happen so i i i'm always looking for special projects that maybe don't make the cut list and i will put in my plug again and appreciate ms tolan noting it that project management is one of my big passions i'm excited about to see what we can learn through the it audit and dr reed i know that that is a strength of yours we talked about that even as we were getting to know you so i i hope that this will help you as the leader to really help build and expand our systems expertise again the complexity of being a 3.3 plus billion dollar operation there's a lot that will benefit from that so i look forward to supporting this year's audit plan and i i want to give a special plug as

190well my colleagues to r2 citizen audit audit members um we didn't have that when ms kofax and i joined the board the board of supervisors did but we did not have the citizens and it took a little bit of cajoling to get there but i think they provide invaluable subject matter expertise and they put in a lot of time and so anyway i wanted to give that special recognition to them as well thank you very much and 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 well not yet sir the motion before us is on the screen i will call for the vote all those in favor that is dr anderson miss marin miss tollen miss mclaughlin mr

191not koufax myself mrs bukarski miss cohen mr frisch miss omesh and miss corbett sanders and do we have miss keith's camaros with us miss keys gamora for you there can you give us a voice oh and miss keith's camara that is yeah raise my hand thank you thank you that is unanimous agenda item 4.03 advisory committee charges i call on ms cohen for the motion i move that the board approved the charges for the 2022-2023 for the following school board citizen advisory committees adult and community education advanced academic programs career and technical education facilities planning advisory council human resources minority student achievement oversight school health and students with disabilities as detailed in the agenda item is there a second miss mclaughlin miss cohen would you like to speak to your motion this is always um

192you know what we do this time of year i have had the opportunity to look at the charges that have been sent i think they just continue in my mind to improve and narrow every year that we've been on the board and our committees are really tackling some pretty heavy heavy subjects next year so i'm very excited for that the one thing i did want to note that was referenced in chairs notes today is that the title one planning and advisory committee did not submit their charge for this year and i know that dr reed will be meeting with them to help them further refine that so we'll be doing that as a separate action item thank you ms mclaughlin would you like to speak to your second just briefly to again publicly echo what

193i know my colleagues feel which is an incredible appreciation for everyone who serves as volunteers on our advisory committees it again takes an incredible amount of time and effort and their dedication to help advise us to then help advise and guide the system is invaluable i will also say as a member of the public engagement committee chaired by mr frisch there has been such a concerted effort to really look at ways to improve this work that they do and i look forward to the full board engaging in that work but for now uh i do believe these charges appear to be more robust than i've seen in in previous years but i'll also ask my colleagues to just think about as you're talking with your appointees at times we will have um issues arise in

194an academic year and i hope we will always encourage our appointees that if we need to be nimble we need to pivot we need to look at something that is a time-sensitive k-12 issue that we would empower our committees to tackle that as needed so thank you miss tolin did you wish to speak i think saying no other board members who wish to speak i will call for a vote the motion before us madam chair my hand is right i apologize miss keys camaro go ahead yes i did want to uh thank all of our my appointees and everyone working on our committees um the ability to um get input from our community from volunteers who work tirelessly to bring really detailed analysis to us is very much appreciated i also wanted to mention the

195title one committee that has uh over the years presented very detailed recommendations and i know from having worked with this committee this year that they felt that uh what they have previously presented uh is still work that the board needs to focus on so i look forward to working with dr reed um to um help you know make sure that the board does receive that voice they have been a valuable voice and really invaluable to help um the those within title schools to help other parents to really title one schools uh to really help other parents to understand the benefits of being in a title one school so i for one want to thank them for their support over the last several years and again i look forward to working with dr reed as we

196move forward thank you thank you if there's no other board members who wish to speak if we could put the motion on the screen the motion before us is on the screen i will call for the vote all those in favor that is dr anderson miss maron i don't know if i can see your hand thank you miss tollen miss mclaughlin miss darenette kofax myself miss picarski miss cohen mr frish mr mesh um ms corbett sanders and i'm assuming miss keith's camaro yes that is unanimous agenda item 4.04 bias related incident reporting i will call on mr mesh for a motion yes thank you i moved to direct the superintendent to develop as part of the work in preparation for strategic plan development bias-related incident accountability infrastructure for the division and to present this to

197the school board no later than december 2022 is there a second second dr anderson mr maesh would you like to speak to your motion yeah thank you so much um and i want to also thank staff and everybody who's been a part of this process over many many weeks and months and colleagues who've been supportive along the way uh i think it's especially uh timely that we we talk about the importance of this work and i know michelle had just shared with us of course the importance of student voice and and equity being something we live not just that we preach and then of course uh in light of the innovation with the step we took forward today um with the chief experience and engagement officer uh this is an additional opportunity for us in

198looking ahead at how we structure uh the foundation of where we're headed with the strategic plan as we've you know as we reflect on the past few years and uh looking at topics that have come up for example uh when we've had work sessions around the trust policy and the importance of things that our students experience like outing of immigration status or students who've had their uh religious garb removed or students who are made fun of for their disability or several incidents of of the n-word being used in football games and on and on swastikas things that happen on the school level uh and wanting to ensure that there's recourse and accountability around that right so when we think of the student experience and their ability to access instruction our students can't thrive without the

199care and culture that we try to cultivate which requires thinking not only on the micro level but on the macro level on the systems level and so the the hope here is that uh in hearing the concerns of our community and recognizing that we have plenty of folks who don't report because of fear because they don't feel that they trust something will be done about it and so we have an opportunity here in looking at some of the best practices of what's been happening across the country and what has been coined as bias-related incident work that allows us to centrally track investigate monitor and ultimately we can determine which path forward we want to take in doing that but various divisions across the country have taken the lead in doing this uh incomparable size la

200unified new york city public schools etc and i know i've had these conversations with many of you all before um but this really the the intention behind this motion is to get the ball rolling on staff side to come back with their best thinking of where this might live within our system so this can manifest in a lot of different ways you know and i have an imagination some divisions do it as an equity compliance team that works within their equity team and is deliberately focused on ensuring a fidelity of implementation around our equity commitments other divisions do it through their ombudsman's office where the ombudsman is not just a resource or a reference but is an investigative tool um and and so there are different models and of course this is an opportunity with

201dr reed as she builds out um her or uh org chart and her uh her uh her team to figure out where best we might be able to fill some gaps in in uh the needs that we see in the community um and so just in terms of timeline for folks who um you know may not have followed this from the beginning of course this started several years ago now with initial conversations when dr duran was here and then later with friends with armando perry who was our ombudsman of course and lisa williams who was our chief equity officer we had discussed the possibility to do it as forum in 2020 as you all know a few things happened and we hel you know we put a lot of forms on hold um i had

202mentioned in board matters since but then it was underway in some of our srnr work last year it came back in several work sessions this year and staff kind of just workshopped in conversation some of the possibilities of what this could look like um and uh then was presented as an srnr follow-on which was pulled and added as new business for discussion today so that we have the opportunity to have more collaboration with dr reed specifically as she comes on to commit to this work so uh and wanting to send a strong message as well that we know dr uh reed and her team are deeply committed to this equity the work of equity and in reflecting uh serious action and real accountability around any harms that our community experiences when it comes to discrimination

203and inclusion matters um and so this was a an opportunity for us to take this step in her first meeting here to make that commitment and i so i do want to just thank um colleagues who've been engaging on this you might recall folks i emailed you guys a thorough listing of some of the best practices of what's been happening across the country several weeks ago and a powerpoint presentation that my aide shared with yours around what this could look like but again really to start the ball here get the ball rolling here as a part of that strategic plan work for staff to go back and do their best thinking here so this is really just to set off um that intention and i've had extensive conversation with dr reed who was in support

204and i understand staff are also behind this so i just want to give a huge shout out and thank you to dr ivy who i know isn't here tonight but really has invested tremendously in getting us to the finish line on this and then of course to marty smith armando perry becky bain ignardus king helen lloyd michelle boyd john foster and others who have been a part of contributing to this so i'm excited to see what might happen and i look forward to the support of my colleagues dr anderson you want to speak to your second i will be brief um since miss omega covered a lot of territory as you all can see this motion as it stated tonight looks very different from what was proposed just a few weeks ago and i'm glad

205to i'm glad that mr meisha had the opportunity to really sit with staff and really develop a follow-on motion which will be not just in alignment with our work but in keeping with um what is the best practice for our system i would like to have dr reed share some of her thoughts from those conversations um so that we get the full scope of some of the discussions that took place um recently uh thank you dr anderson and thank you mr mish it's uh the bias related incident accountability infrastructure is really a way of checking our work it's to um michelle's point uh early in your comments that we don't want to just talk about equity we really need to walk that talk and to that end i've had several board members talk about the

206importance of data and i think what we really need to have in place are very clear reporting structures that are trusted that we can receive data on and make decisions and about how to mobilize resources to really ensure that what as policy you're directing actually comes off the page for our students staff and families so i'm looking forward to working with staff on this project and believe it is important a key foundation to our equity work so thank you for bringing it forward thank you as we've all talked about what does you know what gets measured gets done and in this case what gets monitored improves so i'm looking forward to the plan that you and your team will be bringing toward if this were to pass but the plan that will be brought to

207the board for its consideration in terms of how this will be implemented thank you thank you uh mr frisch followed by ms mclaughlin thank you um so first i i remember having my first conversation with miss sommesh about this like two and a half years ago so i appreciate the work that's gone into massaging the details over that time finding consensus working with our new superintendent et cetera over the last two and a half years i've visited basically every gsa in fcps and without fail at every meeting i hear from students who tell me that they hear in the hallways in the classroom on the playground um anti-lgbtq slurs used with too much frequency um that occasionally they're dead named and it's malicious that they are misgendered and it's malicious and they don't report it

208for one of two reasons usually one they don't know how to right other than having to talk to somebody in person um which maybe they feel is a bit awkward um and so they don't have a clear understanding of what would happen and second they don't necessarily think anything will happen many of them have experiences where these bias incidents happen in front of adults who don't do anything and so um as we think about how you fix that i think you know as as dr king and i were talking about it um there's a bit of a gap here right we record incidents between students we record incidents between staff we don't necessarily report we record student on staff we don't necessarily record staff on student um and so we've got a lot of of

209work to do in that regard and i think that this is broad enough that the superintendent can come back with a thoughtful approach and a thoughtful plan you know when i think about our work around title ix we have a very clear way of students reporting incidents and then a process that commences as soon as that happens and you know i think that we would benefit from something similar here additionally you know the data is key we will see over time whether these biases and incidences are being recorded with more frequency at one school or another whether there's certain types of biases that we're seeing at one school over another and that doesn't necessarily mean that something bad is happening at that school maybe more students at that school know about the new process right

210but it gives us information as a starting point for a conversation and we had a bunch of kids here tonight that want to have that conversation and they are not alone so i appreciate this coming forward and i know that we will have a spirited and detailed conversation once the due diligence due diligence has been done so thank you mr mclaughlin thank you i think anything that we can do as a board in a school division to reduce eradicate bias hate mistreatment is is critical so i appreciate ms amish's persistence in trying to develop the language and the emotion for the board to then support this movement going forward um i do have a question and dr reed i don't expect you to maybe answer it because of how new you are to the system

211but we might have mr smith who might be able to answer it um we had had an incident at one of my high schools years ago where some uh athletes were being harassed titan line harassment and one of the questions that was brought up was why wasn't it recorded in when some staff became aware of it in what i believe is called the bullying harassment management system bhms so as i remember mr frisch you captured this the bhms was student on student and so you know going forward obviously lessons learned continuous improvement we said you know there are going to be times where we may have adults bullying harassing students and we've got to be able to capture that in some way so when i look at what ms omich is putting before us this

212evening number one it's always important to me to hear from our superintendent if there are any concerns about how we're directing you and i did not hear any concerns but i do think it's going to be important and maybe it can't be answered tonight but i think that the board would benefit from sort of a tutorial of what is the bhms and how will this complement be additive maybe the new system is going to you know help improve both but i do think that we'll need to have a little clarity because obviously for our community bullying and harassing can still be very much captured when it's a bias-related incident i will also say that i think we're going to want to make sure that there is robust conversation because my concern is real victims of

213bias might find that this could also be overshadowed by students who just decide to false report because for any number of reasons and so i don't want to create an environment where the flip side kids are afraid that they're suddenly being you know labeled or accused and suddenly our principals and our staff in the buildings are oh my gosh we can't even keep up because we are talking about kids and we are talking about that while many will do the right thing some may not and i think that this we just have to be prepared for all of that and so uh i do want to also say to our student representative since this is her first meeting um michelle it's lovely to hear your passion and commitment um you know that it couldn't be

214more critical that we have you here at the dais with us to make sure that we create the most welcoming environment possible for our students so again i'm supportive at dr reed but i do think we need to look at um how those are interconnected and mr smith thank you for um confirming that i was actually talking about a system that i remembered yeah so we finally call it the bim system and it is a system that our administrators use and in having conversations with misho mesh it's really about providing students an opportunity to have that self-reporting aspect which then administrators would then have the ability to follow up with students and then do that ever important investigation and also providing support to students along the way so we are looking at ways that we

215can enhance our current systems and would certainly do beta testing with our systems include all stakeholder voices as it relates to students administrators teachers as we're developing that so that we're very thoughtful about an approach great thank you miss keith kamara for all by ms corbett sanders thank you i do want to thank the makers of the motion and uh thank mr mesh for um her persistence over time i know sometimes uh it does take a while to get things where we can really uh move forward and so i i appreciate that um i do want to say that i see this as an opportunity to give people an opportunity to grow while we are building and continuing to improve our caring culture um within our schools um and and so i look forward to

216what i believe will be a very careful study of how to proceed uh so that we aren't creating some of those problems that ms mclaughlin uh mentioned but at the same time giving people the opportunities that they need to perhaps grow when they may not even realize that certain things um can be harmful um so i i do appreciate that and i just wanted to say thank you and i of course miss omesh i've said many times i'm happy to to work with you and others uh to try to make sure that we get this right and looking forward to hearing from our community as we move forward thank you thank you ms corbett sanders yes thank you very much um and thank you miss omega for your description because today was really the first

217time i heard what your newest motion was about and i did not unfortunately receive the powerpoint that you referenced that was distributed to the staff because that would have probably i haven't seen it yet but i'm sure it might have relieved me of some of the angst i had and continuing to have about setting up a totally new and separate system then those systems that we already have in place which include our discipline system and our discipline reporting which we heard earlier tonight there are some concerns that there were changes made to it that i'd look forward to hearing more about what those changes were we have our bim system which is also a reporting system and we have our uh the reports that we received from the ombudsman and reports that we receive um

218regarding some of the title one uh or title ix issues so what i'm looking for to be able to support this motion is really an assurance that what this is is a review of everything that is currently out there how we would knit together what's there how we would enhance with what's there but we also would complement this work with with the robust curriculum that was uh adopted by this board in a forum topic on anti-bias and hate crimes several years ago which is to exactly do what many on this board have talked about tonight about first making sure people understand um the impact of behaviors so that they don't act on the they don't actually um engage in those behaviors the second piece is that i would like to understand as part of um

219because i hear the term infrastructure and i want to see how we flesh that out to truly talk about infrastructure that you have the curriculum to start with then you have the reporting system and how it interplays with the restorative justice piece because to truly be effective in anything that we do to address concerns especially of equity and we had a long discussion about this on tuesday we need to also include in there the ability to have restorative justice and so either dr reed dr king miss omaesh somebody if they can kind of give me those assurances that this is not a one and done the board is giving a green light to something that we actually don't really know what we're green lighting dr reed thank you miss corbett sanders um i think that

220this may not be another full new system right this is a utilization of being really intentional and strategic in hearing from our students staff and families around their experience and making sure that that experience is one that you know is premier here that's correct so i think what we're going to do is i think there's an update requested or directed by december of it would be my intent to make sure the board is kept apprised of the progress of this work so i think what we're the motion is asking this evening is the embarking on that journey to come up with the scenario that might be responsive to the request actually the motion on the table calls for the development of a plan correct and so before there's an execution of the plan the plan

221would come back to this board that's correct so that's actually that's my concern is it has um in preparation for the strategic plan and then has the development of the infrastructure what i'm looking for is that prior to the infrastructure being rolled out that there's actually coming back to this board with a plan on what you're what you actually it's a scoping initiative is what i see this as a scoping and a project plan that comes back to us so that this board then adopts says yes that's the approach we want i would make sure the board was surprised before we move forward what i'm definitely want to be able to provide is a plan and consistent communication about the plan as we move forward so could we have a modification so it actually clarifies

222that what we're going to get is a plan of action sanders are you proposing an amendment yes i would uh move to direct the superintendent to develop a plan for the implementation for the development of a accountability infrastructure is there a second i'll second it because those were my concerns as well miss corbin sanders would you like to speak to your motion i think i've spoken to it which is it's putting a step in advance of rolling out something that requires this board to green light a plan mr and equifax yes i uh mr mesh and i have not um had the chance to talk um and that was my concern as well um because of all the things that we already have in place i would like to know how the plan i would

223like to have a plan to see how this will all come together before we go to the infrastructure piece mr alden would just speak to this amendment yeah i think that if this is where we're going to go um and and again they are two different things one is we were directing the superintendent to create the a plan related to a bias related incident accountability infrastructure if that's the case i'll just say that the that modification in purple grammatically doesn't work it's still clunky and messy and so i think we would just want to refine it so it's saying develop a plan for implementation of a bias-related incident accountability system or even just keep it to biased related accountability infrastructure because it's basically a plan because basically i'm hearing dr reed say we might end

224up collapsing this into like the bhms system you know we're gonna just so everybody's in i think everybody's in alignment that we we want to enhance refine and put this in here um but so yes ms corbett sanders i don't know if you want to take that but i think we have to put the bias-related incident accountability near implementation okay so madame clerk can we just without objection yeah without objection may we edit this is read develop a plan for implementation of a without objection i i have something to say about that well we haven't we're just we're going to put it up there for people to see it we just want people to see it if we're saying without objection we're changing that's it it's not without objection to the whole edition it's just

225adding the of a and then we'll continue the conversation on this amendment before we vote that's fine would that be okay so without objection we'll add of a so develop a plan for implementation of a comma as part of the work of a you have to put the whole phrase bias related incident accountability develop a plan for the implementation of a bias-related accountability infrastructure for the division comma as part of the work in preparation for the treaty plan development right and to present this to the school board no later than december 2020 and you can even break up that really long sentence with a period and say the superintendent will present it to the board no later then go ahead make that change and we'll ask without objection we'll break that up and add the

226superintendent will present this to the school board no later than december 2022 and then we'll speak to this all right i'm going to go back to my list to speak to this amendment mr mclaughlin do you want to say anything else to that piece again i think what i heard dr reed saying is that she certainly recognizes the benefit of developing the plan first bringing it to the board so we know what it is we right now we all seem very supportive of the intent of ms omash's request but we need to see the plan first and how that goes because otherwise i think the other one the existing motion on the table was too prescriptive because we need her to go and do an assessment of the existing reporting systems we have how you

227would add this to it or do you have to have an extension from it but this one's directing her to create infrastructure and we may not need to create an infrastructure we may be able to enhance and you know add this to the other reporting infrastructures that we have all right now speaking to this amendment mr meish then mr fish uh yeah i i guess i wanted to just clarify a few things um you know one developing infrastructure is meant to be broad because precisely because of what was shared in the one-on-one conversations and the powerpoint presentation that we do have several things that it currently exists we have bims the bullying intervention management system that is not student reporting it is about student cases but it's not student reporting as mr smith outlined we

228also have title ix which investigates a very specific you know sex discrimination gender discrimination uh cases that does investigation but differ not broadly and then we have of course the er which deals with employees but not students those are some of the existing pieces and those are some of the conversations staff have been having in advance uh in thinking through what are the pieces and where could this live and the reasoning for this this the the kind of where we're at right now in the discussion has already happened in some of the thinking um to arrive at a place where we're saying okay this might look like something new but most likely will not this could actually just look like restructuring different things or just re-envisioning how we lay things out and what better time

229to do that than when dr reed is rethinking and reimagining how she wants to set things up so that's really the logic behind this a plan would be to see a project from start to finish that's a different objective this is trying to think structurally how do we address something that is currently a gap if this language makes people comfortable i'm not going to object i'm not going to fight it but but i want to be very clear here that we're not trying to just see something you know 2022 2023 and accomplish a plan and be done the idea here is again to rethink structurally what infrastructure do we need to put in place to to bridge these gaps that currently exist and eliminate silos in the the work that we've been doing and that

230we've always intended to do so um i think that's i just want to clarify that piece and and that's been part of these efforts that have really i mean the opportunity to have these conversations was you know over three weeks ago and sharing this but i understand we're having that now i just want to be very clear that a lot of this has been thoughtful and and well thought out and planned and and staff have seen these you know the the bims piece was not brought up for the first time today so anyways um again i won't object to this if this is what it's going to take to pass but i think we already have a majority of folks who are on board dr reid did you want to respond to that i would

231like to add on to that so thank you mr mish i think one of the key topics about this that missile mission i talked about is that it's not an incident reporting infrastructure it's an incident accountability infrastructure and that's a really different approach and i know the board um has a high interest in making sure we're accountable for our intent and the outcomes the actual not just the intent of our policy but the outcome and the impact of our policy so i think that's a really key important piece to think about accountability and not just reporting so i appreciate the strength of this potential so thank you mr frisch did you want to speak to this amendment yes um i'm going to oppose the amendment um because as i've sat and listened to the conversation

232at the dais i heard ms amesh describe the amendment and it matches with the research that her her office sent around to all of us i heard dr reed talk about how she interprets this work and all of it had to do with looking at what we've got thinking through what we need developing a plan and bringing it back to this board that's all i need i don't need an amendment that does the same thing because the motion already accomplishes that on its own um and uh you know i i don't recognize the benefit of these changes because we're not getting anything different if anything they're more prescriptive than the motion was in the first place and i actually think that if you look at the original draft of this motion weeks and weeks ago

233that tremendous progress has been made to give the superintendent the flexibility to develop a plan and bring it back to this board which she said no less than three times when asked about it by different colleagues at the dais this amendment is unnecessary could it pass absolutely will it change anything about the intent or implementation of the motion not at all mr frisch thank you are you we did these changes without objection so i'm assuming you're talking about your objection to potentially this amendment i'm sorry what i was speaking about the amendment okay but try to make sure thank you all right i don't have anybody else on my list to speak to this amendment is there any karen ken corbin okay so miss miss corbett sanders followed by dr anderson the reason i suggested

234this amendment is because what we vote on is the only thing that the public sees nowhere in the previous motion did we actually say that we were going to come back with a plan and that based on that plan that this board would move forward with the actual system and for us to make reference to materials that were not published we're not on board docs we're not actually i never never saw them then what this does is it inc as mr frisch has mentioned is it encapsulates exactly what we all have now a common vision of and so i would urge that because this board is committed to both transparency and accountability that these minor changes to emotion captures exactly what miss omesh and dr reed have said is the intent so i i would

235urge my colleagues to support this motion as it is currently written thank you dr anderson yes i i just kind of want to echo a little bit what mr frisch has said if you look at the original amendment it says as part of the preparation of the strategic plan to have that be presented by december dr reed had a good understanding of what mr maesha's intentions were and i think we are and i and i appreciate us wanting to be meticulous with our words i really do but i think we we kind of missed the mark on this a little bit because the understanding was there and i am not sure if i see the added benefit to this language it could be just how you're looking at it because as i'm looking at the

236original language it's already part of a plan to be presented so it's not go forth and conquer it's create a plan and share with the board in december so i i'm just feeling a little bit disheartened in terms of how this took a turn thank you seeing all the board members wish to speak excuse me madam chair well no the lights stay on so if you if you don't mind turning your lights off after you speak that it'll help me know who's turned the lights back on this is just the amendment okay so miss mirror and the miss mclaughlin i'd like to call a question is there a second second i believe this is a two-thirds vote to call the question so i'll ask all those who wish to call the question please raise your

237hands dr anderson miss marin miss tollen yes ms tullin myself miss picarsky miss cohen mr frisch miss amesh that passes us all those who oppose this keys camaro i can't can miss keith's mark can you voice vote i can't see you on the screen right now all those opposed miss mclaughlin mr knight colfax miss corbett sanders abstaining abstain i'm sorry i couldn't get to the button fest that's okay no worries excuse me so that motion passes to call the question so we'll go back to voting on the amendment the amendment before us is on the screen all those in favor of this amendment please raise your hands that is miss corbett sanders miss picarski myself miss stern at kofax miss mclaughlin and miss tollen and miss kitsumar are you in favor of this i apologize

238emotions on the screen i can't see okay yes all those opposed dr anderson miss marin miss cohen mr frisch miss amesh all those abstaining that motion passes that's the amount of motion so so now we need to go back to speaking to the main motion with as amended miss picarsky and then miss amesh all right great um with the the amendment language without the amendment language i actually understood it i think the way um we all have landed so um i'm glad that we can speak to the actual motion i know you've been talking about this we've had conversations about this for the last couple of years and i know part of that we discussed this is something that is actually a structure that is implemented in higher ed that's where i first learned about

239it and i will tell you just very recently actually i had a father who came to me whose daughter was dealing with bullying and issues with other students a high school student and it had been it taken a very negative impact on her mental health very much so but did not go to the school with that the reason um you know a student may not go to a trusted adult i mean the reasons are just so many and it that you know you could have the best school the most uh support in place by adults and and kids for whatever reason sometimes just don't feel comfortable so that's what i see this i mean we have got to give kids an opportunity and a way to reach out and get the help they need and

240some students are just not proactive in that way where they want to go tell an adult so i'm looking forward to seeing what dr reed and and your team um bring back to us and how this would be implemented so that is in impactful and we don't deal with um some of the issues that miss mclaughlin brought up so i'll be voting for it all right miss tolin yes um i especially wanted to thank uh miss omaesh for putting this together and i know she has spent many hours with staff to work on this and i think that's really important and i i feel like talking with staff and dr reed you know they're all informed they know what it is um in my discussions with ms salmeis she's fully aware of the the systems

241we already have and how we can potentially um maybe implement this very very easily just by augmenting systems that we already have we were all invited to um speak with miss omaesh and you know had emails from her um staff aide on this topic so um you know i appreciate you doing hours and hours of homework and and getting ready for this so um you know as mr mccarthy said with or without the amendment that we just made you know i think it's very clear what we're asking dr reed to do and i thank you miss marin yes i just wanted to call the question please do we have a second to call the question on the main motion second by dr anderson all those in favor of calling the question that is dr anderson

242miss marin miss tollen myself mrs bakarski miss cohen mr frisch mr mesh uh miss keith kamara if you can give voice void to calling the question i i'll support it i'm i'm ready to vote thank you miss keith kamar all those opposed all those abstaining all right miss mclaughlin miss corbin sanders that motion passes i will call the question the motion before us as amended is on the screen all those in favor ms keith kamar if he goes to voice vote okay i'm sorry that's okay all those in favor we have dr anderson miss marin are we voting on the main motion now yes the main motion is keith kamar the main emotion i support it all right that is unanimous that motion passes whoo i will pass the gavel to miss uh darren at

243kofax for the consent agenda and action and new business our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure robert's rules provide for a consent agenda listing several items for approval of the board by a single motion many items listed have gone through board review and documentation that has been provided to all board members and the public in advance items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member prior to the meeting the consent agenda items are listed on the screen is there any objection to approving the consent agenda i have a question madame basher yes yes miss marin um can someone please provide why the appointments to the school board citizen advisory committees was postponed i can speak to that board member requested that he pulled off the consent agenda and voted on

244for the next month at the next meeting thank you but why point of order dr mr fresh doctor i can appreciate the sentiment but it's not in it's not germain or in order for this part of the meeting may i respond by sure it is a point of order that the board member may pull anything off a consent agenda and give a follow-on action such as hearing at the next meeting without having to explain why so that is a correct point of order i understand may i be recognized go ahead ms marin it's difficult to to know what is coming in a meeting when the agenda changes at the last minute so that's why i was inquiring and actually robert's rules does allow for a public acceptance of the agenda so it's it's a setting

245that we can't have a reason knowing why the agenda changed thank you miss marin mr and echo effects all right thank you uh at this time hearing and seeing no objection the consent agenda is approved new business the following or new business agenda items there will not be a vote on these items this evening but action is scheduled at a future meeting the new business items are on the screen great thank you agenda item seven board committee reports i will call them as dearneck corfex first for an audit committee update then miss cohen for a governance committee report ms keith gemara for cpdc update and mr frisch for public engagement committee report mr nexelfacts thank you madam chair the final audit committee met on the finite meeting of the audit committee was on june 22nd

246where the office of the auditor general provided a status of the fy 22 internal audit engagements and the status of the internal inquiries in addition two business process audits related to one the department of human resources and two bucknell elementary school were presented the oag presented the results of the first review on continuous monitoring of the sr-3 transactions to the audit committee overall it appears that adequate internal controls have been implemented and transaction transactions appeared to be allowable oag noted opportunities to enhance the efficiency of the process and detail of documentation in the observation the oig also presented the audit follow-up results to the audit committee particularly the details of fy21 hiring and onboarding practices audit recommendations and finally the audit committee discussed the potential adjustment to the fy proposed fy 23 audit plan regarding

247the project management division 1 audit and after extensive consideration and discussion the audit committee members decided not to include the project management division-wide audit in the fy fy23 plan however it is a crucial topic for our system and the audit committee will assess its priority in the spring of 23 or sooner if necessary thank you thank you was cohen yes governance committee met not once but twice uh last month so thank you so much to the members uh carl and megan and ricky it was one heck of a journey it was real it was fun it wasn't real fun in our last two meetings we worked further on the social media policy and the controversial issues policy and i hope that the board will feel like we got them in a place where everybody will

248be able to give their input but feel like and understand all of the work that has gone in i really owe such a debt of gratitude to bev who i i feel like we spent a lot of quality time together um and and and i'm so proud that the governance committee i think uh worked through 8709 policies this year so whoever the next governance chair is good luck trying to beat that number thank you miss kisgamara that sounded like a throwing down the gauntlet miss cohen all right with respect to um the comprehensive planning and development committee um we had our last meeting on june 23rd and this is a summary of the work that we have done this year first we have been approached by the planning commission regarding our community outreach process and

249working with them so the fcps facility staff presented a first draft to us at our last meeting of the capital improvement projects community outreach process this draft will now be circulated amongst board members and once we get feedback then we will provide a courtesy copy to the planning commission we also discussed the public facilities policy plan update staff put recommendations together regarding the county plan and we talked about providing staff recommendations and suggestions for feedback we in addition we receive reports on the electric vehicle charging stations safe routes to schools and co-location with county programs and building the fairfax county review the facility needs in reston town center we also have been working to improve the cpdc charge and a draft of that will be circulated with the board as well i'd like to thank

250all the committee members and staff that worked diligently as well as fpac as we collaborated to address this work thank you thank you ms keys kamara mr frisch i feel like i've been giving basically the same update for a year but drum roll please uh the public engagement committee has finished the monumental task given to it by the school board two years ago of assessing our citizen advisory committees how they are constituted how members are onboarded how charges are decided how work is conducted throughout the year how final reports are prepared presented and responded to and more the result is a draft citizen advisory committee operating manual and changes to the board's governance manual and policy 1710 to align with this new document it has taken a lot of time to get here and our

251committee members look forward to meeting with each of our colleagues here on the board in the months ahead as the chair and vice chair determine timing for a work session and since the chair and vice chair serve on uh peck i hope it will be next weekend so as i close out my uh work as chair of public engagement committee this year i'd like to thank miss mclaughlin uh mr net cofax miss seismor heiser for their extremely uh involved and productive work this year also none of this would have been possible weren't not for the incredible work of my staff aide jackie marmel who did a lot of the work on this document in particular in addition to our work looking at citizen advisory committees as i said we had a productive year we also

252overhauled the community participation process for board meetings including providing translation services so community members can participate in their preferred language i'm in the process of preparing a memo for our next peck chair to make sure they know where our other important work stands where it left off so they can hit the ground running thanks a lot thank you agenda item eight board next matters the agendas board matters and i will call on miss corbett sanders thank you chair seismer heiser i actually would like to use this time to personally thank outgoing chair stella pakarski you stepped up to an uh insurmountable task in many ways and you approached your work with grace and humor and that was wonderful for this board it was a way of bringing people together it's also a way of disarming

253conflict and your willingness to pick up the phone and take a temperature check of where individual board members were on any given subject was a great approach that should be modeled because by doing that it made these meetings go much more smoothly and i know that you have six kids five of them at home right now who are breathing a sigh of relief that mom can make sure she gets to concerts gets to swim events gets to all sorts of important activities and i as a fellow magisterial board member and very appreciative of how you balance not only the needs of your magisterial district but the overall needs of this board so thank you very much and have a wonderful break everybody thank you mr mish thank you um i don't want to be long

254part of me wanted to just say hags everybody good night but really just i think it's an exciting moment to be turning the page you know we have a new superintendent we have a new head of hr um you know we have possibilities that are coming ahead too with the hiring of a new chief equity officer we just hired a new chief experience and engagement officer we're going to be working on hiring a clerk and alleviating bev of so much of the headache that she has unfairly taken on and then even facilities we're going to start looking at new leadership there so a lot of changes happening all in the right direction so i think in reflection over the past year as we wrap up we were able to return kids safely we were able

255to think through how we might support them better in their mental health and their social emotional development where we've worked on an equity policy that we're you know that's underway we've uh approved a budget that was a good news budget that incorporated a lot of what we were excited about and on and on and on so i just want to leave us on a positive note i think there's a lot to be proud of and certainly plenty more to continue working on so it's been a blessing to work with you all over the past year for giving me my shortcomings and hopefully looking forward to another fun one this coming year have a good summer everybody thank you miss keys gamora thank you i wasn't sure what order i would be in but i too

256want to thank everyone for our collaboration this year uh just briefly i um really enjoyed um being able to be uh at the the fate home uh with our new superintendent and other board members and um was excited to meet a young lady who uh helped build that house so um i want to congratulate her and i just want to wish everyone a wonderful summer thank you mr frisch thank you you know this is the first time we've done board matters in like months and in past meetings i had prepared or i should say my staff aide miss marmal had prepared wonderful miss tollen style remarks about all the amazing things happening across providence district but those things are now there are lots of things still happening but those things are all weeks old now

257but i will say that one of the central features was all of the great schools i've been visiting and i'm going to distill it down to one visit and tell you about it [Music] it's a cautionary tale i visited uh frost middle school and um i should have known when principal harris said would you like your own helmet um for those of you that don't know um the school is under renovation and um offering me a hat is a is a tempt you know like uh they usually don't fit i have a giant head and um it fit so we were off and i got to see all the great construction work that's being done and then he said would you like to go on the roof and i don't i can't say no to

258that so um he led me to the boiler room and up a ladder we went suddenly we emerged onto the roof and it was everything became sepia toned it was like a an episode of starsky and hutch we were chasing somebody or something and we were now on the roof i climbed with two more ladders across another uh roof to the front and now we were looking out over the school and i have to tell you um nothing beats being applauded for being on the roof by a bunch of middle school kids so that was fun [Music] long story short our principals get very excited about these projects and with good reason they put a lot of effort into it on their own um in addition to the work they already do so um very

259much appreciated that in other visits along with all of the wonderful athletic accomplishments and arts accomplishments in providence district this year uh went to half a dozen graduations um and uh you know i have enjoyed meeting with our new superintendent to talk about my priorities and the needs of providence district schools and look forward to taking her to some of those in the near future once kids are back in the buildings and i would be remiss if i missed yet another opportunity we had several already this evening that i just just completely blew by uh to thank miss uh picarsky our outgoing chair um for her tireless work on behalf of the board um when i you know when i first joined the board i thought maybe one day i'd like to be chair that

260is not not something i would ever aspire to again to ever think um because i don't have the and maybe it's because you have a number of children um the skills that go into mediating those many personalities i can do one-on-one but that's a lot of work and uh i know uh all of our past chairs know that as well and it's something that i think miss seismor heiser will get to know very very soon although she she knows a bit of it so i appreciate your friendship i appreciate the work that you've done this year and the things that have been accomplished it's hard to look back because it feels like it's been 20 years but i hope when you do have time to rest you do reflect on all that's been done this

261year thank you miss cohen uh first i want to say thank you to pavel and the six picarski children um who continued to say mom my god why are you on the phone again every single time she called and the bird and the dogs and the um the zoo of at the pikarsky house so um pikarski's thank you for sharing um your wonderful wife and mom and um she's the best and um i did feel like at some point though you called me and i'd be like what now so thank you for putting up with a lot of sassiness certainly on my part and it's been it's it's been a really great ride so i'm glad that you're getting to pass the crown but i hope i still get to sit next to you rajna

262and i just want a couple things one is this morning i got to go to what i hope is my final principal announcement ever and really want to welcome ms misha thyrus to wapel's mill it was a wonderful principal announcement it was outstanding and she was so lovely and warm and is very excited to join fcps and i think to what abrar said it's just such a good reminder life goes on and we are a system that has to encounter change and run with it oh my gosh my picture's not even like they just sent the like come on stop talking um but it goes on and i wanted to give a very special shout out to my favorite uh 31 week 2 pound kiddo who turns 17 today and um is headed to be

263a senior in high school and on to big great things so happy birthday penny miss picarski you get to speak not last i will be very brief as it is late um it has been a a long but very rewarding year and i'm i'm excited that we've had the opportunity this year to finally get in the schools to see the good work that is happening to re-engage with families and students and and staff it's been really um you know inspiring in many ways um the kids are inspiring with what they've been through and what they are still dealing with and yet um at the same time they're just moving on with their lives and they are really having some great successes so i know that next year is just going to build upon that and

264be that much better and i'm excited i am excited about all the changes and the new opportunities and all the good work that we still will have the opportunity to do and i'm excited about the break a little bit i'm not gonna lie so happy summer to everyone i hope you rest up and you're ready for some good work in september mrs mclaughlin uh so if we're doing our little year end in review my travel timing was such that i was not here when dr reed was selected and i had to do that virtually and then when she was formally sworn in i was traveling again so um i i want to just publicly take a moment and say um what an actual joy it is to have you here serving and working alongside with

265us i can't tell you how much it has just raised my level of excitement um in and my just real hopefulness about where we're going to go as a system uh you know i shared with dr brabrand that i was sorry to not be there to say goodbye to him as well in person um i'm grateful for how much he cared deeply about our system and our employees and his compassion to [Music] connect with people and was was really remarkable but what i think it makes you so special is that i think you have some of the strategic leadership and uh and abilities that i saw in former superintendent karen garza with the warmth and care that i think was very much what we saw from dr brabrand so i consider you to have be

266the full package so anyway um i i i really did want to just again probably extend my ex my gratitude for you coming across country as a fellow west coaster along with sloan presidio and others it's not always easy to leave the west coast but you have come here and i know we our system will be uh benefiting from it um so warmest wishes to you and your family as you begin to make your life here in fairfax county um now that i've lived almost 30 years in fairfax i will say it's not a bad place to be um to the rest of my colleagues i just want to say i hope you have a fantastic break uh i continue to be so grateful for the the tremendous dedication you give to this job every

267single day um and i really appreciate how we continue to develop our own relationships with one another and finally to michelle i really look forward to meeting you um and having deeper conversations i really hope you will get on the road and she's gotta drive back to uva so i'm acting like a mom right now i'm worried about her so so anyway um happy break to everybody and uh you can text me if you want to reach me miss tolin all right um i do want to welcome michelle too on your way out the door michelle welcome welcome i look forward to working with you okay here's the tall and esque remarks mr frisch is referring to i enjoyed my visit to hutchinson elementary school i'm just today where i saw esy soar and rec

268pac summer programs and action all the students are hard at work and i really loved the rising kindergarteners those little tiny ones that seemed right at home after that get this this is our third day in school ever and they were doing a great job walking it down the hall in their line um i heard about hutchinson's fall plans for literacy work staffing each classroom with the best teams of experts security plans and upgrades and just overall great plans to greet every student and family with excitement in student news in drainsville sabina hagen a haycock sixth grader last year placed fifth in the national history day competition for her junior paper category for her project the immigration and nationality act of 1965 debate and diplomacy over the national origins quota you might remember sabina and

269her brother devin they advocated for fcps on recognition for immigration heritage month which we did at our last board meeting a huge congratulations to the mclean high school its academic team they beat out rockville high school and montgomery blair high school it is the first time an fcps team has won its academic since 1993. they'll be honored by supervisor john faust next week at the border supervisors meeting our ninja american ninja warrior max feinberg is back competing he had a qualifying round on june 20th and his semi-final round will air on nbc on august 1 at 8 pm good luck max and we had a one of the virginia state merit winners in the 3m young scientist challenge a cooper middle school eighth grader had a project it's kiresh tavare had a project nifty nano

270generators electricity generation using tribo electricity congratulations to you so lots of great things going on across drainsville even during the summer months please take an opportunity to relax i heard parents talking last night about getting ready for the fall sports tryouts which is just a couple of weeks away so we will be back at work very very soon thank you miss marin well last night i had the opportunity to attend what was the perfect example of the partnership building that can happen in our community i was over at the lake house owned by the resident association in reston and the south lakes high school steam program headed by amazing art teachers um we're presenting their tenth sculpture that they have done through this incredible partnership with all sorts of local businesses and wrestling association and

271professionals to install sculptures on the lake on pre-existing i think it's storm water management like platforms and they had students not only that did this this past year but that came back from the multiple of the decade that they've been doing this and just speak to how it was the best thing they ever did in high school how it transformed their learning many of them are in art school or had already graduated um so it was just really fabulous and got me really thinking more about the kinds of partnerships we can do um you know when it comes to like things like swimming right now you know with my kids and seeing you know how many of our children know how to swim in our community and what can we do to keep you know

272the learning going over the summer when when the books maybe not me as you know summer learning week that that's great but i know in my household it's tough to get the kids to pick up the books so um i on that note though my daughter has been enjoying uh the first session of the ifta camp the institute for the arts and we are practicing what it's like to get up and be at school at 7 20 in the morning and get on that bus and uh it's been fabulous sewing drawing other students are doing sculpture costume design we got an email from the director saying don't be alarmed if you see students with really like bloody looking faces because they're practicing their costume their makeup artistry so um it's it's really an amazing program

273and she's gonna do another two weeks and just one of these other programs that benefit our community that not everyone perhaps is aware of but it's it's a great deal and it's amazing enrichment opportunities and speaking of back to that summer reading uh with my rising fourth and seventh grader we've been doing the fairfax county summer reading program which is totally different than what you might have experienced they've really revamped it they've made it really interactive with you know online things and outside things and yeah you could just sit and read your book too so if you haven't checked it out yet i do encourage you to do that and you know finally we had a really full week and our new superintendent um shared with us best practices that she has found helpful with

274governing and the research on board governance and i've really been reflecting on what it means to do that work and i'm actually going to be part of the cohort that myself and elaine tullen participated in with other school board members around virginia talking weekly to check in about what's happening and work and i've also signed up for professional development with georgetown university this fall to do financial you know learning and leadership so i you know i really want to hone these skills needed to govern on a board to be most effective in this community so very excited for a little bit of a break and uh eager to become a middle school parent this fall i think wish me luck welcome to the world of middle school parenting it is all what you think it

275is um i won't be very long because the hour is late uh miss cohen mentioned that she had her what she hopes is her final principal announcement and i am embarking on two um so i do want to spend that time to just say um to extend my my gratitude to the two principals that are leaving the mason district the very principal of the school of luther jackson principal michael magliola who will who has led the school for three years and who will be returning back to some other endeavors out of state i want to say thank you to you for your service and your leadership also i want to extend my gratitude to principal lisa pilsen who led annandale terrace for several years and now has been elevated to the position of director of

276early childhood curriculum and grants management while we are sad to see both of you go as you march towards new challenges i do wish you the very very best and the luther jackson and annandale terrace communities they're very engaged we had this week the selection meetings and the luther jackson meeting had nearly a hundred parents virtually in the annandale parents we had arabic vietnamese and spanish translations all happening at the same time so they're very engaged and they're looking forward to in a few weeks where we'll have those principal announcements and i just want to make sure that i remind the mason district community that i am looking for an aipac representative if you are interested please reach out to myself or miss coffee it's time for us to take a break looking forward to

277it but parents a reminder schools will be reopening very soon august 22nd it comes really quickly so happy summer to all thank you mr echobacks two people between us and our brains let's see what should i talk about i'm just gonna say thank you all for your hard work thank you for allowing me to be vice chair this year and i look forward to working with you in the late summer when school resumes just me i will just say thank you again to my colleagues i'm humbled and honored thank you miss picarski i'm looking forward to a much better year next year because things are going to keep improving welcome dr reed to your first meeting and one plug for westfield high school summer theater high school musicals this weekend and next weekend go see

278it a bunch of hard-working kids have a great night this meeting is adjourned