FCPS School Board Work Session - 7/12/22

001calling all board members we would like to to the table redeem the time we gathered this morning if we can yes I almost did it I almost did it thank you so grateful appreciate everybody's cooperation so that we can maybe even have a slightly longer lunch right we could actually digest our food okay do we have everyone wait no miss a mesh I think massage we do okay all right thank you everyone we're going to get started now um this morning we have three topics today I will be um working with Miss McLaughlin and managing this meeting and today we're talking about the equity policy proposal we have our staff members but we wanted to we in our meeting managers meeting we had a specific conversation that I want to just address um this is

002actually a public announcement of this work right we want the community to understand that this is where we are that this work will be ongoing today we will be discussing a timeline we fully expect community members to provide input during this time period through various means and that will be described so we are looking forward to this work but we want the community and all of our stakeholders to understand that they are very much a part of this work so with that I will introduce our um I'm sorry should I start with the superintendent okay all right I'll introduce Dr Reed I'm getting motions here our new this is your first welcome work session welcome welcome [Applause] all right so go ahead thanks Miss Keys Kamara um and I really appreciate how you framed uh

003the work that we're going to be discussing this morning uh the framework and timeline for really what's foundational to the function of our division and so it's my pleasure to introduce uh nardis King our chief Equity officer and her team to share their plans to date as we daylight our process and framework for the community just really thrilled to have nardis and her staff here so Dr King thank you Dr Reed and thank you to the board for having us today I want to welcome you and thank you for allowing the time and space to discuss this very very important issue today the team is here to review with you our proposal for developing an equity policy for our system for today's presentation we want to provide an update on the development of a future

004Equity policy for FCPS in doing so we will frame our work based on national state and local initiatives review our draft timeline that will potentially guide our work and conduct a high-level review of components and other elements of future policy might include to ground us in our discussion today we are going to review some key texts and information first I'd like for you to take a look at this quote from the National School Board Association I'll give you a moment to look at it as you see the National School Board Association Has Lifted educational Equity as a key focus and responsibility for all School divisions our work on the leadership team has begun and we have been engaging in robust dialogue and learning conversations around Equity literacy it was important for us to sit in

005what we value and what we believe recently Governor Younkin approved house bill 127. as you can see this bill provides language that complements our desire to ensure that we will not discriminate against any individual or group based on race sex color ethnicity or national origin and keeping that in mind we understand that our Equity policy will be one way we will be held accountable for this way of operating third we take a closer look at One Fairfax policy the One Fairfax policy not only describes the type of educational experience we want to ensure for all students but it also requires us to engage in racial and social Equity action Planning by setting policy to ensure that that happens as I've just shown we have a directive and or expectation from the national state and local

006authorities to create a policy that demonstrates actions that will ensure that we cultivate welcoming inclusive and culturally responsive environments the reality is that we have been working on equity and cultural responsiveness for quite some time as a matter of Point Equity is probably one of the most important and frequently used words in our division unfortunately we cannot point to any one document that speaks to what it means I bet if we put eight people in a room all eight would Define it differently they would each have a different description of what Equity looks like sounds like and feels like it is time for us to Define what we believe in what we value and what we stand for so that all children will have experiences that prepare them to fulfill their hopes and dreams this

007timeline represents how we will go about our work to draft approve and act upon our Equity policy we invite discussion around some of the dates so that we can manage expectations throughout the process we understand it is critical to engage all stakeholders in this process therefore we have outlined some some of the vehicles that might be leveraged to ensure we are both listening and sharing information as we move forward just as a teacher develops a lesson plan to deliver learning we have developed the components of the equity policy we would start by identifying the purpose then providing a common understanding of vocabulary by defining terms next we would set goals for desired outcomes and finally identify measures to assess outcomes and demonstrate accountability these are key components we found to be common in most School

008divisions Equity policies and that we have reviewed however we recognize that additional components might be added as our work continues this is our compass that outlines a few of the most important reasons to develop an equity policy we have policies for things that are important to us think about it when we said we valued immigrant families we developed the trust policy when we said that we value families we developed a family engagement policy so this is our opportunity to say and show our community our students our families and our staff that we value equity and it is important to us in addition to communicating that value this policy will guide the work in schools and central office it will provide a foundation for staff to address access and opportunity gaps and it will honor the

009charge of One Fairfax by creating a policy that erects and nurtures systems and structures that lead to Equitable outcomes for all children these operational definitions will be included to build a common understanding of not only what we expect for ourselves but what we also expect our entire FCPS Community to experience if if we know these definitions then we can ensure our actions behaviors and choices and decisions are those that protect and promote the welcoming inclusive and culturally responsive environment we are we are responsible for cultivating the goals derived were intended to ensure that we address equity in all areas of our division just as we strive to educate and engage the whole child we must take a comprehensive look at our system to ensure Equitable actions are demonstrated in each and every space it is

010important that we just don't talk the talk we must walk the walk therefore here are some high-level actions that we might take that support the attainment of each goal for example the action of school funding requires us to think more deeply about how parking and activity fees are collected and distributed another example might be the intentional development of lessons and learning activities that demonstrate truly inclusive spaces for all students this is not an exhaustive list but are the key drivers in the work and examples of how policy would be enacted the policy will include procedures to evaluate our systems and measure our progress in order to ensure accountability and allow for course correction some data sources to be considered are listed above these are variables that we consistently Monitor and address qualitative data is important

011but we know that there's often a story behind the numbers if we want to create an equity policy that is truly Equitable it is imperative that we must also commit to using qualitative data to ensure that we truly connect with the human experiences of those we serve these considerations are items that will not only be addressed in the regulation but represent actions we will take to ensure that we communicate and educate our staff and Community about the equity policy we have included some examples of equity policies from other school divisions near and far small and large and we hope that you might consider using these examples to help guide your thinking and our work moving forward at this time before we take questions and answers I'd like to introduce the team that's sitting up here

012and then ask that you provide us any suggestions for Center and our work this thus far so I'll have each member of our team introduce themselves starting with Miss Waltz hi Kathleen Waltz executive director office of professional learning and family engagement good morning Iona spikes director of equity family engagement and Title One yeah Sloan Presidio Chief academic officer and um as you can imagine this work is really broad when we think about an equity policy so the academics team and the three departments in the academics office collaborate a lot with nardis and her team so we're happy to be here today manager of equity and closing opportunity gaps all right so I turn it back to you madam chair thank you so much we have a number of people who would like to speak starting

013with Dr Anderson foreign my three minutes here because I have lust I want to share but I am going to take the time to say thank you for bringing this to us and the matter in which you have brought it um I've appreciated the conversations that you've had with school board members just to try to flesh out some of the questions and some of the wanderings and some of the concerns and more importantly this very explicit and transparent Way by which this is going to be developed this is a huge topic this policy could be 20 Pages because there's just so much to cover um so I know it's going to be of significant importance for our community and I'm looking forward I hope in my questions I mean my time I get a chance

014to ask um how that is going to be happening um this work is really overdue I think we I well I won't speak for anyone else I believe this work is overdue um and it really makes it difficult I think in some ways for us to make decisions as a body that speak to equity you talked about eight people in the room having eight different definitions I know these 12 people in the room have had 12 different definitions and so I'm I'm really grateful to engage in this conversation to help this be our guiding star if we have a defined term if we have a shared understanding I think it just makes the allocation of resources and decision making that much more um it facilitates that that much more so I'm really looking forward to

015this work to guide our work because it touches every facet of the division one of the things that I wanted to share I wanted to ask when you talked about in the schedule that is on page I don't know what page it's on yes there it is the public and engagement and Page seven what is it that we're anticipating or is this the time that you're looking for feedback are we going to do a survey are we going to do a public hearing how are we going to ensure that we're hearing from our immediate Community you know parents students staff and then our larger Community folks who may not be as directly connected to the school division but still live here in Fairfax thank you for that thoughtful question um Dr Anderson you know we

016know it's important to engage with our community on what we believe is the most important thing that we do for our students and our our entire FCPS family and so it's important for us that we bring people along with us on this journey and you know we are looking forward to engaging with the public through surveys through small group engagement through working with the advisory groups the school board advisory groups continuous and ongoing constituent information that school board members receive that they pass on to us and that our office also receives as we pass on to us does anyone else want to know okay okay no so sorry I think I definitely missed that the other piece that I wanted to raise page 11 that has the definition that has the definitions where is it

017I appreciate some of these terms but one of the terms that I see that is missing is parity I would love for that to be included because I've been engaged in some conversations where people are talking about equity I'm sorry they're talking about parity and not Equity but yet it's a term that's used universally to describe almost everything in which there could be differences in Access so I would like to see that included if possible thank you for that and we recognize that these are terms that we've commonly found in equity policies that we researched but we also know that along our journey that there's going to be more words that show themselves and we want to make sure that they're we're inclusive in this policy as well okay I will put myself all go

018back because I see that my time is winding down but in my last 10 seconds I will also say that I appreciate how you framed some of the work that will be that we'll be engaging in even when you're talking about parking fees and gate receipts because it really shows up there and you only know it in the communities that are not seeing um the equity so I appreciate that being included thank you thank you thank you Dr Anderson I think Dr Ivey wanted to make a comment I think the things that are listed and if you could go back to the slide things that are listed here was just the beginning of a brainstorm of possible engagements and I think we have an opportunity with the development of the new office of the chief

019of experience and engagement officer the new organization New York that we're doing and the new offices that are under that that office I think having that office sit down with this team and to develop a broader plan on how we would then take this plan and plan it out and make sure that we're engaging all of our families particularly our families that do not normally engage and especially our families of different languages and to make sure that we're tapping all of the voices across our County and I see it it's exciting I see it as a real opportunity here thank you Mr Frisch thank you I very much appreciate Dr King and all the work of your team that's gone into this and the team before you even right because this has been ongoing for

020quite some time um I I like the way that Miss Keys gamara set up this conversation as beginning uh this public dialogue around Equity um in terms of the presentation today one thing I did want to bring attention to um we received communication from our advisory committee msaoc about other laws that we should be looking at um in craft in in as we think about how this policy should be crafted in particular I think of the Virginia values act which includes lgbtq people uh in non-discrimination protection so I'm sure that that thinking will be brought into this as well um you're right that people think of equity in many different ways everybody's going to have a different opinion on it but the one thing that is not open for debate is that the School Division

021already practices a number of different ways of ensuring Equity reaches our students and I made a list that I'm interested to hear if you have things to add to it um when we offer a differentiated instruction in the classroom that is a example of equity in action when we provide special education services that is an example of equity in action when we offer Advanced academics for students who need something a little more that is an example of equity in action esol and ell Services another example of equity in action free and reduced meals and the other benefits that come along with not just the food but the way that we factor that in for uh you know reduced fees for participation in athletics and the various Arts programs we have another example of equity in

022action making sure that socioeconomics don't impact the ability of students to access everything we have to offer another example of equity in action inclusive playgrounds another example of equity in action the way we try multiple different methods of engaging families so that they can participate in our schools whether it's surveys whether it's public meetings and town halls an example of equity in action so as we continue this conversation around equity and the different ways that we can continue to do more I think it's important that we remind our our constituents and our communities and our families that this is what the school division does period full stop it's what we do it's what makes our school system great and it's what will make our school system even greater so thank you very much for the

023work I'm very excited for this conversation to continue thank you so much for those comments they're very very important thank you Mr fresh Ms Corbett Sanders and after her we have Miss Laura Jane Cohen yes thank you very much and I really look at today's conversation as a continuation of the Forum topic that we had just a few short weeks ago because it is continuing the dialogue and continuing the conversation I appreciate Mr Frisch's refresher on how we put equity in action as well as the reference to the msaoc list because I too was a bit concerned when we only referenced the state Bill 127 which is limiting description um so thank you very much for that Mr fresh I do think though that we need to look at this broader than just academics is

024there a contributing factors which allow a child to succeed in a classroom or debt or not and so I was saddened today not to see our facilities and transportation because we do have Equity questions in not only our buildings but more importantly is in the transportation to get to those buildings when children pass multiple elementary schools to get to the elementary school for their attendance area that is an equity issue and so I would hope that in future discussions we would have our folks at the table about that Equity issue um I also think it's really important to have our business Partnerships people here some schools have robust business partners and others don't and the excuses well it's because of the location of the school that's an equity issue so I would hope that we

025would have a more robust discussion on that and when we talk about our community outreach I hope that we bring in local Chambers of Commerce because the other part is that Equity is an economic imperative for us to have a fully functioning economic system and a functioning Civil Society have Equity at the center I like your target up there at the center of how we address these issues so um any thoughts on what I have to say sure thank you and you know I'm sad that you're sad but I want you to know that this is the beginning of the conversation right and we've had robust conversations about what you said in our in our own meetings about making sure but this is the beginning Karen and part of what we're going to do is

026bring and those discussions right those are the goals we want this to Encompass the entire school system all of our departments all of the Chiefs and the people who they lead are going to be part of this because what we recognize is that the goal for any school division is to make sure the hopes and dreams of children are realized and we can't do that without every segment of the school system including the school board participating in that conversation and the actions of those teams so you are correct they're not here today because this is the beginning conversations but they will be engaged in this process as well Dr King I appreciate that but they're not on your slide as a goal of having equity in our business Partnerships it's family and Community Partnerships but

027those business Partnerships and the transportation and um buildings the facilities really I would just offer that in the that we need to modify the slide to include those components please and I would just say I think that those are really good suggestions and that's really the intent of today's discussion is to look for other areas where the board has feedback where you really want us to focus our work I think implicitly in our own understanding like when we said School environment we're thinking about the facilities piece but we need to make that really explicit so that everybody understands that so I appreciate you bringing that up in the business Partnerships obviously are critical so so thank you for that feedback and I just want to say again Karen I had that same exact conversation because

028you know where I led a school and so you know that that was part of the conversation as well so thank you you know I will be that drum all right thank you Miss Laura Jane Cohen yeah thank you so much I know this is uh this is not work that um comes easily even though it is um in theory easy and it's what we are all about and I think you know one thing it was interesting yesterday I was on a college tour with one of my children and um having the college continue to talk about holistic review about that how their admissions would be how their programs are set up how their classes that holistic is about not just seeing the whole child which we talk about a lot but about seeing the

029whole system and how your child interrelates and interacts with that system as a whole and so you know I I will tell you I know there's many who say that the school board and the school system shouldn't be in this work and I if we're not in the work of figuring out what are the hurdles to every kid being and feeling successful I I don't understand what a school system is for uh it's been interesting because a few people have written to me talking about um liberal talking points and that this is the result when you get a democratic School Board and I just wanted to mention something that I thought one of the beauties of getting to go to vsba is that we have an opportunity to interact with every school system in the

030Commonwealth of Virginia and some systems that are very very unlike ours so I just want to give an example of accounting um that in 2020 went 70 for Trump and 2021 went 74 for governor Younkin they're 92 percent white 1.7 percent foreign born um 89 high school graduates and only 12 poverty in the um entire 33 000 um uh Person County and yet the mission statement in their schools has a racial and social Equity statement that says Pulaski County public schools acknowledges that systemic and institutional inequities especially in matters of race remains significant barriers for people and communities working to reach their full potential we are committed to the principles of equity by requiring non-biased fair and non-discriminatory actions decisions and treatment of all people who interact with the school system our schools will provide

031an environment that respects every individual regardless of race gender intellectual and physical abilities sexual orientation religion socioeconomic status physical appearance gender expression family configuration ethnicity age and the language spoken in their homes this is not a liberal or conservative issue this is human beings interacting with human beings and we have one job which is to get kids over the Finish Line um feeling like they got what they needed from the school system so I'm proud to be a part of this I'm excited about the work and and we are all in it with you thank you for those comments what what school district was that again Pulaski thank you Miss Cohen uh next we have Miss picarski okay thank you I'm appreciative of the way Miss Cohen um and her comments kind of uh framed

032this and I appreciated that right from the get-go you have it on this slide this is politically charged and that is most unfortunate because when you go out and you talk to people including people that are extremely critical and come in rail against Equity also tell you that they want kids to be successful and you us all of us should be doing everything we can to make sure that they are successful and we should and it's a moral imperative of anyone and everyone and the community as a whole that we do exactly that our students come to us with different challenges different life hurdles different learning styles needs abilities etc etc it is imperative that we do whatever we can to serve them so that they are successful um and I think you know I'm

033I'm very interested in the comprehensive needs assessment because like Miss Corbett Sanders uh brought up and something that I've I've spoken to Dr Reed one of the things that I'm most interested and speaks to equity is our transportation our transportation needs we have kids in alternative schools that have so many hurdles in front of them that just getting to school every day uh you know is just really they have to go above and beyond in that commitment and they have to walk to get to a place to get on a bus that is way too far that is way too difficult so that's a hurdle that's an equity issue why do we do that to our kids um our registration is something else that I've talked to Dr Reed about we have portions at least

034in my district where new families registering cannot get to one of our registration sites easily we do not have readily available public transportation they do not have private transportation but they need to get there because they need to register and take ell testing that's an equity issue and there are so many more within our school instances where we could be doing uh more so I I'm very interested in that and I just you know overall you know I was a little critical of why are we going so far back from the beginning Dr King to talk about it but I think it's good I think going slow to go fast bringing in the community because this isn't a school board policy this is a community policy because at the end of the day this is

035what do we as a community believe we should be doing for each and every child and hopefully we all agree and I think we do which is to provide the best quality education and the only way to do that is to look at at every child and their needs so thank you and I'm excited for where we go with it so thank you for that um comment one of the things that I am most excited about is us really conducting our comprehensive needs assessment um some kind of indicated you know when we're looking at what our policy needs to include we are looking comprehensively right so not just about you know um academic issues or not just about you know facilities or Transportation but holistically comprehensively what are the systems and structures that may prevent

036Equitable outcomes for all of our students and so when we do our CNA we will be looking at you know the academics the curriculum and instruction professional development how do we make sure that we're I'm moving forward we will be looking at stakeholder involvement and um and you know insight and perspective but the last part of it is really looking at school perspective and organization and this kind of touches what each of you had talked talked about with your own experiences in your system whether it's a transportation issue whether it's parking issue but but that part of a CNN CNA touches you know those specifics that we can address holistically so thank you for saying that and I think we need to Define equitable outcomes because I think that's where we get tripped up so

037that is just another thing point we'll make a note of that thank you Miss Marin yeah I think it's an exciting time to have this conversation because we know so many things that can work and we think about you know the civil rights movement and all the things that have come before and to be here and know that this is not only the right thing it's the human thing it's the economic thing I mean it's not a question for me but what's coming together for me is you know yesterday we had our retreat with our new superintendent and talked about um you know thinking of the future and also policy driven work and the distinction of the operations piece and my mind goes to the operations piece because I'm thinking a bunch of things one

038is you know our um office of communications and community relations has been trying out different ways to have a consistent Community engagement approach right but the Mason District middle schools and now we're doing with the CIP so I I don't expect a brand new you know process here what I hope you're going to do is keep crafting that FCPS you know experience what does the community expect every time there's something significant to come from it this should not be you know a new build um you know someone just mentioned inputs and outputs so and we talked about this in our meeting Dr talking you know I know there's um I'm trying to remember the research and the arguments against you know focusing on the outputs but I don't want to fall into the Trap that

039No Child Left Behind has put us in for 20 years which is thinking of well what's the achievement rate for these students What I Hear other colleagues saying is what are the inputs right what's the transportation what are the options um I think about you know again how many schools have outdoor classrooms how many schools have World Language and so this is where we get to the operation side which isn't our lane but what is the consistent process that the superintendent and staff will use at every juncture to say how do we go about deciding which Bond issues to put on the ballot for the public to vote on to renovate or build new schools and where how do we decide how we're going to look at boundaries so it's not dependent on the advocacy

040of one board member or certain you know or a number of groups in the constituency I also think and I appreciated the examples of other school divisions policies and I I saw a few others that I don't see listed up here now but um you know some of them are really good Virginia Beach Public Schools some of them are a little vague and I I hope that we don't go there you know Equity of opportunities and access what does that mean what does it really mean to provide opportunities does it mean algebra for every you know student that pathway that you talked about doctor read that course mapping how do we put that into a policy and also I think how do we clarify between the policy what I understand is you know we set

041the policy the the superintendent does the regulation well how specific does this policy need to be in order to ensure that the access happens and what gets over to the regulation so so to me um you know I see this as annual work do we need to have in the policy something about annually this data will be presented to the board um annually this data will be reviewed and this is the project management approach that's going to happen in facilities and ISD and in Special Services what professional development is offered assessed and improved uh so so those are so I love it but I just want us to be as specific as possible to get to those outcomes the inputs really matter here I think thank you thank you Miss mayor next we have Miss

042Tolan um thank you and thanks for all this work I appreciate it I appreciate the having this uh timeline um partly because you know we've done a lot of this already and we talked a little bit about this um you know even in my situation having worked for the school district for years and it's been years right the entire time that I worked in instructional Services you know everything that we did was couched you know in making sure that we were being Equitable and what we were offering and you know the work that we were doing so having said that though um in conversations with the public I know the definitions are really difficult for people and I even struggle with the definition so I'm happy to see that list of words and I think

043we're going to have to add to the list as we engage with the public and you know so that we can just be sure that we do have those clear definitions and um we everyone understands what that what they are and I mean even there's so much confusion about One Fairfax you know what is it how does it work you know I I can't even get a straight answer from Jeff McKee's office on that you know so how do we all work together to and do this engagement process which I'm really excited about to make sure we have those like definitions that people understand and that people understand that this is good for every student not just you know select groups of students and how do we have people understand that um yeah Mr Frisch

044I really liked your list of you know where we've been doing this already and I think that's important for us to keep using with people and you know in in some cases we might look we'll find you know uncover situations where you might not necessarily be looking for issues um you know just a very simple example comes to mind you know McLean high school has a very large number of AP exams of students taking AP exams they also have a very large you know special education population so this year we really struggled um because they're not a title one school so they don't get extra funding for extra staff and so just even to have those tests available and working with the College Board and having the accommodations that were needed for students we couldn't

045do it we didn't have enough support so that's just a minor example of where hopefully when we really look at the needs assessment we'll look across the entire Division and even in places like a McLean High School where you might not normally look for inequities so looking forward to moving forward with this and building this all into our overall strategy as we talked yesterday thank you thank you Miss Tallinn Miss darnak kofax thank you and thank you all for your work we have been on this journey a while some of us together and um I just really appreciate um all the work that you've done I do see this as another step in the work that we've already already done we through through years I mean you know Dr King you were one of the

046first principles and we talked about the change the differences between the high school that you ran and others Miss anabar we we went to an equity conference the first like what how many years ago was that now it was four years four or five years ago so we've been talking a long time about the differences we've seen in socioeconomics the number of children with interrupted education the the the the the uh lack of preparedness for pre-k students and we talked about two fairfaxes and so when one Fairfax came about that I don't that was not an unintentional name for that it was the trying to bring together and it was clearly meant to be a racial and social Equity policy so I feel that this needs to build upon that I really like what I

047have seen outlined here um and you know the needs assessment needs to um be done in a way where the public feels very engaged those of you who were who were here before I think when we did our portrait of a graduate work for how we went out into the community I think that could be a model we build upon because that portrait of a graduate when we Define that it was several months of community engagement it wasn't like these three meetings and then we move on I don't know how long this needs to be but I think you need to be thoughtful in your process and I think we can look at that as a way that we moved forward in in a big way for our system because once we got portrait of

048a graduate we did strategic plan we talked a little bit about that in our Retreat yesterday and this strategic plan it will need to be revised as a result of this Equity policy and this will be a Guiding Light in what that strategic plan needs to look like now that revised I think we've got great building blocks there with all of the things that are out there Student Success but how are we going to further enhance you know all of those four points of our strategic plan Student Success caring culture Premier Workforce and resource stewardship how are we going to do that with this social and racial Equity lens put on it um and um I don't have many more comments other than that I think I hope as a board and with a new

049superintendent you will keep us I really appreciate Miss Marin's comments about the need for continual updates timely updates as to where we move forward and I also as a board member want to be included in that community outreach that we are doing within our community I think that's very important for us as a system to show that we are all in this together and we want to make certain that the community feels engaged involved as we move forward to enhance the success of each of one of our kids thank you thank you Tammy thank you Miss Sizemore Heiser thank you and I agree with many of the things my colleagues have said so I won't repeat those but I think we've had some great feedback for you for this and I appreciate you taking the

050time for all your hard work and also meeting with the board members and listening to our input and taking our feedback I'm thrilled to see the word inclusion added to this that is was really important to me um one thing I wanted to build a little bit on what Miss Marin said about looking at achievement and looking at what our metrics are on accountability right um I'd love to see us in our definitions of words talk about what success is and what outcomes are right and what achievement is because I do think as we're looking at equity and as we're looking at what we're trying to do as a school system which is I think core to our mission and this Equity work is core to our mission which is removing barriers and providing access

051for all students to find their best place and find their best selves and that's what education is you're removing barriers to to learning you're removing barriers to access you're providing access to Opportunities that's what Equity work at its core is and that isn't as Miss picarski mentioned partisan right I think all of our community can agree what we want is our students to be able to have the best opportunities to learn and that includes removing barriers to that learning right and removing barriers whether it's base berries on on how we are engaging with them in their classroom removing barriers on access to programs and programming I think one thing that's really important when we're looking at Equity is I think Miss Marin talked about is also program placement when we talk about Transportation where are

052we placing our programs split feeder schools you know where are we putting our most vulnerable kids how are we how does that impact equity in Access and overcrowd I mean there's lots of different areas I think that we need to look at um but I just wanted to say that what I appreciate you about about adding both what nsba had and the Virginia law around non-discrimination is that Equity is at its core the way you don't discriminate against somebody is you don't have barriers in their way right you don't treat them differently you don't put barriers in their way that isn't in somebody else's way you make sure that they have the same access that everybody else does so that is equity work right so I'm really glad that we put that out there because

053I think it's important for people to know that the core that underlines educating students is equity and you can't educate which is our core Mission without doing it equitably I would say that I would love to see a little more about this needs assessment to kind of see what we are looking at holistically across the county I think it would be great to get some board feedback on that needs assessment so we're looking at some of these things my colleagues have mentioned facilities Transportation etc etc I love to see occr kind of partner in some of this community outreach I know they've done some great work in developing community outreach sort of consistent ways of doing it to make sure we're reaching as Dr Anderson the groups that we don't commonly reach um and I

054also just want to see what this timeline are you doing the community outreach before the policies developed after to get feedback or both look at that right at three minutes it's both right okay we're going to be working but we're going to be taking in feedback just like we did with the two by twos right um It's that kind of process where we're going to be in looking for feedback from our community our stakeholders our departments and intertwining that where it fits in the policy along the way let me make one comment on that Madam chair just really quick really quickly I think it'd be great to do I think it's important to do both partially to close that feedback loop so people feel like here's all the input I gave here's what you developed

055and now I want to give you in feedback on how my input did or did not influence I think that's important thank you thank you all right thank you Miss Amish thank you uh Dr King and team obviously I'm a huge fan of this work and I'm very grateful for everything you've shared um just a couple of additions you know when we talked about this in Forum I raised a couple of pieces that I think would be value adds to how we think about the work I'm certainly happy to see some of it reflected and I'll speak to that in a sec um but I appreciated your framing kind of of how House Bill 127 kind of leads us down this path how this is politically charged and therefore requires us to recognize that a

056certain will is required for us to survive this work um but I also I'm thinking you know in terms of longevity sustainability for this work if we might be able to spend some of the time in our public engagement actually substantiating the arguments for why this is good uh I think we all know and believe that you know this helps student outcomes that it's financially good and all of that but you know when Fairfax when they first come out they had a report that that proved financially how the GDP of Fairfax County would improve with policies like this or on and on um and obviously I'd rather lean into the righteous side of this and say that it's the right thing to do but I think we would benefit from bringing more people along and

057helping illustrate that so if we can perhaps do some of that work I think it would be beneficial the other piece is in terms of the systemic actions that that you shared on slide 12. uh yeah so really happy to see the CNA obviously I've been talking about this budget needs assessment that we need um and and perhaps this is a starting point even to test out for next year this coming year budget cycle and I would add to that even the the CIP process of how we do facilities zoning um how we think about the queue and Renovations and all of that uh are our additional components of where that might live I was you know thinking even Beyond potentially food and nutrition services we don't even necessarily think about that but there are

058so many ways that that's an equity issue scheduling um you know what employees uh what flexibility is afforded to them in HR protocols around graduations and back to school nights curriculum I mean it can go on but I just wanted to offer those as possible additional areas of action that we may not have considered and it's a great starting point to enshrine in this policy where that's impacting board uh behavior and timelines of how we do work right so we have a way of outlining every year we have a budget process this month we do this then there's the presentation of the board supervisors then it comes back we outline that right so in an equity policy I'd love to see us outline steps like that very concretely to say this period of time every

059year is when we're going to be doing this CNA for example or uh you know we're going to be going out to the community to find out XYZ Etc but but again to systemically codify it and make sure it's it's structural um so that's the the second piece um I I want to go back because my time is is running out but yeah it's only seven seconds so I'll have to take a go back thanks thank you for that discipline Miss so much next we have McLaughlin first of all I really want to thank our staff as a co-meeting manager Ms kiesgamar and I put them through the paces to try and really ensure that the PowerPoint would hopefully be as instructive and helpful and informative as possible so they were really incredible when we

060did that with them and I I really also want to Echo every single thing that every single one of my colleagues have said so far just to give maybe a little uh historical and high level level setting um I have lived in this County for almost 25 years my husband's family has lived here for 50 years I am so proud to be a Fairfax County resident as I know his family has because there are decades and decades and Decades of this County wanting to be a better County and one of the things we talked about yesterday in the retreat is our Fidelity of execution so in a nod to staff and a nod to former superintendents in a nod to former boards and to a nod to our amazing County we have our faults because

061we're all human we don't get where we want to be all the time but I do want to make sure that the public hears and understands that there is a a decades-long history of this County with needs-based Staffing with this County looking at how do we continue to adjust and respond to a growing population where English language is a secondary language where poverty rates have risen from three percent in the 1970s to now over 30 percent and every turn this counties continue to say how do we continue to best deliver I know we've left a lot of people behind in every community that is still feeling that today I hope that they are looking at this Equity policy as a beacon of light and hope that we recognize and understand with humility that we have

062work that we continue to need to do um but I want to say that I am proud to live in a county with a tradition with over 75 almost 80 percent of our funding coming from our local taxpayers because they have demonstrated time and again through Bond votes and through their their annual support of our Board of Supervisors annually supporting with over 50 taxes coming to us that education matters it's what makes this a strong and robust County it is why it continues to attract the very best families employees and businesses so this is really at the heart and soul of the work we're doing and I really appreciate that everyone here this morning has done an excellent job of explaining why this is and Laura Jane's words holistic work it's everybody so thank you

063Miss McLaughlin I will take my turn and we have a few people for go back okay so I want to clarify a couple of things and then I'll ask Dr Reed if she wanted to make some comments um I want to make sure we say a couple of things because I know um there are always opportunities for misinterpretation and I think that our staff has worked really hard to try to avoid that but um I think that this effort is the how of how we deliver education are obviously our goal is to improve Student Success and our and our mission is to deliver education but this is a commitment to deliver that education in an equitable manner that acknowledges the needs of every student um and so we're identifying what that methodology should be um

064I also want to emphasize that from our conversations this is an opportunity for everyone to participate in the conversation this is not intended to be staff going in the back and writing something and coming back and telling us what to do you but I think it was is it page nine um that has a list of potential ways that communication will occur over the entire school year okay so I wanted the community to understand that that is what um is anticipated um so a couple of other things I don't think we can do this without acknowledging some historical facts right and I know that we've had conversation about future forward in our in our retreat but we also have to assess where we have been how long we have been there where deliveries have occurred

065well where they have not occurred well and so we can have a large discussion about uh continuous Improvement but for some we are going to have to I believe at least this is my view we're going to have to say we got to go back and make some corrections because for example we know we have Title One schools that aren't receiving or some elementary schools that aren't receiving or having an opportunity to have access to advanced math and that is available in some areas and in not in others and so I think it's important as we look at this comprehensive analysis of what we need to do that we acknowledge that from a historical context and then that we're able to set Up Priorities that we can agree on and I think um if we

066can have that conversation with the community and they can understand or we can understand their concerns that very much has to be a part of what we're doing and then lastly I certainly want to know clearly what the the next steps are well that was next to last sorry the last thing I want to say is we I want a very clear Communications plan so that we are making an announcement to the community that this is the beginning of this work and these are the various opportunities they have to participate okay so we have a go back from uh Dr Anderson thank you um just kind of digging into some of the specifics because a lot has been said um can you speak a little bit in terms of the next time that this is

067brought to the school board what should we expect to see we are meeting with occr that's our next meeting to develop our comprehensive communication plan and so I would think that um with the lead of Dr Reed meeting with her and making sure that we're meeting her expectations that that's the first thing that we need to do is inform the board and the public what's next Sloan you want to just here just based on your experience when we're creating these oh I'm so sorry Dr Presidio you had mentioned if Dr Reed wanted to speak and I don't know if no no um Miss Keith yeah Karen did and we kind of moved them okay well I I would say I mean I I think some of the next steps in terms of like when this

068information would come back to the board is really the information that we're seeking from the board what would you like that to look like right so there's a variety of different ways that we can do that some is through you know written Communications and updates and reports about things that are happening and where we are in the process some might be through two by two meetings to update board members about where we are in the process working with the chairs you might want to schedule another work session we're going to be working with the governance Committee of course you know in the development of the draft policy so there's a lot of different ways that we can continue to stay engaged with the board and I think really we're looking for feedback from the board

069about how best would you want us to do that what would work best for you and how would you want to use your time to have that continued dialogue but we really really and this is why we were bringing this forward in a work session today before we did any preliminary work is to really make sure that the board was comfortable with the big ideas that would be contained in the policy and to get some of your initial feedback about you know how to approach the work in our next step so this is really helpful information for us thank you I appreciate that and being mindful of all of the things that the board has on its plate I for one I would like for the next time that this comes to us for me

070to have some sort of tangible document to really dig through the same way that we've been doing with some of the other policies and I know this is going to be a very comprehensive policy whether it's you have an initial feedback from the community what should be included and then you kind of embed that with what we're providing with you today and within in in the two by twos but the next time I we come together to this I'd like to have something to wrestle with and then we know that we will take that back out into the community yet yet again what I I'm very appreciative of what Miss Cohen shared in that data because we do know that Equity has been a term that's been highly weaponized and I see this as an

071opportunity for additional education we're never going to change anybody's mind about anything but it's great to have a conversation and to explain why we see things the way that we do and I share that because in the veins of what took place with the communication plan with Mason District when we're doing some other work the boundary work in the 6A configuration there was an education component where some information was provided because it helped to bring people along at least to increase understanding so I I hope that can be embedded as well into this process because this is really really important to be able to do that um Miss um omish talked about having an opportunity to review this policy uh on a regular basis I I kind of see it a little bit differently because

072I don't want it to come to become a policy that stands alone it should be embedded in all of our work so I'd like the opportunity when when there's report in our work for this to be a component that is highlighted and elevated and discussed rather than just kind of a a set aside I see that my time is up but I was trying not to tell you it's okay um if there's time I'll go yeah Dr Anderson we're scheduled to go until one o'clock so you can just have a second go back okay so uh next we have Miss amesh I think yep let me just clarify there were only a few people who raised there let us know they want to go back so I'm not going back through everybody unless okay just

073go ahead miss a mess um yeah no just a couple of quick things because time is shorter um one on slide 14 you guys talked about the importance of measuring and that we can't really know uh what an issue is and how to deal with it without properly measuring it I just want to bring back the how imperative it is that we reconsider How We Do data collection on our students and understanding who's in our community and what data we're tracking um not just academic performance which was already spoken to but I mean who we're even serving it continues to be absurd to me that we rely on just a couple of racial categories to look at and think we understand the community and if we disaggregate that and expand the way we think about

074it across identity groups uh and understanding who our community is then the data will speak to us and we'll be able to better diagnose and address challenges right so if we're thinking who in our communities parents you know what are their education levels that's a clear predictor we know the research has shown us right that that helps us improve outcomes or collecting data around expanded racial categories you know more comprehensive data around disability religion gender identity sexuality I mean these are things that can help us better understand what particular segments are dealing with and then address accordingly second is perhaps in the equity policy we can also kind of refine what the lens means so that any Department that wants to kind of transpose and fix what's going on in their own shop can apply

075certain principles or almost like a toolkit of sorts or something because this policy is system-wide but it's almost like in every Silo we're going to need to reconsider rethink reimagine right now so I think the policy should outline something like that and then finally I'd be remiss not to mention of course you all know that this motion is coming on Thursday I've You Know spoken substantially to many of you and and given the opportunity to speak and answer questions uh to others Dr King obviously you've been part of these conversations and the importance of accountability around bias related incidents in our system I know Dr Reed is excited to think about how we might incorporate that into this plan as a tool of many other tools but I just want to remind my colleagues that

076that's coming on Thursday and if you have further questions Etc let's make sure we address that because it's part and parcel of this kind of work and hopefully we'll just further Advance everything that we're doing thank you thank you uh Ms darinette kofax I'm sorry okay Miss darinette Colfax all right um I want to pick up on what some of my colleagues are saying I think there's a couple things and I would propose this to my colleagues as a suggestion um Dr Presidio you said you're going to be working with governance I believe this policy governance is always is often an Avenue where we take things where the umbrella group can't doesn't have the time to see it I think this policy should be worked through the entire board and not just through governance I

077don't think that should be a pass-through at this point in time so I see I think we said that at the last I believe we said well the form during the Forum topic we had that conversation okay but but you mentioned that song so I did I was just listing a variety of different ways because the board could choose to direct staff to do the work so okay all right so I I think that that's important um I um I do want to just press a little bit on my passing comment about what I said the way portrait of a graduate feedback was done and there was an actual committee set up for that there was a committee that was um chosen by staff in the superintendent and I think the other things could happen

078but I think some of the ways that are listed here public comments during citizen participation constituent communication those are are you're you're going to get people who are uh who are more likely to reach out but sometimes we need to pull people to get them to participate so just a thought on that Dr Reed is you and your team come together on what this should look like but there was a big standing committee that met for a portion of time it included teacher staff I I was one of two school board members on it it included what Karen had talked about business Community leaders which we are we I think we have left a little bit of that relationship building behind that during covet I don't think the business Community is as strong a partner

079as they can be the chambers and things like that so they were members of this as well so as we think about that I would ask you to consider and I'll be happy to you know talk more about those and what I remember I probably still have all the data who were who was part of it if if we still don't have that institutionally so thank you thank you Miss darinette Colfax um miss picarski you know what we did we did clarify I just wanted to clarify the governance thing but I did want to speak a little bit towards and you know people have been eloquent I think and gotten the point across the stakeholder engagement and I just want to make sure that we are hitting people that do not traditionally come to us

080but also who are critical of some of the work that we have done that we have put under the um Equity umbrella uh because I think we need to understand and hear from them and see where is you know where is this disconnect um because again I think we all you know believe in the ultimate goal so I would hope it's very robust thank you thank you Excuse Me Miss Merritt yes I agree with what Miss starnet kofax just said about um thinking again systemically and so similar to what I said earlier you know this should not be something that is approached differently than say how we do other types of policies so as part of the effort with occr in trying to do the CIP engagement again do we have task forces committees how

081does this intersect with the board's advisory committees should we have a standing board advisory committee that's different how does this impact our advisory committee um charges the other thing too is about the policy so there's going to be a lot of policies that are going to be intersecting with this so how does this policy describe how other policies are going to be overridden or adjusted like I'm thinking the name changing policy that was more recently updated but does that now have to be refreshed so I'm kind of thinking like is there gonna what kind of audit are we going to do to say okay like we've got our Equity policy but part of that is to also go through and say where where do the inequities still lie in the other pieces it kind of

082reminds me of what staff did with the social studies audit where they use a set of criteria and they said okay if there are any lessons in our um you know an e-cart that you know have these criteria they're out so is that part of this too it's not only creating this new thing but it's getting rid of any other pieces of policy that don't now jive with this I think it's got to be part of the work thank you Miss Marin um Miss Corbett Sanders I am so glad to be following you miss Marin because we're on the same path I actually think what we need is a plan I'm sorry so thank you I um I believe we actually need a project plan that outlines much of what's in this presentation which is

083very good taking into account what you've heard today but more importantly having clear engagement plans clear Communications of what we're going to do a schedule of when we're going to do it who's going to be at the table and when how we're going to provide the feedback which that feedback loop and then how when we will see a direct when we expect to see a draft of a equity plan what the feedback loop will be on that draft the adoption of that and then how that will drive things like an equity audit because you can't we can't do that audit until we actually have fleshed out that plan and then finally how do we measure the effectiveness of what we've done and so I would um expect a little bit more flushing out of that

084I don't think we need a necessarily a work session on the plan but I do think that the plan needs to be sent to the board in advance to be able to digest the plan and provide comments to both you Dr King and you Dr Reed on what we see in it any concerns we have and any recommendations somebody get all that down okay okay uh the last person I have on board is uh Miss did you have your go back already you want to go back okay the cue is second round Dr Anderson's in the third round so if you want to go you get to go second or third I could do it yeah she had a second turn so I didn't see it we're working as a team here we got you

085covered thank you Miss McLaughlin um yeah just briefly actually I'm glad you brought the project management plan because that was actually what I was going to mention is I think you know it all of our policies you know all of our products is important but this one is so core to our work that I think it does need as many my colleagues have mentioned a more robust Community engagement but also you know whether it's asthma Darren at kofak mentioned a um a task force type of thing or a focus group I do think a very systematic way of Engagement before and after the draft policy that would to include the board guidance as we go through is probably important and I know Dr Reid will seek that feedback as she works on the policy with

086her staff but I just wanted to mention that I think this is really really core to what we do um and I wanted to sort of flush out a little bit I talked briefly earlier about outcomes as part of equity work and I wanted to talk about that a little bit more as you're looking to what you do but we mentioned when we look at our um strategic goal number one and I think Equity work falls into that as well and we look at we're always measuring achievement gaps in terms of test scores right but we're not really looking as much as I think we could possibly as outcomes like where are our students what are post-secondary outcomes and you know I mentioned diploma types all the time but we subsume those two diploma types

087at one reporting number and those two diploma types lead to two very different outcomes and possibilities of outcomes for our students and that's an equity issue a huge Equity issue and we even report it as if it's just one it's the same outcome so I really think it's really important to look at I mean when we look at um access when we look at are we being successful in our Equity work the mission of our Equity work is to remove barriers and provide access so students can find their best path well the best way I think or a great way to measure that is what are the outcomes not just when they're in the building but when they leave us so I think that's a really important part of that accountability so thank you thank

088you Miss Sizemore Heiser I think Miss uh Cohen just put her placard up I think you'll be super quick I just wanted to respond to what Miss Marin said which I think is huge and I'm not sure how we capture it maybe it's through Esther's office but we were talking about on governance there were several policies that had been presented as no change but of course by the time they come to governance and get reviewed they were part and parcel of other policies that had been changed that were much broader and so those had not initially when the other policy was changed there was nothing that said okay this impacts policies blank blank blank blank blank blank blank and so I think finding some way whoever the new governance person is to conduct something like

089that you know a few we were just lucky that people caught it because it was something that was like a passion project for them um but I think like a really deep dive into right now we have them separated you know the number implies the department that they manage but not necessarily the policy under which you know there's some tiny parcel of the way that we look at it in governance so maybe even a different kind of org chart for policies of what goes into what and that's how you start your governance year so sorry not related to this a little bit because this is going to impact nearly every policy to Melanie's point and so how do we make sure that there's this really comprehensive list of what's the domino effect when we just

090generally make policy but this one I think very specifically the tentacles should be in every thing that we do so that's a really good point and I just wanted to highlight that or lift that up thank you Miss Cohen excuse me um I think the last person I have on deck for a second term is Ms McLaughlin and then we'll go to Dr Reed before we go to a third round now my head's exploding because uh as as you all know I am always really mindful of how we're going to be strategic as a board how are strategic as a division um one of the things that wasn't in this was in a prior slide that I think we're going to end up needing for the board is really getting the umbrella of this whole

091thing so I do not disagree with the great ideas my colleagues are saying but I want to kind of harness this horse here because I I mean I and maybe there's a better analogy here but this thing is like 12 cats going um we have a one Fairfax policy that was that that was the policy that gave the direction to the division and our promise to the community on what we wanted that to be and it was about equity so then what we realized is well let's just Define this because policy belongs to the board a lot of what people are describing here is now going to be staff's work and what we're doing is we're giving that that anointing of now go out and the work you do every single day how is it

092reflective in the equity policy but unlike portrait of a graduate which was a whole nother like creation that didn't exist anywhere in the United States that we found I do I am so thinking about post-pandemic recovery right now I I love everybody's intent here but I'd like to kind of hopefully with Dr Reed and the team like let's just bring this back to Center here we're just going to have our policy and staff will certainly know in their day-to-day work if there's an existing policy that needs to be updated but you guys we have probably over a thousand policies and regulations to go with it and I I do not want this to bog down thank you Dr King for giving me the nod there I'm going to need to go back because there's a

093couple of points here that I want to make but um this is good but now this is like suddenly mushrooming and I'll follow up with why my concerns are there so I'm going to call on Dr Reed in just a second but then Dr King if you could clarify what you need from us that may help pull everything together because I think we you know we really do like to analyze and I applaud us for that but we you know I want to make sure we give you uh Dr King what you need so that you can do your work okay Dr Reed thank you um Miss Keys Gamora I this has been a fabulous conversation and very inspiring right and I think anytime we wrestle with Big Ideas multiple perspectives are so helpful um

094I also think that this work is so uh critical when I think of being justice-centered student focused student oriented and future focused this work and I've talked to Dr King and staff about that needs to sit within a broader framework so that it deepens over time and outlives all of us at this table as it continues to be malleable so I'm looking forward to how this work is centered within a strategic plan that's current and committed to that convicts all of us and our community together so we can move forward together and looking forward to how it sits and is centered within the work we talked about yesterday at the retreat which is to say that that measure the accountability that all of that becomes our work in such a natural way and so I'm

095looking forward to that and I know that we just have to attend to it perhaps uh Miss Cohen's comment around holistic right it's it is a holistic policy because of its nature it's going to touch every every body of work every Department every School site every staff member student family and Community member and when we do it well it's just going to elevate and enable us to uh be that Lighthouse District our division for our country so I'm excited to see how we move forward I'm also learning our processes the channels we activate when we want to engage but I think really broad engagement in what I'm going to call an iterative process which keeps going back and forth it's going to be really critical and it's going to have to be collaboratively owned so

096thank you for the opportunity okay thank you before we go to the third um I think maybe Dr King could you just tell us what you expect at the end of this so we can all be focused on that moving forward okay I'm glad my mic wasn't on with that but um you know today has been really good for us as a team you know we have note takers and we're having you know sidebar conversations because we're reflecting on conversations that we had that mirror some of the comments that you're making at school board so you know when you put your authentic selves on the table it's very helpful to us as we're crafting and moving forward what what the board's desire is to see in this policy because of course you own the policy

097so some of the things that you know we'll be working with Dr Reed to be working with the board around is some dates for a draft like when are you looking for that draft right timeline that what we had missing in our timeline up there we'd like to see from the board and then just to make sure that we have access to your advisory groups as well when we need that that we'll be reaching out to those who lead those advisory groups to help us have access where we don't and then again we're going to develop a comprehensive timeline with occr we have that as our first meeting to make sure that we're not missing anything so we'll be leaning on Dr to read in her communication with the board to ensure that anything else

098that comes up that we need so at the end of this and I don't think we need it at the end of this today what we need right now is your authentic feedback as we capture this as we move forward and putting our our plan together so the one question in there I think we is not naturally flowing out of this conversation is the access to the advisory committees which you know we can speak to that when we finish and Mr Fish I apologize I didn't realize you hadn't had a second turn so we'll give you that right now um two things on the question of how this impacts other policies I can appreciate Miss McLaughlin's comment that we have a thousand plus policies and it would probably delay the work to line that all

099up in advance of this policy being completed but just like with the trust policy which has a provision in it that says this the spirit and intent of the policy needs to be reflected in the other policies of the school division so as they're reviewed the other thing that occurs to me you know we give charges to our advisory committees as a board when we think about our standing committees we should probably give charges that make sense for their work as well and for the governance committee that might look something like when you are considering policies on the no change or minimal change or when you are updating policies you know are you checking to make sure they align with a strategic objectives of the school division including advancing our work around Equity inclusion academic

100uh success Etc so um there will be some big ticket policies that probably have to be changed with this because that just makes sense but it's going to be a process over a long term that we look for the policies that are also impacted here and sometimes that's going to be something obvious and sometimes it's going to be something where you're like well duh why didn't we tackle this earlier so you know and it's going to be a team effort if you encounter a policy that appears to not align the way that it should and believe me every now and then we run into a policy where it's like oh this was less touched in 2006 and you're like we don't even have that committee anymore um let the governance share whoever it might be

101in the future know about that so that work can be tackled as well um you know if we think that this is going to be something that is needfully going to impact every aspect of the school division that includes all of our policies and regulations thank you Carl thank you um she does but okay I'm gonna go with Dr Reed and then we'll come then we'll go to that third okay thank you Miss Keys come on there are two other points I want to make just to there's a I think at times we feel this sense of urgency around certain topics and I want to make sure that we're thoughtful about really taking this work deep as we do it um what I talked about yesterday about the difference between transformational and transactional is really

102important particularly in Big Ideas that become policy what we don't want is to rush a process to something we call cequity right where we create these checklists that we identify if we check the boxes then we are an equitable system or division so that's just a caution and the second point I wanted to make and thank you for the opportunity is I think while the policy is being developed in a thoughtful way we have to do what I call mind the gap it doesn't mean that in the interim we're not making progress or moving forward with looking at fees and parking and graduations and program all of that work is going to continue in you as we Mine The Gap so I want to be really clear that we're not going to wait until we

103have an approved policy to continue progress so those are just two points I want to make thank you thank you um okay so for our third round Miss okay she's second all right we're going to go to Dr Anderson and then miss darinette Colfax well given all the conversation I think I can check off a number of the things that I want to talk about and not raise but I'm very happy that you've just shared what you've just stated Dr Reed as well as Mr fresh because that's one of the things I wanted to highlight just because we want this to be comprehensive and fulsome does not mean we have to butt it all off at the same you know all at once because what that will do is Boggle us down completely and two

104years later this thing will still be in progress so I I appreciate the idea of chunking and catching up with the other policies because we can't do all one thousand the one thing that I really want to stress you all have heard this from me before and I think that was one of the first things that you've heard from me Dr Reed is this this scorecard does not reflect any of these conversations that we're currently having and I'd like to see a space for that to be embedded and it just so happens that it happens to be sitting in front of us today so this is the other thing that I'd like to elevate what gets measured gets done by looking at this I have never felt that we're measuring the right things and most

105importantly some of the things that we do measure I don't see what happens after the fact so what we've gathered that data so what I am much more interested in yes 99 you know percent of our kids don't do this what are we going to do about it but most importantly in this conversation I want to embed how is this policy or the work that um Mr fresh already talked about that exists in this space how is this reflected on our scorecard how are we tracking that I think a couple of people mentioned the term accountability for me this is our accountability Factor this is how we evaluate you we even Gathering the right information so that's the other piece that I'd like to see raised as this work continues thank you and no more

106go backs for me thank you Dr Anderson uh I have next uh Ms darnak kofax I have a third go back and anybody else uh placard up or forever hold your peace for today so I um I I do want to say thank you Dr Reed and I just for verbalizing that you know the work that we are doing we will be parallel processing even as we take this deeper as we need to and I did want to just clarify um more um Miss McLaughlin when you talk about portrait of a graduate it did exist in several school systems we just needed to make it our own and that's that's how that went we may agree to disagree on that one but for me and my thoughts about how we best reach out whether you

107choose that process or some hybrid or one of your own and Dr Iva forgot that you were part of that too and you can speak to this to the team offline but for me the bigger the circle the more inclusive there's a greater sense of ownership for this policy and it's less controversial and that's what we need we need a sense of ownership we need part and you want to speak to that I I if I could just add it is one model of a way in which we did do a comprehensive engagement process and so I think we need to look at several models that we have used and then combine or decide what would be the best way to engage our current public to make sure we are in gathering information from all

108stakeholder groups and as we said Earth earlier pulling in and making sure that all voices are heard and so we certainly will will go in the archives and pull up that information and those of us that have been around a long time dig deep to remember that process so thank you for that and I do appreciate it because that that's what needs to happen those people who we haven't reached who will be greatly impacted in a positive way by this we need to bring them to the table I think if I could second Dr Ivey's comments we want to model in this development the way we would like the policy to operate thank you so um before I turn it over to miss McLaughlin I just I don't think we have a disagreement you asked

109for access to our um advisory groups does anybody is everybody okay with that I just want to get that question answered okay it looks like we're good with that you have your answer this is McLaughlin yeah I think there's a universal agreement on the commitment to this work my my concern again is that we have heard from our employees we have heard from central office we've heard from our community we are trying to still recover from the post pandemic impacts and a lot of this conversation I'm I'm a little concerned that the reason we created The One Fairfax policy and Dr King in our meeting manager meeting Iona we talked about this the definition that we're going to be including in our work for the equity policy is drawn directly from the One Fairfax policy

110so Ms kofax where I'm getting concerned is we as a community both the board supervisors and the school board did so much Community engagement on the One Fairfax policy because it is about Equity work and so I don't want to cause the community that is already so anxious to say what are we doing about student learning loss what are we doing about over you know overwhelmed staff workloads and then suddenly this becomes like this other gigantic thing and it's really not this is a policy that is building from the One Fairfax policy and our strategic plan commitments which are only four primary goals so I really look forward to us kind of sitting a little bit on this but where I wanted to put an emphasis on number one Ms Corbett Sanders you you sang

111the words I wanted to say it's all about the project management so I think that might help us all as a board and understand how the superintendent is taking this feedback and our commitment to it and what does the project management look like um I'm not against looking at ongoing work like Dr Ivey talked about and Miss Darna Koufax but we do have the skipped policy that does this work all the time um and finally I just want to say that Community Schools Community Schools if we're really about Equity that is one of the primary ways as a K-12 system can look at removing barriers and equity for all is your wraparound services that that go into our our communities of need so that was my go back one second we have I can't tell

112who put theirs up next but I do we some of this we're just going to have to have discussion on I don't think we've had great discussion about Community Schools Dr Dr King I'm actually going to turn the meeting over to Ms McLaughlin then we have um um to people who want to speak Miss Corbett Sanders and Miss pokarski but we'll start with uh Dr King and I'm sorry I'm gonna have to excuse me and we do agree with you on project management that our new project manager Alicia Martinez is sitting in the back of the room I'd like to introduce her as well so she's new to our team so so we're on that and um also I wanted to remind you that we'd like a date that the board would like a draft

113back by as well that would be helpful and the two things that you wanted from that we wanted from you I would also mention that Dr Martinez is helping us with the project plan for the trust policy implementation and we know we're due to communicate back with the school board mid-august or we'll be ready to do that okay I'm going to leave the date with the chairs um and um so thank you Miss McLaughlin okay uh I I'm going to call on Miss Corbett Sanders and then miss bakarski for their third go backs but I do want to clarify just because I said Community Schools did mean I was saying we green lit them that's a whole other work that we continue to do I was citing as an example of equity and I love

114that juxtaposition because the community school actually connotes that the school is in the community in which it serves so I would be all about Community Schools if they were in their own communities um the so I look forward to a further discussion about that the question though about why we need further or robust Community engagement on this is I think really driven by two things one and I appreciate all of the excellent work that the skip does but this board actually the script isn't a decision-making body it's not supposed to be it's a policy body that is supposed to come back and engage the board and so I would urge that we need to have more engagement about what happens in skipped so that the whole board is aware of it um because when skip

115started it was really focused on Early Childhood it now has broadened beyond that so um at least that's my understanding and you certainly know more than I do miss McLaughlin because you've been on it from the very beginning but I would suggest that we do need to have a robust Community engagement about this I love you you know that you are going to pick up with a project management plan and as far as a date I would encourage that the chair and vice chair work with Dr Reed to kind of put together what makes sense for given the overall board schedule so I would welcome that and on Community Schools I know there's a passion about it but I think that there is a bit of a cognitive inconsistency that the very first community school

116in Fairfax County serves a school in which not a single person who lives in the community goes to that school but rather that everybody since 1985 has been bused into that school so I am a little bit I have a different perspective on Community Schools and I would urge that we have a broader discussion on that uh just for the public and for the board I do want to make sure there's real Clarity here Fairfax County Schools currently has three Community Schools you are correct that one of them selected not by this board but selected by Community organization anointed and done is not in a community the other two community schools are in their communities and there's a difference between what a community school does and how we implement it and I I think you

117and I aren't in disagreement on the value of Community Schools the concerns are how we placed them and how we do that better going forward but I I don't want to create confusion about Community Schools as a value go ahead Dr Presidio I could just since Community Schools has entered the dialogue I just want to remind really the community that the board had a work session back in the spring late winter spring on Community Schools and there were some very specific questions and requests for more information so staff has been working really hard to conduct essentially a mini program evaluation we did a extensive stakeholder Outreach surveys to all of the communities in the three schools where we have Community Schools we've done focus groups interviews we're in the process of synthesizing that information bringing

118it back whenever the board is ready to re-engage in the discussion about Community Schools to look at and answer some of the questions that the board had about the framework for Community Schools the site selection process the management structure so that we can continue as Miss McLaughlin has said really moving forward and leveraging the vehicle of community schools to provide some of the wrap around services that we know really are centered in this Equity policy conversation that we've been having today that need to happen to remove many of those barriers that a lot of our students and families have so we look forward with re-engagement on the Community Schools initiative probably later this fall or whenever the board schedules that for a future work session Studio I have Miss prakarski thank you maybe I'll help

119prop us up with this um I just I heard what you said about being mindful about where we are and about the learning loss and I totally agree and I just wanted to share my perspective I think that work is exactly this work I I don't see them as separate I don't see it as taking up time we have to do this specifically because of the pandemic we need the needs assessment we need to be robust in our stakeholder engagement because we need to hear from families because we have changed the environment has changed what kids need where kids are their barriers to success to academic achievement have changed because of the pandemic um so I just I wanted to kind of offer that perspective uh that this really is about addressing that pandemic loss

120and what our students need to be successful going forward it's about academic success to me at least the way I look at that so certainly I do want to share as meeting managers one of the things we talked about with Dr King is everything that Ms bakarski said is absolutely true that is not where even my remarks were centered in my remarks were centered in and I really wish we kept the slide in where it showed the umbrella of this work the umbrella of this work of having the equity policy is that it is interconnected with our strategic plan is interconnected with the the One Fairfax policy that this board and the board supervisors each individually took out to their communities and engaged extensively and so I feel like that's the part that I was

121trying to visually knit together for all of you as the meeting managers that we're not creating an equity policy as if nothing else exists the the One Fairfax policy really has been the driving force of our work and equity and that's where I was saying I don't think we have to go and recreate the work that we did in one Fairfax because I do believe our community is going to say didn't we already do a lot of this dialogue so I don't think anyone around this table questions how much I always emphasize Community engagement I just really will rely on Dr Reed her cabinet and her leadership team to let us know again what is it that when we draw on the work that has been done to date in the One Fairfax and its

122commitment and focus and direction from this board to equity how does the equity policy tie in and set the work and the project management in that component and Dr King I'm going to just call you out to close this out I thought what I was seeing and hearing from you is a relief that we are not trying to go back and redo all the work we did in one Fairfax policy development because the work does need to keep moving forward in so many ways but to Ms pokarski at no time was I trying to imply that this is an important work or that we have to secondary this I know student achievement and learning loss is tied to all of us I agree uh One Fairfax compels us to go deeper and that's what this

123discussion is doing right we're going deeper and it it also the words right out of the policy says for us to write policies that in implore that we go deeper I think that this has been a fruitful conversation we've taken all your feedback in just like we did with the two by twos right we're listening we're hearing and we're modeling how we're going to move forward in the development of this policy as we engage all stakeholder groups so we want to thank you for your time today we're excited about this journey that we're going to take and we need you to stay connected with us so that we get it right thank you thank you I'm Dr Reed um we are going to be wrapping up it appears 25 minutes ahead of a schedule again

124bored wow look at that [Music] um I I do want to credit the two by twos I I think the two by twos were I'd love to take credit but unfortunately no no I think that I think the two by twos as time as that was six hours of Staff time to meet with 12 board members but I think those six hours made this a very productive there was a more conversation among board members because we did the Q a in advance with staff so with that um I'm calling on Dr Reed if there's any final words you want to share if not then I'm going to actually pivot over to our chair because I do not have the power Authority or desire to decide what to do um and this might involve Dr Reed

125but um do we take a longer lunch do we go ahead and say we just took we're just going to start earlier and the public needs to understand that and is Staff going to be ready because we were we're scheduled to have a half hour lunch is Staff going to be ready to go ahead and start at 105 versus 1 30. I'll have to follow up with staff to to make sure that everyone is on uh and ready to go available at 1 30. it's a 105 versus 130 at 105 right yeah I'll see what we are where we are Okay so okay I yep my suggestion would be maybe to start a few minutes earlier I don't want to start a half an hour earlier because these are published times the public does see

126it they may have interest they're going to log on to to watch us and yeah I like that idea yeah we started the episode 10 minutes ahead so all right everybody you just earned it till 1 15. thank you manager today so before we get started I wanted to just make sure my colleagues understood that per the manager prerogative uh how we're going to approach today this afternoon is we're going to have the goal 3 report presented first then board members will get to ask their round of questions then we will move on to goal four uh the purpose of that is that too often since we keep ourselves to three minutes I don't know how you can comment in three minutes across two goal reports so we're gonna need to be tight I would

127ask board members that um your focus ideally if we want to stay tight and be able to do both of these within an hour each is try not to ask lots of Staff questions Reserve those if you need to one-on-one because where we lose time is every time you ask a question and staff responds we fall further behind so ideally use your three minutes to share with us and Dr Reed your takeaways from the goal reports and then we can always follow up with individual emails and questions so with that I'm going to lob this over to our chief operating officer Marty Smith to do introductions and begin the work session and this one is starting with Goal three okay thank you Miss McLaughlin good afternoon everyone I trust you all had a good lunch

128I I want to before I I introduce the team here to go through our goals three and four reports I I do want to remind the board in the community that the information that we're going to be sharing is a bit dated and so it's important for the board to understand that as I was listening to previous work session the the day is Rife with opportunities for the board and the community and so as you think about what the strategic planning process might look like moving forward we note that Dr Anderson talked about the Strategic plan scorecard that's before you and there may be some metrics and data points there that aren't a part of these presentations there'll be opportunities for the board to think about what it is that we aren't covering in these

129reports that it's important for you to know you to provide input on and for the community to know so I use that to set up the the fact that our data is from the 2021 school year we've used that quite a bit to inform our practices over time and we also know that we were faced with many challenges in this past school year where we had to create new things out of whole cloth for our employees and also specifically related to our resource stewardship we know that in the future again there will be opportunities for us to to work collaboratively with collaboratively with the board as we think about where we need to go with our goal reports and so I do want to start today by introducing this August panel that we have before

130us we have Dr Sherry Wilson who is our assistant superintendent for human resources we have Sean McDonald who are executive director for talent acquisition and management and former interim superintendent for human resources lady hirudu is our director for the office of research and strategic Improvement for our goal for and resource stewardship we have Alice wigginton who is our executive director for Budget Services we have also part of goal four today Brian Schuster who is our executive director for facilities our acting acting director for facilities planning and then you get uh kind of little old me here as c-o-o but again it's important to note that we have used many of these data points to to impact the work of this past school year another thing for the board to consider moving forward as we think

131about these look backs I know that there are opportunities for the board to get real-time updates from uh staff regarding the work and so moving forward there could be opportunities for those real-time type updates and so it's possible that there will be questions about some of the work that has happened this past year but we do also again want to remind you and I'll say it one more time that this is a look back from almost two years ago and with that I'm going to turn things over to miss haruda and she's going to walk us through our goal 3 report so thank you Mr Smith and good afternoon as um Mr Smith mentioned we're here today to talk about the goal for three report and this is a look back the link that is

132in this slide will get you to the narrative report that provides a lot more details about all of the performance that we'll be talking about as well as information about the actions and related costs for the actions during fiscal 21. now when we take a look at what we'll be going through we'll provide you I'll provide you with a little bit of background information in particular these reports are really intended to provide the school board with information to inform your policy and budgetary decisions and they also provide transparency for the public on progress at the school school division has made on its strategic plan again this will be covering what happened in fiscal 21 which was quite a bit ago but the responses that you'll hear from the Departments are more recent and we'll update

133information that took place over the last year as well as looking forward into the future the reports are structured where I'll start off just by talking a little bit about school board actions what the school board has done recently that helps support the different goals that we'll be covering today then we'll go through the metric performance or how FCPS actually performed during fiscal 21 talk about the related strategic actions FCPS undertook and then the key takeaways or conclusions that can be drawn from the information from that year then I will go ahead and turn it over to the Departments for a response and then finally Dr Reed will provide some information or some discussion of the outgoing superintendent's recommendations and sort of looking for that's just a reminder the two desired outcomes for this goal

134are on this slide one is our exceptional employees outcome which focuses on recruitment hiring and retention and then our second is about Market competitive compensation here's a list of some of the actions that the school board took or undertook um related to this a lot of these have to do with things like providing Market scale adjustments in fiscal 22 as well as in fiscal 23 and step increases in fiscal 23 so approving those in the budget advocating around competitive compensation and continuing our study from further market comparators and then prioritizing efforts to ensure that we have a diversity in our staff and again these are only highlights in terms of some of the options the school board did that support Premier Workforce looking across our metrics and our aspirations the bullets on the slide talk

135about the aspirations and the metric performance is really a summary in the table that discusses how we did during fiscal 21 you'll see that we met exceeded three of the target metrics we made progress on two of them and then there was no progress made on one of them moving on into some details related to that metric performance I'm going to focus on two in particular which is the third and the fourth bullet you'll see that each of these statements on here is followed by a page number so if you want more information related to the statements that are on here in the metric performance that would be found at the pages in The Narrative report that was linked earlier so in terms of the third bullet you can see that FCPS made progress in

136the Recruitment and hiring of both ethnic and gender diverse teacher applicants I will show you slide in a minute that shows a little more details on that progress and then in addition FCPS made the target for retention of our teachers our administrators and our operational staff with well over 90 percent retention rates for the school division during that fiscal year and that compares with the national average of about 85 percent which is lower so now in terms of the more specific information around the diversity of our higher teachers on this slide we'll show you that information if you look at the left chart or the chart on the left in blue it displays the racial and ethnic diversity of our teachers hired from our Baseline years which was 2015 16 and 17 through to our

137fiscal 21 data that's being reported on here and you can see that the height of the column for fiscal 21 which is the column at the right of the blue chart is higher than it was in all the prior years and that percentage has risen seven percentage points to 27 percent of our hires being Asian Black Or Hispanic and that compares to 20 percent when we were at Baseline and within each column you can also see subdivided the percent of hires who were Asian which is in light blue black who were in dark blue or Hispanic who were in Gray and you can see that each of those has also grown or grew in fiscal year 21 as well showing that we showed extended diversity in all of those physical in all of those racial

138ethnic groups now on the right you see similar information regarding our gender diversity in particular this is highlighting our the percentage of males who were hired and that was a pretty steady 15 percent for most of the years that we've been covering this and in fiscal 21 you saw that we saw that improve to 18 percent so what did FCPS do to try to support this progress that was seen and the performance that was discussed this slide describes all of the Strategic actions that were identified by our human resources department as important to that performance again the page numbers that are listed are places where you can go for more information to describe the action and there are also there's also cost information on in the narrative report and return on investment information associated with

139each of those actions now the intent of this information is to learn from what was done during fiscal year 21 and take the successes forward so FCPS can make further improvements over time and to highlight a few of the listed actions under exceptional employees you can see in the second bullet that FCPS continued to expand its grow your own efforts and in particular this was the first year fiscal 21 was the first year in which FCPS was able to offer contracts to students who had participated in this program while they were FCPS students and FCPS awarded 32 contracts to former FCPS students who were hired to come back through the back to Fairfax program also looking at the sixth and the seventh bullet FCPS also focused on expanding its diversity initiatives and two things in

140particular that are highlighted on this slide supported that the first was the diversity and Recruitment and Retention administrator that was a new position that to support that work and then the second was revision of the fcps's instructional hiring framework that helps principals and school-based staff go through the process of hiring and this had been updated to provide use and refined use of fair and consistent practices across the entire Division and these actions help support a reduction in the number of FCPS students without a teacher who self-identified as black from 22 to 3 during fiscal year 21. now in terms of Market competitive compensation you can see that FCPS expanded the use of its routine Market study efforts and that was in supported by some software that they took on and in time in fact they

141were able to conduct 16 times more studies in the fiscal 21 they than they had in the prior year and that that increased Pace provided HR with h important information about the market that to help gauge fcps's competitiveness when it comes to compensation what is the performance and reflection on fiscal year 21 actions mean for exceptional employees whoops for for exceptional employees first the national and Regional teacher shortage it's something that we've talked about every year when we've come in terms of the impact that it has and it's a real and a difficult challenge for fcaps to overcome as it's true for other school divisions FCPS saw its lowest number of applicants per open teaching position this year and that was even with much increased time and focus on efforts related to recruiting teachers and

142FCPS may need to tackle the workforce changes and the expectations of current applicants more extensively to sufficiently counter the trends additionally in the second and third bullet the concerted efforts that HR and FCPS made to increase diversity did pay off and we saw are seeing a positive impact of that as described earlier now the extensive and intentional work on both of those fronts in terms of recruiting and hiring should continue to be funded but even with that these successes that we're seeing FCPS should continue to explore new actions to reach its strategic aims additionally when it comes to staff retention staff retention remained High during fiscal year 21 but FCPS may want to explore may want to explore why staff chose to stay long with why staff choose to leave so we do gather information

143on reason staff leave but it's just as important to understand why staff choose to stay and potentially use that in guiding actions designed to retain employees and also guide actions potentially on recruiting employees and then lastly when it comes to Market competitive compensation FCPS continued its Market competitive compensation efforts and continued to make sure that compensation stay between 95 and 105 percent moving forward that compensation and making sure we stay there in FCPS budgets will be needed to continue to support fcps's ability to hire and retain exceptional employees and with that I will go ahead and turn it over to Mr McDonald who will provide some information about what's happened since then and also planning for the future thank you Miss saruto uh good afternoon I thank you for the opportunity to highlight some of

144the great work happening in the department of human resources to recruit hire and retain a premier Workforce first I would like to thank my colleagues on the HR team for the dedicated effort to support our FCPS employees during this reporting period this outstanding group of employees work diligently to balance the recurring needs of the organization while continuing to adapt to emerging needs resulting from the coveted pandemic I would also like to think take a moment to thank and acknowledge the human resources advisory committee who continue to be great thought Partners in our Recruitment and Retention efforts reflecting on the data and Analysis outlined in the narrative I would like to speak about our ongoing efforts to recruit exceptional teachers who directly support the needs of our students like other school divisions across the Commonwealth FCPS

145continues to feel the impact of the Nationwide teacher shortage which has been exacerbated especially during this current year by the phenomenon known as the great resignation as evidenced in the data in appendix a of the narrative we continue to see a negative trend line in the average number of qualified teacher applicants per teaching vacancy recruiting graduates from teacher prep programs continues to be an important part of our recruitment strategy but in addition to attending college-sponsored job fairs our team continues our efforts to engage college students earlier in their programs of study through events such as resume feedback sessions mock interviews and guest speaking opportunities with a specific focus on supporting our University Partners such as Howard University George Mason University Virginia state James Madison and Bowie State University we also like to uh we also

146look to extend rather early offers of employment especially special education a critical teaching need area and we have focused on ensuring that we're offering special education teacher contracts on a year-round basis however over the past several years we have adapted to the realities of an imbalanced job market and one which people of color are underrepresented in the teacher preparation programs by working to build out our own Talent pipelines Fairfax County's greatest diversity is reflected in our student population as Educators we have the prime opportunity to be great ambassadors and get young people excited about the possibilities of a career in public education research shows that all students benefit from access to teachers of color while we have made gains in diversifying our Workforce as outlined by Miss haruda and the diversity of our teacher hires

147at the same time outpace the diversity of candidates graduating for from Virginia teacher prep programs we continue to see underrepresentation of male candidates and candidates of color when compared with the Fairfax County resident data recognizing that there's a dearthy teacher candidates of color graduating from teacher prep programs underscores the importance of growing our own candidates tapping into the rich diversity of our community I'd like to highlight just a few of the steps that we've taken to build out our talent Pipelines each fall we host a back back to Fairfax event which is geared at bringing Fairfax County current students and graduates of our schools together to learn about careers with FCPS the focus of our fall event is around the teaching profession and the focus of our spring event is around operational And Trades careers

148attendees have had the opportunity to engage with current staff from a wide variety of offices and learn about what FCPS offers as an employer and learn about and also to learn about job search skills such as resume writing and interviewing also working in collaboration with the office of College counseling and career Readiness HR has continued to expand our effort to engage students and our teachers for tomorrow program about future employment opportunities as Miss haruda noted during our reporting period 36 students were offered as part of the teacher completion of the teachers for tomorrow program an opportunity to return to Fairfax as a future teacher recognizing that like the teacher shortage there is a growing shortage of Trades professionals FCPS established a trades for tomorrow program I'm happy to report that we currently have eight FCPS

149graduates and this was a couple months ago enrolled in the FCPS adult and Community Education apprenticeship that's an increase over last reporting period each hoping to return to FCPS to work in the electrical or HVAC fields we hope to increase our apprenticeship enrollment numbers through the continuation of our targeted Outreach we continue to take a more proactive approach in helping members of the community understand how to transition from their current career into the teaching field our HR our team has established a bi-annual career switcher night which members of the community can attend and learn about and meet with representatives from the Virginia approved career switcher programs to include our troops for teachers program our career switcher events average over 100 attendees we also continue to focus on engaging with Community organizations with the impact of

150the pandemic the primary focus was on visibility at virtual events and job fairs during the reporting period FCPS participated in the Dar Al jazur spring into work job fair the Alfred Street Baptist Church HBCU Fest and the Uso Metro employment event recognizing that each of our schools are at different places in their staff diversity journey across the departmental diverse hiring team was formed to support schools identified for targeted intervention around recruiting and hiring this collaborative team included staff from the equity office the office of professional learning and family engagement and human resources after analyzing hiring data this team helped develop the professional development and supported implementation of structures for coaching and school hiring during the reported reporting period supports were provided to 22 identified schools supports included weekly are bi-weekly coaching sessions with principals support

151and sourcing candidates through our applicant tracking system communicating the supports to our region offices professional development supports for schools and access to a Google website updated weekly focusing on Equity learning sample interview questions opportunities for Recruitment and more FCPS employee recognition programs celebrate the contributions and I'm sorry it celebrates the contributions in service of our FCPS Workforce which is intended to foster a work environment of high staff morale and focus on the FCPS mission throughout the fiscal year 21 reporting period FCPS issued service Awards to 5140 employees retirement recognition Awards to 910 employees monthly care recognitions to 2279 employees outstanding employee recognitions to 732 employees an outstanding employee division level winner Awards to 13 employees as the board continues to prioritize employee compensation in order to maintain Market competitive pay our our classification and compensation

152team housed in our office of benefit services conducts annual benchmarking to include wavy participants other large U.S large school districts local government and other local uh agencies and businesses the market used for the reviews depends on the position and a review and available accurate job matches of note our employees enrolled in the Virginia retirement system plan are also enrolled in the supplemental local plan erfc erfc provides a path to compensate employees for long-term service to support the attainment of financial Independence in alignment with fcps's effort to continue to recruit and retain high quality employees according to our erfc office the benefit has the present value of receiving an extra between 4047 and 47.29 per year assuming that the employees invested in uh invested in every year at 5.2 percent for 30 years and then collect

153an annuity payment FCPS uh positioned itself well in FY 22 to attain the goal of maintaining pay scales within the 95 to 105 of Market pay the HR team will continue to monitor market conditions and I'd like to turn things over to Dr Wilson who will provide a few final comments thank you Mr McDonald we are fortunate to have a position in the talent acquisition and management office which is dedicated to ensuring the diversification of our Workforce in that we are already seeing as you can see a positive impact through a more intentional approach to Recruitment and hiring moving towards the future you will see a formal approach to our work surrounding diversity through a diversity plan developed for implementation over the next few years to ensure that we're strategic and intentional in our our

154recruitment of a Workforce that is reflective of all who make up the Fairfax County Schools community and while we're doing this simple important work we have to ensure that those who are hiring that we are hiring to make up this diverse Workforce or we are going to have to do the work that's necessary to retain all employees through Market competitiveness and the total rewards which are a combination of benefits compensation and rewards that are afforded our employees I am definitely excited to be a part of this work moving forward and excited about the opportunities that lie ahead of us and at this time Dr Reed will provide additional comments thank you Dr Wilson um I think this is to the outgoing superintendent recommendation so um Marty Smith and I were going to tag team this

155a little bit so Marty if you want to take the beginning and then I'll just finish it up by talking just a minute about um where our meeting we had this morning just about our Uh current energy around HR and hiring at this time sure uh and so I think that as we look at these outgoing recommendations we talked about nuggets earlier and so uh we'll we want to further engage our employee groups uh in conversations around hiring retention practices and I know that we'll have opportunities to do that as we engage in in collective bargaining so getting more information will be important for us moving forward exploring those additional pipelines and career ladders to support recruitment of student current staff and community members into critical need positions Sean talked a little bit about that

156specifically with our career change uh events and and helping get some of those important volunteers who work in our schools and who have the ability to teach in front of our students and also to think about possibly reconsidering the metric that we've been looking at with the percent of qualified students as it relates to the residents of Fairfax County to thinking about the percent of qualified students coming out of our teaching programs to ensure that we're tapping into those students coming out of our the diversity coming out of those teaching programs and bringing those students here to Fairfax County and then some budget considerations we know that the board in this last budget did expand funding for our Department of Human Resources specifically around Recruitment and so certainly continuing to expand funding for recruitment initiatives

157especially those that support diversifying our teaching Corps will be important for us moving forward also note that we're going to continue to conduct those cyclical reviews that Mr McDonald talked about for Market comparisons and prioritize those competitive salaries to attract and retain our employees and so it will be important for this to board this board to again uh think about those Market scale adjustments moving forward so that we can recruit and retain those employees and then I'll turn it over to Dr Reed to talk about some of the conversations that we had with the leadership team this morning thank you it's uh one of the I think the I spoke at the very end Dr Ivey and I kind of had a moment so I spoke at the very end which really is around the

158world is changing that's changing all around us and we're going to have to change some of our practices to not just meet those changes but to be on The Cutting Edge and leading you know being part of the leading indicator work so it was uh really impressive this morning to me to see the leadership team come together to work on resolving What's um I think a real challenge right now which is going to be fully Staffing our schools for the fall so I'd like to ask Dr Wilson just to share some of the ideas that we have come up with because it's all hands on deck right now and the Fairfax leadership family or that branch of the family at this time so Dr Wilson you want to share just a few of those I

159think we'd be remiss in not sharing our current reality just a little bit thank you Dr Reed um we did have some really good conversation this morning so one of the things that we're looking forward to we have a job fair that's coming up at July 20th and so we are in the process of advertising that widely but we are encouraging all of our schools to participate we want 100 participation as we are definitely in need of any and all uh candidate who is seeking employment in one of our teaching vacancies so so that's first and foremost we're using an all hands on deck approach so we're requesting our um our school administrators to pitch in and to attend those events but also assist us in our office and addressing some of the the backlog

160that we have right now and as you can imagine with the pandemic it's brought about many unusual circumstances so we're dealing with a little bit of a backlog in our office at this point so we're requesting volunteers to come in and assist us in taking care of that so that we can have access to everyone that is within our pool at this time we're also going to be implementing early not early contracts but just contracts to all who are who who have the correct credentials and so we will be doing using those contracts and offering them out at those hiring events that we have between now and the time school starts and we're going to be moving towards a more centralized approach where we'll be able to as a department be able to work alongside

161our principles and hire widely again alongside our principles to make sure that we are able to source and hire a wider pool of applicants so thank you Dr Wilson and I um it's a remarkably resourceful team so Dr Ivey you want to put a footnote on that and then uh yeah just a couple of other items that we discussed um we also discussed tapping a few retired administrators to come in and work with the administrative team I mean the HR team and I'm supporting you in the work of the summer for hiring staff in whatever ways they can be resourceful and additionally we know that we want to make sure that we have a qualified teacher in front of every classroom at the beginning of the year and so we are now looking at preparing

162a list of central office staff that would could be deployed if necessary to be ready to go into classrooms if they are needed so that they can be ready and to deploy if in fact we aren't able to fill the um a vacancy and we would be ready to tap those folks and to place into classrooms and to give those folks a chance to be to get ready and to prepare and so we'll be working on that list over the upcoming weeks and so that principles will know and that central office staff will know we of course will want to work first to find eligible people we also will look for long-term substitutes but in the event that we were not able to find you know a qualified person we want to have that contingency

163plan and we don't want to do it at the last minute so that's another plan that we're working on yeah thank you Dr Ivy and I think one of the keys that came up in the meeting is if we do need to deploy a number of current uh teachers perhaps on different assignments in the district office that the projects they're working on would have to be put on hold while they were in the classroom but I think our Priority One and I would the reason I wanted to raise that this afternoon as I would assume uh but I want to give voice uh that that would also be our Collective priority to make sure we have the best possible teacher in front of each student so it may come to pass we're planning for the

164worst case scenario hoping we won't need to implement that plan but should we need to we want to have plenty of lead time as well as an understanding that there may be some projects that are paused while the team is out actually doing Mission critical one which is being in the classroom so just wanted to make sure that was on everybody's radar and I just wanted to also share that as Dr Reed said this is a very different time in terms of hiring when I was hired in Fairfax County I got my call and immediately said yes and didn't ask about a whole lot of things because I was it as a lighthouse District you just came to Fairfax and so if you were getting an offer and so our HR staff they're now having

165to spend much more time with candidates who it's really a buyer's market for candidates and so they're asking about salary benefits we'll get back to you can you contact me in a week and so so that's a very different reality than we've had for some time than we've ever had in Fairfax where people feel that they have options and it's taking a bit longer for our individual HR staff to work with individuals to bring them along that's after the offer and after we've said that we want you to work for us we then have to figure out how to close that deal and that's taking more time for our staff so it is a very different world I just have one last thing that I think we could really use the elected boards assistance and

166support with one of the key reasons that the HR department reported hearing a concern around taking a job in Fairfax is the lack of affordable housing so I think as we work with our Board of Supervisors and other elected officials how to you know mitigate or resolve that that's creating an issue for our younger right out of school teachers who would like to be here but can't afford housing here so thank you and thank you Dr Reed um before I begin calling on board members Dr Reed if you or your team could maybe um provide a little more information these vacancies that we have right now how do they track with the last few years of our vacancies like what number are we talking about now um and you know because I I what I'm

167worried about is we're going to leave this work session and the public is going to think we have a hair and fire moment so sometimes when we talk in generalities it creates more concern so I I think if we can get a little more specific that would be great sure um who would like to be responsive to that I know we're both have a concern and a plan to address the concern so Marty so last year at this time we had around 520 or so uh vacancies and this year at this time we're at a bit above 830 vacancies and so we have seen an increase we were able to close that Gap last year to and the trend that we had been working on uh pre-pandemic and during the pandemic was trying to get

168our vacancies at the start of school under 100 and so we had been able to do that we were at about 188 vacancies last year and so we will be working diligently to ensure that we can make sure that we have if we do have vacancies that we still have a qualified teacher in front of all of our students at the beginning of the year so that puts some context into some of these numbers and has staff checked with the other waby schools to know if this is just specific to Fairfax again I'm trying to control the narrative of that we have a problem that nobody else in the Washington Metro has I I've in touch with colleagues in surrounding districts and they're all facing numbers that uh are are not as as great as

169we'd like to see them so everyone's up against the same concern with being able to recruit Talent so yes we're hearing from Prince William Loudon and others I I appreciate that and and while I do want to start calling on board members because I can't think of anything that's going to be more of a takeaway from this I I would ask you to speak to the line of questions I'm asking which is we either get very specific and very detailed about this specific thing or otherwise this is going to take on a life of its own and if we're not in isolation dealing with this and the way these schools are dealing with it we need to find out as much detail as we can so everybody understands this is a wavy Washington Metro Area

170challenge so thank you for the indulgences I am the sole person managing so uh I am going to start with Miss Marin because we will be losing you early and I wanted to make sure you had time to speak time check we do have another 30 minutes there's 11 of us to speak so I do hope we can focus on three minutes a piece to really uh hear your thoughts thank you thank you colleagues for that flexibility well I for one will not fret uh this aligns with what we've been talking about about planning the short term the long term I agree that the narrative's got to be clear and the facts have to be laid out this is you know our again our office of community and um Communications community relations the story is

171the job market is tough we've all been through a pandemic people are tired and public it has taken a beating um despite amazing work happening so I will not I will not be apologetic I hope you're not apologetic we've been doing the right things there's always more we can do I would like to see you know the short and long-term plan you know this is very similar to what we experienced during The Surge I think was earlier this year January or whenever all hands on deck that's fine um but can we see that you know written out as you know here is the the tiered plan um I also thinking back to our earlier conversations today and yesterday about policy um I'm thinking about the the programming you know at what point well I guess

172again this is where it's policy and program management when I hear single digit and double-digit numbers for Workforce Development programs that is absolutely not okay this is where the Board needs to exert the accountability so I would love to see a plan that says and maybe there's a policy that says if a program does not you know produce X number of you know graduates of that program or for X number of dollars what is going to happen because I've heard this happening in different Workforce Development programs and having you know eight trades people is just it's not going to cut it I also wonder about our procurement policies when it comes to the trades I have been thinking about you know I know we have this wonderful fate program in the house building but I've

173got Renovations that some of my schools could we not through our procurement policy have students doing Workforce Development work on our school grounds OSHA compliant and all the safety things I mean we need to think creatively Dr Reed you're saying we've got to change let we have thousands of students who could be teachers this is a double hitter win for us if we can recruit these these professionals to our system and finally as a board you know what what can we do to better be clear to our County and state representatives in this political climate um you know we've used words today like deploy and that reminds me of delegate David Reed's attempt to create sort of an ROTC based teacher training program that did not succeed in the general assembly but I've also you

174know even just highlighting a graduation and saying which one of our graduates not only are going to do national service we're going to do national service by being a teacher so there's all these different Avenues but um again so that could be long term what's the short term um you know um and and that course mapping Dr Reed that you've mentioned that gets our students in to teach for tomorrow what does that look like for this upcoming senior year how many classes would we have to have I've been to my class at Madison it's a handful of students how do we recruit 20 how do we double that number in every high school at least so this is my food for thought well done Miss Marin all all in three minutes time uh all right

175I have uh Miss Laura Jane Cohen followed by Karen Corbett Sanders followed by Mr Frisch thank you I'm just gonna pick up where Melanie left off um you know I I would argue maybe we need to have conversations about going back to state standards for our diplomas like stop doing this Advanced diploma and let kids go back to State people can raise their eyes but I'm just saying like we don't allow room in kids schedules to do that to do exactly what we're asking there is no room if you want to take what we expect in Fairfax County yet when you call a school like VCU and say does my kid need to take four years of math because that's what I'm being told and they say no you three years is the requirement as

176long as they've had Algebra 2 you're so I think we need to re-examine that however maybe people will disagree with me but um I would say teachers for tomorrow I mean that's a frustration to me exactly what Melanie said that like it's such an amazing program and yet we've disincentivized because it's small classes Lake Braddock the biggest school people in the Commonwealth is not going to run a two level of teachers for tomorrow so like my own child who took it this year is not taking it next year because it's all the kids back and learning the same stuff with the one level kids so now you've disincentivized kids who loved it because they don't want to run an 18-person class so and we we disincentivize that I also don't know like for summer why

177are we not paying our teachers for tomorrow's kids and recruiting them to do participate create positions in soar esy for monitors paid employment where they continue being teachers um you know the monitor pipeline every principle I have has said that their monitors they have become IAS they've become it has been the best like farm team that we've ever had so continuing that making sure that we don't just give up on it next year when we're hopefully out of this mess but my concern is we have not talked about operational employees and I know that I have somehow become the queen of this conversation but our bus drivers are field custodians our attendance like where are we with that because we can build a beautiful school system and hire 800 teachers by the time school starts

178but if we can't get them to school we're screwed so can somebody speak to that so I I I'll I'll start with the bus driver piece because I know that's been an ongoing conversation amongst the board with with our teams here my understanding is that at this point we have successfully filled all of our driver training classes through the beginning of August so the incent the programs and incentives that we've put in place have driven more applicants and greater uh greater responsiveness to to our need and so we're very hopeful that that number is going to significantly improve over where it was last year when we talk about some of our other operational areas I mentioned that we do offer that trades or I'm sorry that back to Fairfax night where we offer current and

179and former FCPS students opportunities to learn about all of the operational roles within the division and so we do try and support the new needs across the organization and that we have a we have a great turnout for those programs our students get to learn about careers and transportation services I.T uh and and a variety of other areas but we We are continuing to hire we still have applicants for our roles uh uh that you mentioned uh but that's so beautifully said what are the numbers like for bus drivers in the fall so I don't have numbers in front of me to provide at this point but I I okay no no so right now we have a total of 159 vacant routes uh and we have OTS employees 943 school bus drivers operating 147

180bus routes per day and so we have about 159 vacant routes that gives you a sense of what we're working with we also know that uh our bus supervisors are pulled and again it's not optimal and that's what we're doing when we have all hands on deck but our bus supervisors are pulled uh to fill those vacant routes to ensure that our students can get to school in a timely manner and we can certainly provide some more updates to the board around those data in addition to the regular vacancy updates that we're providing the board in the Monday letter I would appreciate that because then when we don't have the supervisors then we don't have the fine track the meet the bus app working appropriately because people can't input all of that we don't know

181that somebody got left at X thing so it's great to backfill but then my understanding though is we're also like I had a bus driver tell me we've always allowed senior bus drivers to choose the bus so they get better buses and now we're discontinuing that this year is that accurate I don't have any information on that but I can certainly see if that has been a change in policy it hasn't made it my way I will appreciate I would appreciate that um I would also argue I'm definitely gonna need to go back but for looking in terms of our maintenance staff and our custodians we can't the market compensation are it's it's irrelevant here because now we're hiring against Amazon we're hiring against all of these other folks who are poaching our people um

182again I don't want to be a farm team for what's happening so we got to go outside of what our other systems doing we've got to look especially maintenance because there's just no I'll continue it sorry sorry okay uh Miss Cohen I do want to reframe for everybody though again only once a year we get these gold reports only once a year we get to comment on what information or scene staff are bringing to us are the metrics what you want them to be so I don't I know the urgency and the desire to start talking about how what's what's in front of us starting with day one of the school year but I do hope people will remember this is our one bite at the Apple right now with the goal reports so uh

183with that we will go to Ms Corbett Sanders Mr Frisch then Dr Anderson thank you Ms McLaughlin and you have actually spelled out one of the big issues which is we should be seeing our staffing reports more frequently than once a year um we saw early on that there were some challenges with Staffing for esy and we started getting a more frequent update in the Monday letters I would suggest that given the importance of this issue especially in being able to open effectively in August that this should be included on a weekly update of where we're at um I just back of the envelope we're talking about a five percent vacancy rate across the system that doesn't sound like it's not manageable but it's it's something we have to do I am actually more concerned

184about digging deeper and identifying areas where are there certain schools that have higher vacancy rates and it also drives to a climate issue in individual schools if there is a we have a vacancy rate but we don't get a report and we've talked about this uh Dr Wilson about the transferring in and out of schools because that is very important for people to understand what is happening in this in a school and whether the culture of working in that school support fully supports not only the academic success but um you know we know that there are three to succeed and one of those is a relationship with individual an individual in the building well if the building does a turnover every year than having that relationship built becomes more and more problematic now I want

185to go back to so I dug down deep now I'd like to go to the 10 000 foot level air Society for the greater part of over 25 years has denigrated the role of educators we are paying the price for that I believe that starting in Fairfax but frankly it should be a national movement which is in the same way that every time we see a service member serving in our community we should be thanking our teachers and our Educators and we need to up the ante in our Communications to be much more strategic about the important role Educators play in students lives in Student Success and in our economic ability our ability to have a well-functioning civil society and economic Society business so I would like for you all to kind of think and

186come back to us at some point with a proposal on how we can change that dialogue starting in Fairfax and building it Beyond because as many of you know I serve on a board of a school of education at the University level what we're dealing with here is not unique and I'm going to answer very quickly because I won't um Mr Smith you asked about whether we should change our metric to being what it is in the state of Virginia my concern is that there are other states that have better representation in their teacher prep programs so before we start changing our perspective on that I'd like to better understand how we can that Sanders was asking a question no no we can certainly look at that that was a metric that we looked at

187before looking at the programs where we had access to the data and so uh at the time we did have access to the data for our state schools but we could certainly look at the diversity of other teacher prep programs to ensure that those students who are coming out of those programs we can have access to those students and and recruit them here to Fairfax is Corbin Sanders go ahead and restate the questions that you wanted answered um first you know how do we look at at the building level where the vacancies are and whether we need to have targeted interventions for certain buildings and so we do have that data and we are working closely with our region offices we have the data broken down by school and so our regional offices are working

188very closely with those administrators uh and and helping them better understand what some of the issues might be within their buildings we know that people leave buildings for a variety of reasons with regard to the transfer process we know that affordable housing is one of those reasons one of those primary reasons why teachers may move from a building to to move possibly further out where it's less expensive to live but our region staff is working uh closely and we're actually providing updated data to the region offices as we speak so that they can have individual conversations with principals that's that the magisterial members who are going to get phone calls from constituents are going to need to have that data as well and then the other piece regarding the concept of how we can be

189more proactive in rebuilding the the importance the understanding in our community and in our society on the importance of educators I I wholeheartedly agree with you on that point I think that there are opportunities for us to tell the story and tell the story of teachers for many of us around this table who are teachers I think that it's important for individuals to know what that work is like and what we are doing and I know that we're working on engaging the community in different ways about the work that happens in Fairfax County so certainly I think that that the time is right for us to take hold of that narrative and and be responsible for what people know about what happens in schools just to add a little a little bit of maybe layered

190detail around some of the things that are currently happening and I I hear this idea that we need to go back and have a cross-departmental plan to really tackle this work in a meaningful way but I myself and another member of my team uh have been working on serving on a work group at the the state that's really focused on working to build out the teaching profession there is a subgroup that's working on identifying ways to market the teaching field and build back the trust and confidence in this role and how it's a it's a really rewarding profession and I think that the the Grassroots level in terms of the work that we're doing here as a division currently we do work with various stakeholder groups and and go out and meet with individuals be

191it going down to Fort Belvoir and having conversations with constituents there going to Affinity groups within our community and meeting with folks and really presenting about all the great aspects of the career in education and trying to again build that understanding and hopefully Drive folks to to consider applying and and being a part of a a great team and so it's a combination of that targeted approach and a more Global approach on on the role of a teacher thank you so much I do want to move along my colleagues and we had three people speak so far we've got we're about 10 minutes from our our deadline and I've got uh three on Deck Mr fresh Dr Anderson and then Elaine tolin thank you um I agree the sales pitch around teaching needs to change

192and the biggest place it needs to change is you know we talk about we can't pay you what you deserve you'll kind of get respect depending on who you talk to um and you know it won't be easy but you're gonna love the kids right that's not much of a sales pitch so we're working as a school system to to address those things and obviously we need support from all of our other colleagues in public service and the community around us so I very much appreciate Miss Corbett Sanders sentiments um when do we start telling our students about teach for tomorrow so I think that um it depends really on on what programs are established so we have a number of middle schools that have established an educator Rising program so there's an opportunity uh

193there I think if we are able to expand that program to really get the word out earlier for our students but beyond that uh I believe we're relying upon that transition time between middle and high school when students are learning about all the opportunities in terms of a course perspective to get involved I think we've already lost at that point you know so much has been direct to that kids by the time they get to high school about all the different options they have out there and we're conceding significant ground to not start that conversation as soon as they enter our buildings when many kids tell people that they want to be teachers right how do we reinforce that sentiment so I would very much as we have this conversation continue thinking about ways to

194do that looking at the goal three report it's encouraging to see our hiring Trends moving in the right direction but in the actual report itself looking at retention we're down in terms of retention year over year for Asian black Hispanic and white educators in 2021 one missing metric I think is the general progress so that nobody has to do the math in between right if we're hiring but we're losing faster than we're hiring then we're not actually improving the score right so in future reports I would very much appreciate having that data where do we stand with those two metrics combined um to that end um one of the things that I've heard from some principles is that they work very very hard to hire diverse employees and um and then those employees are you

195know lured away to other schools and then we turn around as a school system and say look we've improved our ratio of schools that don't have any teachers of color um but if we're just moving the puzzle pieces around you know I think that next time we have a conversation about that stat we need to know if that's because we've done a better job of hiring or we've done a better job of moving the pieces around um because it doesn't help anybody and when we talk about this I think it's important to underscore and I've only got a few seconds that this is about Student Success we know that when teachers look like the kids they're teaching those children are far more likely to graduate and pursue uh you know Advanced degrees and they're going

196to be more likely to be found uh for our gifted and talented program or Advanced academic programs so I want to go back thank you uh thank you Mr Frisch um Dr Anderson followed by Ms Tolan and then no one else has indicated being in the queue hopefully I can get all my things done one round I wanted to talk about the vacancies a little bit can you speak to the types of vacancies that exist um are they ell teachers special education teachers and if you can't speak to it could that be information that is provided sure I can speak to our greatest need areas for both elementary and middle and high special education is our number one need area followed by Esau and then at the elementary level it's our our gen Ed teachers

197and uh in our middle and high schools English social studies and PE our biggest content area needs at this point okay thank you I also want to Echo the sentiment to be provided this information by school because one of the things that I experienced is somebody who represents a lot of Title One schools it becomes a training ground they come in they get all the training and they leave so it's constantly doing it over and over and over again and one of the things that I raised to Dr Bray brand several months ago when we're having this conversation is how what can we put in place to actually have those teachers stay at those schools because the workload is more it's just more the issues and challenges are just that much more great so how

198do we incentivize those teachers remain and not just swap them around to maybe uh prop up the demographics of another school while we are not having the teachers that we need for our immediate students so I just wanted to raise that there um one of the things that you talked about was getting help to process um teachers I also wanted to hear about processing substitutes because that's always been a concern people are saying I've applied to be a substitute and it's been many months and we just went through it not too long ago in a very long way are we improving that process and that timeline anymore absolutely so we are uh there is no substitute that should be waiting more than a week's time from the time they submit their application to getting an

199invitation to be part of our orientation session we're running weekly information sessions for folks to learn about the process and being able to navigate the process successfully we are continuously working to reduce the uh the the numbers of questions that we're asking as part of the application process to reduce the time we will continue to collect the most pertinent and legally necessary information but we want to reduce that that time spent folks are their tension span is is going to be lost after a period of time and so we want to reduce that time we've also made the reference process much simpler for our substitutes by sending out automated forms to references so folks aren't having to collect letters with signatures and get those in so if folks are struggling with navigating the process they

200can reach out directly to our team Joanne Jackson is serving as our coordinator for that work group and she and her team stand ready to support folks and get them on board as quickly as possible we've we've hired 300 new substitutes in the past several weeks for next school year I know we continue to access those students who are in programs that may that are maybe education programs or even not that could be substitute teachers for us throughout the year yes absolutely okay thank you one of the things that I want to dig into a little bit is the superintendent recommendations here I hear what you all have talked about all hands on deck I I'm glad that there's an effort to at least address the issues but it will be best if we didn't

201have to go there because when all hands are on deck that means some of the work is not being done and so if we're digging into the superintendent recommendations that are really talking about the the pipeline the ladders so I'd like to speak about that a little bit starting with teach for tomorrow are we incentivizing those students once they leave us and they go into college to return to us and if so how are we doing that so right now our our primary incentive is providing students that complete the program uh either a contract to return as a teacher or individuals that complete the first half of the program a guaranteed opportunity for an interview for a teaching position upon completion of their program is there an opportunity to support you know college um through

202some sort of Grant just to help to assist them to know that we're here for you and we're going to be that deeply committed if we're in a national teacher shortage we're going to have to do things a lot differently than we've done before is there an opportunity to do what I've just shared Dr breed I think that there are always opportunities I think there are a number of ideas and Dr Anderson I think it's one of those things I'll review with staff and get back to you on I we're going to have to profoundly shift our thinking in how we do the work we do if we're going to meet the challenges that we're facing right now thank you and my next piece just continues around recruitment how do we recruit internationally because we

203have a national shortage but that's not necessarily the case elsewhere so we're not currently employing an international strategy that is one of the items that we did present as a longer term goal or solution that we'd like to begin working on and I'm so sorry if I missed it because I do know I missed part of the presentation so I I think there's some opportunities there for us to take advantage of I'd like to see that be fleshed out a little bit also on page 17 you talked about pipelines that are available can you speak to that a little bit and if you could please also connect it to what Dr braebrand had recommended some months ago which is a call me Mr program which would not only provide us with bodies to teach but

204the bodies that speak to the diversity that um colleges discuss Mr Frisch just discussed so um a focus on teachers specifically to to respond to this so ultimately we've talked a great deal about teachers for tomorrow so that is one of our our pipelines that we're utilizing we've established a partnership with James Madison University to help individuals become certified special education teachers it's a newer program that we've stood up and are working I believe there are 30 individuals that are enrolled as part of that that cohort we have an ongoing relationship in partnership with George Mason University to provide access to individuals who would like to enter the special education teaching field in order to complete the introduction introductory class and transition immediately into a special education role we have our um sorry I'm blanking

205now um what am I missing oh Longwood I think she said uh we have so yes we do we have a variety of Partnerships with colleges and universities there's a long list of those those were already existing right right what are we doing new in this space that we're in where we have such a climate those Partnerships are long-standing right and you know the back to Fairfax program is is another example of of of a pipeline that we've established um you know providing those contracts to to teachers uh or graduating seniors from our organization we have an individual that's been working to go out to colleges and universities to meet with students uh up and down the East Coast Corridor during the early parts of their programs to start building those relationships with with those

206potential future teachers and ensuring that they understand and know what Fairfax County Public Schools has to offer in the space in terms of employment and all the great benefits individuals will have as they are part of our our Fairfax County family it was one part of my question that was not addressed and with regard to call me mister we know that there were some questions from the board around data and so we're working uh to gather some of that National Data to review and we know that Dr Wilson is is familiar with the program and as we review that data and share that information with the board I I know that Dr Reed will also will have a recommendation for the placeholder the board placed in the upcoming budget for how to spend those recruitment

207dollars sure I'll take a go back yeah I appreciate that and I have something to say about our timing but uh Dr Anderson if your question wasn't answered just go ahead and clarify it so it can get answered it's kind of convoluted and I don't want to go into other spaces I'll take a go back okay so I had a board member approach me um about our time and uh because technically we should be moving into goal four now and uh only four board members have spoken and there's uh six of us still waiting in the queue I will say as a meeting manager this was carried over from another work session you might remember so it's been a while but when we were the meeting managers we expressed concern at that time that you

208can't do a goal report in one hour and have board members so I would ask for consensus support that we devote this time to goal three and that our chair and vice chair will go back and find goal four for a different day because I think we're going to lose more and more board members once we hit four o'clock and uh you know I I know that there's again I want to be respectful of the fact that there are still six people who haven't been able to speak at all and so board members unless you have an objection um first of all raise your hand if you have an objection Dr Anson you have an objection okay so without objection um with that yeah without objection then that is what we're gonna do um I

209would ask relevant staff senior staff to notify the goal four team that we will not be doing goal for um if they're not here already my apologies to the goal for staff who were here today but I do think that what what it's what I feared and where we are um we need we need to do the Justice to the work that's here so uh Ms omish we voted and proceeded but if you would have something burning you have to say please go ahead I mean I just have a question I I was just going to say I don't know if Dr Reed can chime in maybe only because this is like a look back right these are the reports of what we're approving based on the past and we're going to have to have

210these conversations anyway about our strategic plan and the goals and everything so I I just offer that for consideration we might end up having this conversation in a different venue either way but I'm happy to pull back speaking if we if that's you know in the works and I think it is right but but I don't want to take up more time yeah I I think we're going to proceed with what we did and then chairs can discuss what to do forward but I think in honoring all four goals I don't see how we do three of the goals and then just say goal four will come deal with it it's our budget so but we won't debate this right now we've decided we're doing goal three today thank you misunderstood that's fine yep no

211problem all right um I'd like to move with um I need to make sure we have Quorum still because uh so are we barely okay all right colleagues thank you um for Indulgence um I have MS tollen followed by Ms Sizemore Heiser and then MS omish thank you I want to thank you for the huge long list of creative ways you have reached out and tried to find people to work for Fairfax County I'm having said that I'm a huge fan of the grow your own programs whether it's for teachers or maintenance Personnel Etc and would really love to you know figure out how we can work on expanding those programs um particularly with you know we just had our end-of-year budget discussion uh yesterday but we realized that we're going to start talking about

212FY 24 momentarily um I really um want to back up what Laura Jane Cohen was saying you know let's really really look given the changes in the workforce at um you know what kinds of scale adjustments we might need to make and not just comparing ourselves to other school districts but to other Industries I have so many conversations out with the public where people are hiring you know Food Service people and they're hiring our people and you know that's who we're competing with or not competing with Montgomery County or Loudoun County so how do we really take a look at that that's just an example you know across various jobs that we really need to look at um that does get back to you you touched on it too during the presentation why are people

213leaving why are we losing people where are they going what industries are they going to I mean even a number of teachers I've heard stories they're not going to other teaching positions they are leaving the profession where are they going what are we competing with as far as other Industries um I I do want to perhaps look at more creative ways to attract career switchers I know you're doing a lot of that work already and I definitely support that um I mean this is a huge problem just an anecdotal story I heard from a friend of mine at vdoe you know each year in Virginia we've generally had you know a couple of hundred people and I'm not going to have the exact numbers take the Praxis exam for teaching mathematics this year we had

21465 people take that exam so you know that's just you know showing us on what the issues are big scale I did have a constituent talk to me a little bit about um retirement some of our people are very young when they're retiring if they you know started teaching you know right out of school so how do we retain those people how do we make sure even you know we have erfc how is that being managed so that they're not feeling like if they retire at 52 that they're losing money in their retirement system how do we Analyze That and take a look at that and make sure that we're taking advantage of those retirees and also very quickly um with the people that were bringing on board this summer what supports are we going

215to have in place for those teachers that are new they're maybe switching careers they're not our number one candidates honestly um our our resource teachers our subject area research teachers are coaches they need to be ready to help those people you know be successful in that classroom that they're going into this fall so I can share some numbers or at least some data in terms of where individuals are going uh we note that individuals who might be leaving Fairfax County are working with the federal government we know that we have major industries moving to town Amazon Boeing other major industries as we say that this just isn't a a teaching issue this is an operational issue and you have Finance analysts when you have HR professionals when you have every one of our operational jobs

216that can be held in in many of these organizations that are coming to the area it's important for us to be competitive in those areas right now our unemployment in Fairfax county is just above two percent so when you look at three percent across the state we're doing a great job in Fairfax to make sure that everyone has jobs but we also know that we often have more folks looking at teaching when unemployment rates are are higher we note that with teaching and with substantine as well so those are some challenges that we're facing in this current job market and really it's about finding people who have that love for uh the work we know that there are individuals who can make more on Etsy and and other online Ventures than they uh when they

217they weigh that against a commute and or working um in a face-to-face environment being able to work remotely those are all things that have impacted us with regard to our recruitment efforts in terms of our retirement and erfc we know that the executive director will be sharing some things with the annual report this year the the staff at erfc have done an amazing job of increasing awareness of that benefit and that second benefit we know that employees receive mailers on a regular basis talking about that second scoop you know you've got your one scoop for retirement and erfc is that scoop and explaining the importance of that benefit and so we'll continue Sean and I Mr McDonald and I are both Trustees for the Retirement Board and we're constantly working with uh that staff to

218increase awareness for erfc and I would say that in terms of that support our Great Beginnings team our coaches work very closely with all new teachers coming into the system and understanding that teachers come with you know varying degrees of skill and so working with them individually we know that principles assign mentors within buildings we also know that they're assigned a mentor to the Great Beginnings program so it's important for us to ensure that they have those supports and that scaffold to ensure that they're ready to go with students on the first day and I think did I get them all or you did I'll take a go back on the erfc thing because that's not exactly what I was talking about but oh okay do you want me to clarify now you can go

219right ahead we're on I wasn't necessarily talking about just awareness of erfc as a benefit which I totally understand that it was more how do we work with people who potentially are retiring to make sure you know you know this year in the budget for we added a step for people but you know how do we and I just had someone really this information to me how do we really look at the retirement programs to make sure people aren't thinking okay if I don't retire I'm going to ultimately lose money you know how do we make sure that our retirement programs are set up so if people get to that you know 25 years of service and they're like you know what whatever I'm not even 60 years old yet I want to keep teaching

220I love my job and so people often look at that we know that for erf seed and it depends on your plan so we've got different tiers for erfc and with some tiers you have individuals who when they hit retirement age for Social Security their erfc benefit drops for other individuals their erfc in the tier 2 I'm sorry tier one their benefit remains constant regardless of when they retire and so when I talk about raising awareness for erfc the staff is doing much a much better job at erfc of explaining those benefits to our employees so that they can make better decisions when it comes to retirement the thing that I like to tell folks is that as they get closer to retirement the longer you work you may not be receiving or you may

221not be realizing that full benefit before if you're in the legacy plan before your benefit drops but you're going to pick up more money on the vrs side so you're you're going to continue to pay into vrs even though you might be reducing your number of years that you can draw on the error of C so those are the kinds of conversations that the erfc staff are having with employees as they reach out and and and work very closely with those individual retirement counselors all right great I just want to make sure those people are incentivized to stay with us yes that that is when you look at the one of the the main goals in the erfc Strategic plan it's to focus on the value add of that additional retirement plan as a recruitment

222tool and a retention tool thank you um moving on Ms seitzer Heiser followed by Ms omish and then MS perkarski thank you I just first wanted to lift up what Laura Jane started to talk about in terms of our own ingrown programs right there is a lot of variables that make it difficult everywhere from my understanding is that our staffing our enrollment numbers for electives have gone up over the last 10 years I believe from 25 to 32 so principals having to run that elective section need 32 which makes it really and again I would need to be confirmed that's my understanding so that's something to look at is what are we Staffing are some of our classes at I think impacts teachers for tomorrow um and that also impacts what Miss Cohen talked about

223with the leveling right if you have to stop at 32 you may not be able to offer the different levels that you may want to um I'd love to see some return on investment on the back to Fairfax I think it's a great program but I'm just kind of curious now that you've done it sort of How It's Working what our investment return is um and I wanted to lift up you know in the report you had here you talked a little bit about um our diverse hiring right and there's some stats about our um we're 100 with our percentage of diverse applicants and diverse hiring but what I would like to dig into a little bit more is the goal is really around making sure that our admin staff and our teachers reflect the

224the diversity of our Multicultural community and when we look at some of the numbers in this report there's there's quite a bit disparity there so I'm kind of curious when you talk about partner schools for recruitments I also see there's there's not a lot of applicants and I'm speaking specifically of our Asian and Hispanic Educators and admins if the numbers are significantly different than our than in our community right and I know this is the recruitment numbers are low so when you're looking at partner organizations I know you mentioned hvcus which is great you mentioned our job fair but are you what's the work to Target to to Target recruitment um and partnership to grow Asian and Hispanic Educators because there's a huge gap here so first I'd I'd like to say you know thank

225you to the board as part of the FY 23 budget we are able to grow our recruiting team by two individuals and part of that work is is really going to be centered around exactly what you're getting at Miss Sizemore hyzer and that is growing our Partnerships so we have memorandum of understanding with a large number of universities but the degree to which we're engaging with them varies and so we need to work to engage these new folks and being able to build out the same levels of Engagement across the board so I would say some of our local universities were much better at having much more robust engagement with but some of the minority serving institutions across the country where we know we're going to find more Hispanic Educators and more Asian educators are

226a little bit beyond our metro area and so we need to be able to have the staff in place to be able to provide those those same levels of support so in the pipeline in the plan especially utilizing those two new staff great and I guess I would also look as you're looking for recruitment right have you gone to a lot of um there's Chinese schools for example that'll hold Saturday classes in Korean schools and they have teachers that teach those classes right have you gone to look at recruiting some of those um we have a large immigrant population some of those may have been teachers in their in their countries um and again that would expand you know the the diversity of the pool potentially our after-school programs like Kumon just some ideas right

227I I think but I do think we need to look at our reporting a little bit with this dashboard here talks you know kind of talks about the diversity matching but I think it's important to break it out right especially the largest growing population in Fairfax county is actually Asian and are Hispanic I think this is 19 but I think we're close to 30 percent but on are we're in single digits in terms of our admins it's five percent six percent seven percent so I do think we need to put some concerted effort if we want to put some meat behind that goal of of matching the diversity of our students and I would love to see um on the topic of where we are with hiring teachers for the fall I don't know what

228space there is for earlier planning for both esy and for Teacher recruitment I know a lot of principals reached out to many of us about um the disconnect between what they thought their enrollment numbers were going to be and what the numbers were in January I don't know I don't depend on the details but I just think the space to look at that to make sure that we're not creating unintentionally gaps where we didn't need to I'll stop there and Miss seismorheiser I did for for for your information there in the attached documents and for the community uh there is a detailed response in the staff response to the HRC annual report uh that was updated on June 10th of 2022 that highlights in great detail the number of organizations and schools with whom we

229partner so just to so that you can see that many of the things not the Kumon and some of the other suggestions are good suggestions um that aren't there but there are details there to show how we partner uh with with many organizations I also miss Sizemore Heights are one of the things I just want to mention is it's not Partnerships are a strategy one of the strategies we found that turned out to be most helpful when we went out and spoke with our community was we had a number of community members who were new to the country but who had University credentials not in English so their transcripts needed to be transcribed and translated and so forth but once we were able to do that so within our HR team and I know our

230team's talking about this within our HR team we had Specialists that worked directly with those the Translating transcripts because we had really highly qualified new to Country staff and so it wasn't so much a partnership with the university because these folks had in some cases Masters and PhD level education just from a foreign University so I think as we look more at sort of those opportunities and make those known within our community I think that's another opportunity for us great thank you so much um we're moving on to mizomesh followed by Ms perkarski and then myself thank you um yeah just to build off of this point I think we have some challenges especially in language teaching also uh yeah and not just of the translation of the transcripts but even the credentialing when you

231have people who've been teaching a language for years and then they have to take XYZ exams that are inaccessible so I thank you for that I want to elevate that specifically um and thank you to staff obviously for their hard work and preparing this as always um I did I guess just in starting my remarks I want to better understand Dr Reed how you envision this being folded into the work I think that's kind of what I was trying to say in that we're now talking about what we think should be different done differently in goals three and four you haven't had the benefit of having goals one and two conversations with us um but then we're obviously going to rethink the Strategic plan all together soon so can you just shed some light a

232little bit to orient us sure I think the HR function is going to be critical rather it sits within a policy governance executive limitation or as it sits today as a policy in fact we'll likely take much of the work we're currently doing and utilize the reports that are current to build out the limitations right what the parameters will be so there's a natural move I have read goals one and two though I wasn't party to the conversation and had a chance to go back and look at video but this work I think is we as I'm listening to it today to answer directly I'm envisioning how some of the conversation the questions the interrogation if you will of the work will inform a future parameter or executive limitation because it is the same work

233you're absolutely right okay um no I appreciate that uh yeah because I think this is more retro you know we're looking backwards here but um in any case I really appreciated the point on advocacy around affordable housing I think that can definitely become one of our asks of the Board of Supervisors and working in collaboration with them uh moving forward I also wanted to just support the piece on student employment I think we've had conversations about that kind of idea repeatedly and when work sessions uh and would certainly look forward to seeing how we can grow that um I wanted to just bring two things mainly one um in terms of building off of what massage moreheiser was saying around diversity of Recruitment and and retention of teachers um I I want to ask about

234how we may have been a little bit more expansive and thinking around hiring that reflects the community or uh specifically for example when we hire principals for certain schools or um in thinking about a consistent practices across the regions across you know in how we do this but then B also being expansive about how we think about identity right so um when there's a school that's populations over half of a certain Community or certain program how are we being thoughtful about you know reflecting that perhaps or even in not just tracking things like you know credentials obviously background uh and race but even um disability or you know just different dimensions to Identity that um may bring a unique lens or or make students feel seen and and reflect that Premier Workforce that we have

235I assume there hasn't been much work done in that area since it wasn't reflected here but I want to elevate that as an area of you know continuing possibilities so so I would say that as we look at how we place principles we have a process by which where we get information from the community in terms of those look for us what are you looking for in a strong leader and uh I think about my experience in Fairfax County as an African-American male there were at times individuals who thought that I could only be successful in certain types of schools and I was it was important for me to say that I can be successful in all schools in Fairfax County Public Schools and so as we're looking at building uh administrator profiles and matching

236administrative strengths to their Community you it's important for us to consider the overall leadership of that individual and not necessarily base it on a few indicators and so I was trying I'm trying to read through some of the uh words there and I don't know if if I need to read through but as it relates to diversity within our schools it's important for us to have a diverse pool of of teachers administrators who can work in any one of our schools in Fairfax County Public Schools and that we don't necessarily align an individual's diverse background to a particular community no I I certainly Don don't mean that I I think you know my point is stemming from this metric that we have in the Premier Workforce category where we say the diversity of qualified teacher

237applicants can compare to the diversity of Fairfax County residents and how we're thoughtful about proportions and whatnot in that sense and that goes there's a little history with that there are only a few board members at the table as we think about that history for the Strategic plan um there were lots of conversations around what that metric should be we were looking at one time looking at the diversity of the applicant pool and if you have a particular diversity in your applicant pool you should see that same diversity in the teachers that you hire we looked at again a variety of metrics and given the time that we had that was the metric that we were able to uh to land on as a board and staff but there are other metrics that we could

238look at to identify diversity within the community and diversity within our schools and and the pool being one of those if you have if seven percent of your applicant pool is African-American then as you're hiring you should see that same percentage in the number of individuals that you're hiring for jobs to artistically and so that's one piece to look at but there are other metrics that we could discuss and I think that that's part of that planning process what is it that the board values and what is it that the board would want to see Mr mesh I wanted to remind you of and I'm sure you haven't forgotten about a forum topic that you and Miss Keys Gamora had put forth yeah it seems like forever I know and it was on just this

239topic along with I think there was it also included about diversity in the community input and it was all based around the principal selection process and the Region's most recently had a retreat where they had been working on this and have actually implemented and put into place some new practices and they collected data and really captured everything they have done and we said what we wanted to do was to reach back out to both you and Miss keys gamara go through everything we had and we want to capture that we wanted to sit down with Dr Reed and then we wanted to bring that information back to the board but we wanted to see if it captured and exactly what it was you were asking because it had been such a while ago so we

240haven't forgotten that topic and we have been working on it but then again it was so much other things that were going on so I just wanted to share that with you and with the board that that Forum topic was has not been lost and this remains at the Forefront of the work of the regions who are most active and do the all of the work along with HR in conjunction with HR in the principal selection hiring thank you no no thank you Dr Ivy that's uh great to hear that you guys recently discussed that and hopefully that plants the seeds for the future conversations we're gonna have around it thank you um so and that's my time thank you Dr ivy Ms Amish do you want to go back I don't know that we'll

241get to it but sure okay all right uh Miss perkarski and then myself and then we'll uh go to the go backs and so far I have four thank you thank you for bringing this um you know people have already spoken to the uh very obvious hiring challenges Workforce is changing many outside external um factors that have resulted in where we are right now with the difficulties that we are facing um going into next year and really long term so we need to be thinking really long term and I think that's where those conversations around teachers for tomorrow need to come in there are definitely ways we can be more proactive in ensuring that our students know about this and targeting our students um you know teachers I mean if a teacher came to me

242and said you know in eighth grade I think you would be an amazing teacher one day well that would give me a second well maybe I should try this I don't know that we're doing that or that we're doing that in a systemic intentional way we've got so many teachers sitting in our in our classrooms right now so I'd love to see how we can really work on that particular program so that it is more impactful going forward and solve the long-term problems uh you know you're doing many things to try to hire folks it is a hard Market I had one of my title one uh principals tell me she had 45 applications she called every single one of them every single one of them qualified applicants not a single one returned their call

243so there is a lot of choice for people right now so we need people to choose Fairfax County so um you know I'm thinking what incentives incentives could we use I know some of our positions are harder to fill than others the jobs are different at some point we are going to have to have the conversation around do we diversify certain things in order to attract the people um and oftentimes as we know these are the people who are teaching our neediest kids so what can we do beyond what we've already done I we have to have that conversation I think at some point so that's the hiring piece the piece where I don't know where it lives is where is the retention analysis so where are the trends where you know who's left uh

244over the last five years what have we done to understand why they're leaving so that we can put resources and attention into the retaining because if it's this hard to hire we most certainly do not want to lose people so if somebody could speak a little bit to that it would be appreciated so I could say that there are some opportunities for us to strengthen that retention analysis with regard to exit uh interviews and exit surveys for staff we saw and as we noted with the the number of vacancies we've seen a marked number of individuals leaving the system uh we've been working to have rather High retention rates and and had had those High retention rates for many years and so our exit surveys were optional for individuals and when you look at the

245return rate on those much of the information we were getting was around being transferred out of the area spouse being transferred out of the area and I think that that picture would change when you look back at this past year and so I'll let Mr McDonald and Dr Wilson speak to what we're doing now regarding uh some of that analysis but I know that in the past our retention rates were very high and so the data was pretty much trending these are kind of the regular reasons why people leave and it's different today I would like to speak specifically to that that you know yes we have exit surveys but of course by that point it's too late um so looking more so at looking more so at State interviews or stay surveys to look

246at the level of Engagement that our employees have across the board you know and that that goes for any type of employee any employee group to find out what what it is that they like about being here in Chesapeake oh my goodness of all places to say this FCPS that's my first time doing that the entire time I've been here and then to do it here so anyway um so for uh employee and I think I've just completely forgotten everything else it's okay you're talking about the state surveys thank you um so the state surveys uh of course will help employees to determine what is it that they love about being here and it will help us to emphasize that and to you know provide perhaps the things that they're say we catch them before

247their you know they're contemplating leaving we can address some of the things that they are contemplating before they actually exit and then perhaps put some things in place to address those things to encourage them to to remain so though that's the work we need to do we have do have an engagement survey that we're working on at this point and so we'll be able to insert some of those some of the items that I've heard around the table today and others to you know make sure that we are um we are eliciting uh information from our employees to to see where their what they see as uh as value and we can really play into that to help with the retention rate here at FCPS thank you uh yes we would go ahead and with

248that with the engagement surveys I think that we haven't done those for the past couple of years and so we're going to be able to get some great data from our our staff with regard to their level of Engagement we already work with our principals to help them the the vendor works with our principals to help them analyze that data and then create plans to work through that data with school teams and so where we see engagement not being at level that we would like we can certainly then develop some supports for principals and administrative teams and then possibly do some targeted stay surveys within those buildings to Target those individuals to keep them here in FCPS FCPS yep so you are exactly thinking along the lines that I uh was thinking so I would

249love to see that live in this report as we go forward thank you all right we were having a calendar issue so um all right uh taking my turn uh I'm going to start as macro as I can uh and and Mr McDonald first so I want to thank you again for being an incredible partner with our school board human resources advisory committee all these years um you have made them feel valued which is important to me as a board member and uh I think you've also really drawn on the value out of so many subject matter experts on that group time and again in this conversation about where are we on a premier Workforce and most importantly about retention um recruitment is important but retention is crucial everything has to be done on the

250basis of data without data all we're doing is having hypotheses in conjecture so as I've been listening to my colleagues ask really great questions I would just ask everyone to really consider again until we get data from staff all it is is anecdotal what we're hearing but we've got to understand what's happening division wide so I do want to know what's our retention rate school by school who are we losing where are we losing them and why are we losing them not why we've maybe heard think or someone else has told us second hand because you can't tailor your Solutions unless you actually know why it is we're losing people so um you know the exit surveys I'm a little dismayed we've talked about them for years and years again the hrsc abroar and Melanie

251were members on that committee when I was the liaison they know we talked about we've got to have the data and then work from there so that would be my feedback on the goal report as we continuously improve is please help us get more robust data if we're not having participation or exit surveys work with our employee associations and find out why I've heard things that people are afraid to fill out the exit surveys but you know we've we've got to work with the data we can find and get but until that's in the reports I think the analysis is concerning one of the things about our diversity in teaching I often look to in this case it's slide eight on our diversity hiring because sometimes I think it's actually an easier conversation to have

252as a board member I am not aware it's never been told to me so I will presume the best of intentions that we do not have Educators who are biased against male teachers that the reason that they are so few in our system and according to this number it's 17.8 percent when we know men in this County are roughly about 50 percent do I think that we have a a biased school system against male teachers no we have a pipeline problem and so I say that for all the ways in which we want to have more diverse teachers that we've got to be able to um be humble to the pipeline problem and then Target our Solutions in light of our reality and if we don't help the public also understand that then we run

253the risk that this school system takes a reputational hit which becomes then a circular problem of oh it's a biased school system I'm not going to apply as opposed to no we have an issue with who's in our pipeline local State national level and now I will need to go back because there were some things that I wanted to ask data wise so with that we were at 310 I have listed here there are five of four of us who want a quick go back so Madam clerk if you could add two minutes per speaker hopefully we will click through those and be done at 3 30 like we had planned so I have MS Cohen followed by Dr Anderson Ms Corbett Sanders and myself thank you um I I think I would just say

254and it's the same problem with parents and staff that the more and more friends I have who say I don't fill out those surveys because nothing happens with them so if we can create a feedback loop of here's what we heard you say and here's what we here's what we did about it or here's what we're doing about it or or we want more of your feedback on how to fix it or any you know um I I think they feel very much like it just goes into the circular file and it we check a box that says oh we but we gathered your input um so having it be a conversation and not just a one-way communication um I wondered about we talked a lot about some of our potential pools for teachers um

255and I know we have a lot of military spouses who come in at different times of year and I wondered about our coordination you mentioned for belvar but what is our coordination with the actual Branch assignments office like I know the Army assignments office you know hopefully a couple of months before you're about to leave and do we send them information that they say hey if your spouse is a teacher here's how you apply to FCPS so that the balls roll in the minute you hit the ground I yes I I believe we're interacting with those folks and uh again a a lot of our work is through uh funneled through our partnership with the base at Fort Belvoir but we are uh working to recruit uh spouses of our our active military folks I

256would say like the assignment assignment which is central for the whole you know would know even before Belvoir necessarily knows and we know we have folks who live here but are working at other at McNair at you know all kinds of places so um anyway it's been an amazing resource that I think we haven't been able to capitalize for not just us but I think a good thing um the other I'd say like we mentioned longevity Awards I I will be honest I'm not a person who likes to look a gift lanyard in the mouth but I I do feel like like we like some things we do which are so well intended and when you have this many 28 000 employees like you can't do the kinds of things that other small systems do

257but sometimes like what we do it seems to bite us right in the butt like I do think the the lanyards people are like is this like real life how I'm out of time already just complaining about lanyards all right I have more but I will send it in an email strongly worded no just okay thank you thank you Ms Cohen um Dr Anderson followed by Ms Corbett Sanders so I think one of the the great Frontiers for us at this point in time in the in terms of this work is to really dig in with our existing employee base and make sure that folks are given opportunities to learn and grow within the profession and to really Ascend within the organization it's a great retention tool it's a great recruitment tool and so we

258do have some of those existing pipelines established but I think there are greater opportunities to really continue to build those out that's going to involve having multiple departments working together to make sure that the development opportunities the PD the the resources the tools are available to our employees and I think that's really what the the heart of that particular piece is is getting at how do you recruit oh go ahead I was going I was going to add to some of that well we talk about Communications plans and I think that there are some that we have several examples uh in Fairfax County of individuals who started in one place and ended up in a very different place and so there are opportunities uh to highlight some of those stories so that people see that

259there are options in Fairfax and that if I'm an operational employee and I can there are a variety of things that I can do within the system uh and that there is a traject a trajectory for me that I hadn't necessarily thought about and so I think that we can capitalize on some of those leadership stories that we have across the school system I'm sorry my bike was not on I wanted to know how do you go about recruiting career switchers because it's harder to find them sure so our primary uh work around recruiting career switchers has been uh to uh put on a bi-annual event where we're inviting members of our community in to hear uh from the approved programs career center programs across Virginia and our troops to teachers program we have members

260of those communities present to answer questions that each per have a presentation they provide we also have members of our HR staff on tap quite honestly navigating the licensure aspect of that transition is is one of the biggest questions that are on the minds of those folks and so we make our staff available to help begin some of that counseling that's required to help that individual navigate the the various steps in the licensure process we maintain those connections with those individuals beyond that event and we do offer throughout the year additional opportunities for touch points and in meeting with those individuals to provide them additional guidance and support as they're they're navigating that Journey do we have any sense as to where do we usually what industry we get career searches from to come into

261the schools or any sense yeah where do most of them come from yeah I would say be given our our geographic location where we do see a lot of folks coming from our federal government um so typically they're getting and Military so they're getting towards the end of their career and looking to continue to be able to uh be a part of the workforce and so we do I would say those are our two greatest areas that we're drawing from military and and government again maybe there's some opportunities to really um develop some pipelines there um a question that I had here is the ass the goal of having all positions filled by July 1. can you share as to when that has ever happened that we have not reached that Milestone now that's more

262aspirational okay and the reason why I wanted to share that is because that will cause parents to get concerned if oh my school has vacancies and it's July 11th or 12th I don't know what day it is but just to have the concern because I'm a former principal like July 1. I would have loved that to be the case every year and I don't think I've ever met that deadline um so it's more aspirational okay thank you um the other piece that I want to spend my last few seconds on is what Miss Corbett Sanders brought up which is the role of the teacher and uh Mr Frisch kind of really um summarize that we can't pay you we're going to give you lanyards to death we'll give you a few lunches and a few

263t-shirts and a lot of people would be okay with that but the other piece that I think we need to spend some time and bring the community along is how they interact with our teachers coming to the board meetings blasting them blasting them on social media that does not want anybody to come into this work and so we're kind of cutting off our nose to spot our face in some ways because you're angry at what a school may or may not be doing but at the same time you're cutting off the very people that we need to instruct your students so I wonder what conversations could we be having in our community to just help them to also help us not just retain but also recruit teachers Dr Reed foreign I think we somebody mentioned

264earlier working with our Communications team and and it's all of us really it's not the Communications Department it's each of us and our sphere of influence um just you know shifting that narrative I think as Marty was mentioning earlier um and I also think that we need to figure out what makes Fairfax County Public Schools special in the sense that people would drop everything to come work here um I think there are things other than salary maybe and other than um recognition the recognition I think done well is a part of it um it might be child care it might be Assurance of Pathways for future education in exchange for years staying in the system I mean there are a variety of things I think we're just going to have to be like everything else

265that I'm going to keep a drum beat on we're gonna have to think differently about how we do this work how we talk about this work how we come to this work to meet the challenges ahead and I thought I had a few more seconds left so I'm not sure what happened there I think I did not see that oh okay so we we've got 10 minutes we've got 10 minutes left if we can get through myself and Miss Corbett Sanders Dr Harrison oh and Mr she wanted to go back oh my apologies I am flying solo thank you for your kindness um so please go ahead and then miss Corbin Sanders all right so when we have our conversations or our surveys with staff um to determine why they stay you know if my

266issue is one of retention that's not the question I'm asking right the question I'm asking is why are you thinking of leaving um and so it's a more difficult conversation to have but if we frame it in the way that is not productive we won't get what we're looking for if we think and it is a harder thing to to bring in to the system is a bunch of answers about why people are unhappy with us but that's how you improve when you do a staff evaluation in the private sector you give the good and the bad and a path forward for fixing things and I doubt you know I bet one of the key reasons that people leave is that they feel like nobody cares about why they're unhappy sometimes just having the conversation

267is a starting point uh to fix that problem simply asking somebody why you know your survey indicated that you were unhappy or thinking of leaving let's talk about it um so I hope that as we move forward that we're asking the right questions for the information we're actually seeking um because that's going to be the key to fixing the problem thanks thank you Mr Frisch uh Ms Corbett Sanders thank you um and I'll try to be brief first I do want to talk a little bit about affordable housing in Fairfax County do we have enough no has the county made a concerted effort on affordable housing yes has this school board worked with the county on affordable housing this past spring we worked extremely hard with them and actually you see an investment by the

268Board of Supervisors of 44 million dollars just this year alone and it is with 10 million coming from this board being willing to invest in that and so I really do want to make sure that we we keep that front and center and that there is a plan to get to um ten thousand units I believe in ten years so this community cares about making sure that if you work in this community you should have children in this community now let me pivot a bit I did want to talk a little bit about dual enrollment I think you all know that I am passionate about dual enrollment well dual enrollment would be a wonderful way of augmenting our teach for tomorrow program because we know that if we as part of the value proposition help

269our students while they're in high school not only get experience in education but more importantly be able to obtain credits which could then be applied as a pathway and we know we have a strategic relationship with Northern Virginia Community College and George Mason University and Nova does have dual enrollment teaching credits so I don't think we've actually gone down that path in the past we've really focused more on the technology side but I would like to hear about how have somebody look at this and see whether this would be a viable option and how we could integrate it into our programs either as an academy program or as something that really helps that jump start this carpet centers I to talk to speak to the the idea of dual enrollment in general at one point

270and I I apologize I'm a little bit I'm distant from the the day-to-day conversations that have been had recently around what the existing setup is for our teachers for tomorrow program but at one point we did have a dual enrollment track through Shenandoah University I'm not 100 certain that that partnership continues to exist and so to your point I think there are other opportunities more locally more local I think is the to terrific thank you uh to to to explore that further so if I could ask to have you all put that on your list and come back to us because we know that if our students are able to our families can defray cost at the University level we kind of build that Allegiance with them before they leave us great I'll take my

271go back if we could bring up slide 10 I had written down it said something about tackle expectations of current teacher applicants and I don't really understand what that recommendation is saying or or what that statement actually means to tackle the expectations of current teacher applicants and it had to do with um just the challenges of the the slide 10. yep first bullet second sentence scps may need to tackle Workforce changes and the expectations of current teacher applicants more extensively to counter these trends can someone elaborate on what that sentence means especially the part about expectations of our applicants so I think um what there's more extensive information in the narrative report but what this is trying to get at is the workforce changes and potentially what teacher applicants coming in are expecting out of

272a work environment FCPS is a relatively traditional work environment in the sense that there's fixed hours there's and with good reason you have to have fixed hours for schools but it's in contrast with some of the other Workforce expectations that are out there currently and so trying to find sort of that middle ground and navigate between what some of the gig-like work and the changes in the workforce are having happen with what we need to hire in order to be able to support our students and have teachers and buildings and some of those differences that are happening not just on the teaching side but also on the operational side but this was focused more on the teaching force in terms of trying to counter what some of those prevailing opinions are of the workforce and

273how that's changing over time hey Dr Reed I'll go offline and send a follow-up but I I have to say like that line alone I don't think reflects well on our system current teachers have to be in a classroom gig Workforce it's it's completely so if we're going to have a bullet point in a public setting The public's going to read that and think we're not living in a sane world that was a tough one for me slide 13 um if you could bring that one up this was earlier when I was talking about our conversations about bias second bullet efforts to reduce hiring bias are also underway with the acknowledgment that changing bias takes longer than one year I appreciate if that's more deeply explained in the report but that is a very powerful

274and potentially harmful statement in a PowerPoint slide so I think we need to be ever mindful that if we know as a system again the division wide that we are not engaging in biased hiring but that what happens down to the school building level we're still investigating and reviewing and being very thoughtful and engaged in that that's a different statement and so I would just offer to my colleagues and to Dr Reed that one also hit me in the gut because I don't think that is reflective of our system but many individuals could take hold of that and think well why would you put that in your report unless that's what you think is a problem that you have and so and and how widespread and how extensive or is it isolated so um anyway

275with that we have um really been able to keep to our 330 agenda time frame which as I understand it someone pointed out to me it's on our meeting agenda as 3 30 but our calendars all said three so I want to thank my colleagues each and every one of you for staying to the full 3 30. this was extremely helpful I want to thank Dr Reed and her team for being Nimble and the fact that we yet again adjusted and did not cover gold four but to Ms zomesh's question earlier I hope that what everyone saw in this two-hour discussion is it doesn't matter if it's a look back we've got to be able to do the look back to then look forward and so I do hope our chair and vice chair will

276get goal four on here I I hope Dr Reed you found that this was beneficial to hear the board's feedback on the report and staff I just want to thank you again um you know I want to say this publicly these goal reports from orsi and everybody involved continue to get better and better during my long tenure and I want to make sure I express that appreciation and I know we're all going to keep working together so thanks again