FCPS School Board Meeting - 4/28/2022

001so board members please take your seats all right the april 28 2022 regular meeting of the fairfax county school board will now come to order please stand for the pledge of allegiance followed by a moment of silence in a performance of the national anthem by the forestville elementary school singers under the direction of stephanie of the patterson states of america and the republic which stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice [Music] what's so [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] the [Music] [Applause] good job for congratulations to our incredible forestville cardinals and may i just say as uh someone who attended forestville myself what an incredible job yes they were wonderful agenda item 2.02 certification of closed meeting compliance in order to comply with section 2.2-3712-d of the code of virginia it is necessary

002for the board to certify that since the fairfax county school board convened a closed meeting on april 28 2022 to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the board during the closed meeting is there a motion moved by uh miss seconded by miss corbett sanders all those in favor that is unanimous with several people away from the table um if i could ask the board clerk to please turn on the virtual thank you agenda item 2.03 announcements uh i would like to recognize mr dan stork is he with us tonight mount vernon district supervisor and former school board member thank you thank you mr

003stork happy to have you here today miss mclaughlin will be absent this evening miss tolin has submitted a written request to virtually attend this evening's meeting due to a personal conflict and miss seismor heiser has submitted a written request to virtually attend this evening's meeting due to a medical conflict i'll call for the vote all those in favor of approving ms seismor heiser and ms tolim's request to virtually attend tonight's meeting please raise your hands that is unanimous with two people away from the table and i still if you'd like to review a copy of the agenda and any agenda item that is being discussed tonight that information may be found at the back of the auditorium or on the website at fcps.edu school board slash board docs tonight's meeting is also being broadcast on

004channel 99 and live streamed on the website at fcps.edu tv slash ch99 now call on mr chowdhry for an announcement administrative professionals day april 27 2022 administrative professionals day highlights and recognizes the important work of secretaries administrative assistants executive assistants personal assistants receptionists and other administrative support professionals central to any organization these professionals keep an office organized and efficient fcps is grateful for our dedicated administrative professionals and may i add that includes our wonderful board clerks um teacher appreciation week may 2nd through 6th 2022 teachers are real-life superheroes they educate innovate encourage and support our children each and every day our teachers are committed to ensuring that all children develop their full potential for academic achievement and are influential in fostering students both healthful self-concepts and a sense of civic responsibility fairfax county public schools

005values the skills creativity and professionalism that characterize our teachers please thank a moment to thank our to thank a teacher thank you mr chowdhry agenda item 2.04 introduction of assistant superintendent of human resources i'll call on dr brabrand for that introduction thank you chairman picarski members of the school board and community good evening everyone it is my honor to formally introduce our new assistant superintendent for human resources dr sherry wilson dr wilson is a seasoned educational leader with 11 years of high-level hr experience she has a wide range of experiences in k-12 education before uh her leadership roles in hr she was a classroom teacher an assistant principal and a principal she's worked hard to ensure fair and equitable treatment and access opportunity and advancement for all employees and for all candidates for employment in

006the entrance of transparency she put in place a data dashboard to provide real-time demographic data within school buildings she's made a measurable impact to expand recruitment and retention initiatives in chesapeake schools one of the largest divisions in the commonwealth of virginia implementing virtual school tours where prospective teachers had the opportunity to observe schools classrooms and teachers and students in real time she is very knowledgeable dr wilson is in contract negotiation and collective bargaining and has a strong vision for individualized options and pathways for employees i have the utmost confidence in dr wilson's ability to leverage her considerable experience to help move fairfax county public schools forward to remain a leader in 21st century educa education and be the premier workforce that we talk about in our strategic plan her demonstrated leadership abilities coupled with her

007understanding of workplace motivation employee relations and the challenge of recruiting and retaining top talent which is crucial in these moments in time today will serve us well in fairfax county public schools for years to come ladies and gentlemen i have the high honor and great privilege to introduce to you dr sherry wilson our new assistant superintendent for human resources thank you so much and good evening chair picarski members of the school board dr brabrand and staff i am deeply humbled by my appointment to the position of fairfax county public schools assistant superintendent for human resources as you've heard i have many years of experience as a classroom teacher school administrator human resources assistant director and director the experiences that i've gained have given me the ability to see things through various lenses which is important

008when you are charged with making prudent decisions for all stakeholders i believe that collaboration with employees on matters that impact them and individual feedback are essential to decision making in my opinion the richer perspective brought by diversity of thought enhances collaboration during my time in human resources i've led a number of cross-functional collaborative teams which have worked to address the needs of students employees and the community through these efforts these teams were able to eliminate barriers to employment through innovative recruitment efforts which included access to and assistance with technology throughout the recruitment and hiring processes facilitate the design and implementation of career ladders for teachers bus drivers and paraprofessionals and implement new technologies such as a new hris software to support efficient and effective hr processes and practices i love the fact that fcps embraces

009creative thinking a culture of caring equity inclusion innovation and a diverse workforce each of these factors combine to create and support the premier workforce for which fairfax county public schools is known having worked alongside members of the human resources team at recruiting events i've seen the zeal and the commitment to recruiting the best and the brightest to join the fcps workforce and i am thrilled to now join such dedicated staff fairfax is a respected district within our state often taking the lead in implementing initiatives and addressing the needs of our employees i am excited to join you in positively impacting the outcomes of our students employees and school community as assistant superintendent of human resources for fairfax county public schools i am committed to improving the quality of services products and processes within the district

010and look forward to working alongside all of you in fostering a responsive caring and inclusive culture where all feel valued supported and hopeful and to upholding the standards skills and attributes that the fcps board has outlined i am thrilled to be a part of the fairfax county public schools community and eager to join the human resources team and sourcing recruiting supporting and retaining exceptional employees and i thank you dr wilson on behalf of the school board i want to welcome you we are excited to have you here your expertise um and your passion and yours is a very integral position when it comes to the success of our students our staff in this district and with our amazing staff we know you're going to do wonderful things welcome thank you agenda item 2.05 autism acceptance

011month recognition the board will invite each recognition recipient and their supporters to come up for a photo after the reading of all of the recognitions i'll now call on ms ismar heiser thank you april is national autism acceptance month and the 15th annual world autism day is april 2nd the autism society of america recognizes that the prevalence of autism in the united states has risen from 1 in 125 children in 2010 to 1 in 44 in 2021. autistic students attend many of our schools in fairfax county autism can affect an in individual social interaction and communication skills it is considered a spectrum because each child is different and is affected in unique ways with many strengths and challenges as the saying goes if you have met one person with autism you have met one person

012with autism national autism acceptance month provides an opportunity for families friends and local communities to increase awareness and acceptance of autism and celebrate the unique aspects and talents of all autistic individuals the autism societies quote celebrate differences end quote campaign focuses on providing information and resources for communities to be more aware of autism promote acceptance and encourage increased community partnerships with businesses organizations dedicated to building more inclusive experiences many also believe it is time to move from autism acceptance to promoting neurodiversity which is the concept that there are many diverse ways to experience the world of thinking and behaving and these differences are not deficits but part of the diversity of the human experience agenda item 2.06 better hearing and speech month recognition i call on this keys gemara better speech and hearing month is

013observed in may annually to increase awareness about communication disorders and hearing health an estimated 42 million people have communication disorders and they impact 1 in 10 families currently fairfax county public schools provide speech and language services to more than ten thousand students audiologists and special education teachers also serve more than 500 deaf and hard of hearing students in class-based programs via base school itinerant services and in early childhood programs fcps annually observes and celebrates better speech and hearing month and encourages all citizens in our school community to recognize the efforts dedication and skills of the speech-language pathologists audiologists and teachers of students who are deaf and hard of hearing agenda item 2.07 children's mental health awareness week recognition i'll call on dr anderson positive mental health is essential to a child's healthy development yet over

014one in five children and youth in the us have a mental health issue and only half of children and youth with behavioral health issues receive treatment this is this has a profound immediate and lasting impact on our community the covert 19 pandemic created additional barriers to accessing treatment and had a wide-ranging impact on the mental health of children and youth fairfax county public schools is a partner with county agencies and nonprofit organizations in the healthy minds fairfax initiative to increase awareness of signs of mental distress and to address barriers to accessing services through the coordination of prevention early intervention and treatment services the school board is pleased to recognize may 1 through 5th 2022 as children's mental health awareness week in fairfax county this is an opportunity to celebrate the work of our school division

015to increase awareness of the connection between mental health and social emotional and psychological well-being agenda item 2.08 school nutrition employee week recognition i call it mrna cofax thank you madam chair school nutrition professionals in fairfax county public schools have proven to be much more than dedicated employees who prepare and serve fresh healthy and nutritious meals they have become recognized as essential front-line staff who work tirelessly to combat food insecurity with their welcoming and caring approach our food and nutrition services team has provided consistent access to over 150 000 meals daily school nutrition professionals strategically balance many roles behind the scenes while striving to meet the needs of their school communities these thoughtful employees offer valuable contributions that enhance fcps premier education system and care for our most vulnerable families every day they provide truly meaningful

016worth work worth celebrating thank you to all of our fns employees agenda item 2.09 asian american and pacific islander heritage month resolution i call on miss marin whereas asian americans and pacific islanders make up 20 percent of the population in fairfax county according to the u.s census bureau including 35 000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade and whereas asian americans established their first settlement in 1763 and over time have endured such injustices as the asian exclusion act that prohibited immigration from asia and the japanese internment that established concentration camps that incarcerated asian u.s citizens from 1942 and 1946 and whereas asian american and pacific islander students and their families reflect the rich and vibrant diversity of cultures histories and languages of the many different countries of asia and the pacific islands and are valued members

017of our community and whereas asian americans and pacific islanders have made significant contributions in the areas of infrastructure economy and technology that have played a pivotal role in america's history and whereas asian americans and pacific islanders have achieved great accomplishments in the fields of math science education the arts and civil rights that benefit past current and future generations now therefore be it resolved that the fairfax county school board joins asian americans and pacific islanders in celebrating may as 2022 asian american and pacific islander heritage month in recognition of the many contributions asian americans and pacific islanders have made to our society iso move is there a second sec second seconded by miss omesh miss marin would you like to speak to this resolution just to say that i'm i'm proud to be able to read

018this today and i'm so pleased that our board is recognizing this significant part of our fairfax community and i will let the words of the uh resolution speak further for itself thank you thank you miss marin miss omega okay you know you're not to expect uh that brevity from me but i didn't read a resolution i know we got a lot of resolutions i noticed that actually but i am really honored to second this resolution i'm privileged to speak to it obviously people of asian asian and pacific island heritage are and have been a robust part of not only our american but certainly our global human human story uh nearly 60 percent of the world population has ties to asia or the pacific islands that's over half hailing from at least 48 countries with over

0194.46 billion people across the globe speaking over 2 300 languages asia and then over 750 in the pacific islands alone and of course right here at home asian americans are the fastest growing major racial group in this country 19 to 22 million asian americans about 6 percent of the u.s population are a part of our community and that's in virginia almost seven percent in fact county public schools it's 20 percent of our students that's one in five and 23 percent of our staff in fact some of our schools are actually majority asian mcnair elementary school is 60 percent and carson is just about half while there is in unity of course of this broad global community we must also identify no doubt the danger of lumping a mass group of beautifully varied 60 of the

020world population under one monolithic label it continues to boggle my mind that we lump that vast diversity in one group though certainly we can better understand from the origins of history when most people who didn't fit familiar boxes were kind of just from the orient this is no surprise of course when christopher columbus himself landed here trying to find asia and subsequently called whoever he found here indian in the mid eighteen hundreds we had actually we had actual laws like the page act and the chinese exclusion act i know this said asian but chinese exclusion act that prohibited recruitment of laborers from china japan or any oriental country we're all also too aware of course of japanese internment that happened in our lifetimes where deliberate imprisonment occurred on the basis of stereotypes and lumping many

021to represent some however today we understand that community members of asian or pacific island descent are vastly diverse and span class ability a multitude of languages and are diverse in color and in creed we have evidence of filipino sailors and other venturers here as early as the 1500s long before even the declaration of independence or this country was even known to be america and just in our system four of the top five languages spoken by our families are spoken in asia what's more hundreds of families in our schools speak 27 languages that originate in asia or the pacific islands among the top five arabic korean vietnamese mandarin and then also within the hundreds urdu telugu hindi farsi russian tamil bengali nepali tagalog dari pashtu turkish japanese thai gujarati malayalam punjabi marathi mongolian kurdish cambodian cantonese

022and kharanis of course that doesn't mean we don't continue to struggle with our own modern misconceptions around these categories just last year as we know asian american hate crimes increased by 339 percent nationwide these harms arise from the very dehumanization that's made possible by the broad categories that we uh continue to perpetuate and of course the lack of nuance and understanding of who our neighbors really are chief among these i'd be remiss not to mention the stereotype of the model minority myth the idea that all asians are successful and therefore are not impacted by racism or bias these are falsehoods that we must continue to recognize to unpack in our own misconceptions and cultivate a community with broader understanding because as we know the story of asian americans and pacific islanders in this country is

023vast in fact it's incredible and asian americans and pacific islanders have been part of the rights movements that have made monumental shifts in our nation's history filipino farm workers joined cesar chavez in the fight for workers in this country in education heroes like mammy tape fought to set major precedents for this country in cases like tape versus hurley that made its way all the way up to the california supreme court to promote equity and ensure that all children are entitled to access and of public education congresswoman patsy mink the first asian american woman in congress was the co-author and sponsor of title ix of the education amendments of 1972 which as we know we continue to rely on today to fight against sex discrimination and education programs and of course there are some more there

024are fun names like bruce lee who we know from martial arts in hollywood maya lin who designed the vietnam war memorial don chang founder of forever 21 and stephen chen co-founder of youtube of course we're also some of us are familiar with the american cellist yo-yo ma or nfl players like walter achoo sanjay beach and brandon chillar there are many examples judge shri shinova srinivasan who is interesting to me of course being in law school is the chief judge of dc of the dc court of appeals arguably the most powerful court under the supreme court and of course we have our vice president kamala harris in our community there's no doubt it's important to recognize mr ilyang moon who's been on this board almost as long as i've been alive and who's dedicated his many

025years uh and and my own colleague ms seismar heiser who is our vice chair uh as leaders of asian american and pacific island descent finally within our own division ms esther ko our auditor general mr gautam sethi our chief information officer dr grace taylor who i believe is have of half asian descent sona rowari our own board counsel dienzinho our tech specialist who works in our school board office and so many others who are part a parcel of our team and of making this system the incredible system that it is i'm so excited to celebrate them as well as some of our friends who set up this room for us today and who will be cleaning it up after us uh sun kim and jin li so i want to wish everyone a happy asian

026american pacific island heritage month and hope that we will continue to reflect on the various contributions uh and and aspects of our collective heritage throughout this month ms eisenheiser thank you and i will try to be brief um thank you for that wonderful history and um rendition of the the many achievements and that asian americans have um provided in the united states and i just wanted to say um as someone who's asian-american it is it is a difficult um history it is difficult sometimes in the united states um there's a lot of i will say not understanding and it's been really wonderful in my years in this country to see um the level of understanding grow and recently i saw a video on facebook of a um of international night at thomas jefferson and a

027dance by um the at the tj indian american group and it was a bollywood style dance and it was danced by students of all different backgrounds and races at tj and i thought how wonderful that when i was growing up in this country things that nobody knew about nobody understood are now ingrained in the cultures and diversity of our schools and so um as someone who sits here as the first asian american woman um on the school board growing up interested in politics and never seeing anybody who look like me who had my background in seats like mine i think the more we have representation the greater we build understanding and the greater we build understanding the more we create unity so i am really glad we're celebrating this month i'm really glad that we

028have the representation and i'm really glad that i see people of all races and backgrounds celebrating all of the unique cultures we have including our aapi culture so thank you thank you miss seismor heiser i will now go ahead and take the vote all those in favor of passing this resolution raise your hands and that is unanimous with ms seismor heiser and miss tolin voting virtually agenda item 2.10 greenbrier west elementary school 50th anniversary resolution i'll call on miss cohen sorry my computer would not cooperate whereas greenbrier west elementary school proudly celebrated its 50th anniversary on march 26 2022 and its reputation for providing generations of students from a richly diverse community and an excellent academic foundation and whereas for 50 years greenbrier west elementary school has provided a safe caring inclusive and supportive environment

029for all students to learn and grow by providing a rigorous education to students through general education advanced academics special education english speakers of other languages programs and the young scholar program and whereas greenbrier west elementary school works collaboratively with faculty parents pta members local government and surrounding schools to instill a fierce love of learning in the classroom community and outside of the classroom by providing students with access to a wide array of academic competitions to include the areas of math spelling geography art and reflections and extracurricular activities including strings band and chorus as well as after school programs and other fun activities such as talent shows and whereas the dedicated faculty of greenbrier west elementary school has a long history of working to include all students such as their most recent inclusion of welcoming more

030area students with disabilities to join their neighborhood school by expanding their programming to include an intellectual disabilities intellectual disability severe classroom and whereas greenbrier west elementary school has always been a community in that staff students and the community are loved in a way that feels like a big happy family with a long history of volunteerism community events and have prided themselves in creating a strong community that is bound together by their love now therefore be it resolved that the fairfax county school board honors greenbrier west elementary school on the occasion of its 50th anniversary commends the school on its history of providing educational excellence and enrichment opportunities to the students and community and conveys its most heartfelt best wishes for a successful anniversary celebration iso move and i will be seconding this resolution miss cohen

031would you like to speak i feel like i should um just leave room for you to get to speak because um as you will hear miss picarski even though i get the honor in the springfield district of sending more kids to greenbrier west my sully district friend sent her own kids there so i just want to say i i feel so grateful to be a small part of greenbrier west i my first experience there was at a an outdoor festival that they had and miss picarski was nice enough to come with me and knew every single person who came up to speak to us and we had the good fortune a couple of years ago to bring a wonderful new principal mr andrew blount who has just done an amazing job and the number of

032comments and compliments that we get about how you ran the school during covid the the pancake you know dinners that you did over zoom all of the different things um the minute you walk into greenbrier west you know that it is a true family and true community and we feel it and so thank you so much yeah i'm very excited to second this and um as a parent at gbw for over a decade and as pta president many times and volunteer uh throughout the years i could talk all night about the wonderful things that are happening at this school and have happened and my own kids had an opportunity to be a part of but i will just say it was my pleasure to be part of this celebration at the school and administration it

033brought the whole community it was amazing just how ingrained the school is in the community there were hundreds of people there principals uh that had been there throughout the years all came back even from outside of the you know united states came back former teachers staff it was just amazing and it was amazing to catch up with everyone and it was just a wonderful opportunity to see a community who really cares about education and cares about their school and invests in it so heavily come together to really enjoy that moment and to celebrate everything that gbw has been is and will be in the future so thank you very happy to be a part of that and i will now go ahead and take the vote all those in favor and that is unanimous with

034miss stolen and messizer heiser agenda item 2.11 resolution naming the softball field at walt whitman middle school thank you madam chair whereas david h evans served with distinction as a commissioner for over a decade of service to the fort hunt softball league whereas mr evans held positions such as vice commissioner director of operations field maintenance and most importantly coach whereas thanks to dave's tireless efforts hundreds of young athletes participate in team sports and tournament tournaments organized by the fort hunt youth league in our program always ensuring that there is a safe welcoming environment for everyone whereas dave was instrumental in bringing lighting to the field at walt whitman middle school which made it possible for a fall season when the days are short whereas an advocate community leader servant to others a true champion in

035bringing the school and community together through his passion of sports his unwavering dedication on and off the field day or night weekday or weekend has encouraged each student to reach their potential now therefore be it resolved that the fairfax county school board extends its highest commendation and deepest appreciation to david h evans for his valuable contributions and dedicated service to the board to fairfax county public schools and to the children and citizens of fairfax county by renaming the walt whitman girls softball field as the dave evans softball field is there a second second seconded by miss darren kofax miss corbett sanders yes if you can just hold one moment i'm going to pull up my remarks we know the children that have an adult in the community who takes an interest in them and their

036success will have a greater chance of succeeding in school we also know that it takes a village to raise a child and remember to always to do the right thing dave evans epitomized all of these sayings years ago i remember attending community and local school events where i would see dave his quiet unwavering presence supporting not only the success of his beautiful daughters but of all the kids in the community was wonderful to observe without being asked he would offer a helping hand delightful treats from his catering company and kind words coaching and supporting softball players when dave realized that the field that most of our girls in fort hunt area play on did not have lights he worked to make that happen dave always stepped up to assist the high needs community of the

037route 1 corridor recognizing the needs for housing security he became involved in good good shepherd housing to provide housing for our most vulnerable families on the route 1 corridor he was equally passionate about food health and workforce training as an active volunteer with united community prior to his passing away he was the co-chair of this organization which is a partner with walt whitman's middle school in the community schools initiative he also served on the board of the mount vernon and lee chamber of commerce dave made his friends his family and there is no better example than the lifelong friendship he had with supervisor stork their childhood friendship began in columbus ohio and continued here in mount vernon where they shared a passion for their wonderful wives children and community as well as biking dave's ties

038to walt whitman with united community and the fort hunt softball make it especially appropriate to name this field in his honor the stone at kofax thank you miss corbett sanders for your heartfelt words and resolution recognizing the outstanding work of mr dave evans and all he did for our communities in region three it's always humbling to be able to learn about and recognize the contributions of valuable community members in our fcps division i am grateful to mr evans for his dedication and unwavering support of our athletic programs and in turn our students it's wonderful to see the outpouring of support from the fort hunt community who want to honor this outstanding his outstanding devotion and his love of softball but also his many other contributions throughout the mount vernon community including in our schools and

039helping many others in needs i know that many miss his amazing work and i hope it brings both happiness and peace when the community comes to watch a softball game at the dave evans softball field at whitman middle school thank you i will go ahead and call for the vote all those in favor and that vote is unanimous with ms eisenheiser and ms tolland virtual are there any objections from board members to allowing supervisor stork to speak briefly to this resolution seeing none supervisor well um thank you thank you for letting me speak i don't think i can speak without crying so i'm gonna let his youngest daughter speak on my behalf thank you very much thanks stan um my name is madeline i'm dave's youngest daughter on behalf of myself and my family i

040would like to thank everyone who has worked to acknowledge my father's contributions to his community in this way he dedicated countless hours of his personal time to fort height youth and fort hunt softball specifically and it means a great deal to our family to have his name on the softball fields at walt whitman so thank you very much thank you and thank you all for your recognition of him and especially karen corbett sanders i particularly appreciate tammy thank you very much as well and and thank you craig for your support consistently throughout um it's been wonderful and looking forward to the dedication of the field but thank you all giving for giving him that honor and that opportunity thank you all thank you [Applause] agenda item 2.12 historical markers contest resolution and i will call

041on mr fresh for this resolution whereas the black history month and asian american pacific islander heritage month historical marker contest sponsored by former governor ralph northam and former secretary of education of cardi kearney were created to recognize important black and african american and aapi figures and events in virginia history shedding light on important histories and narratives that have been previously excluded from or underrepresented in our curriculum and whereas in february of 2020 85 students from fairfax county public schools participated in the governor's first black history month historical markers contest which was open to all virginia students in kindergarten through 12th grade of the 10 new black historic history historical markers selected by the governor's commission in 2020 five resulted from successful submissions from fcps students 55 4th graders from laurel ridge elementary school successfully nominated

042barbara rose johns for a historical marker that can now be seen in farmville one first grader and six fourth graders from laurel ridge elementary successfully nominated sergeant william h carney for a marker that was erected in norfolk one falls church high school student and three fourth graders from laurel ridge successfully nominated catherine johnson for a marker that will soon be unveiled in hampton one false church high school student nominated angelo for a new historical marker that was installed in jamestown and three laurel ridge fourth graders successfully nominated own a judge for a new historical marker that was unveiled here in fairfax county and whereas in february of 2021 15 students in the history hunters and history markers club at king's glenn elementary school participated in governor northam's second black history historical markers contest of the

043five new virginia historical markers resulting from this contest three came from this clings glenn elementary school virtual club four students in fourth fifth and sixth grade at king's glenn successfully nominated mary bowser denim a denman for a marker that will be unveiled in richmond later this year one kingsland fourth grader nominated dr edwin bancroft henderson for a historical marker that was unveiled in falls church last fall and three students in fourth and fifth grade nominated dangerfield and harriet newby for a marker that will be unveiled this coming june in rappahannock county and whereas in may of 2021 students from hunter's woods elementary school and cherry and cherry run elementary school participated in governor northam's first asian american and pacific islander heritage month historical markers contest of the five new virginia historical markers resulting from this

044contest two were nominated by fcps students students from cherry run elementary school nominated filipinos in the u.s navy for a marker that will be installed in virginia beach students from hunter's woods elementary successfully petitioned for a roadside marker honoring wwe yen that will be erected in albermarle county and whereas the hard work and dedication of these students with the guidance and support of teachers have led to the long overdue formal recognition of black and asian american pacific islander historical figures in fairfax county and around the commonwealth celebrating not only virginia history but also american history and whereas the fact that of all the nominations from students around the commonwealth exactly half of the 20 new historical markers came from the research and writing of fairfax county public school students a particular source of pride here

045in fcps and whereas the curiosity and determination of these students and their teachers to learn about and amplify the untold stories of virginia's history uh helped to inspire fairfax county school board and the fairfax county board of supervisors to establish the first fairfax county historical markers contest and now therefore be it resolved that fairfax county public schools hereby officially recognizes students and educators from laurel ridge elementary school kings glenn elementary school hunter's wood elementary school cherry run elementary school and falls church high school in appreciation for their extraordinary achievements in uncovering and amplifying the histories of underrepresented communities in fairfax county and across the commonwealth iso move is there a second second second dead my miss corbett sanders mr frisch would you like to speak yes thank you um first i would like to thank

046miss corbett sanders for partnering with me on this long overdue resolution i would also like to thank our staff aides for doing much of the footwork to make this happen i'm not sure that there is much left to be said um but i would be remiss if i neglected to express our appreciation for mauricini now i [Applause] uh now at island creek elementary kristen jones of falls church high school michaela puzio now of mosaic elementary and all of the other educators who helped these students uncover remarkable figures from our commonwealth's history i am thrilled to finally recognize these students and educators tonight for going above and beyond to ensure that these important figures from our past will never be forgotten whether in central virginia virginia beach or right here in fairfax county you can see

047their hard work on display with these roadside markers i am incredibly proud of everyone of our students not only have they made an impact that will last for generations to come but they have also inspired the first fairfax county historical markers contest that contest now underway and is close to wrapping up and we can't wait to see all of the great figures from black and african american history that are uncovered by our students here in fairfax county so to the students educators and family members joining us tonight for this resolution thank you and to all the students participating in this year's county historical contest i can't wait to see everything you've discovered this year miss corbin sanders thank you madam chair and i will try to be brief so i had an amazing history teacher

048here in fairfax county who said that history was the story but told by the writers of the history books and that to truly understand history you had to research history from multiple perspectives to understand his and her story or his history i do not know of a better example of this than in the establishment of the historical markers program here in fairfax county and in the state of virginia as the resolution notes half of the markers have been designed designated as a result of the hard work of the students in fairfax county public schools and school-based leaders such as those that were mentioned by my colleague mr fresh are the ones that inspired our students to become history hunters this fun project initiated by mauricini a mount vernon resident now the librarian at island creek

049is one that sparked a deeper examination of the stories of historical figures that have not traditionally been included in our history books or on markers that have been prevalent in the past the own a judge marker across from george washington's mount vernon is a good example of that ona's story is now prominently displayed across the entrance across from the entrance and i know that the students that passionately undertook their research which resulted in these markers will forever have a love of history a love of learning and they will forever be history hunters so thank you that's cohen thank you a couple of years ago an amazing teacher and wonderful friend um marikini worked really hard to figure out just like so many teachers and espits and librarians and ias and every person in our building

050to figure out how to make virtual learning fun and how to engage students who were feeling so disconnected from the world and this was a piece of that finding out a way to have something tangible but safe in the covered world to come out and be able to come together and research all these people and then turn it into something real and many people said to me that the first time that they left their house and did anything public during cobid was to be able to come out for the dedication ceremony and how excited they were they were excited about the marker but also i know how excited you guys were just to see each other um and it's this is just such an amazing thing but i also felt it i would be remiss

051not to mention that this was part and parcel of all of the incredible work outside of the things that we normally expect our staff who were busting their tushes to make this all work during virtual who came up with this outstanding idea to make history real for our kids in all their free time so thank you so much thank you tamara thank you to everybody out there who is a big piece of this and making it happen and of course i have to say something about cherry run smallest one of the smallest schools in our county and as many of you know where my own kids went to school so congratulations cherry run and all the other amazing schools represented we're so glad to get to have you here congratulations kids excuse gemara thank you

052i too just want to give a brief thank you because i actually quite unexpectedly came across one of these markers this week as i was entering a court for work and i it stopped me in my tracks it had not been there before and it was celebrating the first stop of the freedom writers in 1961 which as you know they participated in some of the protests to try to bring greater democracy to our to our nation and many of those were students so i just want to to thank you because it was history becoming alive for me and it stopped me dead in my tracks and um it mentioned a person who on my first job after high school i had written an article about so it just really warmed my heart and i just

053thank you guys for being a part of that whole process thank you and we will go ahead and take the vote but i would just like to remind everyone that after this vote we will be inviting the different groups to join us uh for a photo uh all those in favor of this resolution raise your hands that is unanimous with ms seismer heiser and miss tolin mr frisch okay i'd like to invite the students families and staff in support of the historical markers contest resolution to please join us for a photo with a board and i'll ask my colleagues to please remain in the front for the upcoming photos [Applause] as our students exit the dyess area i would like to invite members of dave evans family including his wife theresa and daughters elizabeth and

054madeline along with supervisor stork and whitman principal craig herring friends and staff who are here this evening in support of the whitman softball field naming recognition to please join the board at the dice for a photo [Applause] i would like to invite now the greenbrier west principal andrew blount staff and supporters of the greenbrier west anniversary recognition to please join the board at the dies for a photo all those who are here in support of the greenbrier west resolution please join the board at the dyess for a photo okay um i would like to invite staff and supporters of the asian-american and pacific islander heritage month recognition to join the board at the dice i would like to invite staff and supporters of the autism acceptance month recognition to the dyess for a photo with

055the board oh thank you if you're here this evening in support of the better hearing and speech month recognition please join the board at the dice for a photo if you are here this evening in support of the school nutrition employee week recognition please join the board at the dyess for a photo yeah can we please invite everyone who is here for mental health awareness month to come on down we apologize we lost track agenda item 3.01 community participation the next order of business is community participation speakers must limit their remarks to no more than two minutes in length at the conclusion of the two minutes the microphone or video will be turned off school board members will be listening but not responding to individual speakers the school board will not hear statements involving issues

056that have been scheduled for public hearings such as capital improvement program budget and boundaries comments targeting criticizing or attacking individual students are not permitted during public meetings complaints regarding school-based employees should be directed to the appropriate school principal or other school official my apologies [Music] speakers should refrain from using personally identifiable information in connection with an individual student or school-based employee additionally speakers should be respectful and observe proper decorum in their statements avoiding profanity inappropriate gestures shouting and comments are on counter to the spirit and letter of the school division's non-discrimination policy all statements should be directed to the school board and speakers should remain at the podium until concluding their remarks and as a reminder speaker substitutions are not permitted a speaker may not yield their time to another individual before during their remarks

057shouting an outburst from the audience will not be tolerated we're grateful to everyone who has come to speak to us today and we thank you for your patience and your cooperation um i'll call on miss omesh thank you um miss picarski uh without objection i'd like to ask that folks whose time who speak a different language than english one sharing with us today that used their two minutes for that portion that the interpretation be allowed otherwise regardless of time seeing no objections oh miss marin yes i certainly do not object i i just want to inform the public that we have been uh looking at ways to codify this so that in the future uh the interpretation is included in the time of length for public speakers it just takes a little time to work

058through our process and that the burden of translation interpretation beyond our system and not on our public all right thank you folks well seeing no objection we will go ahead and start community participation ms madeja our first speaker is samantha ervin hello my name is samantha irvin and i'm an 8th grader in fcps i believe our current dress code is pushing harmful ideas towards students particularly girls the current county-wide dress code states that students may not show an excessive amount of skin but what's deemed excessive as time has gone on our idea of it has certainly changed while this rule hasn't moreover the dress code blatantly targets women for example in my school alone anything showing cleavage midriff or undergarments is prohibited under that rule girls can be sent home for showing a bra strap

059while the boy wearing a crop top with armholes dropped to the bottom is fine a crop top showing my stomach isn't okay but a sleeveless sheer jersey is i understand that the county's goal is to protect its students but all we're doing is punishing girls for something boys are doing adding to that i don't understand why we're teaching young women how to cover up rather than young men how to keep it to themselves rather than young men how to keep it to themselves i understand that the county's goal is to protect its students but i think there's a much better way to do this i'm asking the board to change its ways and for the time to be updated students should be able to show thigh back stomach shoulders and collarbone and skin tight garments

060shouldn't be considered scandalous it's about time that we stop pushing toxic messages onto minors students aren't attention seeking disruptive or distracting the boys change has always won in the past so i'm asking scps to be one of the first to live it thank you thank you our next speaker is jay viscardo lichter hello my name is javis scardo lichter and i'm a freshman at oakton high school i'm an advocate with the pride liberation project a non-profit organization that works to support and protect queer students in the commonwealth since 1977 teachers have been fighting for collective bargaining recently a bill was passed overturning the blanket ban for county employees right to collective bargaining however this does not extend to school employees such as teachers and faculty including teachers voices in decisions and policies with the new

061superintendent is crucial and we ask that the school board work with employees to bring a resolution draft to the public as soon as possible if teachers are not able to have employment security and a voice in critical decisions they cannot adequately support students like me the positive effects of teacher-student relationships relationships especially with marginalized students are plentiful as evidenced by studies such as the effects of the teacher student and academic press on student engagement and academic performance this study showed that students were more behaviorally and emotionally engaged as well as performed better academically when they had positive teacher-student relationships students especially queer students pose a higher risk for mental illness and teachers can play a vital role in in supporting and encouraging students in one example a friend of mine has had teachers help her

062grow not only academically but as a queer student teachers affirming and creating a safe environment for queer marginalized students is so important to our growth our teachers play a major role in our development as young adults learning to navigate life please make our teachers a priority not just with salary increases but with dedicated engagement on issues that truly affect them and their well-being the opportunity to lift up teachers voices or the resolution for collective bargaining for teachers has been delayed long enough we support fea and fcft and the expectation for a resolution draft before the end of the school year thank you for your time thank you our next speaker is emily vanderhoff good evening chair picarski dr brabrand and members of the board my name is emily vanderhoff i'm a first grade teacher and

063proud member of fcft i'm also here representing the alliance of fairfax education unions afeu a new partnership between fcft and fea we are we rallied today to urge you to pass a collective bargaining resolution as we approach virginia's one year anniversary of public sector collective bargaining i know thus far the board has been hands off with a resolution while a work group of employee associations and fcps staff work out draft language i'm concerned however that the timeline of the work group continues to get pushed back the work was expected to finish in december but with several cancelled meetings the work group is still not finished i worry that once the resolution leaves the work group the competing priorities that you all face may cause further delays i was here in february 2020 when you all

064voted to remove anti-collective bargaining language from your legislative program one by one you spoke about how important collective bargaining is to you from stories of family members who benefited to being a unit member yourself i hope that when the draft language leaves the work group the passion with which you spoke two years ago will translate to a smooth and speedy process of passing a strong resolution collective bargaining gives the people closest to an issue of voice and how it's resolved a perfect example is the knee of the need for collective bargaining is elementary planning time in the february stack meeting dr brandman said he's working with the principal associations on a solution i've worked on playing time issues with fcfd committees for over two years and i've been speaking and running to this board with

065our solutions since january 2020. on multiple occasions since february we've asked that the other associations be part of the conversation but we have not received a response while district admin and building level administrators have unique and important perspective on the issue you can't understand the complete picture until you involve the teachers the specialists the ias and the monitors who will be directly impacted and can share how the policy will look in practice with students we urge you to prioritize passing a strong collective thank you our next speaker is chauncey houston chauncey houston good evening cheryl karsky school board members dr bray brand leadership team i am chauncey houston the proud son grandson nephew cousin of support staff and educators now i'm honored to be the husband of a current educator you see i was a

066small child dipped into the waters of education protected from knowing the effects of systemic racism realized the opportunities of an almost truthful education i was surrounded by love in a community of educators grateful indeed i am educators have been very important in my life it runs through the veins growing up i've watched my family members who chose to work in education fight unces unsuccessfully to have a seat at the bargaining table to have a fulfilling career of not only taking care of our most precious commodity but to internally take care of their own precious commodity their families now i am watching my wife and her colleagues who educate and support educate and support struggle to feel supported while making sure students get the education they need and deserve collective bargaining would give her and others

067a respected voice as experts in their field remember this board said it supports employees having the right to bargain and it will take all parties involved to remember who you do this for and why you are doing it trust me educators do not get into this go into this profession to get rich they didn't when i was little and they don't now they do it to make a difference thank you thank you our next speaker is julie hendricks julie hendricks our next speaker is holly hazard [Applause] thank you manager and members of the board my name is holly hazard i'm here on behalf of for public education tonight i ask the board to consider convening a task force to consider the impact of the lack of civility and respect that we must all endure in

068order to actively participate in this form civility is not just about comedy it's a door through which people with different priorities and beliefs can pass through on on their way to consensus or compromise without it we're left with the appearance of discourse but without the more difficult muddy churning of first respect for our differences and then the compromise that's the foundation of our democracy giving space and light to repeated hysterical mean speed excuse me mean-spirited theatrics signals approval it makes the community participation of farce it teaches our children that the way to change the world is to vilify those with whom you disagree spew hateful epitaphs and create disruption i'm all in on the first amendment however the chronically cruel vicious and almost comical performances that we must all witness and endure the baiting of

069school board of the school board members staff and audience should have no safe quarter here parents decline to attend because it's not a safe space for kids parents literally have panic attacks to the ridiculous hostile displays we should be mirroring behavior that we expect in our children not behavior that lands you on fox tv and this isn't just about you it's about the health of our community that seems to tolerate the emotional abuse by adults towards other adults and community leaders we hear a lot from protective moms about the reported damage to their kids due to school policies the quote mama bears unquote i advocate that we choose today and now to emulate elephant moms those magnificent animals who not only protect their own but also all their other calves please stop tolerating the vitriol

070and abuse those designed not to better our schools but to destroy them thank you thank you our next speaker is walter serrano hello my name is walter serrano and i live in the city of springfield virginia and i am a member of casa va gracias for opportunities de la informacion de los estudiantes thank you for the opportunity to allow me to express my concerns about the handling of information from undocumented students and parents since my nephew in fairfax county public schools on many occasions i have felt concerned of the safety and treatment they may be receiving in school since we always want to have receive a quality education in a safe and inclusive environment i am here today to support the school trust policy because i believe that all students should be treated with respect

071and should not fear regardless of their personal information being shared with federal immigration offices respective school board members please vote for this school trust police project to keep perfect families together and fearless all perfect students deserve a good education not to be put under stress by their legal status of their family's legal status thank you thank you our next speaker is paul berry good evening madam chair members of the board my name is paul berry and i live in hunter mill district i want to begin my remarks by thanking the tireless efforts of my representative but also thank all of you for your work throughout the pandemic i only have a view into my immediate surroundings in hunter mill but you all deserve to hear the following message as many times as it needs to

072be said your work throughout the pandemic has made our schools stronger and i thank you for weathering the worst unforeseeable circumstances tonight i'm here to ask you to continue the pursuit of excellence in our schools by supporting two measures the first is collective bargaining i'm the son of a lifelong public school teacher and i'm a parent teachers in virginia and especially fairfax deserve better from all of us as participants and collaborators in public education and fairfax county should be driving the path forward to better wages benefits schedules and other conditions in the workplace please support collective bargaining for our teachers and support staff the second measure that i ask you to support is the trust policy thank you to representatives frisch and anderson for driving this process to make schools a place for learning without

073fear countless families throughout the county who come from the new american communities deserve to know that the school experience for their children will reflect values of nurturing and growth it's not simply about sending the message this will have real positive impacts on students that they will remember they will remember this decision to adopt the trust policy long after they graduate thank you again for all of your work thank you our next speaker is jose rivera good evening my name is jose rivera i am a member of casa va organization i sam thank you for the opportunity to be here today to express my concerns high school i have a 19 year old son who is currently in high school and as father i'm afraid that my son will suffer discrimination or bullying because of our

074legal status i'm concerned that he might feel insecure for not having a regular immigration status in this country we want safety in schools for our children we come to this country hope to have a better future and most of our children come to with psychological traumas and insecurity due to violence crimes and lack of opportunity that exist in our countries of our region for this reason i asked the school board to vote in favor of the school trust policy as these policies policies the students will be able to focus on their studies and attend a school without any stress and worry of thinking of their information may be shared with federal immigration offices we do not want them to be at risk of deportation and be respected from their families separated from their families thank

075you very much thank you our next speaker is mark smith hi i've never been to school or beating before so i'm excited to be here uh i this has nothing to do with what i was planning on talking about but i didn't know about the kids making the historical markers thing until i came and saw the meeting and that was the greatest thing i've ever seen ever and so 10 out of 10 big fan but the thing i am here to talk about is because it's my understanding that fcps teachers did not get a pay scale increase for the current school year or the school year before that i would like you to give them those steps i don't know how when or why but i think they deserve it for what's been going on

076in the last few years i know you guys are i think planning on giving a pay step and a percent increase in the budget mean that you guys have been coming up um but i think they deserve it or at least a plan for like we'll give you one in three years or whatever just something that says that for that time that you are going to compensate them for what they should have um so yeah and especially with teacher appreciation coming up next week you guys said in your announcement that you got at the beginning gave the beginning of the meeting fairfax county public schools value the skills creativity professionalism to characterize our teachers and if that's true besides giving them a thank you perhaps you could pay them the steps that they should have

077thank you very much and have a nice day thank you our next speaker is dave hatcher good evening i want to thank the board for helping me overhaul my my intro tonight asian american heritage not only my military service in vietnam but my heritage of 41 years this july to my asian wife and my partial fluency in four languages oops forgot my ration and my two two bi-racial kids who were here at paul luther jackson and also falls church jaguars which leads me to my second entree softball and the newest issue facing school boards and jurisdictions now is the rush to ruin girls sports we've all seen the photos side by side of biological males and girl colle girl compatriots and captions about these males breaking girls records by a huge amount soon will this

078destructive effort transcend to other sports like softball or like soccer or like girls lacrosse and what happens when destructive and serious injuries happen to some of the girls simply because of physical differences because of muscular and differences between girls and boys in a word duh or chivalry ba humbug so much twisted logic and the misuse of title ix goes into what's going on hypocrisy pretending that we are leveling the playing field by allowing biological males to dominate girls sports so the bottom line is we all should be looking at how to face this issue let girls compete against girls stand up for the spirit of title ix renounce the convoluted mental gymnastics where more and more girls are denied thank you our next speaker is margarita brown good evening and thank you school board members

079many of tomorrow's fairfax county business and community leaders are currently fcps students we all benefit when these students and their families feel wanted and secure but in a county where more than 30 percent are immigrants there are some real challenges a common theme is fear of the police and their native countries and that fear has been amplified here in recent years due to the uptick in hate-based crimes and incidents fear drives you away and keeps you away even when students succeed their parents may feel marginalized and excluded from participation parents can feel afraid to enter school grounds to interact with teachers or to access needed services like food or health care families may fear that their information will be used to identify and profile them until recently it was thought that the information of students

080and their families was well protected by the schools then came the data breach underscoring the need to collect only required information subsequent fcps scrutiny of possible gaps has brought to light the lack of protection around data shared with vendors and contractors we are also increasingly informed of the data mined by huge contractors such as amazon that are not bound by government regulations and the purchase of such data by ice a chain is only as strong as its weakest link thank you for seeking to identify these privacy gaps and to implement solutions to protect the most vulnerable the school trust policy will help all families in fairfax to feel safe in the public schools a vibrant and successful school system promotes robust community engagement and that benefits all of us in fairfax county not just today

081but well into the future please vote to pass it tonight without amendment for implementation in the upcoming school year thank you our next speaker is kimberly adams good evening chair picarski school board members dr bray brandon leadership team my name is kimberly adams and i stand before you as the president of the fairfax education association a union representing thousands of your employees tonight many of us gathered before this meeting to raise our voices in support of passing a collective bargaining resolution before this school year ends the process has been clouded by multiple voices and many of us and our members are even concerned that some on this board may no longer be committed committed to this right being exercised by your employees school districts that currently have the ability to bargain contracts have better working

082and learning conditions this is about what's doing what's best for our students the fairfax education association and the fairfax county federation of teachers are partnering together to make our employee voices stronger as the alliance of fairfax education unions we are raising our voices together for our students negotiated working conditions for your employees will ensure higher quality learning conditions for our students we are the people who care the most about the lives of our students we are calling on you to move this process along take the information that has been thoroughly shared across the work group and direct your staff attorneys to write the draft language for some reason we are nearly 10 months behind the county in developing our language this is not a message to rush the process along this is a message to

083move it forward at a pace that meets our needs two years ago nearly all of you stood with us as you added support for collective bargaining to your legislative program we all stood together and got it passed by the legislature we have had the opportunity to create a resolution staring us in the face for a full year come this weekend please get this done now thank you [Applause] thank you our next speaker is christian martinez good evening chipotle and members of the school board my name is christian martinez the advocacy specialist at casa casa is an immigrant advocacy organization with 10 000 immigrant latino and working class virginian members casa focuses on the three pillars community organizing community services and community advocacy two weeks ago four other casa fairfax residents and i spoke in support

084of the school of trust policy you listen to immigrant families who this policy were for the better would impact fairfax immigrant families are counting on you to pass this so that their children can go to school safely schools should be a safe place for everyone to come and learn to get the best education a parent can give their children tonight again you heard from a few other casa fairfax residents who told you their testimony on why you should vote yes for this let their story and the members who came before show that families see how important this policy would mean to them we ask all of you to vote in support of the school trust policy and continue moving fairfax forward thank you [Applause] thank you madam chair that was our final speaker thank you

085agenda item 3.02 superintendent matters and i'll call on dr brabrand thank you miss picarski and members of the board and community i want to go over a couple of things first of all just listening tonight i really really appreciate a lot of the comments made and i want to make a few comments first austras aqui para el trust policy gracias por su presencia es un placer para miedo in westeros so thank you very much for being here and [Applause] thank you i said welcome and i thank for having the honor to serve them and work with them as superintendent and i believe uh very strongly as i know this board does too that i don't want them or their children to have fear in our classrooms in fairfax county i also i also want to

086reassure some folks that collective bargaining is alive and well here in fairfax county public schools [Music] i know i know it has been a long time since i've brought an update and i will work to do that very soon to the board but i can assure you all board members that we have been actively uh working with our collective bargaining teams i did direct the team to begin engagement all through this year and i will provide an update before i leave as superintendent to this board i also want to let you just know a couple of things going on in the community one of the things i wanted to share that we sent a message to our community yesterday around updated covet isolation procedures for students who test positive for coba 19. and i did

087share that beginning may 1st children may return to in-person instruction and activities after at least five days of isolation when they've met the following criteria they're fever-free without any fever-reducing medication the student's symptoms have improved or are resolved and students wear a well-fitting mask for the additional five days day six through ten after they've concluded the five day isolation period in accordance with cdc we reviewed our health team our our last three months of health data it's been very good we recognize that cova has not gone away but as dr fauci actually even shared this week we're in a new phase of uh working with covid and we need to balance the need for safety in our schools from covid and the instructional needs of our students students still will be able to have access

088to stream in and check in that's very important to i know our parents while they are in isolation and these procedures are fully aligned with cdc bdh in the fairfax county health department we will continue to do that balancing of needs and we'll continue to bring any updates to the community should situations health wise change i want to just mention a couple of other quick things i know we continue to bring to the board wonderful uh student success and i just wanted to share that madison oakton and woodson high school their robotics teams represented fcps at the world robotics uh championship in houston um they all went and they competed uh we're really really proud of the students for their hard work robotics is a wonderful wonderful club because it teaches all of those skills

089you're learning in math and science and i know a little something about it now because my boys are freshmen at ohio state in engineering and part of their project as their freshman year course is doing robotics so frankly our kids are getting experiences now and experiences that will be expected as part of their college experience especially if they're interested in a stem related career really really proud again madison oakton woodson high school students for their amazing work one other thing i want to share it is spring and we are busy hiring for next year in fairfax county public schools in fact we have another instructional job fair saturday april 30th which is this saturday and we're looking for educators who want to make a big difference the job fair is open to external candidates internal

090transfers and recruitment hires and we'll have in person 9 a.m to 2 p.m and virtual 11 a.m to 2 p.m opportunities for folks to reach out and become a part of the premier school system in the united states fairfax county public schools so tell a friend come to the instructional job fair this saturday there's still time to sign up it is teacher appreciation week next week the first weekend in may please consider surprising your teachers and staff with a note of gratitude i say that to all of you staff members parents board members and superintendent and staff members from the leadership team we all should be grateful for the role that teachers have and do every day and what they've done certainly through this pandemic and as we are getting into the next stage of

091exiting the pandemic and having all of our kids as we've had this year all of our kids back in schools a lot has been asked of them and we need to show that appreciation in many ways and so we are coming up on the budget soon with the school board and i promise you we will have a lot of what i shared with you in the budget earlier and many of your follow on motions we'll be talking about those at our work session uh in early may and i think there will be a lot of good news to share finally uh may 4th is bike to school or bike in your neighborhood day it's been celebrated since 1956 to showcase the many benefits of bicycling encouraging more people to give biking a tray a try

092we have a lot of trails in fairfax so wednesday may 4th will be the official bike to school day so uh next week on wednesday please uh again with parent support and permission uh ride your bike to school and or just within your neighborhood and we look to see everybody out biking next wednesday thank you very much thank you dr brabrand agenda item 3.03 student representative matters i call on mr chavery good evening madam chair board members last week i had the pleasure of calling in and testifying before the california state senate in favor of senate bill 1263 which provides local school districts the options to give voting rights to their student board members for more than 50 years students serving on local and state boards of education have been active partners in affecting change

093across the country over generations student bodies have marched protested and fought for the causes they believe in and it's a step towards having student voice as a reality not just a parchment guarantee my dear friend jennifer tran from the garden grove unified school district said it best she noted that without a vote on the decisions that affect us students are 100 of the education constituency and 0 of the decision making sb 1236 passed out of committee with bipartisan support and i know that kind of work is possible in virginia but it takes making an active effort and it really does take soliciting the input of and listening to student leaders speaking of student leaders i want to deliver a major congratulations to our incoming student representative to the school board michelle togbay michelle is a

094junior at south county high school and throughout her time in fcps she has been deeply committed to advancing causes relating to equity transparency student voice and civic education she's currently one of our student equity ambassador leaders or seals vice president of the county-wide superintendent's advisory council founder of the south county equity coalition national field director for the my vote project a deca state champion and a fluent speaker of aoe and french her deep focus on civic engagement will serve our student body well in this moment in time she stresses the importance of transparency and accessibility when it comes to student voice not just claiming we care about it but acting upon student voice that means for her school visits social media open communication and being a resource for students across the county at every turn

095additionally she has focused on the communication of resources to all of our families and ensuring that diverse perspectives aren't just represented in how we govern they are sought out in how we shape curriculum and instruction in fact she's also spoken to statewide conferences of history teachers on how we can reshape our history curriculum to be informed by diverse perspectives but beyond that michelle is a dear friend of mine and just such an incredible human being she's honest and approachable she is so dedicated to what she does and she is relentless in fighting for our student body she has already done so much for our 180 000 students and i'm so excited to see what she brings to the office because let me tell you all michelle is incredible um and i just want to say

096michelle i am always here as a resource to you please never be afraid to contact me i know we've had many of our fun 3am text conversations um and really i think this office is so crucial and you are the person in this moment who is the most capable of making a difference and really pushing the ball forward i remember a few months ago michelle telling me about a school administrator in her pyramid who told students wearing durags to their faces you look so dangerous as black men dressed like that as leader of the local high school's equity coalition michelle met with that administrator and gave them the perspective on the impact and the hurt behind those words as the only student talking to them and she handled that with poise and fortitude i want

097to end off with some excerpts of what i've heard from her and this was something that she mentioned in her application despite the good intentions adults tend to claim to be a voice for the voiceless when in reality words are being spoken we're speaking up they just aren't always listening it's time for new voices i'm ready to be that voice thank you just want to say she is a rock star agenda item 4.02 trust policy i'll call on dr anderson it's a very long motion i had to find the language i moved that the board approved the trust policy sorry is there a second seconded by mr frisch dr anderson absolutely thank you i'd like to speak to it fairfax county is home to over 352 000 immigrant families who contribute to various facets of

098our community all students from those families should have access to the full complement of the educational opportunities fcps offers and families should not be concerned their private information will be gathered by u.s immigration and customs enforcements for many of these immigrant families the trust has been broken to regain their confidence we must demonstrate in all that we do that we are in the business of education and nothing more that is exactly what this policy does the implementation of the school trust policy will foster an inclusive environment welcoming for all students and their families in fairfax county public schools the policy will review the annual notice of opt-out rights to ensure clarity and transparency including which organizations may be provided directory information including parent email addresses the policy will provide guidance to external organizations such as

099ptas ptos and booster clubs not to make submission of parent address phone and email mandatory for membership most importantly the policy would require annual training for all employees that aligns to their duties including the goals of the policy the recognition of student and family rights regardless of immigration status and the protection of all student data including which data is releasable as directory information this policy has been highly anticipated by our community and today i have received over 500 emails exactly 514 emails and we see the community that's been here today and and weeks before to discuss this policy imploring us to pass it i want to thank mr frisch for raising this matter to my attention and partnering with me on this policy i want to thank staff particularly miss kennedy who i don't believe

100is here this evening for the numerous meetings that she held with us in preparation of the various drafts most importantly i want to thank the numerous advocates who worked on this policy with us for nearly a year the staff at justice legal aid center the aclu people power fairfax casa as well as many of the other of the other organizations who have been in support of this policy of which there are way too many to list i look forward to the board supporting this um policy this evening uh because our students deserve it thank you thank you dr anderson mr frisch thank you i'd like to thank dr anderson for her partnership on this over the past year i would also like to thank supervisor dalia palchek for encouraging us to pursue a school trust

101policy that aligns with the counties and for the patients support and collaboration of our community stakeholders especially aclu people power casa and edu for touro so why why do we need a trust policy tonight at our last meeting and during our bi-annual public hearing earlier this month we heard from many brave parents they shared deeply personal stories about what it is like to have children in our schools and to worry that their citizenship or immigration status might fall into the wrong hands risking the security and unity of their families wanna an fcps parent said i am often afraid when it comes to personal information because i'm an undocumented mother i am afraid that my information will be shared with other agencies or with ice for that reason many times i am afraid at school and

102it is difficult for my son to enroll in different education programs iris another fcps parent said for a long time i felt insecure because i have an irregular immigration status and despite the fact that my son was born in this country of the united states and attend school due to my legal status i am always afraid that my information is going to be exposed to these immigration entities such as ice to me all children and youth in fairfax should have access to a safe education in schools amen this is just the tip of the iceberg our inboxes are overflowing with hundreds of personal stories just like wanna and irish shared in these meetings as a school system we must fully be fully committed to providing a high caliber education regardless of the immigration status of

103our students and their guardians fcps has so many opportunities to offer yet we haven't been able to reach some of the most vulnerable community members in fairfax county because of a lack of trust the school trust policy will begin repairing our relationship with these students and their families by aligning the school division with fairfax county's policy that prohibits voluntary cooperation with immigration and customs enforcement it will protect personally identifiable identifiable information including citizenship and immigration status from unauthorized sharing by demonstrating fcps is in the business of education alone as dr anderson said we can send a message that our schools are safe places for these students and their families where they can take advantage of all the opportunities for enrichment we have to offer just like other students and families i want to bring attention

104to a few specific provisions of this policy among other things it requires the superintendent or their designee to communicate the ins and outs of the policy to all students and families in the language spoken at home including how the policy will will protect uh their personally identifiable information from being shared without authorization it also requires the superintendent to make our policies contracts memorandums of understanding and other agreements align with the letter and spirit of the policy and to make sure that future new contracts and agreements do so as well this policy is thorough and thoughtful it has been painstakingly researched and vetted by our council our amazing staff our governance committee and our colleagues and our stakeholders for that i want to reiterate my thanks to dr anderson our colleagues staff and community stakeholders for

105helping to craft and strengthen this policy over the past year the hard work will certainly pay off for the students and families we serve ms cowan forgive me because my spanish thanks bienvenudo estamos agradicios desidos de que este on the west of family fcps we owe this to you we're glad you're in our community thank you for everything that you give to us thank you for trusting us with your children and we're excited to get to do this tonight mr kofax i am happy to support this school trust policy to formally put into policy proof of our caring culture advocates first brought this to our county and school leaders at our joint successful children and youth policy team actually several years ago where they reminded us that it is essential to our families who are

106new to our community and to our schools to feel safe and secure within our buildings we want you and your families to feel safe and included we want parents and family members who come to our schools to volunteer to see your children and your family members in the extracurricular activities that they participate in and know that you are safe and welcome members of our fcps family thank you to my colleagues and to advocates who've worked diligently for quite a while to bring this across the finish line tonight and i'm happy to support this sms thank you i want to start by thanking my colleagues mr frisch and dr anderson for their leadership on this there's no doubt that this is a critical starting point for getting our system to a place where we can ensure

107our families are safe regardless of their immigration status and no doubt it has been long overdue so i do want to thank them for their tireless hours weeks months dedicated to working and collaborating with the community and taking this step and finally finally just putting a stamp on something that again has been long overdue i also want to just make sure we communicate loud and clear to our families that while this policy will be passed tonight that the system will not be fully prepared to implement this policy until the start of the school year this fall and so i want to make sure we're not operating in reliance on the protections that we are speaking of today from starting today that we wait until that point to understand that staff will have an implementation process

108and will have properly trained everybody to be prepared and so necesito de la lone espaglio espanol claro quiero a segura que nuestra comunidad vamos avotar para apoyar so i i just i it means it's extremely important to me and it is okay i want to make sure everybody is very well aware of that and i know mr frisch and dr anderson and dr brabrand and the full team including the new next superintendent are committed to making sure that uh we implement it in time for that promise oh and last thing sorry i do want to yield some of my time don't freak out on me uh if without objection to the final person who came today sharing a story that simply didn't get a chance because we filled the wait list i'd like to yield

109my time to that speaker jesus i i will ask mr morgan if that's allowable well she can ask for unanimous consent and if the brush the board agrees then yes you can allow someone else to speak it's not yielding her time but if there's no objections then yes it can be done are there any objections miss maren okay uh mr morgan do we now have to take a vote to suspend no you don't because you just oh there were no objections no there was one objection so i'd like to know if there was an objection yes then you would take a vote and it would need to be passed by two-thirds since it is a suspension of the rules okay um we'll go ahead to take a vote to suspend the rules to allow this

110last person to share their story um all those in favor of suspending the rules okay is that enough people one two three yes it is thank you yeah you should still call for the those who oppose call the roll call okay uh miss darnold koufax miss picarski miss cohen mr frisch ms keith kamara miso mesh miss corbett sanders ms tolen and miss sizemore heiser all those against miss baron all those abstaining okay dr anderson okay we'll invite this last speaker to come up and join us hello my name is jesus martinez i live in fairfax county i am an active member of the casa virginia organization i am a father of three children between the age of 10 to 18 who study in public schools of fairfax county is one of the concerns that we

111have as parents today is that in schools our children are not completely safe and the database with our information is not protected it is very important to me to be sure of the commitment of the school board to provide a safe and welcoming space for all students and their families school board members are asked to improve security and confidentiality for all students regardless of their immigration status that way students and their families can feel good when interacting with schools and when receiving services programs and activities offered by schools without fearing that the information is going to be disclosed directly or indirectly to federal immigration officials please vote for the school trust policy thank you thank you um dr anderson i'll call on you to correct your vote for the record my vote was a no

112i have an objection thank you um miss seismore heiser followed by miss corbett sanders thank you um i will be brief i just wanted to say i also will be in support of this motion i wanted to thank both mr frisch and dr anderson for bringing this forward and the hard work very very hard work of our governance committee um of our advocates and and really fighting for this in our many community members who shared their stories with us um the most important thing for our students in our schools is to feel safe and to feel welcomed and to be able to access a strong education and they need to be able to feel safe and welcome to access that strong education and our families need to feel safe and welcome to be able to

113support their students in that education and this is a an important piece of that um providing that safety to our students so i'm really happy to support it and i just wanted to share um it's my own experience as a child where i was born in the united states but my parents were not and experiencing myself at one point traveling in a foreign country having my parents being accused true story of kidnapping me and having my father be taken off the train by officials and we weren't sure if we'd see him again um and sitting on the train and having that train start moving and he was not on there um so i have experienced firsthand the fear that some of our immigrant families face so this is really important and very personal for me

114so i am very happy to support this miss corbett sanders yes thank you madam chair and i do thank mr frisch and dr anderson for their hard work in this area trust what does it mean the definition of trust is a firm belief in the character strength or truth of something or someone it's a person or thing which confidence is placed we all live in a world of presumed trust however perception becomes a reality for many when they worry about whether or not they are they can be fully safe going into a building let me be very clear our schools are safe places for our children and they continue to be safe places for all of our children but if somebody fears about the safety of a place in which their children study and they

115fear for their own personal safety by walking into that building and being able to volunteer in that building then we have a failure of trust and so what this policy does is it very clearly states that fairfax county public schools is committed to ensuring and to continuing to ensure that all of our children are safe and secure and that we want them to flourish and succeed in our buildings and that we have a shared partnership with the families every family who sends their children and entrusts their children to fairfax county public schools and it is for that reason that i am happy to support this policy but i did want to make sure that people know that your children have been safe in our schools and will continue to be safe in our schools thank

116you miss tollin followed by ms keith gamara thank you um i'll be very brief but um over the years even as when i was a staffer with fcps i remember sometimes arriving at schools on days where there were rumors of authorities in the neighborhood are coming to schools and we would have tens if not a couple hundred kids absent and not able to take advantage of the learning of the day i've seen events where families were not attending even you know food drives or times when resources were available for families and they they weren't coming because of their fear of being in our buildings um it is definitely time for all of our students and all of our family members in fcps to feel welcome and safe in our schools so this evening i'm very

117happy to join our board of supervisors in voting for this trust policy and to make fairfax county a safer place for all of our residents thank you thank you i too will support this policy because it is the nature of public education to do so every child must have access to public education and every child must feel safe within our schools we have made a commitment to provide a caring culture and to welcome everyone within our community into our schools and so i'm happy to join the efforts of my colleagues i thank dr anderson and mr frisch for bringing this forward and it's a part of a process to continue to have continuous improvement so that every child has an opportunity to become their very best we need them we need them in our future

118and so we want to do everything possible to support our families and our community and to make sure that they experience both excellence and a caring culture thank you seeing as there are no other oh miss man that's okay okay go ahead i want to say i have i've supported this policy from the start i am very grateful to dr anderson and mr frisch for pushing this through um as mr martinez knows as others who have contacted me i fully support this i want to say that as as a board member chair picarsky as a board member i owe it to the public to be fair and we have a really specific process for public comment and this board just threw that to the side tonight and if we did that for everyone who wanted

119to speak we would be in a lot of difficult situations i recognize how difficult it is to come at nighttime but i'm really disappointed in my colleagues and i and chair picarsky i'm frustrated that miss omega continues to talk at double the amount of time that we generally aim for and continues to flout the rules by which we do business this is a public business meeting so i fully support this i'm trying to keep my comments as short as i can so folks can go home back to their families but we need to respect people's time and the boundaries of this board's work thank you thank you ms marin i will um go back to the motion at hand and offer just a few comments um we are also waiting for a few board members

120to return um i will say of course i'll be supporting this policy and um you know thank you mr frisch for bringing this to the board for consideration um and all the work that has been done by everyone on this and of course all our advocates um fear of course is no way to to have to live and of course no way to have to send your children to school we want to welcome all our fairfax county students with open arms always and our families and ensure that all of you feel safe feel wanted respected and valued and are able to participate in your children's education because we know you you know everyone wants to do that for their kids and i will just say you know one of the things that i think is

121very important with this policy it just sets the expectations and it allows that accountability it allows a professional development to happen where our staff understand very clearly what's expected many years ago when i first started teaching i was an esol teacher and i will say my own students brought to me some very deeply personal stories and there was no guidance you know the you didn't know what to do but those stories if had been shared would have been devastating to the families in my schools so i'm happy and to support this and we will go ahead and take the vote the motion is before us on the screen all those in favor that vote is unanimous with ms sizemore heiser and miss tolin virtual and miss mclaughlin away that motion passes i'll now call on

122mr frisch for a follow-on thank you i moved to direct the superintendent to implement as much of the school trust policy as possible for the 2022 summer school session and conduct all necessary preparations for the policy to be fully implemented for the start of the 2022-2023 school year is our second second seconded by dr anderson mr frisch it is about as straightforward as it gets dr anderson i would briefly like to speak a little bit more to this because um as was shared earlier while the policy has now been um adopted and we're very excited about that there's a lot of work that needs to happen there are documents to be reviewed there's training that needs to happen signage that needs to be made available in the school division in the schools so this will

123not all happen by tomorrow and so we are very confident that this is going to be in place by the next school year in august but we also want for the school division to be able to put as much in place as possible by the time summer school rolls around as well so i'm looking forward to seeing this develop but definitely to be in place by the start of the next school year thank you miss corbett sanders yes thank you madam chair um i want to thank both mr frisch and dr anderson for bringing forward this motion as you know i was very committed to raising this issue at our work session the other day and the reason that this is such an important follow-on motion is because we know that all of our families

124are wanting their children to be able to fully participate in the enrichment and the remediation activities this summer we have 40 000 students who will be participating in summer school during the course of the summer at each and every one of our schools and so this policy is one that we want to ensure everybody feels welcomed and safe in the school environment and waiting until the fall is will become a dis disincentive for some families to send their children to summer school and we want them to come to summer school take advantage of all of the learning activities and the enrichment activities available to each of our students and so thank you very much for uh bringing this to the table tonight excuse gemara okay i support the motion thank you okay thank you we'll

125go ahead and take the vote on this motion that will be posted before us on the screen okay all those in favor please raise your hands that vote is unanimous with ms sizemore heiser and miss tolin voting virtually okay now i'll call him a so-mesh for a follow-on thank you i move to direct the superintendent to number one by mid-july provide guidelines for the department of human resources to promote compliance with this policy including investigative procedures and potential disciplinary actions for the unauthorized sharing of personally identifiable information and citizenship or immigration status number two by may 10th to provide the board with updated language to the rights and responsibilities of students section of the draft srnr that states students have an unambiguous right to have their personally identifiable information and citizenship or immigration status protected

126from unauthorized sharing and three beginning in mid-july provide regular written updates to the board and public regarding non-compliance with this policy progress on communications to students and families as outlined in this policy to include information about what is and is not covered or protected and other pertinent information as needed is there a second second seconded by mr frisch mr mesh yeah thank you um so this has been a bit of a painful process uh i i came into this with an ambitious list of things that i was hoping could be included um and of course through many conversations and uh brainstorming with colleagues we landed at a place where we're able to have a realistic timeline for what staff are able to deliver to maintain again that commitment that what we promise the community is

127achievable and that we make we keep our word and so i want to make sure i highlight just a few of these pieces and elevate them as i direct my comments mostly to staff as they begin thinking about how to put in place a plan in advance of coming back to the board and and many of these have been discussed and and were raised in our work session two weeks ago um as a collective uh but of course you know in speaking to the peace on department of of human resources uh as as we stated before um when we set a policy in place obviously it's a good intention it's a commitment from our board but no doubt as a system this large to maintain fidelity of implementation we need to make sure it has

128the teeth that are needed the incentive and disincentive structures that are needed to uh ensure compliance with that so i wanted to ensure i explained the intention there and then of course the uh elevating the piece on communication so just like i tried to do in speaking to our community today and making sure the understanding is very clear about when this is the effective by date for this policy in a similar fashion to be able to say very clearly to folks this is what we can protect from and this is what we cannot guarantee and to be able to communicate that clearly as i know the policy speaks to communications plan but of course in making sure that it's that explicit is something that i'm hopeful we're able to see and no doubt that comes

129with another piece that i know the community advocates felt very strongly about so i want to make sure i also highlight which is access to information on follow-up around this whether that be non-compliance whatever means and mechanisms that we might determine to evaluate our effectiveness in implementing this policy i know that the public is eager to see that and i know that whether it's foia or other means that they're going to want to kind of have some of that assurance as they further convey trust to their community so that we can live up to that uh trust so i'm hopeful that that's another component that could be included and then of course um you know there were several other things we we had discussed during the work session but that were removed from the particular

130language here you know the summer school piece obviously was just covered guidance for for ptas and whatnot that's also covered by the policy and making sure that we see a clear schedule for the professional development that has been promised uh so that we're able to communicate that um intentionality to the community around what we have committed to and of course i know my colleagues ms keis gamara and ms corbett sanders will be bringing a forum soon to also review the sro mou to make sure it's consistent with these promises that we're making and no doubt there is plenty of work to be done there but i want to also articulate to the community that that has been part of the thinking here and hopefully uh will come in this in the weeks and months ahead

131so with that uh i trust dr king will uh be a an exceptional steward of this work i know that it means as much to her as it does to us and i'm looking forward to that conversation uh hopefully you know starting with the srnr on may 10th and then later in mid-july so thank you so much for your collaboration and to everyone who's been a part of uh bringing this together and i'd be remiss not to thank rajna as well ms seismer heiser for her work to shepherd this as well mr frisch would you like to offer comments no we've got a long night ahead of us and i think miss amash covered everything indeed um miss kisagamara yes i just i have a few questions and mr mesh i think i tried to

132raise some of these uh concerns before because as you know i am always concerned about conveying something to the community that we that is not realistic or perhaps making a promise that we can't keep um a particular concern is the third paragraph here beginning in mid-july when we get a new superintendent in the beginning of july is this something that you have discussed with dr reed i have discussed this with dr king who will be leading this process and it's my understanding that it's achievable with her team um i i i i have to tell you that i'm i'm a little um concerned um so i'll give it some more thought but i i really my overall concern is not with what you're trying to convey but what we are seeming to promise to the

133community uh in the midst of the transition that i believe we're in right now thank you miss picarski um yes so much i i believe we had some conversation around being able to as a board see what potentially could be scheduled around that time as well to know that it's a realistic possibility i just wanted to check in with you as well i know we've discussed that as well just to clarify any confusion around that i'm a little bit confused as to are you talking about the visibility of a conversation around this in mid-july i i don't think it's feasible it's looking we talked about this can we talk um i thought it was the fall um to have this conversation you know i i would have to take this back to chairs with dr

134brabrand and staff to actually look at the um at the calendar uh but i understood this as you getting information us getting updates written updates followed by some point the work session is that not your intention no the intention is the timeline that's listed here and that was checked with staff and confirmed uh with board leadership that it's possible uh dr king if you might just comment on uh the feasibility of this timeline for your team based on our conversations so you know we're going to do what the superintendent directs us to do i do have a concern about when you said written often right i don't know what often means is that once a quarter is that you know and i think that dr reed would probably need to weigh in on that as

135well um but it you know if the board's willing then we will do what we need to do to get it done the flux the room for flexibility is inherent i think that that you know should be conveyed as well um there's certainly an intention here to make sure that there's regular evaluation and and revisiting and that the public has that uh that we afford the public that as we claim to ask for their trust um but again this flexibility is inherent uh because of the transition the understanding that the transition will potentially lead to different needs around scheduling so we're hopeful that that is what clarifies and obviously we're not explicitly asking for a work session here um so mr mesh if i can if the the policy is to be ready by excuse

136me if the regulation is to be ready by the beginning of school then you know might we consider moving that date to the beginning in the fall to give us some time right because the full policy won't be implemented in july and so we want to make sure that everybody is i mean excuse me the regulation so my understanding after the conversation with your team uh was that we would check in mid-july for board feedback in advance of the start of the school year um so that's not what that says it doesn't say check in it says written update to the board regarding an update of wherever you're at right dr brabrand dr bray brown so listen tonight we passed the trust policy and trust starts right here between the school board and administration we

137understand the spirit of this this is important to get done as quickly as possible i take this as regular updates um the full extent of what that would look like is it a work session is it a brand briefing there'll be an update to the board in mid-july i can assure you of that and i'll make sure this is the top of dr reed's list as i do transition meetings with her um and i know she'll find this to be very important in something that she wants to get done to start the year those uh who've already engaged with her on this subject know that she's passionate about it as well so we're fully prepared to follow through on both the follow-on motions that have been shared tonight and i'm confident the flexibility that you've

138shared is uh gracious and uh we're grateful and we'll know we'll be able to provide an update in mid-july and we'll work through the details with the chair vice chair and i'll update you before i leave thank you dr brabrand miss kisgamara were you finished okay so let me just tell you what i'm hearing i am hearing that staff wants to do what you're asking but i am not hearing that it is realistic to get all of it done i i believe dr brabrand that you have the intention um and and i i part of my concern here is we have people here who are relying on our word right and things can happen i know how hard i've we've had forum topics pending for months so you know it ms omesh perhaps you should

139would you consider what dr king suggested with respect to the fall they can still meet the dates that you have in here but it sounds as though you know i don't know i'm accustomed to listening to what people are saying and what they're not saying and so in in doing that i i just think that if you're talking about flexibility then that language probably needs to be um in this in this follow-on motion um i understand your intent and i don't want to stop that um but i do think that maybe we need to listen to what dr king just said and perhaps write the flexibility in here that was mentioned miss kismar did you want to offer an amendment to this motion um i would um yield the floor to dr king to assassin

140to assist me in providing what language might be helpful um are you dr king are you suggesting i i hate to put you on the spot but she just put me on the spot so sorry yeah you can say no um i'm not unless miss omesh i see you i wanted the language of this is saying that we would have an update a status update by mid-july but that the regular updates would be once this is completed i mean that was the spirit of this i i mean and this was kind of a conversation i'm going to offer an amendment if you'd be willing to change it from mid july to mid august it's just one month august is when school starts we know we have to have it implemented and a week or two

141before in mid-august we should have most of this done if if we're not up to the final line and can certainly provide the full update it may be a little early in just the second week of july to do that so august would give us really almost all of the summer when we need to be ready anyway from what you just passed so i'd offer that as a suggestion in the end the board you all have to decide but that may make it clear on all those things that you wanted mid-july to be a little more nailed down and dr reed will have more than just a week to be able to assess it for herself any changes she might want to make in what you all have voted on tonight so miss omesh would

142you like to ask without objection that you change mid-july to mid-august in this motion yeah i'd like to ask um i mean the original intent here was for us to have the time for them to go back to be responsive to our requests so if that's their preference that's fine i mean originally it was to accommodate them so yeah without objection i moved to amend that to august i meant the third bullet july to august okay oh i have hands i think i have objections miss marin thank you chair madam clerk could you please uh share with the board when this final language came to the board for this motion okay so just to so we can all hear so about six o'clock is when this motion was posted so once again it's unfortunate that

143i'm trying to be a stickler on rules on a topic that is so emotional and personal but we as a board cannot function and be productive if we have no time to do the work so i object to i have an objection to this motion and that's my comment on okay all right we'll go ahead and have to take a vote oh okay miss corbett sanders thank you madam chair i just want to clarify um that by moving this to mid-august in combination with the follow-on motion that this board just followed we essentially will be getting progress prior to the beginning of july which is when summer school starts so we will have progress made before summer school starts and then during july there will be work done and we will get an update a

144status check in august and regular updates afterwards this seems to me to be a clear continuum that makes sense i also want to express my understanding of how we got here today i know that miss omesh on tuesday sent out language and on for this follow-on motion saying that a follow-on motion was forthcoming and that she worked very worked the phones and spoke to many board members and many staff members and worked very closely with both mr frisch and miss seismore heiser in fine-tuning this language and so um so as so often happens with this board we often are um making the you know working up until the last minute but this is something where the board was made aware of the continuous discussion and updating of this language and essentially how i read this

145language and maybe i'm misunderstanding it but it's really a the beginning of a project management plan as to how this work is going to be done in combination with the first follow-on motion and now this and so i'm inclined to support this okay i think we're still speaking to the objection to the um modification or the amendment so if anybody you still want to speak to that no i just want a point of order i'd like to because i'm not quite sure where we are right actually do we need to vote on the fact that she's objecting or we i think i'm confused too now we just need to vote mr morgan the way because there was an objection to amending it to say mid-july uh to instead say mid-august just treat it as an

146amendment and then vote on whether to strike july and insert august okay so we have an amendment to strike mid-july to mid-august um for mr mesh is our second by mister miss kiss kamara okay um would you like to speak to that or ms omesh excellent um i think we will go ahead and take that vote all those in favor okay that amendment passes and we'll now oh no wait please all those in favor okay four five six seven okay all those against abstaining okay that mo that amendment passes we'll go back to the main motion now as amended is there anyone who wants to speak to the main motion okay then i will just quickly say just to reiterate what miss corbett sanders said ms omesh has been working on this all week she

147did bring this up at the work session last week there was a lot of back and forth with staff so i do want to acknowledge that and she has been making her calls all week to try to connect with people um and and and i appreciate everyone who's tried to work with her to really encapsulate the spirit of what she's trying to do and then mr fresh will also speak i don't make it a habit of speaking after the chair i don't think i've ever done it before but to that point i will say that dr anderson myself mr mesh have been in regular contact about this language working out various drafts and trying to figure out how to include as much of it as possible to get people on board so that has taken

148place pretty much full time since uh we were all together on tuesday and uh yeah on tuesday when the initial language went out which indicated that she was going to be talking to people thank you miss seismore heiser i i apologize you've been left behind it's okay no i i was actually going to share with mr first shared and what you shared so i don't have much to add but just i just wanted to add that i have been working also with mr mesh on this and mr frisch and dr anderson the last couple days but i know she's been reaching out and working with staff and and i i talked to staff as well um i i think i just want to clarify i think the intention of the last paragraph is just to

149kind of give an update to the board as to where things are in this process so we can make sure things are moving along um i have full faith in our staff to be able to do this work and do it um well so um i just wanted to make sure it's not really an intention to have a whole report on our implementation of this policy because we recognize that this is work that we're getting ready to implement in the fall but we want to see where things are and and what information staff has to bring to us in um mid-july or mid-august whatever the board votes on so um i just wanted to clarify that and i also thank you to ms amesh mr frish for all your hard work the last couple days

150and working um to finalize this language in a way that i think is is going to work very well for this board and for our team thank you and with that we're going to go ahead and take a vote on the motion that is going to be pulled up before us on the screen mr morgan uh just you may want to clarify whether both july's or only the first july or 2nd july was intended to be amended ms omesh i believe both should be mid august correct that was our understanding i thought the update part was where there was an issue but if i misunderstood that dr brabrand what was your intent i thought the updates was the issue we were hoping mid-july for both of those mid-august excuse me it's late my apologies mid-august

151okay without objection we will fix that first one as well and now we'll have the update in motion on the screen and we'll go ahead and take that vote all those in favor of this motion raise your hands okay and that includes besides more hyzer and miss stolen all those against all those abstaining okay that motion passes and we've reached and dr anderson is away from the table thank you agenda item 5 consent agenda our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure robert's rules provide for a consent agenda listing several items for approval of the board by a single motion many items have listed have gone through board review and documentation has been provided to all board members and the public in advance items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board

152member prior to the meeting consent agenda items are on the screen is there any objection seeing and hearing no objections this consent agenda is approved agenda item six new business the following are new business agenda items there will not be a vote on these items this evening but action is scheduled for a future meeting the new business items are on the screen agenda item number seven board committee reports um uh miss cohen's governance committee report will be postponed till our next meeting and tonight we will hear ms darren at kofax for an update from the audit committee and for a comprehensive planning development committee report thank you madam chair the audit committee held its most recent meeting on april 20th and we reviewed the fy 22 business process audits our audit team presented the results

153of nine business process audits to the audit committee and they were performed at annandale high school hughes middle school justice high school key middle school lake braddock secondary school oakton high school south county middle school spring hill elementary school and west bryer elementary school the audit team also presented the second quarter continuous monitoring results these monitoring procedures allowed the oag's office to utilize technology-based audit techniques to analyze patterns and trends and select and test test transactions these methods will enable the their office to further understand risks and identify exceptions in a timely and efficient manner and finally we reviewed ms coe presented the fy23 risk assessment and proposed audit plan for to the audit committee this will be presented to the full board on may 26th we will then have a work session on june

15414th and are looking for board approval on june 16th thank you thank you the cpdc met on april 21st and we addressed primarily two things first of all considerations for the planning commission's facility community outreach plan which focuses on features shown 2232 and other types of development outlining specific outreach to the community at specific points of that development in the new community outreach plan which we're seeking input at this point from fpac and will be bringing to the board and other persons of interest communications and community outreach will be going begin as soon as something hits the planning stage which we are defining and when it's announced in the capital improvement plan as a project coming our primary focus and purpose is to ensure that the community has adequate and meaningful opportunities to participate in

155the process the committee understands the importance of ensuring that a school design committee must engage members and residents who are in the direct vicinity of the school being developed in community feedback meetings we also are discussing receiving community input on facility development projects already underway we have discussed how advocacy from the community and the board can impact the design process and associated costs once a development project is already underway changes or requests for changes often and can happen too late or at an inappropriate time impacting the cost of the development process staff has also presented information to help us understand how this impacts the schedule our committee is committed to ensuring that there is a doorway for the community and school board members to have input in the development project process but we are trying

156to refine the process to minimize negative impact thank you we'll have we will have two more uh meetings for this remaining fiscal year thank you miss kisgamar we'll start our board matters and we'll start with miss corbett sanders agenda item eight thank you madam chair boy it's sure been a couple of really busy weeks for every one of us on this board i do want to first start by thanking the board of supervisors for their work in the budget markup process which has limited cuts to the school board's advertised budget and recognizes the shared belief of the two boards of the need to cut the real and personal property tax rates in light of the soaring values while reflecting the shared commitment of both of our boards to ensure that fairfax remains a great place

157in which people can both live and work and raise a family this includes increased investments in affordable housing which is so important in this community i look forward to hearing from our community next thursday on the 5th at our school board public hearing and working with my colleagues during our work session the following week on may 10th to finalize our budget with a may 26th budget adoption scheduled we encourage the legislators in richmond to work diligently to finalize a budget that reflects the real needs of education in the state of virginia to ensure that the state of virginia continues to be one of the top states in the country for public education i believe it is ranked number four at this point additionally i want to thank the people of um the students at bucknell

158elementary as we worked together in their garden last friday and our kindergarten and fourth grade students at fort belvoir this week where i was able to read both to the both of those classes i encourage everybody to read the book h is for heroes it's a wonderful rendition of the abcs in military family parl language so it's great i also want to encourage people to send out a cheer to peely clark who will retire after his after the performances at west potomac this weekend philly has been a wonderful leader of the performing arts at that school so thank you so much to pili and i want to encourage each and every one of our families to thank a teacher next week during teacher appreciation week because we are so blessed here in fairfax county for

159the wonderful teachers and in front of each of our students so thank you and this week i don't want the week to go by without thanking our wonderful administrators administrative professionals that includes our staff aides our clerks and uh the people in the regional offices so thank you to everybody thank you miss somash followed my miscues-gemara thank you um let me start by congratulating michelle togby as well very excited about our new student representative um and looking forward to the transition between her and pranav who's done a great job especially advocating for that middle school sosa so hopefully we can bring his dream to fruition i also want to just recognize and celebrate the fact that over the past two weeks we've actually had a really interesting moment in our community where there were a

160number of religious observances and holidays across the board uh and folks who are observing um our jewish community our orthodox and i guess mainstream christian community and then sikh community and muslim community we're all observing various holidays passover easter good friday orthodox easter vaisakhi and our baha'i community celebrating ridwan so want to wish everyone convey some warm feelings and wish everyone blessed holidays and of course in advance of monday mubarak to those observing and finally i had an amazing time at kiliman middle school today i want to shout out dr dani olajuwon one of the new assistant principals there who is leading an incredible initiative where he is inviting guests for the various heritage months and making sure that kids are exposed to real people and stories uh from various backgrounds in our communities uh

161to inspire them to kind of learn more about uh their neighbors and and have a spirit of inclusion in that in the school so i challenged all of our school administrators to implement similar initiatives and to learn from his example um but really just had a complete privilege uh being there and it was my joy uh that alyssa fredericks one of the students there ended up spending some time drawing a portrait that she said was of me during the event but anyways it was it was such a joy to be there and i look forward to continuing to visit our schools and support our students have a good night everybody thank you it's been a busy few weeks for all of us i wanted to simply report i had an opportunity to work with our

162title one parents as we reviewed the srnr they had lots of questions so i'm looking forward to hopefully having a public meeting where everyone can hear about it before we vote on this i also have been hosting virtual office hours for our military and foreign service parents and i look forward to wrapping those up this weekend i really appreciate being able to hear from that community and this week i had the pleasure of working with miss corbett sanders in a meeting with the west potomac pyramid pta leaders and we had a lively discussion coming up soon the educate educate fairfax has a new program as i announced uh before where we're having a hall of fame recognizing some of the stars that have graduated from fairfax county public schools one of whom who will be

163celebrated in the next few weeks is our very own jeff plattenberg so that's going to be fun and perhaps one of the highlights of my week was i had an opportunity to go to a written locally written by the principal and one of the teachers a musical at marshall elementary school where they had one of their own alumni who is who is a theater major came back to help them to pull together their own musical which was covering the 60-year history of the elementary school they had songs and dance and it was absolutely delightful so i'd like to thank the principal and all of the families that got their children to the school early so that i could literally sit there and just laugh with all the parents it was an absolute joy so i

164look forward to having more moments like that and i hope everybody has a great week thank you mr fresh followed by ms cohen i had covered so i had to cancel a bunch of school visits um but we are in the process of rescheduling those and i'm excited to be well and i'm very grateful for the science that created our vaccines so that i could have relatively mild symptoms and be here for this meeting tonight thank you thought i had more time than that this month i was so pleased to be able to celebrate with the all county course participants at cherry run elementary school thanks very much for the glamorous red carpet moment i was so excited to show off all of the amazing students and staff at sangster elementary on a visit with

165dr reed and miss bakarski and ms seismore heiser and such a fun day i think we all came home with new best friends and um i think dr reed made a few along the way too um and we also i also had the chance in these last couple of weeks to meet with boy scout troupe 2016 and boy scouts ryan and ryan ryan magdesky and ryan angersbach to help them earn their citizenship in the community badge and they as always asked great questions and had really good ideas and i certainly have some things that they want me to talk to staff about so get ready um also i'd be remiss if i didn't mention that today is yamaha showa which is the commemoration of the holocaust of the murder of six million jews in addition

166to the roma people vicente lgbtq folks and disabled people as well um this date was chosen because it was the uprising in the warsaw ghetto which was the one of the first major acts of jewish resistance um i had the opportunity today to get to go to west springfield high school this morning and get to light a candle which is part of our tradition on on yom hoshoa and on the vast majority all of our holidays and had the opportunity to have a survivor holocaust survivor miss marcia tischler speak to the students during the advisory period and tell her story of survival and really of hope and about that her take away from it was about really remembering the love of people the love of people who protected her the love of her family and

167the excitement when as a seven-year-old she got to come to america and all of the dreams that her family had realized since then and it was just so uplifting and inspiring to think about someone who had been through the worst horrors imaginable and to come away with this feeling of love and hope in our community i imagine we all could learn an awful lot from that and it to miss omaesh um i will wish you an um eid mubarak and um i'm sure you're ready to be done with fasting and uh we will we'll join you on yom kippur i feel your pain one day a year and i hope for everyone here who celebrated easter that they had a happy easter and a lovely passover all right mr not cofax followed by um miss

168maron thank you um i was pleased to show have dr reed come to her first school in fairfax county garfield elementary i was with chair picarsky and miss seismor heiser as well as member many members of the leadership team and um that i was very proud of the students and faculty and all the amazing all the amazing children we were able to see and i think dr reed was very excited to begin her journey there that very first day island creek if you island creek families we are beginning our principal search and if you were unable to make it to last night's forum meeting about the search process please look online and in your school website to find out more information about that i want to wish all those students who were taking ib and

169ap exams very very soon great success and make sure you get lots of rest and eat properly before those big tests next week is teacher appreciation week and please help us celebrate our amazing teachers and staff take a moment next week you don't have to get a big present but a nice little thank you card a thank you note will be most appreciated it's very important to recognize the hard work of those who are teaching our children each and every day and i have to say that this weekend and next are big drama weekends and lead district at hayfield we'll see beauty and the beast lee lancers are lewis lancers excuse me or you're a good man charlie brown mount vernon high school is doing matilda the musical twain is performing their musical dear edwina

170the junior version and edison high school will be performing william shakespeare's much ado about nothing so i hope if you have nothing to do you are going to come out and see some of our amazing students in their plays and their musicals and please support our high school arts thank you so today was an amazing day for literacy in virginia well tonight we passed on the consent agenda the approval of our language arts basal resources which is one step towards a bigger adoption of resources that align with the science of reading and this morning the virginia literacy act was signed into law so it's really exciting stuff and very personal for me too congrats to the madison robotics team the war bots as dr brabrand said they were in the world's competition in houston but

171to get there they placed first in the mid-atlantic championships recently so when they were there they ended up placing 37th out of 75 in their division and so making them the highest place team in all of virginia so that is amazing and i'm looking forward to visiting the school next month after exams to really see what they've been working on and learn about it and also congratulations to second grader ella at flores whose mom read in my newsletter about a competition that the national oceanic and atmospheric agency was having for a calendar about marine water debris and she submitted art and got in so hers is one of just 13 pieces of art from around the country that'll be featured in this calendar to promote awareness about uh keeping our oceans clean and helping with

172pollution there and that'll be available later this year earlier this week i was at the vienna town council upon request of some constituents who have been advocating to have the noise ordinance enforced because it's affecting the sleep of about four dozen students and as i said our school division invested over five million dollars years ago to change high school start times as one way to protect sleep and so we really need our um our town leadership to help us steward that investment and protect the uh the sleep of our kids because they need it now more than ever as it promotes mental health as well as developmental growth outdoor learning spaces i visited aldrin elementary today with an amazing volunteer group from the bright spot company in reston a technology services company who were in

173the dirt digging up you know old plants and planting new things and there's a lot to come with creating more outdoor learning spaces there also marshall road i've been helping them with connecting with our get to green staff who are going to come and help them look at the grounds and where they could have outdoor spaces i also was at my own kiddo school wolf trap elementary to meet blackjack a therapy dog that a parent brings in and that's part of an effort where i'm trying to figure out how students and families and parents and staff can bring therapy dogs into schools there's lots of different ways it's happening and i want to help get that information out because students are asking for this but staff are really also loving it too there are a

174lot of smiles around and i also will be in the theater this weekend i'll be at madison high school friday night and south lakes high school saturday night for their musicals and i can't wait so thanks a lot thank you dr anderson followed by miss tone thank you i had a very interesting experience by engaging in a ride-along at the urging of mr dave swann so i was able to ride bus 35 that's driven by mr bay zoo out of glasgow middle school and it was fantastic it was just such a good experience to hear directly from the bus drivers about the things that concern them and to also learn about the route and how much care he takes for for the children and most importantly to learn a little bit more about a bus

175driver mr bazoo who is a journalist in the ethiopian community and he works in public radio and public television and he saw a need and he filled that need he's been a driver since february and he's also taken it upon himself dr brabrand to recruit others to drive and he's been trying to convince his wife to participate and so i'm just so very appreciative of the work in the care of our bus drivers and folks we do have a bus driver fair that is going to be happening next week may 6th and may 26th so i do want to put a plug-in for that i had an opportunity to visit both park lawn and bailey's elementary schools um this week where i saw just fantastic things happening as our teachers are working so very hard

176so i do want to echo the sentiment that's been shared around the diocese which is to send a note to your teachers just to say thank you for all of their hard work yesterday i had a wonderful visit at tj after school to meet with the athletic trainers heather murphy and carolyn turner and not only did i get an opportunity to learn about their work as they supported yesterday a regional track meet which had students from hayfield from t um from tj of course from false church from justice from um there's one more school that i'm missing from annandale and also they had lacrosse they also had baseball all going on at the same time those are some very busy folks and i think the staffing is a concern for them so dr bravery that's

177a conversation that we are going to be having because we want to be sure that our students have the proper support and care um while they're there with their mobile office it's just such a tremendous responsibility so i do want to say thank you to ms murphy and miss turner for allowing me to learn a little bit more about their work i just want to say congratulations to some of our students we have national scholastic art awards to one of our students at annandale high school noah hush who earn a gold medal and these medalists will be honored at carnegie hall in new york city in june so that's a very big deal the june i'm sorry the 2022 virginia future business leaders of america state leadership conference was recently held in wreston three mason

178district students placed first in their events we have um adrian masri from annandale high school for data analysis megan voe from falls church healthcare and abdi quesada from edison for electronic career portfolio thank you and good night ms tolin thank you a huge thank you to the forestville cardinal cardinals for singing for us tonight um you did an amazing job um i also want to welcome michelle toby to the board i really look forward to working with you i'm looking forward to our budget public hearing next week so um people in the community please sign up to give us the feedback that we need as we continue with our budget process through the rest of the month or through the month of may again this is administrative professionals appreciation week and next week is teacher

179appreciation week um all of these people do an amazing job in our schools and um i can't thank you enough and um i really we should have appreciation for these people year round so let's strive to do that um congratulations to the national merit corporate scholarship winners um of the nine fcps winners for world war in drainsville so a huge congratulations to amanda wayne z elliott lee emily kim and michelle dew i've had the good fortune of spending lots of time out in schools over the past couple of weeks and i also met with our drainsville pta leaders a few days ago we had a great exchange of ideas as usual and i've gotten to a really good discussion about allergies and food and your communication around that across schools and with families so we'll

180be doing some more work to follow up on that and of course we shared plans for teacher appreciation week um the it's academic battle um the semi-finalists on the battle for the semi-finalist spot came down to mclean high school and langley high school and i do have to congratulations congratulate our highlander mclean team for moving on in that competition um this past week at herndon high school we had a celebration called the um buzzworthy student awards and these are awards that are given to students for making a significant improvement um in their academic work in their approach to school and their attendance etc i want to thank um douglas tyson for attending also it was an incredible opportunity and congratulations to the over 50 students in 9th through 12th grade that received awards um i

181attended the cooper versus longfellow basketball game it was super close um but our long fellow lancers um did win that theme um it was just so much fun to see everyone out cheering the teams on it's just so much fun to be able to do these things in person once again um herndon elementary school celebrated their 60th anniversary this past weekend and we as part of that dedicated a new um outdoor learning space they have quite a robust outdoor learning program and um this is a they've added some space to it and they dedicated it to two community leaders miss gary and miss vincent who have been working with the school for several years in getting kids out in the garden and learning uh thank you to uh hernander sheila owen dr rayburn and dr

182tyson for joining us at this event i was able to visit herrington to um [Music] your buzzard did go off a little while ago but we want to let you wrap it up do many amazing things inside myself um i just have to say i uh end with i visited the weightlifting club um after school at herndon middle and i had the ultimate of compliments when a group of boys asked me if i was one of the herndon high school football coaches who generally run that a weightlifting pub so that is a good way to end the week thank you thank you miss tillad all right um i had a great uh busy couple weeks last week i did have the opportunity to celebrate um orthodox easter which is um the most secret time of

183year it's uh very big for us so it was a very very busy week i got to enjoy sharing my cultural practices and traditions with my family and my kids so that was wonderful but i also had the opportunity to have a pta round table thank you to all who joined i participated in a couple of principal selection community meetings centerridge and union mill i went to a couple of track meets which were fun i also got to visit burke school was my first time there and i think the staff i i got a real insider view to what happens um and it was uh it was very enlightening for me i learned a lot that day um i do what else happy teacher appreciation especially to my kids teachers um you are amazing and

184uh i'm thankful for what you do every day with my kids and of course administrative professionals day thank you to our wonderful uh bev and laura we appreciate you every day you are wonderful to us couldn't do this without you um and of course my staff aide shaheen who is amazing i had the opportunity to do a student listening tour at centerville high school and that was a really great opportunity i had a long i think it was about an hour and a half with kids all ages and i heard some some some things that really uh make me reflect and and make me more effective i think at what we do here yesterday i got really dirty in the mud at franklin middle school where we planted 400 plants native pollinators with ecologists from

185the fairfax county department of public works and environmental services with the urban garden club of franklin and those kids had um just really done amazing things to create the space and the plan and it's going to be a wonderful place for them to learn and engage with with nature there's a few other things but it's it's late you all want to go to bed so thank you everyone and with that we'll adjourn you