001good evening everyone the public hearing will begin at 6 15. so [Music] do [Music] do [Music] so grip good evening we'll now get started the april 14th biannual public hearing will now come to order on behalf of the board i'd like to thank you for taking the time to share your comments with us tonight and we apologize profusely for the delay the hearing is being broadcast on channel 99 and livestream.fcps.edu tv slash ch99 we have 25 registered speakers who will address the board this evening each speaker is allotted two minutes the timer will start when you begin to speak and will sound at the conclusion of your two minutes if you have not registered but would like to speak please see the clerk to sign up for one of the five open slots there will
002be an opportunity for individuals to speak if there are no show speaker slots remaining at the end of the hearing when your name is called in-person speakers should approach the microphone and begin speaking promptly virtual speakers should unmute their microphones and begin speaking and clerk please call our first speaker our first speaker is anna ramirez is my name is anna ramirez and i have been in the country for 10 months i am a freshman at a high school in fairfax county aside from school i'm a member of casa and me espacio program it offers i would like to share my school experience the first day of school was hard for me because instead of being exciting i was scared i didn't know what was happening i just knew to get on the bus and get
003to school as i got to school and walked through the long halls i got lost i had no idea where to go there's not much guidance from the school system for students like me we have to grow and learn as we go in school i have been bullied due to not knowing the language and because of my immigration status which means me i'm vulnerable in the way i fit in in school i support the school trust policy so that parents and students feel secure and can focus on their studies without worrying about their immigration status members of the school board i urge you to support the school trust policy thank you our next speaker is cheryl binkley [Applause] uh good evening board and staff um i come to you tonight because i want it may
004be presumptuous for me to give you advice given what y'all have experienced but you're facing difficult transitions you're going to see continuing political stunts and i just want to say that you're with the choices of staff and the choices of curriculum that you're doing these days and resource materials and regulations and practices remember what you already knew when you took office you knew about respect for our interconnected diversity you knew about love of learning and of the balance of nurture and challenge in our communities and systems the staff are your allies and collective bargaining will serve to you to restore the kind of balance in your community in our internal community so that it is less chaotic than it has been in recent times it will help heal the divide that we see and finally
005so i want to just say remember those things but also remember we elected you to lead we did not elect the dark money moms we did not elect the american enterprise institute we did not elect the independent women's forum nor did we elect the washington post op ed board or the fairfax times op-ed board we elected you so lead we will follow and we will work with you to make sure that we continue to have the most fabulous community schools community that we could hope thank you our next speaker is marianne burke marion burke currently 75 percent of u.s colleges and universities do not use standardized test scores in their admissions decisions because it has been shown these tests provide negligible additional information but recently the coalition for tj gave a lot of weight to
006mit's decision to restart the sat and act requirements for applications but i must emphasize mit is not using the scores from these tests as admissions criteria the bias in standardized tests is well documented scores are not correlated with academic potential but instead they're correlated with family income regardless of ethnic background low-income students score lower on these tests whether they are african-american latinx european-american or asian-american students grades are substantially more useful in predicting academic potential numerous studies have shown this nevertheless some continue to insist that they are being deprived of the rights because a test biased in their favor has been discontinued we should remember the racist beginnings of standardized testing for more than a century these tests provided a means to justify arbitrary racial hierarchies behind the guise of objectivity and recently historical documents from
007the uh were found in the at the university of texas that showed that this standardized test that standardized tests were the school's strategy for slowing integration after brown v board of education's decision on desegregation i commend the school board and dr brabrand for understanding the importance of appealing judge hilton's uninformed decision on the admissions criteria at tj the case is important not just for tj and fairfax county but for the other governor's schools in virginia and other schools across the u.s that are depending on us to get this right thank you our next speaker is holly hazard holly hazard our next speaker is vanessa hall hello please consider improving safety and enforce the rules in this room so that civic engagement can be civil again there's a clear line between fiery and abusive a line
008that's been crossed too many times in this room neither the audience nor you should be subjected to verbal abuse or physical danger ridiculous costumes and outlandish behavior designed for viral videos are an obnoxious distraction from our schools enforce the rules and consequences for breaking those rules because this space is for citizens not a circus boldness not bullying public input not political pandering on a different note like many others i'm sorry to say i'm disappointed in your desired choice for superintendent i may not always agree with dr brabrand but i know that he cares for and tries to support fcps students across 198 schools i've heard concerning stories and seen terrible data about your preferred candidate they tell a story that involves interest in community input lack of commitment to equity dismissal of lgbtqia and special
009education concerns and retaliatory actions we need a superintendent who will listen and work to make education better and safer for all students no matter their race their religion ability income gender or sexual orientation i truly hope that whatever candidate you choose is successful and does right by our fcps community nevertheless i'm troubled because i find myself in agreement for the very first time ever with people who have attacked the very foundation of public education including those in this room who've called me nasty names heckled me and threatened harm to me and my family yet i'm scared to say i agree with them on this one point and this one point only please reopen the superintendent's search overwhelmingly the community does not support your choice please reinstill confidence by reopening the superintendent's search and thank you
010and i'm sorry thank you our next speaker our next speaker is diane alejandro diane alejandro our next speaker is christian martinez good evening my name is christian martinez lemus the advocacy specialist at casa we at casa i have over 10 000 immigrant working class and latino virginian members with over 40 of our community members living in fairfax county at casa we focus on the three pillars community services community organizing and community advocacy casa is in full support of the school trust policy the school trust policy will confirm the school board's commitment to providing a safe and welcoming space for all students and their families in addition this will sign align fairfax public's trust and confidentiality policy ensuring that students and families can access fcps benefits and services without a fear that information will be disclosed
011directly or indirectly to federal immigration officials fairfax county currently has over 352 000 immigrant residents residing here therefore all students in fairfax should have access to a safe education and not have themselves or their families private information gathered by u.s immigration and customs enforcement to be at risk of deportation viviana casa community member and fairfax county resident supports the palsy she is a mother of two children in the school system something many of us can relate to already her fifteen-year-old though faces racism in school questioning their documentation status students are there to learn not be interrogated to have their private information sent to immigration officials regardless of citizenship status we believe everyone should be treated with decency and respect we continue prioritizing our students education and consider everyone's safety and potential we urge you to
012please pass the student trust and confidential policy on april 28th and support all fairfax families thank you thank you our next speaker is marcelo levine thanks for the opportunity to address you today i ask you to adopt the draft school trust policy in its current form without amendment so that it will be ready for full implementation by the start of the next school year our community has an interest in maximizing the potential of every child in the fairfax county public schools to learn and develop yet students who come from families vulnerable to civil immigration enforcement have understandable worries about school that hinder their growth and learning studies from stanford university and elsewhere have shown that due to feared ice school enforcement such students may be afraid to go to classes participate in other school activities
013and access needed health and nutrition assistance their parents may also fear going to paris we'll try that again our next speaker is aaron lamb good evening my name is aaron lam and i'm currently concluding my seventh year teaching in fairfax county public schools i'm also a member of the fairfax education association but tonight i'm speaking as an individual and a community member this evening i would like to speak specifically about the importance of a strong collective bargaining agreement before getting into specifics i would like to respectfully point out that no matter a school system's budget the quality of the education provided will never reach its true potential unless the people who carry out the work have their voices heard are valued and have a seat at the table when important decisions the decisions that directly
014impact our students get made we trust doctors to care for us when they are sick or when we are sick because they are trained and experienced pilots fly our planes with a remarkable safety record because they are trained and experienced our bridges and buildings and ports and infrastructure last decades because they're engineered and built by trained experienced professionals we turn to entrust these highly trained and experienced people because they know best we educators are rigorously trained to identify and meet students needs and we do it every day and because we work directly with kids and know them by name and by need we are the expert practitioners of education we are the ones who know best and yet the teachers social workers librarians and all the other professionals who best know our students do not
015currently have any meaningful voice in the processes that decide how to meet these students needs so regardless of fcps's budget our students are simply not going to benefit from the knowledge and know-how of their biggest advocates until we faculty and staff members are invited to share our expertise and that can happen only with a strong comprehensive collective bargaining agreement thank you for your time you our next speaker is crippa pat warden good evening everybody and thank you for having me here i'm very pleased to hear that two people before me have already spoken to the importance of the proposed trust policy and i'm here on behalf of edu futuro an organization that empowers the immigrant communities of northern virginia and i i wish to echo the sentiments of both speakers before me who spoke up
016in favor of the school trust policy this policy will help protect the safety of our immigrant students it will empower them to take full advantage of the resources that fcps has to offer and better reach their full potent full potential to better fulfill the portrait of a graduate okay i'm also a former teacher at fcps but yeah so i echo their support of the new of the proposed school trust policy this will allow them to better reach their full potential without having their fear of ice be a barrier to their success so to that end i both as an individual and as an employee of edu futuro i'm urging the school board to adopt the trust policy swiftly and fully thank you for your time thank you marc marcela levine are you on okay our
017next speaker is margarita brown thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight i thank every one of you for your commitment to the school children of fairfax county every child has the right to learn in a nurturing environment supportively free of fear and intimidation knowing your family is safe is a big part of that supportive environment and a big part of that is knowing that their personally identifying information is safe no one wants their private data shared we would all benefit from development of a system-wide secure communication platform for fcps families that allows them to connect without requiring disclosure of information such as email addresses phone numbers and mailing addresses in this era of data breaches only truly relevant data should be collected on fcps forms also the conditions under which such data may be
018shared need to be clearly specified for example if it's required to fulfill the mission of fcps or if required by a state law fcps students have federal protections under ferpa but there are still some gray areas that need further coverage for example there is insufficient protection of student information made available through outsourcing to contractors and vendors such as those for food services collection of activity fees school photographs and health services we also need specific prohibitions to such vendors than providing student family information to third parties such as large data mining contractors not subject to ferpa restrictions toward these ends the governance committee's scrutiny of the school trust policy has resulted in a strong concise plan to bring fcps in accordance with the trust policy of the fairfax county board of supervisors police department sheriff's department
019and commonwealth's attorney i urge you to pass it without further amendment so that it may be in place for the next school year again thank you our next speaker is tara hannigan [Applause] hi good evening my name is tara hennigan i have a junior at marshall high school i wanted to thank the board and um mr brayburn for uh listening to my comments this evening my school board representative is mr fresh and i have a tremendous amount of respect for you and i'm very sorry for everything that you've had to go through in the last meetings and i you know so we have some of the best schools in this country and we have outstanding leadership throughout the years that my daughter's been going through fcps schools and parents across the country right now are
020putting their time and energy into attacking our school boards our schools and the material that's in our libraries and the thought that a straight kid can read a book about a penguin with two dads is going to turn them gay for some reason is utterly absurd so fcps has always prided itself on being inclusive and now a few outspoken right-wing parents who don't represent the majority of the parents in fcps are trying to create a problem where there isn't one we need to work together to improve our to improve our schools like improving teacher pay so they can live in fairfax county in a living livable wage work on ma helping manage covid overcrowding outdated buildings and teach our children how to treat other people properly we need to move forward in a collaborative effort
021to improve our schools thank you thank you our next speaker is vivian valverde is [Music] a little quick hello my name is vivian valverde originally from ecuador and for eight years fairfax county has been my home specifically in the culmore area i became an active member of casa a year ago and now i'm supporting and enforcing community with the safe streets campaign i'm a mother of two children awaiting their arrival for the third child is thank you our next speaker is iris yanus point of order madam chair i'd like to ask that in the case of translations if the speaker themself finishes within the time that we allow them to finish the translation without objection i think that is fun thank you mr burke our community has suffered the ravages of the high speed and
022lack of visibility of the area and i am especially concerned that there are still cases of crashes crashes that unfortunately have already claimed human losses we no longer want that for the community at least we need to reduce those types of incidents that is why i'm here as a mother of a family representative of the community that circulates this area every day and in the condition that i find myself of during my pregnancy i raised my voice and asked fairfax county officials to take the lead and work for our community as if properly illuminating the roads putting automated lights speed reducers marked signage for pedestrians thank you for hearing my testimony thank you our next speaker is iris giannis is [Music] hello my name is i'm originally from honduras i live in the city of
023annandale virginia i immigrated to this country 16 years ago and i am an active member of the organization i am the head of my family i have a 12 year old teenage son and i work in the area of cleaning houses i immigrated to this country due to the poverty and lack of opportunities that existed in my country for a long time i have felt insecure because i have the irregular immigration status and despite the fact that my son was born in this country of the united states and attends 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 and schools should not allow immigration
024and customs enforcement to collect private information and these kids or the fair families risking deportation for this reason i support the student confidentially policy and that would allow me not to be afraid knowing that my information or other parents and their children who were not born in this country remains private and that they can acquire services and apply to programs without no fear thanks a lot thank you our next speaker is kathy samper kathy samper our next speaker is arya hernandez our next speaker is juana munoz hola my name is [Music] hello my name is juana munoz i am a honduran nationality i live in the city of springfield virginia i have been a member of casa the virginia organization for almost a year i am the mother of a minor child who is in
025elementary school in one of the fairfax county public schools as an immigrant in the united states i am often afraid when it comes to personal information because i am an undocumented mother mother i am afraid of my information will be shared with other agencies or with ice for the reason many times i am afraid at school and it is difficult for my son to enroll in different educational programs we always have to give all our personal data or present an identification from our country which makes it more obvious that i am undocumented at the same time fear arises as i believe that schools are not committed to protect the rights of students and parents for this reason i support the trust policy for fairfax county schools as i believe that it would help us to
026overcome fear the policy provides us with well-being security and confidence by ensuring that parents and immigrant children of our country will be able to access school benefits and services without fear that the information we share will be disclosed to federal immigration officials thank you for listening to my testimony thank you our next speaker is to jess tesfay good evening my name is tagusta spy a mother of a current 10th grader and two graduates at west springfield high school you all know the serious ongoing issues we've been facing started in 10 years ago and continued till this state with cover-ups retaliation for the many wrongdoings have found out in the schools and reported which everyone has ignored and to properly investigate and address what we've been through we'll make a book it and this is the
027kind you hear on 2020 unfortunately in december 2020 i met with the west springfield high school principal and the science team after i was emailed a letter informing me that all science fair honor projects were cancelled due to the pandemic while the truth was actually this project and the science fair were still going on for other students recently i found out about the regional science fair that has been running in fcps for 67 years that that is also a portrait of graduates that was completely hidden from my daughters and some of the students and families i have talked to you are all in the recent communication email communication i had with the principal and the region for leadership where i have asked specific questions on how other students got this information while my students and
028other students did not have any information about this and they actually had a representative from the from the science instructional services where they actually came and presented to introduction to the science fair and which none everything was hidden from my students and some few other students however the principal and region for leadership has been dodging the questions throwing words like opt-in opt-out posting announcing science science club after school club and so on thank you our next speaker is casey blaylock my name is casey blaylock and i'm a middle school librarian i became a librarian because you get to work with every single student teacher staff and family member and because literacy is such a complex and multi-faceted concept it's a fundamental way of helping others i'd like to thank everyone who spoke about libraries at
029the last school board meeting we value our relationships with everyone in our communities and ask for your continued support in order to get a better perspective of why we are asking for support i'd like you to imagine that you're in a shopping mall where there are 999 patrons and those people have families with them in this mall there's just one restaurant and i'm the chef i'm a great chef michelin star highly trained i have fresh local ingredients and the space is beautiful you want to eat at my restaurant but there's a catch i'm the only employee for the entire restaurant and in this mall i serve everyone reservation or no reservation i take the orders i cook and serve the food and i keep the restaurant clean safe and stocked would you still want to
030eat at my restaurant i probably won't be able to cook to order i probably won't be able to use my fresh local ingredients depending on how many customers are in the restaurant you may have a very long wait that's what it's like to be a school librarian we are only able to do what we are staffed to do i challenge you to think of another instructional school-based position where the caseload is 999 students imagine what we could do if we staffed the restaurant adequately what we could do for our students teachers for literacy in the district it's time to change our perspective on what our libraries can be because right now every library staff member is walking around with a number over our heads our projected enrollments my caseload will roughly go from 486 to
031close to 950 next year after the de-staffing of my wonderful co-librarian and friend thank you our next speaker is kimberly adams good evening my name is kimberly adams and i'm speaking on behalf of the fairfax education association a union representing thousands of your employees employees who continue to work as hard as they can for the success of their students this month we welcome new faces to fcps leadership the fda expresses its desire to work collaboratively with the new superintendent and assistant superintendent of human resources we have spent decades working for the best outcomes for students and staff in fcps under a multitude of leaders and in fact fea just celebrated its 100th anniversary last year during this pandemic this school year has brought innovative ways to engage students around mental health needs and address their
032on their interrupted learning we talk about interrupted learning or learning loss for our students but not about interrupted training for our staff the fea is asking today for a deeper probe by hr into any employee that a supervisor has recommended for termination in the coming months this is the first year for many of those who were hired and worked entirely online or during the pandemic last year both staff and students had only about six months developing and redeveloping the skills necessary for successful return to what we all wish was normal by now but isn't quite normal yet this board and administration must take steps to extend grace for new employees who need mentorship and time to implement strategies that were shared with them just months ago at the end of january or beginning of february
033in their evaluations we are asking fcps to also offer our administrators opportunities to grow as evaluators to be mindful of when additional support and chances to improve are available and offered in a timely manner they have not had time to adequately and effectively train and evaluate these people who work for them under normal circumstances the probationary period is three years and it can even be extended to five for those who need additional time to grow and achieve continuing contracts employees deserve the benefit of the doubt and we all still remain affected thank you our next speaker is frank mallard good evening i'm cole mallard the father of three former fcps children retired voice of america director broadcaster vietnam vet and attacks being resident of fairfax county for over 35 years please join me in imagining
034the future of fairfax county public schools here is what i imagine in the future i'll be standing here and able to say thank you to the school board members for eliminating critical race theory embedded in the fcps curriculum which means no more divisiveness no more pitting students against each other with the concept of oppressors and oppressed thank you for implementing policies which guide teachers and administrators to compassionately work with children and which no longer confuse them about their gender about their parents authority and other parental rights thank you for your focus on the basics of reading writing mathematics science and the arts thank you for removing pornographic materials from the school libraries replacing them with the classics the true history of the founding and development of the united states thank you for lifting mass mandates
035and for lifting promotion of gene therapy inoculations and other destructive measures taken due to the covid pandemic which did damage to our children thank you for the policies which address the many considerations of our special needs students thank you for removing race-based admissions policies to thomas jefferson high school for science and technology and for returning to a meritocracy and finally thank you for ending the grooming and sexualization of our children and giving them back their childhood thank you our next speaker is kathleen mallard [Applause] good evening superintendent bray brand and school board thank you for this opportunity to speak with you this evening in addition to other things you've learned about me my two science degrees in language acquisition and development i also am a member of a group of fairfax county educators parents healthcare
036providers and biologists and that group is called parent and child about three years ago we put together this grid and one of them is attached to the materials i gave beverly medeja i just want to show it to the audience this grid rates the different fle lessons and there are of course are some things which are very troublesome i won't go into them right now but anyone who wants to can go to the parent and child website and get our um rating system uh did you all do your homework remember i asked you to please read this book this book is not pornographic although it explains how our fle got started with alfred kinsey with hugh hefner of playboy and with margaret sanger a racist margaret singer said we don't want the word to go
037out we want to exterminate the negro population that's margaret sanger planned parenthood and that is one of the people who has been involved with the uh collaborated with the development of your fle so do be careful because i think you don't really know what is going into this i did want to say that to the spanish speakers thank you our next speaker is osra namani [Applause] hello can you hear me fine yes go ahead all right great so i'm back in my mom's home in west virginia where i started the covid uh you know quarantine period in 2020 and then i warned you at that time that you had to stop and you had to stop the indoctrination of our schools you had to stop this movement that you were making to overrun thomas jefferson
038high school well what did you do instead you spent twenty thousand dollars on anti-racism teachings by ibrahim kennedy didn't you and what have you done since then you have landed the fairfax county public school system in the supreme court we have fought with you as parents i feel so sorry for these poor parents that are immigrants like ourselves you can't even do them the honor of listening fully to their translations and so then you finally fix your problem but what is this that you send upon us the parents you send your proxies and your trolls well you know what's going to happen tonight you the fairfax county school board is going to have a rigged vote it's going to be a rigged vote eight to four i want all the parents to know that you
039are going to vote for the michelle reed the superintendent that you have selected abrarame is going to try to delay the vote but it's going to be another eight to four vote and she's going to lose her attempts to delay the vote ultimately what is it woke politics the woke politics that's destroying tj and is destroying fairfax county public schools and it's race to the bottom you did not choose a virginia school superintendent as a finalist because he's white you want to pick the other superintendent that you were from omaha because she's black it's race politics and you need to all of this nonsense and get back to education and stop your act thank you our next speaker is shelley arnoldy hello um i was here a couple months ago and i asked you all
040for some metrics i wanted to understand how you guys were measuring what you were doing and i've since found out that you guys had really actually had them so i've done a little bit of homework and now i'm trying to understand how parents can give input on your goals so that they can actually affect what's happening with our children and one specifically i'm trying to understand how your caring culture is measured by the number of referrals yet i look at instances at the school where we're not getting told anything and i'm going to say i have four high school students in a school which they say it's normal for a child to be taken out of school in an ambulance they say it's normal and i shouldn't complain about it yet i've never once been
041told about a child being taken out of school in an ambulance one month ago i learned that a child hung herself in the bathroom a student found that that student called a parent did cpr and the kid was taken out of school kids told their parents parents told me my kids told me the school didn't tell us they said it was a medical emergency so what i'd like to know is how many kids are taken out of school in ambulances how many overdoses how many suicides that is how you measure a caring culture the health and safety of our students is all that matters if medical emergencies are happening parents have the right to know i was told directly by the principal that i was spreading misinformation because i said what i heard from children
042well i'd love to hear it from the principal the other thing i wanted to talk about if i have 30 seconds okay you talked about the budget well i i did study the budget and you guys have 1.9 million dollars in the budget for legal yet you guys are spending almost 6 million dollars a year on legal fees to defend yourselves against parents i think that the parents should have some input on what's going on with your legal fees it's crazy hundreds of thousands of dollars a month you guys are spending on legal fees yet no discussions or updates how about updates monthly updates on what's happening in the legal world for you so i'm out of time thank you our next speaker is diane cooper gold good evening can you hear me we can
043hear you okay good evening i'm diane cooper gould and tonight i'm speaking as advocacy chair of fairfax county special education pta among so many shouting voices in this time of educational turmoil i'm here to bring focus onto the needs of the over 30 000 students with disabilities in fairfax county public schools and the staff that work tirelessly with them our population of students on ieps is larger than many school districts and yet due to cultural bias low expectations staffing shortages and a wide spectrum of needs our students needs often go unmet the result is that children with immense potential and unique perspectives get lost in the system they're often the recipients of subpar education and disproportionate discipline they're funneled into underemployment and the school-to-prison pipeline and for intersectional students the outcomes become even more dire
044while we thank this board for passing an updated policy banning seclusion and limiting restraint we are deeply concerned about the lack of transparency follow-through and deliberate planning for the implementation of that policy we're almost a year and a half on from its adoption and yet our community of staff and parents have yet to receive a specific plan for the rollout of training for alternative collaborative problem-solving solutions and crisis management county-wide across all educational settings and age ranges staff feel unprepared to deal with students with complex needs and parents are scared to send their children to school and it's the students that bear the brunt of an indeterminate and under-prepared system we continue to receive reports of violations of the new policy and actions that may meet the letter of the law rather than the spirit
045of it our community is tired of having to constantly push for accountability and transparency we're saddened by the fact that lawsuits bring more systemic change than collaboration we don't want to be placated our volunteers have spent an inordinate amount of time pushing for equity inclusion and proactive problem solving and yet we are met with a constantly reactive system we want to partner with you not fight against you and we want to know that our students are safe in your care thank you thank you miss levin are you there can you hear us marcelo levin yes i am now you want to continue go ahead you have a minute left okay the school system can address the concerns that uh children with immigrant families have by instituting further safeguards against data mining by ice the school
046trust policy as currently written builds in these safeguards to ensure that sharing of personal contact or other information about students and their families occurs only when legally required or when necessary to achieve educational goals and the third-party contractors with the school system are bound by the same data disclosure standards moreover adopting the school trust policy will better align the school system with the overall goal of fairfax county to be a welcoming community is reflected in the board of supervisors trust policy and in policy set by the police and sheriff's departments and the commonwealth attorney so i urge you to pass the school trust policy is written thanks again thank you we have the five additional slots sujatha hampton good evening my name is sujatha hampton i am the education chair and third vice president of
047the fairfax county naacp you know i tried to talk to you to tell you about the data and to warn you but sadly no one would listen so i'll just read from an email that was sent to the full board and also to me from a former student of north shore school district sydney is black and queer she lives in the space of intersectionality something so often overlooked conveniently by so-called allies i will read from the email but there's a lot and i won't get to it it will be posted in its entirety later sydney describes valiant efforts to organize and to bring change on many fronts including racial justice and lgbtq awareness she shares a petition which was signed by 599 students most complete with detailed narratives this petition began quote dr reed cycle
048of creating student focus groups and then to ignore what we bring up as a high achieving two sport athlete who happened to also be of color i was frequently invited to these groups we would spend hours addressing our concerns only to find that dr reed was making no effort to institute change when there have been promises made there is concerning fine print for instance she proposed that the district would implement more staff of color yet failed to mention that the plan would cap employing people of color when the number of staff reached the student population of color my pressure often pressure from upper class white parents would make her quote rescind her position my freshman and junior year in high school this district announced they would acknowledge pride month parents complained and when june rolled
049around nothing happened what happens in the state in a state like virginia where queer youth's personhood and safety is constantly put at risk dr reed has capitulated before why wouldn't she capitulate again to angry parents trying to ban books and bathrooms and label ordinary behavior as grooming rewrite history to fit a convenient narrative virginia is not washington we were inundated with stories from family thank you our next speaker is george becerra [Applause] good evening chairman picarski school board members and superintendent bray brand and county executive hill uh streaming my name is george wasser i'm one of the co-chairs of the minority student achievement oversight committee one of your school board advisory committees as your coach to decide into who the next superintendent is i want to shift your focus to the immediate future after this
050decision is made first as msc has stated since last year the gr consulting firm should have no more than one more future contract with fcps that should be the one where the new superintendent and the school board retreat together to start the bond building and to set realistic expectations and performance appraisal objectives for the new superintendent the last firm hya had many contracts beyond this point in the last eight years which included the creation of the strategic plan and several leadership team selection oversights this was like the gift that kept on giving after its original intent was complete as you embark next school you're creating a new fc fcps strategic plan just like the board of supervisor just completed this past year for the county a new firm should be chosen that has experience and
051expertise in creating these types of plans also the oversight of lte hires should be kept in-house from the beginning of the process to then with your own hr department second start planning as soon as possible with the new superintendent for the next biggest hire or some people might say the biggest hired fcps which is to fill the vacancy of the chief equity officer as much as he's not do not like to hear this msac would advocate for dardis dr nardis king the interim ceo to be the next permanent one but we understand that this is a personal decision and will respect what she and her family decides on pursuing nothing can take away from the decades of fighting the good fight either way msaoc deems it necessary that the new ceo worked hand-in-hand with dr
052presidio the chief academics officer let me do state again hand in hand not side by side this is crucial thank you for your time and i wish all you that celebrate easter a happy easter day and season thank you our next speaker is omar al-baba hello my name is omar al-baba i'm a student at oakton high school and the current president of the oakton muslim student association i like to start off by saying how privileged i feel to have a platform as a student it's my obligation in civic duty to express and share my concerns or on important and personal matters i also believe that i'm only the second student to voice my opinion so please hear me out in 2016 my sister experienced texts from a classmate who held hateful views against muslims during
053the height of the trump presidential campaign which brought a lot of discrimination against muslims in the united states the student the student that sent derogatory and islamic and islamophobic hate speech to my sister faced minor disciplinary action the case was dismissed with no plan to tackle the issue at hand six years later we've still made no progress i'm sure you're all familiar with the case regarding at fairfax high school where student hijab was pulled off that following week the city of fairfax police department released a press release conducting their final review of their investigation the msa presidents or muslim student association presidents across fcps all disagreed with this conclusion we believe that the police department conducted a poor investigation since there were at least three witnesses to the incident that were not interviewed it's very
054difficult for the muslim students of fcps to cope with these situations we simply do not understand why islamophobia continues to be a huge yet ignored problem in our school system while we tackle these situations the search for a new fcps superintendent has begun we ask that student voices be considered when selecting a new superintendent so that we can have an ally who can help us tackle and finally eliminate all xenophobia in fairfax county public schools for this generation and the next thank you thank you our next speaker is leslie houston [Applause] leslie houston good evening i am leslie houston and i'm a special education teacher i want to make it very clear that tonight i am not speaking on behalf of fairfax education association i'm speaking as leslie i feel compelled to share my thoughts
055about this school how the school board handled the process for the superintendent search in this country i watch how black women are portrayed as saviors of democracy yet when it comes to utilizing the democratic process we come up short we come in second or we are treated with contempt and outright disrespect even when we enter the process overqualified poised and with confidence we prepare for interviews choosing our words carefully making sure not to offend anyone praying we get a fair chance a simple opportunity to showcase our skills for what to once again be shown that we are not good enough not your choice not right for this county integrity and transparency should be your guiding principles this board should promote a sense of openness and fairness but i stand here today because you did not
056do so regarding the superintendent search i have supported this board but it is now crystal clear that this board has not led with integrity regarding this progress process today i am saddened but not surprised because as a black woman i have come to expect this the rose-colored glasses are off dr maya angelou said when someone shows you who they are the first time believe them thank you for showing me in this community who you are and i guarantee we will not thank you our next speaker is ekron mohammed ekron muhammad [Applause] ekron mohammed uh good evening i want to start off by thanking all students and the muslim community for your support for those who don't know me my name is akram muhammad i'm 17 years old and a sophomore at fairfax high school on
057december 14 2021 what many hijabis fear happening to them happened to me you always hear about muslims sisters dealing with people who target them for wearing their hijab but i don't chair i'm sorry could we ask the speaker to bring the um microphone further down so we can hear her better thank you so much [Music] on that day uh sorry uh you always hear about muslim sisters dealing with people who target them for wearing the hijab but you don't think it would happen to you in your own school on that day i was bothered by islamophobic comments my friends and i decided to leave the class and that is when my hijab was grabbed an altercation happened which led to the school calling the ambulance and i had no hijab when the paramedics arrived the
058administrator said that i had a panic attack and nothing else happened the next day i served in-school suspension with my attacker in the same room the police lied and said my hijab was not taking off even though there was multiple witnesses that saw i was affected by this event physically and mentally thanks to students there was a petition made after they heard that i served in school suspension with with my attacker in the same room they received over 35 000 signatures today and that still does not limit change on december 16 there was a walkout at fairfox high school and on december 17th there's another other schools in fairfax county that walked out to shore support chose to speak about this incident because it's a great deal of muslim students at fairfax county we should
059not be targeted for their religion and this stuff should not be happening to you in your own school where you're supposed to feel safe thank you [Applause] thank you everyone for sharing your comments and concerns with the board this evening evening the public hearing is adjourned we'll take a five minute break before convening the regular meeting thank you you