001good evening the school board is currently in a closed meeting and our regular meeting will begin at 7 15. good so [Music] so board members board members please take your seats this march 24th 2022 regular meeting of the fairfax county school board will now come to order please stand for the pledge of allegiance followed by a moment of silence and a performance of the national anthem by the spring hill elementary school select band under the direction of dan freeman okay [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music] uh [Music] dude i know i'm not supposed to speak in order to comply with section 2.2-3712-d of the code of virginia it is necessary for the board to certify that since fairfax county school board convened a closed meeting on march 24 2022 to the best of each member's knowledge
002only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements and only such business 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 miss corbett sanders is there a second miss omaesh all those in favor and that is unanimous with mrs bukarsky away from the table agenda item 2.03 announcements mrs pikarski is absent this evening if you would like to review a copy of the agenda and any agenda item that is being discussed tonight that information may be found at the back of the auditorium or on the website at fcps.edu backslash school board backslash board docs tonight's meeting is being broadcast on channel 99 and live streamed on the website at fcps.edu backslash tv black backsplash
003channel 99 i call on mr chaudhary for announcement mathematics and statistics awareness month april 2022 mathematics and statistics are important drivers of innovation in our technological world in which new systems and methodologies continue to become more complex april marks a time for increasing appreciation of mathematics and statistics and the significant role they play in addressing many real world problems including internet security sustainability disease climate change the data deluge and much more additionally tonight we do have a boy scout in the audience working towards eagle scout status from troop 1137 on his citizenship of the community merit badge please stand to be recognized [Applause] agenda item 2.04 are in our schools month resolution the board will invite each recognition recipient and their supporters to the dyess for a photo with the board after the reading of
004all the recognitions i call on miss dairnak kofax for the resolution thank you whereas march has been officially designated as arts in our school month encouraging communities across the nation to focus on dance music theater and visual arts education and whereas fcps has a rich performing arts education program with an average of 650 music educators and about 50 000 students in instrumental choral and secondary music and nearly 400 art educators and over 25 000 students in elective secondary art fcps hosts one of the largest theater education programs in the united states with a full-time theater teacher in every middle school and high school as well as curricular elementary school offerings fcps dance has programs at the elementary school and high school levels dance music theater and visual arts students and communities throughout fairfax county and
005fcps demonstrate the importance of the quality of fine and performing arts in our education programs to the lives of young people and whereas music dance theater and visual arts are powerful tools to unlock the potential of the whole child numerous research studies show that participation in school arts programs leads to heightened student engagement along with improved social and school-based outcomes students surveyed attribute their fine and performing arts studies to enhancing portrait of a graduate attributes including communication collaboration global citizenship creative and critical thinking reliance and self-discipline as well as leadership abilities fine and performing arts study studies are also associated with higher grades better attendance and fewer discipline referrals and whereas fcps schools and instructors are nationally and internationally known through their many accolades fairfax county has presented music ensembles at v h e a
006a s t a the midwest clinic nba ncfb naf me and many other conferences teachers have presented clinics in many of their locations and multiple state conferences fcps arts programs are known throughout the state and country as a model of excellence emphasizing conceptual learning communication personal relevance and innovation fcps fine arts teachers present at state and national education association conferences receive recognition for excellence in their field and have their artwork selected for local regional and national exhibitions and whereas fcps music programs have received several national accolades notably the sudler flag of honor the settler cup the honor band the blue ribbon school in induction into the nba northwest clinic and others our groups often receive superior ratings at the state assessment local competitions national competitions and festivals throughout the united states and abroad fcps has
007also been awarded the namm best communities for music education in 2021 2020 and 2019. in march and throughout the spring fcps pyramids celebrate the arts and pyramid art shows showing the works of elementary middle and high schools in each community and each year middle and high school artists are recognized with regional and national awards through scholastic arts awards as well as recognition in programs and whereas fcps fcps theater and dance offer a vast array of extracurricular arts experience which highlight k-12 students including dance showcases the nutcracker as well as plays musicals drama clubs improv competitions student-directed one-act festivals vhsl state one-act competitions new york city trips participation in scotland edinboro festival and the cappies the cappies as you may know is an international high school program that celebrates theater performance journalism and student ownership which
008originated here in fairfax county schools and fcps student theater students and teachers are recognized at its annual gala hosted at the acclaimed john f kennedy center in washington dc and whereas music in our schools months dance in our schools months theater in our schools month and youth art month remind us that students deserve access to an equity in and the delivery of dance music theater and visual arts education and now therefore be it resolved that fairfax county public schools recognizes march as dance in our schools music in our schools theater in our schools month and youth art month to celebrate and acknowledge every day but especially in march that fine and performing arts education experiences and opportunities are an essential part of every student's well-rounded education is there a second second ms darren at cofax
009would you like to speak to your resolution yes just briefly um the the as you can see how long the resolution was there is so much that we offer here in fairfax county public schools to support the arts and students who want to then go on to performing arts and later on in life we all know that fine arts is a beneficial to education process for all of our students our fine arts courses are designed to foster growth and to advance learning and to develop expertise in a selected field the study of any art is an integral part of our human development and to our society and all of these disciplines are part of a cultural heritage in all of us arts what's make us human arts make us complete so i as the mom
010of somebody of two children two graduates from here one is who is pursuing her dreams in the performing arts i thank all of the teachers who made that happen and there are so many of you to not mention to so i don't want to mention them all but um thank you all and thank you all who real who you don't even realize what an impact you have on the child and uh we we just thank you performing arts teachers you are an amazing lot you have so many accolades um and uh we will never not fund our arts programs here in fairfax county public schools miss cohen would you like to speak to your second i would thank you i think you'll probably hear a pretty universal uh appreciation and theme up here um as
011a former theater mom a fine arts mom a chorus and a band mom the arts can change lives it certainly has for both of my kids for kids who are academically successful and for those who sometimes really struggle with academic success the arts can be a respite it's a blessing an escape and a place where they feel successful our family is forever grateful for the impact that the arts have had on on our kids and the amazing teachers who go out of their way and devote so much time nights evenings weekends trips to kings dominion with teenagers um thank you so much for all that you do and we are grateful and as miss darren kovac said you certainly have a board that's very committed to always making sure that our kids have these opportunities
012thank you great [Applause] thank you and i see a few my colleagues would like to speak i'll start with ms corbett sanders followed by miss mclaughlin thank you madam chair i too wanted to speak to this because of the importance of the arts for so many of our students when we talk about educating the whole child we also talk about the importance of having an adult in their lives that makes a difference and so often for many of our children that are in the arts programs that adult is their band teacher their theater teacher their uh graphic arts teacher all sorts of folks that are helping these students feel valued seen and heard last night i had the opportunity of participating in west potomac high school's march madness and it was such a fascinating part
013of the evening when each of the seniors was able to talk about the importance of our band programs in their lives and how many of them were going on to become performing arts majors and it was so warming to hear their stories and hear about how they didn't feel seen until they joined the band and how they didn't want to march until they went to band camp and decided they needed to march and so it was just so important and before i end i want to give a shout out to a couple of people who have made a difference in the lives of mount vernon students one in particular is pili clark who who left broadway to come and teach our students the theater arts at west potomac high school he has such a huge
014following but he's retiring at the end of the year and so i couldn't have this recognition without mentioning what an important role he played in so many of our students lives reminds me very much of dorothy kogelman who was my theater teacher back in the day and actually at west potomac there is a kogelman theater named after her because of the many lives she changed and so when we talk about our teachers in the arts we know that they change lives forever great thank you next we have miss mclaughlin you i just want to briefly say again my deepest appreciation to all of our educators who helped inspire a passion in the arts for our students as someone who sang in high school and did light opera in college and now have my youngest son
015in a co-ed a cappella group at the university level i've seen firsthand just how incredible it is for students to find that depth of passion here in the united states we do celebrate often our sports culture and i know that happens often in our high school communities as well and so i just really want to take a moment to say i couldn't be more proud of a school system with decades of commitment from the board to its superintendents to the leadership down to our principals and teachers and most importantly our community that helps support our students in this um that we end up having phenomenal performers coming out of fairfax county every single year so kudos to the great work that all of you do to bring the arts to our community thank you miss
016marin followed by miss tollen so my colleagues know that i love a good spreadsheet and i have an amazing spreadsheet with as many arts events that i can find happening in our school division of students that i represent and teachers that i represent because i want to try and make as many as i can it's a challenge but uh i really aspire to see at least one performance of some kind at every school where i have students and just so you know my commitment to public um to art education and performance art i still keep in touch with my piano teacher whom i met in second grade and she's very close to me um as well as my high school band teacher who um i just recently thanked him for inspiring a love of st
017patrick's day when he let us down new york streets for the parade these are memories that students keep forever it makes their school experience and i just hope that all you teachers know it must be very hard to not keep in touch with the hundreds and thousands of students that you serve but i remember i remember the work that you do and so i honor uh my children's music teachers miss carolyn barker mr joseph mcclure miss leset saterwight and ms gillian skeen who are teaching our elementary students now and i just thank you so much and we will always support making music and art in our public schools here thank you thank you miss tolin followed by mr chodry thank you of course our schools are filled with incredible artists and musicians every time i
018attend a concert or an exhibition exhibition i'm just wowed by the dedication and talent of our students and the staff working with them walking through the halls of the schools i hear music practice and i see artwork everywhere all due to how we value the arts in every school and due to the hard work of our staff members working with our students okay and then for from drainsville how about those amazing musicians we heard this evening from spring hill elementary just to demonstrate kind of the breadth of the types of art music programs that we have i just wanted to mention a few recent accolades that we've had in the drainsville district our herding high school band director was named fcps's region one outstanding secondary teacher cooper middle school our band program is the winner
019of the 2021 settler cup in international recognition of outstanding musical excellence the prize is awarded by the john philip souza foundation actually tonight i'm so sorry to miss it our langley high school ptsa has is exhibiting over 50 different submissions of different types of artwork poetry newly composed music paintings etc with students just describing what diversity means to them i we have a langley high school student with a portrait of president kennedy hanging at the kennedy center due to an award that she won i also this is so near and dear to my heart my older son participated fully in theater through his high school middle school years with fcps and was captain of his high school improv team his creativity and innovation and work as a young adult has been shaped by those experiences
020and our entire family is so grateful for the opportunities offered to him in fcps not to mention the fact that after building all of those sets through high school he can fix anything and that comes in really handy so thank you so much for those people across our district that work in these programs our folks in the central office that work with you and assist you and all of our students that are participating thank you thank you mr chodry then i'll take my turn absolutely the arts are a safe space for children and they are so integral when it comes to building community and a sense of belonging within fcps i think it really helps drive a sense of purpose for so many students and it has been shown to improve students mental health outcomes
021their sense of personal confidence as well as their sense of self-worth um i would also be remiss if i did not mention that it's true at heart the student representative to the school board is a die-hard theater kid and i think it is often kind of overlooked not just those kind of personal wellness impact but also the academic impacts that the arts have on students i know it takes so much to be able to think on your feet and to really think creatively and i know for me even coming to this work at the dios being able to really dig deep into policy and see where there are new ideas and where there is possibility helps uh to bring my work forward and i know so many of our students have been aided by their
022pursuit of the arts in their journey to embodying that portrait of a graduate and to really really living up to fcps's mission great thank you thank you mr chodry and i just say i actually saw you as a cappy's critic at the play my son was in the cappy's play i waved at you so um i will just say first i want to speak on behalf of chair picarski who is very much under the weather and is absent but actually is one who wanted to bring this motion and as chair she very rarely brings forward emotion but this is so important to her both in her role as a school board member as well as a parent and if you've never seen her play the violin a mean musician herself um and you know this
023is music and arts brings the life to our schools and it brings the joy in the hardest of times and i think about covet and how difficult it was to for a long time to hear the music be silent and the arts be silent and then see our teachers find really creative ways to to bring those voices in that music back to life virtually however it may be to try to keep those connections going um arts are how we are human arts are what bring us humanity arts are what feed our soul and you can see this by what's happening in ukraine right now if you've seen the youtube video the young violinist playing her violin in a bomb shelter in the basement you know to entertain people as she said who who she didn't
024know but now are her brothers and sisters and she's playing the violin to bring them calm and peace and joy in between bombings and the video of 94 violinists playing ukrainian songs in unison together it just brings chills and it brings peace there is there's nothing if you don't have music you you lose so much in your world and it brings joy in the hardest of times and it brings um and i'll just say from my own personal journey many of you know my son is single-handedly has performed with every single performing arts department at lake braddock and i think is one of the few kids has done that he was also probably one of the only kids ever at lake braddock to be in all self-contained small group special education classes and the advanced
025guitar ensemble in eighth grade which shows you that music i'm just it's not about him i just want to say this i appreciate that but it shows you that music and arts provide a place for people to find what they're good at and what they love and what brings them passion and that's what makes our students successful in school when they feel like they can be good at something and when they really struggle with with the bulk of what a school is when they find that place that they can shine it makes them able to shine in the places that are hard and when they find that place like music and arts that gives them the their peers their tribe their friends their soulmates it makes them want to go to school it makes them
026want to try and so as someone who is a theater kid herself whose son quite literally life has been saved by the arts i will tell you you have a strong supporter here so with that i will call for the vote all those in favor [Applause] and that is unanimous agenda item 2.05 arab american heritage month resolution i call on mr meish for the resolution thank you whereas april is a time to celebrate arab american heritage and culture and pay tribute to the contributions of arab americans and arabic speaking americans and whereas americans of arab heritage are part of the fabric of this nation and arab americans have contributed to every field and profession the arab american contributions in medicine law business technology military government and education have been and continue to be an invaluable
027part of american pride and whereas to be an arab is to have shared heritage or language with being originating in 22 declared arab nations that are racially politically and religiously diverse but share many values family hospitality and generate generosity being amongst them whereas many arab americans are second third and fourth generation immigrants that began arriving in the second half of the 19th century and whereas people of arab descent have shared their vast cultures experiences and traditions with neighbors and friends while also setting examples of model citizens and public servants whom are interwoven within the greater fiber of the united states and whereas unfortunately many arab americans and people of middle eastern heritage are still combating post-9 11 anti-arab sentiments and hence face challenges every day and now therefore be it resolved that the fairfax county
028public schools hereby officially joins the arab american foundation in celebrating april as 2022 national arab american heritage month in recognition of the many contributions arab americans have made to our society i so move is there a second [Applause] miss keys kamara miss omesh would you like to speak to your resolution i would um and let me first welcome the arab american leaders and and community members who have joined us in the audience today and celebrate them and the thousands of arab families in fairfax county and fcps we are joined today by representatives of the arab america foundation the national arab american women's association nawa the virginia coalition for human rights the arab american institute new dominion pac and many many others who have gone through our system who work for our system or who live
029in fairfax county today is more significant than what many may presume while arab american heritage month was inaugurated as a national as a national celebration only last year by president biden and while arab is still considered white and not accounted for in almost every data collection measure as many of us agonize over our schools are home to families whose second most spoken language after spanish is arabic let me repeat that the second most spoken language in fcps after spanish is arabic our arab families have rich culture that instills shared values of family generosity and hospitality as was mentioned in the resolution and an interesting mix of humility with pride i'm sure that'll bring giggles to some in that mix our families struggle too to exist in a world of compounded implicit and explicit biases validated
030by systemic harms over the years we have not been able to improve these realities for kids even since i was in school as a kid in fcps some of these realities continue to impact those kids who i hear from today but like many things education of course is the solution and so i'll share three buckets of misunderstandings for folks to consider today and end with celebration of course because that's why we're here first most people don't even know what it what being arab is being arab is different than being muslim one is an ethnic and linguistic heritage group encompassing 423 million people across the world and people who represent heritage of 22 countries the other represents a faith group that encompasses about a quarter of the world population more than 80 percent of whom are
031not arab arabs are christian muslim jewish orthodox jews baha'i agnostic and atheist they are well-off poor and everything in between with richly diverse histories language and dialects and customs carrying ties and origins from western asia north africa and the horn of africa encompassing people from countries of algeria bahrain comoros djibouti egypt iraq jordan kuwait lebanon libya mauritania morocco roman palestine qatar saudi arabia somalia sudan syria tunisia united arab emirates western sahara and yemen it also of course includes populations of the arab diaspora around the globe second because of our geopolitical realities most of our fellow community members have been barraged and bombarded by anti-era propaganda for many years we found ourselves in an awkward position i grew up in this context as well as do many of our students in fairfax county imagine most of
032your childhood being in a geopolitical reality where the country you call home or perhaps have come to has been for your lifetime at war with people who look like you across the sea and to position ourselves it ends up manifesting in media frames and propaganda in conversations that show up in abundantly obvious ways even in our conversations around the ukraine recently so you grow up with a frame of your arab but can you also be american and maybe if you believe those to be interwoven and never inextricable those are questioned and so as a child you have to reconcile and grapple with that and today in conversations around the ukraine it persists where we see major news outlets like cbs contrasting places like iraq and saying this is a civilized european country you wouldn't expect
033that nor want it in a place like that or the bbc saying it's very emotional because it's european people with blue eyes and blonde hair who are being killed this time or even cnn saying we need to pay attention to this here this is not like those other places these are white christians like you and me they're people with blue eyes and blonde hair they look like us which is why it's shocking our students have to grow up in environments where these discussions go on in the classrooms without seeing them or understanding the implicit dehumanization around the conversation the language we use when we teach wars in the us that we've been involved in for years or over the past several decades in history class or how we teach geopolitics and government class and the
034ways we teach and talk about current events or the history of various civilizations today causes harm to our students and staff sometimes imagine being that middle schooler or that kindergartener having to walk in and contend with that facing a conflict you never even believed to exist and be in what you're being told required to leave behind the american peace you're you're arab or american you're arab american or you're not human enough which brings me to the third piece what makes it harder of course is the censorship of some culture and heritage the years of censorship around our cultures our heritage and our history manifest themselves in ways where we are bullied to stay silent and make it and that make it difficult for students to feel safe and learn effectively in the classroom when i
035was a student in our system the student government i was part of organized the humanitarian backpack drive and school supply drive for children in palestine after spending hours pouring our hearts into making posters and hanging them up across the school to encourage enthusiasm to support students across the globe who were going through struggles we couldn't ever compare to we came back the next morning and found the posters torn from the walls and we were told that it was shut down it was shut down after loud parents couldn't see the humanity of palestinian children they took they explained to me as a middle schooler in the office that those kinds of kids use backpacks to hide bombs a bias my mind couldn't even conceptualize at the time that was a situation where my school couldn't protect
036me and i don't need to explain all the additional ways palestinian narrative is censored we've all seen it unfold by now or the reflections that are worth having when comparing the reaction to the palestinian case to that of ukraine and whose humanity matters but i still have hope i have hope because i'm reminded of a friend of mine actually at robinson who was in the air force who would tell me how impactful it was when he visited morocco and was able to unpack some of these layers and in fact research shows us that through human interactions we begin to deconstruct these preconceived notions and begin to see the common humanity that brings us together today i actually chose to wear a palestinian phobe my family happens to be afro-arab we have origins from libya which
037is very different than palestine but i wear this today as a symbol that we can celebrate everybody even amidst fear as a symbol that piles upon piles of images assumptions and harms can be shattered through necessary curiosity and courage to learn and to understand so that we don't leave our kids to contend with a perpetual conflict and impossible situations we owe it to them to prepare them for the future to teach them both truth and the beauty of what it looks like to come together an authentic belonging for every child these issues impact our students they impact whether or not they can even exist in our schools as who they are they impact those around them and seeing their friends struggle seeing their own pain as well and they're a disservice to every single one
038of us in the perpetuation of censored or inaccurate narratives about our world and so i still have hope imagine if they could instead learn that the invention of algebra and algorithmic math was started by an arab al hawaii or about the development of one of the earliest written language systems the world's oldest university in morocco being founded by an empowered arab woman or the invention of surgical instruments still used today in early methods of administering anesthetics to patients by azahrawi that are still used in our hospitals right here in fairfax county and a fun fact that the earliest evidence of complex written mathematics in all as as early as 3000 bc which brought us the zero to nine numerical system that we rely on every day fun fact if you didn't know it was called
039the arabic numerals numerical system that came from that time and by the way in more recent american history the contributions of arab americans and the civil rights movement in the labor movement and many other moments in our history to include the man who led the american effort to develop the kovit-19 vaccine yeah you heard that right the top leader in developing the american covenant 19 vaccine doctor monster slawi who's a science lead in operation warp speed is an amer arab american you might also recognize names that are a little bit more fun ralph nader steve jobs amal or even i mentioned this last year too shakira paula abdul and yes dj khaled so today let us celebrate that framing of arab heritage and let us benefit every single one of us and the narrative of
040a new american understanding around arabs by honoring truth and humanity in our collective fairfax county narrative happy arab american heritage month thank you miss keys kamara would you like to speak to your second [Applause] thank you i am pleased to celebrate with our arab americans and all of our county because as our resolution said today people of arab descent have shared have shared their vast cultures experiences and traditions with neighbors and friends while also setting examples of model citizens and public servants whom are interwoven with the greater fiber of the united states you are our neighbors and we celebrate you thank you miss corbett sanders did you wish oh i'm sorry i apologize i apologize that was an applause break [Laughter] many have heard me say that i love to celebrate the many hands that
041have built this nation and so today my friend whispered to me karen i need you and i said of course because once again we get to look at our rich diversity in this county how fortunate we are to have so many who bring their talents their kindness their value of family and friendship they're really wonderful food i have to mention their value of education and long history of dedication to our democracy you are a part of that our arab neighbors have come together as so many others and we would not be who we are without you so even though this is a sort of an impromptu moment i am always so grateful to be able to celebrate our diversity and the strength that comes from our neighbors who have welcomed me in their conferences in
042their homes have hugged me have stood with me have stood with so many because of the common ground we have in this nation and in this county thank you [Applause] thank you miss tolen yes thank you um as miss keys camaro was saying in the arab american community we have so many incredible examples of love and acceptance and working within the community and it's not lost on me that i guess just last weekend we celebrated the um peace awards for our amazing students and two of the peace awards that were given to drainsville students were two american or two arab american young women and i just wanted to highlight them miriam abdel akawa from herndon high school as a seventh grader miriam helped her older sister and three other iraqi american girls to found the
043not-for-profit girls for girls an independent organization with the mission to educate empower and provide opportunities to disadvantaged girls around the world the group serves girls in sierra leone and in a community in iraq their most recent project letters of love provides the opportunity for american girls to write letters to girls in disadvantaged countries a monetary donation collected through their website and local fundraisers is included with each letter they raise money for supplies for a sierra leone orphanage and skype with the girls in the orphanage to help them learn english and in addition mayak kanan from marshall high school maya started the piece in the middle east club at marshall high school her sophomore year now she has about 30 members of many ethnicities the peace in the middle east club meets regularly to learn about
044a variety of middle eastern countries maya prepares informational slideshows on each country focusing on how conflict there is affecting children's lives recently the club obtained the sponsorship of a local restaurant to help raise money for children in lebanon they were able to provide five teachers with remote learning supplies and increasing access to quality education this past fall they raised money for afghani children's school supplies distributing the money through the save the children fund the club is planning additional fundraising activities for the spring and those are just two amazing examples of people right here young people in our community young arab americans that are making such a huge difference myself i have been welcomed with open arms into our arab american community by the adams center and if you don't know anything about the adams center
045scouting program you need to find out about it they have one of the most robust scouting programs i i've ever seen and the things the young people are involved in are really incredible speaking of scouting just last year a neurodean was an eagle scout who upgraded a woodland path behind herndon elementary school and added signs about the floor and the fauna and just made a huge improvement for the education the outdoor education at herndon elementary school and for the neighborhood for people to walk along that path um and walking their dogs or walking to school so there's another young person making a huge contribution thank you so much i'm just happy to highlight the wonderful things in our community thank you miss corbett sanders yes thank you so much and i i appreciate being able
046to follow uh my colleague miss tolin about and to bring the attention to the peace awards and some of the remarkable stories of uh resilience grit and um caring for others that these children brought to their work and their passions and in particular many of the students who received awards last sunday were students who were newcomers to the united states and their stories are so powerful and they are a symbol to all of us about how they take the opportunities here but they still have a focus on bettering their community here and around the world and so i wanted to bring the attention to three young people one is and i apologize for my horrible pronunciation in advance uh miata abuse mara who helped found the unicef club at lewis high school and the unicef
047club is focused on um making sure that they provide supports to those most in need not only here in the united states but across the globe and then we had tariq aldalu and tariq was amazing tariq is a refugee whom while he was in a refugee camp in syria he volunteered as a teacher and as a mentor and now he is here in the united states attending mountain view where he will graduate this year and just is great things will happen with his contributions and finally i'd like to raise the awareness of um miat asifal nyad i had a wonderful opportunity to speak with where she has emigrated from ethiopia she's only been here a year while in ethiopia she volunteered at the amen charitable organization teaching math physics and english to grade school children
048in an orphanage and then she came here and she started her own broadcast talk show called the candid hour where she brings attention to important issues in the ethiopian community and in the world and she's been very active in the model u.n where she's now the secretary general of the club and she is in her junior year so the reason i raise these children up is because and we also have lozo marcos from west potomac high school who has raised money for gift packages for students with disabilities in her home country of ethiopia and sends them to a hospital at addis ababa in addis ababa the reason i raise this up is these are remarkable young people who have our country is richer because of the contributions that they are making in our classrooms and
049in our schools and i'm very optimistic about the future that we have with these great young people great thank you and with that i will call for the vote all those in favor and that is unanimous with ms mccarson away from the table [Applause] agenda item 2.06 vsba business honor roll nominations i call him ms darnett colfax for the resolution thank you whereas public schools and local businesses and not-for-profits are an integral part of this community and whereas many local businesses and community organizations play a crucial role in supporting our schools and whereas the economic health of our community state and nation depends on a strong public school system and whereas collaboration between local public schools and local businesses and community organizations strengthens our schools and the business community alike by providing a well-rounded healthy
050and highly educated workforce and whereas an excellent public school system is vital to the quality of life in fairfax county and fundamental to preserving a strong democratic society now and in the future now therefore be it resolved that the fairfax county school board names capital one innova health system and western fairfax christian ministries to 2022 virginia school boards association business honor roll showing appreciation for each entity's ongoing support of fairfax county public schools your work has aided our community in focusing on the goal of providing the best public schools we can for each and every child who attends thank you is there a second second dr anderson ms darren at kofax would you like to speak to your resolution yes i want to say congratulations to our nominees um we you have our deep appreciation
051and i want to say to capital one innova health systems and western fairfax christian ministries each one of your organizations has provided meaningful support to fcps through this year and it's been a tough year for us and for many prior years and your this recognition for each of you is well deserved i will speak briefly to each one of their what what they have worked with us on capital one along with keeping their popular coders after school program dynamically running in a virtual world donated ninety thousand dollars to our foundation educate fairfax so that we could purchase and distribute mi-fi devices and ensure student connectivity innova who does so very much for us coordinated a host of pediatricians who were videotaped to promote vaccination safety and efficacy for children ages five to twelve having pediatricians
052speak to parents guardians and student proved to be an impactful way to provide information and western fairfax christian ministries who has long supported students with donations of food school supplies and more donated and supported installation of several industrial refrigerators now in seven schools this means we can have fresh fruits vegetables and other perishables getting to students who might need the support and this is all very important work and we are excited that in june we can learn more about these partners and our great work that they have partnering with us as we present them with the awards but thank you for all that you do and congratulations on your nomination thank you dr anderson would like to speak to your second yes briefly i'd like to echo the comments made by miss donna koufax and
053spotlight again have the supports from these organizations have really helped set apart from the hundreds of businesses and community groups who do so much to support fairfax county public schools we're fortunate to have a thriving community and we're appreciative of the ways our community works together thank you to all of the numerous local businesses and nonprofits who help support the work of fcps and of our students to advance the critical mission of our system these are exemplars for the 21 22 year and i want to echo my sincere appreciation to capital one i know for health system and western fairfax christian ministries thank you and congratulations thank you miss corbett sanders followed by mr fresh yes thank you very much i uh didn't want the evening to go by without um thanking the makers of
054the motion uh for this recognition of these three great companies three great organizations but i particularly wanted to address um the important role that the inova health system has provided to this community throughout covid they have been a partner with us to ensure the rollout of vaccines to all of our staff and supporting our students in getting vaccines additionally they have been an incredible partner in the mount vernon district with their partnership at west potomac high school and in the governor's health sciences academy and at mount vernon high school where they provide opportunities for our students in the step program that have already graduated from high school but are needing life skills and they've been very supportive of that as well i wanted to do a special shout out to them tonight for two reasons
055one is that the anova mount vernon high school received the magnet nursing award the highest award for nursing available and they just received it this past week so a big congratulations to a partner that has just been unwavering in their support for this community and also put out a plea which if i don't do it i think miss mclaughlin will which is that there is a community health survey that we really need our community to respond to and anova is pushing it out and so i think there is a link on our website to make sure that people know about it and that they have until next friday or next thursday to fill it out thank you mr fresh thank you i'll just be brief uh i couldn't help but speak what two of these
056entities are anchored in providence district so um very much want to wish anova and capital one the best in this nomination um they are tremendous partners not only for our school system but for the community in general many many jobs created by these these two um with inova and falls church and in capital one in tysons and i can see capital one from my window um they partner in very meaningful ways capital one hall which has recently opened uh is going to be partnering with our school division in a number of different ways in the months and years ahead if you've not been to a show at capital one hall i highly encourage you to go see one of the concerts or broadway shows that are are coming through and i very much appreciate all
057the work like miss corbett sanders said that anova has done throughout the pandemic not just on vaccinations but on general strategy as well and obviously for everything that capital one has done for the tysons region great thank you miss mclaughlin yes thanks for giving those applause to mr frisch's remarks well deserved um i i wanted to just speak up because i i happen to have a family member that works with the nova health systems so i know intimately how much countless numbers of anova employees donated hundreds and hundreds of hours to come out in what was almost a military style operation to quickly vaccinate all of fairfax county employees so we could open our schools as quickly as possible and when i think about how the adage of it takes a village to raise a
058child i do hope that we will find an even more formal opportunity to recognize the inova health systems in their countless employees because for anyone who was a fairfax county employee showed up and saw that incredible operation that they stood up in an instant and got our employees through so quickly got our schools open so quickly it was deeply inspiring to feel like we truly were all in this together and so for capital one for nova systems we know that we can't do the great work that we do in this county of a million people and so we are thankful for their partnership and i really appreciate my colleagues providing this opportunity tonight for this special recognition it's so well deserved thank you so much miss marin yes i wanted to thank capital one and
059western fairfax christian ministries as well and particularly i know the health system of i've had a little bit more interaction with lately due to their involvement in a number of programs i was so thrilled to learn about via the school board's career and technical advisory committee meeting we were visited by staff member lee garanello earlier this month and she gave such an incredible overview of the partnerships that we have in fcps including job shadowing programs tuition assistance to entry pathways to work in inova job letters that i know of a student panels where they can ask health care providers questions and all sorts of other ways where students can really learn about the huge variety of jobs that i know of it in the medical field so i think you know as we look to
060our business partners for their generous funding certainly these opportunities to network and learn from the professionals is just such a huge asset so thank you to these partners thank you so much and with that i will call for the vote all those in favor great and that is unanimous with picasso miss pikawsky away from the table agenda item 2.07 national library week recognition and school library month i call on ms cohen for the recognition thank you national library week is april 3rd through 9th and april is school library month a time to celebrate our dedicated school librarians and their programs the greatest assets to school library programs are the librarians themselves librarians teach inquiry skills that encourage students to ask questions explore and evaluate information and demonstrate their learning school librarians help students grow as
061critical thinkers skillful researchers and enthusiastic readers most importantly they provide an environment for students to be themselves pursue their interests and know that they belong the fairfax county associated school librarians submitted a quick video miss madeja maybe please play the video now [Applause] i actually went to fairfax county public schools and when i was in elementary school i never thought the library would be the place that i would end up in my librarian was a shusher and like i'm probably the loudest person in this building i'd say the newest generation of librarians are really trying to pull in more of this socio-emotional learning that's going on it's really changing what people think libraries are i like to say that in this job i get to be miss frizzle that i get to encourage kids to
062take chances make mistakes get messy in here and it's a place where every single kid is welcome like in the mornings a lot of people come in here and hang out and just have like a nice like quiet place to either like work on homework that they get done before class or just talk to their friends like it's really open to everyone i like the way we can pick our own topics i can pick something about sports something that happened in the news i can pick whatever i want here in virginia we have a school law that says you have to have a certified school librarian i'm actually trained to help kids learn how to navigate information not just pull books off of a shelf but really truly learn how to go through a piece
063learn how to take a look at bias be able to cross reference things and be able to say hey here's a skill i learned how to be this critical and creative thinker and apply it in multiple places in my life what i love about being a librarian is i get to help kids find the love of reading if they haven't found it yet and i get to help kids develop their love of reading reading can spark creativity and like imagination i get a better understanding of the world as it is and not just like the environment that i'm in so here in my library i have a little over 15 000 books and i know across fairfax county public schools we have over 4 million books and one of the things that's so exciting to
064me about those statistics and those numbers is it really speaks to how much fairfax county values libraries libraries are the heart of the school community we really see students grow we see them grow as readers we see them grow as students we see they're changing friendships and we really do love that we are at the heart of the school thank you so much madam chair may i be recognized it's going without the objection of my colleagues i just wanted to say a few words um since this is a recognition and not a resolution where we typically get to talk does anybody have any objections to ms cohen saying a few words all right go ahead ms cohen thank you uh when i was a kid growing up in a place where i often didn't quite
065fit in a nerdy kid with purple hair who dressed in all black the library was [Music] my savior my elementary school librarian beryl mcnair would remind me and recommend books for me that took me somewhere else and showed me other kids who didn't quite fit the mold these books like a wrinkle in time a separate piece everything judy bloom ever wrote changed my life and then i was lucky enough to see the same thing repeated a generation later when my own kid went searching for kids like them because they didn't quite fit in but my kids librarian mrs hammond knew just the right books to help them find where being different is okay in fact being different is celebrated as my child has grown up and gone through school books like drama simon vs the
066homo sapiens and genderqueer have helped them navigate the world as a queer kid these books and more like them saved my kids life i hope our librarians all our librarians know the gift that you give our kids every day not only do you help our kids feel seen but you help all of us see them we cannot thank you enough thank you [Applause] sorry i forgot my job here um i would like to invite the fairfax county librarians the director of k-12 curriculum and instruction colleen eddy coordinator of library information services priscilla dondo staff and supporters of the national library recognition week and school library month recognition to please join me at the dais for a photo with the board and i asked my colleagues to please remain in front of the deus for the
067next two photos [Applause] [Music] hey hello i would like to invite the staff and supporters of the arts in our schools month recognition to now please join the board of the dyess for a photo i would like to invite all those in the audience this evening who are here in support of the arab american heritage month recognition to please join the board at the dais for a photo [Music] board members please take your seats so we can get started board members please take your seat so we can get started thank you agenda item 4.01 community participation the next order of business is community participation speakers must limit their remarks no more than two minutes in length at the conclusion of two minutes the microphone or video will be turned off school board members will be
068listening but not responding to individual speakers the school board will not hear statements involving issues that have been scheduled for public hearings such as a capital improvement program budget and boundaries comments targeting criticizing or attacking individual students are not permitted during public meetings complaints regarding school-based employees should be directed to the appropriate school principal or other school official speakers should refrain from using personally identifiable information in connection with an individual student or school-based employee additionally speakers should be respectful and observe proper decorum in their statements avoiding profanity inappropriate gestures shouting and comments that run counter to the spirit and the letter of the school division's non-discrimination policy all statements should be directed to the school board and speakers should remain at the podium until concluding their remarks as a reminder speaker substitutions are not permitted
069a speaker may not yield their time to another individual before or during their remarks shouting and outputs from the audience will not be tolerated we are grateful for those who have come to speak to us today and thank you for your cooperation our first speaker is sinead maloney hi my name is sinead maloney and i'm a student at thomas jefferson high school for science and technology i'm here tonight to speak briefly to you about something that happened during this past falls sports season and something that i want to make sure won't happen again i play field hockey for my team's varsity team and both the jv and varsity team had games the night before the psat i want to make sure that no fcps high school sports games are scheduled the night before the psat
070as a student athlete i shouldn't have to make the choice between an important sports game and a nationwide test i chose the night of sleep before the instead of the game so that i was more prepared for the test and because that i missed the game if i had stayed and played the game i wouldn't have gotten home until maybe 10 pm and then i'd still would have had to get ready for bed this is far from my deal the night before a national test with college implications another thing that i found interesting was that there didn't appear to be any boys games that night but there are both field hockey and volleyball games which are girls sports at my school i don't know if this was on purpose but i just found that interesting
071i reached out to my coach about this and she said that she didn't schedule the games this was also mentioned to my school's athletic director last fall and he didn't seem to know who to contact about it either i've been very busy with school and that's why i haven't gotten a chance to talk until now but i hope that what i say will make a difference and i hope that you hear me thank you thank you our next speaker is iran rawal good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak my name is aryan robel and i'm a queer senior in fcps who's an organizer with the pride liberation project just this week a student at an fcps high school was outed to their parents as a result they were denied access to basic necessities
072and no longer have access to a safe and welcoming home their story isn't unique there are countless students including me who cannot be themselves at home for students like us the lack of traditional support structures can be devastating it can have an adverse impact on our mental health physical safety and academics performance it's just one of the many reasons why lgbtqia plus students experience significantly elevated rates of depression suicide and other mental health problems libraries are one of the few places where we are unequivocally supported our librarians take immense steps to protect students and ensure that we have safe spaces to be ourselves there are places where we can complete academic work get a reprieve from hallways filled with queerphobic slurs and access literature that represents us above all else they are one of the
073few places where lgbtqia plus students can exercise autonomy over our lives unfortunately our librarians are under attack in the past general assembly a number of bills were filed which would have prevented librarians from doing their job as some of the most supportive individuals in our school buildings fcps has a responsibility to reject those attacks i ask that you ensure that our next superintendent is willing to take the steps that we need to defend our librarians that includes making sure that our next superintendent uses fcps government relations office to stop bad bills and launch his litigation to prevent dangerous laws from being enacted it also includes making sure that our superintendent is willing to recognize teacher unions and engage in good faith bargaining with them this board has taken commendable steps to protect lgbtqia plus students
074please ensure that the next superintendent continues your efforts [Applause] thank you our next speaker is tara dixit hello my name is tara and i'm a junior at chantilly high school while researching abuses by immigration and customs enforcement i was surprised to learn that in one year ice arrested roughly 3 thousand people in fairfax county the more i researched the more heartbreaking stories of isis abuses i came across according to the legal aid justice center parents of an immigrant child in a government custody center would have to provide fingerprints of other family members to ice to be reunited with their child essentially they were forced to choose between seeing their child or preventing other family members from deportation in addition ice raids in apartments near woodburn and sleepy hollow elementary schools made parents afraid of sending
075their children to those schools situations like these should be prevented in schools because there are places where students of all backgrounds should have a safe learning environment in schools students don't report bullying or apply for reduced lunches due to fear of revealing their family's immigration status no student should go hungry or tolerate bullying because they worry for their family's safety last year fcps passed a trust policy because immigrants were afraid their vaccination records would be shared with ice it's time fcps do something similar i applaud the work dr anderson mr frisch and others have put into creating this school trust policy and strongly urged the school board to adopt it thank you our next speaker is sandra miracle hello my name is sandra merkel and i'm a parent and the vice president of the falls
076church high school ptsa originally i prepared remarks to voice frustration and disappointment over the change in our renovation plans without warning with little opportunity for meaningful community involvement but too much surprise and relief two days ago we learned that the renovation would revert to the original design this result came about after much work by many including our school board representatives thank you dr anderson mr frish and dr zulaga for your efforts on our behalf i could end it there and go celebrate this apparent victory with my fellow jaguars but i dare not because we all know the renovation of false church high school has been a long time coming and there's still quite a ways to go as we continue on that path together i want to talk to you about your process currently in
077place regarding community involvement your regulations recognize community input as essential in developing clarify and understanding this board's goals and objectives and yet we are not the first school advocacy group to come before you telling you that your community engagement process is inadequate in our case after learning of the change our advocates immediately engaged launching foia requests reaching school board members and attending subcommittee meetings however given the extremely late public notice and the quickly approaching bid award process we were told there was no time to revisit the plans we were cautioned that our actions could cause additional expense and delay of the renovation as mentioned we now know revisions will be made and we are grateful but it should not have been this challenging to be heard it should not have taken the untold amount of
078hours and stress that it did indeed take not when there was ample time and opportunity to invite community members into the process to suggest that voicing community concerns now would be the cause of future delay when now was the only window of opportunity given to us is to misplace blame i invite you to scrutinize your policy regarding community involvement and that you examine your current process to determine how it can become more fair and transparent you must engage the school community in a timely and meaningful way to do less as a disservice to the very community you strive to serve thank you for your time your collective commitment to our children and our communities thank you our next speaker is tina williams good evening i'm tina williams president of the fairfax county federation of teachers
079i'm joined by president of the fairfax education association a proud school librarian kimberly adams and president-elect leslie houston as we celebrate the national library week and school library month we thank our professional school librarians for their work to inspire encourage and support 21st century learning for every child school librarians are certified professionals highly trained in research and material selection to meet the needs of all students and work within the district's material selection policies and procedures school librarians instill a love of reading that supports lifelong learning increased confidence and skills for all readers the joy and excitement in a child as they proudly embrace a just right reading book is invaluable great school systems offer libraries with a live a wide variety of materials that represent the diverse views of its students and their experiences and
080viewpoints from the wider world that might only be witnessed through the pages of a book the school librarian the school library is often the only place to access high interest and relevant reading materials for many children whether it is reading a book or learning in the classroom for engaging and self-relevant learning to take place students must see themselves their honest history and perspectives in that curriculum anything else is negligence it's obvious that not every book is right for every reader for re for student readers parent involvement is encouraged and that parent would set the parameters and discuss with their own children what is considered to be the right choice access to books and knowledge must not be restricted for children based on other parents [Music] thank you our next speaker is cameron ward good evening
081i'd like to speak about in-person outside assistance in class i believe it's significantly lacking and students for students that do not accept virtual assistants well at the middle and high school levels the opportunity to obtain in-person help has been greatly reduced this year the buildings used to be open an hour before school and now the doors are locked until about 30 minutes before for the first class there used to be a 90 minute flex block that students could use to catch up on work seek assistance from a teacher or make up a test this has been replaced by an eighth period advisory half of which is dedicated to an sel curriculum student time to get additional assistance or make up a test during this time is so drastically cut from previous years that teachers were
082instructed that their tests could be no longer than 30 minutes these changes have not helped address our learning this year in fact re the rewriting tests to fit within the 30 minute makeup period has been an undue burden on teachers this year and notice you guys have put tutor.com in place and it's great for teens that have homework and need to access someone outside school for assistance in their school help but it doesn't make up for the reduced debate availability of in-person teachers to give personal assistance at school fcps has gotten away from assigning regular homework in the lower grades tutor.com is not helpful to the lower students which have no homework parents are concerned about the learning gaps in the younger grades that are concerned that will affect the students in the future it's
083beneficial for us to identify these and address them in an individual manner in the younger grades perhaps the elementary schools could have a flex block to address specifically identified learning gaps in all children some of this can be assigned as homework where online tutoring can assist but it has to be identified first let it be known that nothing compares to the classroom experience the eye contact the facial expressions and the body language they're all part of the learning experience [Applause] thank you our next speaker is stacy langton okay groomers i looked at your campaign pages carl frisch not a native virginian he's from l.a he's pictured with his partner in la at the matasheen steps this landmark is to honor harry hay a homosexual radical and communist party member in 1950 harry haye founded a
084communist group called the mattachine society and a gay rights group called the radical fairies harry was a big proponent of pedophilia he gave talks and waxed poetic about man-boy love harry thought that the cult of dionysus in ancient greece and its practice of pedophilia was the highest form of love nambla the national man boy love association the pedophile organization in america has a tribute to harry hay on their website carl posted this picture because he was showing how he admires this radical communist and pedophile because he knew that the voters in virginia would not get the significance do you see what i'm up against america we have the fox guarding the hen house i am asking a pro-communist pro-pedophile school board to remove the child grooming books in genderqueer maya kobabe references the ancient greek
085essay plato's symposium which says that sex between men and boys is best these perverse books sexualize and confuse children to the point of causing profound mental illness it's creeped into everything like a cancer destroying the fabric of society by the denial of reality a male secretary of health calls that the press calls woman of the year men taking over women's sports and a supreme court nominee who cannot define what a woman is and sympathizes with pedophiles the left and this school board says that all of this is to help children and make them feel accepted and that they do it because they love them and they want them to feel good you know who else tells kids they love them and want them to feel good predators do thank you our next speaker is kathleen
086gillette excuse me miss mallard yes i believe the next speaker on our list is miss gillette and there are no speakers there are no c there's no speaker substitutions allowed no same person i'm kathleen donohue gillette hyphen mallard okay thank you okay i'm sorry i i was using my irish name for a change okay um partially i want to talk to you about the rumors and the fear that mask mandates may return no not yet just put it down here i have two science degrees from georgetown university i'm a fellow hoya with our superintendent in language acquisition and linguistics i have a certificate in spanish from the university of madrid and hold a french certificate from the sorbonne in paris i studied german and munich germany and i can attest to the fact that it
087is difficult if not impossible to learn and teach a language while wearing a mask i say this because there are rumors mask mandates may return fcps students who are english language learners face greater challenges than other students in the area of communication due to the restrictive nature of masks mask mandates put english language learners at greater risk of dropping out or falling behind please do not return to mass mandates also stop teaching sex ed to all children but especially english language learners i have spoken with many parents because i speak spanish fluently little french they are appalled at what is in the el uh what is in the fle sex ed um they they don't understand how to opt out either also last month black lives matter uh was of course a part of the
088blac well black history month if black lives matter fcps should drop the family life education because it is the result of the collaboration of margaret sanger who started the negro project to eradicate african americans uh with hugh hefner and alfred kinsey uh and join all of you to read this book and learn more about our fle program board members provide a safe and healthy program for fcps students get rid of the fle also stop confusing our children about gender and let their parents work thank you our next speaker is kristen haynes my name is kristen haynes and i'm a former falls church high parent of three pta's ptsa president and uproar member 10 years ago i was part of a group that founded uproar which stood for united parents to restore our academic resource and
089spoke before the board to call to attention the need to run a vapeful church high the school was built in 1967 and had never been substantially renovated which everyone knew was an egregious oversight yet we were told nothing could be done about the queue upper made small amounts of progress bringing restrooms up to an acceptable level and updating the school with auditorium seating and ramps now the renovation phasing planning phase has begun and i wish i could say it's gone smoothly the current leadership of the ptsa and athletic boosters have spent numerous hours over the past six weeks handling a parking issue which we first learned about on february 3rd after two previous community meetings in june 2019 and april 2021 including the additional parking it took involvement with carl frisch recording anderson and dr
090luaga to correct the issue which we thought would be voted upon tonight there was a total lack of procedural guidelines community notification and engagement we have been assured the additional parking has been reinstated to the plan and will be delivered with a current renovation project we appreciate that how can the school community get a seat at the table for the remaining phases of the project to make sure the needs of falls church high school are met and don't disappear without us being told i'd hoped that when falls church finally got onto the bond for planning and funding that the advocacy for doing the job right and thoroughly was complete it's disappointing to hear that so many of my peers and our elected representatives were put through the ringer because of the lack of transparency and
091willingness to work cooperatively to create the best building possible for our very deserving student teacher and staff populations thank you our next speaker is leslie houston [Applause] good evening i am leslie houston president-elect of the fairfax education association i would like to thank librarians across this county and across this country for having the courage to stand up for our students thank you for giving students the opportunity to travel near and far through books for allowing the library to be a place where students can find books that will challenge them intellectually and where they can see themselves within the pages i am a black woman with nieces and nephews of all races for my personal growth i am a teacher who has read and will continue to read banned books i have family and friends who
092are jewish muslim gay queer and transgender and oh by the way i'm a christian i am a teacher who shares the truth about history african people my ancestors were stolen by white people and brought to a country where they were sold bought beaten raped and killed but i stand here today as my ancestor's wildest dream and i will forever tell the truth about my history their history your history american history finally i would like to encourage all the citizens who care so much about the education of our future generation to not only quote dr martin luther king jr but to live their lives in honor of his legacy to do anything less is surely hypocritical thank you our next speaker is adriana carr good evening i'm adriana carr proud mother of a kiddo in an
093fcps school she attends an amazing school where teachers the administration school personnel sac fellow parents and students are committed to the school community building the community supporting the community and celebrating the community one group that's pivotal to these efforts is the school's pta this group of parents regularly and consistently brainstorms and organizes events that will support the school teachers and students the level of support is heartening some examples include supplemental playground equipment and carpeting this inspired me to do more to support my daughter's classroom teacher recently before a weekend target run i reached out to my child's teacher to see if she needed anything the request was for kleenex and pencils i began to think if i hadn't reached out would she have had to purchase those items with her own money would the kids
094have no access to kleenex when masks were becoming optional and i often heard about classmates who had gone home sick these two items kleenex and pencils should be easy to acquire within the school system my request to the fairfax county school board is to continue to fight for our school persist in your efforts and also ensure that there's enough funding for kleenex and pencils those are important too thank you thank you our next speaker is bonnie gaggermeyer hello my name is bonnie gaggermire i'm a parent teacher and the president of the falls church high school athletic boosters i first learned about the needed renovations at our high school when my children were in elementary school previous fc parents have stood before you pleading for fcps to do what's right and bring our high school and
095the fall church academy up to the standards enjoyed by other schools in fairfax county i now only have one child left at falls church he will live through the worst of the renovations without getting to experience all of the benefits but i want all of my children to be proud alumni of falls church i want my community to have a school that isn't substandard i want the kids i now teach to one day get to experience falls church with all the exceptional features that they deserve we've waited a long time for our renovation i attended the february third community meeting and i was disappointed when i heard that the needs of fall church students staff and the community at large were not prioritized in a site plan that took away a long-planned parking lot that
096provided adequate parking that plan disadvantaged our staff and our students and it put our school in a precarious position with our surrounding neighbors we mobilize parents alumni staff and students at falls church who care about what happens to their school we mobilize our feeder elementary and middle school so they are fully aware of where things stand currently and we will continue to stay mobilized to ensure that our renovation is completed in a manner that represents our school our advocacy group recently learned this parking lot was put back we're excited for the possibility of the day that our campus is equitable with the fairfax county schools and also with our athletic fields our geographic position makes us an ideal location to host premier events especially if they have a place to park at one point in
097this advocacy process we heard that you can't make everyone happy there's truth to that but when renovating the school it should be the school's needs that ultimately win if there's conflicting opinions we hope that belief that belief continues throughout the renovation and that there is transparency in our school's involvement we will make ourselves available to continue collaborating and we promise to stay involved thank you our next speaker is rick clayton good evening cnbc finds that virginia is ranked number one as the top state for business in the united states for the last two years virginia needs business owners and entrepreneurs to maintain a growing and dynamic economy we need an educated talented workforce to drive to work and drive the productions of goods and services and innovation and we need a growing population of fuel
098demand for goods and services cnbc includes a number of measures in determining this overall ranking notably it includes education virginia is found to be number two in the u.s workforce number three business friendliness 11 life health and inclusion 11 economy 13 access to capital 9 and other measures the only measures that dr that push virginia to this top spot are education and workforce and these two factors are essentially the same our well-educated kids stay here to get good jobs in our local government and businesses because they're well educated and they stay here to start businesses and families when we tout our great number one position as top state for business we're relying on these two factors and anything that harms these two harms our ranking in other factors virginia is 24th in infrastructure 26 in
099the cost of doing business 32nd in cost of living these mediocre rankings are dwarfed by our excellence in education and workforce and while it is hard to bring these other measures forward it is really easy to destroy the education and workforce ratings budget cuts or policies that drive away teachers librarians and school boards will undercut the existing quality extremely high level of quality in virginia and we are poised to remain at the top as long as we maintain those we understand that our inclusiveness draws workers and businesses from all over the country and from foreign lands our sense of welcoming inclusiveness and tolerance is a hallmark of fairfax county reducing limiting or otherwise changing these policies will hurt our education system constrain our workforce diversity and hurt our businesses what you do here drives virginia's
100economy keep it up thank you that was our final speaker we also have one video testimony michelle sherman good evening my name is michelle shorman and i'm the parent of two false church high school alums one from the class of 2016 and one from 2020 and i'm also the past president of the falls church high school ptsa i appreciate the opportunity to address the board on the upcoming falls church high school renovation our community is incredibly grateful and very thankful that the renovation is about to start but we do have one remaining issue that needs to be addressed immediately and that is the issue of parking at two community meetings one in june of 2019 and one in april of 2021 plans for the renovation included the provision of 577 parking spaces which is sufficient
101for the needs of our community yet in february of this past year revised plans were presented to the community which showed a 32 reduction in parking spacing spaces leaving just 396 spaces for the for the school this is not sufficient to support the teachers the students and the students who will drive to the academy during the day nor is it sufficient to support the community events and sporting events the school will host in the evenings and on the weekends i asked the board to take immediate action to solve this problem and to base their decision on the needs of the community and the school and most importantly the students not the softball community and i asked the board to make their decision based on current data on the availability of softball playing fields in the
102county not on a report that was published in and lastly i asked the board to consider the equity of the issue to ensure that the facilities including sufficient parking provided to the falls church high school students are the same as those students at the other county high schools i appreciate your immediate time and attention and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to address you agenda item 3.02 superintendent matters i call on dr bray brand thank you uh chairman yeah thank you chairman seismicheiser heiser and thank you members of the board and community i want to go over a few superintendent matters very briefly first of all super excited after spring break we are going to be able to have universal tutoring for all students at all levels in a multitude of subjects and it
103really will be an academic booster shot for our students not just for the rest of the school year but for the next two years using esser dollars super excited about this opportunity for our kids and we'll be sharing more detailed information out in the weeks ahead right after spring break i also we honored so many folks tonight we really had a championship year here in fairfax county public schools we've had a lot of state champions i know we recently talked about hayfield and madison and congratulations to the lady warhawks at madison and then the young men at hayfield but we really had a variety of state championships and we are working with the school board leadership to figure out how we can recognize and elevate all of our champions later this year wanted to share
104that with you kindergarten registration has begun if you have a child that will turn five by september 30th uh please contact your neighborhood school to make arrangements for kindergarten enrollment and i want to remind our community that we continue to want our families to come back to fairfax we have had 2 000 students enroll since september who've come back into our schools and we're excited to have many more continue to join us in the months ahead and as we plan for the next school year we talked about our amazing librarians tonight and uh certainly so much has been said i want to thank them too for coming out and for all the work they do to make our libraries inclusive where every kid can be seen respected and and really valued and it really is
105a saving grace just like our fine arts are for many many students another group i want to thank of our employees are our athletic trainers it's national athletic training month and our athletic trainers do so much to prevent our kids from being injured but also provide recognition for our athletes and really give them everything they can do to be fully successful in their athletic pursuits so thank our trainers for all they do and two final things i want to mention our school counselors we've talked about the importance of mental health supports and school counselors so much are involved in making that happen i want you to know the highest award nationally is uh through for school counseling is something called ramp i know it because as a principal 15 years ago we were one of
106the first high schools to get that designation five more programs have gone through the process to do it and here they are hayfield secondary school oakton high school thoreau middle school west potomac high school and whitman middle school they will be recognized nationally at asca's national conference in austin texas in july and finally one of the things we talk about and we know it's still a work in progress is community engagement to make sure all of our voices are being heard and respected as we make decisions one way that we in engage the community is through our websites and fairfax county public schools recently presented six of our schools with the 2021 best of the web awards for excellence in website content and use of web based tools this is uh annual awards are organized
107by our office of communication community relations to celebrate schools that have done all this work and their web curators and winners were recognized at a virtual meeting on march 11. but on behalf of the entire division i want to congratulate the following six schools columbia elementary graham road elementary hayfield elementary rocky run middle school chantilly academy and falls church high school making our websites current and relevant is an excellent way to make sure that our families and community members know a lot about our schools at least through the web and can find and we're committed to finding additional ways to engage our students and families and community on all the good things happening in our schools thank you very much great thank you very much agenda item 3.03 student representative matters i call on mr
108chodry good evening madam chair board members when we discuss the manner in which we value examining the whole child it is necessary to tackle areas where we must still improve this continues to be the case in our elementary and middle school advanced academics programs some students face a situation in which they have a disability and if that disability hasn't been identified yet it directly affects how they score on the cog at and as a result how they are academically placed moreover the aap appeals process remains deeply inaccessible to those without the financial or temporal means to seek it out i come from a community where it is extremely common for aap students to have entered through the appeals process meanwhile that's a very rare thing in low-income areas despite the fact that that does open
109up opportunity to students who initially weren't identified but were very capable of succeeding and went on to do great things throughout their academic careers so what does that mean well tracking is so rigid right now in fairfax county that if your parents or guardians don't have the mean to fight for you your placement is stagnant from the age of eight up until right before you start high school programs like young scholars and the expansion of advanced academics programming into every elementary school are a great starting point but they do not give credence to the underlying issue of how we identify students in the first place there exists a critical need to evaluate additional pipelines for entry including prioritizing funding for universal aap rescreening or allowing students to be identified directly through grades and or teacher
110recommendations i think in the past several years fcps has really gone down the track of children being so much more than a test score and their academic capabilities being so much more than a test score and that's something that really needs to reflect in our programs it's also vital to examine a direct segue to full-time level 4 enrollment for a student's principal placed him to the program within their school community b an entry pathway into level 4 for young scholars c opportunities for students placed in level 3 which is aap for all of elementary school but not at all in middle school to be re-evaluated before they enter middle school as well as looking at how the presence of open enrollment honors courses that serve everyone at the high school level contrast with separating honor
111students and gifted students at the middle school level indeed while gifted is not the term that fcps uses anymore it is still largely the perception among the student body and among the community as is evident based on the number of times that i've brought this up this barely scratches the surface and being placed through the process and being labeled one way or another touches every elementary and middle school student in fairfax county this is so much bigger than just any one school or any one subset of policy decisions this really covers everyone in america's 10th largest school system and um taking a deep dive at this issue through a forum topic and sustained efforts to address aap identification is one of the greatest ways we can exemplify true commitment to equal opportunity for every child
112uh and i also deeply hope and look forward to discussing with our next superintendent a readiness to address this issue and the importance of really really examining that pipeline um additionally because i do have a little bit of time left i will just say it was a pleasure today to be able to attend the superintendence advisory council's presentation day which gave i believe around 15 to 20 recommendations to dr brabrand and the fcps leadership team as to policies which may better serve fcps students through both the lenses of governance and day-to-day operations that is covered by admin and so i think really hearing those ideas and getting to hear the open discussion and really kind of help students make those connections with those who i think they'd been excited to talk to was really incredible
113some of the conversations were really profound for example my student appointee to the advisory committee for students with disabilities got to talk to dr brabrand about how special education students are affected by the structure of programming additionally there were great discussions on um the retake policy and everything from school lunches to accessibility with principles and feedback in our communities and i look forward to working with those student leaders uh on i think much more robust fidelity of implementation than we've seen in past years with those student recommendations and really helping make those things a reality for our students thank you great thank you very much agenda item 4.01 we already did this confirmation of action taken in closed meeting this is a portion of the meeting where the board will confirm any action regarding issues
114that were discussed in the closed meeting these issues may include action taken regarding student disciplinary matters board members have discussed each individual case and at this time will make several motions to confirm the recommended action i call on miss corbett sanders for a motion yes thank you madam chair i move to expel a student who possessed a weapon a loaded handgun on school property is there a second miss uh dr anderson all those in favor all those and that is dr anderson miss maron miss tollen miss mclaughlin mr knight koufax myself miss cohen mr frisch and miss corbett sanders any opposed abstaining ms keys gemara and that passes with miss uh picarsky away from the table and a miss somash away from the table agenda item 4.02 third quarter budget review i call on miss
115corbett sanders for the motion thank you madam chair i move that the board approved revenue and expenditure adjustments as reflected in the fiscal year 22 third quarter budget review and as detailed in the agenda item is there a second oh my god dr anderson thank you miss corbett sanders would you like to speak to your motion yes thank you madam chair we talk about how our budgets are value statements and this third quarter review calls for the use of the excess funds from the third quarter to be invested in what is most important to our um to this board which is making it student-centric and the student-centric aspect of this is ensuring that our students are able to take advantage of robust enrichment and remediation programming during this summer of special note is that this
116summer although we had expected a higher enrollment last year this summer we're expecting 30 000 students from fairfax county across the county to participate in summer programming that is one in every six of our students so this is a good investment in our students and i would appreciate the support of this board thank you dr anderson would you like to speak to your second i would like to yield my time to miss tolin great ms tollin yes thank you stepped away at the wrong time i guess um yeah i just want to point out that you know we are using a combination of esser and quarter three funding for the summer programs and i just want to mention um our esther dollars this year have been allocated out to the schools as of the end
117of august and the schools are beginning to use them i purposely have been visiting um schools to see in particular how the esser dollars are being spent um i recently was at chesterbrook hutchison and great falls and um impressed i just want to talk a little bit about that the use of the esser dollars um i saw and learned how these ester dollars are being utilized and helping students um in with an array of ways math games for sixth graders learning ratios at hutchison the literacy specialists have purchased engaging literacy readers that support reading and content at the same time and principles are using quite a bit of this funding also for hourly funds to increase in-person tutoring and mentoring to further assist and engage our students all three of these principals were using the
118funds differently but all very excited about the ways this these dollars are supporting their students and staff i know we have a few questions um this evening on on why we're not fully funding our summer school program using ezra funds and why we might need this third quarter transfer so i'd like to ask our cfo lee burden to elaborate on this a little bit yes well as you may recall all of the esser funds are fully allocated the state did not allow us to include placeholder funds we do have 5.6 million allocated towards summer school but as ms corbett sanders said we do expect a large number of students this year and 5.6 million is not enough and so we'll need to supplement that with savings from the staffing reserve at 12.5 million identified in
119the third quarter report great thank you ms mclaughlin yes thank you first of all i appreciate what ms corbett sanders said and i have no doubt that all 12 of us on this board are committed to extended summer learning and the importance of remediation so that's not in question at all i think our absolute commitment of every single board member is is putting our students first my concern and my questions to the superintendent and to the cfo and to my colleagues about tonight what's in front of us is we should not take lightly that we are taking our general operating funds that are supposed to be for you know our our needs that we set up to address recurring annual costs and operations for this system and when the federal government gives this school system
120188 million dollars and we you guys all remember sitting at this diocese where i kept saying what's the plan what's the plan and the superintendent saying we've got a plan well this is an example of we don't have a plan because we have 188 million dollars and we didn't set aside enough money for what we knew summer remediation was gonna be so important and i i can only speak for what i'm hearing from my principles that because the s the s or three plans at the school level took so long to be developed and then approved at the region level that they have a lot of existing dollars ms burden says they got it in in august they didn't get to start spending that money until they all got approved and as we know was
121just presented to us there was some time after january so my colleagues my concern about tonight is simply this we can't get those general operating dollars back and how many times do we fight over 12 and a half million dollars and how we could spend this in really important ways and so my only question to the superintendent that i have for him this evening is did he consult and confer with the 200 principles to find out do you have 12 and a half million dollars that you expect aren't going to be spent by the year end of this school year which is about you know two and a half months away and that's where you're gonna have the fallout of unspent academic dollars for this year that we can transfer over to the the esy
122and then the 12 and a half million dollars is going to go to our year-end funds that how often do we hear of all the other things that our school system our employees are telling us we need i just i'm really uncomfortable that we unfortunately didn't have a work session on it we didn't have an opportunity to talk with one another about this and so dr brabrand please explain to me have you checked in with your 200 principals do you and your cfo know how many dollars millions of dollars are going to be left at the end of the academic school year because you guys i'm just being transparent if i turn around and find out that we had more than 12 and a half million dollars that didn't get used and because once we
123spend this it's not like we can go back to the esther dollars and go oh well now we'll replenish so 12 and a half million dollars is important general fund dollars and i don't i it's this feels like a premature decision i'd rather put this in a set-aside and then allow the superintendent to come back to us at the end of the academic year and then if we need to be funding esser we know the money is there but i don't feel comfortable committing it here tonight um so dr brabrand i know you and i were having a email conversation i appreciate as always that you um entertain my my intense questions so anything you can do to help because this this does make me the purpose of funding esy is absolutely certain how we're
124doing it and why we're not using esser gives me a lot of concern well thank you mr mclaughlin i appreciate the question a couple things i'd say one is we're definitely seeing that the academic needs for students to have a larger than normal summer school continue to be larger than anticipated we're running summer school again this summer probably two to three times what we had thought that we would need so we do need those additional dollars and we need to plan in advance i certainly understand uh you know we we will have some carryover money we told principals that they would be able to have that money so that any of the work that they didn't get done in their plan that they did develop this year they'll be able to continue to have for
125next year and we can make reallocations moving forward to esser as we talked about before with this board we pledged to do that and i think we may have a few amendments to come up but in this moment in this time we need to set the planning process the budgeting process for summer school we need some additional funds it's one time money these work quarter reviews are one-time money to do the summer school and i don't know ms burns is there anything you would add beyond what i've shared that you'd like to share no you're absolutely correct that the grant funds carry over and the principals will be able to carry over these funds and use them in the next year and the fiscal 23 funds that were allocated that is certainly something that we're
126going to need to revisit for messer miss burton what do you mean that we're going to revisit the fiscal year 23 funds i mean that there is um there will be funds carried over at each school location from sr3 that were budgeted and given to them for academic intervention and wellness intervention in fiscal 22. only about 25 percent of those funds have been spent principals know that they can carry those funds over into fiscal 23 and so the funds that are allocated for fiscal 23 will likely need to be revisited revisit in the sense that we're going to have carry over unspent funds from fiscal 22 so then we're going to be able to be saying to them you're going to have a total of school-based ester dollars that'll be higher in fiscal 23 is
127that what you're saying no originally when we presented the the initiatives uh to the board back on in august we allocated essar funds across three years fiscal 22 fiscal 23 and fiscal 24. the bulk about 52 percent allocated in fiscal 22 and um 40 percent around there budgeted in fiscal 23 if all of the schools have funds that they can carry over and continue to use from fiscal 22 in fiscal 23 that will reduce their need for fiscal 23 and so we should revisit the allocations for that year so i mean i don't know you guys if i'm just the only one not getting it here tonight 25 of our 188 million dollars well that's not even it's 25 of what we allocated for just fiscal year 22. only 25 has been spent and we've
128got very little time left i don't understand why we aren't just simply saying to the superintendent of course we want you to be funding the esy for this summer but you shouldn't be using general operating dollars when we have so much of our esser funds unspent unused and we could be using the one-time general operating funds to do all the other things that we continually know that we need to address at every year end i mean we're prematurely losing 12 and a half million dollars to go to a whole lot of different ways for general operating dollars while we are flush with esser funds i'm telling you the public our families and our taxpayers are not going to understand why we took their dollars while the federal government has given us all these other dollars
129and the dollars exist i just don't think this is a good decision on our part by all means we can signal the superintendent of course we want you to run esy but you're you've got 12 and a half million dollars in esser funds to be able to do it madam chair can i miss mclaughlin are you finished uh for everybody's sake yes thank you ms mclaughlin ms corbett sanders please ms mclaughlin i really appreciate you bringing this to our attention tonight um i think that there i wish we had had a bit more time to kind of go through a little bit of your con of the process and the concerns and so i i welcome this discussion at the board table i did want to kind of clarify two things one is that this
130is not for esy only it's for summer school in enrichment and remediation so it's broader than just our traditional esy that's the first thing the second thing is that you are correct that the esser funds were delayed in getting to our schools and that was because yes the esser funds were allocated at the state level we had to submit a plan for the use of esser funds in august and then it took a period of time for the funding to come into the county and then there was the process of getting all 200 buildings plans done and approved both at the building level and then at the regional level as well as through the project management function of dr patrick i i'm kind of bummed that she isn't here tonight so she could go into
131more detail about the esser funds however what i understand is yes they are they were slow in getting the funds to the schools but that as we had our s our work session uh and i don't remember the exact date but it was about a month ago one of the topics that came up was that because they were slower in getting the funding and the plans approved that there was a delayed in expenditures but that there was a ramping up this happening this spring and that they were also going to ensure that for they were making adjustments and actually not doing the full allocation of s or funds to those schools that didn't necessarily need the level of funding that they received this year for next year and that that funding would be going to
132basically a needs-based funding of s or funds and so that's an iterative process and before it's the esser funds aren't as fungible as we would like them to be the federal government has been very clear about what you can spend on esser funds and what you can't but it also has been very clear that you have to submit a plan and then any reallocation of funds we actually have to provide a an amendment to the plan and so i think that's part of the discussion that's going on tonight is really where are we at in that process and i'm i'm going to call upon miss burden to correct anything that i may have said in error because she's certainly more of an expert at this than i am but it it's my understanding that the
133whole um allocation and usage of those esser funds is an iterative process no everything you said was correct except for we're actually planning on serving 40 000 students in summer school at 40 000 students in summer school we're talking about over um you know what is that 25 of our population more than 25 percent of our population that's pretty amazing thank you thank you miss corbett sanders miss keith kamara oh i see your light is off miss marin thank you um thanks ms corbett sanders for that explanation so i i struggle with um something that i feel like i'm kind of framing is like a philosophical difference that some of us might have between spending general funds and spending s or funds and i know to miss burden i've asked a number of times about
134where does the flexibility lie in some things like increasing hourly staff pay or paying for outdoor learning space furniture just today i was talking with a medical school principal and a dean of students who was saying they would love to remove a base of unused lockers and create space for kids to have that calm down social emotional recharging space as well as pay for monitors to supervise that was to the tune of 30 grand but you know they said well we can't spend money on furniture so you know this is a brand new experience having these esser funds and look anywhere i'm using these esser funds and you certainly your team has done a very you know good job about trying to lay things out and we had cares act and esther and budget and
135you know it's very complex i'm just wondering if maybe we need a re a better understanding at this time because we keep coming back to what i see as this like philosophical you know why can't we spend money for more teachers and why are we using general funds when we have esser and who is making the calls on the flexibility is it the state is it the division or is it the federal government so i know i need that information because i'm trying to have these conversations to advocate for what principals are saying they need um as well as i do want to protect the general fund if we can we if so um just what are some thoughts that maybe we need to have this kind of regrounding as we're you know learning this
136for the first time as every school division in america is so i welcome thoughts from the superintendent and his burden or anyone else on that please i'll make a couple comments and miss burden jump in if you'd like to some of this is just about this is all one-time money federal one-time money and one-time money that we do with these quarterly reviews we do a first quarter review or third quarter review it's operating dollars but it's still one time we're not saying forever it's going it's going to summer school which because of the pandemic has gone far larger far bigger than we expected principals develop plans if we pull the money from principles now yes there are 25 percent yes we expect carryover but how much how much some are going to get almost all
137their money spent some will be 50 some will be 75. remember you all passed over the summer any changes to esser over 100 000 have to come to you then we have to go to the state to get permission part of this is about messaging to our principals follow your plan to the best of your ability for the remainder of this year we expect the spending to accelerate here in this last quarter of the year as we really rev up our student needs and we need to begin to plan for summer school salaries materials curriculum and we want to be set for that so in the end we're not talking about operating dollars lost forever a year after year after year this is about one-time money in this moment of time and if we have
138additional one-time money that we have as a result of using the operating dollars we'll have more esser funds to spend in fy 23 and in fy24 september 24 is the final date at this point for our use of esser spending so we're not going to waste money right no one wants to waste money we have the time frame to still judiciously look at how we spend our esther money and and in the end this superintendent and i know you're in the superintendent search is going to use a cfo who the state honors every year to train all the other finance school district cfos for the last 15 years and i'm going to rely on her guidance we certainly met in our cabinet and discussed it but i'm going to rely on her and her team's
139guidance is the guidance i give you and that remains the case for this this uh tonight we did present last week and i'll be honest miss mclaughlin had i known that these were issues earlier i would have you know worked to try to address those i know you shared you've been busy and brought it up tonight and that's fair and and this is a this is a place to question me but we've done our best thinking we have our approach and i hope the board will support this approach this evening thanks thank you dr brabrand um i would love to know um at some point though maybe that further clarification about who is setting the decision making about flexibility when it comes to things like buying furniture or some of these improvements that are more
140sel related but also academics you know getting kids outside and having that rest time so um i would appreciate that at some point please yeah we could find a way to share what those parameters are on the yes or spending it's interesting i'll just tell you i was on a national call today because some of the narrative honestly going around in the country all the money's going to furniture and not kids so we're we're we're i'm just sharing with you honestly as school districts trying to manage a narrative that we're investing in kids almost all this esser money went to schools and their budget for academic supports and social emotional we were a little delayed because of the delta variant to get those plans done it's full steam ahead with those plans this year if
141there's carryover it will inform our esser spending for next year and the board will be completely in the loop and review what our plans are for esr spending next year thanks thank you it's okay thank you ms tolen yes i just wanted to ask for clarification and a question um so you know obviously we don't want to slow any uh planning for summer school or any way to get these programs ready for 40 000 kids so what options do we have in the budget if any to you know maybe not move this money in third quarter right now to wait and see what's happening with esser funding and you know in a in a month or two maybe have a better picture of that do we have that option um are there issues with moving
142money between accounts is that what the issue is or you know i'll just leave it at that yeah let me see mrs burton if you'd like to share about the the the latest we can wait before we're doing those appropriations for the summer school this summer i i don't think we can wait any longer at all i mean we have to post positions we have to post salaries we have to recruit you know a large number of people to work during summer and all of that has to happen now we do have you know some extra funds that we're using for summer school as well as some summer school some regular summer school that's in the grants and self-supporting programs funds but you know we really don't want to go out and recruit for positions
143to work summer school without a funding source and this 12.5 million provides enough funding along with the other two to be able to do the program that we have planned for yeah i guess what i was asking is i totally get all of that but so what what is keeping us from i guess using esser funds and then repaying them is it it's is there something wrong with in moving the money back and forth within an account i know enough about a county to be dangerous but well you know operationally that's not ideal because it's you know lots of people and lots of salary line items the simplest way i would say it this is one time operating money that we're spending now you're still going to be able to recoup that for s or
144money as we look at fy 23 and fy 24 for s are spending by the way some of the guidelines for s are spending include it's around remediation from the pandemic some of our summer school isn't just remediation it's a enrichment and acceleration so some of the guidelines operating a large division and all the money is a huge huge issue i believe our finance folks know the right approach we're not wasting money we're spending it judiciously and we need to plan in advance now in march so we have strong programs as you know last year juggling essers that came on we were really struggling to get that summer program and the hiring up and running to the full level that we wanted so this gives us the the the the ability to plan in advance
145to execute to hire and make sure we have a fully functioning fully uh executed summer school and uh you know again we will work with you all and want to to be able to answer questions as you move forward on this spending it is uh great spending that we've gotten from the federal government remember it's still less than one percent of our total budget but we certainly want to use it wisely and we are because we gave it mostly to schools um and we're continuing to make sure schools follow their plans we've posted them all on their websites now for the full plan for our community to see and we're going to continue to use that approach of investing that money directly in our schools and holding our schools accountable to the plans that they've
146developed and if they didn't get to all of their plan this year we'll be able to really re-look at that and help inform what their plans will be for the next school year and the year after that that are essa related thank you miss um cofax so i appreciate the dialogue here tonight and i'm i i am a little torn dr brabrand i i am trying to fill it and i think miss marin called it a philosophical conversation as to if we know we are going to have carryovers um in the in the esser monies and we know that the sr monies are for learning loss and no better avenue do we have to address learning loss than our summer school i guess i appreciate the the conversation here about you know why are we
147not doing that if we know we're going to have a carryover and then we have this 12 million for some other other options in our general fund so i i'm still not able to reconcile that at this moment at 10 o'clock at night when this is the first time i'm hearing about it but i appreciate the conversation so i don't know right now how i will vote on this because i do not feel like there's been a great case made as to why we are not using s or funding to do this if we know we're going to have carryovers for unspent funds i don't feel like i understand the specificity of why we can't do that i don't know mr smith dr presidio anybody else want to add anything beyond what i've said miss
148burden miss wiggington otherwise i think well if you have something else to add great and then the board will have to take a vote and make a decision yeah we we would have if we were going to um reallocate esser funds that would require first that we identify who we're taking 12.5 million from the projects or initiatives that were already approved which ones those are we not going to do after all and you know of course any change to those 29 initiatives that were approved would it would have to come to the school board for approval as well as be submitted to vdoe for as a grant amendment and they would have to approve that change in their grant plan the only thing that i might add that maybe would help the board a little
149bit is you know when we've had this discussion in our previous work sessions looking at the esser budget and the needs we've talked about the extreme magnitude of needs that students have in both academics and in wellness and we've talked about the need to really take a longitudinal multi-year approach to addressing those needs and when we develop the budget and the board approved the esser budget we really tried to place as much money as we could in the schools because we knew that the schools needed to provide those direct services and supports to students those would be the most impactful ways that we could spend our esser dollars and we also knew that we're going to have the ability to carry over some funds as we know all the way into 2024. so taking that
150longitudinal view and thinking about how to maximize our funds that we actually are investing in our students in schools i really do think schools are going to need to spend all those dollars even though they haven't spent them yet because they've received them late this year those student needs are still going to be there next school year schools are going to need to carry over money in the following year and and even i believe into the fall of so when we look at the amount of investment that we need to make in helping our students recover from the pandemic yes that 188 million dollars from the federal government is necessary and welcome and we're going to have to supplement that with other investments that we make out of the operating budget so i think if
151you if you think about the magnitude of needs and think about the money that way i really do believe that the schools are going to need to carry over unspent funds this year to have those monies available to support students next year and beyond so thank you for that answer what if what if we we knew we we knew we had to plan and we could we start our planning but we don't approve this 12.4 until the the the next quarter the end of the without the year end we could do the planning and without well summer school starts in june and the next uh quarterly review um is brought to you all as new business uh middle of july but then it doesn't come back to you until the end of august okay thanks
152thank you um i do have a couple go backs unless there's someone who oh sorry i apologize miss omaesh thank you i i'm actually happy to follow dr dr presidio's comments i think maybe for some of my colleagues where i'm seeing this is if we were to even just reframe how we're thinking about it we're trying to end up with regardless of the carryover we're trying to leave some kind of amount to then you know allocate it later for different programs etc not be tied in the same way that we might be with esther money but i actually think us tying our hands is a good thing because of the extent of learning loss that's there i think by by now forcing ourselves to commit a certain amount of money towards the learning loss and
153having whatever you know room within esser to consider that later is the direction we want to we want to be heading in at the end of the day i mean i i think it's such an infinite pot like the the the need is so infinite no matter how much we invested in that there will still always be more so that's kind of how i'm seeing this um that that the piece of tying our hands is actually desirable here to move our system towards investing more into the learning loss component rather than having maybe the flexibility to decide other things because that's the ultimate priority right now great thank you i do have a couple go backs on here so i will start with this mclaughlin and then miss corbett sanders i i feel like tonight
154is really a logic lash a logic lesson so our cfo is telling us that 75 of the esser dollars for this academic year have gone unspent at 200 schools she has said that the 23 esser allotments will be adjusted downward because they're going to have carryover coming out of 2022 so we're trying to solve a problem that may not exist down the road about our ester dollar esther funds as her investment because we've got all this esser dollars on the table but we're going to preemptively lose 12 and a half million dollars in general funds that are taxpayer dollars that we are constantly scraping for in our budget efforts and so what i don't understand is ms burton how how many millions of dollars were sent down to the schools for this academic year in
155esser we have 200 schools so how much went to this those schools 27.5 million that's the academic intervention uh number the um wellness number is 11.7 so the two combined yeah okay for about 40 million and you said we've spent about 10 million so far so there's 30 million sitting on the table listening to my principles they're not going to burn through the 30 million for this academic year so meanwhile what we should have done as a division which is why many of us talked about the importance of a plan which we didn't get we just we're told they're going to shove it all down in the schools is the division didn't plan that we were going to end up needing about 18 million dollars in summer school instead we took the 40 million sent
156it down into the schools only kept five and a half million back for summer school now we're at a delta of twelve and a half million we need to fund summer school that's why i'm so upset tonight because if we'd done the planning on what we knew we wanted to invest in for summer school we would have made sure that we kept 18 million set for summer school given them the rest of the dollars knowing that their plans were going to get started up late approved late and where we are and no one with 30 million dollars is going to be left short changed to do the academic work this year and they're all getting new allotments in the fall but instead we're going to let them carry over what could be anywhere from 15
157to 30 million dollars and we just lost 12 and a half million of direct to how many different ways you guys i know this is not pretty but i don't i really think it's premature to vote on this tonight i don't know why we don't wait till the next board meeting i when as as dr brabrand said all of our esther dollars is less than one percent we have so much money in reserve that if we had to of course we can say the superintendent you've got year-end funds the bills will get paid but deciding tonight to commit the 12 and a half i i while we have 30 million in esther dollars sitting unspent in our schools and frankly ms burden i'm disappointed that you and dr brabrand are making it sound like it
158is so hard with 200 schools that you couldn't say to them hey we need to find out which of you has the unspent funds you plan for now to the end of the year and so if just let us know how many millions of it it's that fewer dollars of general fund that we would be committing to but that doesn't even sound like you guys did that homework ms mclaughlin you you underestimate the wrath of 200 principles but i do think it's important that you know that on july 15th the original plan for esser that we brought to the board did include 20.2 million for summer school but between july 15th and august 26 it was determined that there were a couple of greater priorities primarily classroom monitors of 10 million bus driver compensation at
1593.3 million and esau teachers uh 10 of them at 1 million and so since all of the funds have to be allocated we had to reduce summer school in the second year to be able to fund those three things and that's why it dropped to 5.6 million but nothing can debate the fact that we have 30 million dollars in unspent esther as of today and that's what's concerning to me so i appreciate what you're saying miss burden but in the end you guys i you know i don't always agree with staff i think in this one is going to be really hard to explain to our community why we gave up 12 and a half million general funds while we've got all this unspent esther dollars i just think it's a bad move tonight thank
160you dr anderson and mr fish thank you quick question because i remember asking this before um when we first were talking about the third quarter um budget i had asked why is it so important for the principals to hold on to what they have right now and i believe even you dr presidio had shared that they have in some ways encumbered some of those funds can you perhaps do you recall that conversation i'm not sure i heard all of your question could you repeat some of that the allocations that have been provided to the principals granted not all of them have been point of personal privilege madam chair would you ask the dr anderson to speak directly into her microphone rather than to dr presidio sorry i'm trying to have some icons folks back there
161would you please speak into the mic so all members can hear you can i be heard is this good okay i cannot look at you dr presidio because if i turn around i lose the mic um can you speak to the funds that were given to the principals is there a sense that you have a perhaps miss um burden that they have encumbered those funds with contracts etc is that present in the funds that they have right now from esser so i see ms burden as having a sidebar but you are correct and in some instances some of those funds have been been planned for and encumbered by hiring folks on an hourly basis for example or even in some instances hiring folks on a part-time contract through the remainder of the year and those
162funds are encumbered but not yet spent so that 25 number will grow in terms of overall uh funds that have been expended by the end of the year it won't increase to 100 however but it will increase so thank you okay thank you i just recall us having that conversation my second question miss burden you had talked a little bit regarding timing of summer school can you please repeat that what would be the drop dead date for preparation i mean summer school starts at the end of july i mean end of june we we've already started i mean we're well on our way to moving forward with summer school okay so we're a little bit behind making sure that the funds are available for um for summer school and all of the enrichment programs which
163miss corbett sanders talked about earlier my third question is as per the allowable expenditures of sr-3 would there be any way for us to offer a substitution with a regular general operating fund expenditure that we typically do every year i don't understand what you're asking me for example if we were to have a surplus of essa fund that schools are not able to spend and we have to recoup that is there anything we could spend on it for the division that is typically funded by the operating fund is there anything allowed because i know there was there was an expansion of how essa dollars could be spent from the original um provisions yes but if if there are extra funds left at with with the principles at the end of the year that are unspent
164and and i'm not certain that that's that's going to be true because i know that all of the schools have ramped up their spending uh recently and so as as dr brabrand said some will spend all of it before the end of the year some will spend half of it you know it will just depend um so that if we are going to talk about reallocating esser we should talk about reallocating fiscal 23 not undo everything that all of the principles and and the whole system in fact all of the work that has been put forward because they will have those funds to carry forward use them in the next year which will reduce their need for the second year of esr funding and so that is the year that we should look at and
165that's what i meant i'm so sorry that i didn't share that it would be in fiscal 23 would we be able to reallocate essa funds through some other expenditures and what i'm hearing from you absolutely is that yes so it wouldn't necessarily be that we are losing 12 12.5 from the general fund at this time if there are some things that we can substitute it for at in 2012 and fy23 thank you right yes she's shaking her head my mic is not work yes great thank you very much um mr fresh all right de-personalize a little bit and and i do have concerns about taking money from our general funding for this and i want to get some some clarity one of the pieces i i want i think dr anderson just asked esther funds
166from 23 can be spent backwards to replenish the money that has been spent by the board that was not esther money if we do take uh the money out for summer school yes i mean we have to account for it properly um but but yes if we had if we had something um within the grant period that we had not charged to esser and but it was eligible to be you know if it was a an eligible expenditure then yes we could we could move that into esser after the fact okay so and i understand the concerns about playing with money that is currently allocated right it's not the same everywhere it could be very complicated i get that i think it's going to be important as we move into 23 to have conversations about
167how that money can come back to fill that hole i do have a question about if we do allocate this funding for summer school from the general fund um how does that impact the budget discussion that we're having now with the items that many colleagues are thinking that we're going to have funding available to prioritize if at all it doesn't it's one-time funds it's non-recurring right but the money that we're spending for summer school wouldn't be one-time funds right it'd be from our yeah it's one time and we we still have a fully funded budget request before the board of supervisors you all have asked me with that follow-on motion to look at that we're costing it all out we're going to have that meeting in april um you know i'm not ready to make
168any predictions yet but i i you know we're talking as a leadership team about how we can work to bring my best recommendations about what could be funded but that's the ongoing funding this is just one time and just to put a pin in what miss burden said the 12 million you're spending and operating today can be replenished by esser money next year into operating dollar needs to the tune of the 12 million and how would we formalize that conversation in the future just so that we're not like oops yeah you can [Music] you've just shared with me that feedback uh tonight if that's where the board is a group feels or a follow-on motion uh that would be fine all right um because i'm conscious that i look it's i think it's i think
169it's concerning that a lot of the money hasn't been spent but at the same time we know that it's allocated for specific needs um and by the way thank you for getting all of the the plans on on the website and linked on every school website as well i think that brings some transparency to this process and they can see what all of the different things strategies and action items that we're spending the funding on in our schools um so i'm fine with moving forward providing that we you know hopefully act as a board to say that we'd like to have this conversation um in the future and i think ms mclaughlin is drafting it as we speak as a as the budget chair i'd like to interject here a bit miss corbett sanders we
170have a list of people so i have you on the list for go back thank you all right next i'm done you're done mr fresh thank you we have miss um dear not coplax i can't even keep it all right um my questions were the same as carl i wanted to hear again um from you dr brabrand what miss um burden has said and so i am going to propose a follow-on motion um to use any unallocated esser dollars to replenish the 12.4 million um in that it has been allocated third quarter um that was allocated third quarter for summer school are you making the motion now yes i made a motion i'm making a motion i'll second i'm sorry can you repeat your motion please well it's half written um follow choose any unallocated
171esther dollars to replenish the 12 point million 12.4 million used for summer school um let's see to me to use any unallocated esser dollars to replenish the 12.4 million dollars used for summer school for 20 22. all seconds is it 12.5 all right i'm gonna wait for our clerk to finish writing the motion so i'm 12.5 just yeah confirming dr anderson your second name yeah mr not kofax would you like to speak to your motion everything i said earlier dr anderson there's no more that needs to be said on this from me all right i'm going to ask i have a many of our members who have their hands up from before so if there's anybody new i may just go down the line at this point miss seismore heiser all of the esser funds
172are allocated so the fifth word needs to be unused and used unused all right if our clerk could change that to unused astral funds miss vernon do i have flexibility in using snf x did you have something you wanted to add what did you have something you wanted to add well i'm asking because i'm still crafting this motion because miss burden is helping me right now but i want to know um do i have flexibility in the year can i do could it be any unallocated unused ester funds yeah fy23 budget fy23 okay for summer school in the fy23 budget bev no for summer school 23 s their funds s their funds unused i moved to use any unused fy23 esser funds to replenish the 12.5 million use for summer school and no no and
173at the end you know in in the third quarter review that that's for 2022 summer school just delete fy23 i think just come all the way back and just do for 2022 summer school madam chair can we take a pause while we um try to figure out what we're doing here i'm sorry um if you could thank you miss marin so what i was going to suggest actually is let's take a five-minute break to figure out to craft the motion and then we'll come back to the table once we have it crafted and i'll ask perhaps if miss burn and mr dr bray brown want to work with um the make of our motion ms darren at kofax um and our budget chair miss corbett sanders to um craft this motion thank you without objection
174can we take a break board members please take your seats what now jason singer board members please take your seats all right we will reconvene all right so we have a motion on the you table a follow-on motion on is this a follow-on motion now because it was uh i'm sorry we had an amendment on the table sorry it was when we left it wasn't it was it's i know but when we left it was an amendment and we had a second for it and we were crafting it so i want to make sure that i'm saying that when we left we had an amendment on the table that has now been changed without objection this is what thank you without objection uh the moment you meant without objection i moved the proposed amendment to
175now become a follow-on do i still need the second is there with you without objection yes mr frisch all right just so we're on the up and up it should be without objection you with you would like to withdraw your amendment everybody doesn't object then we vote on the motion and then you make a follow-on motion all right miss terenae co-fox would you like to be recognized yes ma'am without objection i move to i move to withdraw my amendment is there any objection the amendment is withdrawn i would like to be recognized again miscarriage no action hold up hold on now i would like to call for a vote hold on a second and get back to all those in favor hold on let me make sure i have the correct vote i will call
176for the vote the motion before us is on the screen yes all those in favor that is unanimous with ms keith gemara miss picarski away from the table oh the is there anyone who wishes to be recognized ms darren at kofax thank you i would like to propose a follow on him yes and it would read i moved to use any unused s or funds by march 2023 to replace up to 12.5 million dollars used for summer school in 2022. second second of my miss dr anderson miss darren echo effect would you speak to your follow-on motion uh we had lots of discussion on this so not at this no more discussion for me dr anderson don't you speak to your second well briefly no any other board members wishing to speak um if i
177may ask for board members who don't want us to be to turn their lights off thank you miss corbin sanders would you like to speak yes and i support the follow on motion philosophically i do have one question or clarification because as it is written it says to use any unused esser funds by march 2023 and it should be currently allocated esser funds or something like that because there are we will be using esser funds through fiscal year 24 up until the end of september i believe and so i'm a little concerned about the term unused s or funds because it's overly broad i just noticed that as i read it and i apologize for seeking clarification so i believe it is currently uh miss burden if you would like to suggest a modification that
178allows you to do your job at these funds yeah i would just add allocated in between unused and esser is there an objection from the maker of the motion to add without objection without objection may we add can she just repeat that again please it's up there on the screen she just it's on the screen allocated is is allocated is there any objection to using adding the phrase allocated in between unused and esser without objection we'll add the phrase miss corbett sanders jiff anything else you wanted to say i think it should be unused currently allocated i i'm just concerned that we it's an iterative process and we'll be allocating throughout the process and as written it seems like in march of 2023 anything not allocated will is that what you're suggesting i know i
179apologize i just wait miss burton i mean you could you could say unused fiscal 22 allocated esr funds thank you but you know i mean we know i know what this means we know what to do thank you so without objection can we add the phrase fiscally year 22 before allocated do i see any objection to that is corbett sanders great thank you miss mclaughlin yeah i i i want to just say how much i appreciate to my colleagues that i know this was a painful extension to the meeting but i appreciate all that everybody said our commitment to our general operating dollars and that because esser funds are so tightly constricted and our general operating funds are what we can use with latitude to best serve the needs of the school system i think
180this is a win-win follow-on motion and so i really do appreciate where we landed here tonight and i look forward to supporting the follow-on motion great thank you um ms amesh yeah okay given that not all of us participated in the deliberation arrive here um so i find us in a little bit of a funny position so in an intention to uh expand our options of how we use this money we are compromising by actually limiting our options can i understand from the staff um what how do we restrict ourselves here i'm seeing that you know without this the next superintendent has the opportunity to decide how they want to use the money with this they're restricted to replenish the 12.5 million as opposed to maybe it works out that it's from operating funds and
181maybe we use up our esser money can someone elaborate on that i would say one of the things in here is it says any unused up to 12.5 million it's not promising all 12.5 million so there will be some flexibility there that's how staff has interpreted we'll do our best to replenish all 12.5 and the next superintendent will need to work with ms burden and the staff the intense 12.5 but if the circumstances of the financial conditions are that it can't be then it'll be less than that so that's why the up two language is in there but we may not want to replenish any i mean we just don't know and that'll be a conversation that you all would have um you would that would be a conversation you all would have in the
182fall i mean does that not set up the next person for failure because we are directing the superintendent now to take a specific action whether that's 12.5 whether that's one whether that's point one it doesn't matter but at some point i i think the most honest answer i can give at 10 45 i'd prefer not to have a follow on but staff worked with the board and we can accept this follow-on motion and move forward that's what i would say to you at this hour okay so so here's why um i guess i'm in good conscience i'm just not gonna vote for it uh i think without voting for this we avail ourselves of the option of doing this and more so we just have options we don't know what things are going to look
183like in the future i think actually the intention behind this is excellent i think that we want to consider expanding options with how we use the money and which pots are available to us given federal constraints but like i said we are trying to expand options aren't that's our intention by limiting options and so i'm not i'm not going to vote for this especially given that we're going to have an entire transition in leadership and we just don't know what the realities are going to look like okay so miss darren i'm sorry well no miss darren at kofx has her light on all right well if no one else wants us if no one else wants to speak i'd like to call for the vote all those in favor that's dr anderson miss marin miss
184tollen miss mclaughlin mr knight colfax myself miss cullen mr frisch um i miss um corbett sanders excuse me all those opposed miss omesh so that vote that passes with miss um kisamara and spukarsky away from the table thank you moving right along may i be recognized madam vice chair dr anderson is recognized without objection i ask that agenda item 6.01 be moved from new business to action this evening um dr anderson that item has already been moved to action i'm sorry that item has already been moved to the action agenda so thank you um agenda item sorry dr mr fish go ahead item 6.01 of the agenda is is board committee reports then i think we need to update the script to reflect thank you i'm looking at board docs agenda item 4.04 if you
185look at board docs agenda item 4.04 i am not speaking about 4.04 governance committee recommendations to sorry agenda items sorry 4.03 excuse me school board policy 2100 school staff and health and wellness thank you so 4.03 has been moved to action has been moved to action let me just get the script thank you um then i moved at the board approve policy 2100 student and staff health and wellness item 4.03 a second um seconded by miss marin dr anderson did you speak to your motion i would thank you i just need to find my notes here the wellness policy um which i just talked about was previously advertised as new business on march the 10th subsequent to that first posting revisions were made to section b the physical activity component which outlines the division's recess
186policies in our last governance committee meeting legal counsel confirmed and i welcome mr foster to also share tonight that it would be appropriate to move this action to to move this matter into action so that the new revisions can be voted on that were already advertised can be voted to the um can be voted on this evening i'd like to pause at this point and ask mr foster to confirm that this is allowable mr foster yes uh dr anderson it is allowable uh under virginia law for the board to go ahead and vote on this as an action item this evening as you described thank you speaking to the policy itself i hope the board will be in support of this action tonight for a number of reasons first one being timing principles are in
187the process of developing master schedules for the next school year and it would be the most optimal for this policy to be in place during that process to provide ample time for them to incorporate daily opportunities for our middle school students to enjoy daily recess breaks secondly mental health professionals have expressed the benefits of a daily break for all and most importantly our students who enter our buildings at 7 30 a.m and don't see a ray of sunshine until dismissal third i do wish to ensure that miss sandy evans who represented the mason district prior to me being in this seat began this work in 2018 so i do not want to be fully credited with this action because she did begin it and i'm just happy to be able to carry it forward over
188the finish line thank you miss mayor don't you speak to your second yes please um i think these are outstanding additions to our wellness policy and i thank the representatives of our school board student health advisory committee who have helped here um i think you know this goes over nutrition requirements it goes over sleep which has become a significant issue in the hunter mill district with commercial noise interrupting students sleep so it codifies us in the policy our commitment to restful sleep and with recess as dr anderson said the principals are planning this this week i've spoken with two middle school principals who are trying to figure out how to incorporate uh the flexibility to have at least 15 minutes of recess and there's actually been a lot of sharing of what is turning out
189to be some best practices around how they're going forth at one middle school talk about trying to have teachers tag teams so that they could each be responsible for a group that wants to go outside a group that wants to stay inside then they're trying different iterations to try and have people assigned and rotate on different spaces inside and outside this is also dovetailing with conversations the board has had about again those mindful spaces those spaces for kids to be and if we want to plan that whether it's us or funded or not this policy will help promote that to happen i think this also goes um it continues the work that recess for fairfax did to get more recessed time in elementary school so by codifying it it is just solidifying our support to
190middle school students having a time to rest and rejuvenate and connect in their school days so i strongly urge the board to please let's update our wellness policy thank you thank you miss cohen thanks very much um i don't know if there's a confusion but um i just want to make sure to try to explain the process to my colleagues and see if that would be helpful um this pro this 2100 the wellness policy we i mentioned in our last meeting that we'd be doing it in two parts that the first part which we approved last time would be the changes from vdoe on different rules with our lunch program but also with our snack program and that the second half would be the middle school recess and that that would be coming to us
191because secondary schools are also tied up in this we were asked by leadership to go ahead and put this on as an action item so we're happy to discuss it but because what happens with secondary schools is they are already full on in trying to make their schedules for next year trying to add 15-minute breaks because it's secondary school it is both high school and middle school that we'll be getting the 15-minute break we were asked to go ahead and get this approved as soon as possible so that principals could finish making their schedules and know that this was an approved action from the board and so that's why we asked in governance for this to come since the wellness policy had already been advertised we made sure with uh legal counsel and with our
192parliamentarian that this could be moved to action so we could all discuss it this time but so that action would happen before our next meeting which is not until april 15th thank you miss corbett sanders followed by ms mclaughlin thank you miss cohen for that clarification because as you may recall i actually when i saw the earlier version sent out a note asking for why we weren't addressing middle school recess my challenge tonight is that i reviewed the earlier stuff i had not seen this there's a lot of new text here and we haven't had an opportunity to be fully transparent with the community as to what's here we did do we had the forum topic where we agreed to and supported the 15 minutes for recess but there's this disconnect between a forum topic
193and then the specifics of how we're changing a policy and so i would actually respectfully ask since all of our middle schools do know that the 15 minutes is being allocated that we hold off on the approval of this until we have an opportunity to actually i mean i i never saw this until tonight and so that's my only concern is that i don't even i haven't talked to my principals i haven't talked to community members and so i would just respectfully ask that we just postpone this by until the next board meeting unless there is something that is operationally unsustainable and i would like to understand what that is and i really i apologize because i normally don't disrupt things at the dias and i apologize but i'd like to better understand how what
194this is and how we got here um dr brabant if you can address or one of your staff please address ms corbin sanders question about the operational challenges there are none dr ivy is not here tonight she unfortunately had a death in her family and i'm not fully versed in the timing of whether it needed to be tonight or two weeks from now i do know that we met with middle school principals this week and inform them of what the policy is i think in the end the administration knows what the board's going to do either tonight or in two weeks and i'll leave it to the board to decide what is best for the board in terms of passing this but we have communicated with principals what our expectations are around recess and given
195them the language that's here tonight thanks miss corbin sanders thank you for that clarification dr brabrand um that's all i can say great thank you um miss mclaughlin yes um dr brabrand i appreciate your candor um what's going through my mind is that this is policy and so while i'm fortunate to be on governance and i really appreciated that we talked about this new recess language and i'm very much in support um i'm uncomfortable that we find ourselves tonight taking something that's new business that is ms corbett sanders says a lot of board members haven't seen paul's updating policy is important and we're about to head into spring break so what's kind of going through my mind is dr brabrand which i know is tough for you to explain is so we've we've got next
196week that's it now we go into a full week of spring break we come back the following week and the board's going to vote on it that coming thursday so i'm trying to figure out that unless the principals are going to jump on this thing and and next week is so vital for them to do this which i'm if our superintendent doesn't even know if it's this vital you guys then i don't understand why we don't just leave this as new business allow board members to engage with their constituents the public their principals whatever they want to do vote this change in on on april 14th which is the next business meeting because with spring break it's not like they're losing a whole lot of of work in in preparing for this um that's the
197part that i would like to know so as i understand the motion before the table is to take a new new business item and accept it and move it to action that's that's the first thing we have to decide on correct no miss mclaughlin is already on action so the motion on the table is to vote on the public well who who i don't remember voting to say we were going to move it i thought that was the proposal the proposal is we wish to move it from new business to action you can't just do that without the board agreeing to amend the agenda so um i will have some clarification for our parliamentarian so so that the thing is it was mr morgan yeah i'm just trying to understand uh the procedural history of
198this matter as well the there was this motion a motion had been proposed at the last meeting for this policy and it was being brought up the the wrinkle is that the policy that the proposal has changed since then so it's within the the chair can treat this as a new as a new business item since it has changed and exercise authority under the governance manual to postpone it otherwise it's within the discretion of the body as a whole to go ahead and consider it tonight i'm i'm sorry mr morgan unfortunately i'm trying to follow where that puts us because again it was my understanding that when the agenda is set for the evening and the meeting begins now the agenda belongs to the body and so if we're going to change the agenda then
199the motion is my motion to change the agenda with the following which is sorry point of parliamentary inquiry this might help with mr first when something is taken from the new business or the consent agenda it can be done i'm asking mr morgan it can be done uh without objection uh and put into action item or um it can be made as a motion to do so correct and i believe that dr anderson made a motion to move it from new business to action item and that's what we're currently considering mr doctor enzo did not make that motion because it was already moved to the may i may i be recognized hang on a second miss madea did you that's when i read 6.03 why was there a second unfortunately well the irony is it's
200been my my turn to speak and then we were asked to confer with go ahead mrs mcauliffe so i think where we're where we are and what mr frisch stated is that it's one thing for dr anderson without objection i'd like to do the following but unless i mean there's plenty of us who would have said yes we object and then that's that's it so unless that's what we're doing here now i did not see this body be asked without objection because we already have plenty of us right now who have objection may i be recognized dr anderson yes my initial statement was without objection i asked that the policy be moved i did quote 6.03 in lieu of 4.03 i was informed that it's already on action i looked surprised but then i kept
201on going on with the script and then i asked for and i moved the action item as i was told it was already on action whether i can or cannot i just responded to what was going on in the room at that time all right dr anderson what i'm going to do is i'm going to go back and ask you to ask for your that's fine move without objection that point of order let's start again yes miss marin i i disagree with if the clerk is verifying that it was done without objection you know we have to listen that's what happened and the motion was made so i request that the motion ups be held point of order yes mr fresh the as much as it pains me the way in which a request for
202without objection was made was not right because it included speeches and a second and that doesn't happen in emotion for you spoke to the reason that you wanted it and that's not part of the process of moving without may i be recognized chair yes dr anderson that is not quite correct mr frisch although you're correct in your overall statement but that's not how this went when i initially made my request it was without objection can this be moved to um to the business um to action this evening i was told it's already on action so i moved to the next piece of the script where i moved the motion it was seconded by miss marin and i spoke to that motion miss madea may i ask you to read back what happened what's earlier thing
203picking off so based on the records of our clerk i'm going to go ahead and move on to hearing um the substance of miss dr anderson's motion so i'm going to go back to ms mclaughlin well my colleagues i'm really sorry i don't know what happened here this evening i respectfully disagree with what is being recounted here there was definite confusion on what part of the agenda dr anderson was citing but it was without objection i'd like to do the following and we never got the is there any objection because there's plenty of us who would have said yes we object because of everything we're saying right now so i i will just say this i'm a massive proponent of middle school recess i absolutely want to happen our own superintendent can't tell us that
204this is going to be a problem if we wait and do this right and this was a new business item we are making an important change to our policy and board members should be able to know it's there to be able to speak to the public about it and this is new business so i i can't support this even though i absolutely support getting this done in two weeks time i hope all of you will consider that this is absolutely nothing more than that we've got to do this the right way are you making a motion to postpone no respectfully i want my other colleagues to be able to speak but i think i've made it really clear that i i just voted down but if somebody else wants to do a motion to postpone
205that's fine too i just i don't i don't want to vote on this tonight but i guess you're right and maybe mr fresh you can help me out here that i don't want to just vote this down and kill it i just want to so would you like to make a motion to postpone mr frisch you've got parliamentary procedure down a lot better what should i we can ask our parliamentarian actually um i would ask mr morgan to answer miss mclaughlin's question yes moving to postpone would not to postpone until the next meeting would not kill the motion it would just come up at the next meeting if it's adopted it requires a second requires a majority vote it's up to debate only on whether to postpone or not but it's a legitimate maneuver that
206would allow for later discussion thank you mr morgan so my colleagues i do move to postpone and uh consider take up mythical i'm going to get a second first and i'll allow you to speak to your motion second about ms darren at kofax so we have a motion to postpone this not before i finish the motion i have a motion to postpone until the next business meeting until the next business meeting second amendment kofax mr mclaughlin you want to speak to your motion i just really hope that people support the motion to postpone i think we can accomplish really great things but i think we need to do justice to this policy change and vote and discuss on it in at the next meeting mr cofx i agree with everything miss mclaughlin said and this
207has been significantly changed since it was last seen by the board we have an extremely busy schedule and we cannot just bring this up here at the board table with significant changes and not have the opportunity to discuss amongst colleagues out outside of this evening all right miss marin i think it's one thing to say we support or an individual supports recess i think it's another to actually do something about it i have emails from last week talking with constituents saying that march 24th is when this item was going to be on the consent agenda i managed to read the five or six sentences that you all that we all probably could have excuse me the five or six sentences on this governance on this document days ago i've spoken with two middle school principals
208today who are actively planning this this is not a heavy lift i am woefully embarrassed at how this has played out as a mother of a rising middle school student i will completely go to the mat to pass this as soon as possible because our principles are telling us and i am very frustrated that anyone on this board who is not an active principal at this moment knows more than any principal in our schools including the two that i spoke with today one of which who is actively planning on incorporating recess this battle was fought for elementary school recess in the state general assembly and in this school district if this board does not want to pass recess policy tonight we have a big problem i urge us to pass this let's get on with
209our business and be done let's do this and be professional please mr frisch a couple things one i don't think it is fair to say that something is not before the public when it's on new business and when it's been posted online for several days [Music] additionally if that's not sufficient for the public then why are we why would people be willing to allow it to sit on new business and advance to the next round why wouldn't they want to yank it off the uh new business altogether if if people don't feel that the way that this item is posted to the public is sufficient then it shouldn't be sufficient for the new new business section of the agenda either what you have in front of you is the product of extreme deliberation by the
210governance committee i'm not going to speak for dr ivey but i will say what she said in our committee she said that principals want to implement this they are working on it and having clarity over what the parameters are will assist them in that work what does that mean sometimes we act like a principal can just drop everything and come back to something that's not how their job works they want to get this done so they can plan for the year ahead and what they don't want to do is have to do it twice because we changed it the amount of care and attention that staff gave to talking to principals and when they came back and we didn't like it they went back and did it again and when we didn't like that they
211did it again twice governance committee public meeting all of them do people show up not always very rarely but it's public forum topic public board docs public this session public as an action item an opportunity to descri discuss it in public and we've been talking about it for about 30 minutes which is probably plenty of time to have read any of the changes that are in red thank you mr frisch miss cohen i'm just going to wait until my colleagues can stop board members i called on ms cohen said please it's frustrating to be honest that in the 30 minutes that we've all been fighting about parliamentary procedure and the like and arguing with each other we probably all could have read the words that were changed the following words are added and middle school
212supervised recess will be provided to all elementary school students daily for a minimum total of 30 minutes recess shall be provided in two segments as practicable with one of the recessed segments being at least 15 minutes in length supervised recess will be provided to all middle school students daily for a minimum total of 15 minutes in length in one segment if there are safety or security concerns that impact recess the principal or designee will review the circumstances and take appropriate action in each case elementary and middle schools will create a schedule that allows for students to participate in daily outdoor recess weather permitted that's it that's the whole thing and i thought that having an action item just like many things that we do just like the budget tonight is an opportunity for us to
213have a conversation about something that's been through a forum topic that's been through three rounds of the governance committee that anybody could have come to and then comes here with i think i don't mean to overstate the the policy and the hard work that went into it but is a very understandable and reasonable thing middle school kids should get 15 minutes it's outside if it can be if something safety or security is related then the principal is going to review that i just making policy up here is is permissible especially when our principals are saying could we get this done so we can just get the schedules done so i guess i just don't understand how this devolves into this so i i apologize for my level of frustration but i just don't understand why
214we can't just knock this out but if we're just going to keep arguing for the next hour and keep other people here then pull it because this is ridiculous dr anderson thank you very much um i do want to state a few things one dr ivey did share how important this was that we just get it done so principals can plan when we began talking about this last year one of the conversations we had this is right after the forum topic this was april april was when we be we had that form topic and some principles did reach out and had conversations with me and trying to plan for this in advance of the policy did this this did not result in consistent implementation or anything it ended up being people did what they could
215because we did not have we did not have anything in writing last april i remember this because i've been working on this thoroughly i will also say this as somebody who had been a middle school principal spring break or no spring break that's a great great planning time for developing your next year's master schedule because it's quiet and not everybody takes off i would hate for us to revisit the same situation we had last year and place our principles in a space where they have to run around and struggle and rush for a few sentences which miss cohen just read i don't know how we got here but we don't have to stay here so i'm sorry i will not be supporting the motion to delay miss corbett sanders yes thank you um we're kind
216of getting things mixed together and that's unfortunate because as i've said earlier in the evening i fully supported and actually made a phone call regarding just you know where was the middle school start or recess piece in here um when we adopted and i believe we adopted on the consent agenda to or the original discussion of this document was to address the nutrition services piece and i'm and that was supposed to have been adopted tonight correct and it had been so then this new additional language was added i see that it was added last friday is that correct um and and i will say i had looked at beca i had looked at this when it was first put on new business and did not know that it was going to change between when it
217was on new business and tonight um in principle i'm supportive of this language my one question that i have which is why i wanted the opportunity to speak to the to my my middle school principles um because had i known that there was this major change i would have reached out to them and unfortunately i wasn't aware of this change because of my reading i did my prep work for this when it first went on the new business so i apologize for that i didn't think that it was changed between the two especially because of conversations i'd had but my question is actually an item number six and so item number six which says no part of recess shall be withheld by teachers or instructional staff to manage behavior my concern about that is i
218don't know what where our principles are on that language and that's the language i want to be able to speak to my principals about because it says by teachers or instructional staff it doesn't say if there's a behavioral interventionist who says i need to work with this student for a specific reason or it doesn't say that it's a counselor that needs to um you to work with a student or anything else i don't know if that if it covers that we want to make sure everybody this motion right now is just on whether we postpone so i think okay so that's my concern and i if somebody can explain to me what what the challenge is on the two weeks because this was originally not on the agenda as it was posted and then it
219got changed today so i'm just i'm trying to get to yes yes it was miss mr frisch miss cohen mr fresh miss collins mr frisch miss cohen miss miss mclaughlin ms mclaughlin it was on it was on as new business it's been posted ms corbett sanders did you have a question you wanted to answer you wanted to answer the challenge of postponing two weeks yes that my big question is because and i actually have two it's what would be the challenge by postponing for two weeks is that an operational challenge that would cause undue harm you know that would cause a real um wrench in it in the process and then i do want for a clarification just from because was this originally on new business tonight or was it i i'm i'm just trying
220to figure out where we were at it was on new business for tonight and it was it was posted on new business originally for tonight thank you okay thank you mr dr burban the board's debating a process question i think there's a lot of agreement around this policy some of you haven't had a chance to look at it as fully as you'd like my my imagining is that there's a lot of board consensus it's about when um we're going to make it work whether you pass it tonight or in two weeks dr ivey committed to the governance committee i was there for much of it that we would follow through on this policy and i was there earlier this week when we told principals that this policy would be before the board we didn't get
221into telling the principles whether it was going to be voted on tonight or in two weeks i think again you're all now in the debating of the howl of new business versus this consent motion nothing of which staff had any involvement in so i think the board has to decide whether this is something the five or six sentences that you all have added require additional engagement by yourselves the public and it's not in my view my decision as superintendent decide this is the boards so that's what i would say but i will also say whenever this passes the principals are going to implement it and they have been notified by the deputy superintendent and by me as superintendent of schools that they will follow this policy so thank you thank you dr berry brand um
222miss mclaughlin yeah you know what i i realize i've got some board members uh who are very angry right now but this this this needs to be said we do our best work when we speak to an issue and we're respectful to one another i've got a board member accusing some of us of being unprofessional so here's what is here's what makes this all really problematic this showed up as a new business item the members who are most anxious to have this on three out of the four are on governance i am the fourth member of governance i'm very comfortable with the language i'm very comfortable to support it because i had the chance to vet it at no time is anyone who's pushing for this to get voted on tonight alerted the board members
223hey i would like to move this from new business tonight to action and here's why it got changed from new business to action just moments ago that reality hasn't changed and if we are not going to be sensitive to one another that just because four of us on governance and anyone else who wants this to go through had seen it as new business and was comfortable voting on it tonight that's great but the name calling and the the the accusations of unprofessionalism i just want everybody understand if we really want to be a better board think about what professionalism looks like don't throw it out and say horrible things like one board member did to me but instead just say i'd like to move this to action i want to make you aware of it
224and that's why i support this po motion to postpone if it fails that's okay you know what i'm going to vote for the change but what i really resent is any board member and we all heard it tonight implying that me or anyone else who didn't vote for this language was a fake and a phony and doesn't believe in middle school recess it was said here tonight and that's what hurts our work and our relationships with one another so i just felt this really needed to be said because you guys we can't keep doing this to each other and it's been happening tonight miss amesh oh okay um deep breaths everybody i i i actually just wanted to step in here because i think um fundamentally we're we have a challenge with trust i think
225it's been named i think it's it speaks for itself which is why we're not able to move along something that has you know a lot of work has been put into but folks feel blindsided or whatever it is i i think i just i remind myself first to presume positive intent i think there seems to have been process here and and conversations with principals that not all of us were privy to but that have occurred to get us where we are so okay the question is here's where we find ourselves how do we salvage this i wanted to ask again i know dr bray brown was just addressing you know whether this is urgent or not i know dr ivy's not here so uh becky bainig maybe you can step in here in terms of
226the conversations that have occurred with principles can we just like deflate the room a little bit everybody just pause and let's look at this policy that's in front of us because we can spend this time now determining this rather than continuing to be upset at each other and then next time having another conversation around the same thing so if this is going to be considered tonight let's get on the same page about whether what the merits are of this because there seems to have been extensive work on it and perhaps we can move good work along so please can you speak to what the trust has been not all of us are aware of that so right now this is a motion just on post voting so i understand but if we come to a
227place where we're okay moving forward we will we can vote against the motion to postpone without disrespecting one another and that's what i'm trying to get at right now okay thank you please sure mr mesh i mean i i many board members have said it we've been involved in this work i've i've not been as directly involved as dr ivey has with governors and dr brabrand said it our staff will be ready you know whether it is tonight or whether it's two weeks from now um to implement this change they're ready they're planning for it already so yeah yeah i mean we have exceptional staff who will make do i guess i'm trying obviously there was rationale for miss cohen bringing this forward uh as a governance chair to to be thinking about this in
228the planning process where principles are right now i assume this is the case but how much more conducive is it is there an urgency here or are we well we've gone through you know certainly at the secondary level they've gone through course selection they've now gotten last friday they received their staffing sheets so they are in high gear now they they are ready to build those master schedules and over spring break i'm sure there'll be many dss um at work on those master schedules that said you know i think if it's two weeks they'll they'll make that work um but whomever you know i was not in the conversation um that in which this was discussed and making a little bit more expedient i the conversations i'm aware of it was the later uh date
229in april that it was going to come to the board and that's what we were planning on even as a razzy p team we have a plan to meet the following monday after that scheduled board meeting um to talk about implementation across all five regions so that's what we've been planning for okay um and then in terms of uh the thinking around this so i'm assuming principle it was shared principles have had it back and forth they didn't like the original idea we went back et cetera can someone just give us a timeline please what are some of those conversations that occurred what is the rationale once again this is the motion to postpone that that's this this is a conversation to have on the main motion in terms of no it's not i'm trying
230to have us fail the motion of postpone and come at a place where we can come together being on the same page around this motion well that's that's what i'm saying the motion to postpone right now is mostly postponed then the conversation about the substance of the policy is is to come together so no no i understand i'm asking questions that i need to determine whether we're postponing or not okay uh so if you could please walk me through the timeline of engagement that has occurred or not occurred up to this point for this policy and then number two the rationale behind some of the reasoning so it was shared that oh science backs some of these ideas um you know i see that we're changing kind of two breaks versus one et cetera please
231help us understand the good reasoning that's happened that's occurred here and the timeline of engagement that's come up you know happened this far so that it's not this oh we just saw a policy and are voting on it we have to be brought along clearly tonight so a bar i think miss bainig said it i've tried to say it i we anticipated a later date for when the board would pass but that was the conversation that was had at chairs there's conversations that happen after chairs i'm not aware of them i am not aware of all the conversations that board members have or there's been conversations tonight i don't know i would say i as superintendent believed that it was going to not pass finally in final form for another two weeks and miss bainic
232told you that that or harassed and eps again dr ivey directly supervises them we're setting up the meeting this board can determine when it wants to pass any policy policy is determined by the board not the superintendent please hear my question though i'm not objecting to the urge the urgency question's resolved i'm asking about how how these ideas make sense and what the thinking around them has been um dr brabrand i could just say briefly that you know we the administration has been working with our principals really for 12 months in a back and forth dialogue about how to operationalize this policy and the members of the governance committee have been really helpful and patient in that collaborative process and we really appreciated that so that we would be able to craft language that the
233principals felt that they could operationalize you know for example one of their concerns was supervision and how are we going to supervise large numbers of students with limited staff the way the policy language has been crafted we feel like we've been able to address that concern so we feel very comfortable with the policy language here and again i think it's just a question of when the board wants to pass the policy and can you speak just a little bit to the thinking around the the particular the particulars of it too like i don't know if the 15 30 minute etc why those are good ideas i mean that is what we've been doing that is exactly what we currently do at elementary and in the middle school so i i wasn't in those conversations but
234i can't imagine there was any debate because it's our current reality okay so and this is what i'm trying to get at we are codifying what is existing practice to standardize to some degree no uh the middle schools they're two different approaches sorry they've taken same amount of time but not necessarily daily recess right right sorry i was referring to 1530 but yes thank you so we're expanding it to middle school so tammy megan i i was on a similar page where you guys are starting this conversation i think just hearing this we're explaining to middle school it seems like we're caught up in some of this we're codifying language it's already in practice there seem to be back and forth that has happened with principles i think maybe we can deliver a win tonight
235and move forward i certainly i'm open to hearing where people are still like a little bit reserved but i wanted us to move in a little bit constructive way because we're gonna end up having another conversation next two weeks and it probably isn't worth it if these have already been happening on the back end but so that's my two cents and i'm going to vote down the motion to postpone only with that in mind but certainly wanting to respect all my colleagues and where they're at i may ask my so what's that thank you kofax did you want to speak again i'd like to be recognized when it's my turn so a few things here i was not made aware that this was going to action i was not consulted that this is needing to
236happen i will tell you without throwing people under the bus i have had a middle school principal that is not happy and i want to speak to that individual much like karen corbett sanders said i haven't spoken to everyone i spoke to everyone on a first go round but i did not own a second and i have one that has great concerns and if i pass this tonight my credibility is lost because of a jump in process issue and that is not it is not a typical it is not good practice it is not good governance to take something at the last minute and not talk to our colleagues not huddle not be together and so we are left having to continue this kind of you know bureaucratic dance just to have information out to
237our community out to our principles and i while i appreciate that dr ivy has has done this she's not here to tell me maybe if she was that oh everything's okay but dr brabrand and and miss banik have said now that it's okay if we wait two weeks and i think if we wait two weeks we will pass it like that because those of us who were not informed about the jump from new business to action will now feel like we can go to our community and we can speak to them so that is where i am that's why i support it um what miss mclaughlin said and and the frustration you have to understand the frustration goes both ways no one's saying you didn't do a good job no one's saying that this may
238not be but there are some un unanswered questions in my mind from my community if and to just do it this way i i do not feel comfortable about it so my frustration is as deep as others and that is my very specific reason why i support sport at the second all right dr anderson yes we're now what an hour into this conversation when this was essentially a glitch this was supposed to fix at the end of every governance committee meeting um she's leaving now but our chair our governor's chair she works tirelessly with the clerk to try to determine when things should be placed on the agenda this was already on the agenda for new business and the conversation was does this have to be advertised as new business again mr foster says no
239because you already had advertises this new business and we even explicitly said even when there is a new component he's like revisions are made all the time if we think about boundaries we come up we have boundary conversations we send things out then lots of things happen in between and that the next time when it's voted upon there's lots of new stuff that show up on the on um in those plans this evening when i was reviewing the agenda because i have seen this policy before it's been posted since friday of the 18th i asked our chair oh this is not on consent she's like oops this is a mistake it's supposed to be on consent and having all the conversations consent didn't make sense so here it is it made sense from a parliamentary
240point of view to pull it to be in new business this is not a surprise this is not a gotcha this was supposed to be on consent today why didn't get there i don't know but it was supposed to be on consent today hence just because we couldn't just move things into consent but we could move it into this kind of discussion this has been posted for multiple days dr ivey has worked with the principals so much over this i know because she comes back to governance we have a phone call about it over and over and over again there's none of them who don't know that this exists we we have literally made a mount made a mountain out of a molehill this evening this was supposed to be fixing a glitch this was
241supposed to be on consent tonight mr like to call it a question mr may shears was up from before which has been happening no no point of order i i raised my light after that all right miss lamesh but yeah i i did just want to say since i had just stated um reasons why we can all come together i think courtesy for a colleague when there is no urgency from staff on the policy itself is a good enough reason frankly and clearly if we don't have the trust with each other that is warranted i think this would be a gesture of of respect and good will and something that will not be harmed at all so making sure that we invest that in the principle that's concerned potentially more of them and with ms
242darren echofax's added consideration i will support this motion all right if i may ask the ticker print would to ask my colleagues once you speak to turn your light off because it's been difficult to keep track that would be helpful mr frisch i'd like to call the question there's a motion to call the question dr anderson seconds so i'd like to take a vote all those in favor of calling the question all those opposed that passes so the question has been called the motion on the table is to um postpone the item for two weeks till the next business meeting on post buying the main motion until the next board meeting all those in favor please raise your hand that's miss tollen miss mclaughlin mr knight kofax myself miss omesh and miss corbett sanders all
243right so that all those opposed dr anderson miss marin miss cohen all those abstaining miss tallinn did you vote mr frisch is abstaining that motion passes so this agenda item will be postponed for the maine will be postponed for two weeks till the next business meeting thank you agenda item hold on one second please let me find my spot the governance committee recommended changes to the strategic governance manual regarding the motions tracker agenda has been moved from the consent agenda to action at the request of a board member i call on ms mclaughlin for the motion i moved to approve the governance committee recommendations recommended changes to the governance manual regarding the school board motions tracker process is there a second miss cohen mr mclaughlin would like to speak to your motion yes briefly i
244wanted to pull this from consent to action because i really wanted to make sure a that our board members were aware of this really significant important change to our governance manual you know this was presented by our office of the auditor general in work that the board had asked her to do as part of her audit it was my understanding that it got presented to the audit committee so i would like to hear from audit committee members as well but why this is so essential is because as many board members are aware for too long for too many years board members wondered what happened to our follow-on motions what happened to our directives to the superintendent why some of them would go years without ever being addressed and answered and the audit revealed that the
245superintendent and his team did not have any tracking process at all and that's why really important things where the board gives direction we're falling through the cracks and so i just wanted to spotlight this because i think this is a really positive thing that's happened and i wanted to make sure you're all aware of it that it's there and that we will now have a responsibility to really make sure it functions well for us in partnership with the superintendent and his team ms cohen want to speak to you a second yes this is something that my understanding is it was brought to last year's governance commit audit committee as a recommendation from the auditor general as we see things tend to move slowly and so it did not come to the governance committee until this
246year ms kobe made a presentation to the audit committee i mean to the governance committee at our february meeting it was then put on new business at our last board meeting and therefore now has come up for consent in this meeting thank you miss amesh i just had a question do we have a costing for what this will require dr bray brand i don't believe there's any costing we've worked with the superintendent's office to have a a very very strong relationship with the board office to to track this and the the tracker process is something we developed internally with it support so i don't anticipate any issues yes and we're we're using current tools to to track these processes thank you that's helpful all right seeing other members who wish to miss corbett sanders yes
247i just didn't want this to go by without personally thanking both the audit committee chair and the governance committee chair for their hard work on this because the expedient manner in which the governance committee took on this issue within a month of getting it turned over from audit was impressive and so i just wanted to personally thank you thank you and seeing you know the board members we wish to speak i will call for the vote the motion before us is on the screen all those in favor and that is unanimous with ms keith gemara and mrs mccarson away from the table agenda item 6 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 listed
248have gone through board review and documentation has been provided to all board members and the public in advance items can be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member prior to the meeting the consent agenda items are on the screen is there any objection to approving the consent agenda seeing and hearing no objection the consent agenda is approved the following are new business agenda items there will not be a vote on these items this evening but action is scheduled at a future meeting the new business items are on the screen board committee reports miss cohen will give a governance committee update at the next meeting and ms jannat colfax our columnist dare not cofax for an audit committee report thank you uh the audit committee met on march 16th we discussed
249the overall internal audit engagement status where we noted that all approved engagements are proceeding as scheduled the auditor general also presented the internal inquiry updates where the office of the auditor general received inquiries via different means including the anonymous fraud waste and abuse hotline the office the auditor general presented the community use audit results to the audit committee a total of eight moderate risk findings and 16 recommendations were noted which management concurred with representatives from the department of facilities and transportation services joined the discussion and were present to answer committee questions the audit committee unanimously agreed to forward this full report to the board and it was shared with the full board last friday on 3 18 and i do encourage all my colleagues to look at it it's it's quite comprehensive and uh you
250know but it's um it's so i just encourage you to to look at it should the board prefer a presentation or discussing this audit report we can do so so that's why i encourage you to look at it and then i will work with the chair and vice chair to bring this forward because it is it's robust and last but not least we discussed the quarterly oag audit recommendation status and we briefed the audit committee members on the progress related to the recommendations resulting from prior audits we also provided a deeper look into the fiscal 2020 construction contract management audit recommendations which are now complete and our next meeting will be on wednesday april 20th at 4 pm thank you thank you agenda item nine board matters i call on dr anderson given the hour
251i will yield my time thank you i call on miss marin i'll briefly review the top item that i wrote out this morning which was to share about the work i've done this week on middle school recess to promoting spaces for wellness and calm and playing connecting with friends thanks to herndon middle and high school parent brett fox for her efforts to make lots of connections and inform me about the lack of some recess equipment on middle school playgrounds and really elevating the idea that as we change policy hopefully in the near future we're also going to need to think about funding and equipment and also maybe a culture shift that you know middle school hasn't traditionally been thought of as having time for recess and so just getting staff and families on board with
252that new and needed point relatedly also to the wellness policy that i was expecting action on tonight is about sleep i've been working with constituents in the town of vienna about commercial noise that's been impacting the sleep of their children at least three dozen children and working with town leadership on and educating them on how among many things the school division has spent five million dollars to adjust high school start times in the effort to protect sleep so that wellness poly really is so critical and as i work on these issues i am eager for the board to uphold its duty to update policy on a very reasonable time schedule i also want to i've been talking with instructional staff and facilities about further outdoor learning spaces had great conversations had thanks to principal dabari
253of westfield high school and maggie grover west of wolf trap elementary for joining me and teachers and staff and and families and students about outdoor learning and creating spaces for learning and play and also school food i've been working on that issue and talking with students including a student who started a petition about it i also want to be sure to thank our clerks ms beverly medeja and miss laura cornell for your work these last few days we've been undertaking a large task in finding leadership that will take over the helm and i just want to thank you for your outstanding work you're working way crazy and we and i really appreciate it and i just want to say happy now ruse or persian new year to those celebrating and have a great spring break
254thank you um miss tollen thank you i did want to talk about an item on our consent agenda although i didn't pull it off i'm excited that tonight we approved new instructional resources for elementary and middle school science as many are aware our fcps science curriculum is a hands-on inquiry-based approach to learning the content and processes of science the resources that we approve tonight will supplement that curriculum by providing aligned reading materials that will deepen understanding of science content and develop scientific literacy skills in addition we have approved the purchase of gizmos an online simulation tool for grades three through eight which allows students to engage with scientific processes such as generating and testing hypotheses as well as interactive case studies that explore real world problems i want to thank our committee made up of
255board appointees i know i had an appointee that worked really hard keeping me up to date on what was happening teachers and administrators for their expertise and thoughtful consideration will be exciting to see these new resources in our classrooms in the fall i do want to take just a second to thank our speakers from falls church high school and just mentioned to the general public and including our speakers tonight that our facilities planning advisory committee is looking into the communication around our capital projects and we've been talking with facilities about that and um we have three new positions you know proposed in our fy 23 budget for our planning office and i am advocating that what at least one of those positions is focused on communication planning and i hope we can make some clear
256changes around that soon and i was happy once again recently to be a judge for the regional science fair always amazed at the wide array of study our students are engaged in i think i have lots of great things to say about duriansville but i'm gonna give my time given the hour that we have thank you thank you mr mclaughlin yeah real quickly i know there's only seven of us here left but i did want to say to each of you that i i continue to have incredible trust and faith in everyone's intentions in your integrity and your commitment to this work i know tonight wasn't pretty i think my my greatest disappointment was that where there was a request for grace for board members who were not on governance did not know this was
257going to be brought into an action item simply just wanted to have time to be able to go to their their district leaders their community and and ask the questions we had staff say that it was going to be okay to wait the additional few weeks and it it's really hard when we [Music] lose sight of the fact that this doesn't need to be personalized i i have to say this is one of the tougher meetings in a while the amount of of innuendo calling people unprofessional saying that if you didn't vote for this tonight you don't support middle school recess i just hope we don't do that to each other going forward and i really am sorry that some of our colleagues are gone because i would want them to know that this was
258never about and anyone not wanting to trust respect or support their advocacy it's just this did catch people by surprise even if it was an agenda item glitch the bottom line is we saw something as new business and a request was made to move it to action if staff had said this was crucial i think we would have approached this differently so i know it's very late but i really wanted to try and end on a healing note i i really have appreciated that we've been spending a lot of time together and i've actually felt that we're all giving our best to one another and so dr brabrand to the few of the team that are left here i do want to reassure you i think we really are trying to find our common commitment
259to one another and um i'm i'm sorry that it led to a very late night tonight thank you mr not copax thank you miss mclaughlin for saying that um i'm gonna move in a different direction though i want to congratulate the hayfield hawks who won the virginia state boys basketball championship and uh we will be honoring them soon at a meeting very soon but they won with a 32-0 record 32 wins and zero losses for the hawks so i can't wait to see all the young men here and i know all of my colleagues will be just as excited to meet them as i am i wanted to congratulate whitman middle school for earning their recognized asca model program the ramp accreditation asca is the american counselors association and ramp recognizes schools to commit its
260delivering comprehensive data informed counseling programs these programs align with the asca national model and they exemplify school counseling at its best it's not an easy certification to get so congratulations to them and finally in honor of arts in our schools i will just say coming in may we will have at edison high school shakespeare's much ado about nothing a hayfield will be presenting disney's beauty and the beast april 28th through the 30th and the mount vernon pyramid concert will be held tuesday march 29th in the field house so i hope to make it to one of those events or maybe all but again thank you to everyone all of our teachers who give so much back to our students and our community and really make fcps a better place by all you do for our
261arts for our students who want to participate in the arts thank you uh miss corbett sanders yes thank you um it's been a couple of weeks where it's just been so enjoyable and refreshing and joyful to be in our classrooms with our students and i wanted to bring attention uh dr brabrand you should have received a wonderful file folder filled with letters from the fourth grade class at bellevue elementary whom were advocating for um full snow days and not virtual snow days and so i want to let you know that they were incredible advocates and very talented writers and i did respond on the school board's behalf to them and i was able to participate in them advocating and presenting their arguments along the same lines we had a wonderful event at mount vernon high
262school this morning where the connection newspaper is working with a local non-profit were giving out gift certificate prizes for the top three letters to the editor but there will be i think a total of 10 letters to the editor that the kids at mount vernon high school wrote that will be profiled in the next coming weeks in the gazette so please take your opportunity take the opportunity to read those great letters and i also want to once again congratulate all of our great musicians in the um that have received honor band status that have been participating in the run-ups to the national drumline competitions which will be coming up in indiana next month and finally i want to thank both grand involved for having me at their quarterly meeting this morning it was refreshing to
263see all of the wonderful volunteers and a great example of intergenerational benefits of volunteering they are in our title 1 schools and so i urge people to look into into volunteering with the grand involved and finally i want to thank the mount vernon and lee chamber of commerce uh leadership program that uh it was today where we had a great opportunity to talk about all the workforce development and and career and technical education activities here in fairfax county thank you mr mesh thank you building off the sentiments of miss mclaughlin i'm hopeful that we'll move forward in ways that don't make the work personal um but i'm also inspired by actually what miss tolin talked about way early on in our meeting of our incredible students who have won the fairfax county peace awards across
264the county doing incredible work in our community that really i mean just again gives us hope uh as to what the future holds so congratulations to all those students also huge congratulations to a number of county-wide recognitions uh over the past few weeks 12 of our students have won in the virginia deca competition we've also had six schools that uh were recognized for their online content and what in the useful tools that they're able to provide so it is actually a nice connection that today we honored our librarians because much of that was part of their effort and then finally we also had 10 students who advanced to the regional science fair where they partook in quite a spread of interesting topics hydroelectric turbines uh intelligence of autonomous vehicles the work of lichens and their
265effect on oxygen all kinds of really interesting work that our students are doing and innovating through so congratulations to those students uh for for their excellent work um and then uh finally i do want to wish our community members who observe persian new year a happy new year and those families who will be fasting and observing ramadan a blessed month hopefully an opportunity for us to rejuvenate rejuvenate and and center ourselves in tough times this weekend i am very excited uh to be going to the high school inter scholastic tournament um that is hosted on a regional level where many of our fairfax county students will be competing and i was uh very lucky to be invited to be the saturday keynote so i'm looking forward to joining those students and celebrating with them thank
266you mr fresh in the interest of time i will pass thank you and i will just say i appreciate my colleagues for a difficult meeting tonight and um i know passions were high intentions were high and i just wanted to put out there that um it is in the governance manual that the agendas are set in chairs and we try as much as possible to balance everything and to communicate with everybody and we've all had some very long several days and weeks and so i think it would be just wonderful for all of us and to just really try as much as possible to give each other grace as we move through these few weeks but you know it is something we try as best as possible in chairs to balance everything and make everything
267work smoothly and make sure that our colleagues have enough time to review policies and also make sure we work efficiently and respect the work of our committees so thank you good night and with that this meeting is adjourned you