001[Music] so [Music] thank you [Music] oh [Music] so [Music] school board members please take your seats this december 16 2021 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 luther jackson middle school advanced treble chorus under the direction of margie woods of the united states of america and to the republic of which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all oh say can you see by the [Music] twilight's last gleaming who's brought stripes and bright stars [Music] streaming [Music] was [Music] for [Music] brave [Applause] thank you very much that was beautiful agenda item 2.02 certification of closed meeting compliance in order to comply with
002section 2.2-3712-d of the code of virginia it's necessary for the board to certify that since the fairfax county school board convened a closed meeting on december 16 2021 and to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the board during the closed meeting is there a motion moved by ms corbett sanders seconded by miss sizemore heiser all those in favor and that motion passes with miss omesh away from the table um agenda item 2.03 announcements ms omesh has submitted a written request to virtually attend tonight's meeting due to a medical conflict i will call for a vote from those members who are in person all
003those in favor of approving ms omesh's request to virtually attend tonight's meeting please raise your hands and that is unanimously approved with ms omesh away 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 school board slash board docs tonight's meeting is being broadcast on channel 99 and live streamed on the website at fcps.edu tv ch99 a reminder a mask that covers the nose and mouth must be worn at all times by everyone in attendance if you have a mask exemption or if you need a mask break please take advantage of the overflow room set up in the gymnasium agenda item 2.04 human trafficking awareness month resolution i
004now call on dr anderson for that resolution thank you very much whereas human trafficking remains a largely unperceived threat to the students of fairfax county misunderstood and under appreciated by a majority of the community despite its persistence and prevalence across the nation and in our county still on track to eclipse drug trafficking by revenue generated in the near future with growing evidence that criminal organizations are specifically targeting northern virginia as an especially lucrative market and whereas human traffickers are known to target not only middle school and high school teens but even elementary school students so that victims have been identified from every high school and multiple middle and elementary schools across the county with teens and younger younger children stocked physically at locations such as shopping malls and bus stops and online through social media
005particularly those applications that offer anonym anonymity and whereas new trafficking victims continue to come from a wide variety of ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds and many students do not recognize the warning signs when they or their friends are being groomed and manipulated by so-called friends until it is too late to escape with victims trapped by threats of violence or exposure and often by physical abuse and whereas fairfax county public schools continue to teach a widely admired teen sex trafficking prevention curriculum in grades 6 through 12 which serves as a model for other jurisdic jurisdictions and has made notable progress in raising awareness of the threat and steps students can take to mitigate it and whereas student groups educators parents medical professionals law enforcement officials civic organizations and the business community have all stepped forward to emphasize
006the importance of bringing awareness about teen sex trafficking to young people and the desire to further mobilize students and others in the community to progress toward an environment where this crime is not tolerated and its victims receive the full support of the community now therefore be it resolved that the fairfax county school board joined the fairfax county board of supervisors in recognizing the month of january 2022 as human trafficking awareness month in fairfax county and supports the efforts of all of those who are seeking to eliminate human trafficking and its impact on our community iso move is there a second second and by ms keys kamara dr anderson would you like to speak um to this resolution yes i will briefly like to do so having provided um quite a bit of information this is
007the silent killer among us and the more opportunities we have to raise awareness on this matter the more uh it is beneficial to our students i want to share some facts that have been shared from our part county partners this year which is fairfax county maintains more gang-related con more gang-controlled trafficking than other areas the most vulnerable individuals to human trafficking are those who identify as lgbtq plus girls of color and individuals who have experienced previous abuse or trauma the most common age of victims are those who are in their mid teens through their 20s although that age group is lowering traffickers are often male the male victims are usually recruited by peers and often identify as lg lgbtq plus and social media is a common method for recruiting i'm really hoping that this resolution
008that we are taking forward along with the board of supervisors just provides another opportunity for our parents our caregivers our guardians to continue to speak to our students about the dangers of of this effort it is growing in our area and we must take some more aggressive steps in addition to awareness in order to eradicate it thank you dr anderson ms kees-kumar thank you i really appreciate dr anderson bringing this forward appreciate the support of the county this is really critical because in many circles parents never believe that this could happen in our communities but i can say based on my work as an attorney representing young people that some of the most unlikely children can get involved in this so i just wanted to share some of the things that i have learned with
009working with this community dr anderson already mentioned the role of social media parents i know you know you're the experts with your children don't fall for that stuff that this is their phone and you can't look at it yes you can and i encourage you to do so because that is one of the primary vehicles of communication for those that are trying to draw your children in conversations about healthy boundaries healthy relationships really really helpful what i have found is that there are young people who so desperately want a relationship that may feel that they don't have the friends that they need or would like to have and they it makes them more vulnerable to something like this and talk about boundaries what is appropriate with relationships with friends with males or those that your
010young person may be interested in and then i encourage you to look at our curriculum so that you can actually have conversations in your home to reinforce this i never want to see any of our children involved in this and i can tell you it is much better to prevent their involvement than to try to help them recover so i thank you for the opportunity to share this and if you have any questions or would like to discuss this further please feel free to contact me thank you miss corbett sanders yes thank you and thank you dr anderson for bringing this to the table tonight it is something that is so important it is and as you mentioned it impacts children from every walk of life from every socio-economic grouping and from every community in
011this county and across the state and the country virginia actually is takes a leadership position in that it is the first state to actually put in place a human trafficking coordinator at the state level and fairfax county public schools took a leadership position prior to that when we actually introduced human trafficking curriculum human trafficking into our curriculum we've worked very closely with an organization called just ask prevention and i would suggest that anybody who doesn't know about just ask go online and take a look they actually provide three stages of prevention in which parents should engage with their children and work with their children one is to understanding what happens during the scouting phase and what traffickers do when they're searching for young people to target and they do things such as they find students
012or find children on social media by going to shopping malls where they may see an individual by themselves or even at bus stops where somebody may offer a ride because it's late at night or the weather is bad and i've spoken to young people who have been trafficked who that's where they were picked up by somebody who they thought was fit the profile of a trusted adult they also look towards surrounding schools and through friends that they might know then they begin the manipulating process and that manipulating process is when traffickers relate to young people and start to build a relationship which seems to be too good to be true they pretend to be boyfriends or girlfriends they buy nice presents they treat their victims well they listen and act interested in their lives when
013others may not and they lie and they manipulate then there's the trapping part and that's where they will um control these young people and they will trick them into staying into a certain lifestyle based on if you love me you will do this it's false love lies providing drugs threats of violence to the individual or to the individual's family and physical violence so i urge every parent and every adult to understand the signs of human trafficking and if you see something please make sure that you bring that to the attention of somebody who can help thank you miss corbett sanders seeing that no other school board members would like to speak i'll go ahead and call for the vote all those in favor please raise your hands and that is unanimous with um ms omesh
014away from the table thank you agenda item 3.01 community participation the next order of business is community participation speakers must limit their remarks to no more than two minutes in length at the conclusion of the two minutes the microphone or video will be turned off school board members will be listening but not responding to individual speakers the school board will not hear statements involving issues 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
015in their statements avoiding profanity inappropriate gestures shouting and comments that run counter to the spirit and letter of the school division's non-discrimination policy all statements should be directed towards the school board and speakers should remain at the podium until concluding their remarks in-person speakers should wear a mask when addressing the board we're grateful for everyone who has come tonight to speak to us and we thank you for your cooperation our first speaker is veda ubal veda ubal our next speaker is katherine springer our next speaker is miranda baxter hello members of the student board i'm miranda baxter from woody wt woodson high school i like to address the overcrowding situation wt woodson was originally built to have 1400 student capacity but is now surpassing for i'm 2400. um this is a prevalent problem especially now
016during cover 19. um even today when i was in school i witnessed overcrowding the halls it took like probably around five minutes to get to a class that was feet away from me because of how densely packed the hallway the hallways are um another issue is the kova 19 track check-ins um before each class you're expected to check in on your desk however i don't believe that those are enough measures to protect students and safely track covet as it is not really enforced by most teachers and i think that if we find a solution for overcrowding it would also be beneficial for possible safety plans for future pandemics as we see with kova 19 it is evolving and there are possibilities very um significant possibilities that there will be a future pandemic um a possible
017proposal would be a renovation of the school however i understand that frost is going under a very costly renovation right now a short-term solution could be possible outdoor learning i think something that could come into play very quickly would be third period learning seminars we have we have indoor courtyards or courtyards that are protected by that side of the school so it wouldn't be a safety issue where students would be able to go outside get fresh air relax and be very good for mental health which is definitely a big idea big problem especially after kova 19 i've known a lot of friends who've who need help with mental health and i think outdoor learning would really help our next speaker is esther berg esther berg hi good evening on tuesday december 14th this school board
018voted unanimously to support an academy for government public policy leadership and human rights at john r lewis high school i am here today to express my sincere thanks my name is esther berg and i'm chair of lewis academy now a non-profit established to bring such a program to lewis high school on behalf of my organization and the spring and the central springfield community along with the more than 500 people who signed a petition to support this effort thank you for being leaders and innovators who are providing a much needed solution to the county and this country many times lewis formerly known as lee had been a school that families avoided based on unfounded rumors today there's yet another reason to have lancer pride today lewis high school is a beacon an example of the type
019of curriculum and unique learning opportunities that will attract and keep families in our school and community what better place to establish such a program than the building that bears the name john r lewis the lewis high school vision statement says and i quote to build bridges to connect lancers to their full potential we honor all we educate all and we empower all at john lewis high school all means all this vision has been a key part of the work we've been doing to bring a leadership academy to the county our goal has been to democratize education where students engagement with their classmates and community will matter more than their test scores where language will not remain a barrier but will be seen as a potential bridge this is an opportunity this is a shot at
020equity and this is showing that louis is not a school of future leaders it is a school of leaders today who have yet to meet their full potential and for that we sincerely thank our next speaker is diana smith i'm speaking tonight as a resident a voter and a taxpayer of fairfax county i'd like to thank the school board for guiding fcps through hazardous times i thank the teachers administrators school staff for doing everything necessary to keep things going while taking risks that others did not have to covet is an ordeal no one is happy with schools closing with virtual learning with social restrictions and masks but fairfax survives of the total 205 000 students and staff there haven't been any deaths caused by covet transmission so with vaccinations available for all students isn't it
021time to move forward i believe public schools exist to ensure the future the graceful civil continuity for one generation to the next by ensuring the future population has the needed skills and knowledge to do that we have many challenges overcrowded schools bus schedules remedial learning needs and achievement gaps needs that can be addressed but i'm concerned that these needs could be sidelined sidelined by orchestrated tactics to destabilize the public school system using unwarranted recall petitions and theatrics against the one fairfax policy the petition process is being used to try to overturn fair elections lgbtq plus students are used as political punching bags the climate of hostility increases security needs for all of this taxpayers are left with the cost of the courts additional security loss of time and resources and perhaps more importantly decent citizens
022no longer willing to serve the community so in your search for a new superintendent i urge you to look for someone who believes that civics is a subject that belongs at every level of public school to instill knowledge about our democratic government and our holistic thank you our next speaker is richard clayton [Applause] thank you madam chair and this board for this opportunity i'm a 25-year return of fairfax county i've raised four children been active in their education and now with hundreds of other fairfax county residents i'm deeply disturbed by the apparent orchestration of divisive and dramatic performances before this board that end up on fox news or other outlets that appear designed only to foment distrust of public education nothing's more important to the future of our country than the access to free unbiased
023and relevant education for every child we do have a right to challenge the appropriateness of school materials but it is also correct to have solid procedures for reviewing challenges and making potentially different just difficult decisions you should strive to take all views and professional education training into these decisions i and others circulated a petition recently asking for our friends and neighbors to stand up for our values of providing public education the petition states that quote the fairfax county school board stood up to a small group of organized radical operatives seeking to purge our school libraries of books of themes texts and other ideas with which they disagree we strongly commend this fsps action we applaud the procedure already in place within fairfax county public schools for formally challenging whether any book in our system is
024appropriate for the age level for which it is to be accessible and for recognizing the need to provide diverse reading material to reflect our student population we strongly encourage our board members to continue to refrain from taking action to quiet the loudest voices in the room and they remain steadfast in your commitment to providing a nurturing safe exceptional and inspiring performance experience for each child who attends fairfax public schools over 500 concerned advocates have signed this petition and i want to present it to you tonight we cannot allow the education of our children to be exploited for political gain regardless of political views religion culture community and we stand together as americans and we support your service towards this end thank you thank you our next speaker is casey blaylock hi my name is casey
025blaylock i'm a middle school librarian and the current president of the associated school librarians of fairfax county board and school leadership many of you received communication from me and i appreciate the wonderful words you shared at the last school board meeting over the last few months i and many of my colleagues have received questions from parents and community members concerning our school libraries i would like to share with anyone that is listening that we take the development of our collections very seriously every single book is thoroughly vetted and age appropriate to that school level and most people know that but there's still a lingering common question we get and that is but what happens if my children pick up a book in the library and accidentally read something they aren't personally ready for my answer
026is based on 15 years of experience and it's judy bloom's answer that kids are very good at monitoring what makes them feel uncomfortable if something makes them feel uncomfortable they will put the book down great conversations can come from those moments too and to me as a parent those are wonderful teaching and bonding opportunities we love what we do we love working with every single student and family in the school and the families we don't know yet we look forward to working with you in the future the questions and concerns that we receive we take as motivation to share out the amazing things we are doing at our schools and the current data from our library programs this year is incredible just this school year we've had we have nearly checked out three million books
027from our libraries and nearly five million uses uh do i say three million books three million books and nearly five million uses of our database and digital resources we are finding along with our students an immense joy of being back in our school libraries i've never been as busy as i am now and we look forward to even more expansion of our services reaching more students and uni thank you our next speaker is marie and laco good evening thank you for letting me speak to the board members on an issue that is very dear to my heart and that is fc fcps continue its work on improving and expanding science technology engineering and math programs commonly known as stem currently fcps stem programs are the best in virginia and in the nation i am a
028long time resident of fairfax county whose daughter was raised and educated in the county and is now working as a geophysicist in the southwest thank you for supporting curriculums that enabled her to obtain the knowledge and skills to embark on that profession in her current position she is responsible for the detection of rare earths and trace metals that are needed to run and operate all of the i.t equipment that people use in their everyday lives given that i would like to urge the school board to promote and advance three key areas that require strong stem understanding first the bio medical sciences necessary to understand the pandemic secondly the basic sciences to understand climate change thank you for passing the resolution on climate change action in 2018 and thirdly strengthening information technology for understanding how to
029address the cyber security threats that our nation is currently under our children need to understand what is happening in the world so they know how to address these issues in a positive collaborative solution given manner the focus on stem should be taught equitably regardless of gender race or level of ability and additionally science areas should be taught at the appropriate rate age level without interference from religious political or private interest groups moreover students need to be able to distinguish thank you our next speaker is david hatcher may the words of my mouth and embedded issues to our hearts be acceptable in your sight o lord our strength and our redeemer good evening so the names of two high schools jeb stewart and robert e lee go on forever in the board's rush to do away
030with the paint of slavery didn't take my suggestion a couple years ago to petition the board of supervisors just to go on the record to change the name of fairfax county because its owner's namesake lord fairfax owned 150 slaves how many but i digress board members ran away in another colorado act a few weeks ago when a brave lady read verbatim from texts out of pornographic literature in our school libraries verbatim smut literature most of us older adults know what smut is the urban dictionary says it's a writing style sexually explicit and generally aimed towards women erotic fan fiction very explicit sexual encounters between characters so kudos to our mama grizzlies and new recruits among us in the struggle against smut in libraries but i digress we unwashed peasants are heating folks like stacy langdon
031and former state senator dick black who said calling boys girls and girls boys is forcing teachers to lie to students and do glitters wanting to punish opponents of critical race theory we don't want the kids to hate each other because of skin color only here in lord fairfax who owns slaves county the hypocrisy i get it most of you would rather not research crt's roots you know vladimir latin vladimir lenin had a famous slur clueless followers of communism so the bottom line is we do our research thank you our next speaker is cheryl binkley hello my name is sheryl gibbs binkley i'm a resident of fairfax and the mother and grandmother of alums of fcps and a retired teacher teaching english dual enrollment in theater retiring in 2016. a day or two ago a facebook
032memory popped up on my screen and it was the photos were two years ago this week and we were at the swearing-in ceremony of this board we were all very happy you had worked very hard to attain a job that would was listed as part-time but was really more than full-time and gave you almost as much prestige as a school teacher you took that oath of office seriously and within a matter of months we were hit with the 100-year pandemic that even the most capable and experienced of leaders could never have prepared for in those two years you've endured your family and personal challenges of the pandemic but also have been understanding in the face of others who were dazed confused and panic stricken and you've even survived graciously those who in desperation name-called threatened
033and abused you for political reasons with unreliable instrument readings and no real guiding means to develop a flight plan you steered our schools through the eye of the hurricane thank you your decisions probably saved countless lives and your stoic resolve to do the right thing help those who needed to bring their best to the table even as you continue to day-to-day run a school system i know there are many uh issues as a community we will address in the coming year as we do perennially but tonight i don't want to raise those tonight here is my wicked thank you our next speaker is ashley masitsas [Applause] hello as an fcps graduate mother of current students and wife of a long time employee i'm grateful for all the ways the school system has shaped and supported
034my family today i'm asking you to send information home to parents and guardians about the secure storage of firearms with 5.4 million american children living in homes with guns that are both loaded and unlocked and gunfire on school grounds rising keeping our schools safe is an urgent matter you received a letter from volunteers with moms demand action for gun sense in america about the importance of secure storage as part of a research-based strategy to prevent gun violence on school grounds we have gathered over 375 signatures in support in only two days thank you for having effective school-based interventions in place the county excels at anonymous reporting systems threat assessment comprehensive counseling and student support systems however these strategies are easily overshadowed when there is access to an unsecured firearm an important piece missing from your
035approach is promoting secure gun storage i ask about gun storage before sending my kids into other homes sometimes i learned guns are stored securely unloaded and locked separately from ammunition other times i learn a loaded gun is on the top shelf of a closet or in the drawer of a nightstand research shows 75 percent of children know where guns are located in the home and one in three have handled them often without their parents knowledge secure gun storage is the most immediate way we can save lives we don't have to wait for law to pass or increase funds for more counselors properly storing guns protects our community from suicides unintentional shootings and planned homicides school systems across the country are giving families this life-saving information i applaud you for making data-driven decisions and the research
036shows that sending home information and secure gun storage is a critical part of preventing gun violence on school grounds thank you thank you our next speaker is jeffrey shapiro [Applause] the fairfax schools have now reinstated two pornographic books in the school libraries long boy and genderqueer no doubt these are the tip of the iceberg i read the very short decision letter by noel clemenco judging that these books are not pornographic or pedophilic peter feel it but the graphic sex scenes say otherwise to give an example from lawn boy quote what if i told you i touched another guy's dick what if i told you i sucked it i was 10 years old but it's true i sucked up doug goble's dick the real estate guy and he sucked mine too this is accompanied by a
037sexually explicit cartoon drawing showing a paunchy middle-aged man looking down at a young boy sucking his genitals so who am i supposed to believe clemenco or my own lying eyes this scene also portrays statutory rape under virginia law a ten-year-old boy is way below the age of consent and the rape is sympathetically portrayed kilmenko says about genderqueer quote the themes of this book are affirming for students who will recognize that they are not alone actually by putting these books back in the library she is helping to normalize child rape she makes it less likely that child victims will report which is ironic since we are now apparently embarking on sex trafficking awareness month maybe we could take the books out as part of sex trafficking awareness month because they're all about grooming and would clemenco
038send the same message of affirmation if a man were raping a little girl i would hope she would recoil in horror but i'm not confident in that at all based on her decision she appears to believe it is not a big deal for a man to rape a boy according to her they would each just be affirming their identity clemenco's decision is okay two clear instances of pornographic and pedophilic literature in the fairfax schools that is morally unacceptable the stench of this putrid decision will live on forever in the fairfax schools [Applause] thank you our next speaker is kamala williams miss williams our next speaker is heather foglio hello i'm an f cps mom a nurse and a volunteer for moms demand action for gun sense in america gun violence is a public health crisis
039this is not a partisan or political issue this is a public health issue schools have historically been a partner in tackling public health crises and gun violence is no different like all public health epidemics we need to use data and evidence-based practice to prevent future tragedies from occurring research shows that one of the best ways to protect children and teens from accessing guns is to implement secure firearm storage practices we have sent you board the you the board the let eye letter including a lot of statistics but i think it's important to highlight a few here every year nearly 350 children under the age of 18 unintentionally shoot themselves or someone else almost 700 children and teens die by gun suicide each year in the overwhelming majority of these incidents the gun used was one
040that belonged to someone in their home in a recent study of gun violence on school grounds up to 80 percent of shooters under 18 obtained the gun from home or homes of relatives or friends fairfax county moms are so grateful that the board supports gun violence awareness and wear orange every year in june and has including gun violence prevention in their legislative priorities this is simply just not enough we've been advocating for years to get secure storage and be smart information home to fcps parents we are frustrated this has been a difficult to accomplish but this simple action could save children's lives we must talk about secure firearm storage if we're going to address school safety if not now when this is very prescient this week as we have had a national warning so on
041social media about school shootings happening tomorrow and if there's no better time to have to send home the secure firearm storage message thank you our next speaker is philip lowe [Applause] thank you i am here to talk about the inappropriate books that have been inserted into the library system uh this is my first time attending a school board meeting if this board was doing its job properly i would be home with my wife and son having dinner right now when i first heard of the books specifically genderqueer and longboy being offered in the libraries i was quite taken aback i bought both books and read them i looked further oh sorry i can assure everyone here if i tried to give these books away to children right outside of the school i would be arrested
042as a sex best and never allowed within 100 feet of a school again after the initial complaints by concerned parents i was glad the board decided to remove them for review but i am shocked the review has concluded that this is an appropriate material for children as young as 11 to have access to i am not naive i realize we live in a world where access to depictions of carnal activities are fairly easily accessible and even the strictest of parents will probably lose to the craftiest of teenagers and prohibiting access to such materials however i did not think the school would be actively sabotaging the parents will to instruct their children in appropriate sexual behavior this simply will not do i urge the board to reconsider pornographic materials in the school libraries and i promise
043i will be more active in this local school system until this matter is resolved properly thank you thank you our next speaker is karen mcdonald karen mcdonald our next speaker is megan gay [Applause] hello tonight i'm speaking as a parent of a first grader at fcps last week i met with manuel oliver manny is the father of joaquin oliver who was murdered at a mass shooting at parkland high parkland high school in his son died in a hallway outside of his creative writing class when i met with manny oliver my three-year-old was with me and as this man discussed the deepest pain that any parent can imagine i kept imagining are we going to be having this conversation in 10 years will we keep my son safe in school it was adults who failed to
044keep joaquin and his classmates safe in february that february almost four years ago and it is adults who are still failing to keep millions of children across this country safe now last week superintendent brabrand sent a video and a statement to all parents regarding the shooting at a high school in oxford michigan his mentions message contained information on how to report threats and steps fcps has taken to make this easy to do this is wonderful that we're doing this and i think we have a great reporting system however guns were never mentioned in the message nor the word shooting or how locking up guns at home can help prevent school shootings it is late in 2021 and there have been at least 149 incidences of shootings on school grounds this year in america we are
045one of the largest school systems in the country and if our school system is not discussing gun safety how are we keeping our children safe we cannot protect our kids from gun violence without facing this crisis head on we must create a culture where it is common to speak about gun safety where we encourage parents to secure their firearms where we have parents and ptos and staff members comfortable discussing secure storage of firearms this is our job it is the job of the adults in this room to set that cult thank you that was our final speaker we also have one video testimony tristan stutzman evening i'm an fcps parent as well as a graduate from fcps in 1999 i was in high school when we saw those horrific images from columbine high school across
046our news i assumed we were safe and that the grown-ups would solve the problem that is children gaining access to firearms since then there have been too many of these situations to count including this week in 2012 when 26 students and educators were gunned down at sandy hook elementary that week as an fcps upper elementary school teacher i sat with my students and i was supposed to reassure them that we were different we were safe here in fairfax county we were not and still are not as long as children are gaining easy access to firearms we are not safer i am now an fcps parent as well as a trained presenter in secure gun storage a targeted study by the u.s secret service found that three in four firearms used in school violence are obtained
047from the shooter's home or that of a relative and in many of these shootings the gun was easily accessible safe storage education and putting it in practice also helps to prevent unintentional shootings as well as death by suicide the time is now for the grown-ups to take responsibility for our children's safety i am asking the school board to pass a resolution that would send information home to fcps parents as a way to educate on responsible safe and secure gun storage this is a proactive and simple step toward the safety of our fcps students and staff agenda item 3.02 superintendent matters i call in dr brabrand thank you chairman picarski a couple of things i want to share for superintendent matters first of all i want to remind our community of fcps's commitment to a safe
048welcoming and inclusive environment we are committed to providing an environment that is welcoming and inclusive for people of all races national origins ethnicities and religions and that's our responsibility to ensure that people are treated with dignity and humanity in our schools fcps condemns all acts of intolerance and violence in our community most importantly in our schools and in our partnership with our office of safety and security and local police we investigate all incidents in our schools thoroughly the primary responsibility of our schools is to foster an open respectful and inclusive learning environment for our students we recognize that we continue to have much work to do in our schools to form and forge that community and will continue to strive to promote equity and respect i also know that we not only want i want
049to share with you this evening our commitment to continue to have an inclusive environment in schools we want to continue to commit to having safety in our schools it certainly has been always a top priority for safety in our schools and fcps but we know in recent months and especially actually in just the last several weeks that safety has come again to the top of all of our minds as we've seen things go on around the country and yes here locally in our region and even in fcps we know many parents are concerned about the tick tock challenges and i as a parent remain concerned about that and we will continue uh to work to closely monitor those challenges and work with law enforcement in our office of safety and security i want to remind
050parents though to have conversations with your children about the appropriateness of social media and what they feel is okay to post and remind them to speak to you or another trusted adult if you see something on social media that makes them uncomfortable or afraid i also want to acknowledge that in the last several weeks we've heard from many people in the community and we've heard from people in the community tonight and i've heard a superintendent from board members at this dios about the importance of adding to the messages that we have said about safety to include responsible gun safety and storage and so while i know the board will be discussing this later tonight i stand here this morning or this after the evening it's one of those days this night i stand here this
051night to tell you that my administration is committed to getting a message as we begin the new year around gun safety and storage not only for not only for the beginning of next year but on an annual basis so that we can reinforce the messages that we need to so that we're in a partnership with our community with our parents and with our children to keep our schools safe i know you all may have additional conversation or comments tonight but i assure you that i will move forward in doing that and we'll have a message ready to go as our students return from winter break finally finally i want to share with you uh and remind our public that fcps has a process and has had for many years a process for staff students parents
052and community members to request reconsideration of a book included in a library collection or as part of classroom instruction this is our regulation three zero zero nine anyone that feels uh that they look at our materials and feel they need to have a challenge there is a process but i also want to continue to underscore as i've said before that fcps is committed to providing diverse reading materials in our libraries that reflect our student population and allow every child an opportunity to see themselves reflected in literary characters and literary books our parents are always welcome to peruse fcps library resources online the link is available and we will continue to partnership with our parents and our community and continue to serve our students needs through the library finally on our website right now is a
053a big feature around the gift of uh gratitude and experience we're closing in on the year here of 2021 we've had a lot of experiences this year some high some lows and everything in between but i still wind up this year with great gratitude for the service of this board for the service of this community and the leadership team that is here i've been grateful and i've had grace to be your superintendent and i continue to look forward to 2022 and finishing this academic year strong just as we return strong back in the fall so have a wonderful winter holiday and i'll see you all in the new year thank you thank you dr brabrand we will be withdrawing agenda item 3.03 student representative matters as our student representative is not here tonight agenda item
0543.04 capital improvement program and i now call on dr brabrand for that introduction thank you tonight we have our cip presentation it's an annual presentation and i know it's long awaited by many in our community we have our wonderful facility staff here and it's led of course by our chief operation officer marty smith and also by our assistant superintendent for facilities jeff plattenberg and his wonderful team and i believe mr plattenberg is going to lead off the presentation and just a reminder that we will have a work session around this topic at a later time but we want to give you a thumbnail sketch of the cip and i just want to say as we talk about this annual event if you go back five or six years ago to look at the cip document
055and look at what it is now jeff and his team have simply done an amazing job of making the cip easier to understand to interpret and really really make it a connecting living document for our community as we continue to move forward and modernize our schools so mr plantenberg i turn it over to you thank you very much and madam chair members of the school board and dr brayman thank you for giving me the opportunity to share with you the proposed fy 2023 to fy 2027 capital improvement program or what we refer to as the cip tonight we present this for new business and as there is no action for this evening we will be having as dr bray brand mentioned additional meetings a public hearing and a work session for questions feedback and input
056prior to the scheduled vote in february of 2022 i'd like to thank the planning team first off under miss jessica gillard's supervision her team pranita ranbizay and brian schuster have proven to be invaluable in the development this year cip with cathy vessel and the entire planning team pitching in uh also justin moss carla austin and many others have prepared not only the documents that you have in with this but also the presentation this evening i have some 20 slides which really is narrowing down the pres to present this evening narrowing down the proposed cip document of approximately 300 pages that is on board docs as an attachment i'd also especially like to thank mr marty smith for all of his support and finally the office of research and strategic improvement their report is included on
057board docs and i especially would like to thank lady haruda who is here this evening with us as well uh so the first slide that we're going to talk about is really the primary purpose of the capital improvement program is a planning and fiscal management tool used to coordinate the location timing and funding of projects over a five-year period this program includes an annual review as you would heard from dr bray brand of current student membership and facilities data to identify projects such as new construction capacity enhancements such as a modular and or additions renovations along with potential site acquisitions newly identified needs are included in the schedule of capital improvements for the next five-year time frame and the capital cash flow tracks the funding allocation for these projects over the past five years the
058cip has constantly evolved to improve the communication and transparency through additional maps and tables information on asset management programs fcps environmental sustainability initiatives along with new resources and appendices with information on each facility when it was built renovated any editions etcetera we continue to present this information through the cip and our dashboards in the next slide we'll talk about how the coveted pandemic has had a significant impact on our overall fcps membership fcps experienced a decline in membership from school year 2019 2020 to school year 2020 2021 and continue the downward trend into school year 2021-22 the total membership decreased from 189 thousand 10 students in school year 2019-20 to 180 0151 students in school year 2020-2021 that's five percent of our total student body the total membership decreased from 180 thousand 151 students in
059the 2020 2021 school year to 178 595 students a decrease of approximately sixteen hundred students or one percent of our student body the ten-year historical and current membership data are included in the proposed fy 23-27 cip and on the facilities and membership dashboards which our dashboards are an amazing resource and can be found online where data is sorted in a myriad of ways whether these trends are temporary or not will depend on many factors including the future course of this pandemic and economic conditions fcps annually produces this five-year membership projection set and performs an assessment of facilities with program capacity utilization last year these elements were not included in the cip due to the changing conditions of the code 19 which was consistent across the country with other school divisions of similar size the proposed
060fy 2023-27 cip includes a five-year membership projection program capacity utilization and potential solutions to consider for each school with a capacity deficit on the next slide we'll talk about and i want to point out on these slides on the upper right hand for those that are looking at the screen here this evening but also on the slide deck that you may access from board docs upper on the right hand it references the page that is in the summary report that 290 some page report that i alluded to earlier there are three primary factors that are presented to aid in the evaluation of the change in total membership these are the birth to kindergarten ratio what we call birth decay the migration of students and the transfer of students there are additional factors that are considered
061in the development of a projection set and completion of capacity evaluations are included for the cip and those are cohort progression of an increase or decrease in membership changes in county population new residential development housing turnover and any program or boundary changes and as requested by the school board orsi has produced an analysis of scps membership which we discussed at the corresponding cip work session that's coming up and as i said is posted in board docs on the next slide we're talking about the first primary factor as i stated was the birth to kindergarten ratio this slide is a little challenging to see um on the screen but if you take the time and look at it in board docs you can see the student membership is really when students are born and five to
062six years later students are eligible for kindergarten when they have turned five years old prior to september 30th of any given school year in this graph the number of births is shown in blue the kindergarten membership in green and the birth to kindergarten ratio in yellow the kindergarten membership decreased in school year 2020 2021 resulting in a birth to kindergarten ratio of 75 percent an increase in school year 2021 2022 resulting in an increase in the birth to kindergarten ratio of 84 percent for context prior to covet 19 the pandemic the average birth to kindergarten ratio was projected to be 91 percent from school year 2020 to 2021 to school year 24 to 2025. information on this slide and the projected kindergarten membership can be found on page 26 of the proposed cip for fy
0632023 and to fy 2027 as referenced in the upper right hand corner the second primary factor is the migration the migration refers to students entering we call that in-migration and leaving out-migration the school division net migration is the difference between immigration and out-migration in this graph the in-migration is shown in blue and the out-migration is shown in green and the net migration in yellow in school year 2020 2021 fcps experienced a negative net migration meaning more students withdrew from the school division than entered in school year 2021 2022 fcps experienced a positive net migration meaning more students entered the school division than withdrew information on this slide can be found on page 27 of the proposed cip for fy 2023-27 the third primary factor on the next slide really talks about how fcps considers student
064transfer requests for reasons outlined in the school board regulation 2230. now the bottom of this slide is absolutely impossible to read but i highly recommend for those that can take a look at it online and zoom they provide in the reference table down at the bottom a lot of information that is very relevant to the slide the net transfers is the difference between the total number of students transferring in to the attending school and the total number of students transferring out of the base school in this graph the transfers in is shown in blue and the transfers out shown in green the net transfers are shown in yellow the number of students transferring in and out of school within the division decreased in school year 2020 2021 and increased in school year 2021-2022 the net
065transfers increased meaning more students transferred in than transferred out of school within the division information on this slide can be found on page 28 of the proposed cip fy 2023-2027 so the next slide talks about you know what's going on is the five-year projection so set shows an overall contracted decline in student membership decreasing births and other demographic factors will potentially have an impact on our membership the number of school-aged children age groups five to 14 years is projected to decline from 2020 to based upon the 2020 fairfax county demographic report only residential development applications that are under construction are considered during the projection process for example mile high the highlands paul vi and some others are included while other examples metro church and sunburst spring hill are not included housing growth is primarily multi-family
066units which yield fewer students an important note is that the impacts of cover 19 have been so uncertain they may affect the accuracy of student membership projections which seems like a very obvious statement but the reality is we've been saying that we're hoping that this is the tail end of the comet of the pandemic because we're seeing less of a contraction than we did at the initial onset of the pandemic but we still are continuing to monitor the next slide this table shows the membership for school year 2020 2021 rather 22 along with the projected membership from school years twenty twenty two twenty three to twenty twenty six twenty seven fcps based membership identified as the fcps ps base subtotal in the table includes all school levels the high schooling levels include bryant mountain view
067high school and thomas jefferson high school total membership decreased from 180 000 151 students in school year 2020 2021 178 595 students in school year 2021-2022 continuing the downwind trend from 2019-2020 overall membership is projected to decrease to 178 176 students in school year 2022 2023 which is decrease of 419 or 0.2 percent of the students from 2021 2022. so we see our projection set showing from the reality of the initial around ten thousand to then sixteen hundred to then our forecasts of four hundred nineteen elementary and middle school memberships are projected to decrease if you think about what we're saying about the birth decay that fits right into that projection and high school membership is anticipated to increase in school year 2022-2023 prior to the covet pandemic the fy 2021-25 cip projected the membership
068to increase by approximately thirteen hundred students on average for school years twenty twenty to twenty twenty one and school year twenty one to twenty two and then we projected to decrease by four hundred students on average each year thereafter this projected decline is estimated to continue within the proposed cip fy 22 3 to 27 with a projected decrease as i mentioned of 400 students on average each year and information on this slide can be found on page 34 of the proposed cip for fy 2023-2027 the next slide talks about our funding source our funding sources for the cip include the general obligation bond transfers from the fcps operating funds and from the fairfax county board of supervisors for infrastructure management and proffers general obligation bond funding is used for major capital projects such as renovations
069additions new construction and modular buildings the annual limit for obligation bond funding has increased over time from 130 million in 2011 to 155 million in 2012 to 180 million since 2019 however this funded amount is insufficient to renovate the schools in the current renovation queue the cip project schedule assumes the continuation of an annual limit of 180 million for general obligation bond funding by the fairfax county board of supervisors with an increase of 25 million in 2023 and fy 2024 followed by an increase of 50 million beginning in fy 2025 for a total of 230 million annually in future years and let me let me just note that since 2014 there have been historical inroads by the governing bodies working together as joint boards to increase to address the issues that i'm speaking of to
070address them aggressively i have not seen when i started back here in 1985 and working with capital projects such an influx of funding and commitment for capital projects still short but what amazing teamwork between the board of supervisors and the school board getting it to since i've been back here that 25 million and the additional 50 million 75 million when you had an annual fund of 155 is basically taking 50 percent adding that to it that is that is historical and it's something that these bodies should be proud of of and showing what collaboration working together can really do school construction projects approved in the november 19 2021 school bond referendum are included in the cip and we get transfers from the fcps operating fund of 10 million that's used for routine major maintenance and
0712.7 million for overcrowding an annual transfer from the fairfax county board of supervisors of 13.1 million is used for infrastructure management we also have profits that are voluntary conditions agreed upon by the applicant at the time approval is requested for land use that would result in such impacts proffers can address both on-site and off-site impacts once they're accepted they become part of the zoning regulations applicable to the property unless subsequently changed by development plan or new zoning amendment proffers are then allocated to projects related to increasing the capacity of affected schools after being transferred to the fairfax county board of supervisors from the fairfax county board to the school board from the board fcps received 10 million 434 thousand 473 dollars and fy 2021 from residential development in fairfax county that had an impact on
072the capacity of facilities the next slide talks about the capital improvement program the summary the total five-year requirement is approximately 1.2 billion approximately 5.5 billion is funded by bonds and approximately 0.7 billion is shown as unfunded now it's important to note that we've been successful with our community supporting bond referendum every two years which is not reflected in this chart because it is not approved but every two years our our community has come together and rallied to support bond referendum in the amount of approximately 360 million which approximately works out to 180 million a year which fits into the the cap that currently is in existence from the board of supervisors the total 10-year requirement is approximately 1.7 billion approximately 0.5 billion is funded and approximately 1.2 billion is unfunded information on this slide can
073be found on page 39 of the proposed cip as i mentioned fy 2023 2027. the next slide talks about detailed information on the estimated funding and schedule of capital projects because they are found on pages 40 to 41 of the proposed cip of the that i that i'm referring to new construction projects funded in the five-year horizon include dunloe's elementary school the dunloe administrators center is being repurposed for use as an elementary school partially funded projects include the silver line elementary school we've received funding only for planning and design of the school and the construction is currently unfunded unfunded projects include the western high school both the locations of silver line and the western high school are yet to be determined and the f the 2021 school bond referendum includes funding of 13.5 million for
074the site acquisition of the western high school and there was 10 million that was included in the 2013 bond referendum the next slide speaks about capacity enhancements we have projects that are funded within this five-year horizon that include additions for west potomac justice and madison high schools the next slide speaks about the renovation projects that are including the cip and they've been identified in accordance with the renovation queue which was prepared in 2008 and approved by the school board in january of 2009 funded renovation projects listed within the five-year horizon include talent elementary schools two middle schools and two high schools partially funded renovation projects listed within the five-year horizon include seven elementary schools and one high school unfunded renovation projects listed within five-year horizon include eight elementary schools and two middle schools it is
075likely that a new queue will be needed and need to be created approximately the 2025 calendar year the current estimates based upon construction costs available funding and projected capacity requirements indicate that all of the schools within the queue will have in the current queue will have funding for either planning design or construction by the fall of 2027. the next slide talks about the new construction projects partially funded beyond the five-year horizon i mentioned the route one elementary school and the construction of the group one school was funded in the 2013 school bond referendum and is identified as partially funded since the funds are insufficient to construct an elementary school or our current standard elementary school at 2021 prices unfunded projects include modular editions of schools that are yet to be determined tyson's elementary school repurposing
076of pivot hill center and the virginia hill center as concepts that we've uh considered the next slide speaks to recently completed renovations which include bellevue and clearview elementary school and the next slide talks about how our goal is to provide for systematic maintenance and this this is the infrastructure these are some of the new things have been added uh beginning of last year talking about the systemic a systematic maintenance of major and critical building infrastructure components primarily through the comprehensive building renovation program and through the establishment of the infrastructure maintenance programs in our annual planning and budgeting infrastructure maintenance programs are based on the life cycle expectancy of building systems and components to ensure that the mechanical electrical electrical and structural systems support the effective and efficient operation of our buildings any lack of funding
077for facilities maintenance allows system to run past the useful life and deferred maintenance ends up in inefficient operations and introduces number other risks and higher maintenance costs um i could go on and on about that i'm going to be talking about it in just a little bit but the average age asset age of our capital assets inventory is approximately 17 years with 32 percent of all of our assets beyond their useful life according to the national research council report regarding committing to the cost of ownership the appropriate level of maintenance and repair spending should be on average in the range of 2 to four percent of what's termed as crv your current replacement value the crv for fairfax county public schools is 6.5 billion dollars fcps operating budget of 42.8 million represents 0.7 percent of
078the total crv uh fcps capital renewable budget including major maintenance and infrastructure rural funds is 18.6 million or 0.29 percent of the crv this not does not include the major maintenance and new repairs and i will tell you if you take 6.5 billion then 2 to 4 percent of that would be 130 million to 260 million annually so you can see where the delta is there now we've been very fortunate in that we've received esser funding to address a lot of mechanical issues that coupled with our the aggressive momentum the additional funding between the joint boards cooperation is moving in the right direction moving the needle in the right direction but still woefully short when you take a look at the crv fcps obviously will need an increase in the infrastructure replacement funding the county
079transfer and major maintenance to keep pace and to continue to be the good resource stewardship of our capital assets this information can be found on page 228 of the proposed cip the next slide i really want to just take a minute and talk about how you know it's been said you want to be the innovator and not the imitator and i can tell you we in fairfax county and fairfax county public schools have been and continue to be innovators regarding our environmental stewardship our get to green program is supports student-driven environmental stewardship programs throughout the school system and some of the highlights of the school-based environmental work include 139 eco schools including 54 award-winning schools 89 schools with edible gardens and lem schools with 11 schools with wildlife habitats our energy conservation program has allowed
080the division to reduce energy expenditures by approximately 55 million dollars and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 49.3 percent this is while growing at approximately two hundred thousand square feet or the size of a middle school each year a reduction of fifty percent while growing at a rapid rate and i don't think that can be matched anywhere in the country and this body in this community should be extremely proud of that work because that is where the rubber hits the road when you talk about the reduction of your total greenhouse gas emissions and i know we have a lot more work going on with the joint environmental the jet team the joint um environmental team in 2008 fcps used 242 247 metric tons of co2 as compared to 2020. and when you look at the how
081much we've grown uh it as i said it's just simply amazing and forty five point three percent of those reductions have been since twenty fourteen solar power purchase agreements are continuing to progress as expected and will result in solar installations at no initial cost to the division and to help facilitate a safe return in-person learning we provided tents for outdoor learning and dining were offered to all fcps schools and centers the get to green shared resources and an operational training to support teachers and taking students outside so we believe we built a great team of professionals who have identified both the challenges of opportunities for fcps as we pursue net zero energy construction and renovation options for the future and information on this slide can be found on page 232 to 240 of the proposed
082cip the next slide speaks more to the new content also new in this version the cip is the membership and capacity information on non-traditional schools as previously requested by the school board non-traditional schools include special education centers preschool resource centers alternative school programs and alternative court programs information on this slide can be found on pages 126 144 162 180 198 of the proposed cip the next slide talks about the resource section of the cip and includes an inventory of specific spaces within fcps these include prayer and reflection rooms all gender singles user toilets and lactation support spaces the department of facility and transportation services requested school principals identify these spaces to be reflected that we've provided within this document and has collected the existing conditions and is collaborating jointly with not only the regional assistant
083superintendents but department of special services and department of human services human resources which oversees the implementation of the school board policies and regulations applicable to these spaces and i'd really like to give a big shout out to deb scott for all of her amazing work and leadership and supporting the initiatives and providing guidance along the way now these existing conditions of inventory are really starting point of spaces that are provided within our schools and facilities and continue to be approved upon with the incorporation of the additional spaces in our 2021 educational specification changes as our students needs continue to evolve and change information on this slide can be found on pages 242 of the proposed cip and the last slide really speaks to what we've got going on and i realize there's a lot of
084information on the upcoming dates and again when we say november 9th we presented the membership trends report to the school board on december 6 the fairfax county department of planning and development our friends from the county uh planning development came and presented review of major planning and development activities uh to the comprehensive planning development committee today of course we're presenting the proposed cip for the fy 2023 2027 as new business and the membership analysis report that's also available on board docs for your reference a public hearing is scheduled for the cip for january 4th 2022 and a work session for the cip is scheduled for january 11 2022 um and that's where the membership analysis report is scheduled to be presented action is scheduled currently for february 10 2022. now i do realize again like
085i said there's a lot of information and to try and condense 292 pages of information i would like to thank the school board again dr brabrand mr smith for your continued support of the facilities and transportation team and i'm concluding my remarks at this time thank you so much thank you mr plattenberg and as he said there's a process here a public hearing a work session lots of time before the board votes this was 300 pages of information we gave it to you on 20 slides and we really encourage you and the rest of the public to deeply go through it as i know you will and as we get into the new year we'll be able to really go in depth and and and help and be there to provide your answers to your
086questions and supports and i want to thank jeff and his team again for a job very well done thank you mr plamberg thank you thank you mr plattenberg for that comprehensive um presentation and all of the winter break reading that we will have to do um and with that i will open the floor up for some questions or comments miss corbett sanders yes thank you madam chair and thank you mr plattenberg i am geeky enough to have this as one of my favorite reports of the year it's always something that has such a significant impact on the conditions in which our students go to school and our teachers are able to teach so i very much appreciate it you mentioned briefly about the importance or that you would be looking at the renovation cycle in
0872025. i am a little concerned that we don't have a more standardized review cycle for our for our renovation queue and so uh one of the things that i am toying with and i would love your input is really to kind of bring this in alignment with some of our other standard review policies and suggests maybe a 10-year cycle that every 10 years we have a discussion about what's in the renovation queue given the changing conditions so that's one of my questions i'd like to hear a little bit about from you the second is the previous board made significant progress in removing trailers from our schools and really trying to get our children inside our bricks and mortar buildings to the greatest extent possible i would like to better understand where we are at in
088removing those trailers and then the third piece is on page 17 of your presentation tonight you talk about infrastructure replacement and something that is glaring on that is can we bring it up i don't see bathrooms and um i live in a house that was built in 1938 i'm very glad that my bathrooms have been updated several times since 1938. i think renovating bathrooms every 37 years maybe a bit long because i do know in hearing from some of my colleagues and i'm a little i'm blessed with we are kind of at the tail end of the 37-year cycle in mount vernon and most of our schools have been renovated and upgraded but i feel as a representative on this board that i have to care about kids across the county i know that's more
089the at largest but i still care and so i'm wondering if there's something we can do on that infrastructure replacement cycle to also include bathrooms those are my three questions yes if you don't have answers tonight we can talk about them when we have our work session yeah and i'd like to go ahead and do that but i will say that the board cue every five years is certainly something the body can do i do believe in taking a look at but also truly understanding the conditions that were prevalent in other words understanding history so we can plan and make changes for the future i do believe in that so that's definitely something that could be done most of the time the focus was on trying to identify what the criteria were by previous bodies
090but excellent points and we can discuss that more in the work session and then the bathrooms i will say absolutely i mean i i concur with not only bathrooms we talk about bathrooms within the facility stadium bathrooms on the outside security vestibules you name it when we have a 37-year average replacement renovation cycle and the school board policy is every 20 to 25 years when i say on the one hand to commend these bodies both the board of supervisors and school board for the tremendous work and historical work truly i mean that intentionally but it doesn't displace the fact that we have so many needs that are outside of the resources we have and you mentioned bathrooms but we could go on and on so excellent points i look forward to discussing further in the
091work session and did you address the trailers oh the trailers we've been we've been moving in the right direction in the removal of trailers not only with the additions but also with the renovations with additions we've gotten over 200 trailers reduced however i will tell you the when we first took a look at the pandemic and spreading out of spaces we kind of stopped getting rid of things because the airflow circulation within the trailer was as good if not better than within the classroom even though some people didn't feel that way because the size of the unit that fit on the outside of the actual uh trailer itself um so we kind of had a pause for that but i will tell you if programs such as when this the the school system chose to
092go to full day kindergarten it immediately caused over 200 additional trailers so any initiatives all very good and very important when we talk about early childhood programs expansion of supporting the child care needs across this beautiful county those challenges sometimes go in contrast to the direction we're going because of the substantial capital cost i just mentioned that for context but yeah we've made a lot of progress we've gotten over 200 and some since i've been here i think it might be closer to 300 but i'll have that information for the work session thank you uh miss keisgamara thank you mr plattenberg i too want to thank you for this presentation especially um when we have this uh two-inch document on the cip and reference pages in the document so i just want you to know
093i personally appreciate that very much on page nine you were talking about the our membership and the number of students we had and you mentioned that this year we had been down to 178 500 or so students but it was my understanding since the beginning of the year that we also had additional students come in is that correct that is correct and it is something miss keys gamora that is not unusual for us to have those growths so we're looking at to see because it is positive news if you will it is within the norm of tolerance of what we anticipate but nothing's been normal since it's pandemic so the fact that we're seeing some return of normalcy some growth is very positive so we're looking at that to see if it is higher we
094don't have that data uh as of yet because this was of september 30th but you're absolutely correct so i i'd erase this because the public doesn't get to hear these numbers and um i think we're talking about an additional thousand or so students okay i i just it's not for me i just want other people to be able to hear it um you know you also spoke significantly about um the 37-year cycle and you gave us what we should be investing just to i think do normal wear and tear type repairs but that did not include major maintenance i believe i heard you say i've i you don't have to give me a number now but i think at some point we may have to face the music and find out what that would require
095i didn't hear you give us a number for that yeah i apologize miss case gamora it's 230 million that we should be having for our bond program alone and the major maintenance program should be 220 million so it's basically you're talking about 450 million on an annualized basis to truly be addressing within the national standards and also the school of policy okay um thank you i i just like for our conversations to be um based on the actual need we certainly appreciate the county's additional investment but it's going to take quite a bit of time to reduce the renovation cycle from 37 years to where it probably should be um [Music] the last thing i'll say is i will second the idea that we need to focus on bathrooms and i would um like to
096say as a mother of several athletes if we could include at some point looking at those bathrooms that are offered for at our sporting events are not offered um depending on what school you are you where you attend that would just um i think that that would be uh fantastic so i will i will just leave that right there and look forward to our discussion at the work session thank you thank you miss keys kamara um miss cohen followed by mr frisch we're working working on the board of supervisors on those uh field bathrooms right jeff the stadium bathroom yes that's correct all right meg and i are going to keep we're going to stay after it um i just want to say in looking at the numbers that you have up our membership numbers
097um just to highlight for everybody um a conversation that's been ongoing at some of our alternative schools you know we really had a decrease enrollment for years and kind of scaled back a lot of programming there and now what we're seeing is all kinds of referrals particularly in the first half of this year i know some of our schools like burke school have seen more referrals than they have ever seen so you know my question would be that i think we need to look at i understand outside of major renovation but between getting rid of restraint and seclusion you know being able to put some money into having these you know wellness rooms or sensory rooms for people trying to use some of that money to convert instead of having principals try to scrap together
098you know play-doh and fabric to make a room i think we need to go back in and really do a deep dive at all at our alternative schools to see are they working for a the number of kids that we're sending their way but also are they working in the context of what in 2021 we as a society and we as a school system and we as a board have agreed our best practices to keep kids safe and keep them on track and on target and able to be successfully educated so i would just like to elevate that for my colleagues that i think we need to do some very intentional work there mr frisch thank you for folks watching at home i want to direct them to page 43 which is probably the page
099that gets the most uh feedback from constituents each year and it's gone from i think since i've been on the board from 40 to 42 now 43. um i want to direct folks to a specific update and this is really great mr plattenberg thank you and your team for all the work you've put into this um table seven which just two years ago included various things that needed to be addressed because of capacity concerns and now you have three lines here one concerning the mclean langley boundary one concerning the glenn forest boundary and another that used to be concerning the shrevewood capacity concerns each one of those things over the last 18 months have been addressed the first one has already begun phasing the second one has already begun phasing and the third one is
100being addressed with the construction and renovation of the future dun loring elementary school so kudos to you and your team mr plattenberg i think many people in our communities will be very grateful to see that progress is in fact being made thank you i also want to thank you we've had conversations over the last year about the ed specs and in particular reflection space and gender neutral facilities and i'm encouraged to see that reflected in the cip as well so i guess i'm just saying thank you very much for all the work you've done i look forward to the work session and diving into this a little bit more obviously every one of us has you know areas of concern in our communities about overcrowding and capacity issues and we're always looking for the best
101ways to address those those concerns sometimes it's much easier than others and i look forward to the robust conversation we'll have together thank you thank you miss tolan follow my miss mclaughlin thank you for the presentation and i do want to thank you from drainsville residents for the renovation at clearview elementary school it really is fantastic and all of the ongoing work at cooper middle school it's really i'm shaping up mr pottenberger i wonder if you could just clarify for me as some of our materials show that we are looking to do two new high schools i noticed the presentation that you just gave us just says one new high school can you just clarify that yeah the only the only plan in the future is the the one high school so you you are
102correct and i i understand there's been some confusion about two new high schools but we certainly don't see that as a need at this time okay good that i had only heard of one high school until yesterday when i saw them um some of the materials and i noted on some of the public materials that were posted we listed a southwest county high school and a western county high school i think they are probably the same one in the same and just to let the public know we are only planning on one and when i say planning i it's unfunded it's down the road but that is a potential just for one um mr plattenberg you want to ask about slide 10 a little bit more information on the overcrowding sum it's a small amount
103of money in the scheme of things but 2.7 million dollars from operating funds can you just explain a little bit about what that funding is for what kinds of things would fall into that category yeah i'd be happy to and in fact that was one that really got the budget axe back when we were trying to recover from one of the recessions that we had and then to try and keep identification for funding for some of the salary enhancements that we did um because it used to be double that it used to be close to six million dollars that was in that account and what it provides for is each year like you heard the student who couldn't have said it better about woodson we view woodson at 107 percent over capacity not at 115
104which is our threshold cap of danger danger if you will and also what the consultant had stated the other day during the work session to the school board the outside consultant on behalf of the school board for the boundary policy said that 115 plus much like we have in our cip documents is where we look at things being issued you heard that student articulate the difficulties and the challenges with um transferring during the class day during the school day and that school's at 107 percent so each of our schools annually we take a look at which schools are facing any overcrowding and that funding goes into providing trailers if we have to add to them modifying existing space within the facility to provide classrooms and the like so it's really to accommodate any kind of
105overcrowding short short term uh in theory short term for each year and we surprisingly enough that isn't enough funding on an annual basis for us i have to say i know it's a small amount of money but i was kind of hoping you were going to mention bathrooms in the list following up on what some of my other colleagues have said i apologize because what it does do is depending on where the schools are and what they need when we've put modulars in we put bathroom facilities as well so it not only addresses that but if we have crunch areas where what we call core spaces can't accommodate the existing student body we have to go and make accommodations for that it can be everything from ada requirements to bathrooms like you mentioned so i
106apologize for not going through details no no no i appreciate that i just was going to um you know just trying to make a statement that um i appreciated the comments of my colleague karen covert sanders you've received so many emails from me regarding the state of the bathrooms at mclean high school since it has not been renovated for some time but we'll follow up on that um i also wanted to talk about page 43 thank you mr fresh for talking about table seven um table eight on that page i'll look forward to talking about this more at our work session um but table eight is a list of and when this was new i think last time we did the cip and i appreciate the introduction of this chart where we listed sort of
107schools to highlight and to watch and we have kent gardens on that list and we've already started talking about some ways to alleviate the overcrowding at kent gardens but i'm hoping we can have some discussions about how maybe we can make table eight even maybe a little bit more robust so people can understand what things we may have in mind or that we'll be doing in the near future for for the schools on that list um the only other thing maybe i would like to mention is um i appreciate the whole section that you have in the cip on the environments and environmental goals and i know that you talk about the jet goals in there and i just i hope that we can continue to weave those through you know our work in on
108capital improvements as we work together with the county on you know reaching those goals and one part of that so many conversations i've had with schools recently have been around traffic and safe getting kids safely to school either biking walking traffic i'm not sure how that would fit into this cip well our our egress patterns the ingress and egress are are pretty much horrific for 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the evening and anybody can attest that especially with parents during the pandemic not one students to ride the bus and more people dropping them off we do have the safe routes to schools coordinator the position that does take a look and constantly tries to expand and articulate the opportunities for students that can have safe routes we do take a look
109on an annual basis at all of our bus routes to see if there are safe routes for students to be able to walk our walk zones however i do believe are at the maximum they could possibly be a mile for elementary students in a mile and a half for secondary um i think that's that's pretty sporting at best in terms of the distances but yeah we definitely partner in trying to take a look at how we can provide that schools that have asked for bike racks you can see clear view has one right there in front of the picture on the screen by the flagpole um we try to do that to encourage as well thank you and oh yeah and i forgot the fairfax county police department is a good partner in that as
110well and they have the new chief has done an amazing job he and his leadership team and supporting us for requests for crossing guards because it's a challenge to find folks and if anybody's out there that's interested please contact the police department because we need all the help we can get and i know we're also working with the active fairfax program um we've got you know staff collaborating on that as well thank you very much i look forward to public comment on the cip on january 4th and our work session on the 11th thank you miss tollin ms mclaughlin thank you i just wanted to point out um part of my conversations with mr plattenberg i believe it's on page 34 and it was also part of the presentation this evening when we're looking at
111our current projected memberships i talked about how important it is that when we really want to help our our board and the community have information all in front of us at the same time this chart started with membership of this year and it doesn't have you know the membership prior um to the pandemic so you know i had said to him that even though yes one can go to the dashboard you know we really need that context of where we were pre-pandemic where we are just coming out of the pandemic and then what the projections are and you know why that's relevant is part two of our conversation is that i asked about what's happened in our in our wavy region because you know there's a narrative of what's happened with fairfax county public schools
112enrollment numbers and everything needs to be data in context because if this is a phenomenon happening whether it's locally in the state or nationally that will help the board and our community understand so i really appreciate mr plattenberg your support of my desire to have that additional helpful information i knew it was a really tight turnaround from when we just had our our individual conversation but wanted to just kind of put a spotlight on that um and then i also wanted to just make note that in the cip in terms of my braddock schools wakefield forest elementary is currently undergoing its renovation and it's listed as one of our most overcrowded at like 135 percent for the sake of the community when they look at those numbers i would ask that your team uh revise
113the electronic document and add in there that you know what is the renovation actually accomplishing because it just says renovation but i really want you know the community to be reassured that we have been working so hard on this for so many years and that we do have the solution in place with the renovation it's going to address the capacity to become what you know i mean i know you guys may not be able to see exactly what the roman's going to do but you could end up saying we're increasing enrollment so the school's capacity is growing from 800 students to whether it's 9 or whatever the number is um and i you know i appreciate the woodson student who came and spoke um this evening about concerns about woodson's overcrowding i too share her
114concerns and that's something to my colleagues mr plattenberg and i've been talking about for again a number of years many of you may not be aware but the department of information technology does have a repair center there and that is something that mr plattberg and i have talked about that we may need to reclaim that what used to be the vocational court classes way back when my husband went to school there and and uh you know two boundary changes that occurred shortly after i joined the board 10 years ago is what has created you know the overcrowding now um so it's it's it's notable and and we need to do something and then finally what i hope that we will all be having a conversation with each other about um is again putting our our
115boundary policy work session conversation in context to this because as i talked to mr plattenberg what you will see is across our 200 schools and our declining enrollment and what's continued to decline we don't have a county-wide boundary problem in terms of you know overcrowding and needing to redesign all of our boundaries what we do have is individual schools that do have under and over capacity issues and we will as the consultant said need to take a scalpel and and be very strategic in how we address that um but you know i did i did want to kind of spot like that because for many years we have had overcrowded a lot of overcrowded schools and this is a particularly surprising chart for me to see um that it's not just what we're seeing immediately
116from kovid but going out for another five years um what what is happening with our moment so mr plattenberg um i really appreciate the work you and your team have done i look forward to the work session and uh you signaled you might want to say something now that i've been talking the whole time if i may um just just the constituents of wakefield forest on page 199 of the documented report and i agree if we put in a place that's more prevalent and more visible that might be assistive but it is it does show that it goes from 560 design capacity to 800 and then it shows the percent decrease to 86 percent so it does address it but you're right i think we could do a little more in the chart yeah because
117the narrative people see but they're going to go to that chart and go i just wanted people to just you know understand that we are addressing it now you're right if all of a sudden the wakefield forest community has a big turnover you know we talked about where do we have things happening we have migration in you know ms keys gamora mentioned it about we have an influx of students we have transfers in that are higher than we had the prior year and if that happens in a region like this from when we designed it and did the construction and renovation we could be facing an issue but it is i think your points are well taken so thank you for that feedback ms maron followed by dr anderson yeah thanks uh for this it's
118always an exciting time of year um mr plattenberg i'd appreciate it if at our january 11th work session i believe it is if you could please come with information um in partnership with ms ester co about how the audit on our community use of fcps facilities has bearing on the cip this is actually a theme i'll speak to later this evening about you know what the public expects of our schools and what we can provide and where the resources come for that you know our mission is to educate our students and if we are also tasked with maintaining our facilities for sometimes it seems round-the-clock use interior and exterior you know we need to know that and be sure that we get the funding needed to to meet our primary mission so do you think
119that i'm not sure where that audit stands that msco is doing so um if it'd be possible just get an interim update and any initial findings that would be really helpful yeah we'd be happy to i know it's ongoing we've been having conversations with her team they've done some amazing work as you know in the past um so we do have a follow-up schedule i was looking forward to give you the exact date but i can't find it right away okay well that'd be great thank you and then i do also want to echo the need for updating of bathrooms i can't believe we're talking about this um interior and exterior please that was one of the things i thought i was going to work on when i first got elected was bathrooms at south
120lake stadium but a pandemic took over so but again stadiums outdoors shared space and then you know my own children for the seven years that i've been at fcps parent have never had a classroom size lower than 25 and it's pretty much been 28 to 30 the entire ten years so i find it really fascinating and i think it was said you know accurately that we might not have we might the enrollment might be going down but we certainly have places where there are overcrowded classrooms as we heard from our student tonight so figuring out how to untangle that is is really necessary so i look forward to that continued challenge thanks and i apologize the community who started was this morning i knew my mind was somewhere on it so it was this morning
121at 10 for the update so you will be getting information shortly oh super great thank you quick work okay thank you just want to say thank you for all of this work this is exciting for me to circle and highlight and tag all these pages with all this wonderful information i'm not sure if we're discussing the other piece that was in board docs which is the analysis of the membership i know that we had the conversation initially where just the end the data was presented but we did not have this accompanying document the 40 pages so i have a question about that and i'm hoping that tonight is a good night to do that since i didn't hear it mentioned in this conversation in your presentation so so while we have not presented that information
122we did attach it to the board could uh preview it prior to our work session so that we can answer any questions fully there at the work session but but miss ruda is here if there are questions yes i actually do have a question with page b5 when i shared with my community the um decrease in enrollment and migration for the annandale pyramid there were a lot of questions as to why and at that time we just had the membership data and as i'm combing through this a little bit i am not sure i saw the analysis that spoke to this decrease of 729 students across that pyramid so if you can give me some information i would be very appreciative so i want to make sure that i understand where the 729 decreases where
123the 729 decrease was um b5 right number two the annandale pyramid if you see those numbers 8 000 went down to 7 292 yes so this is the chart that actually was in that membership trends report and it's just trying to highlight which of those specific schools or parents pyramids actually which the specific pyramids were either above or below the norm that should be paid attention to the issue with annandale and false church for the comparison between 2020 and 2021 is around a school being moved from one pyramid to the other say that again please a school being moved from one pyramid to the other is what's at the heart of why there is that change in membership um moving into the falls church pyramid and out of the annandale pyramid and so that's the
124mason crest element so it's actually the mason crest movement of that school from one pyramid to the other that causes that specific change and why it's sort of out of the norm for others other pyramids that is very helpful because there was some angst and anxiety around the loss of so many students so this is very easily explained so thank you for that um the second point that i wanted to make mr plattenberg is when we adopted the cip last year well not last year last february one of the two of the follow-on motions were that were supposed to inform this year cip were around my community where our middle schools of glasgow porn homes are the only ones in the entire division in which our sixth graders are at the middle school instead of
125in the case six environment and so i am not super happy to not see that information reflected here because there were two points to be um addressed one was a program audit that was supposed to be developed and secondarily there was to be a community engagement just to get a sense of the community's feedback around this plan that was put in place back in the early 90s as a pilot but was never expanded or monitored or um reviewed in any way so it's just been allowed to remain and we know especially with the pandemic that has created significant gaps for my community those sixth graders are off in the forgotten group and i know i'm a broken record on this but i would like to see some space in the cip for this to be
126included because that would impact capacity at our elementary schools if the decision were to move back and have our elementary schools in mason district be aligned with every single other elementary school that is in fairfax county love to hear it mr plattenberg's been directed to finish a capacity analysis we recognize it has been some months since february this year has had tremendous challenges on our staff and that's part of what's happened dr presidio was finishing up a three-page white paper around what the instructional best practices are i won't spoil it but you may be surprised as you look at what the national model is and i'll have both of those to you early in the new year and i will shoot for prior to the work session so you can ask any follow-up questions thank
127you for that that is very much appreciate appreciated um you know whatever the model ends up being that is the uh most effective and optimal model it's fine whether it's k-5 whether it's k-6 it doesn't really matter to me what i'm looking for is the consistency and application because it i have a hard time coming to terms with the fact that we have three schools three middle schools in our division that are doing something very differently than everybody else so if the model is k5 everybody should be k5 if it's k6 let's be working towards that yeah if i could say one thing on that not to be too much of a historian fairfax has had these waves of dramatic growth there's actually a book i have uh in my office given to me by
128a teacher who worked at fairfax high whose father was placed as director of middle schools in the late 1950s the primary reason that most of our middle schools are seventh and eighth is a school board vote in the early 60s how can you get these buildings built faster quicker cheaper that's why the seventh eighth model was done i'll i'll show it to you at some point that's the 60s then in the 70s we made another decision i'm not we you all weren't on the board and i wasn't superintendent we then made a decision to do secondary schools where we put middle and high school kids together we did that one time we did that two times i know i know we did that three times and then we briefly did it a fourth time at
129south county before we split the school so to be honest historically we have not had dr anderson you have nailed it a consistent approach to our facility configuration but i will bring you our latest thinking and update and what we think may be options going forward so thank you so much for raising this no thank you i look forward to that white paper some continued discussion on this matter thank you i think we have gone through um all board members who had questions or comments and we are now oh musomash i apologize no no worries thank you um firstly thank you to staff i want to reiterate that for this tremendous work that happens every year it's no small feat i love seeing obviously the focus on environmental stewardship and hopefully with some of that
130joint cip work that will advance even further in the following years um i i won't comment necessarily on membership i think you know we all have an understanding that some of that's uncertain it's been certainly pleasant to see that it's been increasing since the beginning of the school year uh but i did want to just ask i know miss ruta and some of the findings you guys found in orsi and thank you for doing that analysis um not only pointing out kind of the uncertainty to predict or really know what's what's coming but you mentioned something about aap programs and how that impacts facilities do you mind just elaborating a little bit on that sure i'd be happy to talk a little bit about it so the report about the membership trends looks both at
131migration in and out which does impact membership but then also takes a more specific look at transfers which generally doesn't impact membership numbers all that much other than roughly 600 students who are coming in in order to be part of the tj community so the look at the transfers in particular was looking to see what kind of programs or other characteristics of schools might be predictive of whether or not schools are having students want to transfer out or want to transfer in and the primary programs that were really predictive especially at the elementary and middle school level was aap programming whether there was a center there or not predicted whether or not students wanted to transfer out or in and then also language immersion programs so taking into account those two specific programs really predicted
132whether or not schools were going to have a lot of students transferring in or out and so there's some conclusions in there around taking a look at those programs in particular if there's overcrowding in the school or school is underutilized to potentially use that kind of programming to help support having more students come into a building or potentially starting a new aap or language immersion program nearby that would allow that school to not be as overcrowded if there's over utilization that is at a school thank you so much for for outlining that you know colleagues i think this is an emerging theme you know we had the conversation tuesday on the boundary policy study this came up uh based on feedback of reasons people move and then you know miss ruta you're sharing it it
133contributes to some of the um predicted overcrowding the uncertainty that exists in a lot of movement across the county and i still you know that number is seared in my mind 5.6 million of what it costs to transport uh as we move towards the increasing and expanding local level fours as we know has been happening this is really something for us to look at um hopefully moving forward and to consider uh given what already exists is plenty of uncertainty that we're looking at um i i did want to uh and i think that that actually contributes to what maybe i disagree a little bit with my colleague on the county-wide boundary challenges that we have and needing to take that full county-wide assessment i think you know some of that came out of our conversation
134on tuesday ensuring that we have those stability efficacy and equity values reflected in what was presented as a recommendation of potential review every five years i think that's something you know we've had consultants look at this multiple times over multiple boards and you know we ought to start thinking about that and and how we might want to adopt some of the best practices that have been recommended and recommended to us time and time again in this arena finally i did want to actually show off on behalf of fcps about a particular thing that was included this time around in the cip i'm absolutely thrilled pages 241-247 i want to thank staff from the bottom of my heart for working hard to take a step forward in increasing accountability and being more robust about inclusive spaces
135um so this time you know we're able to take a look and and see that we are supporting our uh uh teachers who may or staff who may be breastfeeding who may be mothers through lactation rooms which we've had but being able to outline those and then of course having reflection spaces prayer spaces for students who may need that especially in a time with heightened anxiety and and you know mental health challenges that we know our students can benefit from uh being able to self-regulate and manage and then finally uh our gender non-stigmatizing single-use toilets that we've been able to identify throughout our schools so i would encourage the community colleagues everyone to take a look at those pages this really is the first step to being able to identify in each school these locations
136and then hopefully continuing with every year to move forward towards ensuring that the ed specs the uh you know the various details of how we implement these things uh continue to live up to what will be most accessible and inclusive to our students so thank you so much uh marty smith jeff plattenberg of course dr brabrand uh and the full team who made that happen mr kofax thank you just briefly i want to thank you mr plattenberg and your team for this hard work as you do and thank you for meeting um with us one-on-one with you those of us who are able to do that or two by twos that's extremely important to help us understand this and we'll as we move forward um to the work session i'm sure we'll delve much deeper
137into this just a couple comments for um my colleague miss marin you spoke about um we will be giving an audit update um with the audit report i'll speak a little bit more briefly on that um in january and the audit committee and also you know there was a comprehensive audit done and we can talk about this too when we have that audit meeting in january there are some things mr plattenberg's office just is not able to do because of the lack of funding and mr plattenberg i hope you speak to that at the either the audit committee meeting or at the um at the upcoming work session and and finally i i appreciate the look look at how programming moving putting programming in certain schools does change capacity issues but you know it would
138be obvious that an aap program as well as language immersion programs or those that change capacity because those are our specialized programs and we have had these specialized programs in certain schools for years because of educational needs wants or desires of our community so i think that has to also be taken into consideration as we talk about this and i think you and your team have been excellent as far as looking at capacity issues when language immersion programs virgin and and the desire is big and we want more as well as aap programs so i appreciate that and i and i thank you for that because i think those are equity issues allowing for kids who need and want those programs to participate and have the opportunity to do that and capacity is an issue
139we need to take that in and we may need to move things around from time to time but thank you ms mclaughlin yeah i just wanted a quick go back from something that mr plattenberg and i talked about and it kind of addresses something that ms omesh raised i'm really proud of the fact that my 10 years on the school board your team works with every single magisterial board member and any at large who's interested to look at school by school where we have over capacity under capacity where we might need some boundary adjustment and in my tenure the biggest challenge has been that we do not have staff and in his department enough people to take on what has been the fairfax county promise to our communities that if and when we have to
140engage in boundary adjustments it's a very labor-intensive effort and so it's not that this county hasn't been doing is you know ms amish you express some concern that we're not looking at them every five years i can tell you that for the last 10 years i look at my schools every single year and i've got some schools that have sat on the back burner because they're just not mission critical to the schools that have had some of the biggest challenges like glenn forest so i do want to just reassure the community at a minimum that this school system does try to be as proactive as it can be ms tolin you you saw coming in what ms strauss your predecessor was dealing with langley maclean and and you saw the same thing dr anderson with
141glenn forrest the desire is there to alleviate overcrowding and to recognize when and if a boundary adjustment is needed as the only solution our system tries to be as responsive as possible and i i do think that we'll have deeper conversations about ensuring our boundary policy matches best practice in the research from what i saw in the initial presentation i was very pleased that our existing policy is not far off from exactly what we should be doing but a manpower issue mr plattenberg have i captured it correctly is certainly one of the very real challenges that we face when we we tackle the boundary needs all around the county if if i may that is spot on correct and the one thing that i will say occr has done an outstanding job as part of
142that outreach but they're woefully understaffed to do that as effectively as it needs to be done thank you well thank you everyone and we will be having a work session on the cip agenda item 4.01 confirmation of action taken and closed meeting this is a portion of the meeting where the board will confirm any action regarding issues that 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 we'll make several motions to confirm the recommended action i call on miss corbett sanders for a motion thank you madam chair and this is not a disciplinary action i just want people to know you are correct i move that the school board approved participation in the proposed settlement of opioid-related
143claims against mckeeson cardinal health amerisource bergen jansen and their related corporate entities and direct counsel to execute the documents necessary to effectuate participation in the settlements including the required release of claims against settling entities for the reasons discussed with council in closed session is there a second second miss corbett sanders would you like to speak to your motion we don't speak to this motion i'm sorry um our script is not updated thank you all those in we'll go ahead and take the vote all those in favor please raise your hands all those oppo that is unanimous that motion passes agenda item 4.02 family engagement policy i'll call on mr frisch for the motion give me one second computers always move more slowly when you need them i move that the board approved the family engagement
144policy as detailed in the agenda item is there a second second second did my miss cohen mr frisch would you like to speak to this motion yes i'll make this quick the previous school board directed the superintendent to develop this family engagement policy as a demonstration of its commitment to promoting effective inclusive and meaningful family school partnerships as a means of supporting student success last year this board had a work session to discuss the draft policy which it then sent to the governance committee for some minor reworking so the governance committee worked with staff to resolve those issues most of them concerning precise phrasing around inclusivity and facilitating meaningful two-way communication rather than a static one-way approach the governance committee completed those changes and sent it back to the full board as an action item
145and so here we are discussing the policy thank you miss cohen ditto i do see a few people who would like to speak miss mclaughlin followed by um miss kofax so it's always humbling to see our policies that look so short in in words and yet boy it took a lot of time and effort of our governance committee working with staff many multiple meetings and so i do want my colleagues to know that the the amount of intentionality to really have a policy that we hope then guides the superintendent's work when he creates the regulations to execute and operationalize the family engagement policy is you know why the short and sweet language can be so important so i just want to say that it's another reason i'm proud to be on this board and i'm
146proud to be part of a school division that understands that we want our families to know that through you know all walks of life and all backgrounds and opportunity that we recognize family engagement is at the core of student success all the research in the world shows that that parent engagement is just a core component of of how students can reach their academic and social emotional success so uh i know this is kind of uh anticlimactic in some ways but i did want to really spotlight that this is um really something to celebrate and i appreciate all the the sweat equity that went into it for those of us on governance and uh mr frisch in particular um as he was trying to guide us through this this work it's it's gonna be a good
147vote tonight thank you mr kofax yes i do want to compliment my colleagues who put this out there um i think as as ms mclaughlin referenced um it it's succinct but it speaks to the importance of engaging communities each and every year since i've been on this board and i started on this board when my youngest was in fifth grade and i remember feeling so welcomed prior to even prior to that by the teachers and talking about a partnership and the words are in here um there is there is it is is referenced each and every time every study shows that the more you engage in your children's education the more successful they become and so we do welcome partnerships of parents in our group uh now we have a policy that specifically talks about
148that and it also speaks about the working partnership because as at the beginning of the year during my messages i always encourage um parents to get to know the teachers and get and help them to get to know your child because again that's a success factor and the more we know and can work together the more successful all of our kids will be and that's why we're all here so um kudos to all of you who took the time and the hard work to get this it looks really good and i appreciate it so thank you miss corbett sanders yes thank you madam chair i too wanted to speak to this because oftentimes people hear me talk about the innovation that takes place in our title one schools and as many people know our title
1491 schools actually have to have a family engagement plan and an approach what this does is it says that innovation and that focus on family engagement extends across all of our schools and all of our buildings and that's something that i think is really important about this policy and i want to highlight that there are six specific actions of family engagement that are brought into this policy one ensuring welcoming all families into our schools two communicating effectively schools and families that engage effectively in effective communications or successful schools supporting student success together speaking up for every child sharing responsibility and collaborating with the community those are powerful messages those are powerful actions that are incorporated in this policy and i want to thank both mr frisch for his leadership last year on governance and miss
150cohen this year to bring this this very successful policy to uh to fruition so thank you and i will be supporting it miss omesh thank you happy to follow ms mclaughlin and ms corbin sanders both of whom worked with us in governance on this um i did kind of just want to take advantage of this moment to mention a couple of things i mean for one obviously we know research shows us time and time again that student success uh relies on family engagement and that it can really be a change maker in in how our students perform so given that reality you know oftentimes we may think that certain families we don't hear from families that don't show up families who may not respond to emails don't care or are disengaged out of out of
151their kind of will or apathy but it's interesting at the virginia school board association conference actually one of the sessions they were showing us some of the data on this and upwards over 95 percent of families actually do care so then the question relies falls back on us right where is how are we mitigating that gap and the reason this is so important and mr frish touched on the fact that we went back in a work session and sent this back to make sure it's more inclusive that it has explicit language about language access and things like that because that gap where the onus is on us is in those barriers for families who may not understand how the system works for families who don't necessarily speak english as a first language for families who
152may feel nervous intimidated don't feel entitled to some of the services and opportunities that kids have that are available to kids so this is critically important obviously it's a policy which sometimes could just live you know somewhere on a website but hopefully will be turned into guidance and professional development that will uh instill in our staff those same values that they already have and help them with the best practices as to how we make that happen and there's no better time really than this year when i know you know a lot of folks feel perhaps unheard uh in a year when folks didn't have the same chance to engage with one another many feel alienated misunderstood i know i'd be remiss not to mention you know some constituents i've heard from who have been concerned
153about this whole domestic terrorist label and whatnot um but i i'm hopeful that this inspires all of us to embrace everyone even those we disagree with in the ways that they express pain uh because at the end of the day it's always a reflection of our deep concern and worry about our kids and that's what brings us all together and unites us in hopefully ensuring the best for our public schools and wanting the success of our public schools mayor so the one of the community meetings about this policy happened on march 12 2020 and that was the last event i attended before covid hit us and it was at lake gane elementary so when i think about that this happened in addition to everything else that we've gone through it's pretty amazing that that we're
154able to do this in addition to all of our work as we said earlier some some place but i'm really glad that we were able to get this done because it was missing and so i'm really pleased thanks okay um [Music] before the vote i'd just like to offer my comments um you know i want to thank everybody who's worked on this especially our staff miss la huffman jackson who's been working on this for years years before i even got on this board and i think that needs to be acknowledged of course family is the most important influence on a child's life so it only makes sense that there is an expectation from this school system from this board that we do everything we can to foster that collaboration that partnership with the most important
155influence in our students lives so thank you to everyone this is an extremely important policy and i will very happily support it and now call for the vote the motion is before us on the screen all those in favor and that motion is unanimous oh no it was could we please put the motion on the screen okay great all those in favor that motion is unanimous thank you agenda item 4.03 governance committee recommended changes to the governance manual regarding msaoc and i'll call on ms cohen for this motion i move that the board approved the recommended changes to the governance manual regarding the minority student achievement oversight committee is there a second so moved seconded by mr frisch um mr frisch i i do call on you for an amendment thank you madam chair i
156move to amend the main motion by adding the following language to section a8 quote one representative residing in the city of fairfax nominated by a majority vote of the city of fairfax school board and to make all technical and conforming changes necessary for the amendment is there a second second did my um ms eisenheiser mr frisch would you like to speak to your motion yes first i want to apologize for the tardiness of this language many of us have been talking about this and no one pulled the trigger to get the language in so i apologize for that i can tell you that the co-chairs of the msaoc are in support of this language like brits and americans we have a special relationship with our colleagues on the city school board each year during our
157annual gathering they present us with [Music] issues they'd like to address with us some of those are very complicated and some of those i would say are low-hanging fruit and so last year the city school board came to us and said we would like our students students that live in city of fairfax to be eligible to be the representative on the county school board since they go to school with all those kids and we said okay so we made those changes and so this year at our meeting they came to us and said that they would like to be more fully enmeshed in the conversations we're having in our advisory committee around equity by having a city seat on the msaoc and so here we have the amendment and i'm hopeful that my colleagues will
158approve this change ms seismore heiser would you like to speak just briefly i think mr frisch captured it well although i i hope there's no revolution so um honestly we have such a really unique 40-year partnership with the city of fairfax and many of their you know their children are educated we manage their schools they provide the facilities we work well together and we of course want to make sure that as we're moving forward our equity work as we're doing as dr brabrand talks about meeting every child by name and by need that the city of fairfax has a voice at that very important table with msaoc to talk about how to move the needle forward to make sure we're meeting all every child's needs so i'm i'm really happy to bring this i also
159apologize to my colleagues for the lateness of this um but i think we'll have a mutual goal of the city and county doing important work together so thank you okay the amendment is before us on the screen so i will go ahead and call for the vote all those in favor please raise your hands that vote is unanimous with dr anderson away from the table tonight uh we are now going to go back to the main motion and uh mr f mr frisch miss cohen i'd like to give you the opportunity to speak to that main motion i don't think my husband will be able to speak main motion um this is just born out of last year when msm msaoc came and delivered their annual report to our board at a work session and
160that was much delayed by covid so they were patient and waited a long time to talk to us they we all together had some conversations about what are some tweaks that could be made that could help make msaoc more successful and so um uh chair george becerra was kind enough to work with his committee to add in some of the changes that our board members had suggested ms omash and dr anderson had [Music] i think very good suggestion to make sure that this committee had two staff liaisons the chief equity officer and the chief academic officer so that the needs of our students don't get siloed as we sometimes have seen in the past so the governance committee reviewed all of these changes took a look the only thing we disagreed with was that the
161committee had asked for two-year appointments we asked for one-year appointments but certainly allowed it didn't preclude anyone from serving multiple years and i can say i think my um person on our committee has been there almost 10 years mr bob shaw who is amazing and um i just i i i couldn't have a better one so we were we um took it up as a governance committee and brought it to you all and didn't want to just put it on consent because we felt like it was important enough to um just make sure that everybody had an opportunity to speak to it tonight mr frisch would you like to speak to your second no thank you miss corbett sanders since miss cohen wanted us to speak to it i felt like i needed to i
162do want to thank as the liaison to msaoc i want to thank the chairs of msaoc and all the staff because they have done amazing advocacy work on behalf of our children and what they're doing here is just to ensure that they are more able to address all the needs of our kids and i want to also thank both dr presidio and dr king for their collaborative approach to working with this very important committee so thank you miss cohen for bringing this to the table and i fully support it thank you we will now go back to the main motion which is on the screen as amended and i will call for the vote all those in favor please raise your hands and all those opposed that vote is unanimous with dr anderson away agenda
163item fiscal year 2022 mid-year budget review i will call on miss corbett sanders our budget chair for the motion i move that the board approved the revenue and expenditure change is reflected in the fiscal year 2022 mid-year budget review as detailed in the agenda item is there a second seconded by ms stolen miss corbett sanders would you like to speak to your motion yes madam chair i very much appreciate being able to speak to this uh this motion i want to first thank miss whittington and miss burden for all of their incredible work in preparing this uh mid-year budget as you all know we had a robust discussion of the mid-year budget review at our last board meeting and the use of the esser funds were a major part of that discussion and by close
164the business today all of our schools will have posted their esser plan summaries on their school improvement plan pages for each school we will also have additional opportunities to discuss the esser funds and hear from our community both on february 10th with the work session on with the public hearing and a work session on february 22nd i also have been assured by the superintendent that each of the board members will have the opportunity to discuss the individual esser plans for their schools with the regional assistant superintendents during the month of january and so i'm optimistic that through those discussions both individually and at the board work session we will have a full understanding of how those funds are being used and where changes may or may not be needed i also wanted the public to
165know that the superintendent will be presenting his proposed budget for the fiscal year on january 13th and that we will have multiple opportunities to discuss that budget as well so with that i move the motion thank you miss stolen would you like to speak to your second thank you i just have a couple of comments after that comprehensive set of information from karen corbett sanders i have already talked to my regional assistant superintendents and i'm really looking forward to those january conversations that we'll all be having to talk about the esser fund use at our particular schools i do want to mention and i will happily um forward this i should have done this earlier too all of the board members i did get again from miss burden thank you very much um the you
166know on page three of this mid-year budget review we have a list of 54.5 positions that we are funding through esser funding sr3 funding and we did okay um i guess 52.5 of those in august so um i will re-forward to everyone so they have it handy the august 26 2021 a meeting information which outlines much more information on those 50-some positions and even out-year positions and explanations so we we already have that information thank you and thank you again to our budget staff for putting all of us together seeing as there are no other board members who would like to speak the motion is before us on the screen and i will go ahead and call for this vote all those in favor and that vote is unanimous oh sorry all those in favor
167just put your hands up high okay all those opposed and all those abstaining thank you that motion passes consent agenda our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure robert's rules provide for consent agenda listing several items for approval by the board by a single motion many items listed have gone through board review and documentation has been provided to all board members and the public in advance items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board 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 item six new business madam chair may i please be recognized ms cohen is recognized thank you madam chair we've discussed this issue at length with the
168superintendent and he has agreed to implement the spirit of our motion by notifying parents about virginia's new secure firearm storage law why secure storage matters and other ways they can help prevent gun violence therefore mr frisch and i will be withdrawing item 6.01 the parent notification motion thank you miss cohen i'll call on miss sizemoreheiser 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 agenda item 7.01 board committee reports i will now call on miss cohen for a governance committee ms keys kamara for cpdc report mr frisch for public engagement committee report mr kofax for an update from the audit committee and miss tolin for a jet committee report gracious
169it sounds like we've been busy in fact governance has been so busy you might have noticed many things on the agenda and new business and consent agenda from governance i'm so grateful to ms mclaughlin dr anderson mr fresh for being the best committee ever i don't care what anybody else says and they even agreed to have an extra meeting this month just to try to get through some of the backlog that the governance committee had hanging out there so we met twice we met on december 7th and december 9th december 7th we tackled four policies 4419 which was smoke-free environment that was on new business tonight and will be on consent on our next meeting on the 13th 4510 communication with employee employee organizations that was also on new business tonight and heads to consent
170for january 13th 45 30 which was employee organization privileges that was on new business tonight and will be on consent on the on the 13th of january and 47.80 which was unemployment compensation was on new business tonight and will be on consent on january 30th on the ninth we dove into the msaoc um changes to the governance manual which thank you very much everybody approved tonight thank you thank you the acsd advisory committee for students with disabilities bylaws that had been hanging out and needing to be approved by us done which was great we also tackled middle school schedules unstructured break and unstructured breaks in recess we sent that back for more work and possible incorporation into our wellness policy where we address elementary school recess we also tackled 8210 which was facilities design and
171construction the management responsibility that was moved to new business tonight and added to the consent agenda for january 13th and then finally we tackled 8220 which was facilities design and construction architectural and engineering services which facilities has agreed to take back they were already working on it again to align it with our fairfax county policy and i will look forward to governance getting back together actually not until february um but we're going to make up for it with an extra long meeting so thanks guys wow okay so this is our cpdc highlight which is the comprehensive planning and development committee our committee met on december 6th uh we were pleased to approve a new representative from the hunter mill district we also are in the process of reviewing the cpdc charge of focus i think
172much of our conversation is focused on better communication with the board teamwork with our fpac committee where citizens provide input on issues related to facilities and generally improving the way that we may address issues impacting facilities the cpdc conversation also focused on the cip impact for new development where we received the joint capital improvement plan from the county we were allowed to ask questions and figure out how new development will impact our schools the goal of the presentation was to provide a refresher on the county's residential development process this success discussion is relevant to the capital improvement program planning and is one of the elements of the annual cip review the primary action for the committee on 12-6 will be to ask any questions of the fcp i'm sorry the primary action was to ask
173questions of the county staff to identify next steps specifically cpdc and fpac will continue to work together and determine how to incorporate all of this information including the most recent boundary policy consultant report in our ongoing work and decisions these two existing committees uh will we try to work together to gather expert research community input and analysis to make recommendations for the full board's consideration and i'll be working with miss elaine tolen who is the liaison for fpat thank you the public engagement committee held a meeting and our update is the same as last month's meeting we continue to do work on our advisory committees and we hope to have a fully formed document for consideration at a work session in the new year thank you thank you we held our third audit committee meeting
174um on december 9th and the audit committee first went into a closed session and then proceeded with our public meeting the meeting began with the presentation of the fy 2021 a oag annual report and the purpose of this report is to make sure everyone is aware of the missions and accomplishment and highlighting the internal audit process within fcps and summarizing the results of recent audits and projects the annual audit report is scheduled to be presented to our full board on january 11. that's what i spoke of earlier next the status of the prior audit recommendations were discussed in the follow-up report and lastly the auditor general updates where the auditor general provided information on next year's internal audit inquiries related to fraud race and abuse and the status of the fy 22 engagements and specifically
175the expansion of the special education review was highlighted and because of the review expansion the timeline to deliver the final report to the board will now be between september and november instead of between august and october the next audit committee meeting is scheduled for thursday january 20th at 4 pm yes the jet team met on december 6 county and division staff held a meeting with um my with carl frisch and i um on the sixth and the energy management staff met with supervisor dan stork and i as board members are aware the current solar vendors sun tribe and ibsen have requested cost adjustments under their contracts for solar ppas staff anticipate final contract negotiations will be complete and a contract amendment will be in place by december 22nd so very soon one very helpful addition
176to the contract will be engaging the solar vendors in efforts that will help us to meet our jet green workforce development goals the amended contracts will allow both entities to promptly resume implementation of solar ppa projects with fcps to immediately proceed with obtaining a proposal for installation of rooftop solar panels at annandale high school as discussed among staff in may of 2021 fcps intends to perform solar installations at six additional schools over the course of the next 24 months in addition staff is looking into other ways to move the solar initiative forward in a timely manner such as the use of capital funding to install smaller scale solar projects the use of esco energy type energy service company type contracts and other vendors a final meeting of the jet committee to include citizen members will
177be convened in mid-january 2022 to fully update the committee updates on the other jet goal areas workforce waste reduction and transportation will also be given at that time quarterly collaborative reviews of the progress project goals will be conducted with county and school division staff and board of supervisor and school board representatives and then the we will in turn provide updates to each board school board members and board of supervisor members will be getting a more full update on all object goals and statuses probably within the week mr frisch and i are working with supervisor stork's office and county and school staff to put that together for you thank you miss towin we will now go to agenda item 8.01 board matters and i'll call on miss corbett sanders thank you madam chair first i want
178to thank to wish everyone the happiest of holidays we have so much to be thankful for during the season of lights normally i would be focusing my remarks tonight on all the wonders that i see in our schools and my gratitude for our teachers and staff and please be assured that i am very appreciative and thankful for all that happens in our schools however i want to talk to everyone about a problem that we are facing in our schools and that is the weaponization of social media which has resulted in increased instances of cyber bullying harassment and most recently threats of violence against individuals and schools i've been working with our staff to address the most egregious behaviors and they are working around the clock with the social media companies the police department and our
179individual families but school administrators and teachers cannot deal with these issues on their own we need for parents community members and our students to partner with us to stop these behaviors let me be perfectly clear making threats of violence via instagram tick tock twitter texting or any other social media is tantamount to yelling fire in a crowded entertainment venue or a movie theater these actions traumatize communities and it is not acceptable it's also against the law parents please talk to your children about the responsible use of social media and the risk associated with irresponsible use of the same engaging in irresponsible behaviors can have a lifelong impact on a child's future know what your children are doing online and in the social media space together we have to stop this behavior if you see something
180say something to a responsible adult either in the school building via our tip line or to the police department or students talk to your parents so that they can take action for you sharing these messages retweeting them or forwarding them to others that are not in the position to investigate them only leads to increasing angst creating panic and could lead to disciplinary measures and criminal prosecution for those of you who are involved in crafting these dangerous messages let me be crystal clear it's not funny it's not a prank it's not an excuse to get a day off from school it violates our srnr and it is a if it is a threat of violence it may violate the law this board member is calling upon the superintendent to ensure that we use every tool available
181to deal with this issue and make sure that bad actors are punished thank you dr anderson followed by miss omash thank you and thank you for that very good reminder miss corbett sanders much appreciated just changing gears a little bit i do want to say i'm kind of excited for the winter sports that are in full swing in our schools basketball swim and dive wrestling and or track are all underway as well as gymnastics and i'm looking forward to cheering on our teams from justice annandale and falls church please come out and enjoy some great competition i very quickly want to say regarding the redistricting that was adopted by the board of supervisors last week there were shifts to seven precincts to new district and i've had a lot of parents ask what how does
182this impact um the schools um that registration does not change school boundaries it just may impact the school member who now represents that school for example in mason district i will be welcoming more families from from the justice and false church pyramids and woodburn elementary school is now firmly located in the mason district please visit the county website for additional information thank you to those who came out to in-person office hours recently we will be resuming that again in january as well as having the virtual option i had a wonderful visit to edison high school last week that represents 15 percent of students who live in mason and it was great to meet brand new teachers experienced teachers and all of the wonderful work of the academy thank you to ms broomfield for taking me
183around and um facilitating my visit and i want to give a special kudos to miss johnson she's a teacher who begins every single class period every single day with a positive affirmation that each of her students must share before they enter her classroom it's not punitive in nature it's just something that really sets a very positive tone to the start of her class and i think that's just a wonderful way to start a classroom period lastly as the liaison to the ace committee i want to say i'm very grateful to the work of that committee to fulfill its charge and they've been very creative in making sure that they can fulfill that charge under the leadership of ken balbuena the committee right now has has developed five subcommittees to divide the work on the multiple
184facets of the chart of the charge there's a curriculum committee technology committee enrollment committee completion to success committee and marketing and outreach the work is very exciting and very intense this is a very high functioning and productive committee so thank you for all of your work i know it's going to result in a very robust set of recommendations and report to the board at the end of the year i wish everyone a wonderful holiday season and hopefully you get some much needed rest and recipe and respite and you are able to come back into the new year refresh and ready to rock and roll thank you all and good night okay um happy to follow some of what was shared i know we've had some challenging situations in a number of our schools over the
185past few weeks but in any case uh this week was hectic i have basically been meeting with constituents from 7 am to about 10 p.m or doing board related things like this uh for this entire week it has been an absolute pleasure uh to reconnect with folks and then also of course a privilege to be able to hear of the many things that we can continue to work on that i look forward to working starting the work on at the beginning of the year um i uh in in sharing you know some of those challenges uh i'd be remiss obviously not to touch on the situation you know ms corbett sanders addressed mount vernon um and and she represents that district so i'll give her that um but especially as the liaison to the city
186of fairfax school board we were i was at fairfax high school earlier today i know there's a lot of noise and concern around what's going on i can't speak to that matter specifically just yet because i know that i want to certainly offer the respect and i'm exhibiting quite quite a bit of self-restraint to say that i will wait to hear from our staff and i trust their leadership to resolve this situation in a fair manner but i also wanted to say that unfortunately what happened in fairfax is not something new and is something that is far too common in our schools and in our communities and and what you know perhaps not in such an explicit way a young girl who claims her hijab was ripped off of her by someone who made inappropriate
187comments but something that i remember experiencing myself in fcps um but but of course you know we recognize our realities we know that there are many challenges and that we have to continue working past them we know that our minority students continue to struggle in many ways and that we need better accountability around these kinds of behaviors whether it's students or staff and i know in the past it's actually been staff but i i say all of this to to try to be very real and honest uh to validate uh the concerns and the fears and the worries um and and to be very real with our team as well to say that these are issues it is high time this is the 21st century to address these things once and for all and to
188move forward as a community uh beyond what i've you know shared 20 years after 9 11 um you know conversations that have been had and and uh difficulties that our country has faced and how we have been able to move forward but i am hopeful that that is the direction we move we move in and that is forward so i uh i'm hopeful um to see where we come to with that um but i uh i can i certainly understand um the many concerns that folks have leading up to that um but on a better note and this is what i'll end on uh today i had absolute privilege of visiting um some of our alternative learning centers and i really want to shed a light on the incredible work that those that staff in
189those buildings are doing the potential that these children have uh you know the goals they have the dreams and aspirations of what they want to do in the future are incredibly inspiring so for those who don't know we have you know non-traditional we have high schools we have non-traditional learning centers in a variety of ways of course we have you know many of us are familiar with mountain view and bryant high schools i had the blessing of getting to have some great conversations this morning with pr uh principal joe thompson and of course our region uh actually penny gross our region four assistant superintendent was there as well and ep uh lisa reddle um but to not only see the incredible work there but then also to have the chance to look at our alc
190the alternative learning center that is a part of right next to mountain view um and then our aim program achievement uh integrity and maturity that offers kids a second chance an opportunity to continue their learning and to have uh staff who are able to focus in a smaller setting on their emotional needs their mental health uh needs and and help support their executive functioning abilities and finally uh ended the day well the morning just started the day but ended the morning with a visit to our tsrc center in fairfax that is our transition support resource center and so many of us may not be aware but this is a network it's a collaboration with a lot of different county partners but ultimately to provide an education to those kids who may not uh thrive necessarily
191in a big high school setting um and you know the the fairfax one is is housed in the historic courthouse but there are many others across across our county uh in in various locations opportunities for kids to come and finish their ged opportunities for kids who are particularly talented in athletics to pursue elite athletics um you know opportunities for kids who just need more of that one-on-one attention to develop those emotional skills that will help them be successful with a counselor who can accompany them there's a lot of great work going on and i want to you know toot the horn and really shout out these programs and and the importance of continuing to invest in them i know they're going to be facing some challenges as the courthouse renovates and we're going to have
192to invest i say this to my colleagues i say this to dr brabrand that we not forget hopefully as uh these transitions happen the importance of investing those resources because it seems like um some of them may be cut back and i really want to be careful that that doesn't happen so in any case just wanted to make sure i cast the light on them because they are incredible and i look forward to working with my colleagues to continue supporting them miss marin followed by miss keys gemara so this week i continued my unfortunate tour of sites in our school division where there are traffic and safety issues with getting to and from school um a few weeks ago it was at wolf trap elementary where a parent was struck on a car in a
193crosswalk and she continues to heal this week i was at mcnair elementary where there are issues with students crossing a very busy road and that is aligned with some of the new construction that happened to build the beautiful new upper school and then i was at flint hill elementary where a grandparent was hit in a crosswalk trying to get her grandchild and so the meeting was convened by supervisor walter alcorn's office i really appreciated his help we had staff from a staff member from our fcps transit facilities and safety myself parents and our school administrators our instructional leaders and as i stood there after school i'm thinking wow these are the people who are the instructional leaders and they're out here on a street corner looking at safety and how to get kids to and
194from school and what i was looking at was crosswalks where the paint was pretty was very faded street lights that were out signs that had been knocked over and it just really brought into full circle the other things that have been coming up to us this week most notably the work that the school board and the school division have done to advocate to you know say hey partners parents families lock up your guns and your weapons educate your children you know i think that what i've seen is the school division does a lot to try and do everything within its power to help our kids in our mission to educate children and so as far as transit goes we've got safety patrol my sixth graders on safety patrol we've got safe routes to schools we've
195got you know crossing guard we have staff but if people are going to continue to you know leave their house late and rush well that's not going to we could do all the mitigation we want at school it's not going to keep our students and staff safe if we teach students how to identify or how to deal with a lockdown drill that's that traumatizes some of them but if parents and families are going to lock up their guns all the practice we do for kids and staff and that that training and that that experience is not going to help and and it's even you know i think back to instilled with covid all that our schools are doing the testing the the vaccination sites all of these things we do in the effort to prepare
196our students to be ready for learn for learning because we won't turn anyone away but i do feel that if we want our public education system to succeed that other aspects of the government county state other you know our society has to really say hey we've got to tow our part of the bargain too so as we go into the holidays those are the kinds of things i'm reflecting on i'm really excited about the stuff that we are doing academically for students the work we're doing to transform our literacy instruction the work that we're doing to promote stem and integrating environmental ed with that we talk about new school buildings i mean we are really doing so many wonderful things so you know to the community if you can please really think about what's one
197little change you could do in your day maybe to make you a little less um behind the schedule to get your kids to school or ask that question about hey does your neighbor you know do they have unlocked up weapons or ammunition you know what can each of us do just like one little something to help us in these huge public challenges that we face together so hope you have a great holiday and a happy new year thank you i will i want to start i had a lot of um contact this past week with people in our community but perhaps most important was the discussion that took place at a student talk town hall from some of our leaders so i always um i'm coming to you i will mention in a second you
198lord um i always ask them what they want me to say to my colleagues and so um i i'd like to summarize that because it ties into some of the comments that miss corbett sanders and mr mesh has said um they emphasize that they have an increased sense of anxiety especially after the recent violence that has been reported across the nation the various pranks that are going on and they emphasize that they want to make sure that our administrators are taking their fears seriously they believe that sometimes they um they are reporting things and i'm you know we always have to remember this is their perspective right and i know that our staff members are working really hard to do the right thing but they said simply that we are scared um one student shared
199that her hands were shaking as she sent me a message this week and that she just wanted to make sure that staff members take the time to let them know that they're hurt that they're seen because this is really really frightening and i'm sure that we have staff members that are afraid as well that are dealing with higher levels of anxiety and so i wanted to um you know well let me say one more thing they said there's a role for safety officers but that's not the only answer we need to challenge ourselves to think about how staff are trained and prepared to recognize and identify symptoms of students in crisis to look specifically at mental health support and to be available to help and decrease and alleviate students levels of anxiety and to truly
200work to create a caring culture so i continue to be amazed by our students and their ability to advocate and to reach out so i thank them and i promised i would share that so i wanted to keep my promise now um i really have to thank every person at this dios our staff members because i think that we did something pretty phenomenal yesterday i am um i don't even know how to say it i mean i talked to so many students across our county who really wanted to see this leadership program developed starting at john lewis the hope is that we will work to so that students across the county can benefit from it but our staff went over and above i thought they did a phenomenal job in bringing that information forward communicating
201clearly to see our principal from john lewis high school the students our community partners i was just bla i was i tried to be quiet and subdued which i know is a shock but i just i just wanted to say thank you to each and every one of you i am so grateful uh for a partnership with you to be able to uh launch this new effort and um i know we're going to continue to do bigger and better things together as we collaborate um but my heart is full toward each and every one of you so thank you all right i held it together um i also had an opportunity to um talk to a number of community groups uh i thank my colleague laura jane cohen for inviting me to do a town
202hall and uh we kind of we kind of we kind of worked we're very much in sync and so it was kind of cool um and uh i'm really grateful for that so i know we've had a lot of talking tonight i want to say happy winter holidays um i didn't get to mention all of that um wish everybody seasons greetings for all the religious and cultural observances this month um we'll of course merry christmas happy kwanzaa happy three kings day and orthodox christmas i think is coming in january i don't know if we have another um meeting before then or not but happy everything to marry everything to everybody enjoy your holiday and please know that i am so very grateful to each and every one of you miss tolin followed by mr fresh
203so like many of you i'm looking forward to winter break and the opportunity to spend some time with loved ones please enjoy your time off i hope our students have time to relax and recharge and get off of electronic devices yeah exactly i was happy to meet with pta members at kent gardens elementary school and spring hill elementary school to answer questions and hear about what is happening in their communities a common theme was extra traffic at drop off and pick up times please make sure you are driving slowly and safely anytime you are near a school the safety of our students parents and staff is our number one priority i'll continue to advocate that our safe routes to school program continue and collaborate with our county's active fairfax program and i look forward to
204collaborating with ms maron on some of these traffic issues that you know we are seeing all over the county um we see it everywhere um i had the chance to visit with mr wes smith at churchill road elementary school to hear about the work he's doing as one of our social workers his work with families has evolved over the 23 years that he has been doing this work he's at churchill road and covent run elementary school and he is swamped like all of the rest of our social workers across the district the highlight of my visit though was doing a yoga lesson with a second grade class our little yogis could do every animal pose that they were asked to do they were awesome tomorrow i am excited to visit coates elementary school to visit
205with our new principal there paul bastakis like miss keys gemara my time with students is always informative and inspirational i met with the haycock elementary school on boy scout troop and we had a full discussion on mask wearing in school as part of their citizenship badge work i met with interns working with the league of women voters to talk about their role in local government and citizenship and their willingness to volunteer time to make sure their peers were ready to vote in elections their work is certainly commendable our drainsville student leaders met to talk about issues that they're seeing in school now that we are back in person everyone likes being back in the buildings to interact socialize and collaborate with other students teachers and administrators but with it is coming some tough challenges our
206students are tired and they're dealing with the transition back to school and the workload that they are um seeing and they also really noted the disrespectful behaviors among many of their peers and their stress over karen core sanders was talking about all the things happening on social media this group though did have some solid ideas of how to manage the workload a little bit better how to work with their teachers and how to increase school spirits across all students to foster a better sense of community and cohesion in the schools to hopefully alleviate some of this disruptive behavior so i'm really looking forward to working with them and our school staff to move forward on this i want to thank dr brabrand for getting information out to our families on good practices around gun storage
207i do believe we will save lives by doing these reminders um langley high school has been nominated as a potential virginia candidate for the two for the 2022 national blue ribbon schools program langley is one of only four schools nominated in fcps we'll find out in january if we're selected as the state nominee the 23rd mclean holiday bazaar last weekend sponsored by mclean high school went really well the orchestra's performance was spectacular and we had about 85 vendors selling all kinds of merchandise thank you for the drainsville and the fcps community for giving this year i have heard so of so many drives and programs that support our families across fairfax we've supported afghani families who've joined our schools and community and recently supported our herndon families that were affected by a large apartment fire
208earlier this month your kindness makes a huge difference across our community i wanted to quickly share my appreciation for all the coral band and orchestra events and concerts that happened across greensville in the county in december many traditions like magical events were back this year and people really enjoyed them the herndon high school magicals came out to herndon elementary and the herndon pyramid schools and went caroling down the hallways with our students all singing along the hard work and practice paid off with such wonderful music tomorrow night at 7 30 p.m mclean hosts langley high school for basketball good luck to both teams in this incredible rivalry everyone please have a wonderful break take some time get some rest and enjoy your family thank you i want to start by saying i will sincerely miss
209representing fort buffalo and woodburn east of the beltway which i will now be represented by dr anderson and penderbrook which will now be represented by miss cohen it's been an honor to represent these communities needless to say i'm confident they are in good hands um since our final meeting this is our final meeting before break um i certainly want to wish everybody who is celebrating a happy holidays um and uh as we head into the holidays i am filled with gratitude um tonight i'm grateful for the advocacy of the many parents from mom's demand action who attended tonight's meeting i met one of the mothers heather before the pandemic when i was door-knocking to earn my seat on this board she greeted me warmly with a big smile before she started in what do you
210what do you think about school safety how will you protect students from gun violence and on it went and in the months that conversa in the months since that conversation has continued if more leaders did their jobs concerned parents like heather could retire their red shirts that's all they really want they want their kids to be safe that's it over the past year miss conan and i have been investigating ways that school systems across the country are working to prevent gun violence i want to thank superintendent brabrand for his announcement tonight that he will implement the spirit of the motion we were working on sending a standalone communication in multiple languages to parents and guardians that informs them of virginia's new secure storage law why secure storage is important and other ways parents and guardians
211can prevent gun violence and seek help for a child who could be a threat to themselves or others the communication will be sent next month and then annually before the start of school each year it will also be available online i'm grateful to the parents who joined us and dr brabrand for agreeing to take action and also to my colleagues for the many thoughtful conversations we've had on this subject over the past many months those conversations have improved our approach here and led to this evening's result so thank you i am proud that fairfax county public schools is joining dozens of other school divisions big and small to advance the conversation around secure firearm storage our students teachers and staff will be safer as a result thanks miss mclaughlin follow members cone well there's always
212a uh christmas miracle in my faith so i'm giving my christmas miracle to my colleagues and staff who are still here i'm just going to wish you all happy holidays and thank you so much for everything you do on behalf of our children our employees and our community i will miss you all but really look forward to time with loved ones and i wish you all the same happy holidays don't worry i'm going to take her time just kidding just joking mostly um no i i do want to just start off by echoing what mr frisch said i think you know carl and i both come to the work of gun violence prevention um with a story to tell just like everybody i think who's who's involved um and so when we say this is
213near and dear to our hearts um it means more than than i can express i'll pull a kkg it is very meaningful to me that dr brabrand was willing to support what our best practices in the country for how we involve our parents and the partnership and what our jobs are in our homes with our kids and then the trust that we give to the schools when we send them out the door and i'm so grateful and i'm i'm so thankful to all of you my colleagues who supported this and helped work to make it happen uh miss darren at kofak was a little extra spice at the end and i just am very grateful to all of you um i had the opportunity i do want to say too the same thing goodbye irving
214precinct in west springfield precinct i will miss you dearly i it feels like it was just two years ago when we started our relationship now it's over so best of luck i give irving i give to you miss mclaughlin with all of my love for cardinal forest elementary school situated there and um and irving middle school there and um miss darren at kofax really treat west springfield you know in the way they deserve to be treated so and just a note to everybody that does not mean your kids are leaving their schools this is just means that these lovely ladies represent you instead of me um and their board of supervisor colleagues represent you instead of me so no worries um and now compton precinct and saratoga um you guys are stuck with me so
215oh my god you are blessed with sarah they are so wonderful so um thank you and pender brooke thank you so much um i look forward to coming and knocking on every single one of your doors so look for me soon um i got to go to west springfield high school we wrapped up the rational size more hyzer i always want to call her size more highs more tour at west springfield high school with speaker filler corn and had a really good time rounding out our take your delegate to school experience it was great i got to hang out with burke school and do their participate in their annual coco dash i did not dash i know none of you are surprised to hear that it was more of a stroll miss mclaughlin and i
216got to hang out again and go to bonnie brae to welcome their brand new principal mr morgan burge welcome welcome we're so excited to have you um i got to do the joint town hall with miss keys gemara which i had just done a joint down hall with miss mclaughlin so it's just nice to get to spend all this time together and as my colleagues said getting to participate this week in not only band concert but chorus concert i got a kid in each of those and just getting to see them perform live it's amazing so thank you it felt feels like um it just feels good to get to be back together and to hear kids having such an amazing time with each other and thank you again to the moms demand folks who
217made calls and emails and and show up every time that somebody needs to show up and uh i'm very grateful to be a volunteer there happy holidays everybody is there enough go facts followed by massage more highs yes um i i too i want to thank dr brabrand for working with our board to get the message out to our families about their obligation for safe storage of the firearms i unfortunately came to know mom's demand action in my edison community a while ago when a young man who was in his who graduated from edison high school in his freshman year was a victim of gun violence and the crime is still not it is still not solved and he was a dear friend to my son and to our family and so that's when i
218first became involved as we began our work with that group here officially building resolutions and writing and talking about gun safety in a more formal way and now as they continue to educate us about the storage of firearms and the obligation that we have and it's that it's now the law i think it's important that we continue to remind our families about all these things that we can do to keep our kids safe and keep in in that vein i do want to speak um social media platforms you have a responsibility i don't have proof um i so i don't want to accuse any one particular platform but i do know i do have proof about all of the threats and the things that have happened in unfortunately my community ms corbett sanders this last
219week and they are real they are causing harm and as you spoke so eloquently miss corbett sanders they are not pranks they are things that cause real hurt anxiety and trauma to other students to your friends so parents please educate our kids to not make mistakes that are really harmful and to not just jump on the current uh trends whatever social media platform i do know that tick tock came out today and said they are looking into this and i appreciate that but they don't believe they started there so i'm not sure where they started but i do believe social media platforms have responsibilities so i'm also really appreciative of us going to be able to add the leadership academy to john lewis john r lewis high school this took a lot of work and
220i appreciate it and i think it's going to be a great benefit to all the students there i too have enjoyed as miss um told and talked about the sounds of the season um the concerts i find that music particularly soothing to my soul this time of year i wasn't able to attend as many as i would like i'm trying to get a little mosaic music together for my newsletter so hopefully we can continue to enjoy it as the season goes on and i just want to wish all who celebrate a merry christmas happy kwanzaa happy new year thank you to our staff and to our team for working so hard this year you need this rest we need this rest and my colleagues thank you all happy holidays whatever you celebrate and uh please
221enjoy this time to relax recharge and spend time with those you love good night well thank you and i won't repeat the elegant words of many of my colleagues but i do want to reiterate that um it is it's been a challenging year and our students and our staff are traumatized and tired and our students are are seeking attention in ways that aren't healthy and and are causing more trauma to their peers and so i i do hope that as we pass the family engagement policy tonight that we can find ways to engage our families and our communities to help our administrators to help our students understand that there are healthy ways to be in those very unhealthy ways to be and we need to work on that so um and you know speaking of
222the family engagement policy i think was a perfect night also to pass that policy and then dr brabrand being willing to send a letter to engage our families on how to keep our students safe by you know safe storage um and to prevent gun violence so i also want to thank the moms demand action folks for coming out and supporting that um and i'm sorry to my colleagues who are losing um some of their precincts but as an at-large member i haven't lost anybody because i still represent the entire county and i and i'm thrilled for that along with my two at-large colleagues um just briefly i had a great as uh miss cohen mentioned visit with west springfield and i thank speaker phillip corn for coming and i thank principal makai for talking about
223his mastery learning and the impact on student outcomes i also had a great visit with my colleague chair picarsky and delegate david bulava to fairfax high school and we talked about many of the challenges related to the pandemic he saw an esol technology class which is super cool and a african-american history elective and i wanted just to give a shout out to the chantilly academy students and chef doubleday for preparing an amazing meal with some of the best service i've had in a long time last week at our city and county dinner these students are amazing chefs and they're amazing servers and it was a great opportunity to to see what are the great things our students are doing similar to what ms cohen mentioned with all of the great performing arts and mrs tolin
224mentioned it it's like the playoffs for performing arts in the winter season and you know and having a child who i think performs in all of them i've been a jazz band we went to a joint chorus concert with both our kids um guitar and it's it's just really great to see around the county all of the great music that's that's happening and seeing the kids perform it makes my heart so happy to see that so um i will stop because i know it's one person between us and bed so happy holidays please get some rest thank you to our staff one person between us and winter break so i will be quick i will you know thank you for sharing um our visit with uh delegate bulova that um that we had at fairfax
225high school and i also want to express my appreciation to the chantilly culinary arts program and the kids who did incredible um work for us with their dinner and with their service and they were so extremely excited to do it um i think it was an evening that was enjoyed by many of us and it was it was absolutely wonderful to be together i also had the opportunity to meet with boy scout troop pack 1459 to help them fulfill their requirements about meeting with a community leader to roll to learn about our role and discuss some of the important issues they were excellent they had excellent questions and i think i did an awesome job of talking us up because at the end um one of the fifth graders wanted to know if he could
226be our student rep so you are all welcome um and um and the most important part for me of course uh during this time of the year um is all of the holiday shows that i um get to attend um not only of my children's with of which there have been i think like four so far but also of our students it really um it makes the holiday season for me and music is just so important in the lives of my family i want to thank all of you it has been an extremely busy um a couple of weeks and everybody has been very flexible and very willing to do anything and everything to pitch in and really make sure that all the work that we do is successful and put always our best forward
227for this county staff i wish you the best holiday enjoy relax be with your families and to that we are adjourned happy holidays all right you