FCPS School Board Meeting - 12/02/2021

001so [Music] this december 2nd 2021 regular meeting of the fairfax county school board will now come to order i will now call roll miss cohen yes ms corbett sanders good evening thank you mr frisch here miss keys kamara you just do mic check here miss mclaughlin here miss marin hello mr maesh hello miss picarski just a mic check mrs mccarsey's away from the table right now miss tolin dr anderson hello hey mr chaudhary good evening thank you i'm here too i apologize for staring at kovacs you are on my list mr and i covfex please stand for the pledge of allegiance followed by a moment of silence and a performance of the national anthem by the glasgow middle school chamber orchestra under the direction of alexandra tozinski i pledge allegiance to the flag of the

002united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Music] you [Music] uh oh miss picarski will not be in attendance at the meeting tonight she's away on a personal matter ms keisgamar will be attending virtually section 2.2 certification of closed meeting compliance in order to comply with section 2.2-3712-d of the code of virginia it is necessary for the board to certify that since the fairfax county school board convened a closed meeting on december 2nd 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 closed were heard discussed or considered by the board during closed meeting is there a motion

003miss corbett sanders is there a second miss omega all those in favor all those opposed abstaining that motion is unanimous section 2.03 announcements miss keys gemara has submitted a written request to virtually attend tonight's meeting due to a medical conflict i will call for a vote of those members who are in person all those in favor of proving ms gemara's request to virtually attend tonight's meeting raise your hand please all those opposed abstaining that motion passes that motion is unanimous if you would like to review a copy of the agenda and any agenda item that is being discussed tonight that information may be found at the back of the auditorium or on the website at fcps.edu backslash school board backslash board docs tonight's meeting is being broadcast on channel 99 and live streamed on the

004website at fcps.edu backslash tv backslash channel 99. 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 you need a mass break please take advantage of the overflow room set up in the gymnasium i call on mr chodry for an announcement thank you human rights day december 10 2021 human rights day is observed every year on december 10th the day that the united nations general assembly adopted in 1948 the universal declaration of human rights this year human rights day marks the 73rd anniversary of the universal declaration of human rights a milestone to document that the that proclaimed the inalienable rights which everyone is entitled to as a human being regardless of race color religion sex language political or

005other opinion national or social origin property birth or other status it's the most translated document in the world and is available in more than 500 languages drafted by representatives of diverse legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world the declaration sets out universal values and a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations it establishes the equal dignity and worth of every person thanks to the declaration and states commitments to its principles the dignity of millions has been uplifted and the foundation for a more just world has been laid while its promise is yet to be fully realized the very fact that it has stood the test of time is a testament to the enduring universality of its perennial values of equality justice and human dignity the universal declaration of human

006rights empowers us all the principles enshrined in that declaration are as relevant today as they were in 1948 if not more we need to stand up for our own rights and those of others we can take action in our own daily lives to uphold the rights that protect us all and thereby promote the kinship of all human beings thank you mr chaudhary 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 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 hearing such as a capital improvement plan budget

007and boundaries comments targeting criticizing or attacking individual students are not permitted during public meetings complaints regarding school-based employees should be directed to the appropriate school principal or other school official speakers should refrain from using personally identifiable information in connection with an individual student or school-based employee additionally speakers should be respectful and observe proper decorum in their statements avoiding profanity inappropriate gestures shouting and comments that run counter to the spirit and letter of the school division's non-discrimination policy all statements should be directed to the school board and speakers should remain at the podium until concluding their remarks in-person speakers should wear a mask when addressing the board we are grateful to those who have come to speak to us today and we thank you for your cooperation speakers shall have two minutes to address the board

008our first speaker is edward paris edward paris our next speaker is aaron rawal good evening my name is aryan robel i'm one of the founders of the pride liberation project and a lifelong fcps student i'm here today to discuss the need for inclusive lgbtqia plus representations in our schools last week a committee composed that students parents and staff members voted to return genderqueer and lawnboy in our schools their decision affirms what over 400 students have been saying for months lgbtqia plus relationships are not pornography i hope that the school board stands by its own process and upholds this committee's decision on appeal but it's also important to recognize that protecting these books is the bare minimum we shouldn't have to turn to our libraries to find positive queer representation i along with every other student

009in fcps should be included and seen in our literature sexual education and history courses an abundance of research suggests that the representation of underrepresented groups leads to higher academic performance improved mental health outcomes and a student body prepared for an increasingly globalized world in other words representation is key to our education but we're failing our foe curriculum still segregates by gender alienating non-binary students it also includes outdated standards that ask students to talk about parents or clergy about their sexuality rather than trusted resources like the trevor project moreover only one high school in our county west potomac offers a gender study course a course that would empower us to have frank discussions about the role gender and sexuality play in our society our schools are broken your students shouldn't have to attend schools where we

010are not heard where we are exceptionally vulnerable to mental health suffering and depression and where we are exploited for political gain please do not close the books on queer students keep queer literature in our schools and gender segregation problematic standards in fle and expand inclusive courses thank you our next speaker is anaya khan our next speaker is marianne burke recently a community member objected to some books that were available to students in our public school libraries so i bought those books read them and did research on the marginalized groups for whom they were written this is what i found the center for disease control reported that suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people with lgbtq youth being four times more likely than their peers to seriously consider suicide to make a

011plan for suicide and to attempt suicide in 2021 a national survey found that that one in sorry having trouble breathing the five lgbtq youth ages 13 to 18 attempted suicide in the past year this high rate of suicide behavior suicidal behavior among lgbtq youth largely largely cannot can be explained by their experience of minority stress minority stress is experienced by sexual minorities that face unique and hostile stressors related to their sexual minority identity consequently these stressors have negative effect on their health we as community members can support these students and help to minimize their minority stress by helping them to feel seen loved safe and respected to foster thriving students we must show up for them and create spaces for them to live authentically they need their reality reflected back to them through literature that

012is available to them and we must remember that by equating any kind of queer love and sexuality with pornography the message we send lgbtq youth is that their love is not as real as straight love and their bodies are wrong and there's something to be hidden and ashamed of please let's not do that and if community members want to object to a book content please encourage them to read the book first and not let them just repeat what someone else said to foment outrage our next speaker is christina mccormick christina mccormick good evening next week marks national inclusive schools week and during the previous board meeting you passed a resolution to observe and remind the entire fcps community that education takes on a beautiful shape when all children are included i wanted to take this

013opportunity to thank you for your commitment to creating a school system where students feel safe respected and are provided an education that meets their individual needs i'd like to extend a special thank you to my own district representative ms cohen and mr frisch for their brave and unwavering support of students that aren't always heard however inclusion also means actively seeking out voices that have been traditionally marginalized such as lgbtqia students black indigenous and students of color religious minorities disabled and immigrant students this applies to all aspects of school such as extracurricular activities in libraries it means seeing yourself represented in your curriculum and media this isn't the place for politics while i agree that parent engagement is an important part of educational partnership a small minority of parents should not decide what books are in

014the library what is taught and who is protected in schools i ask you to please remain dedicated to the hard-fought successes such as regulation 2603 there's always more work to be done in the search for inclusion and equality for our students thank you for taking on this vital task and please please remember that your important work is done for our students and not the politics of any parent including me keep working for all of our students with an eye towards those whose voices may not always be heard because education takes on a beautiful shape when all children our next speaker is aaron rose valthuis i am here today to show support for keeping and even increasing diverse books and material in our schools i recently finished reading warriors don't cry a memoir by one of

015the first african-american students selected to integrate into white schools in little rock arkansas in 1957 the author endured hardships as someone forced to be separated even when desegregated separated from her white classmates and activities sports and even reading materials a very active group against integration at this time was the mother's league of central high school who are concerned with the physical and emotional welfare of innocent white children in unspeakable conditions and forced to struggle for an education does this sound familiar is history repeating itself with some fairfax parents claiming that it is best for innocent high school children to not be exposed to lgbtqia and critical race theory material reading a book does not suddenly change a person's sexual orientation or make them an oppressor just like integrating students of color did not expose innocent

016white children to rabies or undue violence in late elementary school i read a classic coming-of-age book in which the main character is taunted by her friends to steal her father's playboy magazine afterwards i was not disturbed or suddenly into porn more recently i read genderqueer and while a difficult read because of my own biases it was also an enlightening read that helped me understand what young adults in my own extended family may be going through and it increased my compassion for people struggling to understand their bodies minds and feelings and i'm more than happy to discuss this book's content with my white heterosexual 15 and 17 year old sons furthermore after reading critical race theory i strongly support more of this material in fairfax library schools and classrooms and not less removal i want my

017sons to learn about historical and current events from minority expecta perspectives and not just from majority white perspectives our next speaker is to just test pay to just to stay our next speaker is superna duta superna duta our next speaker is jane miscavige good evening my name is jane miscavige i'm an fcps employee a trustee of the fairfax county public library and past president of fairfax county council pta my remarks tonight do not represent these organizations rather i'm speaking for myself as a mom i would like to thank the parent and student volunteers who served on the challenge book review committees i'm glad that the committees found what i did that these books have the potential to reach marginalized students who may not otherwise see themselves in fcps's 3 million book collection thank you for

018your time thoughtfulness and diligence and reading and discussing the appropriateness of the books your work has affirmed our community values that all students all students should be able to see themselves represented in our schools i would also like to thank the professional librarians throughout fcps school librarians create welcoming spaces and provide resources for student success in high school libraries especially students might come to their librarians for help with homework support with college applications or to find information to help their friends for many students librarians provide a safe space a safe connection and the freedom to read lastly i would like to thank the many many students who have stood up for themselves their friends and their communities throughout the last several weeks it's not easy to speak to the school school board or appear in

019the media and you certainly should not have to explain yourselves i'm humbled and inspired by you and our community is better because of you thank you our next speaker is emily vanderhoff [Applause] good evening vice chair sizemore heiser dr brabrand and members of the board my name is emily vanderhoff i'm a first grade teacher in my 10th year with fcps i'm also a proud member of my union fcft first i want to thank fcps for following the established protocol for challenge books i fully support the decision of the committee it's important for students to see their identities and experiences reflected in their education i trust the judgment of our professional school librarians to choose appropriate materials for their students i want to spend the rest of my time talking about teacher workload planning time and

020calendar considerations elementary classroom teachers typically have two clts per week leaving three hours for teacher-directed planning it's easy to see how three hours is insufficient to plan for a full week of instruction every day i teach whole group and lessons in five subjects and meet with four to five of my nine different reading and math groups this comes out to only three and a half to four minutes to plan for each lesson and that doesn't account for other responsibilities like grading and communicating with families there is simply not time in the day to do the job well teachers typically work extra hours to make up for the lack of scheduled planning time at the expense of our physical and mental well-being my whole team typically is at school for at least an extra two to

021three hours most days and one of my teammates and i are typically working in the building until nine pm at least once per week even so i'm barely keeping my head above water we're stuck in emergency mode planning day to day and can never step back to look at the big picture dozens of other districts across the commonwealth have made calendar adjustments for the school year several districts have added in regular regular early release days to provide time for planning and pd fcft recently sent a letter asking the school board to consider a calendar change to provide much needed time this school year i urge the school board to consider a calendar adjustment such as adding early release days for this year and to keep these needs in mind for the next calendar while child

022care is one of the many services we provide our primary charge is educating students we need the time to plan so that we can provide the quality of education that we're capable of and that our students deserve thank you our next speaker is lyndai kendall good evening i'm linda kendall i'm a mother a grandmother a taxpayer and a very concerned citizen i'm here to offer voice to the parents that are fighting tooth and nail to protect their children from exposure to inappropriate pornographic material in books approved by your school system and to protect children from the teaching of overtly racist theories and dogma that stereotypes one class as oppressors and another one as victims sheerly based on the skin color to the concerns of these parents school board members and administrators are completely tone deaf

023pornography in our schools is illicit and by allowing it everyone in this school board is complicit on september 24th fairfax school parent stacy langton courageously exposed the obscene and pornographic material in at least two books found in fairfax school libraries the books were temporarily removed but have again been deemed acceptable by fairfax schools these two books and likely others are illicit because of what is illegal on the street is also illegal in our public school libraries and oh by the way protecting the innocence of our children is our duty it's a far far cry from banning from book benning the federal statutes specifically federal statutes specifically prohibit obscenity involving minors read the law section 146a of title 18 of the federal code makes it illegal for any person to knowingly produce distribute receive possess with

024intent to transfer or distribute visual representations such as drawings depictions cartoons or paintings that appear to depict our next speaker is toby latham toby [Applause] latham toby latham madam chair members of the school board good evening i'm here tonight as an individual to support students access to age-appropriate literature that reflects the diversity of the world in which we live as a parent of a student with various disabilities i sometimes navigate conversations where folks carefully select words to disguise programs that unnecessarily segregate students eligible for special education so when my friends told me that the words porn and pedophilia are being used to disguise hate driven attempts to not just segregate gay and queer stories but to banish them from completely from an important part of our community i bought and read genderqueer and lomboy to

025determine what's what and while these books at certain points cover heavy topics people's contentions that they constitute porn or depict pedophilia as defined by any applicable law or policy that would warrant banning them is simply incorrect i think it's a shame that dishonest or misled adults continue to suggest that genderqueer encourages any sexual act when the author's statements on page 178 of that book stand for the proposition that there's relief in realizing that one doesn't even have to care about sex at all and it's disingenuous for adults to claim that blonde boy depicts a sex act between an adult and a minor when page 43 that book makes it clear that the two characters that issue are around the same age so whether it's intentional or not people pushing these narratives to effectuate the removal

026of books from our schools increases the risk that lgbtq friends and family hide who they really are and increases their chances of social isolation which in turn exposes them to risk of harm by neglect or by suicide or by folks looking to prey on people forced into the shadows to ensure fcps fosters an environment where all students feel free to be their authentic selves and all students have an opportunity to feel affirmed and to gain understanding and empathy and to become better human beings than some of those in the generations before us it must continue to provide diverse age-appropriate material even if it sometimes reveals truths that are difficult for some people to accept and especially when as in the case with these two books one of the messages is that things can improve if

027you remain resilient on the path of self-discovery thank you our next speaker is eric shafer our next speaker is eric schaefer i'm eric schaefer retired air force and father of two students in fcps a lie doesn't become truth wrong doesn't become right and evil doesn't become good just because it's accepted by the majority that's booker t washington i'm here to speak to the board and parents of students in fairfax county it's long past time we wake up from the fear-induced covet hysteria we've accepted throughout human history fear and promises of safety are levers of choice governments pull to control citizens the simple step we must take is reject the lie that's been spread without evidence that children were ever at elevated risk to covid that lie kept children out of school for a year and

028now has mask and vaccine mandates continuing into a second year with no end in sight the vaccine mandates fairfax county put in place for student athletes are senseless the data proves children without pre-existing conditions were never at elevated risks many school districts around the united states never closed entire countries in europe have kids in classrooms with no mask or vaccine mandates this virus never posed any statistical risk to children so the mask and vaccine coercion should have been dead on arrival but the propaganda was pushed for political reasons not science a ten-year-old unvaxxed child has a lower mortality risk than anyone vaccinated over the age of 25. age is the number one factor not vac status the calculus to vaccinate a 75 year old is far different than a healthy five-year-old so why are we

029treating them the same answer politics i reject the assertion that government and public health officials care about my kid's safety they are driven by self-preservation control and money spewing lies to cover old lies the only way the insanity ends is when free-thinking citizens choose it just as fear is contagious so is courage and the mandates let parents and students decide thank you our next speaker is anaya khan anaya khan good evening my name is anaya khan i'm a junior in scps a queer trans student and a member of pride liberation project a coalition of lgbtq plus students working to uplift our community in my time at scps i've been able to create a family for myself of queer students each of us different complex facing individual challenges however each and every one of us face

030discrimination for our queer identities in our schools regularly leading us to feel unsafe in our classes in efforts to combat those hate many of us turn to media and entertainment as sources of comfort relying on characters that reflect us and our experiences who live in a more perfect world who are able to overcome the very challenges we face last week a committee of students community members and teachers voted to return genderqueer and lanvoid in our schools both novels contain queer content material that could help lgbtq plus students like me explore their identities and discover more about themselves this decision reinforces the argument that hundreds of fcps students have been making lgbtqia plus books are not pornography or pedophilia or something to be banned the issue stands that fcps blacks representation in our curriculum and libraries

031students have panicked over the potential loss of queer representation because we simply don't get any each library holds a very small portion of queer books which are hardly ever promoted or recommended and as a student who spends a majority of their time in our school libraries i find mockery caricatures of the beautiful community that lgbtq students are part of i'm searching desperately for books that contain queer characters that just aren't there now representation is wildly important for young queer students your students shouldn't have to attend schools that erase their identities and deny their growth just because they don't conform to the heteronormative standards that are embedded in our county and our community thank you our next speaker is christopher henzell christopher hensel i want to thank the community leaders who have helped to expose the

032radical agenda of this school board usra nomani elizabeth schultz and others have documented the school board's campaign against merit and its racialization of the curriculum then there was stacy langton the whole country saw this school board cut her off cut off her microphone to stop her from exposing fairfax county schools promotion of pornography the whole country laughed at this board we saw a classic bureaucratic dodge when this school board tasked two committees with reviewing the pornographic books the committees were packed with teachers and administrators who work for the school board and who could be counted on to give the board the answer it wanted and sure enough last week the committees reported to their bosses on this school board that the two books are just fine you're not fooling anyone with your insider committees voters

033throughout virginia have had it with radical school boards like this one the voters voices were heard in last month's election which was a reaction against the arrogance of this board and of your counterparts in loudoun county there will be more elections just like it [Music] our next speaker is stacy langton you look nervous i could read aloud tonight from author george m johnson's book all boys aren't blue i could share his seven page long pornographic account of him being forcibly sodomized at age 13 by his 18 year old male cousin i could also show you the pornographic illustrations of two girls having sex in adam rack's a graphic novel titled decelerate blue but i didn't come to do that i am the adult child of a gay parent my mother was a lesbian yet even

034my mother knew that porn is bad porn is bad for kids porn is bad for society but we hear the lgbtq community tonight defending the indefensible and this school board doubled down in clear terms that they are in favor of pornography in the schools but it's illegal laws at the federal and state level prohibit obscene materials in the presence of minors the assistant superintendent of instructional services stated that the books are quote not obscene and do not contain pedophilia end quote that is a lie the book shows a bearded adult male with an erect penis engaged in a sex act with a male child that is the definition of pedophilia the books describe oral sex and masturbation that is obscene these images can't be broadcast on television and the words can't be read on air

035because they violate the fcc's regulations on obscenity they can't be published in the washington post or in the new york times because they violate the rules on obscenity how is it that these materials which are cannot be shown to america magically become legal when you step inside of a school library they cannot they are violating the law and this our next speaker is juan de lis [Applause] juan de lis [Music] our next speaker is fatima ost i'm fatima ost i'm a parent with a student in fcps and a longtime resident of fairfax county thank you for your service to our community and your commitment to fcps students as we approach inclusive schools week i thank you for the progress you have made towards a more inclusive fcps addressing the needs of students with disabilities lgbtqia

036plus students and students from diverse backgrounds helps to create a culture of empathy and understanding students can learn best when they feel included in their school we all benefit from learning about other people's experience and challenges even if they are vastly different from our own there is still more work to do and i ask that you continue your efforts towards creating an fcps where all students and all members of the fcps community are treated with dignity and feel safe and respected it is important for students to be able to see themselves in the books available to them it is also important for students to have access to books that will teach them about experiences other than their own i want my child to be prepared to engage in a diverse and complex world with understanding

037that they will meet people with different life experiences different identities and needs and to be able to engage and appreciate the diversity of our community and our country unfortunately there are those that wish to control which kinds of experiences and stories are valid they do not bring context nor understanding to their complaints because there is no understanding there is only vitriol and othering in the introduction to his memoir all boys aren't blue george m johnson writes i believe that the dominant society establishes an idea of what is normal so that they may simply suppress differences which means that any of us who fall outside of their normal will eventually be oppressed we must continue to have an expansive and inclusive view of our students and our community so that we do not oppress our moderate

038most marginalized that was our final speaker we have one video testimony from micah luster hello my name is mika i am a junior at a fairfax county high school in the sulley district and a member of the pride liberation project last week fcps followed its procedures and kept gender queer and lawn boy in our schools i'm here today to ask you to affirm that decision and respect the process from birth i was raised on strict teachings of roles that women have according to the bible and similar religious texts any lack of compliance to these christian doctrines and texts would be heavily judged and deprecated by members of my church as you can imagine discovering that i was bisexual was earth-shattering to me and so i kept it a secret for fear that i would be

039unloved and isolated i spent a lot of my free time looking for distractions to my fears which naturally led me to the library half the time as i read more books i would occasionally stumble across a queer character and be reminded that being part of the community was not that uncommon it was such a comfort even if only temporary eventually i would grow into my confidence and recognize that who i choose to love is unchangeable the gospel could not change this and neither could my parents with each passing year i found the church's teachings more redundant and unfair and that irritation slowly grew into resentment i know that our executives are capable of much good and change but diminishing the already limited representation of lgbtq plus individuals is unfair especially when heterosexual romance novels are

040never questioned i do not wish for my community to present you to be clear these books will not solve the mental health crisis 50 of queer youth experience depressive symptoms and that is difficult to change but these books can be valuable sources of support for my community please let our libraries be affirming spaces thank you for your time thank you agenda item 3.02 superintendent matters i call on dr bray brand thank you uh chairman seismar heiser sorry about that thank you know you're in the chair roll tonight and and welcome um i do want to say a few things to the community tonight first of all i hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving members of the board and community um i do want to remind our community and our families that we do have a

041process here in fcps for staff parents uh and community members to request reconsideration of a book in a library collection or a part of classroom instruction it's outlined in our regulation three zero nine around challenge library and instructional materials and folks that want to look at that regulation certainly can and they can submit a request via an online form using the established process that is around that regulation but i also do want to say tonight to our community and to folks that have been here i want to reaffirm as we have that fairfax county public schools 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 the library and in literary characters i also want to remind folks that

042parents are always welcome to be partners with us uh and all that we do we are here to forge partnership with parents and understand their perspectives and have empathy for their voices parents are always welcome to peruse our fcps library resources they're online and available there's a link to our library resources in fact on our fcps website school libraries are very active instructional spaces and they're used by our students throughout the day and pre-arranged visits to school libraries are possible before or after the instructional day and visitors simply go to the front office and can sign in using our visitor management system and it was important for me to share that with you all tonight i also wanted to share with you tonight some updates i did share with the board and community at the

043november 11th board meeting our intention to reduce the length of quarantine so that we can get our students back in classrooms accessing full-time instruction many of you know we already reduced the length of quarantine from 14 days to 10 days and effective next week on monday december 6th we are reducing the minimum quarantine for students who are exposed to coven 19 to 7 days this applies to in-person instruction and fcps activities to be eligible for the seven day quarantine lengths and don't worry we'll be sending information out about this i'm simply sharing it with you tonight to be eligible students will need to meet the following criteria the student will need to be symptom-free and provide both a negative cova test taken on day five or later of the quarantine period as well as a

044copy of the fcps pause letter that we give out to students and their families indicating the return to school date i'm also proud to let you know that fcps will now be offering drive through diagnostic testing for students at six sites across the county geographically dispersed in all of our regions in addition to the many other ways families can access coven 19 testing students who are not eligible for the 7-day quarantine or those who wish to access other quarantine options may satisfy their quarantine requirement through either 10 days of quarantine if the child remains symptom free and you provide a copy of the fcps pause letter or the 14 days of quarantine and you provide a clearance email from the health department i want to thank all of our families who have also a registered

045they're not yet fully vaccinated kids for screening testing we've been working closely with our vendors to match the total number of testing teams to the demand of students and this is another mitigation strategy supported by the center for disease control to keep covid extremely low in our schools and we are very proud on fcps of our very very low cova transmission rate we're also based on some updated partnership work we have done with the commonwealth of virginia and the virginia department of health we're going to be able to offer this surveillance testing at no cost to the division or families in light of all the quarantine changes for students we're also currently reviewing quarantine period requirements for our staff as well i also want to share with the community i know many of us we

046watch the news every day every week i want to provide some reassurances to our families this week about school safety as schools and school safety continue to be in the news with so many things that we see and they bring us concern i want you to know that all of our school leaders here participate in regular table top safety exercises with our school leadership teams and our county security team to ensure the schools are implementing best practices for safety and security standards we've also invested in our security infrastructure in our schools including lock upgrades and cameras and actually we'll be talking tonight about additional camera infrastructure in our schools finally we've invested in resources with our mental health and wellness work and fostering a culture that encourages our students to share concerns about themselves or

047about any of their peers with a trusted adult who can intervene and help students and families connect with resources to support them and finally my final comments for the evening i am so thrilled to share as i already have just a short while ago this week and welcome dr nardis king is our interim chief equity officer uh dr king is currently the assistant superintendent for region three and we'll assume the duties december 6. i don't think nardis was able to join us this evening but we'll certainly have here her here soon uh to introduce all of you uh to her she has served no stranger to fcps is the assistant superintendent for region three since july 2019 prior to that she was an executive principal for region one prior to that executive director for secondary

048schools and assistant superintendent for high schools in baltimore county public schools and she was the principal of mount vernon high some time ago working with a region assistant superintendent that i know very well because it was myself dr king will serve in the interim role while the school board conducts a search for the next superintendent the timing will allow the next superintendent the opportunity to hire someone into this key leadership position and as the superintendent search begins i continue to pledge to this community and this board that we will work hard on our leadership team and i will personally to ensure a smooth and seamless transition finally dr grace taylor who's currently the executive principal in region 3 will serve as the interim assistant superintendent for region 3 and dr king's absence and veteran principal

049and former fcps principal of the year dale rumberger will serve as interim executive principal in region 3. congratulations to dr king dr taylor and mr rumberger and thank you very much this evening thank you dr braverand agenda item 3.03 student representation representative matters and i call on mr chodry thank you just run forever through good times and especially through the bad those three words have been a defining piece of my life we as humans have this instinct of fight or flight but what happens when fighting doesn't feel like an option anymore especially as a member of this senior class with us having spent the parts of high school where you have to do the most growing up entirely online i myself have struggled with the feeling that when things get tough your problems can disappear

050if you avoid them or put them off for long enough but that's the thing right life isn't this straightforward breeze of a journey but when things get tough we do rely on others for help and it truly does take a village but especially when things settle back what about that journey can give us purpose and how do we as humanity work to overcome those three words just run forever for me it's looking at the fact that we live in a school system where the three biggest determiners of your success are your family's income whether you have an identified disability and whether english is your first language had i not had a family or community to fall back on when i struggled i would have never made it to this dice and i know that is

051something that i say a lot but it's because tens of thousands of students don't have a fallback and oftentimes in a county that's 30 for introduced meals that is heavily uh esau and um especially as we've seen um due to recent events abroad has been a hub for many refugee families often feel um fleeing violence um and devastation across um international borders education really can be a make it or break it break it ticket out of poverty and for me to be silent about that or complacent about what work there still is to be done would be for me to be complicit and there are endless areas where our school system has done amazing things but striving for further progress is the number one way any person can work to serve i think this community

052in particular and above all else i'm here first and foremost for the students of fcps and there's one other thing that in all honesty i think has felt scary for a lot of people to address but it is necessary to talk about what i've seen in my short time getting to sit at this dios is this framing that fcps is the root of all evil in the world and having witnessed that very up close and personal um it seems pretty clear that that's not going away anytime soon and so if this is going to be the new normal and even if things wane they won't truly ever die off if no matter what the school system does it's going to be treated as monstrous and malevolent then i think this time should be used to

053do everything possible that's in the best interest of this school system students the school board has absolutely gotten some incredible things done throughout my time in high school but one thing that i've really found is that kids aren't seeing how policy changes affect their day-to-day lives and when it comes to documentation of academic mental health and personal struggles kids feel like there's nowhere to turn and when they do turn somewhere be it to their school principles their counselors administration or even higher up kids do often try to speak up but still don't feel heard there is no better group that i can point to for overcoming that mindset of just run forever and really working to tackle things than the students who have been working to advocate for an academy at john lewis high school

054they have overcome some immense odds and quite a bit of doubt from a lot of sides but when you come from a community that is overlooked and handed the shortest straw year after year it's easy to waver or fold to pressure that comes from everything around you i can't think of something more courageous than what those students have been working towards standing up for something far bigger than any one person to make a difference in a community where words like underperforming and high poverty are tossed around at every turn but do not come anywhere close to defining that community's vibrance its diversity its resilience and its creative bold and intelligent student body here are three things that the lewis academy students have taught me one don't be afraid to show up seems simple enough right

055um the biggest piece um that you can partake in when advocating is really to be present at least physically even if you can't always um give everything 100 of your mental reserve right i think a lot of us have a lot on our plate at all times um not just behind this dice but throughout this county um it's a stressful world um two don't be afraid to speak up um and this is coming from me as someone who has absolutely um been guilty of this and i think we all have been at one point or another when we see something that we see as an injustice or even we want to ask a question or really kind of ponder at the meaning of something or why something is the way it is but at the

056end of the day we kind of succumb to that self-doubt rather than really pushing and i encourage everyone i implore everyone to listen to that little voice in your head that's telling you to keep going and to push um and then third outcomes matter a lot more than appearances right i think no matter what there is always going to be a lot of nonsense that falls in people's ways and a lot of hurdles to overcome but at the end of the day if the choice is between looking good and doing something good i think everyone um should choose doing something good every single day now granted i'm still learning um and all of us are still learning on this journey that is life but being able to grow towards something better and really expand your

057horizons is something that i'm working towards and my mission is that when the house is on fire it is important to run back into that burning building and try and help put it out rather than just sprint away um the last thing i want to say very quickly is i know i always run over time on these but there have been some incredible things that have been happening behind the scenes with student voice um and a lot of other ongoings involving students both in fcps and nationally and i really do hope i can get to it next meeting because there's been some awesome work i've gotten to do both with students across fcps and with other school board student board members from all across the country um so thank you so much thank you mr

058chodri agenda item 3.04 fiscal year 22 mid-year budget review i call on dr brabrand for the introduction thank you i want to introduce to you our assistant superintendent for financial services lee burton and we're going to go over our mid-year budget this is not the budget for next year that presentation comes in january after winter break but this is the mid-year budget uh where we look at making some small adjustments using one-time funds that will continue to move this organization forward and we have a couple of things to just share with you tonight and miss burton i know we'll be uh presenting here from her seat uh behind the dice so miss burden thank you dr bravery good evening vice chair seismor heiser school board members and dr very brand um as dr brayron said

059the mid-year review offers an opportunity to revise the fiscal 22 budget based on current year trends and any new information that has become known since the year in budget review was approved in late august the agenda item has a slightly different format including a summary of changes at the beginning and is organized with descriptions of the recommended changes followed by updated fund statements and the data is as of the end of october on page one for the school operating fund revenue there are a couple of changes the beginning balance change is due to a sales tax increase of 3.3 million plus an expenditure decrease of 0.1 million for a net change of 3.4 and both of those changes are due to a fiscal 21 adjustment that occurred after year end was completed the other primary

060changes are for grants that reside in the operating fund idea grant awards increased a net of about 88 000 carl perkins increased by 153 000 and the cares in s or 3 by a net of 66 000. the overall net increase to grants is about 0.3 million for a total revenue change of 3.7 million and all revenue adjustments include a corresponding expenditure adjustment so displayed on page 2 are the recommendations for expenditure changes which align with the revenue changes revenue is going up 3.7 million and recommended expenditures are 3.7 million leaving no additional funds available the grant expenditure changes align with the revenue changes of 0.3 million and recommended expenditures include completion of safety and security's middle school camera project at 1.7 million this funding will complete that project for the remaining 10 middle schools

061burke carson franklin jackson key kilmer liberty longfellow stone and throw and also includes two security system network specialists to support middle school monitoring systems within the office of safety and security again these two ftes although they are technology positions they reside in safety and security providing support to schools for installation and maintaining and monitoring software of the school security technology systems video monitoring electronic door access fire and intrusion alarm systems visitor management systems access control systems and other items and this will complete that project the next item is graduation ceremony support of 0.4 million it's one-time funding to support graduation ceremony costs for school year 22. the funding supports the cost of venue rental transportation live streaming the events and other logistical costs for 27 schools including of course mountain view and bryant the fundraising

062activities typically help defray the cost of graduation ceremonies but because there's not been a lot of fundraising over the past couple of years this one-time funding will mitigate the impact of that loss in fundraising the fourth item is the enhanced scope of work in the special education audit that was approved at the last school board meeting of uh sixty nine thousand four hundred and forty seven dollars and physician authority is also included that requires no funding two health positions were allocated from sr2 and 52.5 positions from s or 3. we don't need additional funds or a change in the budget for the funding but we do need authority to establish the positions and a listing of the positions is provided on page 3. so the total expenditure adjustments are 2.5 million um leaving a remaining

063balance of 1.2 million that is being recommended to be allocated to the beginning balance for fiscal 23. um on page 3 also is a beginning balance summary we ended up with 20.6 million from the fiscal 21 budget to fund the beginning balance of the fiscal 23 budget which is about 9.3 million less than the current year's beginning balance of 29.9 million the addition of 1.2 million will increase the beginning balance for fiscal 23 to 21.9 million on page four um shows changes to other funds starting with school construction the change in expenditure adjustments for projects after the year end result in an increase to the beginning balance of about two million and then authorized bonds increased 235.8 million for additional projects from the 21 bond referendum also on page five is food and nutrition services

064changes due to adjustments reported after year-end result in an increase to their reserve of approximately eighteen thousand dollars the next fund is um the the adult and community ed or ace fund is also on page five the total amount of the fund is 8.5 million there is a slight increase to the beginning balance due to adjustments after year in there's also a net increase of 70 000 due to a grant that was awarded in in august and of course that affects both revenue and expenditures grants and self-supporting programs are also on page five a slight change to the fiscal 22 beginning balance again due to adjustments after year in and then there is a 5.3 million increase due to new awards or adjustments to the current year awards a slight increase in the summer school

065sub fund and all of the other increases in decreases in the fund are in the grants and details about those awards are also on page four on page six is the school insurance fund which represents spending for workers compensation and risk management in this fund there is a hundred and eight thousand dollar change in beginning balance due to year-end adjustments that weren't known at the final budget review and there is a corresponding decrease to the fund's allocated reserve that's followed by a health and flexible benefits fund a decrease of 53 000 to the fiscal 22 beginning balance due to adjustments reported after year in and we've also updated our estimates for revenue and are projecting a net increase of 2.6 million due to increases in pharmaceutical rebates and subsidies and offset by a reduction due

066to year-end and these changes result in an increase to claim expenditures of 2.5 million also on page six is the erfc fund the beginning balance reflects a decrease of 20.8 mil 20.8 million to the fiscal 22 beginning balance due to adjustments reported after year end investment income is down by 30.5 million but offset by lesser fees of for a net of 20.8 million these changes are always large at this mid-year it's due to timing since the final portfolio values are not available until after year in other revenue adjustments based on more current information for fiscal 22 include 25.5 million due to higher projected investment income offset by lower security lending income new projections for expenditures include a decrease of 4 million offset by the addition of three positions to support erfc these adjustments result in

067a net crease increase of 8.7 million the on page seven is the opeb trust fund the beginning balance for the school other post-employment benefits trust fund reflects an increase of 2.6 million due to year-end adjustments to fiscal 21 revenue that was reported after the year in review that results in an increase to the projected ending balance of the fund for 2.6 million fund statements appear on page 8 through page 16 and reflect the changes that i've just shared with you from the narrative section of mid-year page 17 and 18 show the supplemental appropriation resolution that transmits to the county the changes to the fcps fiscal 22 budget for mid-year and the fiscal planning resolution represents the transfers from the operating fund to other funds page 19 of the document the last page provides summary information

068about the current years or fiscal 22 grants and a final update for fiscal 21 and action um is slated for the regular school board meeting on december 16th for fiscal 22 mid-year thank you miss burden dr brayban would you like to speak before i turn into just a brief comment to say i hope you see we we aim for continuous improvement and we've made some format changes as miss vernon may have uh mentioned and and some changes to narrative and we hope that that finds uh satisfaction with the board some feedback you've given us before and so we'll continue to look at how we can make sure our financial reporting is as clear and concise and transparent as possible and i i thank uh a budget chair uh miss corbett sanders for her feedback and

069i know uh miss toll and as well as vice chair we're committed to continuing to work to show the information as clearly and concisely as possible thanks thank you dr berbrand um i'm gonna turn to my colleagues for any comments starting with ms mclaughlin thank you uh so we will be having a work session on this yes do we know when it's scheduled i don't know if we have a work session scheduled for the mid-year yeah we don't have a work session we're just having a presentation today on the mid-year budget we will have further work sessions on the budget okay well uh the reason i'm asking is because then it's either now or at the board table when you ask us to don't i mean this is an update are you telling us that

070we don't have to approve what you're doing you do this would be this would be for new businesses right that's that's how i'm reading it so i guess i would just say to my colleagues i know that we have a very dense um work calendar but there's a lot of information in here and either we need to plan for an a long night when this goes to action vote because i can tell you right now just what got presented tonight i i definitely have questions and i'm not going to just put my hand up so i will send an email to dr brabrand and the budget chair and vice chair but i will just quickly express where i think we're going to need some more information for example i know that the esser funds are

071not out of our budget and so it's showing zero dollars but for transparency for the board and the public we definitely need to know those 54.5 positions what's it costing to the esser dollars that we're drawing down so i would like that provided and i think it still could have been provided in the narrative even if it's not in the tag line um and then i think that would be helpful if we can i didn't see it um disaggregated between the security cameras and then the personnel for the two positions to know what that is the like which one's the camera price and which one's going to be the positions um we can do that great i i do have concerns about what was quickly described about the erfc um we know that the stock

072market has gone crazy and yet i thought i heard ms burden say something about 30 million dollar loss due to investments so i think we're going to need more information on that because we do have a stewardship responsibility to it um and then finally about our graduation ceremonies i very much understand that our high schools have not been able to do the fundraising that we do in the past but i also know that we in the covid graduation this past year had so many of the graduations in the stadiums and so what i would like to have from staff is that cost differential of when we do them in the stadiums versus when we hold them at the george mason facility because the george mason facility if i recall is at least 20 000 per

073graduation and so you know i just think that it's important to understand how we're proceeding with that because many generations prior they did graduate in their stadiums and they had a rain date the next day and and i just i have family members where that worked out perfectly and i know it um hearing from families in my district people actually saw it was really nice graduating in the stadium so just things for consideration um that are being raised here so those are my questions for now and then i'll i'll go ahead and send more detailed questions as i mentioned um and then i did notice one other thing um it's on page five under grant sub fund it was also showing sr2 line item at the top four million dollars for 17.4 positions so i

074think we need to know what that is to um thank you my colleagues for the indulgence thank you miss mclaughlin dr anderson would is somebody someone want to answer mr question i'll simply say this the specific financial things we'll definitely follow up on we can get that to the board again based on how you all ultimately do it but certainly before the board before it has a vote and on the graduation piece we can look and see what the prior costs were some schools have decided this year to keep the field opportunity some schools are doing that some have taken advantage of the opportunity to go back to eagle bank arena and to dark constitutional hall part of this still is just that the kids haven't had the fundraising activities over the last two years

075that would defray much of the graduation cost and we don't want to have those senior dues just skyrocket as a result we want to try to keep them 50 to 75 or less for our schools so we're not talking about doing this forever but we do want to recognize this just sort of transition for some some of our seniors it's just not wanting to put additional financial burden on those kids or families or schools to summing in the next six to seven months fundraise over what would have been a two a two year period that they would have done so but we can get you some more information on that yeah i i want to make clear that was my full support on why we need to do that and having had three kids graduate

076through the system that um i don't want that to be a burden on our students and families in light of covid i just think there's some other conversations that will be helpful to hear yeah we'll definitely get a follow-up on those other questions those financial pieces thank you dr anderson sorry to piggyback on ms mclaughlin's question but before i jump into mine is there an answer to the piece regarding the camera and the positions yes the actual cost of the cameras is about 1.5 million the logistical piece software and other things is about 100 000 and the cost for the positions for the remainder of the year is 120 000 for a total of 1.7 thank you one of my primary questions was also regarding the funding support for graduation we do know that our

077schools are in different places in terms of their fundraising efforts even in the best of years as you and i have discussed miss burden and also dr brabrand even parking at our school the differential between the schools is great we have schools that literally raise hundreds and we have schools that raise tens of thousands and all of that go to support the um the activities of students how will this be allocated given that our schools do have different levels of resources yes thank you uh dr anderson i have dr ivey here and i want to say we have applied an equity lens looking at the frm of the school and it is differentiated support to schools and uh i don't know dr ivey if you want to just share a little bit more but i

078know you were working with the regional assistant superintendents and the schools around making sure that this is not just a one-size-fits-all distribution to schools that it is tailored dr ivey i just just to add we definitely looked at the frm rates for every school in determining what the amounts would be and feel that we have definitely applied an equity lens to the allocations of funds thank you very much will that be shared with the board in terms of the allocation distribution we certainly can include that in the material that's something you want to see we have the whole spreadsheet of graduation costs and the support so i would be interested in seeing that because as you know my schools are not well positioned and so i want to be sure that we are ensuring that

079they have the resources with the the biggest needs got the most money okay thank you um i i imagine we have time to have this conversation since this is the only item of substance during our time tonight so wonderful um my next set of questions are on you're laughing page three um the positions um 54.5 positions um i'm assuming all of these are temporary because they are with esser funds not dollars that we will have beyond the next couple of years that's correct that's correct okay um i appreciate that but in looking at this list there are some things here that seem to be of of concern that i wonder if there if there is consideration for more permanence the esau teachers we do know that this is a significant need well that's this is

080um there's no line but there's 10 of them while that's being funded with these temporary dollars do we have plans in the future to build that in because we do know that our students require that level of service yes let me say we've had a three-year plan to do an additional 50 positions i see miss corbett sanders over there nodding as well and i know mr smith and miss burton we had a three-year plan to do 50. we did an additional 50 but when we got this esser money and this was some discussion i think miss omesh even at the end of the year on the budget we wanted to accelerate some additional esau funding and we were able to do it through esther so we added an additional 10 positions so we're going to

081continue on that three-year plan we're going to add esau positions each year but this was just a chance with that additional money to go ahead and do really this year 60 additional positions instead of the 50. i see do you anticipate any other of these positions on this list that you will want to consider them to be more permanent outside of the one that i've just asked about if i'm being honest it's always the crystal ball you know it's hard to say i would make maybe two points the executive principal which is really our project manager for esser funds i think uh you know we talked about project management i could still see a role for some of that project management um beyond uh beyond the next year because esther money could actually go through

082september of 2024 so i don't want to write that off and the the other thing if i'm just being honest and transparent and the board had some discussion about this but the assistant director of student activities we talked about being a separate position for athletics and then there was principal feedback to some board members uh and to me like scott we've got that .5 already we'd really like to make that a whole position for the next two years to really we knew there would be a huge demand on activities and by the way our homecoming dances are record attendance our basketball football games we're seeing huge surges and so they wanted that support i do think it's possible in two years our high school principals may want to lobby to keep that .5 permanently but

083we had kind of a discussion about that as if if the board remembers that we were going to do it separate and some said can't we just take the 0.5 and make it whole and so that is what we did that was a late breaking adjustment last year as we were entering the final operating budget discussions thank you for that i mean i could make a similar um argument for many of these positions that are listed here that they need to be made permanent the translators the support with language services we know that these are very significant needs but when we're talking about limited resources this is not possible to sustain and so i'm very curious to to hear what your hard decisions will be in terms of what do we pursue and what do

084we really remain as permanent because that's the plan of the essa dollars and dr brayron if i could provide a reminder like the assistant student athletic assistant director of student activities at 12.5 that's funded in fiscal 22 fiscal 23 and fiscal 24 out of esser a number of the positions that are funded out of esser are funded for multiple years and there there will be a decision about whether that is to continue but it's a couple of years in the future before that decision will have to be made thank you for that ms burden i would then like to have that breakdown if any of these other positions are funded for multiple years if we could indicate that on this chart that would be helpful to determine what we'll be taking care of from the

085escrow funds and what we'll need to what we'll need to have some discussions about when it comes to the base budget i think i will pause for right now and thank you for your time all right thank you dr anderson and i just wanted to next up is miss corbett sanders is our budget chair as well so i apologize for not having you start first miss corbett sanders oh it's not a problem i just wanted to kind of set the stage for our conversation tonight because as you can see through the presentation it's more detailed than we've some we've seen in the past and one of the areas of particular concern is how those esser funds are going to be used and recognized we had this conversation earlier this week when we talked about this

086is that noting that those are three-year funding positions and it actually creates a wonderful opportunity for the school system to invest in those syst in those positions and see how effective they are but also recognize that three years out we don't know what the state of play will be and so um i that three-year plan is very helpful dr brabrand you and i had a conversation earlier in the week about the esser plans and how they will be posted on each of the individual school websites and so i wanted to make sure that people knew that and that each one of the board members would have the opportunity to be working with their regional assistant superintendent to get a full debrief on the esser funds for each of their schools secondly i wanted to assure

087people that we would be having a more in-depth discussion of the esser funds at our our meetings in january and that there would be um a an opportunity for the public to comment and uh that the staff dr brabrand has been working very closely with the virginia department of education to get clarity on how we will report out on the status of the esser plans but and how modifications will be made and ensuring that we get the much needed public input into that process and so i assure you that they're here built into the mid-year budget review but part of the reason that we've asked for that is we understand that when we go through funding that we have multiple buckets of funding we have the operational funds we have the grant funds and in

088this case we also have the esser funds and so you'll be seeing a lot more from us on that and going forward i do ask that if you have questions clarifying questions about the mid-year if you could please send your questions in writing and courtesy copy the budget chair and vice chair then we'll make sure that we work to get all of the questions answered in advance of us having to take action on this thank you great thank you miss corbett sanders uh mr meisha and miss tolin thank you and thank you miss burden for always providing a thorough uh uh layout of what we're looking at here um i was i'm happy to follow some of what dr anderson said um just because i do appreciate the clarification on the essar funds and the

089positions i know we publicly announced earlier that we need some you know amount from the county to make up for those positions so that's an important piece i really just have one thing to offer for tonight that hopefully in our future budget conversation which i understand won't necessarily be this at a work session but we'll be looking at obviously the next stage in the budget process to just go back to that piece we talked about one of our earlier work sessions around accountability for the esther funds and you know we had discussed trying to develop some kind of plan with audit or see where we can go with that um so i just wanted to flag that and look forward to hearing from you guys about it in the next presentation thank you comments to

090mr mesh from miss corbett sanders dr burban before i move on okay thank you you know i don't think i have any additional comments uh uh not at this time and i know ms tolin the vice chair is coming up uh shortly to make any comments that she would have but we certainly appreciate working with both of them uh and taking their feedback and all of your feedback that you've given through them to help us through not just this now the mid-year budget review but everything that we'll be doing with the budget when we get to january we'll have a lot we'll have the esser plans as ms corbett sanders said the reports and discussions of the spending there so we really are as we come out of the winter break we're going to have

091a very very full plate of activity to do but also exciting to look at all of the proposed plans and how we are responding to the student needs and the data that we have looked at both from an academic and social emotional perspective thank you miss tollen um i don't have a lot to add i was going to make as much of the same um set of comments that karen corbett sanders already made um just to assure people that we're really looking very closely at the sr funds we were fortunate to have it um in our budget discussion earlier this week um if angeline patrick was with us um the you know assistant superintendent who is overseeing this as her funding and um you know she assured us she's looking very very closely she's already

092read toys she said every essay report that has come in from schools so that we can also look across the division at you know what kinds of ideas schools have to use their money in the best way possible for students and then to you know share those ideas and then monitor as we move forward what's working and what isn't working and make adjustments as we see fit and also dr anderson i really appreciated your comments around the positions and we had a full discussion about those positions and how you know the board really needs to spend you know it's a three year set of expenditures so we've got and we've talked about this at our last you know budget um session that we need to have that ongoing research and you know look at those

093positions what what's working what's not working and um you know make decisions accordingly in our regular budget cycle so anyway um i just wanted to assure people with that i had one quick question on the information i just wanted to get a little bit more information and it's just a matter of semantics i think the summer school sub fund what is that it just means that both grants and self-supporting programs like summer school are in the same fund but there's two sub funds as part of that fund which just means two different things that are similar okay but the the combination is what funds our summer school programs yes the summer school sub fund is just within the grants and self-supporting that funds the summer school program okay and esl okay so this is i'm

094sorry this is the um the self-supporting portion the 21.7 million yes okay thank you it's the entire summer school it's the whole summer school program i'm i see that last sentence again it's the whole summer school program esy all of the summer school dollars are in that sub fund except for funds that we allocated from out of sr2 into uh summer school this past year got it okay thank you very much for the clarification thank you all right thank you any of us want to speak i don't see any other hands up i will turn to mr pronoun mr children to speak um all right thank you so much um first off i want to thank um miss burden and the entire financial services team for all of their diligent work in um not just

095making sure that everything's laid out but that it's really clear and accessible that has been a huge help i did just have a quick question on page three about the sel coordinator and sel specialist positions so i was wondering is there a little bit more information on what that position looks like and how those coordinators are kind of going to be serving student mental health needs because right i think it's really important that students are able to relate to the social emotional learning that occurs and that there's a major emphasis on suicide prevention and really getting kids connected with resources for support and a lot of what i have been hearing on the ground especially in this past school year which granted there has been a lot else going on that um the department has

096had to focus on um but a lot of kids haven't really felt like their sel lessons are relatable or that it's something that can really kind of help them get help and i think that's something that is really important to address um and hopefully address through these positions well let me just say this i mean oh go ahead dr presidio please i was just gonna offer to maybe uh take that question at least first for uh ms burden and and i appreciate the question and and you've kind of raised some of these concerns and issues before about the need for you know high quality and relatable and engaging social emotional learning and one of the challenges that i think that we've had with that is that we haven't had anybody on staff that has that

097expertise particularly right so we have recognized the need that this is an area where we need to increase our own internal capacity and efficacy and the coordinator and the two specialists would be responsible for developing that curriculum supporting the schools in the implementation of the curriculum and then of course monitoring the success of that program so those folks would be central office employees working closely with the schools and hopefully closely with the students to really develop a robust and responsive program and we'd be happy to work with you and other student council members uh and provide you with some more information and partner with you on that thank you so much that is a huge help and i just want to say i'm crossing my fingers my toes everything that either i towards the end

098of this year or hopefully my successor can really kind of get to weigh in on those conversations and we can try to make sure that there is student voice in the process that maybe even there's a smaller group of students that looks at the lessons before they are kind of fleshed out to the entire county that'd be great i'd be happy to work with you on that thank you um mrs mclaughlin did you still want to go back yes okay i will take my turn after you're done sorry please go ahead and smoke often okay um dr brabant i noticed in that list of um 54 positions um that one of them is to add another position to the office of research so i was wondering if you could share with us how that positions

099intends to be utilized uh mr smith so as uh and and thank you for the question as part of the overall reporting that the board asked for around our esser spending one of that was data analysis and analysis of our overall spend and so we have added that one position to the office of research and strategic improvement to work hand-in-hand with the overall project management team to provide that analysis that the board asked for as part of the report out okay i guess i'm trying i know that i also saw that there was some finance there was a finance position which i presume would also be to help ms burton's team um given ms burden's team is burdened we tried to do finance data and the project manager to help provide the support you know

100the board made it very clear this is a lot of money want to spend it well want to provide oversight for it so we wanted to do our our best at trying to address those issues uh with this one-time money so we're not saying these are permanent positions and i know that's something dr anderson also had said you know it is for a couple of years it is possible a few of these will be permanent but we really you know we do have a couple of years to see and i don't expect to get additional federal dollars at this level so again the actual support structure for the esser reporting but for the project manager position i do think that that's something that we are wanting to really develop and go beyond us or we

101actually have a project manager position that we've been advertising for you know in addition to go cross-departmental that you all talked about and still working through uh getting the right person and the right match for that so thank you i appreciate that i think my other concern and i'm not sure that mr mcdonald can speak to this directly um overseeing hr but certainly my concern as well is trying to find top quality candidates but also saying to them if you're already have a stable job uh you know why consider coming to take one of these jobs and so how hard is it going to be to find you know strong candidates to fill these positions well i'll i'll share and then maybe if sean wants to say something you know we've had that for we've

102had we've had title funded or title one funded grant positions for a long time and it hasn't impacted our ability to attract quality applicants now let's be honest we're in the middle of the pandemic the the job market is is different right now um and we'll certainly come back to the board if we feel we need to to relook at it but we're hopeful that we can find those right matches uh and that we're a large enough organization even if that particular position goes away that skill or expertise for example for project management we need that within our departments we need we need that in a lot of places so i i'm not as concerned if the specific position wouldn't be funded that we want to be able to find the ability with department resources

103to support that or or bringing department resources together across to create a system-wide position i don't know sean did i say that or do you want anything you'd add not much to add i mean i i guess what i would say too is you know we're always looking for for talent across the organization and many of these positions there are multiple roles across the division that folks can slide into you know part of the conversation when folks are hired into grant funded roles we do make it clear that is grant funded but we always strive if the grant funding does end to try and find a match for that person for another role within the organization i appreciate that um mr mcdonald and and i can see how that would happen when you're the third

104largest employer in virginia there's a lot of employment opportunity within the division um but you know i i would also add that grant funded positions like title one i mean that's something consistently that federal government funds they're not looking to take that away um so i do see this is slightly different esser is very finite um but i do appreciate how you've described this i i will say i think the public is going to definitely be listening very closely and wanting to understand um and maybe that's a piece of the data we bring that in these areas alone we constantly have vacancies and so with attrition these people come in and then we absorb them in the system but i think the big thing is having the dollars of what does this 54.5 translate to

105because i i i don't want i mean one of these things was 17 positions with me 4 million dollars so you start translating 17 is 4 million what's 54 and it's a big price tag that we need to to just know one thing that i think is important miss mclaughlin you've said something that's just cued me in some discussions i know our senior team has had dr presidio has reminded me this is a historic investment by the federal government in education but let's remember this is a drop in the bucket for the local efforts that this county and community make for education so on top of a three billion dollar budget this 186 million is still maybe one to two percent of our total budget it's not unimportant and it is significant amount of money

106but it is not this overall massive infusion that i think it's a massive infusion from the federal government but still represents for a federal government that only gives us five or six percent support overall a one percent differential so i think that's just an important context to remember well bear in mind the 186 is the sr3 there was i'm sorry right there was the tranches in the first and second round true true all right thank you miss mclaughlin i'll just briefly take my turn and just say i appreciate the hard work of our staff over of miss burden and her team and of our budget chair and vice chair and really bringing us a very succinct and understandable but really um digestible with enough information to really clearly understand where we're spending our money and

107why we're spending our money um you know i know there's lots of questions and i hope my colleagues since we historically have not had a work session on the mid-year budget i hope my colleagues will take advantage of working with our budget chair and vice chair to raise questions if they have them and any concerns or comments to get all the questions and concerns answered before we take action on this at our next works at our next regular business meeting so i thank the hard work of our team for coming up with this we will have a budget work session um in january as well on the fiscal year 23 budget so look forward to that um with that um i'm sorry dr anderson did you ever go back yes all right go ahead sorry

108i turn on my light but i know i toggled it back and forth a little um just one last final thing um going back to the positions can you give us a sense it doesn't have to be right now but whenever we come back to this conversation of how many of these positions already filled since this part was already approved by the board several months ago sure we can get you an update on that i don't have it off the top of my head but we can go back work with sean and lee and do that for you all thank you miss corbett sanders i want to remind my colleagues on the board that these positions were initially discussed and included in the sr3 plan that we approved in august i believe was when we

109approved it and this is really just ensuring that our mid-year catches up with it the second piece of it though is that it is going to be really important for and i encourage my colleagues to go back and look at that plan before if i can just finish before we have the specific conversations on the the real plans of each of the individual schools and so this is kind of a capstone that then allows you to dig deeper at the individual school level and i know that dr brabrand has made a strong commitment to ensuring that each and every one of the board members will have that opportunity to dig into those individual plans and so i'm just encouraging people to take a look at them in advance of having your conversation with your regional

110assistant superintendents thank you ms corbett sanders if i may ask my colleagues to please switch the lights off so that way i know and that would be helpful thank you dr bray brand you have any comments in response or i thought i'll move on all right awesome uh agenda item 4.01 confirmation of action taken and closed meeting this is the 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 actions i call on dr anderson for a motion i move to excuse from attendance at school certain students identified and closed meeting pursuant to virginia code section

11122.1-254 b-1 is there a second ms corbett sanders all those in favor dr anderson miss marin miss tollen miss mclaughlin mr kofax myself miss omaesh miss corbett sanders and miss keys camaro all those opposed abstentions mr frisch miss cohen that motion passes i call on miss keys gamara for a motion i moved to deny the school reassignment appeal of a student who threatened and assaulted another student and to confirm the disciplined decision of the division superintendent is there a second second for colfax all those in favor miss marin miss tollen miss mclaughlin miss dearnett colfax myself miss cohen mr frisch miss corbett sanders and miss keys gemara all those opposed all those abstaining miss amesh that motion passes oh dr anders i apologize dr anderson that motion passes consent agenda our adopted rules of parliamentary

112procedure robert's rules provide for a consent agenda listing several items for approval of 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 miss madeja maybe we had the consent agenda items okay the consent agenda items are on the screen is there any objection to proving the consent agenda seeing and hearing no objection the consent agenda is approved agenda item 6 new business 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

113board committee reports i call on ms cohen for a governance committee update hi thank you the governance committee met this week as ms mclaughlin pointed out we're meeting three times i think in the next 10 days so i'm glad we all like each other we discussed recommended changes to the governance manual for the minority student achievement oversight committee we voted to send the family engagement policy to the full board and that will be coming next full board meeting we voted to send revisions to policy 4310 to the consent agenda which allows for greater flexibility in hiring temporary or short-term employees we also reviewed policy 2180 which is our wellness policy and send it back to staff for further revision thank you i will now call on ms mclaughlin for an update from skipped and then

114followed by ms corbett sanders from the budget so ms mclaughlin thank you i just wanted to update the board that um yesterday skipped had its full committee meeting which ran for two and a half hours and there's about 40 people on that full committee we covered a number of topics one was a request for funding support for mental health enhancements training more therapists in fairfax county so we can reduce the wait list for families requesting therapy and training in best practices so that was approved by the skip and ultimately of course it goes to the board of supervisors with just a recommendation but it is showing a focus and a spotlight on it second part of mental health was about hospitalization um we've got some really heartbreaking data about um even here in fairfax county

115the number of students who are requiring hospitalization for mental health needs and because of the lack of beds at um any given time we had 17 students and their families waiting with an average day of seven days in order to get the bed so they're working on that um additional funding to do multi-disciplinary services um that would be alternatives to having students and their families in the er during that time period we then got a briefing on the early childhood and pre-k services in the county just again a sort of a global presentation of it and as a result of that presentation um my colleague elaine dolan and i are going to be meeting with some staff to really talk about what drill down a little bit more about the numbers where are the needs

116for our four-year-olds our three-year-olds are zero to two um and we'll bring that back to all of you we also had a member of the public speak about the fairfax county youth survey and we've had the public bring up bring that up to us again reiterating that is not something that fcps has control over we we simply conduct it but the county government then is the one who executes it and the data is certainly shared with us well elaine and i would like to again talk with staff about the structure of the questions in particular we had a parent raise the issue of how we ask questions related to gender and really making sure that it's inclusive and it's 21st century so um that's another thing that we wanted to review with them and then

117ms tolen did i forget anything else that we were gonna review no i don't think so i just wanted to make sure the board knew we had these follow-up meetings um already scheduled and we'll report back to you what we find out great thank you so much i call miss corbett sanders for a report from the budget committee yes the budget committee's been a bit busy lately including doing a joint budget meeting with the board of supervisors last week in which we received a fiscal forecast from the board of supervisors in which we know as we heard earlier this evening that there is an expectation of increased revenues associated with sales tax as well as increased revenues associated with the property values here in fairfax county going up year over year an average of 9.8

118percent based on that we don't expect that all of those funds will actually be collected when it comes to property taxes in light of the need to ensure that we have affordable that fairfax county continues to be an affordable place for our families staff and employees to live and work in and so we will be continuing to have those discussions we look forward to the superintendent coming forward in early january with his proposal for our budget which is going to by law be a needs-based budget proposal additionally as i mentioned a few minutes ago we will have continued discussions and the opportunity for each board member to talk about the esser plans thank you thank you very much miss corbett sanders agenda item 8.01 board matters and i call on ms darren at cofax to

119start all righty um i guess i'll start by thanking the members of our challenged book committee for your recent review and decision to reinstate the books in question this committee was comprised of teachers parents administrators and students and i too have taken the time to read both these books that were in question genderqueer and lawn boy and these books were not obscene and there is absolutely no pedophilia in either of these books both stories are coming of age stories one autobiographical and one fiction as an educational system it is our duty to provide materials for children to better understand their own identities as well as that of their classmates it is factual that lgbtqia plus students are known to be at a higher risk of bullying social isolation and suicide having access to books that

120are reflective of their own lives helps to mitigate these very real risks if you are a parent whose child is not navigating through this please know that one of your child's friends may be dealing with this it is the right and empathetic thing to do to provide resources for our adolescent students who may be struggling to find literal literary representation that mirrors their own personal journey i ask for the false narratives about these books to please stop please take the time to read the whole book don't pull things out of context please look beyond your own personal lens i was taught by example from my own parents that we have a responsibility not just when the confines of our own home but within a broader community to help children learn and grow and as parents

121we need to model empathy tolerance and respect for all children these books are but one avenue to help our students on their journeys and i support the decision of the committee of having these books back in our library thank you mr knight kovacs miss cohen thank you pranav said tonight don't be afraid to speak up and i'm going to take his advice if you believe that certain books are not appropriate for your child then that's probably a conversation that you should have with your child i wouldn't dream of trying to parent your child i can only share how i parent mine and in our house we believe that our schools have a responsibility in making sure that all our kids all of them know that they are okay that they are normal that they are

122as psalm 139 says wonderfully made i hope my colleagues will indulge me as i read a couple of passages from the book all boys aren't blue by george m johnson which i read i wanted my story to be told in totality the good the bad and the things i was always too afraid to talk about publicly this meant going to places and discussing some subjects that are often kept away from teens for fear of them being too heavy but the truth of the matter is these things happened to me when i was a child teenager and young adult so as heavy as these subjects may be it is necessary that not only are they told but also read by teens who may have to navigate many of these same experiences in their own lives there

123were no books for me to read in order to understand what i was going through as a kid there were no heroes or icons to look up to and emulate there were no road maps or guidelines for the journey i released the deepest and darkest things about my past in the hopes that someone might see a reflection of themselves in the words and know that they are not alone and that they too can grow and thrive and so that they may not make the many missteps i took along the road i'm proud of our committee and i'm glad for all of our kids to get an opportunity to see themselves in the work that our librarians do and the over three million books that we have in our libraries thank you miss mclaughlin thank you

124um it's tough to follow ms cohen and and thank you for sharing um courageous words one of the things i think is is important is the value of librarians to help children as they look for books that are going to resonate and be meaningful for them and that we have librarians who are knowledgeable about all those books and that can help students understand when they go to read a book that some will be very difficult reads and will have difficult content graphic content and as long as we can help them understand what they might be reading because every child is different among my own three boys what some can tolerate in watching a violent film or a graphic film and some of the others in my own family can't present company so you know that

125that's that's a part of book selection but as you noted it's three million books and so i i i think what's most important is we have age-appropriate books and that was what was determined that the books are age-appropriate in a high school setting so i i have told people you and i were in our town hall together if families have concerns we are always here to listen we're here to dialogue and we do also have a responsibility to lead and so i hope what we lead is with this importance of the dialogue and the listening um you know if parents are fearful i want to be able to talk with them about what their fears are and then let's have that conversation to get to a better place and i just appreciate you sharing the

126what that author the purpose and the reason and if that book is going to resonate for students i'm glad it's there and i can't say it better than you did so i'll move on i don't normally talk a lot about gun safety school shootings gun violence i mean we've got a lot of really great board members who are more knowledgeable than i but i'm sure i join everyone in this room with a heavy heart at what's happened in michigan and as someone with a specialty in social work and mental health what's most deeply troubling to me is not only the trauma that has happened from this this school shooting but how preventable it could be and so my message tonight to our families in particular is that when we talk about gun safety and gun

127violence prevention locking up firearms is the number one way that we could have prevented the loss in michigan the father bought the gun as we understand it in a legal manner so this was no gun safety law in that respect was going to prevent the gun from being in that family's home but had it been secured with a young man who reportedly he and his parents were in school that day because he was having concerning behavior to the point that the school officials brought that those parents into the school with him um there's just no words so i also want to emphasize that it takes a village to raise a child we know that it's cliche but you know what it bears repeating and when we say the old if you see something say something

128to our parents please remind your children if they see one of their classmates exhibiting depression anxiety or just behavior that seems like they are struggling anything that gives you pause or concern find a trusted adult and share that for teachers in that school they did speak up and i'm grateful that they did i just wish it had been a different outcome um it was shared in a media posting that in just the past four months there have been 32 school shootings that's an average of eight a month that's an average of two a week i just wanted to leave that with everybody because i i can't see how we stop this unless we collectively come together and find out what we have within our control and mental health and gun safety are in our control

129at a minimum and finally i just shared with dr brabrand earlier this evening for anyone who's probably heard it you know it's something that gives me excitement that president biden talked about how the cdc is getting closer to its ex examination of the test to stay and that fcps dr brabrand um you know i definitely hope you'll talk more to the public about this as we move toward diagnostic testing that is how we will keep kids in school and keep our community and our kids and our staff safe at this point surveillance isn't where it's at it's at the diagnostic component and i'm so grateful that we are going to have the testing kits available for free to fairfax county residents in our public libraries so um hopefully as we enter flu season this will

130be another way that we can demonstrate what's the flu and what's covid um thanks for indulging me thank you miss mclaughlin mr fresh thank you i hope everybody had a restful and rewarding thanksgiving holiday [Music] a couple things i'm grateful for earlier this week i had the pleasure of visiting stenwood elementary school with delegate mark keem as part of our take your delegate to or your legislator to school uh tradition um and it was great seeing students back in the classroom eager to learn after the break um but i also want in the spirit of thanksgiving to say how much i appreciate and how grateful i am for the students who continue to show up at our meetings with the hope that adults will hear them their courage is inspiring when i was their age

131i never would have dreamed of speaking out for lgbtq inclusion at a school board meeting i couldn't even tell my friends i was gay i worried that if i acknowledged my truth i would lose the love of my friends and my family but the truth is i just couldn't imagine what life would be like if i ever came out did gay people fall in love did they have families did they find fulfilling careers did they create change in the world did they grow old and retire did they have pets or hobbies i mean i didn't know anything i didn't have answers to these or other questions because i was never presented with examples of other lgbtq people simply living their lives not in the history i learned in school or in the books i read

132when this conversation began i said our board would never back down in its support for lgbtqia plus students families and staff in the days that followed i received well over 1 000 emails voicemails letters and social media comments some of those to my home calling me a pervert a groomer a pedo and worse some included threats of violence others attacked my partner there were days when i just didn't want to touch the phone or look at my inbox it didn't matter that very few of these messages were from anywhere near fairfax county the type of this type of toxicity is poisonous but it's also inspiring just as inspiring as the brave comments we hear month after month from lg lgbtq students at these meetings access to a diversity of reading materials is not only about

133giving lgbtq students an opportunity to see themselves represented in the history they learn or the books they read when non-lgbtq young people become aware of the varied and complex lives of lgbtq people because of the history they learn or the books they read they don't become lgbtq being lgbtq is not contagious but being more accepting of different people certainly can be that scares some people which is precisely why this work must continue it's for everyone thank you mr frisch miss tolin thank you you guys are hard acts to follow i do hope all of our families had a wonderful thanksgiving and a happy hanukkah to those of you who are celebrating i also read both of the books that were were reviewed by our committee and i would request that if you are making comments

134on the books that you also read them i found lawn boy to be a story about dealing with adversity and being resilient while making one's way in life parts of genderqueer were difficult but the story is really a story of a person coming of age we have a process for our books to be vetted by professionals and parents and students and i appreciate the work that this committee has done last week i was happy to chip in and help out in the front office of herndon high school as they were short staffed before the holiday i saw firsthand the incredible breadth of issues from making sure every classroom was covered during every period with our shortage of subs to making sure students got the lunch that their friend or uncle or whoever dropped off for

135them i want to thank longfellow middle school for hosting myself and virginia delegate rick sullivan to take your representative to school day and we had a really great discussion with the principal of dr patrick we discussed the january legislative session and school priorities to enable us to best serve the academic and social emotional needs of our students we had a long discussion about student mental health so i appreciate your comments ms mclaughlin around that issue also thanks around the same lines to longfellow middle school count their counseling staff and tammy sisk from instructional services for hosting a viewing of the movie like last night and a discussion with parents on ideas for ensuring responsible electronics use and social media use by our students and even more broadly our families and how we as adults need

136to be examples for our students as you know we deal with these issues i was at a ken gardner elementary school pta coffee this morning and we had a very robust discussion around coveted mitigation measures and of course capacity issues since kent gardens is one of our most crowded elementary schools so as we enter into our season of capital improvement program discussions um you'll be hearing more about that some exciting and fun things our students are up to um congratulations to churchill rhode elementary school fourth grader on her amazing cake baking a craft that she picked up during the pandemic the student is quite an artist and she's been baking and decorating cakes and she will be a contestant on the food network's kids baking championship airing on december 27th so good luck to our

137churchill road fourth grader um let's read over my shoulder um in celebration of the kennedy center's 50-year anniversary they held a president kennedy portrait contest two langley high school students were chosen for the portraits that they that they did langley junior and jingling jingon was selected from a pool of young people across the entire country to showcase her winning portrait at the theater laying refreshing anya huang was chosen as one of the eight honorable mentions both portraits will be displayed along with the other winning portraits and honorable mentions in the hall of states and the reach at the kennedy center from september 2021 through june 2022 yeah super exciting on the sports side westfield high school alone mike glennon is expected to start for nfl's new york giants on sunday versus the miami dolphins and

138on a more sober note the mclean community center will be holding a blood drive on 12 17 from 9 to 3. blood donations are urgently needed with all of the medical issues that we have right now so kind of a mix of comments thank you very much um have a wonderful holiday season thank you ms toll and miss omesh thank you i'm happy to follow my colleagues you know we reflect on a number of things with a heavy heart today and and all of those were mentioned so eloquently by them um i did want to start off my remarks actually by asking my colleagues to indulge me um to give a round of applause to pranav um i right now i know what he shared today took tremendous strength and vulnerability and is reflective of

139so much that we don't always hear or see and what our students are experiencing so thank you pranav you are a model and have demonstrated for us for kids and across this county uh the importance of speaking up and the power of being able to tell your story so i i i know what that meant to you and i just wanted to make sure that was seen um focusing on some of the things that have gone on in our schools i was really excited to be able to join um a group of community leaders at lake braddock with the partnership they have decided to take on with safe routes to schools it's really exciting work and i encourage anyone and everyone who's uh you know interested in contributing towards a greener future to consider doing

140it at your school um so we had michelle richo i want to shout her out who's a mom in the school and she decided that she wanted to see more walking and biking and making sure that we provide safe routes for kids in doing that because you know even just in one day in one morning we had hundreds of cars coming in and out so just imagining how we can reduce some of that so they started off with an audit uh that will you know the reports will be um revealed later on as to what they found but that is something that um we have and it's you know ready to be set up in any school that uh has a community leader that's willing to take it on um the second thing i wanted

141to touch on i had the absolute pleasure of talking to a young student who was speaking to the importance of the performing arts for mental health and support of our kids we have a student right here in fairfax county who is choosing to participate in c-span's annual national documentary competition called c-span student cam and he is looking into how the federal government impacts his life specifically on funding for the performing arts through school so i'm looking forward to seeing his submission and hopefully we can all cheer him on uh as a representative of our school system uh finally i did um have the absolute honor and pleasure of a roundtable conversation today with secretary cardona on the future of our schools especially with consideration of these issues that we're all talking about today um so

142how can we bring what you know the community together how can we heal and move forward as we continue to advocate for equity and inclusion which serve all of our kids and we're all winning when we do that um i did want to uh tell everyone about an awesome opportunity next tuesday free and anti-racist minds are hosting an art night where they're going to be looking at the commonwealth attorney's inaugural competition he has is hosting a justice art contest with the theme what does a truly just fairfax look like um and so i i just wanted to encourage high school students and fcps to submit your your entries and to take a look on uh free and anti-racist minds social media for more information on how you can attend that session and really finally i

143did want to also make sure we acknowledge that next wednesday the 8th is bodhi day where a number of our community members mostly of buddhist faith uh acknowledge enlightenment and awakening and hopefully that can be an inspiration for all of us uh to consider again how when we come together we really elevate everyone and we can arrive at our own hopefully awakening and enlightenment in this community and moving forward thank you mr mesh miss marin good evening happy hanukkah i missed lighting my manure today with my own family but that's okay they're doing something fun and yeah indeed um i'm looking forward to learning more about bodie day and observance i just learned about today when i was visiting madison high school and attending a student listening session and learning about this buddhist holiday so

144i'm also glad that the school division has sent out information to inform staff about it and i think that was a major theme of the student listening group i heard today was building knowledge and respect for the different cultural traditions of our students and staff even if we don't know you know especially as adults don't know exactly all of the you know facts about it just to say you know i'm learning and i'm interested and that goes a long way so to that point you know my colleagues comments tonight and certainly the public comments and that in in the media about you know inclusion and diversity you know listening to these students today it's it's clear what they want and what they need and it totally relates to the books and materials and i just

145like to say you know our public school should offer a breadth of exposure to the content that reflects the peoples the ideas and the lifestyles of our modern world and that includes about gender identity and expression and i'm greatly interested in providing diversity of quality materials to students in our schools and our public libraries and i often collect you know and share titles of interest to promote these values that our libraries share and you know these materials about sensitive subjects like coming of age sexuality gender identity puberty sexual activity should be thoroughly reviewed against established criteria for use in our classrooms and libraries and in fact they are established and and run through that rigorous process so um you know we and as mentioned we've had our regulations but but for me here's here's the

146thing my job as a school board member is to reflect the values of the people who elected me and the constituents i hear at school board meetings and those in communications to me overwhelmingly support diversity inclusion love and understanding so regarding the two books i haven't read them i actually just finished a book at the recommendation of one of our curriculum experts in fcps called the book of learning and forgetting which uh troubled me about big questions about you know our education system nationally and statewide and while i intend to read the two books in question i don't feel an immediate need to do so because i trust the experienced professional educators and librarians in our public schools who are people with degrees and years of experience working directly with children and in schools those

147are are the people that we entrust and i mean no disrespect to those who are troubled by the content and and personally i'm a more modest person i would look to other literature that explores the critical themes of challenged books but that's my own cup of tea and i'm not a high school student in today's world exploring gender identity and sexuality in ways i never even considered considered at that age but i'm learning now how to see those explorations of student identity that it's so important to them and if it's important to students it's important to me to be their advocate so you know if parents residents and most importantly students if you have concerns and objections to what's being taught then let's do what we do best here which is to educate and talk

148about it and try to get to yes when it comes to respecting the humanity of other people and if we don't trust our staff you know what do we really have here in our public schools so relatedly someone had mentioned the youth survey and i've also been discussing that with staff and also with county staff who put forth the survey and i have some questions about not only how gender and sexuality are represented but just in general uh how um how useful the tool is to get data that can help us further support students so i'm looking forward to discussing that further before the next round of the surveys is given so tonight we approved a warning of contracts that work to that will install work at 400 mill area schools vienna elementary and flores

149elementary getting new playgrounds and south lakes high school will be getting a synthetic turf field replacement and westfire elementary will be having a roof replacement so it's fabulous to see our students getting upgrades in their facilities madison football game will counter south county high school 1 p.m this saturday for the virginia high school football playoff so that's exciting i'm going to be headed to thoreau middle school next week for a few hours to observe instruction there and i also am really pleased to see the free and anti-racist minds putting forth this art event that will be virtual on tuesday december 7th and while it does align with the commonwealth attorney's contest for high school students the uh fam the free anti-racist minds contest is for any student so i hope people check that out and

150i've shared that next week i'll also be over at south lakes to learn about the jrotc leadership program and just learn about the curriculum the learning goals retention recruitment teamwork so i really appreciate that invitation and then i will finish out the week at the town of vienna holiday reception together with town elected uh officials staff and residents thank you great thank you miss corbett sanders yes thank you madam chair tomorrow morning i encourage everybody to turn on fox 5 for a live panel discussion with teachers from throughout fairfax county they will be talking about their experiences in the classroom as our students [Music] have returned in return to school this year and i am very pleased to know that we have representatives from south county high school rocky run middle school glasgow middle school

151all participating in this panel discussion i think it will be excellent i am also just reminding people if you have not picked up ed week this week to go ahead and pick it up where you can learn all about miss darynac kofax's amazing principle of mount vernon woods he is profiled in ed week and i also wanted to address a couple of other things i want to first thank the superintendent for listening to our community and to your your our colleagues on the board about the quarantine and how important it is to have our students in school as much as possible and so reducing that level to seven is greatly appreciated i will echo ms mclaughlin's urging to look to a test to stay program i know that it's one that many of us have

152talked about and are encouraging you to look at that in the next period of time i also want to [Music] raise a couple of things that i have noticed in my visits in the throughout the mount vernon region one in particular was i met with the principal at west potomac high school and we talked about grading policy and this is a conversation that we've had throughout the year in that we have two options for principals to choose which grading policy they want to utilize and so i'm going i'm letting my colleagues know that i will be bringing a forum topic to the board to urge the board to agree to have the superintendent agree to one grading policy so that no matter where a child is in school or where a child moves between schools

153that there will be a common grading policy at the secondary level um additionally i wanted to let people know that i have been appointed to the virginia department of ed's committee of practitioners and last this past week they met for the first time or i met with them on the first for the first time and the committee of practitioners asked for the support or the department of education asked for the support of the committee in submitting a waiver an extension of a waiver request on alternative assessments and that was approved but with one caveat that in the past the assessments did not require a explicit discussion with the parents prior to a an alternative assessment being offered to a student in math science or language arts and explaining to the parent and to the student

154what the impact of that alternative assessment is in their ability to obtain a general ed education diploma nor did it explain and this is something that i stole from you miss seismer heiser but it didn't explain to parents about the importance of if a child doesn't get that general education diploma that it has an impact on their ability to take advantage of federal funds in the form of pell grants and other educational funds post-secondary and so that has been added into the um the waiver request and that will be now required so thank you miss seismer heiser for educating me um and then the last thing that i wanted to raise the attention of the board to um we have two lots of great people in our community who work in our schools as volunteers

155as mentors as tutors and one great program actually there are two great programs one is grant involved which has intergeneration volunteers in our title one elementary schools and the second is edututor which works in our elementary middle and high schools to provide tutoring services and the interesting thing about edu tutor is that it is cutting edge in that it is utilizing students at the college level who are obtaining their teaching degrees to work in our schools while they're in college as tutors and what we are finding is that there's a bit of a backlog to get those students cleared so that they can work in our classrooms and so i know both ms tolland and i will be working with staff to see what we can do to break that log jam so that we

156can get these kids into our classrooms or these young adults into our classrooms as soon as possible thank you ms corbett sanders dr anderson thank you the great gatsby the catcher in the rye the grapes of wrath to kill a mockingbird native sun the color purple ulysses bond with the wind the lord of the flies song of solomon of mice and men animal farm the sun also rises as i lay dying their eyes were watching god invisible man these all great works that i think we could all agree to that have at one time or another have been banned or challenged in this country in various states and i wanted to end on invisible man because the work that we did tonight was exactly for our students for parts of our community to not feel

157invisible in fairfax county i will not go into great details because i think my colleagues have all hit on some very pointing points um ms darnoch kofax i was particularly moved by your statement so thank you for starting us off on that foot we did the right work and i think these books also went through this very same process so i feel really comforted in that i did have the opportunity to read these books i had a very kind library assistant from sleepy hollow who reached out to me to say please do not vote to ban these books and i shared with her i have no opinion on these books until i read them but yet i could not find these texts so she loaned me her kindle for several weeks and i read those

158books and the writing is just superb the stories are not for everyone i would not share any of that text with my eight-year-old or my 12 year old but there's a space for those books to exist to represent the experience of our students to see themselves be reflected as a person of color i need the books from the list that i've just read because they allow me to be seen to be seen in our schools and in our community how could i deny that of others so thank you to the awesome librarians to the awesome folks who participated on the challenge books committee for ensuring that we can provide that space for our children to not feel invisible going to some other lighter matters glasgow orchestra that was here tonight one of my schools my

159son actually was a member of that orchestra until he decided to leave it for spanish otherwise he would have been here tonight i am just so proud of their work and mrs ciccinski for all of her efforts with them and to mr powell who was here earlier and i'm not sure if he's still here for his support of the orchestra and for his attendance this evening thank you to the justice high school ptsa who invited me to their meetings last night i appreciated having the opportunity to speak with you all regarding the survey that has been distributed we look forward to getting your input because that's what our community had asked for governor northam honored several groups and individuals during the 19 the 2021 volunteerism and community service awards and i would like to highlight

160some of those winners that are local we have capital one bank who who host the capital one coders this is the capital one employees from the fairfax county headquarters who volunteer throughout fairfax county schools including glasgow and holmes middle schools thank you to capital one for its investments and millions of dollars in middle school after school programs also we have codify which is also a local group seeing a lack of female representation and technology fields and scarcity and computer programming in our schools that inspired a group of students from northern virginia to jump into action the students created codify an organization that provides free computer programming courses to middle and high school students in just two years that organization has grown to include more than 600 volunteers and more than 10 courses reflecting a variety

161of programming languages little known fact to me until very recently but today is special education day special education day marks the anniversary of the nation's first federal special education law which was signed by president gerald ford on december 2nd 1975. it marks also the 30th anniversary of idea the individuals with disabilities education act and thus this is a day to celebrate and reflect and to spur reform as a nation we've come a long way since 1975 but i think we all know that there's much much more work to do in order to provide access to education for all children especially those with and um with chil especially those with disabilities so please mark this day and celebrate the 13th annual special education day in our schools and community in your own way thank you and

162have a good night thank you dr anderson and as mrs pikarski always says i know i'm standing between you all and your bed so i will try to be quick but as i always say that never happens so um you know so as i was wondering if anyone would get that so um i want to thank all my colleagues for their very poignant and meaningful words um i don't think i could say it as well as as many of you did miss dear nico facts mr fish miss cohen dr anderson that list of books gave me chills um as someone who grew up in this country was a child of an immigrant of of south asian immigrants who weren't as understood when i grew up as perhaps we are now and there's still room to

163grow i never saw myself reflected in anything in my books at school i never saw my journey as an immigrant as a child of immigrants reflected in anything i read in the libraries and i think sometimes how much i would have been better at accepting myself and not fighting my own heritage for as long as i did if i had that and i'm so glad that we are in a place where we have so much of that we have so much we have librarians who are experts who are professionals who ensure that all of our children's histories and their beings and their ways of being are reflected in the materials and the books around them i can tell you it makes such a difference for their own mental health their own acceptance of themselves and

164i am thrilled that our we had a process we followed our process i'm grateful to our challenge review committee i'm grateful to our assistant superintendent for instructional services i'm grateful for our librarians for recognizing that these books bring value these stories give a place for students to see themselves to see who they are to find themselves and to be proud of who they are because everybody is human and everybody deserves to feel proud of their humanity so they are not pornographic they're not pedophilia they are stories of humans and i for one am glad that that's been recognized so thank you to the people on the committee thank you to the librarians thank you to everybody who who emailed and support thank you for giving students an experience that i didn't have so i will

165just say i will end with that i have many school visits and things to share i want to just lift up one other thing and that is what dr anderson mentioned which is the 30th anniversary of idea and i thank you for bringing that up and as many notes is very very personal to me because my son would not have had anywhere near the education he has and the opportunities he has and and they were not without fights and they are still not without fights and there i will still talk about the eight iep meetings i had in sixth grade um as he transitioned to middle school and the fights that we had for the services he's entitled under idea and we got them so there's room to grow but without that law there would

166be no space for those students to see themselves and be reflected and belong because they are all human too thank you as i took my mic off and with that this meeting is adjourned thank you you