FCPS School Board Meeting - 11/22/2021

001so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] do [Music] school board members if we can take our seats please [Music] the november 22nd 2021 regular meeting of the fairfax county school board will now come to order please stand as um as our student represent nope please stand as um we recite the national anthem followed by a moment of silence and i'm sorry pledge of allegiance and a moment of followed by a moment of silence and a performance of the national anthem by the marshall high school combined select choirs under the direction of kelly pearson one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all oh say can you see by the doors [Music] bursting in heaven [Music] and the home of the brave [Applause] that was beautiful thank you wonderful way to start agenda

002item 2.02 certification of the closed meeting compliance in order to comply with section 2.2-3712-d of the code of virginia it's necessary for the board to certify that since the fairfax county school board convened a closed meeting on matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the board during the closed meeting is there a motion movement scorebit sander seconded by ms omesh all those in favor all those that opposed that motion passes agenda item 2.03 announcements mr frisch has submitted a written request to virtually attend this evening's meeting due to a personal travel conflict i will call for a vote from board members who are in person this meeting all those in favor of allowing

003mr frisch to virtually attend this evening's meeting please raise your hands those opposed that 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 school board board docs today's meeting is being broadcast on channel 99 and live streamed on the website at fcps.edu tv slash ch99 a reminder a mask that covers the nose and mouth must be worn at all times by everyone in attendance if you have a mask exemption or if you need a mask break please take advantage of the overflow room set up in the gymnasium we appreciate your cooperation agenda items 5.01 public engagement committee recommended changes to the governance manual regarding community

004participation and 5.02 modification of contract fcps school special education comprehensive review have been removed from the cassette agenda and added as action at the request of a board member agenda item 2.04 purple star schools recognition i call on ms corbett sanders for the recognition yes thank you madam chair i would also invite colonel joshua seagraves to the podium he is our the garrison commander for fort belvoir and if i can begin by saying virginia is home to over 75 000 military connected school-age students more than any other state in the nation all of our fairfax county public schools proudly welcomes and supports over 12 000 military connected youth and their families who are part of our school community tonight we are honoring 11 of our schools who have been awarded the purple star designation in

0052018 the virginia department of education established the purple star designation to be awarded the military military friendly schools that have demonstrated a major commitment to students and families connected to our nation's military criteria established for the award were designed to increase educator awareness of military-connected youth and help schools structure their support two and four military connected youth and their families in the inaugural year 14 fairfax county public schools received the purple star recognition schools that earned this prestigious designation received a resolution from the virginia state superintendent of public instruction and a special purple star recognition to display at their school the purple star award serves to set each of these schools apart for the hard work of the faculty students parents and community partners who stand together to ensure that our military-connected students are supported

006academically behaviorally and emotionally during their transitions we thank the fcps school staff and students from these 11 schools earning their recognition this year for the warm welcome to their military-connected students and we thank our military families for keeping our nation strong and safe i would like to give colonel joshua seagraves the fort belvedere garrison commander the opportunity to say a few words to our purple star schools great thank you this is is this my two minute timer because i i really no you can take as much time as you can if is i was just gonna say like i need one of these in my own briefing room so that i can sort of set my focus on a two-minute tire this is brilliant that's good you always gotta you gotta open it up and

007just sort of like test the temperature of the room right see how it's going uh no think first just thank you to the board for allowing me to attend tonight and just make a couple of announcements and thank you for what each of you does for fairfax county schools it is incredibly important for not only the youth of fairfax county but particularly the military families that are sort of heavily populated in fairfax county and i think what i'd really just like to say is the youth ambassador program really is particularly important to us it supports new military students to their schools in all sorts of ways and connections with other peers touring teachers and then other clubs and sports and representatives that that's a particularly important program and then the other thing that i would

008say is don't underestimate the power of the staff and the administrators and what you do on a daily basis you're making an impact on military families and military students particularly when you think about the social and emotional impacts for military students that just occurs on on a daily basis and so that could be anything from deployments to moves frequent moves i would tell you in 23 years i've myself moved a dozen times and so i have four kids one it just went to college this year and the youngest in fifth grade so i'll just let you kind of figure out how you know those impacts occurred but anyway just thank you to the staff thank you to the school board we greatly appreciate our partnership and what we're able to do on a daily basis

009so i look forward to handing out these awards thank you colonel seagraves and i am forever grateful that you have uh not only joined the garrison but you've also joined the mount vernon magisterial district so we're thrilled to have you um at this time i would like to ask my colleagues to please make their way to the front of the diocese as we call each of our schools to come forward for a photo with the board and colonel seagraves i'm going to ask you to actually come on this side of the dice so that you can actually welcome each of our schools and congratulate them but i want you in the photo with them as well if you don't mind so we're going to go ahead and get started the following four newly awarded fcps

010schools have received the virginia purple star designation and i'm glad that the region 3 staff have joined us since a number of them are in this region so cameron elementary school [Applause] thank you so much fairview elementary school [Applause] thank you so much island creek elementary school [Applause] did you bring your roller skates ravensworth elementary school [Music] and the following seven schools have the unique distinction of being honored for a second time in recognition of their ongoing commitments to welcoming military students and families claremont elementary school flint hill elementary school [Applause] fort belvoir primary school and fort belvoir upper elementary school for those of you who don't know these two are the dynamic duo together you can't have one without the others thank you hunt valley elementary school [Music] [Applause] and finally waynewood elementary school

011[Applause] we would also like to recognize members of the fairfax county public schools military connected youth process action team the team's charge is to identify unique academic behavioral and social emotional needs of military-connected youth and their families and ensure faculty and staff are informed and prepared to meet the identified needs partnering with stakeholders as appropriate so i would like to invite the following members of the military connected youth process action team to come forward for the photo with our board members purple star schools and the garrison commander we have fort belvoir school liaison officers kristen acquia and ty beauvain george mason university assistant professor dr dr jennifer drake patrick and fairfax county staff members dr renee la huffman jackson meredith ayala and joan lee yes agenda item 2.05 resolution naming sangster elementary school blue ribbon

012designation i call on miss cohen for the resolution thank you whereas sanctuary elementary school is one of seven fairfax county public schools this says in the state of virginia but i'm going to say in the commonwealth of virginia to have been named a 2021 national blue ribbon school by the u.s department of education and whereas sanctuary staff focus on the development of the whole child and are equally dedicated to seeing students grow academically emotionally and socially to become become productive and contributing citizens in our ever-changing global community and whereas sangster elementary staff believe that students learn best in a safe caring and positive learning environment that stimulates intellectual curiosity fosters a commitment to lifelong learning and promotes strong character development and whereas sanctuary is recognized as a model professional learning community school where teams are

013committed to providing students with high quality tier one instruction through collaborative planning data analysis and responsive instruction and whereas sangster elementary has been recognized twice as a virginia distinguished purple star school for supporting military-connected students with over 150 families serving all branches of the military now therefore be it resolved that the fairfax county school board recognizes with pride the work of sangster elementary school administration and staff their belief in shared partnerships between school parents and community and their welcoming doors and celebratory environment where all who enter know they are valued and appreciated i still move is there a second seconded by miss seismor heiser go on would you like to speak to your resolution i would we many of us get to share our schools with other board members but i always brag that sangster

014i get to keep to myself and it's so good though i can't help but share it so i i certainly like to bring others along for the ride and we had the opportunity to get to do that massage more heiser miss homemash and myself last week to come get to celebrate with a staff that certainly deserves every accolade i just want to say i know that it has been such a crazy ride um for principal jankovic and our assistant principal jen redford to become a new principal in the middle of all of this crazy you guys it's been seamless it's just getting to watch from the sidelines your staff feel supported they feel loved and cared for your students feel supported and loved and cared for and when you walk in the school you can

015just feel it it's warm it's excited kids are just happy to be there and i know that is because of the incredible work that you guys do and certainly um the work that was the shoes that you filled um when our now ep in region four lisa riddell um did all of her work she's out here somewhere um there she is um you guys are amazing and your reputation is very very well earned and we're really proud to have you as one of our schools so congratulations massage more heiser would you like to speak to your second um just briefly because i think miss cohen said it so well um i recently had a chance to go to the macarena at sangster elementary school which is i think the highlight of my year so far

016um and you know i bring this up to say that it really spoke to how and why sangster is this amazing blue ribbon school that has closed gaps for students for all students including special education students in math by 15 which is incredibly commendable why sangster is this model community a professional learning and collaboration and why it's being recognized for not just the student achievement but really the recognizing and nurturing the whole child and so recently when we went to celebrate this designation principal yankovich reached out and said come early and dance with us and i'm like dance but you watch these kids at dismissal with the dan with the music outside and the kids coming out so happy after a full week of learning and so satisfied and so joyful that you knew this

017is why this school is successful because it truly nurtures the whole child it celebrates every child and it provides some meaningful opportunities for students to engage to belong and for all of them to learn and so it was really very very impressive to me to watch the collaboration of the administrators to watch the pride of the teachers and to see the joy and success of the students and i know lisa riddell was was a big part of that as well i was out here somewhere you know and um and i just want to say principal jenkins one of the reasons i think that your school is so successful is you're so willing to collaborate with your staff with your teachers but also with leadership with parents and your community and your students so congratulations and

018with that we'll take the vote all those in favor that is unanimous i would now like to invite um principal djankovic and assistant principal redford and anybody else who would like to celebrate sangster's success to come on up and get a photo with us agenda item 2.06 national inclusive schools week resolution i call on ms keys gamara for the resolution thank you madam chair whereas since in its inception in 2001 national inclusive schools week has celebrated the progress that schools have made in providing a supportive and quality education to an increasingly diverse student population including including students who are marginalized due to disability gender socioeconomic status cultural heritage language preference and other factors and whereas inclusive schools week is an annual event sponsored by the inclusive schools network and is held during the first full

019week of december and whereas this year's theme rebuilding our inclusive community together provides an important opportunity for educators students and parents to discuss what else needs to be done in order to ensure that our schools continue to improve their ability to successfully educate all children and whereas we must strengthen our commitment to inclusive education by extending previous successes and redirecting our talent time and energy to improving our practices outcomes for students and their families and the condition of our community and whereas expanding inclusive in communities requires a blueprint that guides our work as educators and is foundational to the continuous improvement of the division and now therefore be it resolved that the fairfax county school board reminds the entire fcps community that education takes on a beautiful shape when all children are included iso move

020thank you is there a second i didn't think it was second that my mr frisch we were not able to pull up i'm sorry we're having some technology issues i'm here if you can hear me there we are excellent he's here thank you mr fritsch okay miss keys gamara yes thank you uh for allowing me to do this motion resolution i'm sorry that is so near and dear to my heart because i understand i think everyone on this board understands the importance of every child feeling as though they belong in our schools and we do that by doing the hard work that we have seen so many of our staff members do leadership staff our aides everyone in in our schools should be and i believe is focused on not just figuring out what we

021have done today but what can we do better every single day as we grow as we learn as we seek to include and recognize not just where a student may have difficulty but where what their strength is not the disability but as my friend would say miss eisenheiser what is their ability to recognize what makes them unique how they add to the treasure of our schools and how we were wow i have an echo um and how we can elevate every child and every family it is our pleasure to be able to serve this community to listen to our parents to listen to our students and to work every day to make sure every student feels seen and heard thank you mr fresh thank you madam chair i will keep this brief now more than

022ever with marginalized communities feeling the weight of our national dialogue and the harsh or minimizing rhetoric sometimes on display it is critically important that we foster inclusivity in our schools in fact this school board believes this objective is so important that it includes hearing culture as one of the four primary goals in our school's division's strategic plan specifically we commit to foster a responsive caring and inclusive culture where all feel valued supported and hopeful i hope in the weeks and months ahead we will continue to make progress on this incredibly important work because our students are counting on us thank you you okay and with that we will go ahead and take um the vote if there are no other board members wishing to speak all those in shape oh please go ahead miss sizemoreheiser

023thank you um this is a motion that i had to speak to um just from my own personal passion my own personal story and one of the reasons i wanted to be on this board is to really fight for the inclusion of all students not just because the data shows not just because the studies show that students with and without disabilities learn and achieve better when they're included and learn together but because we have a crisis in employment we have a crisis in housing we have a crisis for students with disabilities once they leave our school system and their the crisis isn't around skills the crisis is around ability the crisis is around our societies norms including the lived norms of those with disabilities and unless students are educated together unless they learn together unless

024the norms of our classrooms include the norms of people with disabilities as a matter of course that won't change the way we get to a society where everybody is valued for their strengths is through inclusion and inclusive schools i'll just end with one thing i have a son who's on the autism spectrum who spent most of his life in self-contained segregated classes in fairfax county he also spent most of his life in inclusive music environments where he has thrived and every student and every teacher i've ever spoken to about my son has said how much they have learned how much they have grown and how much they have gained every student in those classrooms when they leave fairfax county will be an employer a co-worker a customer a friend a loved one they need to

025know that his lived norms are their lived norms and that's how we and the only way we get there is to inclusion thank you thank you all those in favor that vote is unanimous with mr frisch on the screen i'd like to invite parents students and staff who are in the audience and in support of the resolution to please join us join the board of the days for a photo agenda item 3.01 community participation the next order of business is community participation speakers must limit their remarks to no more than two minutes in length at the conclusion of the two minutes the microphone or video 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

026for public hearings such as a capital improvement program budget and boundaries 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 officials 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 for those who have come to speak to us today we thank you for your

027cooperation and if individual school board members go to the back please know that there is a feed and they will continue to hear your comments our first speaker is brian tomer like to start whenever sorry okay yeah dear fcps board members do you know what were the two best things to come from online school last year it was the ability to be educated no matter what your health status was and the ability to be educated from anywhere sdps board members i know the paws education system is still in its embassy but i'm here to tell you why it's flawed it's still because of the three-day weight and the inclusivity of other illnesses before i explain to you why i know all these calls i'll first tell you how i experienced them i went to the

028doctor on tuesday after getting a note after not feeling well on a monday i was given a negative cover test and was set home the day after that i was missing i already missed 2 days of school was called by the health department i was told that i was in close contact with the confirmed positive case on monday the day i started to feel ill we were informed that i would not be allowed to go back to school until i had a negative cover test seven days after initial exposure and that i would become eligible for pause education three days later pause education is essentially what last year was like students were able to join zoom through and participate in classes i thought okay this is fine i'll just start school tomorrow but it turns

029out that's when i ran into the first vlog three day pause the rules state that education the pause education will start no more than three days after the school's notified but about the closed contact we thought that since i was exposed on monday and found out on wednesday that would be able to resume learning on a thursday but it turns out that the three days after is only when the student is notified that means i wouldn't be eligible for pause education until the day i was able to resume in-person education wait then what's the point of the three-day pause before pause education begins why can't the student start pause education the day they find out they would be allowed in the building right after they have a negative covet test with the three-day pause that

030leads me to my next point why is it only for covet since i was sick before being notified that i was in close contact i would not be eligible for pause education i had to sit and wait at home while i could have been listening to lessons or doing class work on my computer assignments from honors ib and ap classes stack up real quick when you miss just one class now imagine missing a whole week's worth and to be honest i still have work to do but instead i'm here talking to all of you my family and i pleaded with the school and teachers but they said their hands were tired when it came to this this is why i'm pleading with you and telling you why it's flawed and how it impacts the lives

031of our students fcps board members please change it for the better and help deposit education work efficiently thank you our next speaker is inob zia um hello i'm student now justice and i would like to bring up uh something about the overcrowding in our schools currently uh justice is the school i know and it is if you go through the main hallway you cannot get through it without being nose to nose with people and this is something that has not only happened in the school this happened in my last fcps school when i was in middle school overcrowding is a problem for us and because of covid we've had the ability to do virtual days to do um hybrid and that has uh led me a to believe that if we can solve our overcrowding

032instead of just adding and adding and adding on to our buildings and spending our budgets like that we could possibly uh make it uh so students can attend hybridly as it works for them we we can um sorry we can make it so because not all classes are as important as we have now learned to take in in person i can learn english over uh over zoom but like i could possibly come in for some classes like theater or my math class or pe we can work to make this a better solution for uh so instead of spending millions of dollars for rebuilding for building new structures we can spend it on our students instead also this would also help our students with the fact that college is going to be semi like this i

033am observing many people in college right now that are going through this and this may possibly continue to when our seniors juniors sophomore freshmen are in college and they can be blindsided by this and our school system can help prepare them by giving by giving us a trial run right now also with the changing of the workforce more people are turning to virtual this will not only help our students prepare for the real world it will also save those money hopefully thank you our next speaker is azan khalil he's on khalil our next speaker is elizabeth weidman oh okay um hi my name is elizabeth weinman i'm an 11th grader special education student at best fairfax county high school i have really nice teachers my teachers work hard and i'm thankful for them when school

034didn't open in september 2020 i was very sad i miss my friends and teachers learning online wasn't easy and had too many distractions that kept me tough and trained funds from school on school um i was supposed to start going to job sites last year but i couldn't because it covered and i was happy to go back to a normal schedule in august 2021 except the masks and my sinus is gone and i love to be with my friends and teachers and i um and i love to be with my friends more than i did before the shutdown and it was fun to go to football and field hockey games thank you for listening our next speaker is rodrigo soto hello friends my name is rodrigo and i am a proud graduate of lewis high

035school's class of 2012. i'm here to speak in support of creating a more inclusive environment in fcps schools for lgbtq students especially as a minority of people seek to push students and staff back in the closet or worse this year marks 11 years since i came out of the closet the sophomore year of high school words cannot describe the internal storm that brewed inside me fueling my mind with dark clouds of fear anxiety and uncertainty while the resources for me back then were limited they existed they existed in the form of my librarian who was the most amazing advisor to our school's book club and more importantly a mentor i still look up to today they existed in my sophomore and junior year english teachers who taught me the power of words and how to

036speak mime truth they existed in the countless friends that greeted me in open arms and open minds especially as those especially those that had never met another gay person before we've made progress over the last few years but cannot turn back now just because few are upset that lgbtq students and staff are finally beginning to be treated equally i'm grateful for the work that the school board has done over the past few years and look forward to all the board will continue to do to make sure that everyone in the fcps family feels welcomed and supported especially now in the areas of more trans-inclusive school policies and stronger safety nets for our most vulnerable community members and friends thank you our next speaker is sandra [Applause] davis you recently spent two hours in a meeting

037trying to imagine why student enrollment continues to drop in two minutes i tell you we live here for the schools and now find a lowering of standards and expectations you fiddle why rome burns you want to be held harmless on enrollment numbers for another year but you have only yourselves to blame no amount of artistic interpretation of the data or contextual disclaimers will gaslight the parents of this county parents no longer buy your efforts to dress up a mediocre education as a premier system many defense industry parents think fcps is itself a national security risk with our race to the bottom especially in math special ed forms are a flame with how this county uses sues students and parents rather than provide services the law requires you survey students about their sexual behavior with questions

038so intrusive that if you asked them on the street you would be arrested and with the constant data breaches the promise privacy is a sham students are pressured singled out for opting out of the surveys and not turning in optional federal forms start identifying off-ramps for the filthy mass kids wear all day they are still forced many of them to wear them outdoors you pretend that vaccinating the youngest will lead to no mass but parents see what happened to the vaccinated high schoolers schools were not open for over a year because you mismanaged your staff we see it you allowed special interests to dictate the terms and narrative using disruption to further your gender you put children last focus on learning loss prince william used coveted funds to pay for private tutors you used ours

039to pay a company to date a minor children parents are tapping into 401ks college savings deploying even to pay for private others are just stuck waitlisted so many more want to leave and enrollment numbers didn't tank because parents are afraid of the virus they're afraid of your decision making it's reflected in the gubernatorial election our next speaker is alejandra alba alejandra alba our next speaker is shauna yashar good evening thanks to hundreds of dedicated scientists doctors and government officials we have the coved vaccine for children in fairfax county we have seen families embrace this advancement and a remarkable 87 percent of our teenagers are vaccinated at indoor business meetings wedding receptions concert venues and grocery stores adults who attest to their vaccination status are free to walk around unmasked with no social distancing why can't

040our kids why can't our teachers master not harmless mitigation measures the science behind the psychological effects of mass have been known for decades psychologists agree that masking inhibits disinhibits people while human beings behind the mass stay the same their psyche and behavior changes i challenge this board to question whether the uptick in school disciplinary problems are simply due to the students being virtual for over a year or whether the masks are playing a role i've spoken to numerous teachers about how the school year is going they respond that the kids are behind academically and emotionally damaged from the coven restrictions and it is hard to keep them to help them because they can't understand them behind the mass last november this board professed that fairfax had not seen an uptick in suicide related to covet

041shutdowns while true you all knew it was coming you knew the mental health problems were growing this summer the cdc reported a 51 increase in suicide attempts among teenage girls in 2020. just last month dr martin told you that the mental health damage suffered from schools being virtual is permanent he said that the toxic stress caused to the brains of the kids is irreversible ask yourselves are the mass causing toxic stress too on january 15th grant glenn lincoln indicated that he plans to remove the k-12 school of mass mandate once that order is rescinded what is scps going to do start working on a plan now with tangible achievable metrics that your community can rally behind look at states like massachusetts for guidance they have an off-ramp for schools that can show immunization rates of

04280 or more the mass can be removed mass are negatively altering education you know this is true even if the data hasn't caught up to the obvious reality don't wait for the data proving what we all know is happening create masking off ramps now and ready to be our next speaker is james gear james gear our next speaker is missy pratt school board dr brabrand leadership thank you for all the hard work that you're doing i wish that i was in your shoes i wish that i had an opportunity to invest and shape kids lives like you have the opportunity and what i'm going to ask you now is with that opportunity why are you allowing the questions that are coming to our students that is data mining our students almost 300 questions about sexual

043activity about suicide why are you allowing these questions almost 300 questions this fall alone i'm going to read from the fairfax county youth survey some people describe themselves as transgender when their sex at birth does not match the way they think or feel about their gender are you transgender which of the following describes you heterosexual gay or lesbian bisexual have you ever had sexual intercourse how old were you when you had sexual intercourse for the first time during your life with how many people have you had sexual intercourse during the past three months with how many people have you had sexual intercourse did you drink alcohol or use drugs before you had sexual intercourse the last time the last time you had sexual intercourse did you or your partner use a condom let me jump

044to the virginia high school survey some people describe themselves as transgender when their sex at birth does not match the way they think or feel are you transgender during the past 30 days how old sorry how old were you when you had sexual intercourse for the first time during your life how many people have you had sexual intercourse with and then we go on to ask about suicide six questions about suicide why are we data mining our children why are we prying into their lives in pulling out this information please stop our next speaker is trisha wolfe trisha wolf our next speaker is holly hazard thank you madam chairwoman and members of the board i'm a 30-year resident of fairfax county i've had four children go throughout fairfax county schools i was pta president bailey's

045glasgow and justice high school on this first day of the week a week of thanksgiving i hope that you'll indulge me and pause for a minute to give thanks i volunteer in classes on body safety all over fairfax county schools on what kids should do if they think that maybe they have been abused in the past few months i've seen some extraordinary things our fairfax county public school classrooms are an inspiration they're configured reflecting the personalities of each class bright inviting and caring they all have technology that i need to ask the kids to assist with and they always do and sometimes with the same eye roll that i get from my own children the kids are polite engaged and compassionate one third grade class a student kept raising his hand when i didn't call

046on him the third time he became upset and an aide let me know that he's autistic the other kids listen to what he contributed when he contributed something wise they calmed him when he became agitated another child in a fourth grade class couldn't complete a survey because they couldn't read students quietly read the questions to them so they could participate in each of these classes the children who needed help got it not from the teacher but from their peers these same peers will enter adulthood with the empathy that if someone is a little bit boisterous they shouldn't assume that he has bad manners if someone is taking up some time reading something at the front of the grocery line they should help her not judge i am so grateful for the educated educational rigor that

047i've witnessed in our schools i'm grateful for fairfax being one of the top academic school districts in this country for investing in science-based reading for feeding our children over 6 million meals over this past year but also for the children who will grow up to be kind and with a vastly different sense of normal because we've normalized our differences i am very grateful and i wish you a happy thanksgiving with your families our next speaker is robert rigby good evening more than 16 years ago in 2005 a student came to this board to speak his topic was gsa's what were then known as gay straight alliances i may not make it through this one thing has changed since these are his words one thing has changed since the first gsa meeting at falls church we

048no longer have to face this alone with the gsa in our school we always have somewhere to turn someone to talk to a place that we can feel free to be ourselves for an hour a week we no longer need to feel hopeless and alone continuing as i leave fairfax county public schools i can only hope that gsa's will continue to grow and that someday no student gay or straight will ever need to feel alone again he spoke then because some folk here in fairfax and at the general assembly were marshalling forces to limit or effectively outlaw student lgbtqia plus schools for clearly political purpose i spoke after him that night on the need for adults to create supportive environments for all students i think gsa's and supportive teachers are or will be coming under

049attack now again for political purposes the whole community must stand up to support vulnerable students all students our next speaker is kelly maida [Applause] kelly aydah our next speaker is norm hall just in time i have a suggestion for all to use whenever you run across somebody who claims their opposition to school board members is based on a broad coalition of parent interests on behalf of students they should be challenged to explain their position in terms of faith which stands for free appropriate public education this phrase encapsulates what students with disabilities are entitled to under our nation's federal education laws these students have been used as rhetorical pawns by campaigns trying to convince moderates that republican candidates have better ideas about how schools should have been run since the beginning of the pandemic really how

050so what strategies would they propose to do a better job of educating students with disabilities they seemingly oppose public education from the teachers who have been doing the hard work to the concept of free schools for all operating in an environment that supports students with a variety of needs how will they show that they value students who have been historically marginalized will there be a full commitment to inclusive schools no matter the background of the students and their families what supports will be added and how we need to ask everyone who feels they have answers and how to run public education how their solutions will hold up for all of our kids especially for those whose education has fallen behind because so far the playbook has been centered on phantom problems and we need more

051than phantom solutions the school board members i know understand this i hope they know how much their communities appreciate their efforts to work on real solutions to real problems the real challenges that exist and i look forward to true engagement in sr3 funding and the special education audit thank you may you have a blessed thanksgiving our next speaker is veda uball veda our next speaker is kathleen brown good evening superintendent bray brand school board chair and members recognizing the problems of incivility and national media coverage of the enormous hostility which has been occurring across the nation during school board meetings and while i have sometimes disagreed with fcps school board actions i have hold and honor civil discourse in our public arrangements speaking of public engagement and working with the community i have a problem

052with the methods that fcps has used to avoid general engagement genuine engagement with the surrounding community as regards the paving of justice park for school parking i understand that fcps office of communications and community relations today has launched a survey of families staff and students in the justice pyramid to determine their interest in their original proposal to pay a justice park for student parking this survey has been inaccurately prepared to include families who live miles from our community park and excludes residents that live near the park who don't have students in the fcps system had fcps chosen to go through the public process instead of the opaque 2232 administrative process requiring little to no public input we would have been a lot further along to break ground than we are today the proposed additions are

053clearly needed for justice high school and yet why is the survey even being conducted when both the park authority and fcps in september have clearly stated it is not their intention to take parkland for this project in such a time as this it is my hope that climate concerns the history of justice park and the pandemics and these immense pressures highlighting mental and physical recovery in parks green spaces and nature would allow fcps to honor its commitments to environmental preservation and sea cap our next speaker is amanda campbell good evening my name is amanda campbell and i'm speaking tonight as the vice president of fairfax county septa in the spirit of the season of gratitude i want to thank you for passing the inclusive schools week resolution tonight while this one week a year gives

054us a chance to highlight the work of inclusion happening across fcps i know we are all in agreement that inclusion requires year-round commitment and we appreciate our continued collaboration with fcps to that end speaking of collaboration we fully support the concerns and recommendations raised by the advisory committee for students with disabilities regarding the fcps legislative agenda that you will vote on later tonight especially those regarding section s number four and section s number six minimizing legislation beyond the idea and maintaining the status quo of the due process burden the statewide initiative septa identified in our 22 advocacy position statement many of which align with sentiments we have heard from school board members may require additional legislative work and as the acsd lays out clearly families are at a considerable disadvantage when they have the burden

055of proof and due process we hope the school board will consider amending these two items to account for the concerns raised by acsd and to ensure that fcps legislative agenda works to decrease the burden on special education students and families we would also like to draw attention to the fact that congress reintroduced the idea full funding act last week septa and virginia pta passed resolutions last year supporting the full funding of idea and we look forward to collaborating with fcps and the community to get this much needed legislation passed finally as budget season looms ahead we'd like to remind the board of the significant concerns that the air audit of special education has already revealed with more information to come as they delve into classroom observations and focus groups additionally the implementation of the equitable

056access to literacy plan for all populations including low incidence disabilities and cap b classrooms will require significant budgetary commitment long term please ensure that the budget accounts for the space to address our next speaker is cameron ward [Applause] cameron ward some nearby school districts have canceled school days this fall and some districts have added unscheduled remote days the cause of these closures seems complex but one constant is a lack of substitute teachers this board has taken some actions to ease our substitute shortage but i am concerned that they may not be enough we are headed into a season of winter respiratory viruses yet fcps is still advertising substitute positions our in-person learning days are absolutely essential early fall saw a nationwide uptick in disruptive school behavior students are finally relearning the rhythms of the classroom

057they remember and now can handle the expectations of a stimulating school day these are vital skills that cannot be disrupted again due to the lack of substitute teachers there are concerning stories about substitute applications languishing after putting in several abs substitute applications a friend heard from loud and long before hearing back from fcps a military mom waited so long to hear back on a substitute application that she gave up and took a job elsewhere the fcps hiring process is a complex maze that often stalls out that makes it difficult for qualified candidates to get substitute jobs dr ray band has said that fcps human resources is short staffed if fcps wants to hire qualified subs fcps needs a fully functioning hr department to address this shortage hr should make sure that fcps attracts qualified candidates

058and shepherds them with the utmost care through the process so no one gets frustrated and takes these takes jobs elsewhere every qualified person who wants to substitute in fcps should replace should receive an offer please let's make it happen that was our final speaker for this evening we also have two pre-recorded testimonies the first is audio only and it is anita zaboli good evening superintendent dr barbarand and fsps school board i'm here to speak up for our children according to the cdc since january of 2020 there has been 700 deaths associated with kobe 19 for the age group of 0-18 that represents less than one percent of kovid related deaths within the same time period more than four million children have tested positive for the virus since the beginning or the pandemic which means that

059the recovery rate for this age group is 99.98 percent 20 months after closing school cdc shared a graphic and stated the common flu impact children more severally than kovid yet fsps has never tested children for the flu or never pushed a vaccine you never mixed our children so by now vaccination should be a choice majority are vaccinated at school including teachers and some students so they should be protected if your vaccine doesn't protect you what makes you think that others vaccine will protect you it seems like you are directly punishing students who are not vaccinated since you don't require testing for vaccinated students who may have and pass along the virus you started testing healthy on vaccinated children do you know pcr tests have a high false positive rate when used with a high cycle

060threes hold why not test vaccinated individuals when fauci clearly said the vaccinated people can also carry the virus without symptoms and for less child masking is harmful unnecessary cruel and should end immediately stop pushing their agenda and let our kids live free thank you and god bless our next video is lauren mccaughey good evening my name is lauren mccaughey and i am speaking as an individual i am a parent of three fcps students and a member of the advisory committee for students with disabilities i would like to thank the school board members for their continual efforts to reach out to community members and to gather the input of stakeholder groups in various ways including through its advisory committees acsd is made up of 34 positions representing a variety of groups concerned with special education we

061have several vacancies and we encourage interested community members to consider applying to join us by emailing acsdchair fcps.edu i want to thank the school board and especially melanie maron for directly asking for input on the proposed 2022 legislative agenda the acsd sent a three-page letter with its detailed recommendations to all school board members thank you for considering the points raised by acsd in making funding and policy decisions for the upcoming academic year as you enter into budget season i'd like to remind you of the significant concerns that the special education audit has already revealed with more information coming as air begins classroom observations and focus groups please ensure that the budget work incorporates funds to address the unmet needs being revealed by this audit much of the work of the school board happens behind closed

062doors and in small meetings with subject matter experts and citizens groups thank you for your ongoing efforts to involve the community in developing priorities and policy decisions we are grateful to laura jane cohen for serving as our acsd school board liaison this year this work is not easy and it has tremendous implications for thousands of students and their families interested citizens who would like to be part of these collaborative processes should look into the multiple advisory committees and consider applying to join the teams of people working to make fairfax county public schools more responsive collaborative and respectful of the wide diversity of perspectives present in our county thank you for recognizing inclusive schools week and for working to ensure that fcps schools are inclusive 52 weeks a year thank you agenda item 4.02 legislative program

063i call him mr frisch for the motion who fairfax county school board state and federal legislative program and priorities is there a second second seconded by mister not cofax mr fridge frisch would you like to speak to your motion yes thank you madam chair tonight we are considering the state and federal legislative program which advances a host of priorities focused on academic achievement and critical funding objectives for our students on the state level the school board is prioritizing ongoing funding for remediation and learning recovery services to address the continued effects of the pandemic appropriate funding for schools and school divisions with high concentrations of and significant numbers of students in poverty english learners and students receiving special education services addressing state funding formula imbalances and inadequacies that disadvantaged school divisions like fcps reducing the number

064of mandated standardized assessments providing additional resources to help address critical staff shortages collagen workforce readiness early childhood education student mental health and behavioral health issues english learners and students with limited or interrupted formal education and this is very important making sure that any revisions to the commonwealth's tax structure do not negatively impact our school division or others in addition to these priorities which will enhance academic opportunities for our students tonight we will hear from several amendments from individual school board members that advance the same overall goals from increased support for literacy programs based on the science of reading and providing continued access to rigorous and advanced mathematics at all levels to better transitional supports for students with disabilities and investment energy conservation that saves us money that we can later reinvest in our student success

065before i conclude i'd like to thank michael malloy and staff for their hard work on this program and uh my colleague tammy dearneck kofax and laura jane cohen for their collaboration throughout this process i would also like to thank my colleagues for working to get their amendments submitted on time in an orderly manner this teamwork helps streamline tonight's conversation and votes thank you thank you mr frisch mr cofax would you like to speak to your second uh just briefly uh thank you mr frisch for that comprehensive for you review of what we um work on all through the year as we work with our state delegation down in richmond uh to ensure that our needs here as a school system are met and as we review and update our priorities each year i too would

066like to thank you for your collaboration and work with miss laura jane cohen as well as of course mr michael malloy who is always there for us to help uh draft and keep us in line and to make us aware of the ongoing issues that will be uh at the doorstep of our school board as others as uh the uh the new administration uh takes uh effect in january and i look forward to working with all parties uh down uh in this in the state capitol as we move forward in this process and i look forward to hearing about the amendments that will be on the floor tonight thank you mr not kofax seeing as there are no other oh miss marin i call on you for an amendment yes oh actually i had a

067comment about um about a particular item go ahead thank you yeah i just wanted to speak i know it was mentioned tonight about our advisory committee for students with special with special disabilities acsd and i do just want to update my colleagues as well as the public that i know for myself i did communicate with one parent who was both wearing and who was talking about the issues that the acsd has put in the letter and i talked with that parent i talked with our legislative director and again with that parent um particularly around um it was item number four uh and that actually would require a board policy discussion which we did not have the time to do before this this approval but it's regarding and let me just give me one minute to

068pull it up about minimizing the number of rules regulations and policy is imposed in addition to idea so i i can say that i know i understand the point being conveyed it has been conveyed you know to in the in this context but to have a further conversation about it would have to be in like another setting like a full-bore conversation so that's why that language is the same and then in number six about this is under section s special ed uh supporting the convention of the burden of proof during due process proceedings on the party bringing the action this is also something that there there is no movement on at this time and that's um has to deal with you know it just it just needs a bigger board conversation so please know that

069we heard you i did explore it and we'll have to continue to have that conversation about what could be changed if anything so i just want to share that with you all thank you and miss marin go ahead with your amendment thank you well alrighty then let me switch screens here okay so i moved to amend the main motion under fairfax county school board 2022 state legislative positions to change item t standards of accreditation standards of learning by adding new language as follows number 17 the fcsb supports literacy instruction that is grounded in the science of reading is there a second second seconded by mr mesh miss marin would you like to speak to your amendment yes including this language in our legislative program is the culmination but not the end of collective advocacy from

070the community the school board and fcps staff for using the science of reading to instruct students in reading and writing the proven methods of the science of reading show that all students benefit from this instruction students who are able to more seamlessly learn to read and write will develop their literacy more deeply and quickly than without it and for students who struggle with literacy which reflects 20 of the general population that is dyslexic students get quicker access to strategies that work so including it in our legislative program makes uh makes it very clear that this is something that we support and support uh an eager for support from the state thank you mr mesh thank you i'll be brief as we discussed at our work session looking further into literacy for our division um it's

071clear that equity really is that new or sorry literacy is that new frontier for uh inequity work uh ensuring that kids you know we address the barriers to cognitive and other barriers um and making sure that our support for these kids is grounded in the science of literacy and of reading um which is obviously what this amendment goes towards so hopefully not only on our division level but our advocacy to the state and supporting those efforts will allow us to really move the needle on some of those achievement gaps we've seen stagnate for many years and hopefully towards the broader equity or equitable system not only in fairfax but statewide thank you mr mesh ms mclaughlin thank you um as a constant champion for data research and best practice i really appreciate ms marin bringing

072this amendment and as someone who's been a long time champion for our students with dyslexia and their families advocacy um i just want to make sure that we when we put this in that our legislators who this is sort of our statement are going to understand what we mean so ms marin i was wondering if you might just be able to just elaborate a little bit more when someone might read this and say so do virginia school systems not use you know literacy instruction grounded in science and then what might that look like then because i just want to i i think this is great i just want to make sure we have that clarity for for them and anyone who reads this sure well the the goal in this in this piece as and

073i think uh some other portions of the legislative program is to state our position and not be so prescriptive that it limits us to what could be so right now there is this growing movement in the state that actually has bipartisan support and there is some legislation being talked about the state level so there is an understanding by some legislators about the science of reading and how it is beyond just research-based and science based but actually a specific program but as always we don't want to advocate for an unfunded mandate so this language is meant to be very broad in saying that we support instruction the science of reading that would transfer into anything related to training teachers professional development licensor changes as well as if there's funding certainly or any specific curriculum or policy

074so i think the goal here was to lay out a very open platform upon which forthcoming legislation discussion could be had and i would certainly love to educate and share information with any legislator that's interested in that does that help that was perfect and now mr malloy will know exactly what to say because we'll have someone transcribe your your speech there and uh i i didn't mean to put you on the spot i knew exactly where you're coming from and that's why i was praising you for doing this but i did also think that it would be really helpful as we try to build public awareness and appreciation for how important this is so thank you for indulging me thank you it's exciting and obviously yes i'll support it thank you miss marin we can

075go ahead and take the vote this amendment uh be is before us on the screen all those in favor all those opposed madam chair yes although i did vote on this i did want to make a comment my um light was on oh i'm sorry you're all the way at the end we didn't see you go ahead um i just wanted to clarify that here in fairfax county we are working aggressively on uh implementing the science of uh learning of literacy and that we are working to ensure we're doing that and what this amendment like so many of the amendments to the legislative package that we are putting forth tonight is one that actually captures what we are doing and sharing the best practices with the rest of the state and so to address your

076comments uh miss mclaughlin i would hope that we would actually include in our um in the toolbox that we provide to mr malloy who will be asked on these issues quite a lot um or quite often is that we give him some of the data that we know and we also provide uh the best practices pedagogy that we're using here that we are it's the i want to say og training that our our staff went through over the summer and we're doing the train the trainer and so it's really the opportunity to share our best practices with the rest of the state thank you thank you ms corbett sanders let's just go ahead and take that vote um over so it's clear the amendment is before us on the screen all those in favor please

077raise your hands that vote is unanimous with mr frisch if you want to go ahead and give um an a vote i support thank you with mr first supporting as well yes miss bakarski i just have um sort of a technical question for you maybe our clerk um we obviously want to post the language but i'm trying to understand are the people at home just gonna there is the screen just showing them this because the board is gonna keep talking all night and i i think putting the language up is good but then they really should be seeing the board meeting itself yeah that'd be great i think it's good to put it up but then i really i think that would be important that is important thank you miss mclaughlin i now call on

078miss tolin for an amendment thank you i move to amend the main motion as follows under fairfax county school board 2022 state legislative positions change items one through three under i environmental sustainability slash renewable energy to number one the fairfax county school board supports state efforts to reduce the county's greenhouse gas emissions and operational demand for energy through efficiency conservation renewable energy and education number two the fairfax county school board supports state resources incentives opportunities and targeted goals for expanding renewable energy and energy efficiency and removing existing barriers to such efforts number three the fairfax county school board supports state resources to support deploying electric school buses and related charging infrastructure in local school divisions as well as state capital funding dedicated to net zero and sustainability related building construction renovation and infrastructure the fairfax

079county school board supports additional dual enrollment and work based learning opportunities focused on careers related to environmental sustainability number five the fairfax county school board supports state resources to encourage school locations and school access developments that maximize the ability for students and staff to bike and walk to school and number six the fairfax county school board supports state resources to develop and promote outdoor classrooms and learning spaces at schools is our second high second seconded by mr frisch miss tolin would you like to speak to this yes thank you um a lot of what i just went through was especially in items one through four was really wordsmithing items that we already had in the legislative agenda just to make them more efficient and a little bit more clear additions included mention of the um

080state resource to work on outdoor classroom spaces and additional encouragement for biking and walking to school fairfax county and our school division are putting forth an ambitious local plan our object goals to reduce carbon emissions and take other positive steps to bolster sustainability it's through these local efforts and the efforts of each of us in our nation and the world can come back climate change our goals are ambitious and we need state and national help to achieve them other districts in the commonwealth also have ambitious sustainability goals some even more ambitious than ours from arlington virginia beach albemarle and prince william as as a few so um adding this to our legislative agenda and working with our legislators will not only benefit our school district but others across the state the department of energy's energy

081smart schools report shares that k-12 schools spend more than eight billion dollars annually on energy making energy the second highest operating expenditure for schools after personnel costs improvements in our green school infrastructure and energy efficiency can also help us save money on top of making our school environments more engaging we have seen darren covid how important air quality and ventilation is in our buildings by improving indoor air quality green schools can improve the health of students faculty and staff potentially decreasing sick days beyond the positive impacts of keeping students and teachers in school indoor air quality and access to outdoor spaces also has direct effects on student achievement kavit has turned our transportation system on his head we have had a bike and walk to school program for years but really being strategic and expanding

082our ability for students to walk a bike to school will help us reduce our kiss and ride lines and potentially alleviate some of the strain on our bus system workforce development we have a whole section in the legislative agenda on workforce development across all areas of study not just environmental sustainability we're just putting this specific statement on workforce development in green careers in this one section with the growth in electric vehicles and the recently announced investments in wind energy in the norfolk virginia area it is evident that investments in preparing our students for jobs in the green economy in virginia will be beneficial and these aren't just two examples our cte staff has already set up internships and experiences for our students to grow in this area and are working hard to expand this work

083and working with the state will be important so i hope we can pass this amendment i think it's important to at least say to our state level representatives how important environment and sustainability is to our district and many others across the state and how a focus here can help us promote health and learning for our students and help us save money in the long run thank you miss tollin mr frisch would you like to speak to your second yes i'll keep this quick um so as miss tollen indicated um these goals are essentially a crosswalk between the jet goals the joint environmental task force goals that the school division and the county approved uh this summer and one of the sections throughout the the jets final report was that the county and the school division

084would use its legislative agendas at their legislative programs to advance the cause of the other recommendations throughout the report and so that's exactly what this does and i would just note um on miss poland's final point on cost savings based on the energy conservation that the school division has already done we save eight million dollars a year and that is money that is already being reinvested in student success imagine what more we can do by being even more efficient in serving conserving even more and leading uh you know not only in the region but in the in the commonwealth and across the country in the development of a green workforce we have a lot to be proud of and we have a lot of work yet thank you mr fresh are there any other board

085members wishing to speak and with that the amendment is before us on the screen all those in favor please raise your hands that vote is unanimous mr frisch would you like to record your vote as well yes please aye thank you all right chugging right along i call on miss cohen for an amendment i have two because one is for state legislative position and the second is for our federal legislative position so just to clarify same wording but one going in our state program and one going in our federal legislative i move to amend the main motion by adding under fairfax county school board 2022 state legislative positions add item 11 to z under student safety as follows 11. the fcsb supports comprehensive gun violence prevention legislation to help protect the health and safety of

086our students families and staff and under fairfax county school board 2022 federal legislative federal legislative positions at item 39 to other funding and policy issues as follows 39 the fcsb supports comprehensive gun violence prevention legislation to help protect the health and safety of our students families and staff is there a second yes seconded by mr frisch miss cohn would you like to speak to this yes you know we unfortunately in our community have experienced many deaths related to gun violence that has really impacted our communities a couple of students but also some parents and former fcps parents in these last couple of years and you know as we look at sort of holistically trying to make sure that we're doing everything that we can to protect the safety of our students and staff you know

087we just want to recognize that firearms are not only the leading cause of death for our children and teens but also that 36 percent of child and teen gun deaths are from suicides every year about 1 300 kids a year so we just want as a school board to be able to make a statement to our state legislators and to our federal legislators that we support gun violence prevention legislation mr frisch would you like to speak to your second uh i echo everything that miss cohen just said and i would note that when we talk about you know making sure that we are doing everything we can to keep students staff and families safe we need to acknowledge that you know most of the accidental shootings suicides with firearms and school shootings involving children are

088with firearms obtained from their home or from the home of a family member or a friend so when we think about the legislation that richmond or washington dc could be doing to help keep students staff and families safe that's exactly the kind of work that i think they should be addressing thank you miss mclaughlin i know it's a long night and we don't all 12 need to chime in but this one i feel really strongly is not just a board member but a social worker a mother of three and just a concerned citizen we are very fortunate that part of our significant role in our public school system is to help children develop not just their academic skills but also lifelong lessons and i i really do hope that our community will look at this

089as a completely non-partisan issue that we all need to rally around our our commonwealth our nation struggles too often with innocent lives lost because of gun violence and i'm just proud to support um this before us here and i hope our community understands that this is a positive message to be sending to everyone thank you thank you are there any other board members wishing to speak seeing none the amendment is before us on the screen all those in favor please raise your hands that vote is unanimous mr frisch please go ahead yes thank you thank you i now call on miss sizemore heiser for an amendment thank you i move to amend the main motion by adding the following language to item s special education the fcps school board supports adding additional state resources and

090staffing dedicated to improved academic and career planning post-secondary planning services and post-secondary employment options for students with disabilities including potential extensions of service eligibility for certain students where appropriate who would have aged at of special education programs in the spring of 2022 2023 and 2024. is there a second seconded by miss corbett sanders miss eisenheiser yes thank you and i will try to be brief um i brought this as an amendment because one of the areas that we are concerned about i spoke about earlier is post-secondary employment for students with disabilities currently unemployment rates for students with disability for adults with disabilities are between 60 and 70 percent um the j lark study that came out on special education in virginia specifically flagged transition services as an area of need and in speaking to staff

091and parents they often talk about the need for additional staffing and transition resources to start that transition planning more robustly at an earlier age in addition many of our students who are in davis pulley and step are post graduate programs for students aged 18 to 22 who have ieps these programs rely heavily on workplace and on-the-job training however last year during 2020 2021 these students were not able to access this important on-the-job training because of kovid and the need to learn virtually the um general assembly mandated that students who would have aged out at 2021 school year 2021 be given an extra year of eligibility and what this amendment would bring is to ask for permission on a case-by-case basis for any student who is in those programs during the 2020-2021 school year be allowed

092on a case-by-case basis to be able to extend that year of eligibility to get that really important job skills training so i really appreciate the need it's very specific but the need for transition services is is strong if we're going to have a successful outcome for our students with disabilities so i'll stop there ms corbett sanders thank you it is my pleasure to second this amendment because as messismer heiser uh referenced the uh the services were interrupted during the uh during shutdown for covid but another aspect of it which is so important is that we teach our students to start self-advocating with their ieps in high school and that self-advocacy becomes more difficult in a tr in a virtual world and so this allows for our students to have that catch-up period of time coupled

093with the recognition that our um our companies that often provide opportunities for students during their transition were slow to reopen and many of the you know we're now getting back into a sense of normalcy but we know that it is going to take several years to ensure that everybody is able to make up for that lost time and so it is with my it is with my great pleasure to be able to second this and you miss corbett sanders are there other school board members wishing to speak seeing none that amendment is on the screen i'll call for the vote all those in favor that vote is unanimous yes all right mr frisch that vote is unanimous i call again on miss seismorizer for an amendment thank you i move to amend the main motion

094by adding the following language to item d college and workforce readiness the fairfax county school board supports the creation of employer incentives to make work-based learning and workforce development opportunities available for students including students with disabilities and low-income students second and my miss corbett sanders besides moreheiser thank you i appreciate that and as i spoke earlier the um unemployment rate for students with disabilities in particular is very high in addition for many students finding internships relies on family connections which it's often difficult for certain students who may not have those family connections and what i'm asking for in this amendment is that we ask for the state to work to create employer incentives to make this important work based learning workforce development these important internship opportunities available for students and encourage our employers through these

095incentives to make these opportunities available it's in particular for students who don't traditionally have access to these opportunities in addition as i mentioned our post secondary our postgraduate programs such as davis pulley and step rely on employers being willing to make space for these workplace learning opportunities for students with disabilities in these programs but sometimes as i've talked to our staff it can be difficult to find employers and find a breadth of employers to allow for our students to have these workplace learning opportunities so these employer incentives hopefully will help with that as well which will lead to long-term employment and success so thank you ms corbett sanders yes thank you and i really see this amendment as a compliment to other parts of our legislative package where we support the provision of end of

096internships journeymanships and work based learning and what this does is really link that earlier amen or earlier language that has been in our plan for a couple years to equity initiatives because the equity initiatives of reaching out and including access to these workforce development opportunities for not only our special education students but our students who may be coming from underrepresented families especially those that are on free and reduced meals because what happens in that situation is as you miss seismor heiser eloquently put many families have access to opportunities through their own networks but what this does is it creates the opportunity for students who don't have those networks in place it also creates the opportunity for our small and medium-sized businesses who may be reluctant to invest in workforce development opportunities and experiences because of

097the perceived extra burden of having to support that training and what this would do is allow for a more robust partnership between those workforce development opportunities our funding bodies and the community and what i would hope is that if this amendment passed that we would advocate for [Music] increased opportunities but also work to with our partnership office to identify areas where we could deepen those relationships dr anderson yes i would like to offer an amendment to the amendment go ahead after the language where it says including students with disabilities and low-income students i would like to add english language learners and undocumented students as well all second seconded by miss homash okay dr anderson uh i think it's been clear miss seismoheiser ms corbett sanders spoke um to pretty much everything that i wanted to

098say that includes these two student groups lack of network lack of resources lack of access there's a huge gap for our students who are english language learners who have the language barriers and again the lack of opportunity that i would love to see be included in this it's the same challenge um similarly with our undocumented students who are you know really doing the hard work of engaging in schools and just not having the opportunities to engage in internships really stifles their progress so i would love consideration from this board to add those two groups as well because they face the same challenges that my colleagues so eloquently just talked about thank you mr mesh seconding uh everything that dr anderson said i think it speaks for itself this is just an opportunity to expand the

099thinking around who we might help and i want to particularly highlight undocumented kids i think who this may end up serving best but really just speaks to our desire to uplift all those who've been marginalized and who face these particular challenges when it comes to employment thank you miss marin i support the amendment and the main amendment are there any other school board members wishing to speak okay go ahead and take the vote um the language is before you on the screen oh ms mclaughlin i i very much appreciate this added language i just want to check with our division council he's not here oh well so to my colleagues i guess the only thing my concern would be is as long as this is compliant with virginia law then absolutely but i don't want

100us to vote for something and then find out that we put something in our legislative package that we might find it's not so dry yeah okay doctor miss corbett sanders go ahead can i suggest that we decouple the english language learners from the undocumented and because i think that's what your concern is but the english language learners doesn't have any sort of uh question regarding the legal status is that what you're suggesting yeah i mean english language learners are are students that we already identify and um you know in terms of undocumented students we don't ask for students documentation so i i'm i kind of think we might capture all of the students in here without causing issues so seeing mr foster is back uh mr foster we have go ahead ms mclaughlin why don't

101you go ahead and ask hi mr foster so um just really quickly i i absolutely support um the language and intent uh here but what i didn't know is under virginia law uh by us um putting language in here that specifically calls out undocumented students when it's my understanding we don't actually ask for the document the document status of our students um does this language does that language present potential problems um or one might look at it and just say why are you putting something there that you wouldn't necessarily know um but if we're talking about low income and ell and students with disabilities might we make sure that we've captured up all of our students in need so right yeah i mean i just i can speak to legally under plyler versus doe which

102is the seminal supreme court case we're not allowed to ask about status of whether you're documented or undocumented you know i'll defer to the board in light of that um whether you think it's best to include that phrasing on undocumented students i i do share the concerns and let it apply to the case thank you so uh i guess i would ask uh dr anderson i i as again i completely understand the added language and the advocacy that we would be as holistic as possible to all of our students who need additional um supports but before i put forward a motion that might strike just that last part given what our our general counsel has said do you have anything you'd like to share with me your reservations before i consider making that sure i

103actually have another question just to help brought in my understanding of council's concern the state of virginia does have accommodations for undocumented students when it comes to in-state tuition and other provisions is that not correct i believe you may be speaking at the university level i i'm not really sure the basis for the question but um again i i i still am concerned as i'd explained earlier about in light of the limitations placed by supreme court president k-12 organizations having this language that seems to you know call out undocumented students and this ask is not to have any students pretty much out themselves and declare themselves so for us to gather information that we don't need to have but it's really to raise a concern because this is a community of students who have access

104issues to internships and positions i do know that there's some support and counseling and not just i'm not sure 100 what's happening in fairfax county but i also know in other jurisdictions like arlington where students are being guided um through the college application process through internships primarily due to their undocumented um status so that they can figure out how to access some of these provisions that are typically not available and so that is the intent of including this and our legislative packet so um i would like if this is not something that we can proceed i would like to have a a more thorough reading by our um attorneys on this issue yeah i appreciate you giving additional insight dr anderson i think where my concern is it's one thing for um universities that have

105uh federal and um sometimes state requirements for when they can give out financial aid into whom like i know from my time at georgetown foreign students are not allowed to have financial aid awarded by the university because it's fairly regulated and the restrictions are against foreign students receiving it so that might be where they have carved out in commonwealth virginia for qualifying for financial assistance but i and here to what our general counsel is saying specifically we're trying to safeguard all students by not asking their documented status so i'm a little concerned about then putting language in there that elevates and puts a spotlight on it so i i guess i would wonder um what what students when you look at how we're trying to capture our desire here to help them by removing undocumented

106students because it isn't a category that we ask we do know all of our ell students we do know our our students with free reduced meals status and we do know students with disabilities that to me covers the student population that we're aware of that needs this additional support but i i was hoping to better understand if there was a need to keep this language in so to our parliamentarian jason you get to be on the spot what would be the process for me because i know this language now belongs to the body so if i wanted to propose removing undocumented students where where in the process does this take place yes i was thinking that might come up um this would be a tertiary amendment which isn't itself allowed but you have some auction

107you're very fuzzy can i take this off temporarily thank you it's a particularly thick one a thick mask this would be considered a tertiary amendment which isn't actually allowed under the regular rules but you have a couple of options one you could all vote it down and then have another amendment with just english language learners excluding the other language or you could ask for unanimous consent or to strike undocumented students and that would be effectively suspending the rules to allow for that to be stricken so that's an option as well all right so okay so miss purkarsky in my turn i would like to ask i would like to request the board's permission to suspend our normal processes to allow the board to vote by unanimous consent to strike undocumented students and move forward with

108the vote okay okay all those in favor of okay that that's yeah so dr anderson's voting now so we'll have to now just vote on hers and then i'll bring something after yeah so we're still on the amendment oh jason i don't have a point yes just because you have an objection to that as you know under unanimous consent it can be adopted with a two-thirds vote may i make a point uh well we've got to vote through this right now i think so all those in favor of striking that language please raise your hands striking just the undocumented language and undocumented students please raise your hands okay that is two-thirds okay so we go back to um the amendment offered by dr anderson are there any other school board members wishing to speak okay

109um oh no yeah thanks i i guess i wanted to uh distinguish a couple things with this legal issue i mean for one obviously you know i i point i spoke with miss jasmer heiser about this being an issue with lower income kids as well it's kind of a broader issue of if we're going to identify then who you know are we encouraging people to disclose et cetera because i heard that being one of the concerns so i do think that that concern is broader if that's going to be this reason but back to the legal issue um i guess mr foster if you can just clarify specifically i i actually fun fact in law school did learn this and i know that it's a federal issue but my question is when it comes to

110unpaid uh learning experiences right because this is what we're asking we're in wanting to incentivize employers to provide these learning opportunities um so i wanted to ask if that would be something that uh you know violates the law i guess madam chair i'm going to follow the lead of the parliamentarian take my mask off so i can speak more clearly i want to make sure i understand the question um are you asking because this is really an incentive-based program that that are you asking whether that changes my legal conclusion so i'm saying i guess if yeah if a subset of this were to be an unpaid learning an unpaid internship basically right for a kid would that be legally possible you're asking would it be legally possible for the school system to provide unpaid internships

111i'm sorry i'm just i'm not following the question so this is uh incentivizing learning opportunities through employers right right so if we were if the state was to take this as a recommendation and to figure out obviously they're going to look through the legalities to figure out how to implement it properly so assuming potentially a subset would be unpaid learning experiences would that be something that could be allowed through employees or employer incentives for undocumented kids no i still have the same concerns that i'd had with respect to the original motion which is even approaching that question it would really in order for this school system to administer or apply this language by default you're going to have to be counting undocumented students which gets into violating filer versus dove so i just i don't

112see how the i don't see a different outcome and the hypothetical that you'd outlined i still have the same concerns okay would those concerns also apply to income status i don't have the same legal concerns about income status i do think as a practical matter and this i would you know certainly the superintendent his team could speak to that but i i think the challenge there is we we don't have a as i understand it a direct way of tracking income status that gets very sensitive if you're looking at fmla um not fmls thank you thank you it's getting late and i'm getting my um abbreviations mixed up but no i mean i think that that represents the challenge there that's an indirect approach but i don't have a legal concern about the low income

113question yeah um i mean i guess my final question around that would be would it really require disclosure right because if it's something that's an understanding that an employer doesn't seek that information especially for an unpaid internship which i'm pretty sure is how they do it anyway right now would it be possible if that could be an option right so they don't necessarily ask for documentation status at all but they offer unpaid opportunities and make it clear that they're open to that i'm sorry open to what to like that they won't you know ask for verification of that sort that they won't exclude those who may not be documented yeah i um i think at this point i i you know i want to be helpful to the board um you know there's a lot

114of questions here i've been happy if you'd like me to do a memorandum on the different questions that ms omega has identified i'm happy to do that i'm just not really in a position this evening you know off the cuff to be answering all you know these several questions yeah i think i'd appreciate you know obviously this is going to be the agenda but i think follow-up would be beneficial here and and i know you know some of my colleagues are uncomfortable and folks are chatter and whatever but i i think the the broad the bigger picture here is this is a subset of people who don't think this is even an option for them so can we within the broader picture of what this is encouraging even if it's a tiny sliver of what's

115possible right even if it's just an unpaid internship that is not advertised for any particular documentation status and doesn't require that kind of legal you know submission um could that be a possibility that could expand opportunity for this population right we all can share obviously the need to uphold our legal so much uh i just we're speaking to this part of the amendment now so i think you're speaking to the prior part so if you can kind of focus on this yeah yeah because we just struck that down without discussion right so that was the piece that um anyway thank you okay mr frisch followed by miss corbett sanders thank you um i can appreciate the concern here and one thing that i would offer as a remedy is you know this board has already

116unanimously requested that the governance committee create a school trust policy that aligns with the county's policy and embedded in that meaning is making clear to all families that the services opportunities programs of fairfax county public schools are open to everyone regardless of status and so i would hope that in the execution of this opportunity um that the school trust policy would make that clear to all families that regardless of documentation status that we encourage people to take part uh and that they are safe to do so in our school system um and i think that's one way around this conversation over whether or not you're going to be requesting information that you may not be legally able to request um and i think it is a holistic issue it's not just on this subject that

117we have issues making sure that all families know they are eligible for the same programs as anybody else um so um i would offer that and i look forward to supporting this is corbin sanders yes thank you madam chair first i i had initially put my light on because of a point of order we had already voted on the removal of the language and so it is a bit unusual to then debate about how we could reinsert something that had been taken out um and so i i think that it's the uh attorney for the system has offered to provide additional information and update to the board on this language and we appreciate your you're coming forward with that mr foster now i would like to speak to the remaining language which includes english language

118learners and i fully support the incorporation of english language learners because we do know that similar to the comments that were made earlier about access to opportunities and networks that this is an area that we want to create opportunities so thank you and thank you dr anderson for putting this forward it's greatly appreciated dr anderson would you like to speak as a maker of this um amendment no just very briefly i think miss omega hit upon the points that i wanted to share the piece that for me stands out in this conversation with all of the groups that i just talked about is the opportunity to incentivize those who are providing those internships for all of our students clearly as one of the folks who supported the trust policy i am not looking for disclosure

119but i'm looking for understanding and an opportunity to be clear that do not exclude those students because we are finding that these are the students who are not able to get internships and who are not able to be able to be productive in a professional way it is happening it's just the truth and matter of it so i'm looking forward to having a more comprehensive uh information from our council because we did raise a lot of questions to him um just right away so i i will happily support this because i want for the english language learners to be supported but i just wanted to offer a little bit more of a rationale as to why i was really debating thank you doctor the undocumented um peace thank you thank you dr anderson and just

120to remind and other board members we are now speaking to this amendment on the screen and that is all miss mclaughlin thank you i just wanted to go back for a couple points of clarity first of all in terms of low-income students that is federal federally allowed that's the whole point of the freedom-reduced meals what we were wanting is number one this is just our legislative package absolutely nothing can happen unless a legislator creates a bill gets it through subcommittee gets it voted on in both branches of the of the general assembly and then you know it gets to be signed by the governor becomes law so we are you know i'm just gonna ask everybody's patience here that there's a lot of passion and care and commitment to tonight's amendments and i'm trying to

121be really supportive while i don't have any and i'm really mindful that it's already full of a lot of stuff i respect everybody's desire to make it stronger but i would just ask from this point forward can we really be thinking judiciously about our time i mean a lot of time was spent on something we had a legal concern we got a legal um opinion read from our division council i think it was the right thing to do but i i want to make sure the audience at least understands low-income students are what we already have and obtain voluntarily from our families who want to qualify for a federal program it's that simple we don't have that and we shouldn't be asking anyone's documented status so i appreciate where we are i support it as

122it stands um ms seismore heiser i'll be very very quick i just wanted to just remind everybody first of all this is not just limited to unpaid internships second of all it does start with for students including it doesn't exclude anybody so i just i appreciate all the passion i appreciate but i just wanted to make it clear this was not meant to exclude any particular it was calling out a certain including certain students for whom traditionally it has been much harder to get these programs especially in particular for those students in the davis pulley and step programs who's where they do struggle to find employers that's it but it doesn't exclude anyone thank you and with that we do have the language the updated language um to this amendment i will go ahead and

123ask for the vote for those who um support the updated language please raise your hands yes yeah we do thank you mr frisch that vote is unanimous now we've got to go back to the um main amendment with the added language i may have very good um [Music] we will go ahead and take that vote all those in favor yes and that is unanimous wonderful besides more hyzer you have one more amendment i promise this is the last one i move to amend the main motion by adding the following language to item t standards of accreditation and standards of learning the fairfax county school board supports ensuring that eligibility for state and federal financial aid for post-secondary and workforce development programs and opportunities is available to recipients of all of virginia's diploma types is there

124a second second seconded by miss cohen miss eisenheiser just briefly i'll speak to this um as many of you have heard me speak about the applied studies diploma and the limitations of the applied studies diploma students in virginia who receive the applied studies diploma are not eligible for federal student aid and often not eligible for state aid in the meantime there are many programs that have developed especially in the last five or ten years at colleges for inclusive college living experiences that include internships workforce development independent living inclusive living programs that are available to students with the applied studies and alternate diplomas that have great success i just read about clemson life has a 95 employment rate after the life program however our students are ineligible for federal student aid for many of these programs

125in addition if they want to go to nova to get a certification for um skilled you know a skilled certification they're unable to get federal student aid this just asks that all of our diploma recipients are eligible for aid to access workforce development and other similar programs post-secondary programs so i appreciate the second thank you let's go yeah i just i think that there are many folks who don't realize that when you graduate with an applied studies diploma that you're not eligible for federal financial aid and that comes as a surprise to many people and many people's parents upon graduation so fully support this and grateful to ms seismore heismer heiser for bringing it up for us are there any other school board members wishing to speak okay all those in favor of the amendment

126please raise your hands yes that is unanimous all right i now call on miss corbett sanders yes thank you madam chair i moved to amend the main motion under the fairfax county school board 2022 state legislative position item number t standards of credit of accreditation standards of learning the following language 17. the fairfax county school board supports the continued access to rigorous and advanced mathematics instruction in grades k through 12. is there a second seconded by ms mclaughlin miss corbett sanders yes thank you um as many of you know i have been a an advocate for the provision of advanced math at the earlier grades since well before i ever joined the school board and it's something that i was pleased when the school board adopted a policy which would have allowed or would have

127required advanced math in all of our elementary schools but the implementation of the advanced math was really left up to each individual elementary school as to whether or not they started in sixth grade or they started in kindergarten and what this does is it states it incorporates into our legislative program advocacy to have consistency in the implementation of advanced math throughout the whole k through 12 experience for all of our students to be able to have access to those opportunities and the reason that this is so important is because we know that similar to the literacy initiative that we voted on earlier this evening mathematics literacy is equally important for our students to be able to take advantage of advanced courses especially as they go further up into their high school experience and what this

128does is address some of the communications that came out last year that there might be a stepping away from the provision of advanced math and instead very very clearly states that this school board is supportive of providing access and opportunities for students in the area of advanced math throughout their educational experience as long as they are in the commonwealth of virginia thank you ms mclaughlin just briefly i want to echo the important points that ms corbett sanders shared there's no question that the people come to fairfax county schools because we are known for being among the best in the united states and my home state of california they have been wrestling with what they're going to do with advanced math and when it's being provided to students and when they can access it and having

129been a parent in the school system for 18 years i certainly saw firsthand that having access to advanced math particularly at the elementary school level and can create some really amazing academic opportunities for students and to what ms corbett sanders said while we here in fairfax county schools want to become even more committed to the equity ensuring that all elementary schools have that here in fairfax i think it's also important that we really convey to the general assembly our legislators how important this is and that unlike other states we do not want to step away and step back from advanced math where it's appropriate differentiated instruction is differentiated instruction and there was conversations within the department of education and task force that caught this board and others by surprise and so i think it's very

130timely that we not just communicate to the general assembly but we also communicate to our communities that this is still important and we value it miss tolin yes thank you um i want to thank you for bringing this amendment forward um you know as a huge proponent of advanced academics and stem education i certainly support this and because i don't really need to say much more than that thank you thank you are there any other school board members wishing to speak mr not yes i i thank my colleagues for bringing this forward uh as miss corbett sanders noted several of us have been advocates for this i think it's extremely important that we highlight this because it's very important to differentiate up as well as differentiating down and i think it's important that advanced math

131be offered to all of those who want it need it and it's something important for our system to recognize as we move forward with the stem education of our students i just wanted to briefly say that as a parent of a child who's a stem child and to really benefit from advanced math i think it is important to make sure that we provide all of our students as dr brabant often says by name by need to the education that they need so thank you for bringing this forward and with that seeing no others wishing to speak the amendment is before us on the screen i will call for the vote all those in favor yes all those against that vote is unanimous wow and with that i will call on the vote for the main

132motion which is on the screen all those in favor yes all those opposed and that motion passes and with that i want to thank um mr frisch mr neck kofax miss cohen mr malloy for all your hard work um in getting this together we we appreciate you and we appreciate everything you've done um to bring us this tonight yay it's exciting okay agenda item 4.03 public engagement committee recommendation changes to the strategic governance manual i call on mr frisch for the motion thank you madam chair i move that the board approved the public engagement committee recommended changes to the governance manual regarding community participation is there a second a second mr frisch would you like to speak to your motion very briefly uh this motion continues the school board's recent work to improve community participation

133at regular meetings first it encourages those hoping to submit pre-recorded video testimony to do so in advance when they sign up to participate rather than waiting and second it allows those on the wait list to participate virtually if live virtual on video if they choose that option when signing up as an aside the public engagement committee discussed these updates with the board clerk and she indicated that the changes would not negatively impact her office's ability to coordinate community participation at board meetings miss carl just speak to a second what he said are there any other board members who wish to speak mr kofax do you wish to speak seeing and hearing none the motion before us is on the screen all those in favor yes all those opposed that motion passes with miss picarsky away

134from the table agenda item 4.04 modification of contract fcps special education comprehensive review i call on ms darren at colfax for the motion i move that the school board approved the recommended modification of the special education comprehensive review contract between fairfax county public schools and the american institutes for research is there a second mrs corbett sanders miss darren colfax would you like to speak to your motion sure during a lengthy discussion at our public all-day work session on september 21st we first saw the first view of our special education comprehensive review from our consultants mair and our board unanimously asked for additional data collection at our public october 27th audit committee meeting the audit committee members were presented with a revised plan from air and our audit meeting our audit committee concurred with the review

135expansion over stakeholder focus groups classroom observations excellent data analysis totaling uh 87 and on november 10th a detailed 30-page report was shared with our board and posted shortly after tonight i asked my colleagues to pass this motion for modification of the year two work of the air contract and at some point i would ask miss coe after our my colleague speaks to her second miss co if you have anything to add please speak after miss corbett sanders speaks to her second thank you miss corbett sanders would like to speak to your second i'll be brief i only seconded this because it was originally on the consent agenda and was pulled off and i there wasn't uh much discussion as to why it was pulled off i did support i do support this because it reflects

136the very uh detailed conversation that we had at the board table as well as those conversations that we've had with the parents in the community about just this subject this is a the uh special education audit is something that uh was a forum topic was the result of a forum topic that miss keys gemara and myself brought forward and it really is focused on having that very healthy external review of what we're doing with the intent of continuously improving the services that we provide to our students and the relationships and the partnership that we have with our students the parents of students with disabilities and so this amendment really to the contract is one that allows us to deepen the study and to reflect the uh the concerns of the community so thank you very

137much miss darren at kofax for doing this thank you miss corbett sanders i know we have miss coe here today and she would like to offer some comments thank you madam chair so if i may just give a little bit more colors about the contents of the modifications so as miss daranek colfax has mentioned it is an additional of approximately 87 000 more the addition the original contract was at 375 000 so that the community members who are watching know kind of like the landscape of this contract so in specific the stateholder focus groups for year two we air is proposed to conduct 20 additional stakeholder focus groups and extend all 40 focus groups now become 40 focus groups to 90 minutes in duration and for the second item which is the classroom observations the

138proposal is to conduct 50 additional classroom observations across 30 additional schools yielding a total of 150 observations across 50 schools the last point is about extend data analysis the proposed expansion is to perform additional data analysis to better understand the flagability at the school and the program level with that as we have mentioned we also have the researchers online at this point if any school board members have any questions for them thank you miss kell miss um yep i have miso mesh first we're next oh no i appreciate that i i was just going to um thank my colleagues for their cooperation on this and the previous um pieces and just explain why they were pulled um i i was the unknown board member who who pulled both of these and and really um obviously

139with this contract we had our entire work session a lot of our feedback uh went back and to the audit committee and as they've just shared um you know was manifesting some modifications and then the previous portion obviously was on public engagement so just wanting to make sure that you know we're fully transparent and that the public has an opportunity to hear some of the discussion around these pieces because i know we don't always read out the consent agenda agenda and these are two major things that you know the community has been paying attention to so just wanted to flag that but thank you thank you mr gamara yes uh thank you miss amesh for pulling this i i think we probably did need to talk about this and i wanted the community to um

140you know they're hearing from collectively from all of us that this really was an attempt to try to make sure uh the community could see how seriously we take our duty with respect to the concerns that we have heard over the last couple of years with the first phase of this having been completed and us going into the second phase the audit committee was able to sit down and hear our experts along with citizen participants participating who actually who have experience in auditing and they also advised us as the experts recommended these additional steps that we could get the most improvement out of it will also include additional community input additional data and help us to broaden the impact of possible improvements so i just wanted um that's what went into the work session and

141i wanted the community to know that uh there had been a great deal of consideration at the audit committee level as and then at the board itself really thinking about what can we do to get the most out of this first step and i think that this board is committed to continuing uh for continuing to work for toward uh other improvements as we move forward thank you and of course i'll vote for it miss stolen yes i also just wanted to assure people i know i had a number of people that were concerned about you know why we were only looking at 300 ieps when our program is as large as it is and i just want people to be assured that in particular in our audit committee meeting we had extensive conversations with our

142experts that are running this study that increasing the number of ieps would not really give us more confidence in the data but then in addition the increases that we're making to both the stakeholder information and the number of classroom visits any kinds of questions that we had in looking at the 300 ieps we could if we thought there was something missing like if there was a certain group that wasn't included we could catch that in the stakeholder involvement with the very careful list of stakeholders that we have that we'll be meeting with and with the additional classroom work and then of course our experts came back to us and i'm offered to at no additional charge but perform some additional analysis on those 300 ieps so i i certainly appreciate them um doing that so

143i just wanted to assure everyone that we thought about that very carefully in not selecting that additional piece we didn't feel that the additional cost would really be worth it cohen i'm so glad to follow that because um acsd one of their number one concerns um was the limited number of ieps so i really appreciated the feedback that it just that the additional um that an expansion of that wouldn't change the statistical analysis enough but what i really wanted to highlight for folks who were paying attention here i think one of the biggest changes that i'm really excited about is that the initial contract we were doing 100 classroom observations across 20 schools and now we'll be doing 50 additional classroom observations across 30 additional schools so now going from 20 schools to 50 schools

144so i just that was a huge area for acsd feeling like they weren't going to be in enough classrooms and so i really appreciate the committee's work to go um you know to 100 classrooms across 20 schools to 150 across 50 schools i think we're much more likely to to get a much better idea of what is what's going on and the same thing with with expanding the initial addition additional 20 um stakeholder focus groups so doubling the number of focus groups that we were talking to and extending the duration from an hour to an hour and a half so i just i so appreciate the air folks ms coe and then ultimately the audit committee like really hearing the feedback of the board working through that work session it's so nice when you are

145able to come together and you see it actually translate into something so i'm very excited i think that we're going to get a much better um audit as a result of this work and i i will wholeheartedly support it and i appreciate my colleagues supporting it as well miss smart heiser um just briefly i'm very glad to follow miss cohen on that and i just wanted to one of the comments that i've gotten on this is to ensure that the 300 ieps are representative of sort of the the differentiation within special education because as we all know special education isn't a monolith and so one of the reassurances that i had and i appreciate mr not cofacts letting me sit in and ask some questions at the meeting one of the reassurances i did get

146and i wanted our public to know was that it wasn't just a random sampling of ieps but it's a random representation representative sampling of iep so there is an effort to ensure that the differentiation within special education is reflected in the randomization of these ieps and the other piece i just want to say is we all know the devil is in the implementation right so i think the additional stakeholder groups and classroom visits will really get to some of the concerns that i've heard from many many stakeholders which is around fidelity of implementation of those ieps so i'm really excited to have those pieces in here so thank you thank you seeing that there are no other board members wishing to speak the motion is before us on the screen all those in favor please

147raise your hands yes all those opposed and that vote is unanimous okay agenda item 5.01 consent agenda our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure robert's rules provide for a consent agenda listing several items for approval of the board by a single motion many items listed have gone through board review and documentation has been provided to all board members and the public in advance items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member prior to the meeting the consent agenda items are on the screen is there any objective objection to approving 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

148a future meeting the new business item is on the screen agenda item 7.01 superintendent matters i call on dr brabrand thank you chairman picarski members of the board just very briefly given the hour i just want to say as we come to the thanksgiving holiday i want to express my gratitude to all of our staff and students and parents and community members i'm thankful that we work together through this year to provide the very best education possible in a safe and welcoming environment and we should be proud of what we've accomplished together this year please take a moment this week and over the weekend to to give thanks to your friends and family and to all of the things and people that have helped you feel gratitude and be sure to let them know how

149thankful you are many of you will be joining family and friends for the first time in person compared to a thanksgiving ago before we even had the promise of the vaccine that's now been extended to all of our adults and even our children in both now elementary and secondary schools so i know it is going to be a momentous week for some of our families and students and staff and i wish them and all of you joy and happiness in reconnecting we do need to continue to find the joy every day every week every month and i am confident we will have more joy to share in the weeks and months ahead i'm so thankful to work with a fantastic team here including the school board and the leadership team and our school-based and central

150office leaders and i wish all of you and all of them our entire fairfax county public schools family a wonderful thanksgiving thank you thank you dr brabrand agenda item 8.01 board matters i call on miss omesh okay all right put me on the spot all right all right um so obviously it was a pleasure joining my colleagues last week at the virginia school boards association conference and being able to exchange best practices ideas as to what we can do to support our kids through the academic and mental health challenges etc especially with colleagues from the northeast region and other counties in addition to that it was a pleasure celebrating a sangster as miss cohen mentioned earlier and as we did again today our young kids who came out with such joy and excitement it was

151such a real pleasure to be able to see them back together happily and then of course to thank our staff who've really achieved incredible things in the toughest year in recent education history i did want to just make sure i know we didn't have the chance to comment on the final motion with the legislative agenda as we moved along but i do hope to further explore two sets of conversations with my colleagues that i know we proved this time around but i'd be really remiss not to mention one of those being you know involvement of our family our homeschooled families and some of our activities i know this has been an ongoing conversation i've certainly heard from constituents the the desire and need to expand access to some of that so being mindful of course

152of i know what some of my colleagues have expressed to be concerns around potentially having people who've had more training that may disadvantage other students when joining but still keeping in mind that many families do feel that for a variety of reasons they have to participate in homeschooling and so i hope that my colleagues and i will continue those conversations and moving ahead to next year and seeing what's possible and that was specifically in section w of the legislative agenda and then finally just in section z i know we are requesting additional funding um for sros obviously that is a sensitive topic for so many reasons but i did want to just flag that as a piece that um i had hoped to kind of neutralize by you know taking a step back and not

153making a call so far so i don't want that to be misunderstood by the community and hopefully conversations will go on in the future finally obviously wishing everyone a blessed thanksgiving grateful to everyone here my colleagues staff all across our division for their exceptional hard work and just reminding everyone that hopefully we do celebrate uh this uh thursday with our families in a way that is culturally competent and responsive to the variety of perspectives and journeys our families have had so it's quite befitting that november being native american heritage month is an opportunity for us to consider the the the tropes the images the ways we celebrate and come together in a memory that may be painful in many ways but also obviously brings us together to celebrate what's best what what brings us um

154the best in all of us and and what ultimately guides us to be more grateful and look ahead for a better future so happy thanksgiving everyone miss corbett sanders yes thank you and i want to start by talking a little bit about what i'm thankful for i am so thankful that all of our students are back in school full-time this year i'm thankful for all of our teachers and staff that make every day make a difference every day in the lives of our students i'm thankful for the parents who are engaged not only in their own nuclear families but engaged in contributing to the overall well-being of our students in all of our schools as volunteers in the classroom as mentors for students as coaches on the ball fields and i am thankful for all

155of the staff that make the operations of our buildings so successful from the workers in our in our cafeterias to the custodians to our bus drivers and to the very happy greeting women and men at the front office of each of our schools so that's what i want to leave everybody with is how in this time period where people have so many pressures that we forget to say thank you and i am so thankful for all that our team does in our schools dr brabrand for all that your team does and for all of my colleagues who come to this work with um a focus on the student ms keys gemara followed by miss cohen i will add my thanks to that for many of the things that ms corbett sanders mentioned i'm so grateful

156to our staff for your patience with us through this year as we've tried to navigate unusual circumstances but many joys in between so i do say thank you um just a couple of things because part of my gift to you is speaking um for a short amount of time um and we i was happy to join uh some of my colleagues massage my heiser and miss melanie maron at the vienna turkey trot um this weekend it was a lot of fun um no i did not run in it but i took lots of pictures and um it was just so cool to see our little kids who really were just so invigorated and with their families and it was a lot of fun and i just really want to thank my colleagues too we were

157able to attend the virginia school board association convention and it's so important to really be able to take time to figure out how to work together and so i'm i'm grateful to each and every one of you for those uh shared moments and i think that it will help us moving forward and so i say to all of you thank you and happy thanksgiving um thank you for uh being here and you thank you to your families for sharing you with us i'm happy to be uh heading home with all of my boys who don't know that they're going to help make dinner so happy thanksgiving everyone thank you so much i just wanted to echo again how proud we all are of sangster being a blue ribbon school and and we really did have

158fun um miss omeg and uh ms seismor heiser and i did a mean congo line so invite us to your next gathering um i was really grateful i'm gonna echo my colleagues thanks i um being getting to be together last week and we missed you dr anderson and and miss tolan an awful lot i know you're there virtually but just getting to be with all of you um i know sometimes it feels like we are slogging through the mud but um i'm really glad we're doing it all together so thank you for that um i did want to just say um at the vsba meeting last week was just terrific and we learned so much from the other localities you know sometimes when it isn't even something that necessarily we can figure out how to

159scale to such a big system sometimes it just plants a seed and i think getting to be with our colleagues in particular in the nova region was very very meaningful and and all talking about the experience that we're going through and how to push forward and do the very best things for our students but also remain united in in our work together and our passion for students it was very meaningful to me so i was so disappointed to learn at the end of that conference that vsba has withdrawn from the national school board association and i just would like to make it clear i do not agree with or support that decision and i'm really looking forward to all of us hopefully attending the annual national school board association conference this year thank you so

160much and happy thanksgiving to everybody ms stern at kofax and miss mclaughlin um thank you i'm just going to speak to your last point ms cullen i i don't agree either and as the federal legislative liaison i'm going to just try to work and talk to people and talk to people at nsba about what we can do as a board if we as a as a board agree that that we don't support that and so thank you for mentioning that and but getting to my board matters a little over a week ago i had the opportunity to visit louis high school and i worked with students to plant native plants in their school courtyard through a program called revitalize restore and replant i had great fun getting my hands dirty under the guidance of daniel

161nguyen and who's an ecologist from the watershed education and outreach for fairfax county's department of public works and also i also want to thank rachel claussen who is the louis high school biology science teacher who arranged all of this with them thank you to the lewis high school students for your hard work hysterical conversations as we planted together and i can't wait to come back in the spring to see the blooms of our labor so last week always many of us talked about i too was able to be at vsba with my colleagues and it is always a great learning experience and i do appreciate the opportunity to network and learn not just from colleagues around the state but with all of my colleagues here at the table and today i visited cameron elementary school

162with dr brabrand and dr king i want to thank principal johnson for hosting us and allowing us to greet students in the morning as they arrived and sit in and hear from your third grade team about their work and modeling responsive classrooms it was heartwarming to hear their passion their compassion and hard work and thank you all for all you do for our students there at cameron and i'm hoping all of our students teachers and staff have time to relax with family and friends eat heartily and happy thanksgiving to everyone i first want to begin by echoing the comments that my colleagues have shared about our participation in the virginia school board association conference it's been two years because the pandemic and that really proved to be not just an important way of learning about

163some of the best practices happening around the commonwealth of virginia but also for board members to take a moment to really get a chance to talk with one another along with dr brabrand dr ivey and lee burton and marcy neal we do so much work um at a business level and yet being able to have those personal conversations being able to understand and appreciate truly the humanity that each one of us brings to this job and i really hope for our community for our teachers our employees our students and families that you will be able to spend quality time with your loved ones that in this moment of this special holiday celebration that really spans hundreds of years here in our in our nation uh that we really can start to think about what we

164are thankful for uh in the united states that we recognize that we always need to continuously improve um but coming through the pandemic every one of us who's sitting here and being able to breathe on this earth that alone is a gift coming out of the pandemic so to my colleagues thank you again for your dedication to this work dr brabrand thank you to you and your team i know that uh this is a heavy lift for everybody and i i really appreciate that we can come back starting monday after thanksgiving to hit the ground running again we do have our meeting tomorrow with the board of supervisors so we're not ready to start our holiday yet we will be talking with our counterparts uh with a focus again on how do we really meet

165the needs of county residents and all the employees who work in service for all of you thank you and happy thanksgiving ms tolland followed by miss mary thank you as we start our second quarter and move toward the thanksgiving holiday i'm also focusing on what we can be thankful for um our koba transmission is remaining low in our schools and our students have been able to enjoy theater music production sports and other celebrations like our ever homecoming our staff has done a wonderful job of teaching first quarter material and getting a sense of the learning that needs to be done to make sure all of our students thrive academically and socially after dealing with covet 19. please take a moment to celebrate all that your students have achieved during the first quarter i've been thankful

166to visit a long list of schools in the past couple of weeks today i helped out in the office at herndon high school it was a very busy place and i certainly appreciated all the work that was going on there uh we have a just a general sense of joy in our schools and our classrooms and i'm so thankful for that um i also want to thank our pta leaders um i met with our dreams of pta meters pta leaders this past week and they are working really hard to strengthen the connection with families and bring a sense of community to our schools please attend their events and support the work that they are doing i'm so thankful to our schools engaged in many service projects across all grade levels thank you to our journalism

167schools and ptas for toiletry drives for share monthly service opportunities at langley high school collecting coats socks a variety of goods for our refugees and for our lower income residents in fairfax county the county is under a severe blood shortage please consider donating blood through innova or the american red cross and a huge thank you to mclean high school for running a blood drive recently congratulations to all the successful drama programs that happened last week and i'm looking forward to the band choral and orchestra concerts coming up congratulations to all of our teams that are finishing up their fall sports i just want to call out our herndon high school volleyball team they fought really hard against colgan high school and lost in the state championship game but it was a hard fight and hornets

168you did a great job lastly also i do want to thank our veterans it was so wonderful to hear from our fort belvoir commander tonight and i've been fortunate to have family members who served careers in the army and enough you just joined the national guard i'm so grateful for your service of both of our veterans and our active duty service members and to their families was thrilled to visit coleman run elementary school cooper middle school veterans day events and we cannot thank you enough for your service to everyone have a wonderful thanksgiving holiday and enjoy every minute with your family i am really looking forward to spending time with both of my adult sons and other family thank you the last few weeks have been filled with lots of different things one was meeting

169with constituents and helping them with their requests for support whether it's facilities traffic safety continues to be a need in hunter mill um also solar power in our schools the students interest has not waned on that um as well as talking with residents about employee benefits and special education services for their students so on any given day there's just a lot of different things to to work on and help people with i was excited to visit the mclean high school band um one of my constituents is a longtime band teacher there and i got to sit and and reminisce about my own days in the band and just listen to the gorgeous sound coming from the students and also see how they continue to do with coving mitigation strategies of which they seemed to be

170pros at and their sound certainly did not suffer it was really exceptional and then to see the madison theater students put on their production of almost maine which was a very charming and delightful way to spend a saturday afternoon and then just days later after much advocacy by students families myself and other board members to have that mass requirement lifted on theater arts performances that we know students really were desiring so um that combined with the madison vienna turkey trot had some nice times in vienna the last few days and yes last week in williamsburg with the vsba is was really good i think the best part was being with the people there although i did attend a really interesting session about teacher recruitment practices and models that are being used in virginia and also

171montgomery county so i was particularly interested in that and i talked with many folks about the benefits of landscape design of our school yards and incorporating the academic and health benefits of access to nature so that was a very exciting set of conversations i had so i'm certainly wishing everyone my colleagues here on the board and our staff and certainly our community our students our families a very joyful and peaceful thanksgiving holiday and i also say a happy hanukkah because the festival light starts on sunday night for eight evenings so you're really in the holiday season so wishing you all my best dr anderson followed by messiahs mahisa um thank you i also will give the gift of time by being super brief um it's been a very busy couple of weeks um engaging with

172our schools i seem to have spent a lot of time at braddock as of late both at their community town hall last week where i was so very pleased by the fact that 101 parents participated in that town hall which really speaks to the effort of that school to really engage their community to advocate because it's the very community that we're trying to reach all of the time so i was very impressed and the presentation was by the fairfax county health department as well as school staff to speak about the mitigation factors vaccination efforts and all of the questions in between regarding what is happening at the school care room everything was addressed and so i was very glad to be able to participate in that also um at braddock on friday i was there

173for the second grade um this social distance dance which took place outside it was so super cute and i was just so glad to be able to participate in that second grade activity um have had a wonderful time visiting our schools but i want to highlight um my visit to fall search high school today and dr brabrand of course visited at the same time it was just so fantastic to see all of the wonderful work that the students are doing we visited an asl class and their reasons for being there are tremendous and the kids were just so committed as were the teachers i really want to lend um to give a very good a very huge thank you to the teachers of false church but also to all of our teachers because we know

174that they're making do with a lot of challenges particularly at falls church where they're receiving so many students who are coming in from other countries even right now some students and classes that we visited just arrived two weeks ago and they will continue to get more of history follows more at the in the new year because this is what has happened before and i'm hoping that staff will continue to support them because those needs are great and really impact all of their operations very quickly i will be resuming office um in-person office hours in december so that was in my newsletter to the mason district so i look forward to speaking with you i am very excited to participate and the um justice high school ptsa panel that will be taking place on december 1st

175and um the survey has just been sent to parents regarding justice park and the community will be receiving it soon as well so please be sure to complete it happy thanksgiving everyone thank you and i will try to be brief and i wanted us to start on the vein of thanksgiving to thank our staff dr bray brand our leadership team our school building principals and administrators our teachers all of our staff our custodians our lunch people everybody who has worked incredibly hard i know we all started this year hoping we'll be close to normal and things have not been what we hoped given the delta variant and other things and i am just so thankful for all of our staff to show up every day and work incredibly hard and adapt so they can support

176our students and so i want to say thank you to the staff i want to say thank you to my colleagues because i really enjoyed um our week or a few days at vsba and the great learning that we did and the bonding so thank you my colleagues and thank you for supporting my legislative amendments but i just want to stop and recognize also to thank our families and our students because they're the reasons we're here and i want to thank them for their support i want to thank our students for showing up i want to thank the students who danced in macarena and the congo line and just brought us joy as we were at sanctuary celebrating the blue ribbon award i hope everybody has a great and safe thanksgiving with their family friends

177or loved ones and finally i just wanted to say that you know in this year and a half of covid i just want to be thankful that we can still get to serve and do this great work and i'm thankful that we are all at this board and our leadership team our principals our teachers at our hearts and our in our community and our parents we all want what's best for our students we are working hard to center our students and the kids and i'm thankful for that excellent i also um had a wonderful time at vspa thank you to all of you who were there it was a a good time to be together and and talk to others um in the state uh miss seismor heiser and i will be having a joint

178town hall on the 30th she forgot um but also i know um miss mclaughlin and miss cohen also happen to have a joint town hall on the same night that they forgot to mention so i wanted to uh let everyone know about that and you know i also want to wish everybody a very happy thanksgiving and as somebody who um seven years ago spent thanksgiving um not in a very happy way saying goodbye to my father i know that you know the holidays are hard especially this year because many many people will have missing seats at the table due to the coveted pandemic so with that in mind thank you to everyone happy thanksgiving and we will be back in two weeks meetings adjourned you