001[Music] do [Music] so [Music] do [Music] do [Music] don't [Music] do [Music] studio will be starting in one minute okay good evening all this may 6 2021 regular meeting of the fairfax county school board will now come to order i will now take roll miss cohen here miss club at sanders good evening ms donna kofax good evening mr fresh good evening ms keys gamora good evening ms mclaughlin hello ms mccarski hi everyone miss seismohizer good evening ms tolin good evening and mr anabuto hi everyone and miss marin miss miss maren i apologize i must have skipped over your name yes i certainly did my apologies miss mclaughlin okay we do have quorum so we will move on please rise as our student representative nathan nanobutto leads us in the reciting of the pledge of allegiance
002followed by a moment of silence i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you you may be seated in order to comply with section 2-2 2.2-3712-d of the code of virginia it is necessary for the board to certify that since the fairfax county school board convened a closed meeting on may 6 2021 and to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the board during the closed meeting [Music] that motion is moved by thank you miss corbett sanders seconded by miss tolin
003all in favor mr anna koufax mr frisch miss seismo heiser miss tolin who is dr miss marin miss corbett sanders miss um cohen miss omegamara miss picarsky and that is 11 with miss mclaughlin away from the table 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 at the website at fcps.edu school board slash board docs tonight's meeting is being broadcast on channel 99 and live streamed on the website at fcps.edu tv ch9 the fy 22 budget was presented at the may 4th work session so there will not be a presentation this evening a budget public hearing is scheduled for may 11th in a work session will be held on may 18th the
004board will take action on the budget at the may 20th regular meeting item 4.03 policy 5011 authority to contract and item 4.04 policy 501.5 procurement of professional and consultant services have been removed from tonight's agenda and i'll call him mr anabuto for a few announcements good evening everyone good evening nathan food allergy awareness week is may 19th through the 15th may 9-15 excuse me created 1998 by the food allergy research and education incorporation food allergy awareness week shines a spotlight on the seriousness of food allergies and helps to improve public understanding of this potentially life-threatening medical condition by increasing awareness we can encourage respect promote safety and improve the quality of life of all those affected by food allergies and anaphylaxis food allergies affect as many as 32 million americans including six million children approximately
005two in every classroom every three minutes a severe food allergy reaction sends someone to an emergency room in the united states allergic reactions to food can range from mild symptoms to anaphylaxis a serious allergic reaction that can occur rapidly and is potentially life-threatening you can learn more about food allergies and phylaxis by visiting the food allergy research and education website at www.foodallergy.org thank you dr anderson that's all thank you mr anubudo item 2.05 national adult and continuing education month i call him ms tolen for the recognition thank you the adult and community education program of fairfax county public schools began with an action by the school board in 1955. and in the over 60 years of the program's existence thousands of adults have learned essential skills in addition the fairfax county adult high school has
006given adults the opportunity to earn a high school diploma or certification of high school equivalency through the ged program through the years the ace program has provided adult students with the opportunity to learn english learn new languages acquire job skills transition to new careers and grow as workers citizens and parents the fairfax county community has looked to ace to help develop our workforce provide solutions to community problems through education and create a culture of lifelong learning for residents of all ages adults in community education and the fairfax county adult high school programs continue to provide innovative learning opportunities for adults during the pandemic and they are prepared to create robust career pathway opportunities for fcps graduates and the whole community through creative programming and targeted advocacy for the adult learner as well as providing enrichment
007opportunities for youth beyond the school day ace and the fairfax county adult high school programs have helped to create a dynamic learning community for all generations in fairfax county thank you miss tolin item 2.06 asian american heritage month resolution i call him ms keis gemara thank you today we have the honor i'm sorry i am so sorry i don't have the right thing in front of you one second i apologize no worries just let us know when you're ready okay i was about to give you my comments okay whereas asian americans and pacific islanders make up 20 percent of the population in fairfax county according to the u.s census bureau including 35 000 students in kindergarten from 12th grade and whereas asian americans established their first settlement in 1763 and over time have endured such
008injustices as the asian exclusion act that prohibited immigration from asia and the japanese internment that established concentration camps that incarcerated asian u.s citizens from 1942 until 1946 and whereas asian american and pacific islander students and their families reflect the rich and vibrant diversity of cultures histories and languages of many different countries of asia and the pacific islands and are valued members of our community and whereas asian americans and pacific islanders have made significant contributions in areas of infrastructure economy and technology that have propelled our country and have played a pivotal role in america's history and whereas asian americans and pacific islanders have achieved great accomplishments in fields of math science education the arts and civil rights that benefit past current and future generations and now therefore be it resolved the fairfax that the fairfax county
009school board joins asians and americans and pacific islanders in celebrating may as 2021 asian american and pacific islander heritage months in recognition of the many contributions asian americans and pacific islanders have made to our society i salute there a second all second thank you ms keith gamara would you like to speak to your resolution yes you already heard the first sentence okay today we have the honor of recognizing our fellow asian americans and pacific islanders it is my pleasure to acknowledge our shared history for it is my belief that the united states of america is united because so many endured to build this nation our collective history made us what we are today as we look at that history i believe we must acknowledge that too often the narrative of our history left too many
010invisible forcing parents of many backgrounds to teach their history at the kitchen table rather than to have their children enjoy it in our classrooms that was the practice in my family as i know many others i have met with similar marginalized groups who also feel that their story has yet to be told i want to thank the chinese asian parents association of northern virginia who echoed these concerns when we do not include complete information of our citizens and tell their story and how they contributed to this nation we leave a void to be filled by misinformation and some would say that lack of information contributed to the recent heinous attacks on asian americans in this nation it is my hope that this board will act along with our fellow legislators to continue to fill in
011those gaps in our education so that our students are fully informed of the rich contributions of all americans we need to hear about the asians who fled to the shores of new orleans and and their impact on the cut and their contributions when they landed in 1763. we need to hear about the chinese students who were in new york in 1847 and one of them became the first asian american to graduate from yale university and we need to hear about such cases as people v hall which prohibited chinese people from testifying in court against their white counterparts laws prohibiting immigration the california's second institute constitution that prohibited chinese people from being employed and the 1884 case that the tate family brought against a school board to allow their children to attend public schools despite such
012opposition we have example after example of perseverance through hardship actions by those who love this nation and their communities and work to make us all better people like patsy meek who became the first asian american woman to serve in congress in 1964 physicist and nobel bell peace prize winner stephen chu and beloved novelist amy tan who wrote the joy luck club for readers and movie goers alike indeed we have a rich history to celebrate these are just a few of those who persevered and endured and to our fellow asian americans we say thank you recognizing our shared history history is the very least that we can do for it is in the act of coming together that we understand the likeness of humanity and we can join strength to strength it is this shared history
013that allows us to see one another properly a vision that will not allow the maltreatment or the devaluing of another human being i am proud to be able to study that history today it is this important history that has enriched the lovely delicate balance of the fragrance that we call our democracy as we inform ourselves we also build upon upon the power of this nation making our future success more likely i look forward with an eye on that tapestry of who we are that has brought the beauty of humanity from near and far allowing us to celebrate today happy asian pacific american heritage month thank you thank you miss keys gamora miss marin would you like to speak to your second yes please so been preparing to to read uh to second this motion tonight
014this recognition i was thinking back to my earliest memory of eating out with my family and it was often to a japanese food restaurant and whenever it was my choice to select a special restaurant for my birthday it was always japanese hibachi and so appreciating and participating in asian traditions and asian american culture has just been in my mind so long that is all i can do to further the respect in our community for those of this rich heritage i've been working recently to gather constituent input on updating the state social studies standards and removing bias at our curriculum i've heard from many students particularly about the desire to learn more about the experience of asian americans in u.s history and how that bears out today whether that's about the chinese exclusion act japanese internment
015vietnamese americans in the wake of war immigration in general and of course the many amazing contributions all of those cultures have brought to america students want this as part of their learning so i've also had the opportunity to get to know parent advocates including the chinese asian parents association of north of northern virginia and so we welcome that advocacy and know that we hear you um i hope that we can also in the future honor lunar new year as one of our holidays to further show our support and respect of asian american culture thank you thank you miss marin other board members wishing to speak miss tolin so i'm very happy to see us celebrating our asian american residents this month thank you to those that are preparing the activities for schools to participate and
016to bring recognition to this population as usual i have had several remarkable students contact me about the importance to recognize the contributions of asian americans to our society i want to read to you a quote from an essay written by one of those students i could not say anything more eloquently than she did i think asian-american hate incidents and crimes are committed because people don't know enough about asian-american history even though asian americans have been a vital part of building america since the california gold rush almost 200 years ago the current school curriculum lacks stories and details about asian american history is extremely important for our younger generation to learn about asian americans and how so many hidden figures have contributed to america's success because of this this young woman created a petition to add
017more asian american history to her school's social studies curriculum as at the end of april she has over 1400 signatures of people looking for this positive change she goes on to say the asian american has been the fastest growing ethnic group in the united states for the last 20 years former president george w bush recently stated that immigrants are america's greatest strength it is crucial for future generations to recognize how asian americans together with other communities contribute to america asian americans today are politicians veterans businessmen and women hollywood actors and actresses athletes authors artists musicians journalists scientists and more we have always played and will continue to play an important part in american history and society i just want to say a huge thank you to our students and other members of our community that
018are helping to bring um the need for our work to light thank you thank you miss tolin miss seismoheiser thank you very much um i really appreciate my colleagues bringing this forward as the first indian american person and first of asian american woman elected not just to the school board but to a fairfax county-wide office i am so happy that my colleagues and i are recognizing may as asian-american pacific heritage month americans of asian american and pacific heritage have enriched american history for decades like my colleagues i've had many conversations with community members and our staff about the adequate and appropriate representation of asian americans in our curriculum in our equity work and the way we speak so i won't go into that i'm appreciative of all that work that is happening and will continue
019to happen but i will speak more of my own personal experience too often asian americans have been seen as foreign as other and rejected as such there have been many times in my life i have been told to go home even once while standing in the shadow of stanford medical center where i was born there are many times in my life i've been told wow you speak english really well and my answer always has been well california schools aren't as bad then as they are now all joking aside it is important to remember that asian americans like all americans are a diversity of backgrounds and ethnicities but united as americans we belong here and always have for hundreds of years we are not foreign we are not other we are first and foremost americans and
020proud asians i want to indulge my colleagues a minute and just take a minute to talk about my own groundbreaking asian american hero and that's my mother my mother received a phd in mathematics with an emphasis on computer science at rit delhi in india in the 1960s when no women were doing this i think she was the seventh woman and for those who don't know iit delhi it's like the mit of india she then emigrated here and could not get a job in the computer science and technology field she was one of the first women at intel in the 1970s when she chose to switch into being a college professor she could not get a job she showed up to her interview with a resume that had phd on it and was asked if she
021spoke english she got a job eventually teaching by first having to volunteer in the computer lab to prove what she was able to do she was the first woman tenured professor in her department so she taught me that all the prejudices and biases and barriers that were put up based on her accent and her name and her skin color were not reasons to quit but reasons to find creative ways to break down those barriers and overcome those biases and that is a lesson that i have taken for the rest of my life and will continue to teach my children so thank you my colleagues we have a lot to learn from our asian american fellow citizens and community members and i hope we continue to do so thank you thank you miss omeg thank you
022um i wasn't going to speak only because i think you know the recognition speaks for itself and uh the celebration of cultures is far more in practice really than just in words but i feel remit i'd be remiss not to mention just a couple of points you know that weren't touched on one being the vastness of the term itself you know it it continues to amaze me that while there is beauty in the solidarity and that represents so much of what we can strive towards um in representing a single community we ought to also recognize the rich diversity within the category that represents folks with ancestries from 60 of the world that's incredible really that we think of it using one term and the second piece is especially given the realities of model minority myth
023and stereotypes that exist not only because of our history and what's compounded as folks have shared before me um but our own implicit biases about things that are similar to what you know ms asmr heiser was just speaking to on a personal level um that our minorities are valuable to us not just because they have a contribution not just because they have a history or have accomplished certain things but inherently as our neighbors and as fellow human beings who we have common experiences with and who we can tap into a collective humanity with so i just wanted to offer those um two things and in particular because of uh the challenges that our asian american families face just over the course of the past few months as we've mentioned uh as a board and have
024stood against them hope to continue to support our communities um and hopefully celebrate them right i wait for the a year and for the day when all our speeches can just be about how beautiful and rich and incredible the culture is and and the community is and what they mean to us rather than having to acknowledge the challenges but i i appreciate all the comments made by my colleagues and hope we can all reflect on ways we can be better towards one another thank you miss omega ms corbett sanders yes thank you madam chair i just wanted to add my appreciation for the makers of this motion because what is so important about these recognitions that we celebrate at our various meetings is that it brings attention to the contributions of different people in our
025community and asian americans that are so inspirational at the local level on our school boards at the state level in the house of delegates and in the senate and in the halls of congress and now even in the white house as our vice president also has some asian descent why this is so important is because of the inspiration that these people have in inspiring our children to see what they too can accomplish and so i am just so appreciative as we do these recognitions that we create opportunities for our children to see where and what they can achieve so thank you thank you miss krabit sanders i will now call for the vote all in favor of the resolution as presented by ms keith gemara please raise your hands miss cohen miss corbett sanders is
026there not cold facts mr frisch miss eisema heiser miss tollen miss marin miss omaesh miss pokarsky ms keys gamora would you like to vote for your resolution miss keith's gamer yes i keep putting it up but it's not staying up so maybe i should just put my picture on my hand just check your picture make sure it shows up next to your picture it's up there but it's a very brown hand oh i i see it i've got the same brown hand i'm with you we've i've talked to you thank you i've captured your vote thank you that is 11 with miss mclaughlin away from the table item 3.01 citizen participation the next order of business is citizen participation speakers are requested to limit their remarks to no more than three minutes the school board
027will not hear statements involving issues that have been scheduled for public hearings such as capital improvement program budget and boundaries speakers should only address new business action items or resolutions as listed on the meeting agenda complaints regarding individual students or school-based employees should be directed to the appropriate school principal or other school official speakers should refrain from using personally identifiable information in connection with an individual student and are expected to deliver their comments with the decorum and respect appropriate to the conduct of the public's business in-person speakers should wear a mask and stand behind the black line on the floor and speak into the microphone thank you for for your cooperation and thank you to those who've come to speak to us today tonight we have 10 citizens who've signed up to address the board
028and we also have three video testimonies i will now ask our clerk to call our citizen speakers our first speaker is astrid maslin good evening dr bray brand and school board members my name is astrid maslin and i'm an eighth grade student at frost middle school i am pleased to have the opportunity to address you again my friends and i are excited to have returned to in-person learning four days a week i am thankful for the efforts of parent and student advocates and my principal mr harris who made it happen it is teacher appreciation week i want to take the time to thank all teachers who have dedicated themselves to their students this past year this has been a year of many challenges i especially want to thank mr greenwood miss morgan miss thomas miss
029johnson miss mahong miss benjamin miss champagne and mr reed who have supported me this year yesterday we received word we will be returning to school in person five days a week next year i hope this is not an empty promise the trust we placed in you has been broken time and time again these past 14 months there are still 80 schools where principals were unable to accept students back into the buildings for four days a week instruction this year i have participated in many group projects in my years as a student i am sure you all remember what happens when you're assigned to work on a group project put yourself back in eighth grade and think about how you worried your grade would suffer due to lack of cooperation and participation by one or two
030individuals everyone seated before me is in the middle of a huge group project except you have not been hurt by your lack of interest and participation your grades and your futures have not been impacted my future and the future of the 188 000 other students have been upset by your lack of urgency how many students have now fled the public school system not only fled this school system and the county but left the state entirely one of my friends is moving to florida she'll be attending a school that has been open five days a week this entire school year imagine her walking into her first day of high school already knowing her peers have a head start on her not every student has the opportunity to move to a new state where the school board
031has placed the highest priority on children learning in person not every student even has the chance to enroll in a private school or be homeschooled the students who you are elected to serve are now in trouble due to the lack of leadership within this board are there plans to help students who are so far behind they may never be able to catch up students who are not are not only academically behind but emotionally and socially scarred who among you is going to step up and take the lead who among you has the courage to make sure we are never in this position again who among you will make sure fairfax county public schools leads the nation instead of follow thank you thank you our next speakers are michael and eleanor reeves hi hi my name
032is michael i'm in second grade and in the military i moved here this summer like my teacher miss slam i am glad to be speaking here tonight i wish we could go on real field trips and not have to wear a mask at recess in person school is so much more fun than virtual my old school has been going five days a week for the whole year thank you hi my name is eleanor and i'm in kindergarten and i wish we didn't have to wear our mask at recess [Music] in person it's easier to make friends on virtual it's not very easy to make friends i wish i could have my specials in their rooms can you share a little more about which what you mean by specials um music in the music room pe
033in the pe room art in the art room anything else you want to say no okay thank you [Applause] thank you thank you our next speaker is tracy compton hi everyone i have a helper um it was gonna i'm gonna ask her some questions for you guys um hey morgan yeah what is your name my name is morgan how old are you morgan i am seven and what school do you go to i go to oakview elementary school can you tell me one awesome thing this is something we do every day um can you tell me one awesome thing that happened to you today in school um i got to see all of my friends oh that's cool um can um can you tell me about virtual school um virtual school is kinda hard because
034um um it's tell me where virtual school was for you um it was at home and um where were you sitting i was sitting um i was sitting in the school room at my house in your school room yeah was it hard to stare at the computer all day yes what would you do would you always sit there or would you do other things i would do other things and what would happen if something happened on the computer and um mommy was in a meeting um i would have to like interrupt you yeah and what happens if mommy was like on the phone and she really couldn't be interrupted um i would have to ask somebody else or just wait yeah or just wait yeah that that must be that has to be hard right
035yeah if uh can you tell me about alexa um it's a um did you use lexa a lot when you're in spiritual school yeah you got really good at using alexa for adding and spelling um do you go to school four days now yes what do you like about going to school four days um i like that i get to see all of my friends because nobody's virtual i think there's something about masks and playing outside that you wanted to say yeah um so it's really hard to have masks on at recess because um every time people run really fast um they get really tired so all these people up here we talked about this last time they're in the school board and they get to make those decisions and the rules and i know
036you said that that's something that you think is really cool if you were able to make decisions and rules what are what were some that you would want to make um i would say that we could just let people take off their masks for a minute to have a breath do you want to go to school five days next year yes can you ask these these folks to let you go to school thank you our next speaker is sue zoldak thank you for your recognition of asian american heritage month i've seen many boisterous tweets happily directing residents to such resources as amy tan as a way to learn more about asian americans here i am a real live asian american some of you may know me as the founder of do better fcps my name
037is sue zoldak and i'm an immigrant and an asian american i was born in taiwan where i spent my first two years without my father he had come to america under us immigration policy which dictated that the head of household demonstrate intent with studies or gainful employment in a stem field he wanted the american dream for our family so my father chose suny buffalo to earn his phd in quantum mechanics he did not spend his entire career studying the movements of sub-atomic particles but next turned to computer science at general motors and chrysler that brings our story to michigan my dad in detroit myself in ann arbor where i studied at the university of michigan towards becoming a math teacher i was required to make it through 500 level math when i got stuck i
038called my dad this was at the beginning of email so we had to drive to campus where we would sit and talk through my proofs those are the times i thought what if i can't make it but my dad his love for math of course his ability is what allowed me to make my own dreams come true as a teacher and an economist why am i telling you this story because i have never felt so ashamed and so misunderstood as an asian in my decades as a naturalized citizen as i do today in the virginia education system and at fairfax county public schools the immigration law that qualified us to become citizens brought millions of agents here with the same qualifications the 1965 immigration and naturalization act which ironically removed quotas established a priority for
039stem is it such a surprise then that many asians one two generations later have a love and predisposition for stem is it impossible to imagine thousands of stories just like mine where father has passed on his love of math to his daughter when deciding that the current makeup of thomas jefferson high school was a problem in need of a solution this school consistently cites that fairfax county is only twenty percent asian but that twenty percent statistic covers up that not only is our immigration history but the fact that fairfax is a tech engineering financial services corridor tyson's demographic data shows that the most popular jobs are in science and tech tyson's also happens to be 30 asian fairfax asian families are more likely to have at least one stem field in the family so is
04020 percent at tj parody if studies show that asian women are likely to be discriminated against is 20 at t.j parody then my father passed away in 2012 and i now have in my possession his doctoral dissertation found in leather handwritten perfectly script laced with his formulas his integrals his factorials it's my most prized possession i'd give that book to you if i could hear you never to say that 20 is the percent that there should be at a stem school because of our population thank you our next speaker is cole mallard good evening i speak this evening on the topic of policy 2501 rules and procedures for school counseling services and how this type of counseling students both academically and personally and socially dovetails with the recent lawsuit filed against virginia department of education
041by founding father freedom's law center the virginia family foundation and the via family i represent numerous families and groups who are extremely concerned that their comments to the vdoe regarding proposed transgender mandates were in the final analysis ignored in february 21 over 9 000 respondents filed comments on the proposed mandates and over two-thirds of the comments were against implementation now ff law center and others have found it necessary to file a lawsuit against vdoe to halt implementation a letter from the ff law center has been sent to every school district including to separate superintendent brabrand and fairfax county school board in informing you of the lawsuit and urging you not to act while the litigation ensues the school so i'm attaching the lawsuit notificants caregivers citizens and taxpayers are going to monitor anyone who attempts
042to implement these mandates until the lawsuit is settled we all agree that students struggling with gender dysphoria or confusion deserve care and love however these mandates may actually exacerbate the issue for example force students and teachers to use false pronouns violating freedom of speech religion conscience secretly affirm and facilitate a child's gender transition while at school without notifying parents to deputize teachers to report parents who don't affirm their child's trans identity to child protective services does not allow accommodations for religious families who don't want to participate does not allow exceptions for conscientious objections does allow biological trans males in biological female dressing rooms locker rooms and on sports teams and just this morning superintendent scott brabrand sent out a new survey requesting input to help update the curriculum with a contracted organization the leadership academy
043to support the revision and development of the anti-racism and anti-bias policy you claim this is critical to student success and a caring culture however there are serious concerns with this survey antibiotics and anti-racism are not defined the survey does not give respondents the opportunity to attach comments there are others in here as well but since my time is running out i'll thank you very much for your time and attention point of clarification madam chair yes sir for any families or students watching at home with transgender and gender expensive students or family members in their lives that they love does fairfax county public schools have a nondiscrimination policy that protects and defends the rights of transgender and gender expansive students i will have the superintendent respond to that question dr brabrand we have a non-discrimination policy
044mr frisch thank you thank you next speaker our next speaker is zia tompkins hi good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak to you all and thank you again for having us in person it's actually nice to be seeing you all uh live um i've just returned from deployment and as a second generation immigrant of person of color i feel like i left one alien world and landed in another um i also got the survey and have deep concerns and i want to read for you three quotes i just want to ask you which one of these quotes sounds very different from the others the first quote um being we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they're endowed by the creator with certain unalienable rights life liberty
045the pursuit of happiness quote number two i have a dream that my four little children will one day grow up in a country where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character quote number three the only remedy to racist discrimination is anti-racist discrimination the only remedy to pass discrimination is present discrimination the only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination i want you to think about that which one of these sounds different if you think it's the last one is because it is this is the ideology that supports and underpins anti-racist and anti-biased ideology is written in mr kendy's book and has been promulgated and now being adopted wholesale by this board and by boards across the country this is wrong it's being done because
046most people don't understand what it is because you're calling it anti-racist you're calling it anti-biased you're calling it equity how can anyone be against that the very survey that you sent out was designed in fact to give the responses this board is likely seeking to justify the introduction of this philosophy guys listen i know you all have best intentions i really believe that but this kind of stuff is poison this will tear this country apart if it becomes a part of our fabric how do i know this i just came from the middle east where people sort themselves by ethnicity by religion by race and these areas are ungovernable if you sink this into our kids if you divide our kids up and have them see only race creed culture religion you will be destroying
047this country believe me i have seen it i have lived it please please please rethink your stance on the introduction of this curriculum it does not belong in our schools it is the most practical point i'm telling you if for nothing else and for no other reason self-preservation because if this becomes the law of the land you will see more parents like myself and more families across this county simply withdrawal i would rather see my kids homeschooled or in a private school than being put through this nonsense please please please reconsider your position on this curriculum and its introduction that's all i got to say thank you thank you our next speaker is asran nomani my name is astra nomani i came before you in june 2020 i spoke to you during quarantine i pled
048with you at that time because i said to you that we had activists from thomas jefferson high school for science and technology where my son is a senior and that they had just debated the idea of an occupy tj movement they tried to joke afterwards oh this was just a this was just a comic relief for us i sent a note to every single one of you and i got not a single response there was no concern about our students at that time and then the summer proceeded and the principal at our high school told us that our mostly minority students and parents had to check their privileges and then as the summer continued dr brabrand you decided that our students and our families were spending thousands and thousands of dollars on test prep and
049then you melanie maron told us that we were toxic and then karen keys gemara promoted the idea that we were racist and then by the fall every single one of you voted to remove the merit-based race blind admissions test to tj and we pled with you as asians as an immigrant i came at the age of four i knew no english and you didn't listen to us and now i sit here listening to this empty proclamations and declarations that you're making about your great value of asian americans you tell us about you going melanie marin to japanese restaurant well do you know that just a few weeks ago in social emotional learning at tj our students were told that if they do salsa dancing it amounts to cultural appropriation and that they needed to check
050their racism and that is our mostly minority mostly asian students and so your empty proclamations are just that and then today we get this vacuous survey from you dr brabrand and you dare to tell us that you're going to consider removing the one policy that parents have to defend their students from indoctrination and activism the policy that makes certain that anything taught in our school that is controversial must be presented fairly you have to just think for yourself if you have to remove a policy like that how can you possibly be doing anything good and then this survey it's just a loaded survey and who is it by indeed new york leadership academy and what has that survey done they've asked us the questions thank you for your time that you have now thank you
051for your time thank you for your time your time is up ma'am you are your time is up man your time has expired yes your time has expired next speaker continue to next down speaker please go to your seat next speaker please madam clerk our next speaker is akshay devarakanda good evening school board and scps staff i hope you all are doing well first i want to extend my condolences to south county high school and the wider scps community my thoughts and prayers are with the families of the deceased i'm also thinking of those of you on the board who have family and friends affected by the pandemic in different parts of the world i am wishing the best for you all too in late march i ran into one school board member in public
052and she had her two children with her i was reminded that you all are sacrificing significant time and energy to give back to all of fairfax county's children we're nearing the end of a hard year and i want to recognize the good things you all have done in the midst of so much hardship you all have kept coven 19 numbers down throughout scps and that is no small achievement also i want to thank the school board for approving solar power contracts for annandale hayfield and robinson schools it's a very big step towards integrating renewable energy in our facilities and also inspire future generations of students i also appreciate the school board funding a neurodiversity specialist position in the next fiscal year budget this will institutionalize much needed support and will go far in eliminating disparities
053in academic achievement and discipline for students with disabilities thank you to the school board for approving the school trust policy this week helping ensure immigration status isn't a barrier to essential education access additionally thank you to the school board for your unified convening of a forum regarding the fairfax naacp's literacy advocacy which tj alumni action group fully endorses i look forward to seeing you all come together as one to enact a meaningful change to structured literacy based on years of research importantly i want to thank you all for removing significant barriers in tj admissions for the first time in a generation although a few loud voices have criticized any meaningful reform please know that countless constituents are grateful for your efforts the fight for school integration is difficult but it is worth having especially for
054the sake of the most marginalized members of our community and for future generations we dream of a world where all students regardless of gender special education status language status citizenship status socioeconomic status middle school origin and race stand together and build a diverse community of learners that the governor's school guidelines mandate we have seen time and again throughout american history the terrible backlash to integration and this time is no exception history will in the long term look on you all as public officials who were screamed at and spat on and who still chose to prioritize moral leadership to those of you who are mothers happy mother's day on sunday to miss omish eid mubarak in advance of may 12th lastly thank you all for inspiring me to participate in local local advocacy my mom asked
055me what my favorite thing to watch on tv was you should have seen the look on her face when i told her it was scps school board meetings thank you our next speaker is vanessa hall hi uh bullying is hazardous it's hazardous to students involved in the entire community it creates a sense of fear where students constantly wonder whether they'll be next how bad will it be how should i react will students or an adult come and help or stand up for me right now some students fear attacks more from adults than from other students because unfortunately student leaders and advocates are being attacked by adults sometimes it's direct and other times it's just dismissal of student efforts because those efforts contradict the adults interests or political views and yet i've seen amazing advocacy by
056students and student organizations on behalf of environmental projects like the solar groups movements against racism socio-social emotional learning events to improve empathy changing school names pushes for inclusive curriculums anti-bullying collecting books and food and demanding mental health support at the same time some adults publicly declare these efforts to be unnecessary and not part of the school district's mission but they are the mission of fcps is to inspire and empower students to meet high academic standards lead healthy and ethical lives and be responsible and innovative global citizens advocacy definitely falls under this also adults are forgetting that student advocacy is not just about speaking out or changing things but it's also about the process which involves independence teamwork brainstorming planning community engagement implementation and so much more this process will make students better leaders because it
057gives them the opportunity to practice in a safe supported space if students take months or years to plan and implement school events with the guidance of educators and adults then outside adults should not jump in at the last moment to criticize or derail the entire activity students have openly and honestly shared their challenges and experiences on social media and in this very room they've asked for your support they've asked for support and protections for students especially vulnerable students whether they be asian american and pacific islander native american black hispanic immigrant low ses lgb bqia and others or students who receive special education services bullying can be traumatic and it contributes to student mental health issues we're only giving lip service to student mental health if parents do not stop bullying students and if fcps does
058not support students when they're bullied who will stand up for the students well if parents don't or can't then the authority lies with the school board teachers administrator administrators and the parent-teacher student organizations you and all of fcps need to be the adults who stand up for students whether they're being bullied by peers or adults whether it's in school after school or online and we cannot let this bullying continue or students voices will be silenced and student advocacy will be harmed kindness and empathy are not political thank you so much our next speaker is brendan curry good evening and uh thank you for the time uh i'll be brief i i think by and large the balance of the commentary provided to the board tonight on public display has been a parade of frustration and
059disappointment due to a group of individuals that seem somewhat unwilling to take seriously the constituents they are obsessively here to help and serve for over a year the the children and parents have had to endure feeling feels like ceaseless indignities emanating from an opaque process that appears to be byzantine worn out of willful ignorance at best or callous indifference at worst there seems to be no accountability across the local state and federal levels went back into the corner after deferment of hard decisions can no longer pass the life test there seems to be a half hour to attempt to go back to normal but it's always couched with a caveat and an escape patch to revert backwards where there's no accountability i fear that there's a lack of credibility the parents you've had uh been
060hearing from are not outliers we see what has been done in schools in other jurisdictions but also in private schools here in the area a lot of parents moved to this area for two reasons up the proximity to dc related jobs but also the the fairfax county public school system they have a stellar reputation but just this week uh we're losing in my neighborhood two uh two doctors they are uh the one one parent is uh a pediatric oncologist and they're moving to florida uh uh not for because of some great new job offer because they're so frustrated with the situation with fcps and so our community is now poorer that we're losing uh two cancer doctors here in town one of which specializes in helping children with cancer i work in the space businesses
061it's an amazing business to work in right now we have the perseverance rover on mars a rover that was named very aptly by the way by a middle schooler here from fairfax uh there's also the ingenuity robot little helicopter it's flying to the martian atmosphere talk about a poster child mission for stem this was a mission where the rocket was built in alabama the rover and the helicopter built in california and launched out of florida all during the virus americans of all colors and backgrounds worked to get this mission to be the success it is and no one cared about color background or anything like that that they were just committed to a mission together and you you could be part of the team because you were simply the best at what you do full
062stop now uh like i said i work in the space business and there's uh inherently national security concerns with what we do in space and if if anyone here thinks that thank you sir now have three video testimonies one from robert rigby good evening school board members dr bray brand and leadership team my name is robert rigby co-president of fairfax county public schools pride fcps pride is an organization for lgbtqia staff parent of lgbtqia students lgbtqi parents and families and allies in our schools we extend our thanks for the resolution on rain asian american pacific islander heritage month these recognitions of different communities by this board declare that our system welcomes and includes communities goes far to make students and staff welcome and to counteract hate and harassment many of our aapi families students and
063staff are also lgbtqia let me read a few nuggets from a report about students published in 2020 by the national queer asian pacifica islander alliance and please note that these figures are from a survey two years ago may have worsened in the current climate one over a quarter of aapi lgbtq students reported missing at least one day of school in the last month because they felt unsafe or uncomfortable and nearly one-tenth missed four more days aap2 aapi lgbtq students who experienced higher levels of victimization based on race or ethnic individual were almost twice as likely to skip school because they felt unsafe three more than half experienced harassment were assaulted school based on personal characteristics including sexual orientation gender expression and race or ethnicity on the positive side 27 of the aapi lgbtq students in
064the us were taught positive representations of lgbtq people history and events such students were we're about half as likely to feel unsafe because of their sexual orientation and gender expression there's much much more in the executive summary of the report which is given in english simplified chinese korean vietnamese and hindi i'm pleased also to report that our students have founded an asian pacific american fairfax county public schools club coalition with more than 500 members and at least 13 schools participating i'll make a plug for staff and parents not putting the whole burden of celebrating this community on student clubs we must make bold and vivid are welcome while at the same time elevating student voices thank you for listening our next video testimony is from kimberly adams good evening school board members dr brabrand and
065members of the leadership team my name is kimberly adams i'm speaking on behalf of the fairfax education association this evening we mark teacher appreciation week by thanking all those in our schools who work tirelessly daily to ensure that our students have what they need to be successful in the future in fairfax county and the country and the world we know that this has been an unprecedented year of struggle not only for our educators but for the families and students themselves we know this is the time where we thank those who've worked hard within our schools and certainly that our families and students at home have done an immeasurable amount of work during this time we hope that you'll join us in thanking those educators who have worked tirelessly for you and your students we acknowledge
066that the summer coming up provides an opportunity for students who may need additional learning opportunities and we acknowledge that staff may need to take on that extra role of teaching over the summer we know that our staff are currently taxed beyond what they can handle but we acknowledge that the additional pay may be an incentive at this point for our educators to take on that responsibility of additional hours of instruction this summer we also acknowledge that this fall a virtual option may still be needed for some staff and students as we do not have a vaccination for everyone who might may need that we acknowledge that this system is putting together a virtual plan but that that plan is not yet fully fleshed out and that the fairfax education association looks forward to working with
067everyone to ensure that that program provides what it needs for students as we return five days in person in the fall for most students but that option still is available for virtual instruction for those who may need it we understand that this is a significant burden on the system but we feel that it's going to be the best for our students and staff that a virtual option remain open to those who need it we do not encourage the system to continue on a path of providing this instruction with only a doctor's written note or the support of a medical provider we think that this virtual option should be available to any students who require it and those staff especially who need an ada accommodation for the coming year we know the vaccination is still underway
068we're excited to see more students age 12 and over receiving that vaccination soon we hope that students age 5 and over will be vaccinated at the beginning of next school year but that that may not come before the next school year begins on august 23rd we expect that the virtual option should be open to any students and especially as many staff as possible who may need that option for the fall we appreciate your time and working with the fairfax education association and again happy teacher appreciation week to the staff who work in our schools and keep everything running across the county thank you our final video testimony is from teddy geiss good evening school board members my name is teddy guys and i'm speaking on behalf of the fcps mental health working group a coalition
069made up of nearly 40 students from a dozen high schools across the county i'd like to discuss two proposals before the school board one tonight and one in the future that are a big interest to us first is the fy 22 budget many students from our coalition have spoken before this board about the need for more mental health resources provided within fcps budget this past year has been difficult for many students and we hope that further action can be taken to help everyone in need we have three distinct subgroups within our coalition and with the work of our liaison ms abrar omega we want to tell you what we can do to better address the mental health crisis within fcps schools we first want to revise the seo curriculum it's shameful to see at some
070schools they have no mental health lessons in their learning seminars other than the yearly suicide prevention seminar that's not okay it's just not okay we also want to champion more student initiatives and make sure that students take more active roles in their community better their once mental wellness student engagement is a positive not a negative lastly the project i've worked on with two other awesome students ava and prenate we propose to fcps use contracts to provide telemental health resources and services again there are many organizations that are providing free confidential sessions and all it takes for these students to get the help is for the division to advertise this in the newsletter it's easy as that there are also many questions we have about the budget that we hope to get answers as shown in
071board docs muscle worker ratio double triple even quadruple what it should be in high schools also when i spoke to mysterion at cofax in february i was told that there used to be a mental health texting hotline in fcps why is that gone now shouldn't that be returned we hope that this budget can shed some light on the fcps mental health crisis and provide more resources to students in need finally i conclude by saying that we are in total support of these proposed revisions of citizen participation as you know many of these slots fill up in less than a minute at 6 am on monday and student speakers rarely come before this board because they can't get a slot having five reserve slots for students as proposed by mrs tolen would be instrumental in student
072outreach across fcps we also support the proposal to allow for speakers to only speak once a month making sure that everyone is heard because that's very important and we hope that the school board can approve these new rules within the coming months we want to thank you for your time and invite you to have to reach out to us if you have any questions or ideas about our proposals we'll be happy to speak with you thank you for the time and good night thank you agenda item 3.02 student representative matters i call on mr anabuto hi dr anderson i'm here how are you good i hope all of you were doing well um bear with me because i switched up what i was planning on saying um the last minute but as always i'm grateful
073um to be speaking before all of you this evening i hope everyone's doing well first i would like to just briefly congratulate and announce and briefly state my great excitement for the fact that we've elected the student representative for the 2021-2022 school year who is pranam choudhary um pranav um was elected from a group of over 100 students as was mentioned the last regular school board meeting and his clear-cut vision and message for what the county is and can be and his knowledge of our system and our community and the places where we can be better shown through and i could not be prouder and more excited for what he for what he promises to bring to this school system and to this board um so i just briefly wanted to give him a great
074shout out and say um thank you for all the work he's done at this point as a co-chair and co-founder of virginia team democrats and a leader within his own school community he's already been an instrumental part of what the school system has to offer and i cannot wait to see what he does in the future and um publicly state that i will be there to help and guide him any steps away in any way that i can um and secondly in my remarks there's kind of things i want to shift around i wanted to also congratulate the south county high school football team for their back-to-back state runs that they had completed um this past weekend and although we didn't get the result we wanted to i felt obligated to mention their success because
075i think it's emblematic of the resilience that we have shown as a school system over the past school year past few months because because of how difficult everything has been the south county football team's overcome a lot particularly some of the players that they that we have on the team and face a lot of really tough injuries um and be the odds to repeat what they did with the state run this school year and i'm biased because of the south county pride that i have but i i do see a lot of our school system and our resilience and student resiliency in the team so i felt it fitting to congratulate them publicly and say thank you to everything that they've accomplished and hope for more success for our south county football family in the
076future um i had a couple other comments that i wanted to touch on but i i was hearing some things that i really that really made me pivot and i wanted to say um some remarks about things that were discussed earlier um in our citizens participation comment and it was said earlier and this is speaks to what my job is the representative to represent students that um we can't put people that if we put people in boxes if we start to business school system then you know that's going to tear us apart that's going to work away at the fabric of our country i'll get back to that in a second but i want to read a stat that i think mr rigby also mentioned earlier in his comments and it's that this is in
077the um the veto guidance for trans transgender students that was released earlier um just earlier this year um that has that has been a topic of conversation in our community recently it says 84 of trans youth feel unsafe at their schools and this feeling of unsafeness is associated with lower gpas amongst this particular population lower gp than any other population has been identified in recent academic studies and to me that's just it's it's sad but it's not shocking because we know that as educators if students don't feel safe in their schools and they can't they can't learn and that's why in response to what i was hearing i felt obligated as the representative of students in this county some of whom are trans or are experiencing gender dysphoria or don't fit neatly into the box
078society has laid out for our for us is that we our society's already been put in boxes and my generation didn't create them anti-racist and anti-bias education teaches how to navigate them in a more holistic in a more appropriate way it's it's it's the duty of this school system it's the duty of all school systems but i'm the representative of this one and i and i implore all of us as leaders to continue to work to ensure that we step out of ignorance through education and that's the power that we have and we hold as people who are educated the next generation of leaders because 84 of any population not feeling safe when they walk into a school building is a huge problem it's 84 of students in a population who aren't receiving the best
079education that they can receive it's 84 of people that are failing and that's not okay we can do better we have to do better and better will always be controversial it always has and it always will be but there are kids and there are young people that are suffering they need more and we can give them more and we are promising to give them more and we are working and we are trying every day and i appreciate the complexity of the issue that we're talking about particularly with this population and the nuance that this issue does bring to the table but the bottom line all the nuance all the complexity aside is that there are students who are suffering right now they're students who aren't being educated to the best of their abilities right now
080and that's something that we as a school system are talking about we as the country are talking about when you take action to fix because it's been this way for too long with that um i'll end my remarks um i just want to say thank you again to everyone and i'll hand it back over to dr anderson thank you very much mr anubudo agenda item 4.02 policy 2501 rules and procedures for school counseling services i call him mr frisch for the motion thank you very much um [Music] i'm moved that the board consents to revised policy 2501 as reviewed by the governance committee is there a second i'll second that thank you miss mr frisch would you like to speak to your motion yeah just a moment so this policy is designed to make sure
081that fcps is in compliance with standards of quality for public schools and it basically tells the administration that we expect them to follow through on those those standards and other elements of school counseling services that we'd like them to be aware of most of this policy remains intact and unchanged there are two [Music] pieces that have been changed first uh under the definitions section uh an additional sentence has been added that reaffirms the role of the school counselor is to provide an ethical equitable and inclusive school environment for their students in which they affirm and support students cultural knowledge beliefs and lived experiences and second in section four four b one we've added language that will allow parents to be reminded annually of their ability to opt students out of these services and this is
082so that um previously opt-outs were intel opt-ins and we wanted to make sure that parents were aware every every month that they had an opportunity or every year that they had an opportunity uh to change their mind or keep it there um so there's not much changed here except for uh reinforcing the thrust of these services and and what those services should mean to students and then also making it possible to remind parents annually uh of their their right to partake thank you mr fresh mr mesh would you like to speak to your second yeah thank you um i appreciate mr frisch outlining the various changes um you know obviously counseling is an incredible resource that we provide our students and it's extremely important that we ensure when resources are allocated budgetary resources you know
083time staff um that we do things in a manner that is inclusive of all our students so that everyone can benefit from what ultimately our collective taxpayer dollars um this was an example in the committee and one of the reasons i i pulled it from our what would have otherwise been kind of a typical consent agenda item um was to particularly look at this from that equity perspective so it models for us that when we talk about equity it's not just when we're talking about equity um that in every policy and every piece of work that we do we make sure that that's an essential component a lens a tool of evaluation of everything that we're doing so in changing the option to be able to choose at the beginning of every year but also
084to include affirmative language which you know we might just think of semantics but really gives uh the opportunity for folks who may experience things differently to to leverage these policies and to understand that these are the values that were put in place as we shaped it but for example in situations where staff and student values may not align or when staff or sorry when student and parent values may not align what happens in those situations we have to make sure that we're being equitable inclusive ethical in our thinking around those scenarios which we know and have heard from our students do occur so i'm looking forward to seeing how we're more thoughtful in implementation of this and how our policy changes shape the regulations moving forward thank you mr ms corbett sanders yes i just
085have a point of clarification uh because the wording of this is a little different than we have in the past um adopting the revisions to the revised policy um i was just con confused as to why we are using the term consents to the revised because consent is a passive um or it's usually a consent agenda that has a number of different options i imagine it's because of copying and pasting okay thank you so do you mind if we um just change that to say we adopt the revised policy sure are there any objects the motion's been put on the table and it's been seconded belongs to the body are there any objections to the change that ms corbett sanders has outlined which is to move the language from um what it is to i
086move that the board adopt the revised policy is that correct ms corbett sanders yes ma'am seeing that there are no objections uh madam clerk will you please make the change do you have any additional commentary uh no i just know that the governance uh committee with the leadership of mr frisch has worked on this quite a bit and i am uh pleased to support it i just wanted to clarify language thank you thank you are there any other speakers to this motion seeing none i will call for the vote all in favor of the motion as identified in the revision please raise your hands we have miss cohen miss corbett sanders ms derna koufax mr frisch mississimo heiser ms tolen miss marin miss miss picarsky ms keysgamara and myself that is 11. and miss miss
087mclaughlin is away from the table at this time as mentioned earlier items 4.03 and 4.04 have been removed from the agenda item 5 consent agenda i will now turn it over to our vice chair miss picarski thank you evening 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 of these items listed have gone through board review and documentation has been provided to all board members in the public in advance items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member prior to the meeting the consent agenda items are on the screen is there any objection to approving the consent agenda um i i cannot see any from here or here i will
088vouch that there are no objections from the diocese excellent so the consent agenda is approved um new business the following are new business agenda items and there will not be a vote on these items tonight but action is scheduled at a future meeting these items are on the screen thank you miss picarski item 701 superintendent matters i call on dr brabrand thank you chairman anderson just a couple of quick things first of all as you all have already noted happy asian american and pacific islander month it's great to celebrate the rich diversity that we have here in fairfax county public schools and i know our schools are doing many things to lift up staff members and students and members of the community and our families it's also happy teacher appreciation week a lot of our
089schools have been doing many things to again lift up teachers for the incredible year unlike any other that they have been through as we all have been through this year interestingly 82 percent of americans in a recent harris poll said the pandemic has helped them appreciate the role of teachers in the life of this country more than ever before and i couldn't agree more while we're happy about many things i do want to express and we shared earlier this week in our community newsletter our thoughts and prayers are with the country of india and many of our staff members and students have family members there and we are all with that country and with our staff and students as they go through a very very tough time in the fight against coba 19 and our
090thoughts and prayers are with them and i know that the united states is beginning to take steps to help and there's much more help that's needed moving forward i know and we'll see what we can do here at fcps to help our friends and family members that are in india at this moment i do want to just mention earlier this week at the work session we had the proposed budget and you all will be reviewing the budget formally in just uh another couple of weeks here this month but a couple of things in working collaboration with brian hill our county executive and the board of supervisors just a few nuggets to remind folks that we shared at the work session compared to a year ago this is a good news budget that we're bringing it's
091not a great news budget it's not a fully funded budget that we had two years prior to the pandemic but it is a good news budget that begins to move in the right direction a two percent compensation increase across the board for our employees additional positions at elementary school to support english language learners getting our cis personnel at 50 percent of the salary of teachers who are in the classroom supporting teachers every day helping create greater equity of access in our advanced academic program for aart's as many board members here have advocated for for many years and additional central office support to expand young scholars something that we've been trying our principals at elementary school have been trying to do for over 10 years and i've worked hard and listened to them to create elementary
092school principal and assistant principal pay equity for those folks providing instructional coaches in some of our title one schools because in prior administrations we had tighter and tighter title one funds we had to lift our cap for eligibility for elementary schools and we're letting schools that are no longer eligible to be able to have funds to have instructional coaches which are key for instructional improvement we also have some dollars for collective bargaining and for some additional legal support and as already mentioned i think earlier tonight support for a neurodiversity specialist and a trauma-informed scl specialist whose needs will be more important in bringing to us their expertise than ever before as we return from the pandemic and speaking of return i did want to also share the community knows we've reached out to our community
093that we are returning in the fall for five days of in-person learning for all of our students we also shared earlier this week that we have a limited temporary virtual option and we are reaching out to identify those students who need to be virtual for a documented medical need and we will be providing the limited temporary virtual services for those students but we are super excited with great news on the horizon of course we've done amazing work to keep our schools safe from cova 19 with less than one percent transmission rate throughout this year including with over a hundred thousand kids back in the classrooms uh that we're going to have good vaccination news on the horizon already it's eligible for 16 and over we are hearing reports as many of you are that it
094will be eligible for those 12 years and over and we hope to have information to share with this community very soon about being able to provide vaccination access in at least some of our schools for our students before they leave for this school academic year so that they are vaccinated as we enter the next school year and we're even hearing news the governor talked about today governor northam that we may have access to the vaccine for those two years old and up uh by september as the school year begins so this is exciting news and we'll keep the community abreast and we will do everything we can as we did when we vaccinated our our staff to be up front and forward leaning into providing as much access to the vaccination for our families here
095in northern virginia in fact the uva model that the state has been using throughout the pandemic the uva model predicts that we will reach herd immunity in northern virginia by the end of the summer so this is great news as we plan a full five day return to school in the fall and i want to thank everyone our teachers and staff and principals and leadership team members who've been working around the clock this entire year and especially these last few months of as we've expanded opportunities for students to be in person and then finally i would just say as we continue to listen to feedback in the community surveys are just that it's listening for feedback for how as nathan said we can do better we are a very very good school system some think
096a premier and elite school system but we can still listen to our community and find ways to continue to be an even better system and make sure all the voices of our students and staff and families are heard valued inspect respected and included and we'll continue to work collaboratively to do that we need to hear all voices and we will do that as we move forward i will and pledge to do that as i partner with the board and the work that we have before us and finally and perhaps most importantly i want to say happy mother's day my mom was a 30-year teacher in the commonwealth of virginia i call her every day i love her very much and she is a true role model for me and i appreciate all she has done
097to serve students in her long career and thank you mom for all that you do and i'll call you later tonight after this board meeting ends so thank you very much that is very kind dr bray brad absolutely agenda item 8.01 board committee reports i believe we have um one report no two reports this evening is seismohiser we will start with the public engagement committee report and then we will follow up with miss picarsky from the forum earlier this week thank you very much the public engagement committee met on april 27th we heard a presentation from the office of communications and community relations regarding its uh draft strategic plan for the division the members of peck were pleased to hear such a comprehensive plan and had many follow-up comments and questions and as a result
098we agreed to schedule an additional pec meeting to dive deeper into the occr strategic plan and i just want to say as chair of the public engagement committee i appreciate the partnership with occr and helen lloyd in presenting and working with peck and hearing our feedback then we continued our work on creating an operating handbook for our advisory committees we started with a discussion of the selection process for board of planner members public-facing comment about roles and responsibilities in a standard application form as well as the numbers and types of memberships and criteria for adding members members in between our committee members will work on draft pieces of this operating handbook and share our work in advance of the next pec meeting i also met with some of our staff to continue working on the
099process for our public comment section and i'll have an update on that as well for our board hopefully in the next month's meeting and i just want to thank my fellow public engagement committee members miss corbett sanders miss omash and mr frisch for their hard work as well in partnership and great thoughts as we move forward on the processes and procedures for our advisory committees and board committees thank you thank you ms seismohiser um before we go to ms pokarsky i apologize miss pokarsky i need to call on miss cohen for a report from cpdc i apologize for the misunderstanding there no problem cpdc met last night and had an outstanding presentation by mr plattenberg and miss prenita wanbiash on student yield projections and the calculation of the proper proffer formula my mouth is not
100working the committee was provided with comparisons to other local school districts and recommendations on how we can update both of these formulas to better anticipate the numbers of students that each type of housing unit yields and to ensure that new developments appropriately support our schools we look forward to sharing these much needed updates with our colleagues on the board of supervisors and planning commission in the coming weeks thank you thank you miss cohen ms pikarski thank you i will talk about the forum topics first and then just give a very short update on um the skipped executive committee meeting um so the board did meet uh this week and we had two forum topics uh up for discussion the first was the strategic program review presented by ms tolan miss cohen and miss seismore heiser
101and it focused on asking for consensus to direct school staff to do a strategic program review in a phased approach the first approach would include a review of current non-core program offerings with a deadline of june 30th of this year then in phase two staff will present their findings to the school board at a work session and the school school board will decide the final scope of the programs to be analyzed to determine best practices and the best way to gain 21st century workforce preparation and portrait of a graduate skills the deadline for this phase 2 will be the fall of 2021 the presenters explained that a strategic program review has not been done for many years and is necessary to identify what programs are available to students which programs best serve their needs and
102ensures equity of access to programs in addition the review will also ensure program placement to use our facilities most efficiently without negatively impacting impacting building capacity it was also brought up that this was um something that was put into the strategic uh plan uh by the prior board at an earlier time so the need uh has been long time there and the board voted and approved the program reviewed unanimously and added the limited data to be brought forth on core programs ap and ib to include locations history of placement if avail if available cost people and demographics of students um utilizing the programs and any historical context to the greatest extent possible that is available our second foreign topic was developing a school trust policy that aligns with fairfax county's a recently adopted trust policy
103that prohibits voluntary cooperation by all fairfax agencies with immigration and customs enforcement and was presented by miss dr anderson and mr frisch dr anderson and mr frisch were seeking board consensus to direct the governance committee to prioritize development of such a policy and review existing existing policies regulations and service provider agreements with a particular focus on data collection data disclosure and access to school property additionally weaknesses are areas with needed clarifications in the current school resource office or memorandum of understanding or either agreements that would also perhaps need to be addressed the presenters advocated that this was important to build trust with students and families and support optimal student outcomes the school the rest of the school board was supportive and suggested that we include ptas in the council and the fairfax council of pta
104is in the process to ensure that the policy outline is specific for our schools um and the board voted unanimously to approve this um the skipped executive committee also met this past week uh we recap kind of our four areas our focus which i've shared here last month kylie wheeler from the children's funding project also shared kind of a high level overview of the the funding um that will be available from the american rescue plan what it could possibly be used for and perhaps the need for fcps and the county government to consider some of the already developed skip priorities as we are talking about utilization of strategic utilization of funds um we also broke out into some uh champions for each of our four core uh groups to so that um we could look
105at uh these areas a little bit more in depth and do some some work uh outside of the the meetings to to further our um our recommendations around school readiness behavioral health community schools workforce readiness there was some discussion about guest participation in our skip meetings and um you know offering comments to the full skip committee and uh it was also shared that the um that the community schools okay subcommittee will be bringing back a county-wide framework for for our community schools how we establish them criteria etc so we are looking forward to getting that information and um we'll happily share all of this with the board so thank you thank you very much miss picarski agenda item 9.01 board matters um i will call him miss cohen the miss corbett sanders and miss anna
106kofax thank you so much dr anderson i was so excited to get to join my colleagues and so many students and staff for the amazing john lewis renaming ceremony thank you to everyone who worked so hard to put that together it really showed it was awesome seeing so many families students teachers and staff at the food for neighbors collection event here on saturday the 24th they collected a record 21 432 pounds of food the next red bag event will take place on september 11th i very much appreciated the principal staff and students at oakview elementary school lanier middle school fairfax high school and newington forest who've welcomed me over the past week happy teacher appreciation week i am beyond grateful for all of our teachers and staff what you do changes lives it changed mine
107at 10 years old as i sat on a trailer floor sitting cross-legged across from mrs dastal who told me that i was smarter than i gave myself credit and that she had no doubt that i could do anything i put my mind to i have carried those words on my heart every single day since happy mother's day to my sweet mama who worked for 30 years in education and was also my elementary school principal which is why i always behave i'd like to close by sending my heart to all the students staff and families of the south carolina south county pyramid as they mourn the loss of two students killed by a fellow student with a ghost gun i know your hearts are broken we hear your voices and we share your pain we love
108you stallions thank you um before i address the south county tragedy i want to first thank all of our teachers and instructional assistants and school-based staff for an incredible year of support and focus on our students and student success this year perhaps more than any other year i think we should be celebrating our teacher appreciation week in uh in the boldest way because our staff have gone above and beyond and they've demonstrated resilience grace and focus on what is what we're all about which is the success of our children in meeting their needs so i want to first thank everybody for that and wish everybody a very happy staff appreciation week i also want to congratulate south county for their amazing progress in getting all the way to the state finals for the football championship
109this past week it was bittersweet because that championship followed a week of heartbreak the heartbreak was caused by social media gone getting out of control kids were bantering on social media we're exchanging uh comments and statements that were not necessarily appropriate or and were painful and they resulted in an act of violence that took two of our students lives but it actually destroyed two students lives and the lives of everybody else who was involved in the incident i don't normally correct my colleague but uh this the uh person who has been charged with the murder of these two children uh was actually a recent graduate it was not a current student and so it it impacted all of the families involved but it also included the use of something called a ghost gun i had
110never heard of a ghost gun until this incident but i want people to understand what a ghost gun is because it's important a ghost gun is a gun that is put together in someone's home after they purchase different piece parts they construct it there is no uh so there's no serial number on the gun there's no tracking of the gun there's no background check because it is a ghost it is put together and nobody knows it exists until it is used and in this case it was used to kill two people two young men in the prime of their lives there was a second ghost gun in the home as well so the message though is one which is parents please know what your children are doing online or using social media it is so
111important to be engaged and understand what is happening online and in the social media and as a community we need to know people need to know about the risk and the dangers of these guns and so um that is those are the things that are the most important to learn from this but more importantly i want to also thank the community in south county for gathering together and supporting these families and our staff who showed up last night to answer questions and to ensure that every member of the south county community knew that we were there to support them and that we will be there not only in the immediate aftermath of this violence but going forward thank you miss miss corbin sanders um i want to thank all those who made it possible to
112have such a wonderful rededication ceremony at john r lewis high school a week or so ago it took many months of hard work to make this happen and i don't want to miss somebody i just want to thank the entire village who put it together i thank you to my colleagues though who voted for this change and made that happen and the many staff and students and alumni who contributed to the beauty of the event either through your your voice or your artistry or for your just blood sweat and tears to get this to where we were so thank you so much it was a beautiful day and we do appreciate all that you did to get that together also i do want to add to the congratulations to all of our fcps teachers during
113this teacher appreciation week to say that this year has been challenging is of course a great understatement we appreciate you we appreciate your dedication your hard work and we most appreciate you do that because you love our kids and your kids so thank you for all that you do you are so appreciated and please those of you who are mothers and teachers take some extra time off husbands and partners please be be very pampering to the moms and teachers in your life and thank you and happy mother's day to all my colleagues here on the board as well thank you very much mr rock colfax our next three speakers mr frisch ms keys gemara and miss marin all right thank you um it's been a very busy couple weeks um enjoyed attending the fccpta meeting
114yesterday i think it's been a long two days um i've also had the opportunity to visit shrevewood elementary school mosby woods elementary school where i got to take a peek at the renovation draft plans that's exciting and the highlight of the week was visiting timberlane elementary school my staff aide jackie was a student there and believe it or not she got to see her kindergarten teacher for more than 20 years ago so that was a great reunion a different mrs mclaughlin not the one from our our school board also had the opportunity to attend the falls church high school renovation update and it's great to see the community coming out for that and seeing the plans coming along and several of my colleagues and i also were able to attend a few principal selection community
115meetings at thoreau middle school in mantua middle school or mantle excuse me mantua elementary school and thoreau middle school also the food for families event here at luther jackson middle school so many great volunteers came out and it was great to welcome dr anderson and miss cohen to providence district on a weekend and to help receive food from i don't even know how many people brought bags but it was a record and i'd like to thank my colleagues for moving the school trust policy forum topic that dr anderson and i sponsored earlier this week forward and finally a little update about a year ago the school board moved forward with a request to the superintendent to come up with a process so that students who graduate from schools formerly named after the confederacy or who
116go through name changes can get new diplomas and that process is now in place so if you are a student with a lee diploma you can now get a john r lewis diploma if you are a student with a steward diploma you can now get a justice high school diploma just contact fcpsit document management if you are transgender gender expansive or another student who has changed their name you can also get new diplomas and documents if it's in the last five years go to your school if it's longer than that also contact fcps i.t documents management i'd also like to wish my mother a very happy mother's day she had a lung transplant about a year before kovid and so she's been on complete lockdown like very secure and i've not seen her in more
117than a year i'm very much looking forward to this uh pandemic being behind us and i am extremely grateful to everybody who has played a part in getting us to the point where we are now whether you're a kindergartner who remembered to wash your hands a nurse a doctor people who put their mask on properly when they went to the grocery store whatever role you played in putting this behind us thank you you're going to be able to you know a lot of people who have not seen family members are going to be able to see family members uh very soon thanks to your your sacrifices and your work thank you thank you i too want to say thank you to all of my colleagues to um the staff members that helped plan the john
118r lewis rededication ceremony i have to say it was a beyond a treat it was just invigorating and i especially want to recognize the students who began their statements by saying i am becoming john lewis they were inspirational they are the leaders of tomorrow and i am sure i am not alone on this board when i say that we are immensely proud of you and we cannot wait to see what you are going to do to change and improve this world we need you desperately um i want to also mention i know i gave the audit committee report last time but we are the fairfax county uh school board invites applications from community members interested in serving on the school board audit committee applications will be accepted until may until 11 59 pm please go
119on our website it is a one committee member i'm sorry each board member will have an opportunity to choose one person i also want to congratulate the many students who received awards for career and technical education many of them were fairfax county students and i enjoyed participating in community meetings at thoreau middle school where we're looking for a new principal as well as mantua as well as watching the process of the renovations for falls church high school also one of the great joys of this month was my military family office hours i want to say thank you to all of those people who came out and also wrote me letters to help educate me uh as well as it will eventually be for our board as to what the experience has been for many of
120our military families and while the pandemic has certainly isolated many people i think our military families have been impacted in an even greater way and so i am so grateful uh for those conversations and we'll be using that information to try to improve our system um i thank you for this opportunity my heart goes out to the families who were impacted uh from our high school than the tragedy that's been mentioned just wanted you to know that our prayers and our thoughts are with you um i want to wish everyone a happy mother's day and um have a great week thank you so lately i've been spending some time helping constituents you know whether those are students or parents or staff and you know this work ebbs and flows from being about the macro and
121the school division level work on policy and strategic decision making to the one-on-one help i can provide to help people find solutions i've been very saddened by the death of two students in south county and i wish that we adults could give students a more peaceful place to live i wish that for my own children there have also been several homicides in my own district in hunter mill these last few months though the victims were not fcps students you know gun violence is not this abstract thing that so many of us fight against like so many of the issues that we see nationally this is where it bears out you know we here in fairfax in this school division on this school board the work we do is trying to address these issues locally and
122so if you're you're interested in trying to make things better you know look look around and see how you can do that i know bullying is a big challenge not just among students but with parents and families and we need to model the civility and yes be passionate but advocate to get to solutions and not um force people into being bullied on a more positive note i wanted to share that i too attended the community meeting to begin the process of identifying a new principal at thoreau and on that note i want to give kudos to the thorough pta president angela cramer who this month will receive an excellence in communications award by the northern virginia district pta i agree that she is quite the star i'm pleased that my colleagues tonight approved on the
123consent agenda the foxman elementary's new renovation and addition project and it concludes a complete renovation plus 19 000 square feet of square face it's going to include a new courtyard another secondary entrance all new systems hvac electrical plumbing an improved layout expanded parking lot and a new basketball court so work begins this month and it's expected to be completed in spring 2023 so thank you fairfax county voters when you vote for the school bond this is the kind of stuff it funds so this was on the ballot back in 2017 and 2019 and it's finally happening so thank you i've been quite busy with the budget committee we are in the final stages of approving our budget we'll have a public budget hearing on may 11th and then the board will vote on the budget
124on may 20th and finally thank you teachers happy national teacher appreciation week today when i got my kids from school they were telling me about different ways that the school community had been celebrating the teachers and i said you're going to remember your teachers your whole life you're going to remember how they made you feel because i remember how they made me feel and i remember their names still but even if they can't remember their names they're going to be in their hearts forever so thank you teachers you're the best thank you miss marin um i just want to acknowledge that mr may she's not with us at this time because she had to excuse herself for ramadan prayers miss picarski ms eisenhower heiser and miss tolin thank you thank you um i i wanted
125to wish um the many thousands of orthodox christians in our system a happy easter my my family also celebrated um and observed um last all of last week with a culmination on sunday so i wanted to acknowledge that i wanted to say a very happy mother's day to all the mothers out there um you always work hard but this year you have worked if it was ever possible that much harder um and and i i do hope you you take some time and are pampered uh this weekend of course teacher appreciation week we we really enjoyed celebrating it with my kids um and talking about our teachers and and what um you know what makes them special why we need to tell them how much they mean to us and like miss marin said you
126remember your teachers your whole life and it's it's not usually what they taught you although i really credit dr gorski in seventh grade for teaching me how to write a five paragraph uh essay i will never forget that but it's really how um they made you feel um and and you know teaching was the hardest job hands down i ever had so thank you this year especially but always i'm looking forward to visiting virtually virtually with the hope chinese school in chantilly this weekend as someone who went to greek school growing up i know how much our uh you know heritage and our culture means and preserving that so i'm very excited about that and lastly i just really wanted to talk to our um families who are of indian uh just indian-american or who
127still have family there i i spoke with somebody who told me that this coveted crisis has touched everyone every family in some way and that is um that's powerful and those are uh many of those are families that reside in the sully district so i i just want to say that we are you know we are here to support you um anything you need and we are standing with you in solidarity and thinking um about everything that is going on there and hoping hoping that we start to see really some forward movement so thank you everyone thank you and um like many of my colleagues i was thrilled to participate in the john lewis rededication it was a beautifully done ceremony and there were many many highlights but to me that the best part were
128the students talking about what it meant to them to be in a school with a name john lewis and the legacy of john lewis standing up there on this amazingly beautiful mural as they walk in that school every day and what that meant to see them and the inspiration that was to them so um that was really wonderful and and i'm so glad thank you mr nikofax ms keith gamara for bringing that forward and for our entire board i also have enjoyed my school visits thank you to hutchinson elementary school for hosting me as well as annandale terrace for hosting me virtually and i will continue to do some more school visits although i'm trying to let our principals really get our students in four days a week and focus on that as well and
129it's always a hard balance and i know my colleagues are also out there in our schools and it's wonderful to see just the happy faces in our schools and the amazing work our teachers are doing um i was also glad with my colleague miss tolan to speak to the families and parents and people of kappa nova the chinese-american parent association of nova and the hope school of tysons and we had a really great conversation last night actually about anti-asian hate incidents that are going on and how we can support the anti-asian the asian community and partner with the asian community so i'm looking forward to a lot many more great conversations um i just wanted to say a couple things for teacher appreciation week i just wanted to thank all of our teachers for all
130their hard work and our ias and staff but especially this year as they've had to reimagine education and then reimagine it again and spend their time in the classroom learning new technology troubleshooting their students technology all through math balancing the chat the in-person schools and the thumbs-up that they often get as communication so really i appreciate it i know my son's teachers have been amazing and i wanted to call out a couple although they've all been great in particular and um one is his chorus teacher miss harmon for the amazing work she's done to keep her students connected and engaged i've never seen a teacher work this hard to build a community virtually and she's done an amazing job and to miss moreland his geosystems teacher and the work she's doing to really help all
131of her students in the classroom so um you know like everybody else i will say the teachers have been seminal in teaching me but really in believing in me as a student who was here um trying to figure out how to balance two cultures it was my teachers who often showed me the way as much as my family so i really appreciate what they do and happy mother's day to all the parents out there the mothers out there i know it's been a rough year for families also and families have done double and triple duty and especially our mothers so i really want to i hope they take some time to to enjoy themselves and um for our students at south county this is a terrible way to end a very rough year and know
132that you're in my thoughts and prayers and especially to the families who lost their young men and i want to thank my colleagues and dr bray brown for your kind thoughts and prayers about india i have spent time this week just trying to reach my own family i have many family members still in india and making sure they're okay and so far they are but everybody they know somebody everybody knows somebody who has had some terrible consequences it is everywhere in india and it is it is a terrible tragedy so thank you for the thoughts and prayers and i just wanted to end by saying a word to our transgender students and staff please know that we have your back and you are welcome and valued and celebrated just as you are thank you happy
133mother's day to all the mothers out there this has been quite the year as you rose up to assist our children of all ages to get through the pandemic i hope you take a moment to celebrate your life as a mother this weekend i'm a former classroom teacher and specialist and i know that i cannot even begin to appreciate how difficult and tiring this school year has been for you our teachers and staff you have dealt with uncertainties and challenge changes like never before you have taken professional development to deal with all the instructional challenges and changes that the pandemic has required many of you have worked from home with your own children in virtual learning beside you through it all you kept working with our students in the best way you possibly could and
134tried to keep a positive attitude for them you reached out to families like never before and did whatever you could to engage absolutely everyone for all you did and continue to do i am so grateful i wish you the best teacher and staff appreciation week and only hope you might get an inkling of how special you are and maybe even get a little bit of rest this weekend a huge thank you to our pta organizations for making sure that appreciation efforts are happening across the schools please enjoy the last day of that tomorrow a huge congratulations to pranav chowdhury i have known pranav for years of course he was recently elected as our next student representative i met him before i was elected and that time he had more information on school boundaries split feeders
135and school capacities than anyone i had ever met pranav has been so active helping drainsville students stay abreast of information and have their voices heard over the past few years i am so proud to have the opportunity to serve our community with him our langley saxon community could not be more proud to have him represent students across the county a huge thank you to the drainsville pta leaders and the safe community coalition we've been meeting regularly over the school year and we had our last meeting this year last week shared information on teacher appreciation week and made our plans to continue meeting for next year i've had lots of school visits um recently but i just have to shout out two of them two of my favorite ones i have to say um the churchill
136road second graders taught me everything they know about butterflies that was a a wonderful time there with them we explored their the beautiful gardens at churchill road and then recently i was able to be an authentic audience member for on the chesterbook sixth graders and just as they culminated their pbl work in their sixth grade science unit they did a debate on different energy sources and they were incredible so anyway our students are doing amazing work um some other student achievements to celebrate we have two drainsville national merit scholars um alexander telemancy from tj national merit raytheon scholarship and cena casing of also tj national merit letos scholarship 47 buzzworthy awards were handed out to herndon high school hornets recently they were selected based on improvements in one or more aspects of the pride matrix
137the pride matrix incorporates participation respect integrity diligence and empathy a teacher counselor administrator and our herndon high school staff member had to recommend each one of these students for this award i'm especially proud of these students i got this award during this pandemic year it highlights their resilience maturity and commitment to learning congratulations thank you thank you miss tolin um i also want to lend my voice to um the lewis rededication ceremony that took place last week it was fantastic i appreciate all of the effort that our school board members and staff put together to make that a grand event and of course the highlight was the student i was just inspired by their passion and their commitment to renaming the school and also for their inspirational words during the rededication and also thank you
138to miss denver colfax she was running on like a crazy person like a wedding planner that entire week i could not get her on the phone but she did call me very late at night because that's the time that she had so thank you for that um i do also want to say congratulations to xiaoji to pranav chaudhry on being voted the student representative you have big shoes to fill and i was just so excited and speaking to him we had a chance to have a very lengthy conversation yesterday and he is so excited and you're right he has a wealth of knowledge around about fcps and all things i'm excited by his focus which is to ensure that underrepresented students in places like mason have a seat at the table so that is just
139music to my ears and he already has a plan of hosting and i'm just putting it out there for everybody to put this on their calendar of hosting pyramid town halls with each school board member and i think i'm on his calendar for the fall already so he will be reaching out to all of you for that he's just very excited about bringing in all of the student voices and i am excited to work with him also want to say the food for neighbors which happened right here behind in the parking lot here at jackson a couple of weeks ago was a fantastic opportunity and i want to say and offer a plea for donations whether it be food or monetary because the needs the need is great and while they had 22 pounds of
140food 22 000 pounds of food i did hear from the coordinator that is not expected to last past the first week of june so because of the need that is so great so anything that you can do to help please do so also excited for our board members supporting the trust policy this week thank you very much for mr frisch to mr frisch for bringing me in on this conversation it was such a necessary piece for us to do for our families here and just providing them with that additional level of protection i think it's really going to pay dividends i had the opportunity to participate in both the justice ptsa meeting just last night and also glasgow just a few days before that and at glasgow they had the chance to introduce the new
141principal victor powell who has been raising such excitement for the school at the school for the students um it's a little hard to miss him he's six five and so the kids identify him right away and my son particularly who's a student there was very excited that mr powell knew who he was because before he started dr bray brand i don't know if you know this he began school visits back in late april before he even began the job just this monday so he already had the opportunity to make connections with several students which is so important and so key which brings me to my next to last point which is national um teacher appreciation miss um pokarsky said teaching was the hardest job she's ever had but it was definitely the most rewarding job
142i ever had as a teacher of second grade fourth grade fifth grade sixth grade eighth grade i have enjoyed every every single year of my teaching career when i had the opportunity to welcome all of our kids i love the opportunity to make them feel safe to make them feel welcome no matter how they presented to me to the world what mattered was that they were able to come into my classroom and feel included and also feel covered and so thank you to all of our teachers who are doing that and we need to continue to do more of this and happy national teacher appreciation week to you lastly happy mother's day to all the mothers on the board yay which is just about everybody but mr frisch you know mom um happy mother's day
143to all of my colleagues and to all of the staff and to all of our teachers and parents and every out there and everyone out there and also happy mother's day to my mom thank you all it is now 9 22 and we are adjourned you