FCPS School Board Meeting 10/10/19

001e excuse me excuse me thank you I apologize for this but we were just notified that the meeting will convene at 7:15 thank you e this e good evening and I apologize for our delay we were um having to finish some unfinished business and before we start the meeting I'm going going to uh certify our motion for close meeting in order to comply with Section 2.2 372d of the code of Virginia it is necessary for the board to certify that since the Fairfax County School Board convened to close meeting on October 10th 2019 to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully Exempted from the open meeting requirements and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed and considered by the board

002during the Clos meeting do I have uh motion made by Mr mline seconded by Miss uh Schultz all those in [Music] favor that's unanimous the motion carries this October 10 2019 regular meeting of the Fairfax County School Board will now come to order please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance a moment of silence in the performance of the national anthem by the Oakton High School orchestra under the direction of maxheimer 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 oh say can you see by the dawn early light what so proudly we H at the Twilight last gleaming who broad stripes and bright stars through the parous fight or the ramp parts we watched were so

003gly streaming and the RO R glare the bombs bursting in air G proof through the night that our flag was still there oh say does that store bangled B [Music] way or the land of the free and the home of the BR [Applause] wasn't that amazing thank you so much I know CER oner is correct while they're leaving the stage I just want to go ahead and we're blown away thank you Mr Oppenheimer and your students and your singer that's the first for me sing a sing come along with you so thank you so much for all your [Applause] work okay a few announcements before we begin tonight's meeting item 5.03 Elementary professional development school internship program has been removed from tonight's agenda and will be rescheduled at a later date if you would like

004to review a a copy of the agenda and any agenda item that is being discussed tonight that information is on the table by the auditorium entrance tonight's agenda is available by going to Schoolboard on the FCPS homepage and selecting board docs under upcoming Schoolboard meetings the meeting is also being streamed live online select Schoolboard from the full menu then click on the watch live button on the Schoolboard meeting's web page please turn off or silence your cell phone I call on Miss batang for an announcement national school lunch week is officially scheduled for October 14th through 18th by an act of Congress using the theme school lunch what's on your playlist spot spotlights the wide variety of flavors dishes delivery options and tastes that can be customized in today's school lunch national school lunch week

005promotes excitement about the benefits of students consuming whole wholesome healthy school lunches of fresh fruits and veggies whole grains and milk the national school lunch program is dedicated to the health and well-being of our nation's children and has been joined Through The Years by many other excellent Child Nutrition programs there is a continued need for nutrition education and awareness of the value of school nutrition programs and the school board encourages all residents to become aware and concerned about their children's and their own nutrition habits in Hope of achieving a more Health healthful citizens for today and the future did you know that October is National disabilities employment and awareness month this year's theme is the right Talent right now each year Fairfax County Public Schools participates in the National disability employment awareness month which promotes

006career development for individuals with disabilities through hands on Career exploration and job shattering shadowing in the following Fields administrative support animal care business management Communications information technology and Parks and Recreation ndam strives to encourage students to explore potential career or employment opportunities to learn more about businesses in their community and begin to plan uh begin to plan to achieve more successful employment outcomes thank you Miss Guang at this time we will open the public hearing on the division-wide comprehensive plan the Virginia Department of Education requires each local school board to adopt by Nell a division-wide comprehensive plan the 2019 plan includes pertinent data from the fiscal year 19 student achievement goal monitoring reports which highlights academics essential life skills and responsibility to the community additional information is included about the enrollment projections technology parent involvement

007and cooperation with neighboring School divisions board action on the plan is scheduled for October 24th 2019 if you have not registered to speak tonight but would like to have the opportunity to address the board please see one of the clerks to sign up for one of the five extra reserved speaker slots tonight we have one speaker and that is Mr Norm Hall representing sep good evening excuse me I'm Norm Hall an advocacy co-chair of the Fairfax County Special Education PTA from 22 to 15 years ago I was an operations manager for the national Transit database I supervise seven staff who validated financial and operating data reported by all transit agencies getting federal assistance I had to know and teach how to look at data for consistency in light of explanations that were provided to vouch

008with thousands of data points I was responsible for the front-end Communications through many letters and phone calls that suggested that agencies either revise or explain unusual data if not reasonable data would be Del deleted or flagged as questionable so I come prepared equipped with experience and how to make analytic comments on the information I have seen and heard pertaining to students with disabilities from R and Fairfax County Public Schools good news while the 40-page comprehensive plan does not show a complete Road mapap for Success Through links to the district strategic plans and prior year budgeting there are no sections that are problematic or questionable the Administration has posted information here that credibly describes the current state of the school system no surprises there's bad news but this is not a stain on FCPS no my

009complaint is with whoever prepar the poor question for Schoolboard candidates two weeks ago drainville and at large Schoolboard member candidates were asked why FCPS has twice the rate of special education students compared to Montgomery County Schools signing a Washington Association Boards of Education report I found the Wy report on the FCPS website did the math myself saw the grossly exaggerated claim for what it was my concern is that this deception played to the falsehood that too many resources go to students with disabilities in Fairfax County candidates were clearly in no position to call out this unbelievably biased question and time was wasted that could have been much better spent on how to improve needed Services a bad outcome for both candidates and citizens however having just watched the video a Monday night's work session sorry

010it was afternoon for you on the 2021 budget I am thrilled to see that both staff and many members of this school are gearing up to develop ways to improve special education the comprehensive plan doesn't forecast these nent events they came as a very pleasant surprise to me thank you now is a good time to note other positive news since the end of last school year just last week the ombudsman's office was organized to include support for employees turning to the plan document on page five the former School Division objective States said FCPS will eliminate gaps in Opportunity access and achievement for all students now this is appropriate and here's where I have had a concern why does the comprehensive plan stop with assessment data for the last school year we know that the 2019

011data is publicly available from vo's website ideally each school's community of families teachers and staff should be able to see for themselves whether overall improvements are being seen at their individual schools right now this level of information is not available through the FCPS website we would like to see this functionality restored to what it was just one year ago I have looked uh ahead the materials for next week's worst session on Project momentum thank you for adding Whitman Middle School in Mount Bon the states to the S uh project momentum work nice thank you thank [Applause] you thank you Mr Hall do we have anybody else in the audience who would like to speak to the uh division-wide comprehensive plan plan seeing no one then we will move on with the rest of our meeting

012I call on Mrs keys gamara for a resolu a recognition thank you madam chair we will be recognizing 400 years of African-American history in Virginia this past summer the state of Virginia held a ceremony in recognition of the arrival of African-Americans on the shores of Virginia some 400 years ago while this is and has been a momentous date it is also important to note that according to the Library of Congress Africans initially came to this new world as adventurers who joined into the Age of Exploration and crisscross the globe in the early 17th century a year before the English pilgrims arrived at P Plymouth MA Massachusetts a group of Africans arrived in the Jamestown Colony as indentured servants it was after this period that on August 25th 1619 that the first enslaved Africans arrived on

013our Shores they had been stolen by Pirates and ended up on an English Privateer ship that arrived in desperate need of rations they landed at Point Comfort Virginia seeking to trade their human cargo for Provisions an event that led to more than 250 years of slavery in this nation when they arrived slavery did not exist in the English colonies Africans came to our Shores mostly from West Africa at the dawn of the era of transatlantic slavery Africa was a vast and diverse land the home of many ancient cultures West Africa was a land marked by a rich and varied culture that had long been the site of trading posts with the Europeans and was a major Center for scholarship that included the work of astronomers mathematicians and theologians Africans who arrived in V Virginia brought

014the skills of their Homeland including hering blacksmithing and Artistry along with their own culture and beliefs Africans came ashore at Point Comfort which is present day Fort Monroe in Hampton Virginia President Barack Obama declared Fort Monroe a national monument in 2011 ironically it was this same Point Comfort that is now known as fort Monroe Monroe that served a pivotal role during the Civil War the stat status of enslaved African-Americans after the Confederate States engaged in the Civil War became an issue early in 1861 Major General Butler commander of the fort learned that three slaves made their way to Point Comfort presented themselves to the Union Army and refused to return to slave owners who supported the Confederacy the three African Americans Frank Baker James Townsen and shepher mallerie had been leased by their masters to

015assist the Confederate Army these men escaped at night and sought Asylum at Fort Monroe when the Confederate major requested the men's return the union major refused he based that decision on the belief that the Confederate States had succeeded from the United States and the laws that would have mandated the return of the slaves was now null and void the African-Americans began working for the Union Army and eventually received pay for their services to the Union Army and the union Navy this marked the practice and development of the authorization of African military units where thousands of former slaves and free African-Americans began to enlist in the military the African-Americans ultimately comprise more than 10% of all troops in the Union Army the camp surrounding these for Sports also became the place where they were educated and

016learned to read and write now that a federal commission has been established to recognize 400 years of African-American history we encourage students teachers and the community to recognize the significance of that moment in 1619 and celebrate celebrate the resilience and determination of African-Americans who defi the odds and have contributed so much to the building of this nation did you did you I'm sorry did you want to have additional comments would any of our colleagues like to comment on the uh beautiful words of Miss Keys gamara Miss Hines um yes thank you I was um transfixed thank you very much um for bringing this to our board I think it's such an important thing to recognize and that you ended on the positive note you know that um actually we have much to celebrate and be

017grateful for in spite of the hard beginning uh and and the hard times of uh that that you spoke about um so thank you very much for this Miss palic yes I also want to thank Miss Keith gamara um there is so much there so I hope you will share uh your words with us so we can uh take a little more time to digested um and I and perhaps um if you know of events that are happening in schools or would like us to share with the community I know last last month we were able to do that for Hispanic Heritage Month but I appreciate you doing that and I know you've invited some very special guests from our community um and I agree with with Miss Hines that um having a fuller picture

018um a fuller picture of the history um of a very important Community to us here in Virginia in these 400 years um is very helpful and I hope that that we can um continue to incorporate it as we also um update our social studies curriculum um so that this is taught not just here at the board table but to our kids um throughout our school system so thank you so much for bringing that to us today miss mclin I want to Echo what Miss PCH said uh someone who uh majored in American history in college uh and actually took courses in the Civil War um we became A Ware of where there were the um the African-American troops um that uh fought U bravely um to help for the freedom um and the success of

019the Union um but to be able to hear this 400y year history and then for people to understand that that crucial moment especially at Fort Monroe what what that birthed and the opportunity that um our nation began to understand uh what it means to really uh recognize and include all of humanity and uh that they there would be a shared cause um to to fight alongside one another this is the type of history that when we often talk about how a 21st century history can be more inclusive uh whether we're talking about uh how we include more women in history how we include uh people of color in our history uh it's something that as as uh during my time uh I didn't get to benefit from that as much even in my years in

020college and so I just really want to thank you Miss Kei gamara for uh bringing this for our board on such an important um anniversary for us to do this type of recognition and what I hope it does uh for Dr Bray Brandon and for our leadership team is to recognize that this is a way that we can uh begin to help incorporate the richness of the history here in Virginia and uh certainly how it's impacted the nation and the world thank you Miss mclin Miss Strauss uh thank you and I believe uh uh Department of Education Virginia is um uh rethinking and rewriting the fourth grade Virginia history which is is very timely um certainly I would look forward to uh information um like this there's a lot more that uh needs to be

021introduced into the uh the fourth grade curriculum so very timely and I uh I look forward to seeing what the state um the results of the state work because there is there is so much work that needs to be done with that fourth grade piece so thank you Miss Evans I too want to thank Miss keys gamar for bringing this to the board and um and to the public um it's very important for us to hear this detailed history and um think about the past and Ponder the the past uh both the good and the bad so uh this is a particularly momentous anniversary and one that should give us all uh time to pause and Ponder and think about what this meant for our nation uh through the last 400 years and what this

022means for us today so uh thank you for um for the for the great detail and for um the commemoration thank you Miss Schultz so I was trying to um give Dr brbr the credit to do this but um I'm going to suggest it um as a fellow scholar and lover of political science and history um I think it would be really great if we could put this actually on our website because the words get Lo then it's like in a YouTube video it's sort of lost but um that way at least maybe you know temporarily it could go someplace just so they can be Consolidated because there's a lot here that's historically Rich um that we could offer out so it could be out there for everybody great idea uh Mr MAV thank you

023yes and thank you to um Miss Keys Kamara for bringing this forward I think this is a very poignant time uh certainly on the 400th anniversary to to raise this discussion of course um in the Commonwealth of Virginia we continue to face the Demons of the past um and our our County itself continues to face the Demons of the past many of you may have heard that tomorrow mlan High School's newspaper will be publishing an article in which they have gone back to look at the yearbooks um from past decades and theyve found some of the um very negative and um atrocious portrayals of members of our community um blackface things activities like slave auctions that have taken place in our schools but what is very important about uh what they have found is that

024they've seen how we've uh how those things have happened in the past and how we as a county have worked to overcome them so I'm grateful to the students who have done this work and continue to look into our history um so that we can all find our better Angels thank you Mr mine Miss Daren kofax thank you and thank you Miss keys gamar for bringing this up I it's good to follow Mr M and I think it's very important to look at our history see what happened and make sure as we go forward we work to make things sure some of these things never happen and to make sure the recognition that wasn't given in the past is recognized now so as we move forward I think um it's very important to look at

025this and I do agree that this uh that your your your words are something that should be um put um on our website right now for the um talking about the journey I think that's important so thank you for bringing it forward and I'll uh finish by thanking Miss Keys gamar as well uh this is a wonderful piece of work it's a beautiful recognition and uh it's one that speaks to me especially because I represent the Mount Vernon magisterial district and in the Mount Vernon magisterial District we have Gum Springs where uh we just celebrated a major anniversary of the gums Springs historical Museum uh just a couple weeks ago and had the uh opportunity to hear from one of the historians with the Park Service who shared much of this story as well and

026um I want to uh tip my hat to miss keys gamar because she was the Master of Ceremonies for that wonderful SE celebration and uh this is a continuation of that great celebration of um the important role that uh African-American history has in uh the United States uh but particularly in the state of Virginia and uh where we are relying more heavily on primary sources when we teach history I appreciate that Miss Keys gamara went back to the primary sources to make sure that we um we told this history so accurately and Inspire so many many of our children in the community to um know their history and know the heroic members of um the black community that played such an important role throughout the history of Virginia and the United States so thank you

027very much Miss Keys gamara thank you madam chair I am grateful to have this um celebration and I look forward to delving deeper you guys I left some details out um and so I as we go forward tonight and talk about naming I wanted this context to be provided because um there is a rich history and there's also a history of what that meant and so I will Reserve those comments for later so um but I do want to talk just a little bit about what you know what it meant to be stolen from your home and brought to another country and treated and help held as less than human for so many years and um we have to make sure that we tell the whole story and so I do appreciate my colleagues recognizing

028that and I'm sure we'll have even greater discussion as we talk about naming schools uh so at this time I would like to invite uh Pastor Vernon Walton pastor of the First Baptist Church of Viana Shan Perryman president of the Fairfax NAACP representatives from the Beth beem Baptist Church was which is another historically uh African-American church I believe they just celebrated their 157th year and Mr Edwin Henderson of the tenor Hill Heritage Foundation to the Das for a photo with the board and anybody else who'd like to join us e you spe see if I get my husband to send the um head shot sorry sorry I was in Fredericksburg for work I'm sorry he's not real good with texting I now call on Mr mine for recognition Okay thank you madam chair so it

029is my honor tonight to read the recognition of LGBT History Month the Fairfax County School Board along with the national PTA the Fairfax County Council of ptas the Fairfax Education Association recognized October as LGBT lesbian gay bisexual and transgender History Month according to the National PTA negative attitudes towards lesbian gay bisexual and transgender students puts them at an increased risk for violence and bullying negative attitudes also impact a student's ability to learn at school LGBT history month is recognized in October Nationwide and in FCPS to acknowledge and celebrate that LGBT students staff and families are an integral component of our nation and of our Fairfax County Public School System this special month was first recognized in 1994 October was chosen to commemorate National Coming Out day on October 14th and the first March on Washington

030for Gay and Lesbian rights on October 14th 1979 one of the first gay straight alliances in Virginia was founded at Hayfield High School in 2000 and now students are involved in clubs at many of the high school schols in the county welcoming not only LGBT students but their friends and those interested in creating safe schools more than a dozen Fairfax County Schools have active uh G gender and sexuality alliances or gay trade alliances through which students are able to network socialize and educate their communities about inclusion of the lgbtq community in our schools students do this through forums posters announcements and activities such as Ally week the existence of gsas is an asset to our schools educational Research indicates that schools which have gsas have better mental health outcomes for all students the equity Liaisons

031in our schools also helped to make our schools more welcoming for all students and staff in addition to student clubs Fairfax County Public Schools boasts an organization for lgbtq commun employees parents and lgbtq students and lgbtq family members FCPS Pride holds monthly coffee houses and an annual picnic for the community and supports activities such as holiday celebrations and lgbtq prom LGBT History Month in October is an opportunity for Fairfax County Public Schools staff and students to celebrate and learn more about these important constituents in our schools and neighborhoods at this time I would like to invite those in the audience who are here this evening in support of LGBT month including FCPS Pride president Robert Rigby to join me and my colleagues at the deis for a photo with the board Mr mine I understand

032that uh Miss mcclaflin and Miss pck would like to say something before we have the photo at the um Das so miss mlin thank you um I I really wanted to thank you Mr mline for um reading this important resolution and recognition um not a lot of people know uh but uh my son who is now a college sophomore um he when he came out to my husband in our family um as a junior um that was something that was really important to our family um to realize that a student could be in high school now in the 21st century versus when I was in high school back in the 1980s um it was a much more difficult time um for people to feel accepted and so uh now that he's in college and he

033has said that his mother's uh allowed to uh talk and celebrate this I just wanted to take this moment this evening to say Dr Bray bran as a parent I can't tell you how much it meant to my husband and I that we were lucky enough to raise our children in a community that um allowed for him to be himself and his day was no different um the day that he shared that with us and his friends and close family members and uh the fact that he was then able to go on to a university where they have the oldest LGBT Center and a just a community of acceptance when I've seen what his experience has been where he is just him and that's all it is he's just him and uh we've come a

034a long way in this country uh especially in the last 40 years and so this is a special recognition for me and uh I just really wanted the community to know we're very fortunate to be here in Fairfax County I'm so proud to be a citizen here in Fairfax thank you Miss McGlothlin [Applause] Miss pal yes um following mclin's words um just sitting here I was thinking about what Mr mine shared um in the last recognition uh and first of all I want to thank you for bringing this forward uh it didn't seem that long ago that I was one of those high school students uh graduated in 2001 uh but the fact that we've come such a long way that the first Club was not until the year 2000 um and that so many

035of my friends in high school did not feel safe or comfortable to come out until after high school uh so I'm just so grateful that you that you brought this to us um and especially very grateful for Mr Rigby because I know these past decades he has been working um with our boards with our superintendents with our community um to get us to where we are and to help ensure that we come along uh there's still a long ways to go but I want you to know that it's appreciated we know that all of these kids are your family and you want to make sure that they're safe um and that they are comfortable and able to come to school and learn so I just wanted to thank both of you and I also see

036that Miss Williams the the president of fcft is also here with us tonight uh to commemorate this moment so just thank you again um and I appreciate the long way we've come and the work ahead of us so thank you thank you Miss pal and with that you want to call people to the Das okay at this time I would like to invite those here this evening um in support of lgbtq month to join me at the de uh with my colleagues for a photo with the board thank you e I now call on Miss Strauss for a recognition thank you it's an honor to recognize this uh October 21st through 25th which is designated as the national school bus safety week based on the theme my school bus the safest form of student transportation

037the week focuses on student safety when waiting for and boarding a school bus school bus safety is an issue for all citizens of Fairfax County who need to be aware of laws requiring them to stop and wait behind a school bus when it is loading and unloading student Riders the major responsibility for school bus safety in Fairfax County rest firmly in the hands of our school bus drivers and attendants who daily transport more than 144,000 students in over 1,00 , 625 school buses on more than 6,800 separate routs traveling over 16.8 million operational miles each year motorists are encouraged to practice patience and drive gently near our school buses in our neighborhoods and school communities at this time I would like to invite Francine Furby who is head of our transportation system actually Todd Wyatt

038aan herd and staff from the Department of facilities and transportation to the day ask for a photo with the board and if there are other comments I guess before we take the picture thank you Miss uh Strauss Miss Schultz has a couple of comments she'd like to make I do want to comment um on this um and you know I I live in the western end of the county um I have a district that's larger by almost three times than some of my colleagues um and we have different traffic patterns um you're more densely um have more dense traffic um in this area um but we have a lot of two-lane roads out there and um I cannot tell you how many times I've watched a car in front of my eyes blow past a

039stopped bus and um I see and this this is a very nicely written recognition it says motorists are encouraged um to practice patients and drive gently around school buses I I I don't I don't know how much I think every year at at the beginning of school year we beseech people you know we get out of the Habit in the summer um I'm just begging I'm begging people in the one of the worst traffic second worst traffic whatever it is in the nation um there's nothing that is that important to blow past um a stop bus um I I live in fear that one of those days it's not just going to be somebody who gets somewhere faster but it's somebody who gets a child killed and um you know whether it's a two-lane road

040whether it's um just traffic and you're not paying attention um at those times I mean and and we have buses that transport children all during the day so children could be moving from program to program during the day we have special education buses transporting children um so it's not just first thing in the morning and and at the end of the afternoon and it just horrifies me my heart stops every time I see one of those um and it isn't sometimes it's a lot so it's a problem in feax County it's like when when you see it um um you know talk to your friends about it talk to your teenage drivers about it but it's predominantly what I see is it's actually adult drivers um who are just in a hurry and their schedule

041is more important than the lives of children and um we've been lucky um and I want us to stay lucky but I also want us to stay vigilant thank you thank you Miss Schultz those are very wise words I think we all share them with you that uh there is nothing more precious than the children that we uh transport to and from school or those children that walk to and from school and as the um days are getting shorter it is especially important to be vigilant and uh keep your eyes out and remember that there's we can take a pause and breathe rather than rushing past these buses uh so please remember that the most important people in the world are on those buses so be cautious with that M so now it's time for

042us to have a photograph Miss Furby who is head of Transportation Todd Wyatt aan herd and staff from the Department of facilities and transportation please join us for a photo for e I now call on Mr mline for a resolution thank you it is my honor to read the resolution honoring the sipy group whereas just in the us alone roughly 500 million plastic straws are used every single day an estimated 8 million tons of plastic flow into the ocean every year and straws comprise just 0.025% of that number and whereas last spring Junior Achievement of greater Washington presented its first annual company of the Year competition comprised of five student run companies that competed for the title of company of the year and whereas sipy a business started by FCPS students that sells nontoxic metal

043reusable straws to help eliminate plastic waste while raising awareness of the effects of plastic waste on marine life received first place and the title of Junior Achievement of Greater Washington's company of the year and whereas sipy received the awards for best commercial 2019 and most sales at the 2019 Junior Achievement trade show by selling more than $4,400 worth of inventory and making a profit of more than $2,200 as well as raising awareness of the environmental impact of plastic straws and whereas sipy was identified as one of the top 15 student companies in the country earning them a spot in Junior M's 2019 national student Leadership Summit where they Place six overall in the nation as well as being selected as one of the five National finalists for Delta airlin social impact award and whereas Junior

044Achievement of greater Washington is a nonprofit organization that is providing students with relevant Hands-On education and financial literacy work Readiness and Entrepreneurship by bringing together school systems Business Leaders and trained Mentor volunteers to provide equal access to the tools people and experiences that enable our students to be successful in the real world now therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board honors the cpy team members as well as Junior Achievement of greater Washington on this great accomplishment and conveys its most heartfelt best wishes for their continued success in the years to come is there a second second seconded by Miss Hines Mr mine would you like to speak to your resolution absolutely so I think many of my colleagues would agree with me when I say that during my time on this school

045board I've been continually uh inspired and impressed by our students who aspire to change not only their Community but the world one of the things that makes Fairfax County Public Schools so unique is that we have what are called student achievement goals the sags which few districts do and the third of those goals says explicitly that we aspire to raise students that have quote responsibility to the community and the world we are so proud of our sipy students for taking on This anormal Global Challenge and also to Junior Achievement for providing them with the platform by which to do so this board over the past several years has made incremental steps at bringing our system to be more sustainable uh one of the first was uh removing the poyene trays in our cafeterias uh and

046replacing them with recyclable cars cardboard Alternatives and the effort this year to remove the straws and leaving it up to student Choice whether to take them or not just takes us further down the road towards a more sustainable future we have a lot of work yet to do and I know um Miss Hines who second this has been at the Forefront of our efforts as a county um to establish the joint environmental task force which I'm sure she will talk about um but this work is just beginning uh and again I'm so proud to the students who are at the Forefront of of making our community and our planet more sustainable Miss Hines would you like to speak to your second sure thank you um and thank you Mr mlan for bringing this forward um

047and thank you to the students who I assume are with us tonight right we're going to get a chance to honor them in person great great thank you for being here and for all that you're doing um as Mr mavan said student initiative is the most powerful force in a school system that's the truth from the classroom to the plan play field to the band room to the to the boardroom to where we are right now um the only Force the student voice is really the only force that can cut through bureaucracy and politics and pessimism and actually make things happen um this business model that you all came up with is a is a a Beacon of Hope I mean it's just a straw right but it's a Beacon of Hope as we Face

048an increasingly alarm ing environmental future and that's why this board and the County Board have put together the joint environmental task force and the work that that task force is doing is just really a a small part in a way of what's already happening on the ground and and you all are here today to celebrate what's happening all the time and to show everyone else out there that you can make change you can you just take something as simple as a straw a good idea and a Relentless team and you can make it happen um and so I would tell anyone out there any student out there of any age go for it and your first step honestly could be to reach out to your school board member because we want your initiative we want

049your energy we want your ideas we want your positivity we want to help you do the wonderful things that you're doing and I know you've uh come to us before and talked to us about what you're doing and I know that Mr mavan has uh reached out and talked to you about it as well um so that that's the sort of thing this is the sort of thing that we love to see and thank you to Junior Achievement for and Mr melin for giving us a chance to celebrate you tonight so congratulations and good luck Miss pal yes well I just want to say thank you uh I carry my sipc box and straw with me uh everywhere I can and it's not just the straw Miss um Hines but I can actually carry Cutlery

050in here as well so I was so impressed by your model uh and thank you for the opportunity to allow us to test it and thank you for leading and um we hope to be able to continue to see your work and to support what you do in our community so thank you again we're very proud of you so so before we asked you to come up for a picture at the dis I too wanted to say a few words uh because ladies and gentlemen uh you may remember I first encountered you all when you were at Tyson's Corner in your pocket popup shop and I was just so impressed by each and every one of you because for people that don't know about Junior Achievement and what these young people have done they actually

051had to um develop develop multiple skills they had to put together a business plan they had to identify a product that they thought would fill a niche they had to develop the advertising and marketing of it and then they also had to ensure that when they priced it for the public that it was a successful business model so those are all the traditional skills that we want uh entrepreneurs to have but then they added in the environmental sustainability piece and I was just so impressed your uh your advertisement was your video was fantastic and you were very good at um marketing because I left that day um with no more cash in my pocket because I bought three straws uh and quickly gave them to family members so I am so appreciative of what you're

052doing but I'm also want to say a few words about Junior Achievement because Junior Achievement just provided a great opportunity for you young people but they also provide great opportunities for students across Fairfax County to participate in competitions like this as well as partner with us in finance Park and so I'm I'm very proud of that and then the last piece is that we normally celebrate national champions that are sports teams so it's really fun to be able to celebrate an entrepreneurial team so we're glad you're here thank you for being here we do need to vote so all those in favor of the resolution and that is unanimous with Mr Wilson away from the table at this time I'd like to invite some very special people up for for a photo from from Junior

053Achievement we have Ed grer Chelsea sonera and Gail Robinson hope you can join us up here as well as our members of the sipy team and I'll take just a second to read all of them Abby Marie robas Solus Ria Tuli Bryce metler Jay Sharma Jennifer young Michaela Bennett Vishal kenig chera James tur Abigail Adams Elena blessing Linda woo and Camille Gill please join us up front for a photo e the next order of business is citizen participation speakers are requested to limit their remarks to not more than 3 minutes the school board will not hear statements involving issues that have been scheduled for public hearings such as capital Improvement program budget and boundaries complaints regarding individual students or school-based employees should be directed to the appropriate School principal or other school official speakers should

054refrain from using personally identifiable information in connection with an individual student speakers are expected to deliver their comments with the decorum and respect appropriate to the conduct of the Public's business please be mindful that there are often young children in attendance at these meetings or watching at home so language should be appropriate for all age levels thank you for your cooperation and thanks to those have come to speak to us tonight tonight we have 10 speakers the first one is Mr Robert Rigby followed by John kachka and quelly zuuker good evening Schoolboard members Dr Bray Brandon leadership team my name is Robert rby Jr and I'm in my 21st year teaching for Fairfax County Public Schools I'm the president of an employees group called FCPS Pride we are a group for lgbtq and Allied staff

055family members of lgbtq students and lgbtq family members tonight you are receiving a presentation on the legislative program an important part of that legislative program is asking the state legislature to recognize all of the protected glasses that Fairfax County Public Schools recognizes and its non-discrimination and anti-harassment policies as a public school we recognize Heritage and history months for important constituencies in our schools following the lead of National Education organizations for example September 15th through October 15th is Hispanic Heritage Month February is Black History Month March is women's history month and may is Asian-American Pacific island or Heritage Month these months give notice that FCPS is a welcoming place for these communities they give students and staff the opportunity to celebrate their communities they give teachers an opportunity to focus instruction on important figures and events

056in the history of these communities tonight for the third year you recognize LGBT History Month this shares the message that lesbian gay bisexual and transgender people are welcome in our schools on behalf of my organization Community I want to say thank you thank you Mr kachka Fairfax County circumvented its Contracting guidelines when it hired Mark poer to write regulations that resulted in co-ed bathrooms and locker rooms Po's regulations stated students should use whichever bath align with their gender preference students who called other students the wrong pronoun could be disciplined Mark poer was hired without a written contract and without a board vote Fairfax County Public Schools hid poer from the public and removed any parental involvement from the drafting of his regulations M Corbett Sanders who hired Mark pu you're on the board ma'am who

057hired him you voted for policy 1450 you're respons responsible for Mark po M mlin when was Mark po hired Miss mlin we we like you to represent us to make sure that you're aware of this going on let's let's be clear that the former superintendent conferred with him the board had no involvement in that I want the facts on the record okay when was Mark po hired hello Mr Foster you're the you're the the attorney for the for the county when was he hired don't you at contracts thank you thank you sir Miss kofax how was Mar poer paid and how much was he paid we don't know our tax dollars are being spent these people are responsible for spending 2.6 billion of our dollars and they don't know what's going on did you vote

058for policy 1450 Miss kofax yes or no you're responsible for Mar P Miss Corbett Sanders what was your your role in selecting Mark pu hello you voted for policy 1450 that resulted in Mark po you're responsible Miss mlin what was your role in selecting Mark puero then why was he hired by the county I didn't hire him I um point of order mad this is not a back and forth we don't Mr K you're allowed to make comments but the fine board will not be engaging in your stated on May 7th 2015 that nothing was going to change when you passed policy 1450 why did you lie what should voters do when elected officials lie The Communist Manifesto States Communists want to se separate children from their parents so the state can educate them and

059also vows to destroy personal property rights One Fairfax will destroy private property rights passive Vue policy like 1450 hire an outside commission to handle the school redistricting and shut parents out of the process again what should citizens do for elected officials who are unaccountable who are irresponsible their means is to make sure they're not elected you are unaccountable and you should all be removed everyone who voted for policy 1450 should be removed from this board thank you chairman cor Sanders I'd like a point of privilege to clarify something because the public needs to know the facts so it's important for the public to understand that there has been no Reg ation put in place since the board voted for the policy there has been no action taken by this board of any kind there is

060no lying that has occurred the former superintendent did consult with an individual had no involvement with the board whatsoever and it's very disappointing that anyone would say that this board is lying thank you Miss mlin quelly zuuker please peace good evening to the board and all the community members here today my name is quelly zuuker and I'm a part of a growing group of Educators and parents that are organizing to support equity in FCPS I'm here today to address the county and school systems annual recognition of Columbus Day I request that we take immediate steps towards replacing it with indigenous people's day or First Nation people's day which over 130 municipalities including Alexandria and Washington DC have already done additionally I request the board take steps to adjust and supplement curricular framework such that a

061comprehensive and truthful rendering of the heritage of pre-colombian indigenous civilizations centered within an indigenous perspective is implemented now I've been a County resident for most of my life and I'm a product of the Justice pyramid having attended badier Glasgow and what was then called Jeb Stewart high school I'm thankful that this board recently heated calls from the student body and Community to change that name to Justice thereby recog recognizing the importance and power and names of our community institutions similarly holiday celebrations are significant symbols of Our Community Values now while I was in school I was also appalled each year at the fact that the school system recognized the federally sanctioned Columbus Day what was presented about his romanticized voyage and the cultures and civilizations of this land was from the perspective of the Europeans

062and european- Americans that intentionally destroyed them and decimated the land as well as plant and animal life my own daughter has attended has attended an FCPS Elementary School since kindergarten and I've been sorely disappointed to find the curriculum as a whole has made little progress in its depiction of indigenous Heritage as early as kindergarten books in class used in classrooms present the standard myth that Columbus quote unquote discovered North America and its people and that he was amicable to them as if he came to make friends as noted in the pivotal book they came before Columbus by the late great guyane scholar Dr Ivan van serma Columbus did no such thing he violently abused his own crew enslaved indigenous people and helped open the Gateway for the subsequent destruction of this land and its great

063Nations his legacy is not one to be proud of nor to be celebrated perpetuating his myth is particularly disrespectful to the many FCPS students who are from South and Central America being that their homelands were also similarly decimated by European conquerors akin to Columbus now I'm currently a PhD student at Howard University studying developmental psychology and my research focuses on the impact of a curricular cultural hemony on K through2 students cultural he hegemony is the social political economic and ideological domination of one group in this case so-called white people of other groups cultural hegemony is systematically embedded into school curriculum throughout this country and maintains a strangle hold on information and thought thus helping to perpetuate this domination this has deep implications for learning abilities and outcomes including hampering the velopment of critical thinking skills

064and it's antithetical to the notion of equity or idea that all students deserve a chance to learn Mr zuker thank you so much thank you I look forward look forward to working with you Daphne botas followed by George Alber and Melanie Marin good evening school board and community members my name is Daffy and I'm a teacher at Bailey's Elementary School I'm also an FCPS graduate having attended Beach tree Po in Justice high school as an aside I'm glad to stand in solidarity with the NAACP and other community members here tonight about the Lee name change um I am also here in solidarity with the same group of teachers parents and students that Mr zuuker spoke of just now as engaged community members who respect and value the many contributions to made to our community and

065to our country through indigenous people's knowledge science philosophy and culture we are calling on members of the school board to support renaming Columbus State to indigenous people's day and take immediate steps towards passing a resolution to recognize this change Fairfax County would join Six States in 130 municipalities around the country that have renamed October 14th as indigenous people's day including Alexandria Manasses Park and Washington DC currently currently the piscata kooi tribe has called on the highest ranking elected officials in the DMV to rename Columbus Day and by calling on your support for this change we stand in solidarity with the leadership of indigenous people on this issue it is important that we recognize that our County rests on the land of the manah hoic people an important part of local history and culture that is

066largely overlooked with the growing number of indigenous people from Central and South America expanding in our communities we must take leadership in acknowledging the many contributions of indigenous people we are calling on the Fairfax County School SCH board to commit to policies and practices that reflect the needs and experiences of indigenous peoples and honor this country's indigenous roots and contributions the history of the indigenous people of this country is taught in sorry the history of indigenous people of this country is taught in in Virginia schools only in relation to European colonization and from a perspective rooted in white supremacy we call on FCPS to commit to provide resources to teachers so that they can begin to unpack their biases and provide students with a curriculum that presents a truthful Nar narrative centering indigenous knowledge and

067perspectives renaming indigenous people's day is one step towards beginning to recognize and acknowledge the history of the systemic oppression of indigenous people on the land that we now call Fairfax County I would also like to thank Schoolboard member Evans for already um agreeing to meet with us to discuss this issue further we call upon other all other members of the board to join us and work together in this change thank you for your time George Alber fell followed by Melanie Marin good evening I would like to yield my time to Luna Alazar who's a student at Robert E Lee High School hello my name is Lena Alazar and I'm a student at Lee High School I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify today I believe that changing the renaming

068policy will help reach the goal of changing the name of Robert Lee High School some insight about me is that I am the secretary of the student government and the president of the NAACP Club at Lee High School I believe it is my obligation to represent the school and the members of the NAACP Club to the best of my abilities that being said I would like to I would like if you imagine being a Lee High School student we are tremendously diverse Community with strong Ambitions and remarkable Unity we are charismatic and full of of Pride we have different ideas and imaginations that makes us truly unique however we are named after someone who doesn't represent us at all every day I walk into that school being the strong African-American woman I am and my

069face is filled with disgust as I look at the portrait of the Confederate General Robert E le the name of the name of our school brings dishonor to who we are Robert El was part of a government that allowed slavery one day a woman asked me what school I go to and I said Robert elely high school she looked at me with distraught and went on to say you mean the confederate general robbery El Le I was ashamed to say yes I had to explain we more than that being named after after Robert elely already welcomes a negative connotation our diversity should be depicted through our name it should reflect who we are being a minority majority school we should be named after a minority leader like Hugo Chavez or Nelson Mandela imagine the dreams

070and possibilities that the students at Lee could feel if they knew how diversity was not only portrayed by the students in clubs that LE but by the name of the school they go to they say don't judge a book by its cover but if people don't like the feeling they get from the title are they still going to read what I mean by this is that my school is beautiful and marvelous ways our diversity strengthens our community our Shield of diligence Keeps Us comforted the name of our school neglects all those aspects the name Robert El High School always makes people think twice about my school I believe in perseverance and that we can accomplish the hard task of changing the school's name I believe that the Lancer Community can build from this with hard

071work and determination change is awaiting and we are getting one step closer thank you Melanie Maron followed by Debbie Ratliff good evening uh thank you for your time I'll be speaking to uh the resource stewardship item the lgpt History Month item and uh School renaming item so first uh regarding the steward research stewardship item so thank you for your time and time is actually the focus of what I'd like to share which comes from my experience being a co-chair on your Human Resources advisory committee along with Abra om and you had received in the summer our um suggestions on how to go about further looking into issues like teacher retention to keep our wonderful teachers and I really what I learned from the experience this last year is that we um focus a lot on

072the dollars as our resource but we also know that time is our other limited resource and it was a wonderful High School teacher on the committee who pointed out that teachers are asked to do all these responsibilities and assignments and yet there's no accounting of time to say this is how long this task is going to take you know for instruction for planning for duties for responding to parents for following through on individualized education plan commitments or requirements so um this recommendation that we sent to you does very much ask that we think about how to account for time because our teachers are overwhelmed and um just you know i' I've seen friends the last few weeks who have left after years of service because they are just burnt out so um I hope that

073you will read those recommendations as the HC continues on for this year and I also want to Echo my support for LGBT history month and relatedly U I was I'm really Amazed by all the comments tonight speaking to equity and expressing the diversity of our community I have been advocating for years to better represent African-American history in the curriculum um miss Karen keis gamar has been very receptive to that and thank you for um your advocacy there but my daughter is now in fourth grade and I'm going to see firsthand what's going on and fortunately my teach my principal has been very receptive to expanding uh rightly the curriculum and and opportunities and I hear that Dr Tyson's our regional assistant superintendent is taking the administrators and region one to the African-American history museum as

074professional development and I hope that all administrators and as many teachers as possible whether it's social studies or gen Ed can go there because it is a transformative experience and we have it 14 miles away so um I hope that while we keep these months to recognize these distinct groups that they just become part of our fabric of curriculum um this is American history this is the American Experience this is our children's experience so thank you for considering those thoughts and um have a good night thank you Debbie Ratliff followed by Brian scrafford hello of my testimony tonight's in support of revisions to the Schoolboard policy and regulation 8170 to provide that the Schoolboard can rename a school to ensure an inclusive respectful learning environment is outlined in our adopted one fairfox policy or when

075the board deems it appropriate the One Fairfax policy Champions each individual not a homogeneous community of automat all thinking alike and looking alike with full support of the school board and the Board of Supervisors One Fairfax sets a very high bar for all of us to be champions of the individual that we are one community in which all are welcome and all are respected all belong and all can flourish an equitable community that does not discriminate based on your background the language you speak who you love or who you vote for Equity inclusion diversity acceptance non-judgment learning free from fear and intimidation One Fairfax learning free from institutional racism that as I pointed out in testimony before the school board last year we are meeting in an example of tonight the Luther P Jackson High

076School opened as an all negro school back in 1954 the very year that the Supreme Court of the United States reached their Landmark decision in Brown V board ruling that racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional an all negro School in the language of the 1950s before 1954 if you were black and lived in Fairfax County your education ended at the eth grade if you lived in this community in the 1950s you were not living in a community of equity inclusion acceptance non-judgment children did not live in Live Free From Fear and intimidation in Fairfax County in the 1950s we've come a long way since then today we prioritize equity and we see all children however some of the decisions of the 1950s naming schools to honor men who waged War to protect a man's

077right to own slaves remain in our community and they don't have a place here I support changes to the policy and regulation 8170 so the school board can rename a school to ensure an inclusive respectful learning environment as outlined in our adopted One Fairfax policy or when the board deems it appropriate I'm very proud to share the news that the high school my younger child attends Justice high school has been selected to receive the superintendent excellence and Equity award at the October 24th school board meeting the award recognizes schools which have made significant gains and closing student achievement gaps as well as increasing overall so Pass rates for students in math and reading during the last school year this award recognizes the value of equity as we do our school naming policy must promote as

078we do and as the one Fairfax policy does a learning community of equity of inclusion acceptance and non-judgment a community in which children live free from fear and the intimidation of institutional racism We Are One community in which all are welcome and all are respected an equitable community that does not discriminate based on your background the language you speak who you love or who you vote for all can belong and all can flourish it's time to change thank you Brian scrafford followed by Sha Perryman and Casey Utley good evening my name is Brian scrafford and I'm a resident of the sule district I grew up in Fairfax County I'm the son of a retired school teacher and um went on to graduate from of a high school and receive a degree in American history from

079George Mason I'm my passion for history didn't end when I received my degree as I'm currently a member of a nonprofit organization that promotes discussion of the Civil War and uh preserving historic sites with that in mind I am extremely disappointed that we have some people arguing that we must honor continue to honor white supremacist by naming schools after them all in the name of supposedly preserving history as someone who has a history degree I can tell you that the practice of glorifying Confederate generals started in the Jim Crow era as a way to intimidate former slaves and isn't truly a way to celebrate Virginia's history naming schools after Confederates is simply a continuation of that practice if you're looking for some data to back this up consider this there are 429 War memorials in

080the Commonwealth of Virginia uh there and four of them are for the Revolutionary War a war we played a pretty big role in there are seven for World War II six for World War I 27 for the union cause but there are 378 for the Confederacy that means 88% of our war memorials in Virginia are glorifying Confederates and others who fought to preserve the institution of slavery it's it's unfortunate that we've allowed this to spread into naming our school system now there's been some discussion that it might be too expensive to make the changes however we must consider that businesses are more and more socially conscious now and are looking to invest in communities that are welcoming changing these school names will accomplish that go goal and welcome more business in investment should be remembered

081that Germans don't REM need to name their schools after Adolf Hitler in order to remember the uh lessons they learned during World War II we don't need to name our schools after Confederate generals to remember the horrible lessons of the Civil War in our history of slavery I thank you for our your time and encourage you to support the proposal that would allow us to change names that of schools that have celebrate white supremacy and trador to the United States thank [Applause] you Shan Perryman followed by Casey Utley hi uh my name is Sean Perryman I'm the president of the Fairfax County NAACP uh tonight we recognized that the uh first Africans enslaved Africans were brought to the shores of America in 1619 remarkably 400 years after their arrival despite the blood spilled and the

082obvious uh inhumanity of Catt slavery uh our textbooks still talk about this as if it were some uh employment agreement gone wrong uh instead of the dehumanization of an entire race of people that has Ripple effects to this very day you can TR Trace Catt slavery and what went down in 1619 to mass incarceration and all the ills that we see today I think it's the sort of willful manipulation of history that allows for the naming of a school like Robert E Lee High School two years ago I came here and I pled for you to stand up on your values and change the name of Jeb Stewart some of you did that I spoke about how the Confederacy was built on the cornerstone of white supremacy and was Ro rooted in the continuation of

083slavery at that time I thought I was coming to educate and Advocate but I'm tired of talking about the moral case I don't need to educate adults living in the society that the Civil War was about slavery that the con Confederacy was built on the fiction of white supremacy that these schools and monuments are rattling points for racist and white supremacist I don't need to teach you that because Charlottesville is not that far away Heather hire and her death is not that long ago you already know this you know what these schools are about you know why these things were named so I'll get to the point your policy needs to start from the point that your Forum topic did that these monuments and the Confederacy and their values no longer align with this community

084if you f start from there if you start from that truth and it is a truth if you start there you'll end up in the right place and no not to something like r. Le or Lee high school or something else that makes a mockery of the whole process an actual real name change that acknowledges the wrong that was done all those years ago and the legacy of that naming and unequivocally rejects it wholeheartedly the process shouldn't give space to hate speech at these meetings it should put the burden of leadership where it belongs with you the you are elected officials of this community if we put integration civil rights gay marriage to a community vote our society would not look the way it does today otherwise these ceremonies the the 1619 the One Fairfax

085the equity they don't mean anything because it's just fluff when you have Robert Lee standing in the middle of your county so finally I I realize that public service is often a thankless job criticism is abundant and recognition uh short so I just want to thank you toar kofax for introducing the for topic and urge you all to change the name thank you Casey [Applause] Utley hello my name is Casey Utley and I'm speaking for showing up for racial Justice Northern Virginia as the board already acknowledged this evening this year marks the 400th anniversary of enslaved black people's arrival here in the colony of Virginia yet here as we stand four century laters four centuries later we're still debating whether or not white colonizers white supremacists white slaveholders and white segregationists deserve a venerated position

086in our schools of all places what was true 400 years ago remains true today the humanity of black people is not up for debate black lives matter and because black lives matter symbols of white supremacy are indelibly harmful even violent school names mascots holidays school curricula all have potential to construct meaning around our history by calling for this shift we aren't here to erase history we're here to make history by changing the way that we frame our Collective experiences around race and colonization the last time the board Revisited this subject during the fight to create Justice High School you all worked too slowly Often hamstrung by efforts to Plate those who want to whitewash the legacy of anti-blackness in our country time and again you allowed these harmful forces to to have a platform and

087an equal part in your deliberations forcing black and brown leaders including students to Bear the weight of their violent diet tribes we were all told to endure this with civility to listen to the celebration of Oppression as if it were reasonable or dispassionate you have a responsibility to the young people and communities you serve to fight white supremacy and create a safe learning environments that teach with integrity and affirm the Dignity of your students especially those who've been historically even currently marginalized by board policies and actions we ask that you stand firmly Against Racism and move swiftly to correct and make reparation for the injustices committed to advance and protect white supremacy specifically we're echoing the calls tonight to change Lee High School to recognize and teach about indigenous people's day instead of Columbus Day

088thank you thank you to all those who came to speak tonight I now call on Miss batang for student representative matters good evening everyone um I'd like to first and foremost thank everyone who came out to speak today not to sound like a broken record but every single time that somebody comes up to up to the Post to speak it's truly fulfilling regardless of what they're talking about cuz they're making a stand in their community and what they believe in and regardless of what they're talking about that's truly powerful and it's something that should always be commended and so just few things well I wouldn't say a few I guess so since the last time I was here I just want to say you guys I've told talked about the Fairfax County Board of student

089Representatives and I'm happy to say a lot of our student Representatives that I've uh nominated have attended their first meeting um uh the student representative to the advanced academics uh committee attended her first meeting on Tuesday I believe and I actually attended the minority student achievement oversight committee last night so I don't want to say too much because I'm not the person to display the information to the school board but I noticed that a lot of the stuff that they talked about were things that I've already wanted to speak about so some of the stuff that throughout my I guess not campaign but my platform echoed a lot around the srnr and specifically language of it over the summer um miss Corbin Sanders sent me a document about 60 Pages it was one of the

090best readings I've ever had super it was super actually it was actually did enjoy it so and I was I'm thankful to say that I was able to provide certain notes that I felt could use some improvement and of course I've already seen some improvement with things that I want to see like restor of justice and I guess the language that I want that I talk I want to talk about is kind of discretionary for administration because I feel as if and they've also talked about this last night there's a lot of things that is up to the discretion of Administrators and could be like a lot of he says she says and that could end up with a a lot of discrepancies of what is allowed and what can be done in a situation

091and what should and should not be done I feel as if certain things aren't like get a little muddled so that's some of the things that I want to also talk about this year and we also talked about the disproportionate rate of infractions for um latinx and black students so what I mean by infractions I mean I don't I don't mean um large disciplinary actions I mean like things like destructive classroom Behavior because that's often that's not big enough of a issue to take it to principal or to like the superintendent but it's the big enough an issue to have a section in the um srnr book to say this is what can be done like temporary classroom like privileges loss temporary privileges law all that stuff and we've seen that a lot of things

092the disproportionate rate of infractions faced by latinx and black students we try to look for the reason behind that and personally I see it through the and I talked to Miss cor Sanders about this too the idea of implicit bias so I've kind of forgetting whether or not I've talked about this on the board or not so just to reiterate just in case I haven't implicit bias is something that we all have is based on whatever we had as like as a society a society whatever media and whatever around us has formed whatever opinions that we are not explicitly aware of so it's different from explicit bias because explicit bias is something that we are aware of and we actively work on implicit is something that we all have regardless of whatever bias or whatever

093background that we believe to have so what's important about that is that I feel often teachers our like Workforce is not exactly reflective of the students that go to our schools and I say this coming just to put a little background I also do attend Robert eedy high school I'm a junior there and as a many people said it is a majority minority school and I feel as if growing up in that pyramid a majority of my I think almost every single teacher that's on my schedule is Caucasian but that doesn't reflect the diverse community that is Lee High School so I'm addressing this but also that's kind of above my pay grade but I thought it was helpful it be yeah I thought it'd be like fulfilling to share and also things about cultural

094responsiveness I've while reading through a bunch of Doc about Equity that was a term that showed up a lot about cultural responsiveness of what is the culture at that school what is the culture of the students that attend there and how do does the um Workforce and the staff properly react to that and I feel as if personally there are wrong ways to react to things and I like that's something I want to also address throughout the year and also something that wasn't exactly brought up there but it kind of tightened the dis iine of young students and what I mean by Young students I mean elementary school age students and like the question is are we setting up the children for success or are we condemning them to a cycle of Behavioral issues and

095why I asked that is because it kind of ties in with discipline reform a lot because are we providing punishments to students to as an opportunity to learn for them or just as a short end this is the issue we're just going to give you this cuz what ends up happening is like I said I've said this multiple times I I believe that Things become like self-fulfilling prophecies and if a child starts to believe that they are something based on what's been shown to them they will end up becoming that so that's what I mean by condemning them to a cycle of Behavioral issues because instead of teaching a child and reforming them in the way that they should go it's kind of as as if you are this bad child I need you guys

096you need punish punishment and that's just all that's going to happen I don't feel as if that's helpful in the slightest and I've said that multiple times and with that I also going to like tie into certain topics I want to I'm going to talk about later on and Al once again implicit bias so I talked about how what it is and it's common for everyone everybody has it and I like to reiterate that all the time it's not a certain group of people that have it every single one of us has implicit bias but just because it's common and all of us have it does not mean that it is okay so for like a personal thing to kind of tie into what that means is growing up I've often had certain I'm not

097going to call it compliments because they weren't compliments it was kind of like often times there would be teachers who would meet me in the beginning of the year and then at the end of the year they told me I didn't realize that you were going to be such a good kid I didn't realize you're going to be so articulate as a kid I didn't realize how of a back handed compliment That was cuz why did they think why they think otherwise why did I have to go through using that certain energies to unravel and art like unravel the ideas that they had of me while I could have been using that same energy on the curriculum that I was supposed to be studying like while instead of trying to Foster relationships with teachers with

098like the students that they teach they already have whatever idea of the student that they have and that's incredibly harmful it's incredibly stress and students do not need to go through that so that's something I want to talk about throughout this year and see what we can do because I want to bring awareness to it because you can't do anything if people aren't aware of it so I know there's not like a lot of things it's a very hard and a very large issue so I want to I don't want to take baby steps but I understand it's realistic to take baby steps um and so yeah so I'm going to also this one's less is not about implicit bias so I also wanted to bring up an idea about town hall and student councils

099at every single school so my freshman year I attended South County high school and what they had was once a month they had a meeting with one student like representative from each Home Room that met up in like the cafeteria and talked about certain issues that the student body faced and what was I felt was helpful about this is that the administrators were present so it wasn't as if they were just talking into the air it was something like this is an issue the administrator there to hear it and then at the next meeting they would talk about what they're doing or what they did to fix that issue and it was kind of like a direct way to do things because I not every single student is out as loud or as outgoing as

100I am and I understand that but every single student should have as equal amount of access to talk about issues at their school as I do so by giving this um student a direct Outlet to like this students in my class I'll talk to them they'll talk to the council that's a direct pathway and some students are also not as close with their administrators or their counselors even though I wish they were but I know understand it's not realistic to believe that every student is so by having this direct path I believe that a lot more things will be heard and a lot more students will feel more open to talk about issues at their school and I also wanted to talk about the update of the calculus thing because a lot of people have

101reached out to me about it since the last meeting so I just also want to thank people everyone for their concern and I also wanted to highlight the reason why I brought it up so the reason why I brought it up was not exactly to fix the situation but I also want to bring light that I am most definitely not the only only student that has gone through this issue why I ended up having to fight with my Administration I had to jump through hoops to take that class and I want to bring light to it because it's something that a lot of students in like the smaller schools the schools that have less people in it face because there's such a small pool of students that take higher level classes it's like we have

102to kind of fight each other to fit into those classes and it kind of I feel as if it staggers us like we're already trying to I I don't want to say we're at a disadvantage but we're already trying hard to get through this and then there's another obstacle and that's I feel is not fair to not just me to but to like every student that has gone through this so kind of to wrap up I throughout this um I guess tenor I've had a bunch of students that reached out to me like about random things and I just want to say I love that a lot and I'm actually meeting with the Justice um leadership um SGA next Friday which is going to be like I'm visiting different leaderships and it's going to be

103my first one I'm really excited about that and I also want to have more opportunities to talk to the youth in the county and it doesn't even have to be in like a formal meeting just like oh yeah let's meet up here I'm actually going to hayfield's homecoming freid tomorrow so all these like these things I encourage whatever students whatever they want to talk about to reach out to me because those type of things I want to hear what they say they're saying I want to have groups talk about what's going on here and how do you think we can fix it so I encourage a bunch of students whatever the issue may be I always want to hear it even if it's something like hi I just want to introduce myself please do thank

104you thank you Miss batang I now call on Dr Bray brand for the introduction of the goal for resource stewardship report thank you chairman Corbett Sanders I am excited to have our assistant superintendent for financial services Lee Burton come up and talk about the Go full report I'd like to share with the board and the community one of the things that we're doing this year you know the four goals Drive our strategic plan Student Success caring culture um Premier Workforce and resource St stewardship these four goals are the Lynch pin of our strategic planning night and we've worked with the board this year for the goal reports to happen in the fall so that you will get results from the school system to inform your budget process which starts in January and we're delighted to

105have Miss Burton here to start us off with we're actually going to start with uh the the fourth goal first and uh that is around resource stewardship and I'll let Miss Burton take it away I do want to remind the board that we will will have a full work session I know you have a full agenda tonight we have a full work session uh around this go report um and uh we look forward to having u a great discussion on Monday about it good evening Madam chair uh board members and Dr braen I'm before you tonight to report on goal four resource stewardship um but remember as Dr rayen said there will be a more detailed discussion at the October 28th school board work session and approval at the November 7th regular school board meeting

106as outlined in strategic plan goal for resource stewardship basically means fiscal budgeting and allocation to maximize FCPS is Effectiveness and efficiency it's important to mention that this report looks back at fiscal 19 and progress towards uh metrics during that time period so I'll start with the terms overview the majority of the metric use a three-year Baseline uh use three-year Baseline data to De develop the targets and for resource stewardship metrics this is an average performance from fiscal 16 to fiscal 18 the data represented in this report was collected during fiscal 19 the targets are what the division should achieve by 2020 and aspirations are what the division wants to achieve in the Strategic plan this is the first time that the resource stewardship goal report will present data related to aspirations that the school board

107approved in March of 2019 so again it's just the efficient budgeting uh and allocation and the resource stewardship aspirations include maintaining a cost per pupil plus or minus $1,000 of the average cost per pupil of the Washington area Boards of Education uh commonly called wavy average we met that Target uh the second one ensuring that funds will be allocated using the Strate Strate strategic decision making cycle we progress towards that Target ensuring that schools will have adequate student classroom space eliminating trailers we made progress towards that Target as well and finally that scps will maintain schools that all students family and staff consider safe and we also made progress towards that regarding the first aspiration scps will maintain a cost per pupil of plus or minus $1,000 of the average cost per pupil of the

108Washington area Boards of Education uh we met our targeted level of performance with a cost per pupil of 15,29 which is slightly above the average of the other school divisions included in the wavy guide of 15,105 the cost per pupil increase is primarily attributable to the implementation of the plan to increase teacher salaries cost per pupil calculations provide an overall view of the cost of all programs and can be used to compare how School school systems spend their funds the CPP is a metric that is routinely used to Compare costs but one must ensure that the CPA CPP is calculated in exactly the same way and toward that end a division-wide cost per pupil is computed annually using a methodology agreed upon by the way participants um Coalition or the the wayby group regarding the

109second as operation all spending will be allocated using the Strategic decisionmaking cycle we made progress towards aligning the budget using the Strategic decision-making cycle um you may recall that beginning with the fiscal 20 proposed budget uh the budget aligned funds to the four goal areas uh of the Strategic plan Student Success caring culture Premier Workforce and resource stewardship and this also marked the first time that we align the budget increases to the goal areas to show how budget adjust supported each goal area the actions taken to progress towards this goal were that the office of research and strategic Improvement or orsy and financial services work together to align the budget to the four strategic goal areas um we revised the reporting structure to incorporate the sdmc or strategic decision making cycle framework orc developed a

110new work structure that links strategic efforts with resource allocation and we revised the school Improvement and Innovation plan template to align to the Strategic plan as well the next steps are to align the funding to the eight prioritized area to meet the 2020 Target and we're on track to do that the third aspiration is all schools will have adequate classroom space for students eliminating the need for trailers we made progress towards this goal by reducing the number of temporary classrooms by a net of 69 or 9% during fiscal 19 most of the removals 60 temporary classrooms is attributed to school renovation an additional 32 removed due to consultation with schools for better use of space and to remove aging and deteriorating trailers this this uh reduction was offset by the addition of 23 temporary classrooms

111through the annual Facilities Review actions taken to provide adequate classroom space is through renovation uh removal temporary classroom occurs as Renovations of existing school facilities are progressing we conduct uh capacity and facility reviews um for the upcoming school year based on the projected program and membership changes we provide consultations to principles and schools for efficient and appropriate use of space and we uh of course um f uh facilities and transportation services Contin monitors the condition of the temporary classrooms so currently the removal of temporary classrooms primarily comes through working with principles to ensure efficient use of space and through Renovations although note that for school that waiting for schools to be renovated is costly and will take a significant amount of time so we believe that the current actions taken to reduce temporary classrooms uh

112do not place the division on a trajectory that will allow us to reach the target without accelerating trailer removal or reducing the need for additional temperat classroom space so next steps are plans to examine our approach uh to reducing the temporary classrooms and determine what else is needed to accelerate that progress the fourth aspiration under resource stewardship is FCPS will maintain schools that all students families and staff consider safe uh we made progress on this aspiration in fiscal 19 um students and staff reported perceptions of safety at FCPS schools that were higher than at B Baseline moving the division closer to its 1820 Target levels student perceptions improve Four Points while staff perceptions improved three points for an average of three and a half points combined family perceptions of safety were collected for the first

113time and showed even higher perceived levels of school safety than that reported by students and staff and this data comes from the State climate survey for students and staff and the family engagement survey for families the actions taken for this aspiration include um Safety and Security Training we added eight additional technical positions approved by the school board uh to add additional safety and tabletop training exercises at schools a threat assessment working group was formed to discuss processes for improvement um we also replaced classroom locks um by purchasing 1900 locks so that classrooms could be locked without a key we enhanced mental health support by providing additional school psychology and school social workers um in 19 middle schools so that a total of $4.2 million to improve School Safety and Security was spent uh 1.1 million

114for the eight technical staff and new training sessions uh about a half a million towards replacing locks and 2.6 million funding the nine psychologists and nine social workers uh to provide mental health supports at 19 middle schools so FCPS is on track to meet its 2020 Target um progress with students and then progress on staff perceptions of safety while improving will need uh some work for us to meet our intended 2020 Target levels so enhanced understanding of what factors lead to higher perceptions of school safety among staff um is likely to be needed and of course there are future budget considerations in meeting air targets um this work may require greater resources regarding the Strategic decision-making cycle additional staff positions may be needed to strengthen processes and structures for analysis dedicated funds for strategic efforts

115identified by the Strategic decision-making cycle are will be necessary for flexibility adequate classroom space will require additional facilities and transportation services staff uh to support capacity and facility reviews and Expediting Renovations uh would require increased Bond funding and for safety funding for mental health professionals uh will need to be continued and perhaps expanded a funding for um additional staff in the office of Safety and Security may be needed for oversight of school-based Safety and Security positions there are other future considerations like strategic concerns um the on the as far as the cost per pupil goes I mean we're very we're not even close to the plus or minus $ th000 but we may may need to repurpose current funds to support strategic priorities in the future to keep the cost per people within the target

116range um as far as strategic decision- making goes we will need a more flexible approach to budgeting to implement that that plan um budget documents will need refining to show the alignment of funds to the Strategic initiatives adequate classroom space we'll need to find innovative ways to balance the need for additional space against the desire to reduce temporary classrooms um and then as far as safety goes we'll need to understand the sources of safety concerns for students parent and staff and remember there will be a more detailed discussion about go four on October the 28th um at the school board work session thank you Miss Burton we really appreciate that I do not have any lights on so with that um we can go on to the next thank you very much agenda thank you

117see you on Monday I know um I apologize the go four report will be discussed at the October 28th work session and the action is scheduled for November 7th I call on Dr brand for the introduction of the uh state and federal legislative program yes it's time for the Fairfax County School Board state and federal legislative program we're coming to you a little bit earlier this year based on your feedback we've talked about partnership between the administration and school board and one of the things we heard really clearly from you is bring this legislative program to us earlier before the general assembly gets uh seated before things really start going on down in Richmond so that you have time to get feedback to give us feed feedback to get feedback from the community and uh

118it's my delight and pleasure to bring you the honorable Michael Malloy who just does an awesome job as director to give you an update on the proposed legislative program we look forward to your feedback at the work session actually is on Monday so really a short turnaround but that allow you to really look at what you see tonight give us feedback on Monday and we can turn that back around so that you all uh can present to the general assembly and uh our federal policy makers what your legislative program is for this coming year so Mr Malloy uh thank you Dr ban uh Madam chair uh members of the committee Dr BR brand I'm very pleased to present to you tonight what amounts to a preview of Coming Attractions as Dr brayan mentioned you all

119have a work session set for Monday to discuss your uh 220 version of the state and federal legislative program so one to bring you some information tonight kind of give you uh a little bit of information about what the program is uh you know kind of what the intention of the program is what your environment looks like in terms of the uh kind of the political and policy environment and then talk a little bit about the major proposed changes um I Do Not In fairness I do not plan to go through every single word that might have changed in the program uh that's actually uh attached as part of a the work session agenda item uh which has already been posted for Monday so you have a full strikethrough version so you have the uh

120the 2019 version of the program uh underlines where everything has been added strike through where everything has been proposed for deletions and then you also should have a comprehensive table included with that that goes through every change even if it's a minor there kind of wording change we try to identify everything uh that's proposed for change so if you remember your uh your Schoolboard legislative program is really your position statements and your priorities um based on policy issues that we kind of project may come up or things that we think may happen uh during the next year that could be legislative and I want to make it clear that even though we call this the legislative program a lot of what this document talks about are things that are not necessarily legislative they might be

121executive actions they might be regul uh but they all still kind of have that same common policy advocacy piece to them in terms of what we do on the staff side for the annual update is we go through and uh every department has a chance to look through the program provide feedback let us know is there anything that's that needs to be added any issues that have come up in the previous year uh we look at what happened over the previous year in terms of legislation that might have passed or issues that that have arisen so we try to make both additions and subtractions to the program as as it goes forward and then you all uh there's a SE separate piece of it which is you all take that program and you decide what

122your priorities are among the larger program so you identify half a dozen to a dozen uh particular items that you want to add have as your priorities uh one other thing just to remind you of is that much of the program carries over from year to year uh I can actually if you go back I can trace all the way to the 1970s a few of the positions that are in the legislative program uh now I don't mean to sound that we're not successful in what we do but uh really that reflects the fact that there are issues that are perennial uh you funding issues there are always going to be funding issues and you can probably go back to the beginning of the Fairfax County Public Schools and find legislative positions on funding from

123the state um so you know I I can trace back to the 70s but I'm sure it goes much much much further back than that all right so to set the stage um as you are all very painfully aware I'm sure it is an election year um doesn't only affect you all it affect and this is one of the every four-year election Cycles so you have both the house and the Virginia Senate that are up for election so that's all 140 members uh at exactly the same time that that's happening you have the governor who is uh putting together his banial budget uh you remember that the state runs on a on a two-year budget cycle so this is really the first time that this Governor has had the opportunity uh to put his own

124signature on a full two-year budget as part of that budget process uh the State updates a lot of its data a lot of its funding formulas um I'm sure you've you've seen information about re benchmarking and uh and the process that the state goes through to update its data update the amount of money that it's uh proposing to send back to localities and uh finally the State Board of Education every two years goes through a process of making recommendations for changes to its own standards of quality so we'll have all of that coming up at exactly the same time all right so first wanted to just highlight a few places where uh we're proposing to remove positions or existing pieces from the legislative program and they're all based on uh essentially successful legislative action or

125successful regulatory action uh proposed to remove part of the revenue Alternative Program piece which really spoke to the collection of internet sales tax that issue has been addressed at the state level school calendar as you are aware the state has changed how we operate with state with the school calendar uh Labor Day is the the process still is not completely an enti linear hands so that's why the entire position position is not being deleted uh altogether uh but an entire section is being deleted having to deal with weather related waivers and and other types of procedures that were in the Labor Day law prior to this past year a couple changes in the standards of accreditation and standards of learning position based on changes the state has made in their accreditation system and also some

126uh better alignment that they've come up with between what localities are doing what the state is doing and what federal requirements look like and then finally a deleting reference in the program to legislation dealing with school bus stop arm cameras uh again this is only part of that position that's coming out the emphasis on still needing to U emphasize and and Patrol um stop school buses as we heard earlier in in the meeting uh today is certainly it's continues to be an issue so that the general advocacy remains but the specific references to the stop arm camera is being proposed for for deletion all right so now on to the additions under the attendance and treny um okay let me stop for a second you'll notice that there are letters in front of every one

127of these positions if you remember a couple of years ago the board decided to kind of come up with a lettering and numbering system for every one of its positions so when you look at the document that all of these positions are drawn from the letters that you see are just references to the the position uh letter in the legislative program so under attendance and treny a couple of new issues are being proposed for addition One deals with uh changing how attendance and trcy regulations apply to students who are over uh the age of 18 so over the age of um compulsory attendance and then uh another piece of the the attendance andury position that's proposed for change is to to try and come up with an alternative attendance indicator uh that doesn't simply rely

128on student presence it can rely on something along the lines of student engagement so as an example a student is absent for a day so they're physically not present in a classroom but they've checked all of their assignments on blackboard they've contacted their teacher they've kept up with the work so they're not returning to the classroom any further behind than they would have been had they been in the classroom um the idea is is to come up with a way to measure that particularly given the importance that attendance is now playing in the state accreditation system under college readiness and postsecondary education the new language is proposed really is just a clarification of something that you had already said in your position is is just being very explicit that we don't want the state to

129come in and set a tuition floor that applies Statewide for dual enrollment courses we want that decision on how to pay for dual en Nora courses to be left to localities under early childhood education two new pieces one deals with the idea of being able to use Virginia preschool initiative funding for program supporting three-year-olds and also new language supporting the idea of adding an additional membership verification window uh the September 30th student count is what is used to identify the students that are eligible for VPI funding but as you all know we have a very transient population in Fairfax people come and go from our community all the time there are there are families that would be eligible for potentially for VPI funding uh but because they weren't here as of the September 30th identification

130date they don't they don't count towards that VPI uh the VPI student count so this would be kind of a secondary look back at have we captured any additional students that have come in that would be eligible for us to draw down state VPI funding next is that change under English language Learners and this is asking the state to develop a process to allow us to better communicate and coordinate uh Lang language proficiency testing results with other school divisions when we have student transfers uh as I understand it right now the process is a cumbersome and B rather duplicative so they've already gone through a lot of testing in their home district and when they come to Fairfax they have to redo a lot of that so I think we're looking for a way to

131streamline the process and uh and save some steps under Virginia retirement system uh the Virginia retirement system relies on localities to provide a lot of information and a lot of services to uh their members uh there's no reimbursement for doing that uh in Fairfax we do that through the supplementary retirement system in a lot of other jurisdictions they do that just through their HR departments so the the ask here would be that we come up with a way that the vrs helps to reimburse localities for some of those Services we're providing because we're relieving vs of the burden of having additional service centers and having to have additional Staffing to answer you know answer questions from from employees and those types of things and then uh if you've seen I I think it's come through

132in the last few weeks there's been a lot of discussion about changes that the state has proposing on how we can access Medicaid reimbursements and the language that's uh clarified and expanded here Builds on an existing position that you have but it uh it it expands into some of the changes that the state is proposing and asking them to to reconsider what they're doing so that we can continue to have access to those Medicaid reimbursements for uh for students with disabilities four changes in the standards of accreditation and standards of learning position which isn't surprising given that it's one of your largest positions because this is one of the areas that the state has most regulations in in terms of testing in terms of measuring student performance in terms of measuring school performance uh new

133languages is being uh being added to ask for a review of content standards curriculum and assessments uh to ensure cultural responsiveness uh as a test is developed in Virginia right now it goes through a an assessment of cultural bias but there's no kind of systematic method by which the state looks across the curriculum and across tests uh to determine whether or not there are there are potential biases so this is asking for the state to come up with a way to do that across the entire system uh new language being uh added to support the idea of counting a dual enrollment course and completion of that course in the same way that the state now counts advanced placement or International baloria course completion uh the idea being is that for graduation a student has to

134has to have completed advanced placement International Balor an honors course of some sort or have completed a CTE uh credential this is adding dual enrollment because it's equally rigorous in terms of the in terms of the types of of curriculum that that that it goes through so this would be a natural addition for that graduation requirement for students uh two clarification are being proposed and and you all know this issue very well in terms of how the graduation and completion index and dropout rate calculations for English language Learners are calculated as well as the timelines for how those English Learners are are incorporated into ontime graduation cohorts uh in Fairfax we have a lot of older students with very limited uh formal schooling that come into the the uh the School Division and there are

135not a lot of accommodations that are made at the state level to kind of adjust the way they they look at their four-year graduation cohorts for those students that may have had a much more challenging background and may need additional time in order to complete uh you know both language proficiency and also subject matter proficiency uh and then finally uh this the the last piece here is an ask for the state to improve its assessment management data monitoring tools um I think we're still we're not quite still paper and pencil but we're not that far off of paper and pencil so uh good for the state to help modernize and because that data is very usable if it comes back to us in a timely fashion but often times State data doesn't come back to

136us in a timely fashion we'd be very happy to hear that this is the last page of proposed changes all right so the last four standards of quality um this one I'm going to take just a second on because it requires a little bit of explanation uh the proposal basically is is to ask the state to look at the way it funds its schools and move from A system that focuses the funding on numbers of positions towards a system that focuses more on students and the characteristics the particular characteristics and the particular needs of those students so what I mean by that for example right now the state provides funding for 17 positions per 1,000 English language learners for the for every School Division in Virginia that's roughly 58 roughly a ratio of 58 to1

137so that's based entirely on positions but that's not based necessarily on the cost of providing the services that those students may need what a lot of states have done is they've gotten away from that very specific position-based funding model and they've gone to a model where there's a baseline per amount and then additional increments are added based on the number of students that you have that might you know the students in poverty or students who are receiving English language learner services or students who are receiving special education services the idea being is that the the state is better uh is is is better reflecting the cost of providing the services to each individual student um that would be I think advantageous for a School Division like Fairfax because Fairfax has very very significant numbers of

138students but often times when you look at division-wide percentages Fairfax shows us being relatively low in terms of the percentage overall of the number of students that we have that have that are in poverty or or or English language learners but that population might actually be bigger than the size of virtually every other School Division in Virginia just that subgroup of of Fairfax of Fairfax students so Shifting the state to A system that was a little bit more pupil centered would um be advantageous for a School Division and would better reflect the cost that you all face in terms of providing services to students uh under student safety The Proposal is to add some language um I skip right over one I apologize student health and wellness the language being added to U Focus the

139state in on uh supporting programs to address both vaping and opioid use uh Public Health crises uh this is actually something that we would be doing or that we would be asking for in conjunction with the county and I'll get to that in just a moment under student safety the ask is for the state to provide additional resources to help provide security Personnel in elementary schools right now that that what limited resources there are at the state level really are focused more on the high school and middle school level um this is asking for that funding to be expanded so that it can be drawn down a little bit more into U elementary schools it's agnostic in terms of the types of positions it's just asking for additional help with security and then finally uh

140this is both the state and the federal legislative program uh a couple of proposals on the federal side of the legislative program uh is to add some language asking for state or for federal uh funding for mandated Section 504 plan Services which would be very similar to the concept right now that uh for idea special education services now I I know that the the federal government the funding that we receive for idea Services is is grossly inadequate uh based on the cost that we Face uh but this would have a parallel to that system in another area where we are mandated to provide those Services 504 plans uh as you're aware are focus more on medical issues as opposed to special education services um but and they're coincident and then finally uh and this one

141may be worth a further discussion at the board table on Monday is asking the state to consider a change in the school quality indicator that it uses under our plan under our accountability plan that we send to the federal government and change it from chronic absenteeism which is what they use right now to another possible indicator um the reason that I I say that this is is worth discussing one is just the issue itself I think has been something that you've talked about a lot how chronic absenteeism because it reflects both um uh excused and unexcused absences this isn't simply about treny has a a pretty fairly significant effect on on some of our schools um and the Nexus to the federal side is that this was something that the state had to choose as

142a possible indicator above and beyond test scores um it may or may not be appropriately placed under federal education you may want to place it under your attendance policy uh position in the state level uh but I just wanted to highlight that as something that uh it's probably going to be worth discussing on Monday uh Miss mlin who conveniently has left the Das uh asked me a question about how your program aligns with the County's program because as you aware there are a lot of other legislative programs out there and in particular uh your County uh your county counterparts have a legislative program which does parallel yours um you all are familiar with the joint position mofin hello uh you're you're familiar with the joint position you have with the county which really is focused

143on funding but I just wanted to pull out I'm not going to go through all these but I wanted you to see all the various areas where you have a position that is either identical or very similar in terms terms of its content and its Spirit as a position that the county holds um so there's an awful lot of places where you do have parallels between what the county is advocating and what you all are asking for uh and at the bottom of that I also just put a little timeline just to let you know the county adopts its legislative program on December 3rd and its legislative briefing is on December 10th and as you'll see that is actually after yours so where do we go from here well today we had the presentation on

144legis program so kind of get you primed for your work session on Monday uh we have the work session October 14th Monday uh the final action on this program on this agenda item is scheduled for October 24th November 5th is election day um that matters to you but it also matters in terms of what the general assembly might look like uh because you could have very different policies and very different discussions based on the outcome of that November 5th election uh so you know in part we want to kind of stay tuned and see because the direction that the general assembly heads off in might be different come November 5th it might not be different it I have no crystal ball to let you know anything that uh you all probably don't already know November

14518th uh I I put on there that's the first date that the general assembly members are allowed to submit pre-filed bills I also put on there the general assembly special session one reconvenes if you remember the governor asked the general assembly to come back into session think it was in July it was in either June or July uh to discuss really uh uh firearm safety more than anything else but it was really supposed to be focused on safety uh they have been in recess essentially since that first day that they came back uh but they do reconvene on November 18th and there have been some pieces of legislation which have gone through the Virginia crime commission which may come back for discussion on that date um your legislative briefing is scheduled for November 25th so

146as I said it's before it's prior to the County's legislative briefing uh and it's also prior to the pre-filing closing date for legislators that's doesn't come until December 5th December 17th we will see the governor's biannual budget um we have the vaguest idea of what the governor's budget will look like um but at that point we will know more specifically and then within a few few days of that date we will see the spreadsheets that show how much each individual jurisdiction is receiving from that proposed budget and then come January 8th 2020 the general assembly session starts for a 60-day budget session and with that thank you very much Mr Malloy I have lots of Lights in front of me which means that everybody's really excited about this program and I'm going to start with

147Miss Evans thank you very much uh Mr meroy I know we're going to have a a longer conversation on Monday so I will uh hold off on most of my my questions and comments but I did want to pinpoint a couple of areas that I think are critical and also alert my colleagues to an amendment that I I um plan to offer um if you go back to slide seven um on the um the accreditation and our advocacy I do think that um one of our top priorities needs to be advocating for a more rational approach to assessing schools um that welcome and embra embrace our most challenged students and um uh perform Miracles every day and may find themselves unfortunately um being um not not meeting all of the criteria because of the uh

148number of of very challenged students that that they have um and in particular those that um often come to us in high numbers with with little if any English and little if any uh literacy or numeracy in in their home country so I do think it's critical that uh those schools are being treated fairly um so I did have one question about this that I'm I'm a little clear on are we asking that the state specifically Define and recognize Scythe students as a separate category because that that is an area where uh we we uh for for those uh watching uh students with interrupted formal education so um those who do where it's not just a matter of an uh an English language barrier but where it's it's also students who in um are coming

149to us with uh in some cases little if any um education in their home countries and may come to us at 15 16 or 17 years old and and um uh the the idea of having to graduate a student uh with that profile in in record time is um probably well it is unrealistic so um are we is that part of our legislative package to recognize um that specific type of English language learner the the proposed language that's in those two positions that are kind of summarized there doesn't specifically call out cyh for S students the uh the the students with limited um or interrupted formal schooling um it does talk about the incorporation of students at various uh achievement levels into graduation cohorts so I think it comes at the issue indirectly but it

150doesn't name them it doesn't name that that particular cohort of students directly so I think we might want to consider that as part of our advocacy um because it's one thing to say that someone comes to us with very little English it's another to say they come to us with very little English and very little experience with with uh being educated so I do think that that's something that we should consider as part of our basic advocacy um because that and I I think it's fair to say and correct me if I'm wrong that we probably in Fairfax County have the highest number of uh that type of student coming to us so yeah and I I will um I will give credit um the the State Board is starting to talk about those students

151um they really are are becoming better aware and more aware of the particular challenges that that that particular student group uh faces uh we're not the only School Division that has this that has this issue I've worked with colleagues in henrio county for example um who have exactly the same issues with some of their schools and some of their student populations divisions and I want to emphasize we we welcome these students it's not a a question of um uh treating them we we treat them with great uh respect and as I say we welc come in and embrace them but uh we do need to realize the challenges that that uh that they bring to us and similarly I do want to um alert my colleagues that um Miss Corbett Sanders and I have been

152working on uh an amendment um to talk about some of these online rating systems that so unfairly rate our our schools and these are self-appointed groups um that uh generally speaking use average test scores as as a as a benchmark of of quality of the school now we've already asked uh Dr bra to address this and we're we're um awaiting his recommendations Dr Bray brand and and staff on that but um as one modest uh measure I think it's uh reasonable to ask that government entities don't use or rely on or advertise these uh unfortunate rating systems that in some cases are very destructive and malign our schools um Miss Corbett Sanders and I discovered that HUD for examp example uses one of them and has it on its website so uh that is an

153amendment that that um I would like to offer and Mr Malloy this this isn't a surprise to you I know we have have uh had an exchange uh about that so um I I'll look forward to to working with you on getting some language on that and um anybody who has any ideas on how we can um make make this a a uh more robust um or extensive Amendment I'm I I welcome that as well thank you Miss Evans Mr mline thank you madam chair and I do want to start by commending uh Mr Malloy and um system leadership for bringing this to us earlier this year this has been um it's always a work in progress and we always try to find try to find ways to make it better um and more responsive

154to Board needs and I do think this gives us more time as a board to discuss it so I'm grateful for that um I will also note that um back in 2013 we created what was our um priority document which we have refined over the years made a little more compact um based on board uh feedback and on that priority list since 2013 was the advocacy um regarding the school calendar so I do also want to commend you for getting us uh over the finish line there's still little ways to go to get complete control over the calendar but we we have um surmounted that uh hoop of um Labor Day so um thank you for for your efforts on that um I we are going to have a broader discussion of this on Monday

155so um I do ask if anyone has questions or is pondering anything to let uh Mr Malloy Megan and I um aware make us aware over the weekend um just to give some more preparation time for folks and also um uh Sandy set a good example tonight um with uh suggesting some amendments she's looking to bring forward certainly if you're going to pursue amendments to the program please have those um uh at least um in conceptual form by by next uh Monday um and one other tasking I would give to the board is because we have had some progress on our board priorities I would like you to give some thought about um what we will be emphasizing I know in our um meeting manager meeting uh Miss mlin and I suggested this year given

156the focus on um sustainability of this District um and the push at the state level for electric buses and things of that nature that environmental issues may be may rise to that priority document um and certainly um the the emphasis locally and at the state on vaping um I certainly I think that will rise to that list so if you have other suggestions please please come forward with those um one Amendment I'm going to be proposing um actually comes from um some uh suggestions that staff gave us earlier this year uh regard when we were in the pursuit of our our minstral hygiene pilot and um Miss Johnson suggested uh at the time along with Dr Bray brand that uh we uh pursue um additional funding at the state and federal level levels um for

157those uh for those products um and certainly um there are issues at the federal level on reimbursement um so um that is something that I'll be working on for both um an amendment to our state and legislative programs thank you thank you Mr mine Miss Hines yeah thank you um so uh thank you Mr mavan for mentioning environmental sustainability that it is in our short list uh for this past year as well right it's under flexibility the the final bullet um so yeah I think that's going to be very important I think there may well be a push of advocacy in Richmond this year for um uh greater involvement in um the kind of Partnerships that we're going to need in order to achieve uh conversion to renewable energy in a lot of different areas

158and making sure that our regulated utilities are doing all of that in the public interest so I think we have probably some work and some advocacy to do there and and the uh the wording that we have now supporting efforts for incentives opportunities and targeted goals for the expansion of renewable energy and Energy Efficiency seems like it covers most of that would you say the only thing it might want to add is removal of barriers I know I know recently there have been there's been some discussions in terms of how the state Corporation Commission allocates uh allocates kilowatt hours for solar projects and and you know if if they were able to expand that that would you know Encompass additional projects so you may just want to add in you not only incentivize but also

159remove existing barriers too thank you I plan to do that thank you very much the other thought I had when we get to that slide seven that Miss Evans was talking about which is uh standards of accreditation and standards of learning um you mentioned the assessments and um that there the assessments are the tests are assessed for cultural bias and I so I had a a conversation about this over the summer with our uh state Secretary of Education because I was curious myself how do we do that you know are we making an effort um and what I was told I have an email where he said that basically what we do is we have teachers who uh review test questions for a lot of different reasons and they are asked one of the questions

160they're asked is does it seem culturally biased to you now I'll bet most of them look like me those those teachers who do this right I mean so to me that is not a rigorous examp examination of bias in tests I know that we could do better than that and uh as a teacher uh who who gives these tests um I I see lots of bias in them particularly background knowledge bias and what I mean by that if you look at there's a release test 2015 fifth grade reading test and all of the passages you know because there's a reading passage and then comprehension questions um all of the passages have what I would call background knowledge bias in them there's a story of a kid who goes to a Sleepaway Camp now how many

161kids in you know urbanizing Fairfax County have been to a sleep away camp well a few but if you don't have that background knowledge you are you are already in trouble in trying to answer comprehension questions and we know that there's there's brain science that tells us that so um I think we need to do much better and I I may offer an amendment that we make it stronger um that uh we we um and I'll have to work with you on that I don't know what to do but if we advocate for a true and rigorous assessment of background knowledge bias in the test and there is um it's actually a state lisiana uh has gotten permission from the federal government apparently to run a pilot of of reading tests where all of the

162passages on the tests uh have content that every student has been exposed to in school so in other words if you have a reading passage that's fiction and it's in fourth fourth grade it would be historical fiction from Jamestown because that's something every kid in school now has content background knowledge about and you know your non-fiction passages are science that they have studied in school so um it's my understanding you know that Louisiana has recognized and maybe other states as well have recognized that background knowledge problem and are trying to do something about it so that's probably a long way of saying I might want to um beef up our request there am I making sense yeah I there is there's proposed language that's in the dra document that's uh that's posted for the work

163session which I can send you and you can take a look at that to see if you want to expand or or or build upon that okay thank you thank you Miss Hines Miss Schultz I give you one guess about what my first question's going to be do you know what it is does it have to do with the number of bulleted items in the program how many bullets are there I still I still have your sticky note from a few years ago up on my my board so how many bullets are there uh do you have an idea it's there are at least a few hundred okay great that's not great I thought it was like 181 couple years ago um the reason I asked this um and you I'm sorry but you went

164there legislative issues that have been in our package since the 1970s um I get that we want to take positions on everything um I I would like the end result of this to have a page that has three bullets the top three things that if you walked up to any legislator you could say these three things will make all the difference in the world for 189,000 students students and 42,000 employees full-time part-time now I think I know if we only got a win on one of those I think I know what that would be what would that one thing if we could fix one thing in the Virginia General Assembly what would that one thing be that would make all the difference would have to do with funding the LCI exactly the LCI um and

165and I don't care what else is sitting on there from 1970 I I I I honestly don't I mean we could I mean yeah you know I don't understand exactly why we would want um can you bring up slide five for example um one of the things that bothers me specifically is the potential I mean I get that they've increased the the eye to compulsory attendance well K through 12 is compulsory unless you unless you're in public uh private school or you have a waiver you're compulsory and the whole issue is is that we we know if you're in school you do better so I don't understand why we would start to Wade towards something like student engage the level of student engagement who decides and that's super subjective and why why not just it's

166very clear either the students in school or the students not in school if the student's not in school the student's not going to do as well as if the student were in in school so I feel like this m muddies the water we don't have to have all this conversation tonight these are just observations that I'm making of things that I would slew us off greatly and I know my my colleagues love like we feel like we do more you know but it's my rocking horse analogy you can be moving you know a lot in a rocking horse you don't go anywhere and and so the in the end result here is I I would like for us you know and we're not going to with this board this board's not going to do it

167they should theity not to um but I I'll give a a kudos for something that I do love the dual enrollment that's been a perennial problem is why why would we award a student you know credit for AP IB um on all the other combinations but not if they're actually dual enrolled you know a kid going to Robinson and Mason and duel en r or or you know Falls Church and Nova you know I mean that's I I almost wonder do do we have a sponsor for that do I mean like to me that's a no-brainer that that is a question I would like to have answered we don't have a specific one lined up but I do have probably a half a dozen people in mind who would pick that up in about a

168minute I don't understand like right now right now that I mean if this is election season that's a gimme to both sides that's like that's that's easy who's going to say we shouldn't allow kids to get credit for a dual enrollment course so um that that I would encourage move to the top of the list because those are that's lwh hanging fruit you know I I don't see how we're going to have a lot of opposition to that um I I don't understand oh shoot I didn't WR slide can you go to the one that has has um the VPI for threeyear olds same same slide oh same slide yes well that's why I have yeah why have Slide Five so um this is one that I don't understand why we're advocating for better funding

169for threey olds when we have over 800 kids three years old and four years old who never make it off the waiting list to cut get to us anyway and this is my frustration with the number of times that I've offered budget amendments to try to get four-year-old off the pre waiting list and asked for the Innovation for us to do things like public private partnership and buy up slots in in local preschools because there're only four once and then they're five and then they're on our roles so if we advocate for more money it doesn't matter because we don't have any space to put them anyway we they they're sitting aging out on 800 student waiting list so it I mean it seems like that's a that's a fruitless effort um and then us

170just one more thing and then you can answer what you want to know what whatever you want um what is the ranking of Virginia in funding for education to the other states in terms of overall funding like for Education yeah all not not for us from all sources from the state so from the state uh from the state it's low it's in the in the 30 40 rank yeah yeah it's low I think it's like 48th it's really low in terms of State effort yes so that that's what should be at the top of the rollup page that we should hand to every legislator every candidate who's running say what are you going to do about the fact that K through 12 funding in Virginia ranks I I thought I had read a George Mason

171study from uh Dr Cabrera before he left that said that we were 48 but maybe that was um maybe that was College um I'd like an answer to that as a followup of where we rank um in the nation um and just put it put it out there say this is this is the problem we can't solve any of these problems but you know this is again a Christmas wish list and a pony and a you know and a rainbow kitten and all of all of the the special wishes but um I I urge my colleagues to try to get this down to a cover sheet that has the three things that will make the most difference that we could put a thumb to the eyeball um and again I I encourage that we potentially

172go down as a group um whatever group we are constituted as um uh once they go into session and uh do a enforce you know presence for the things that will make the most difference that's my my take on it so thank you Miss Schultz do you have any responses Mr Mar gonna say I can I can give a very brief response to a couple things on the VPI the VPI position has has more to do with how the state allocates VPI funding for slots it's less it's less in terms of our local uh in less in terms of our local waiting list it's more in terms of the students or the the the children that are on that waiting list that could be eligible for VPI funding this would be one way for us

173to expand the number of students that are eligible to potentially draw down that VPI funding because there is VPI funding from the state that that V that Fairfax does not draw down and this would add to the or potentially add to the eligible tool I know but but but getting more funding again we don't if we don't have the physical space for the this is the whole this is our you know perennial problem with the Board of Supervisors is you know give us the slots or that we need to propose um a more Innovative way like I've suggested which is create a public private partnership with all of the the local um and I think um you know some of the supervisors have even um supported that that concept of you know at least some

174some some is better than none because when they're five they're coming to us anyway so uh on in terms of the spending data actually a couple of those data points are included in the uh the the joint position that you have with the county uh but it looks more at the flip side that uh I think Virginia is 11th in terms of the local effort towards education it doesn't look at the state side now you can do the math that if we're 11th on local effort and it's a state and local partnership then the state is going to be lower but I can pull that specific number it was a jar did a comprehensive study I think in 2015 that's the last time they looked at it so we can pull that flip side data

175and include that as as part of the as part of the discussion as well the jayar study was Virginia specific or was National it was Virginia it was Virginia but it looked at National benchmarks right that may have been in Dr Cabrera's um uh study because I was it was a long study and I'm I may be remembering they probably P the data from there MH M pal thank you um sorry first of all uh want to thank you U Mr mooy and my colleagues I'm listening to what was said um definitely first of all I want to say I would support um the your recommendation and I think Miss Hines wants to bring forward removing the barriers I think that that would be very helpful for our environmental stewardship um I had a couple

176questions and I hope you'll remind me if these are for here if they're more for um the state board or if they should be included um in the past we have discussed the need to be able to have our elementary school um immersion teachers um have just you know the the single as opposed to the Dual certification in order to be certified to teach that's an area where I know I would really like us to see increase our ability to do that so I don't know if that's included already that is actually an example of how long the regulatory process takes at the state level because the general assembly two years ago now I believe passed legislation asking for that kind of a new a new sort of credentialing for those emerg emerging classes and

177the state has not finalized the uh the licensure regulations for those but they're in process so it's something that the state has adopted and it's something that will be rolled out I just don't know what their timeline is um typically regulations take anywhere between 12 and 24 months to go through the full process of the the vetting through the state board and the Attorney General's office and the governor's office and then vout for public comment and there's a whole number of steps that uh regul regulations go through close to the 24 months we're relatively close to that 24 months yeah you're saying there's no need to add it here currently no I I think that that's that's really been addressed it's just a matter of waiting for the you what the address looked like okay

178good well please keep us posted on that one I would like to Advocate and head down to any committee meetings I can um another question I appreciate that I think you have in here additional support for um staff related to safety at the elementary school I I can't remember which slide that was and my question for you is um I know we are doing some improvements and have some others that I think we hope to be able to do um like our vestibules that are more facilities related is that includ Ed somewhere would you recommend that that would be something we we add um to help support facilities um student safety I believe you already have related language to facilities this is just expanding the concept because the the focus of the position really was

179more on uh high school and middle school SRO and this is getting the you know down more to the elementary level which may or may not be an SRO discussion but it is definitely a a Personnel discussion but I do believe there is uh facilities and if there's not I can I can bring language on Monday I didn't have that full one in front of me so that would be helpful I appreciate that and um finally going back to the [Music] um ways that we can you know in hearing Miss Schultz uh find ways to advocate for uh additional especially per pupil funding and funding that perhaps isn't is the LCI or outside of the LCI um especially when it comes to high Mobility rates students with disabilities Els um frm students which we know

180you know we have such a large population is there a language do you feel that the language we currently have in there is sufficient um or is that something you think we should continue to review more strategically I guess is the question in terms of the LCI itself the I'm thinking more outside the LCI so you know when we're able to get additional per pupil funding um for specific students pop concept of where this student centered F uh funding idea is going I don't think you're going to get away from I mean the reality is is that there are disparities among jurisdictions in Virginia in terms of local tax base and in terms of ability to pay um if you ask any anybody in the Virginia General Assembly or any school board member in Virginia

181uh what they think of the LCI they hate it everybody hates elci we all hate it for different reasons is the problem and why the discussion is always so complicated everybody hates it for a different reason if you're in rural Virginia you hate the idea that you have land that is being valued at one level whereas it's been put aside in a conservation easement and it should be valued at a different level in Northern Virginia we don't like the fact that the local Composite Index pays virtually no attention to the fact that it costs 30 to 40 to 50% more to live in this area than it does anywhere else and the salaries that we pay reflect that but the salaries that we pay just go into the the gross number and there's no adjustment

182for it yeah so I guess my question is and I understand that so I think um I'm a little bit you know we'll put that battle to the side because I I know it's been there for uh at least a couple decades um the question is do you feel that currently what's in there either for our student specific funding whatever we call it per people and things like prek that they are robust enough I guess that's where I'd like the conversation to go if as you see perhaps when if there's a change in the general assembly um I'd like us to really be on top of what might be the most helpful um wording and strategy for that you would actually be kind of in front of the curve just by talking about student centered

183funding uh the the topic has come up relatively briefly at the State Board because as the state board has gone through its standards of quality review um the stands of quality because they're still based on Personnel a lot of their recommendations are still Personnel based right they're they're asking for additional positions per 1,000 students for various things um to scrap that system and replace it with something else would be a pretty Herculean task and it would take probably a few years and multiple task forces and all kinds of resources at the state level um it would be worth it in the end but this would kind of put you ahead of that conversation just by invoking it as part of your legislative program thank you and just final question um I believe with the only

184jurisdictions where we have fully dedicated uh people like you lobbyists as a school system is that still the case you know actually I have I have multiple colleagues um we we come in we come in various forms uh some are contract lobbyists that are contracted from by uh by jurisdictions uh some are are folks who have a full-time job within the system but then spend three months of the year down in Richmond uh advocating on issues so they may be uh community relations and government relations or or that but we there are a good probably 15 uh to 20 jurisdictions that have somebody who does something similar to what I do and so with the other jurisdictions that we know are getting close to our size and also diverse needs Etc uh are they also

185sending people do they have people down in Richmond and and we often times talk about exacty the same issues okay thank you thank you miss palchik miss mlin given the late hour and we still have some uh action items to attend to uh I just want to uh extend my appreciation for Mr mline noting that uh vaping is something we're going to want to talk about on Monday um as a member of the skip team uh this was something that we discussed during one of our large meetings that getting the Board of Supervisors and the school board uh to have something in our legislative package uh really asking the general assembly to take some more uh direct action the state of mar um the the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and also uh Rhode Island have taken

186Statewide um efforts on this and so we we may want to be looking at some shared language uh so it might require um engaging the public health department along with our uh senior leadership team on what that might look like but uh I I believe our community is going to want want to see uh the largest jurisdiction lead on this issue and really get uh Virginia uh to join some of these other states in some uh real uh action efforts here thank you Miss mlin Miss Dar kofax good evening Mr Malloy how are you um I've had the privilege of working with Michael um several times during my eight years on the board as the uh State Legislative liaison as well as um utilizing his help when I was the federal legislative liaison so I

187just want to thank you for your hard work and um I think what I really appreciate about you Michael is the fact that um you look you are able to see the big picture and see small victories and you know how long it takes and you have the patience and the tenacity to do that I know you've worked with me sometimes you're like you can't talk about that in that way and and I do appreciate that but I I think I I do want to say one thing like while the prek issue about the match and leaving money on the table and you know we've been round and round on that and we'll continue to progress but I think by bringing it up by us alone advocating for that by us talking about how how

188prek is a game Cher for many of our populations I want to commend us on staff um Do You Realize since 2010 we opened up 33 new prek classrooms and that is serving 657 children those are good numbers Miss Hines I hope I see you smiling over there um those are good numbers and so even in spite of some of the very hard efforts that we have we continue to show progress in growth and some of that money was from different formulaic ways we were able to extrapolate it so but you know I'm always uh appreciative of any heads up you can give us on way like where are we now when they talk about flexibility exactly what do they mean are they going to change the match what or what what's the well one

189one thing that we're actually looking at that came out of the work that uh that was done with the county on Early Childhood Readiness uh is there are certain income thresholds in terms of being eligible uh one thing that the county included as part of their legislative program which I saw on Tuesday was changing the eligibility threshold from if you make 250% of the poverty level uh moving that up to if you make 300% of the poverty level so again additional families could potentially be eligible for uh that funding what we're trying to track down is we're trying to track down if that's specifically having to do with the child care component that the county runs or if that's more of a general VPI and I'll have more information for you on that on Monday

190and there may be an amendment uh to add just to add that that specificity to the ask right because I wasn't able to get the numbers from the county and these are our numbers these are FCPS numbers alone so I wasn't able to get those um another thing I think um where I'm glad we're seeing progress I think uh I can't remember if I was CH if I was just um a part of the uh it was the time I was with the one of the legislative you know that was my position State Legislative um and we told the delegation that if we counted our Esau Learners alone as a subset um what they were like number the seventh largest sixth or seventh and they were shocked they were shocked we we actually update that

191chart and give it out to our delegation every year it shows the top 12 School Division in Virginia by population size and then it slots in uh free and reduced lunch population it slots in fairfax's English language learner population and fairfax's special education student population they all rank among the top 12 and if they were Standalone divisions they would be among the top 12 in Virginia and I I was fortunate to be there one of the first times we presented that and and uh you presented it but I was there and uh I think the fact that we've come so far that you're saying so and I I'll explore this more um on Monday you know any other thoughts you can give us as to what we can do to continue to uh serve that

192population best and simultaneously because of they are coming to us like um you know just as when we enhanced our own Esau um curriculum we're still not where we need to be but we we did that in reference to um ensuring that um uh making making certain that uh these kids were getting the services they need so I think um while we're still in the infancy in that our Equity work is helping but anything you can kind of give me on Monday that we can Lobby for legislate for as far as what they're looking at specifically um to to to acknowledge that these students come to us with these needs how can they help us and how can um knowing that it takes five to seven years to get them to graduation what how can

193they be looked at um in that graduation cohort when we're doing that and then my final thing and you don't of course have to answer this now but um last year um in the year before that um I worked with several of my colleagues at the federal level um advocating for um you know the Ida monies and um I don't know um where we are in the state I know where we were you know we're supposed to get 40% I know we as a county got 10% um I don't know where we are um from those kind of funds idea funding probably over the last few years has kept up roughly with inflation but not much more than that there haven't been huge new infusions of funding into Ida I again IDE as one of

194these issues where it was put into place in 1975 and from the minute it was put into place it was not funded at the levels that they promised um and it's never come anywhere close to the levels that they had promised okay look forward to more conversation on Monday thank you and I just have a couple of comments before uh we close out this uh agenda item um and Michael thank you this is fantastic and I do want to address the um concept that this is a uh Christmas list because what this really does do is provide a uh really important tool for our delegation so that uh you're only one person and there are quite a few uh members of uh the state senate and the uh House of delegates and what we do

195with this package is we have almost an index of oh you want to know where Fairfax stands on an individual issue there it is we now know what they where they stand on that particular issue and if they need if the individual member of the House of delegates or Senator has additional questions or their staff do they can start with what's in this document and go elsewhere now I do think that um the concept of having a um prioritization page is a good idea but I I welcome this level of detail when we share it with the um the delegation because it makes your life easier it makes their life easier so I appreciate what you're doing there um secondly just going down uh some of the areas that you've put into this package dual

196enrollment absolutely as you know that's one of my um pet projects it's very important um and I think that the emphasis and the joint effort with with the county on dual enrollment is very important because it does give a pathway for many of our students who might not be able to afford to head off to college immediately but they are able to obtain college credit while they're in high school so I very much appreciate what you're doing here and um the next one is on the dropout rate uh you have it on page um seven and would like to talk a little bit more about that on Monday because I think we need to reimagine how we best serve many of these students who are dropping out because many of the students who are dropping

197out as Miss Evans has explained um they come to us as students with interrupted formal education or there is a fairly substantial U percentage of them that are uh L's and they have competing demands of having to uh earn money to support their families and so we need to I would be advocating for us to have more flexibility in how we serve these students so that instead of dropping out they may have um other ways of achieving their high school diploma and uh so I would like to be able to talk about that a bit more on Monday and have some input from Dr brabrand as well um and then on the uh page eight where you talk about the weighted funding formula formulas it would be great if you could share with us um

198and I don't expect this by Monday but if you could share with us some different models of if the waiting is X this is how much it means to us in funding if it's y this is how much the funding level is and um then my last actually two more the um language on vaping very much appreciated it is a national epidemic and so we need to uh work closely with the county and the state on addressing these concerns but the last piece which I don't see in here there's a lot of um discussion about the impact on our free and reduced meals um funding from the federal government with changes of the snap program and that could have significant impact as as the number of students who receive free and reduced meals has increased

199over time so I would like to see a um legislative priority on how to address that concern okay we can bring that I can uh I can bring information on that to the work session on Monday that would be fantastic I really appreciate it we look forward to a great discussion on Monday all right thank you very much thank you now we're at item 5.02 policy 8170 I call on Miss darac kofax for a motion I move that the school board approve the revisions to policy 8170 naming school facilities and dedicating areas of school facilities on grounds as detailed in the agenda item is there a second seconded by Miss Keys gamar Miss darak kofx would you like to speak to your motion sure so what I'm going to do is I'm going to give

200a little bit of history as to how we got here tonight because it's a little bit of a complicated process and there's some parallel things going on so I want to do this for the public so they understand where we are um after going through the last renaming process there were several members of this board and I who believed we needed to identify areas of improvement and we really wanted a more thoughtful and transparent process so as a follow on um uh to uh re when we did the last when we recommended that Jeb Stewart High School be renamed to Justice High School um Mr Wilson um had a followon motion that was passed unanimously and it said um it basically asked the board asked the superintendent to review Reg regulation 8170 to identify um

201areas of improvement and as I said that was unanimous improve that was unanimously approved so while um right when that was going on I was also hearing from members of the community asking me about renaming Lee High School and so uh while uh Mr Wilson's followon motion was referred to the governance committee I brought forward a forum topic and that Forum topic said to modify our school naming or renaming policy in an effort to ensure an inclusive respectful learning environment as out as as adopted in our One Fairfax policy we have a for topic request for I'll show it to you here so I'm going to read the different portions that's the topic it said was this time sensitive I said yes um and uh I to specify the topic in relation to a student

202achievement goal or policy that was caring culture and then you have the objective of the topic or conversation so I am going to re reread this again because the forums are done um across the hall right here and they are audiotaped not videotaped so I want um I don't want confusion as to uh what the form topic was or how it it came to be so it said we must examine in a transparent and comprehensive way the crit criteria by which FCPS can name or rename schools appropriately this discussion should have an intentional examination of schools that are named after Confederate soldiers or named after individuals with confederate ties because we have recognized the Confederate values are ones that do not align with our community I further direct the superintendent to provide the board via

203a work session with information on schools named after Confederate soldiers schools named after individuals with confederate ties the date that each school was named or renamed the reason and history for the name choice in addition direct the superintendent to develop a working process for Action by the board informed by Best Practices including CommunityWide engagement that the school board will follow once they determine what name should be considered for change so and that's a very long way of saying um that we have policy we're looking at policy tonight and the way we execute our our policy is through regulations so that last paragraph was talking about the regulations so now as I want to also just give you the timeline of what happened that uh was a forum topic that uh was I brought I submitted

204it to the board on February 6th it was discussed at a regular meeting on February 7th of this year 2019 um all of the things that I had asked for were brought forward to our board at an all day work session by Dr Bray brand and he talked about uh it that gave us the history of Confederate names and um which schools were named which schools were named after Confederate soldiers or which schools had Confederate ties so while that that was going on then in August the governance committee considered continued to meet to get have revisions to policy 8170 on naming and renaming what we do then is once it comes out of governance um we we brought it to uh a regular board member a regular board meeting where we said there'll only there

205it's there will be no vote but this will happen at a future meeting it it named um the change to policy 8170 we then on September 16th had an all day work session about the renaming policy um and all of these things have board doc links and you can go to those uh we originally scheduled a meeting um uh to uh to uh approve this policy on September 26th but we postpone that because um as I had asked in my Forum topic um other board members wanted to um ensure and review even though we don't we don't um officially uh approve regulations they wanted to look at the regulations um of the naming and re naming and renaming regulations to ensure they lined up so I know that's all wonky and everything but it is

206a history and it's a history here publicly so everybody knows where we are and um what's happening so I um we we have the uh new policy that's out there there are very uh few changes um there are really two changes I will also read those just so you have them again you can go to board docs and um one just says it's under section three policy 8170 it said f and this is a sentence that was change well I'm reading two sentences in a row final decisions on the naming of school facilities and the dedicating of areas of school facilities or ground shall rest entirely with the school board schools names will reflect an inclusive respectful learning environment as outlined and adopted in our One Fairfax policy you you will know that's exactly the

207language I used in my Forum topic and then the next part that's up for change is in section four and this change it says the board may also consider a change in the name of the school and again using same language um this is the new language right here that I'm saying to ensure an inclusive respectful learning environment as outlined and adopted in our onefa Fairfax policy or when the board deems it appropriate those are our two changes I look forward to hearing my colleagues comments and um I'm hoping that provides a very comprehensive timeline of how this came to be and where we are on voting for this tonight thank you Miss Daren kofax Miss Keys gamar would you like to speak to your second yes I would and I I like I thank

208uh board member darnette kofax for starting with the procedural proce procedural posture of how we arrived here um and I would like to uh take a few more steps because there's been a great deal of conversation in the community um some of it accurate some of it not and I think it's important that we understand how we got here why it's important and why I'm supporting this motion um Miss Daren kofax began with a phrase at some point that said what that Focus said we were focusing on Confederate ties and that's extremely important I think it is fortuitous that we recognized the significance of 1619 and how slavery began in this nation and where that led to and how African-Americans have contributed to this nation what I didn't include in that recognition was what that

209institution has meant and because we as a nation and particularly V Virginia which has been the seat of con the Confederacy um we have not been completely honest about what our history means with respect to the Confederacy so I'm going to take just just a few more moments to um expand on what I didn't include in my recognition earlier so we talked about Africans being taken from their homes um back in 1619 to do that they were uh stolen they were jammed into a ship hundreds of them repeatedly they were terrorized they were treated like chatt many died if they were too weak for the ship for the travel they were thrown overboard and out of the hundreds that were put on that ship only 20 survived when they arrived on those sh Shores that

210was just the beginning of the terror and tragedy Senator Tim Kaine said it best that beginning in 1619 Virginia legislatures and courts helped build the Leal legal architecture of enshrining slavery on this Shore just as Virginians proudly proclaimed a society based on the truth that all were created equal this dualism of high-minded principle and Indescribable cruelty has defined us the transatlantic slave trade was one of the most cruel atrocities ever perpetuated on humankind and yet how fortunate we are that the descendants of those African slaves all who followed are still here and part of this nation now this historical context is important because I think as we talk about education we cannot sanitize what we're talking about and unfortunately in some of my conversations in the community and I understand that because we have not

211told the whole truth Even in our commun in our curriculum it has not recognized the terror and the tragedy um that this truly has represented we're talking about cruelty tragedy murder rape and savagery we're talking about lynchings we're talking about an institution that dehumanized an entire group of people and the Confederate Army fought to keep that in place and so when we say we are identifying Confederate ties that in my opinion is the reason why I would also add that Rober E Lee was a confederate soldier very high up in the in their organization but after the war was over he asked that his name not be used and lift up because he saw that name the confederate soldier being lifted up as being divisive in this country that's the context of this conversation that

212has not in my opinion really been identified and so I appreciate this opportunity to have that discussion my fellow board member also mentioned the Strategic plan and as part of the Strategic plan we talk about a caring culture that is inclusive respectful that creates that is inclusive and creates a respectful environment for every student I genuinely do not understand how a Confederate name contributes to a caring culture it is that simple and I also know the history that many of these names were placed on these schools as a part of defiance to the United States Supreme Court when the Brown versus Board of Education decision came down so that is why this is a a discussion in this community and I've heard many students I've talked to many people not everyone agrees certainly but I've

213certainly back when we changed the name it in in of Justice High School talked to a lot of people that were were very excited about changing these names and this is why because this is what this represents it represents something reprehensible and totally com contrary to our democracy I understand that it is part of our history but I don't think that we can continue to treat it with this sort of I'm going to call it a um what is it Tooth Fairy approach we have to be honest about what this means so what is being said in the community misinformation they have ident I'm hearing repeatedly that 31 schools have been identified and that is not true and I certainly want to make sure that our staff members can support that or and and um

214verify that it is also being said said in the community that it's going to cost about a million dollars per school we did not spend a million dollars on Justice High School I don't know where this number is coming from but again this is an election season I want to make sure that we put out the correct information certainly there were maybe uh members in the community that don't agree with the way that I've described this history um that is certainly possible but it is the reality as far as I'm concerned and it is the reason that I am supporting this and it is the reason that I will continue to advocate for a more honest and open and realistic discussion of what we're really dealing with thank you thank you Miss Keys gamara Miss

215Schultz I'm sorry sorry Miss Schultz just a process question I have an amendment so I thought the whole point is I read my Amendment and then we go to other boards may wish other board members can speak to the first and then you can add than your um Amendment actually that's not Robert's Rules of Order Robert's Rules is that my Amendment gets read that the maker and the second speak to the main motion then the amendment has to come first because people will then speak to either the revised motion or they vote down the the amendment it's always our process it's got to be I go next to to introduce this so people can speak to the amendment then they'll speak to the main motion whether it's been changed or not well I have here

216that I am to have um board members be able to speak to the main motion before an amendment but if the will of the board we can go ahead and have uh Miss mlin read her Amendment and I believe she has a second to it so miss mlin would you like to read your Amendment yeah I I do want to clarify for the public though it's not the will of the board this is Robert's Rules and that's why we're doing it this way it's how we do our budget and everything else um I just don't want it to look like I'm trying to do something that's not would you like to continue with your Amendment please absolutely I move that the school board consider the following uh motion I move to amend the main motion

217by adding quote an existing unquote to the last sentence of section four so that reads the school board may also consider a change in the name of an existing school or facility and by adding the following language at the end of section four quote a process along with a set of guidelines for renaming a school or facility is outlined in the current version of regulation 8170 Pro procedures for naming school facilities and dedicating areas of school facilities or grounds the guidelines will include a school renaming request will be initiated through a board form topic by at least one magisterial School Board member representing students attending the facility and one at llarge Schoolboard member if the board decides to consider a name change there will be a one-month period of public comment between the school board's

218new business and final action action item on the proposed name change this public comment process will include a community meeting a public hearing and electronic mailed submissions during this initial comment period community members will be encouraged to submit renaming suggestions to the Schoolboard to help facilitate the final selection of a name should the renaming decision take effect if the Schoolboard votes in support of a school name change there will be a one-month period of public comment between the school board's new bus business and action item final action for selecting the new school name this public comment process will include a community meeting a public hearing and electronic mailed submissions the superintendent will review the community input regarding the suggested names and provide a recommendation to the school board for its consideration and action it is

219the responsibility of the School board chairman to schedule the date the dates for uh to receive recommendations from the community and to take action on the renaming of a school facility second seconded by Miss Evans Miss mlin would you like to speak to your Amendment yes please I know it's a late hour uh so I'll try to be very brief for my colleagues in the public um as you will see before you um my suggested Amendment extracts existing language from the recently revised regulation 8170 that is under the superintendent's Authority um the goal of my suggestions is that uh adding this to our policy will clearly delineate where the board's Authority is and what our expectations are for the renaming process this amendment does not change nor contradict the superintendent's regulation uh in fact as

220you will see from the uh bullets they directly align with the regulation this amendment will help the community uh better understand the board's Authority in this process as well as its commitment to transparency and strong public engagement uh so I did review this um with our legal councel to see if there were any concerns about this level of detail in our policy and was assured that um this uh amended language uh could be appropriately applied and so finally to my colleagues as you're aware uh two weeks ago we were to take this up and I had drafted an amendment uh from that time then the superintendent um did some additional revisions to his regulations and so in my desire to have that alignment uh I I had to wait and revise it and we got

221that information today so that's why my Amendment uh came to you um during this afternoon uh but again the key Point here is just for the public to understand our significant commitment to owning and providing expectations for a fully transparent uh and strong Community engagement in the renaming process thank you Miss mlin Miss Evans would you like to speak to your second uh yes thank you madam chair I want to thank Miss mlin for um creating this uh Amendment to the policy governance did take a look at the policy and and make the changes um but this amendment is in keeping with um a governance effort to have our policies be more robust and more detailed as we're looking at each of our policies we are trying to um include more detail into our policies

222to make sure that the um that the board's uh desires um are in fact included in in here so this does make this more specific I I will go back a minute and say that uh yes our our road to renaming Stewart high school was a a lengthy and a bumpy one um but of course it was the first time we did it and and um it it was a difficult process but we did follow our regulations at the time um I did Welcome the review of this policy and uh the regulations that accompany it to to make it clearer and clearer to the public and just a smoother process overall um just to be very clear um Miss McLaughlin's Amendment does mirror what is in regulation the new regulations that Dr Bray brand um

223has given us today and I I want to thank Dr Bray brand for revising them the at our work session we did say that we wanted the naming and the renaming regulations to be parallel uh the way that we originally had had it uh they were two very different processes and that didn't really make a lot of sense to have one for naming and and one for for renaming uh obviously the beginning of the process is different because with a new school you've got a new school you have to name it um with our renaming process we have to make an affirmative decision that there is a reason to rename a school so uh this amendment clarifies that there are going to be two steps to a renaming process that uh we will have a

224one-month comment period that will include um a public hearing it will include a a community meeting and it will include emails submissions and comments um the one Monon period will apply to the first First Step where the board is making the decision about whether to rename a school and then there will be a second uh comment period of at least one month which will also include a public hearing a public um and email submissions and a community meeting so I think this is um a lot clearer to the public it's uh it's going to be a lot smoother and so I do support this amendment to to clarify that this is what we intend as uh the way we're going to go about a a renaming process so I will have more to say about

225the um the underlying U motion but I think for for this amendment this is is not uh counter at all to the regulation in fact it it basically a lot of it's word for word with what's in the regulation just to kind of enshrine it in policy so thank you for um for putting this into more detail H thank you Miss Evans Miss Schultz so um I don't know if I'm going to ask the question to the maker of the motion or the suer um because um Miss Evans you actually did a a pretty good description actually the best one I've heard so far that you you said that the process now will be that first we have a month on of public comment on whether to change the name and then because that's not

226the process that's been described to date the process that's been described to date is that the board decides first to change the name at a forum and then we go into public comment so I would like to know and whoever whomever would like to respond because the the the the lack of clarity on that that um what was contemp ated at our latest uh work session was that one or one board me the whole discussion and I never really heard that we got down to an answer whether it was one board member or two board members um could as long as they have a student in a school and I clarified this very specifically and I said so it doesn't even need to be a board member of the magisterial district that if somebody else

227had one student even if it was a pupil play student in another school that person could come and say I'm going to change the name of a school in your district and it could be decided at a forum and the decision would be first made to change the name then it would be opened up to public comment for 30 days and then we would go into a name selection process where it was kind of clear that we put that back into the superintendent's office where it looked like that might be on ours so could I first have a clar have Clarity on what that process looks like I mean I'd be happy to to to try to answer that um the the Forum is simply the way to initiate the conversation that's not the Forum

228is not to make the decision to change the name the Forum topic and I think it's it's perfectly clear the way the regs read that two board members one magisterial and one at large member initiate the conversation that's not where the decision is is made to change the name it initiates the conversation and that triggers the First on Monon comment period but Dr brabrand uh is that the correct interpretation that's that's the way if that's how you if that's how you're posing it's your motion and if that's what you believe yeah and and I guess Miss McLaughlin uh can but yeah yes I mean so as the maker of the amendment uh Miss Schultz that's specifically the clear language says that um if the board decides to consider a name change and that's after it's

229come through the Forum so bullet one says it's that the Forum topic is initiated by two Schoolboard members if it comes out of forum that's the second part so at the Forum the board could say to those two board members thank you very much we've discussed it we don't feel that it warrant considering a a a a name change for discussion and it just stops right there at the Forum if the board says you know what we're willing to consider consider a name change that's when the 30 days starts okay so um I I wish we had instant videotape because if we rolled back to that work session that is not what was said at the work session what was said at the work session was that we would make a decision at The Forum

230to change the name and I I'm happy to share our own video with all of you but if this is the contemplated measure this is actually an improvement and I'm going to actually I'm going to compliment you that we're not putting our decision to change the name of a school before there's ever any public engagement because that has been my problem with this all along that being that being said um I'm going to make the precisely same argument I made um I think a year ago and that I made again um rather eloquently in May when I read the list of 31 names of the schools that were provided to us and my same argument stands today is that the the argument that um um Miss Keys gamara has made is that it's a moral

231argument is that we are morally obligated to change the name um and if we are morally obligated to change that name then we are morally obligated to change a lot more names that you cannot unbundle it's because if we're morally obligated to change the name of one school and other schools have that exact same Association precisely the exact same Association there are other schools that have names of Confederate soldiers who Confederates who fought in the Confederacy and if that's the rule I I don't know what the rule is I don't know if it's you know slaveholders if a slaveholder is the moral equivalent of of where we're drawing the line but if it's Confederate then we cannot consider one name we have to change all of them that have that same Association because if it's

232moral then and we change one then it is immoral not to change the others and so under that gu um you know it uh and it's the the same argument I made previously if we're going to change it then we have to go ahead and move forward and we also have to attribute money um the notion that we are doing this when we have a balanced budget requirement by the state and we have a past budget um there is no money associated with with any of this and I think it is right and proper to say what is it we're not going to do in the current budget um because we're going to have to take money from a line item in order to do this I'm not saying that there's a problem with it

233this is the public I've always said these are public schools with public money for public benefit and if the public wants to change the name of their schools the that so be it the problem I have is when the board imposes its will on the public without due um consideration for the public to participate in the conversation and that when they do vote that we actually listen to them that's that's that's the that's the other problem is is that previously um we've either changed the process along the way or the communities voted and we haven't listened to them or the community did vote and gave us names and we said bring three names and then five names were brought and then we didn't pick any of those names we should have picked one of the

234names that the community voted on so it I I don't see here necessarily as clear a process um but I understand that the super attendant unfortunately I'm sorry you're going to have to do this again looks like um will solicit the names but I think this board has got to commit right now that if the community comes up with a name there's no more of this last minute you don't like what the community says the community has got to have a voice when this board imposes its will is where I have the problem so first what's the money what's the process as long as the as the communities involved and then you can't change one if you don't change the other ones because if the argument's the same for this one as it is for

235for many other schools thank you Miss Schultz uh Miss Strauss please thank you first I want to thank miss daret kofx and miss Keys Kamara for your remarks um and um thank you um uh Miss mclaughin for your Amendment and Miss Evans for your assistance with the amendment um the process to get to Justice was long and hard so I am pleased that uh we have um uh modified the policy and with the regulation uh with the suggestion of putting the clarification of the regulation in the policy while we don't normally do that I I can see the uh the efficacy in doing this so I will support all of it um I from the speakers this evening uh certainly um there is interest in changing the name of one high school I did not

236hear 30 names I really don't think that that's what is on the table here and so I would uh respectfully um disagree with M Schultz um I am glad that the policy and now the amendment that adds in the regulation does include um time and uh a good deal of community input because those conversations are important um so uh at any rate um I will support this but it would not be my advocacy to change 30 some names from I I really do hear from the community of one name so that is where I stand but thank you all very much for the work on this thank you m St Miss Dar kofax Miss McGloin oh I I think Mr Wilson were you waiting for your turn because I'm a go back if he'd like

237to put his light on okay we'll put you on uh after Miss Hines okay thank you so I think we're supposed to be speaking to the amendment and get voted on and then we speak to the main motion all right um so I just wanted to get clarity on that and um uh thank you m mlin I'll be supporting your Amendment Mr Wilson thank you um so I have a question for the maker of the amendment um and one of the changes that didn't get picked up that was in the previous regulation was the concept of sufficient support within the community for the CH for a name change um and I I do think the changes that you've proposed are beneficial in the policy but maybe you could talk about why that why we didn't

238include that um efficient Community Support aspect uh thank you Mr Wilson again with the board going through the first name change for justice High School uh where we had this uh original language in the superintendent's regulation uh there became questions of defining words such as sufficient uh did the board then want to determine what percentage that would be how do you determine and Define that and so one of the things that uh when we looked at the revisions both from the superintendent lens of the regulation and also from the board was how do we lay out a clear process but in the end the board has to make some deliberations and so uh when we have a process that's laid out it doesn't give a magic number or a threshold uh and without question this

239is an elected body and we will be judged by how we execute on the responsibility that we have and so uh th this way what we're saying to everyone is at least a month that you can all come forward anyone with any concern any opinion wants to bring it to us and the board will deliberate and the 12 of us may have a different opinion on what that threshold is and we'll have to arrive at that um but putting in some magic threshold uh we're we're now here at 11:00 at night I can't imagine what it would take for 12 personalities to start to decide what's the magic threshold and put it into policy so I think this is uh the the best way we can approach this and again signal to the community that

240we want to deeply engage them in the process okay thanks for that explanation I mean I wasn't suggesting that there is a magic threshold I think just as a practical matter um the amendment includes that the public comment process will include community meeting a public hearing iic mailed sup submissions and and so with in the absence of some sort of of um threshold then I think we're sort of in this in this position where even if the community was say 100% opposed to um to the change then we wouldn't think of that as sufficient uh through uh sort of U to move forward with the or to not make the name change and I guess that I mean I don't think necessarily I guess what I'm getting at is somewhat of what Elizabeth Schultz was

241talking about with if we believe that we should make the change then um we should make the change and so I kind of Wonder you know the the previous approach of this board through the regulations was to engage with the community find out what the community felt about the proposed name change there was votes that were taken there was Community meetings and and and then there was this determination by the superintendent if there was sufficient support to come back to this to the board whereas without some sort of measure um I'm not sure why we wouldn't just clarify in our policy to say we don't want any of our schools named after uh historical people with ties to the Confederacy and then it's a cleaner decision and as Miss Schultz has said we can we

242can weigh it against other budget options and and we can you know I think other jurisdictions have made that sort of cleaner break than sort of a oneoff well this year we don't like uh the reference to MOS be woods and next year we might not like the reference to Sangster and the year after that we might not like another one it just seems like an odd way if if it really we're talking about cleaning up the books so to speak on our our names in our schools it seems that you know if either we're going to allow the community to have input and we're going to weigh their community support and and value that or we're going to make a decision as a board that we're that as a as a reflection of Fairfax

243Community as a whole we don't want schools named after Confederate soldiers and so I'm not so I mean I do appreciate the changes you made because I think uh they reflect sort of more involvement of the community which I believe is is is an important part of this process is engagement with the community and and finding out what the community feels about it but it but I think without some sort of sufficient Community Support standard then maybe we just end up in sort of a muddle at the end of the hearings and and the you know emails and and the the community meeting thank you Mr Wilson Miss pal thank you um so I appreciate the work both uh of Miss daret kofax uh in preparing this and and the amendment and I I I

244think I understand the amendment but I may have a couple of questions since this is on the amendment um so just to clarify what we are seeing here is that um in this two-month period the first month while the school board is deliberating whether or not to move forward with the name change the public will be given opportunities both to comment on the decision whether or not to go forward with the name change as well as encourag to provide possible names during that first month period and then during the second month period if the I apologize it's late um if it's voted on to change the name then there is OPP then there's a discussion I assume both to collect names and to discuss those things I guess that's the only area where I'm a

245little confused is there kind of I guess I've seen other school systems where first there's the vote and then there's a period to take suggestions and then there's a period to for the community you know either is ranking while the and the school board and and the superintendent kind of look at those and weigh them and and come forward the final decision so I was just wondering how we came with this process so uh as was noted earlier um by Miss Evans uh the goal in the superintendent's regulation was that whether we're naming a new school or potentially renaming an existing school that for continuity and public understanding that these processes would be very similar in terms of community meeting public hearing and email submissions and so given the importance of community consideration and reflection

246on not just renaming a school but then what a new school might look like that or a new name would look like we're almost giving a twomon opportunity for Community consideration reflection that if if the board were to vote um after that first month we already would have started collecting from those who are supporting a name change to have brought forward some names for consideration so then when you have a community meeting should the board decide in the first action to that yes there's Merit we're changing the name now you're going into the second Community Mee community meeting of what would that name be you already have some initial Community input from those who are saying please consider those names so when you go into the second community meeting you could actually say in our

247first process while the board deliberated the potential change we captured up some of these names now we're sitting in the second community meeting about what names to consider you already have sort of a baseline of some names along with the community bringing forward some additional names for consideration okay yeah no I appreciate that and I'm just trying to understand well I know originally the goal was to have this regulation come later so I appreciate that you you've put this into the the board's hands for the policy I'm just wondering um and it might be wording and this is where it just gets a little bit into you know the weeds because we are now putting the weeds in the policy and that's okay I'm just trying to understand if it might be more clear to

248say that during this initial comment period community members will have opportunity to separate them right both to give comments on the on the recommendations whether or not to to change the name as well as kind of in a different bucket just I don't know if we want to separate them to be able to give options for name so that's my only question it might be the late hour and might be the you know we haven't gone through I have not gone through this process of naming a new school um so I don't know if this works well then that's fine but that's I'm okay with this in in theory but I just want to make sure that if we're going to this much detail that um it doesn't cause more confusion that's my only only

249concern and I see some of my colleagues disagree with that and that's fine and maybe they've gone through this process and we agree that this is the way forward um and I guess in the end I just want to make sure that we have a process that we're moving forward um and that we can do that and then my only final thing in the final sentence I believe our school board is a chair not a chairman um so that's my only recommendation that our school board I believe we we call our school board a chair not chairman do we call him chairman that's all okay that's all so um I I'm okay with this amendment if that's the way we're we're moving forward uh but I guess I don't know if we're still going to

250have regulations related to these or is this supposed to we will yeah Miss Miss P guides the regulation yeah Miss p as I understood it the board actually said and and certainly even governance had the conversation that uh when we're looking to have greater alignment between policy and regulation it it was going to be helpful because what happened to this board with the Justice Stewart renaming is that we had a policy change that we put in place and then Dr Garza really created new regulations and the board didn't know anything about them and so when we found ourselves in the renaming process we were suddenly finding out about how the superintendent took our policy and decided to operationalize it so the goal of this one is the draft policy was written so narrowly and so

251uh in such a way that it didn't say anything about what the board's expectations of what that operational process would be so this is taking language from the Su superintendent Bray Brand's ownership of reflecting on what what went well and what didn't go well with the Justice renaming how do we have better operational processes related to this but it still left our policy without saying anything from the board's voice and the board's directive of what our expectations would be and that's why it's it's looking at what the superintendent is saying to us this is how I understand the best processes going forward I'm bringing this to you all's Amendment saying if we're in agreement with the superintendent's regulations we're not putting everything in here word for word but it's capturing um the the key aspects

252of what the public can expect what the board can expect okay so I'm fine with that I think again I would just share you know since we are delineating this in the policy that my hope is that the regulation that goes along with this will be more will be clear about the process just so it does not create more confusion and this the time frames that are put forward and they're overlapping in some way so I appreciate that I guess so as long as we're clear that the regulation and the the way it's carried forward will be very clear about um you know the fact that you're both making a decision on whether or not to change it and to collect names and all of that that's so I'm okay with that if if we

253feel that that's going to happen through the superintendent's office thank you Miss pal Mr Moon thank you Madame chair uh it is late I have a different uh take on the amendment the I I mean I certainly understand what the makeer of the amendment is trying to accomplish is because of the significance of the discussion we are having on the renaming policy and process uh want to give elevated visibility of the process for the renaming of an existing School in the policy itself so uh you know taking the language being uh language drafted by superintendent in the reg proposed regulations into the policy I think that is what the amendment trying to is trying to accomplish the question and concern that I not necessarily a concern uh question that I have is from Optics or

254when you look at the regulations regulations it has process for naming new facilities as a separate section in in in has renaming existing school facilities as another section is a detailed process it has renaming non school facilities and another detail process and has a separate section for dedicated areas of school facilities work grounds as another section in regulations but by just supporting one of those four SE processes uh one of those four sections into policy we are I know we are elevating the visibility of that that particular section but then the policy looks so much l it sort of in favor of in visibility sense for the renaming of an existing facility because the policy itself deals with all different situations not just renaming an existing school but amendment is going to only give a

255very detailed process for renaming of an existing school that's the question and that is where it is giving me a pause whether we need that detail just for those one of those four sections into the policy if you want to give a detail process because Community will not give a transparency the community visibility of the process the community maybe have all the languages from regulations into the policy or just make a reference to the regulations for detailed process I mean that's where I am thank you Mr Moon I do have a couple of Gob backs I have uh Miss Schultz followed by Miss Kar okay I I got less clear more the more people talked I I I need um and and Miss PCH I thought you were getting there you were you were getting

256you were sort of getting there and I thought I was going to follow it I I'm not sure I understand this amendment what's different than what we already have I I I guess I'm trying to figure out now why we're changing because we because what I hear is a compelling need everybody miss Keys gari you made an a wonderfully eloquent speech tonight about that fulfills in and of itself compelling need you're saying by this process that we are going to engage the community so you're going to have that you know sufficient community and I don't know if we got why we got ourselves wrapped around the axle last time about what sufficient is um I'm trying to understand now what's different about this than what we're already doing and if it's not that different why

257can't we just use the language that we have and just go out into Community say do you want to do this and have some Community meetings and get the interest and then make the decision and then off you go like I don't even understand why all this is not necessary if if you've if we decide to do this so C can you explain to me how this is different than what we already have so as as I understand it uh and talking to people in the community uh and I've never been a fan of our policies that are so lean to the point they don't speak to the board's commitment and expectation on on our responsibility as a governing body so too often is someone who's sat in the governance committee for probably five or

258six years now I have a constant refrain of what does the regulation look like and do the crosswalk against policy no M the reason but I need to understand just could Nar let Miss M it's your turn it's my question and I'm trying to narrow the response to get appr it let her finish and then it's your okay no I want Miss Schultz to clarify what's the question you want me to answer I just I would love to I we can pontificate about what happened in governance at another time I just want to know what's different about what you've written as an amendment I I if if it's now providing for Community feedback first and then we get names and then we come back and have a vote how is this any different fundamentally than

259what we already have and why do we need to change it why not just go do it what what does this do differently so miss Schultz in talking to people in my community some of the things that I've heard is when our policy as we would vote on it tonight which I would vote it down I will not be voting for this policy tonight if my Amendment fails I'm just telling everybody right now and the reason why is because when we fail in our policies to be very clear about board expectation of community engagement then the public doesn't go digging around to find what the regulation's going to say because that's the superintendent's commitment the policy Is our commitment so either we commit to what what we think is a core value of the board

260which is a very robust public engagement process for any renaming consideration consideration so I I think this language is important I can support what Mr Moon saying if he wants a friendly amendment that says this language matches for a new name and it matches for a rename and he wants the consistency of in the section of this policy the broader policy under a new name put this exact language in there the way that's all fine I just want to make sure that this policy is fixed because Miss Schultz you and I both know we found ourselves on the same side of this challenge was the superintendent created regulations that the board had no voice on we didn't know anything about it and then all of a sudden the public was saying to us how come

261this is how it's all happening it wasn't in your policy we own this and I think this is a great way of showing the community our commitment to it okay I'm glad I asked the question because that actually help that actually helps the only thing I don't understand then is why not have the community begin the conversation why not have the communities drive the conversation about what they want rather than we start by imposing the fact that we're going to change it because the I get back to you know this board sometimes acts like they're are schools they aren't they're the 1.1 million residents in the County's School and while and I very much appreciate the people who signed up tonight but there clearly was a you know an effort of the people who came

262tonight to show One Voice for what they were speaking for and that doesn't NE I can't take that as a reflection that that's how the community feels um I'm assuming that there's a sense that the the community feels this way because it's not my district the problem I do have with this is you you all have still created a policy that says that you know if um uh if Miss Karen Corbett Sanders had a student in one of my schools that's wholly owned within my district and she had a pupil Place student in one of my schools she and one other at large could decide to come into my district and make a decision to change my schools and I don't really have a voice in it and that's that's actually not correct at all

263what it says is simp they can bring the topic forward to a form discuss I still I still have L we we have an order here back and forth which is very nice out I didn't invite I didn't invite that I'm actually still commenting that I'm trying to get to the clarity that this is a this has been somewhat convoluted because it is not what was said at the at the work session if there is an attempt to engage the public greater in this amendment I support it I I still do not like though that it is the board driving the conversation at the public instead of the other way around um uh that denies the fact that the public you know has the ability to bring concerns um and significant concerns like fairg grade

264like later start times like zero tolerance reform like restore honors there are many many ways in which the community has the ability to rise together and say we would like the board to pay attention to something like this and many of us sitting at the table have been on the other side before we were ever on the board and part of those significant movements that created change about um grading practices and sleep times and discipline practices and it wasn't the board imposing its will on the public the public said hey we need to look at a change change and uh we we drove that change so miss Schultz I appreciate your um comments but we are getting very late tonight it's not my fault we're here at this hour um I am going to allow

265others to speak at this point um and before we go to the Gob backs and there are quite a few I will Express um a um thank you to Dr Bray brand because I was one of the ones at the work session that felt that we needed to have parody and and the same structure that supports naming as renaming and so what you and your staff have done is actually put the process in a parallel you know parallel track so it's the same process if it is a naming or a renaming and it is focused on community engagement um I would also correct any concept that um Miss Corbett Sanders would consider going into another magisterial member's district with a pupil placement actually it doesn't but um I I appreciate your um creating a a

266scenario such as that but there is no intention at least by this magisterial member to go into another magisterial member's um schools or any other so um I am I'm going to go back to uh the list of people we have um Gob backs starting with Mr Wilson then miss Keys gamar then Mr Moon thank you madam chair um yeah I think that you know the the the public watching what they would like is some clarity I really I mean what school are we talking about how much is it going to cost and when do we want to make the changes um I don't think it's very complicated our policy already allows us to make changes if we feel there's a compelling need maybe that's the wrong Mr Wilson if we can focus on the

267policy behind before so the amendment we're talking about the amendment and and the issue that I have is that the amendment I think actually makes it less clear as to how many schools we're talking about what's the role of the public in terms of helping us make that decision um because we don't we don't have um the idea of support in the community it's just we're gonna we're going to solicit public comment at a hearing or have a community meeting I mean it doesn't really talk about whether there's needs to be support or not so I think what the public would like tonight is for us to clarify how many schools we're talking about and how much money we're going to spend on it and that's um I don't think NE we don't need to

268make these changes in this am in this proposed amendment um to give them that information uh Mr Wilson as Miss Kei or Miss darak kofax clarified earlier the and as is in the um proposed policy with the amendment there isn't a list of schools there is a that is built into this policy there is a structure that allows for the uh a forum to be initiated a board Forum topic by at least one magisterial School Board member representing the students attending the facility and one at large School Board member so that initiates any sort of discussion so that's what um The Clarity that Miss uh mclin's Amendment does is it it actually puts that in the policy itself rather than having to go to a um a regulation however I if you and I want

269to have a cqu on this separately I think I don't think we need to do it on Mike you don't need to respond to my comments um although I do appreciate it but I would disagree with you on what that actually says because I could I have students that attend schools that are outside of my district but I also just to clarify that what we've been talking about tonight at this Das public input is specific it's very specific this amendment is not specific it's talking about a process about some schools Miss Daren kx's Forum talked about a specific list and so I think that's what the that that is it it wasn't she didn't provide a list but but her Forum talked about coming up with the list of schools okay so that's what I

270think excuse me one person at a time in Mr son you had stopped speaking so we were going to other people and so Madam chair you were responding to my comments so I don't think my turn was over if you're responding to me while I'm on my turn but but I just think that what we've got what we're putting forward right now and discussing is actually creating more confusion we've got a policy in place we have the authority as a board to rename every school if we want to and I think what the public would like is some clarity are they going to have a voice that's meaningful are we talking about Confederate schools with ties to Confederate uh soldiers are we talking about maybe beyond that slaveholding people or maybe we would go even

271farther than that I think people want to know what this board is intending to do and I think it is a budget issue and I think it is also an issue that that we should be clear about in our policy why why the vagueness of you know you know uh to include we're going to take out you know we're going to add in language from our former our former uh regulation but it's not really the former regulation because now it's the proposed regulations it's matching proposed regulations that the superintendent gave us today I think it's we're actually obscuring what we want to do here for the public um hold on I called the question many questions been called second can I leave this meeting all those in favor of the call to question on the

272amendment so we have um Miss Strauss Miss Hines Mr mine Mr Dar kofax Mr Wilson Miss keys gamar I'm sorry not miss ke I mean Mr Moon Miss Keys gamar Miss Evans that gets us um no I'm not going to call the question at this point um so I'm not going to vote for that uh because but it passed okay it was called the question I only get one two okay let me try again the called let me count Miss Strauss Miss Hines miss palic Mr mine Miss Dar kofax Mr just to be clear we don't revote in order to get the vote that we didn't get the first time that's another violation of Robert's Rules she didn't count thank you Miss so that motion carries we're um that motion carries we're now going to

273go to a discussion of the main motion or no we're going to vote on the amendment we're going to vote on the main on the amendment so rather than reading the amendment again if everybody agrees we're going to uh the amendment is on the screen and I will call for the vote all those in favor of the amendment as it is put forth on the screen so we have m stuss Miss Schultz Miss Hines miss palchik Mr mine Miss Dar kofax Miss Keys gamara Miss mlin Miss Evans and Miss Corbett Sanders all those opposed those abstaining Mr Wilson and Mr Moon that motion carries so now we will have a discussion of the main motion and I have quite a few lights up here but I do not moment of personal privilege yes sir uh

274Madam chair I have out of town trip coming up and have to get up at 3:00 in the morning uh and it's almost midnight I'll probably have a two hours of a sleep and if I could excuse my absence I'll be supporting the main motion yes sir I'll supporting the main motion as amended okay we appreciate that thank you very much um your vote safe travels will his vot no his vote will not count because he will not be present for the vote he's just expressing support so thank you um I have Miss Hines thank you so um yeah on the main motion thank you very much Miss daret kofax for this work um I uh I also do want to say Dr Bray Brown since we're on the we're sort of on the subject

275uh in response to um miss bartang our wonderful student representative's comments earlier um she mentioned about how she felt as if she had to um disprove assumptions that teachers made about her based on her background or her race and I just have to say that cut me to the quick I don't know how you felt but as a teacher I mean look I make mistakes all day long but that is one you do not make that is inexcusable and unforgivable and I hope that's the message that we send to teachers that you absolutely must be extremely careful about making assumptions about children based on their background and in any way showing that to the child for sure yes that's correct thank you um so uh I would just try to be quick our Justice High

276School experience was in the end good um but it did make clear that we needed a workable policy um that was more transparent more efficient um and that clarified the role the roles of the board and community members and you know I agree we could make any name change right now that we wanted to given our current Regulatory and policy framework but we're just trying to make it um again better and and that's what I think this will do um the community uh you know we don't I don't want to send the community the the idea that they will vote on whether or not we change a name or they will vote on which name we pick I think we gave that impression last time it's maybe I don't know if we gave it or

277people picked up that they had a vote on whether or not we would change the name and what it would be we vote that's our responsibility and we know that and this is just our regular process right we put something out there in this case we make a concerted and significantly greater effort than usual to reach out to the community for comment but at the end of the day we vote and these are our our responsibilities um you know I I I think the idea that this puts us in a in a muddle you know as elected officials we need to be comfortable in a muddle especially when we're talking about things that have to do with the morality and the values of the community um I don't see a list of 31 schools we

278I very surprised if we could do more than one at a time anyway so there's no way this board or the next board would would get to more than one school I would suggest and the only one we're really hearing about right now is is Roberty Lee High School and let's be honest you know a name like Roberty Lee belongs in history books and in museums not on a school and I want to thank U Miss keys gamara so much for your comments tonight that name on a school building lifts up the terror and tragedy of slavery of the Confederate of the generations that followed in Virginia and fought all progress toward Racial equality right into my lifetime and all of our lifetimes here um and and so I I think it's it's very important

279that we have a process that will work and uh it will be um we'll be able to start it as soon as possible and so again um I I thank Mr daret kofx and I look forward to are beginning to make process a progress on um uh any name that comes from the community and I think Lee High School is probably the the the one that we will see uh sooner than later so thank you thank you Miss Hines Miss pal thank you um and I appreciate following Miss hin in this and also thank um well our governance committee and those who have worked on this and our our superintendent and his team and I agree we are elected body uh elected by the people of this County and if we as a body or

280future bodies decide that a school's name for whatever reasons is not appropriate in 2019 or 2020 or moving forward then this body does have that responsibility to make what could be a difficult decision um that's for the best needs of our students so I do um support both this policy and the corresponding uh regulation even though we do not vote on that um and I do think that it does improve our current process we did have a process there were some Kinks this process also will probably not be perfect but hopefully an improvement on our last process and that's all we can hope for uh I do appreciate that it does include very detailed um information and ways to gather Community inputs uh when the input is gathered when the school board is making decisions

281um and how this will be communicated and shared with the community so um there is no perfect but I think this is very good and I appreciate the work um of my colleagues in in putting this together and I am very happy to support this policy thank you thank you Miss palic Miss Schultz I'm wondering if the and I don't know I guess I don't know now if the maker of the motion is Miss mlof or Miss Dar kofax so would would you consider a friendly amendment that says and can we have the full language back that says that the um the magisterial school board member representing the majority of students attending the facility sometimes it's fairly split or 3/3 so or the a perance a preponderance I I would I would defer I would

282like to hear a discussion on that before I I'm not prepared to make a decision by myself because what we're talking about again is representation is um the people who elect us you know we're we're now putting a a position where someone who is unelectable and unaccountable to constituents is participating in the name of a change the change name the I can't even get it straight um and the reason this is important and everybody seems very intent to hide behind the um opacity of this language and there is still a lot of lack of clarity here and you can sigh all you want Miss Hines I don't think it's respectful we are trying to have a respectful conversation at this table I cannot help the fact that this was put on an agenda that had

283a lot at the front end this is when the conversation occurred so I am trying I have I have a due diligence to try to get to the best governance decision possible and I'm being told that you don't even have to have a preponderance of children and and that there's not really a good explanation for that and the reality is is that we cannot unbundle if this is about Confederates how are we not having a whole list of schools that have all the other Confederate soldiers who fought in if this is about the Confederacy and wiping that out and wiping out that Scourge we have a problem and that we have all these other names um Mosby Woods in particular laner in particular sanster in particular shwood in particular um so those at a minimum

284and that doesn't even count for all all the other Associated but if you if we're drawing the line at Confederacy you must you you cannot say it's only one school because those were the eight people who showed up in the on on the speakers list tonight it doesn't work that way so we can't we're we're cherry-picking and this is the problem that got us burned with the community on the Jeb Stewart to Justice name change is we we um manipulated the process you know over and over again and the community gave us you know a push back because they kept interpreting that we were manipulating things just enough to get the answer that we want are you making an amendment to the motion or you well we're back we're back to now we're discussing the

285main motion this is the way Robert rules Works correct is the chair does not the chair does not interrupt the person who has the microphone I have the microphone until I yield the microphone we don't have a time limit um like we do otherwise so when I yield the microphone when I yield the microphone then I am seeding to the next speaker and the chair needs to respect that we need to we need to honor Robert's rules because we just we just did it in the last vote and people will be able to watch the fact that we did not have enough votes to to close the prior but we took another vote because somebody got tired and put their hands up to make it eight we are manipulating the process right now and we

286are not honoring our own governance practices and we're not honoring Robert's Rules and and you can see the lack of professionalism is happening right here at the table right now if we can't follow our own process and on our own governance how is the public supposed to put their trust in us that we are going to do the right when this goes out to the public so um yes I guess I am going to I'm going to go ahead and make the motion because I think that the there should be a preponderance of students um at a school um and that a student or that a board member as was articulated and I and I specifically got Clarity at our work session and I was told yes it could be one board member who has

287as little as one pupil placed student in in some someone's school and an assertion now oh I would never do that that's not what this says that is not what this says and so I would like that Clarity because at least the public will have the confidence that if this carries forward there will be accountability that it's going to be the person who has a preponderance of students at a school so I would like to make a a a friendly Amendment um to insert um preponderance preponderance of students we I'm making an amendment second I I I don't I don't believe I'm addressing um a colleague I'll address the chair um the chair um I would say please to add School Board member with the preponderance of students attending the facility at least one magisterial

288Schoolboard member representing the preponderance of students attending that facility where are you inserting that ma'am I'm I'm watching it they've got it representing the preponderance of students or a preponderance a a preponderance of students attending that facility no that's in the uh poliy policy we've made sure that the policy mirrors the regulation that's what we've been discussing all night the amendment but your amendment is to the policy we we passed the amendment so this is the motion correct so your motion on the table Miss Schultz is to insert well the top the top number one at the one at the top should not say that anymore because the the amendment became the main motion we understand that but this it's inserting two words a preponderance of students attending the facility that accounts for it might

289not be the majority but at least it's a preponderance so miss Schultz you've made the uh the motion and it's seconded by Mr Wilson Miss Schultz do you want to speak to it just I I just think that there has to be an accountability and when it was clarified for me at the work session that and the this was the clarification that was made um that one board member with one pupil play student in one school and a and another out large could bring this and that's the lack of clarity that's currently in this language basically makes it an unaccountable action by this board because then they can bring it and get five other votes at a um at a at a forum which is not on videotape fortunately it has an MP3 but it's

290a meeting that has very little participation by the public it's in a side room held over there sometimes um before our regular board meetings and it's the least transparent type of meeting that we do and so at least people will know that it is a board member that I brought and I don't think there's anything that does that changes fundamentally what you want to do this adds a a a measure of accountability that I would think this board would be eager to embrace after the Jeb Stewart to Justice um issues that we faced thank you Miss Schultz Mr Wilson would you like to speak to your second Madam chair I have nothing to add thank you very much um so now I have a number of other people who would like to speak to this

291uh Miss Hines so um preponderance to my mind adds opacity and confusion and reduces accountability preponderance as defined is the quality or fact of being greater in number quantity or importance couldn't be any less clear what we mean by preponderance so I can't support this thank you Miss Hines I have U Miss Keys gamar followed by Miss mlin and Miss Evans thank you madam chair I've been actually waiting to speak for quite some time because I couldn't disagree with you more miss schz your statements have mischaracterized what I have said and what a number of people have said so with respect to accountability it is very clear to me that the way that this is currently written with the amendment that the accountability is to the board the for topic is brought to the board

292and it cannot go any further without board approval the other thing that I think has been mischaracterized here is the idea that bringing forth a forum topic is somehow not representative of the people that we represent in the community when I bring forth a forum topic it is largely because people in the community have been talking to me and one of the things that I found extremely disturbing coming on this board with the Justice high school was that it was constantly argued that somehow the voices of the people who wanted this change was not the people that should have been listened to and that is offensive to me and it is offensive to the numerous people in the community that had an outcry and the other part of this mischaracterization that I think is harmful

293is you describe my statements as putting forth a moral obligation I offered an explanation of why we talked about Confederate ties and what that meant so I would ask you respectfully to please not rearize my words because I know exactly what I'm saying and I also have an opportunity to argue in court on occasion and I know that folks who may not have the facts on on their side like to confuse the issue I'm not saying you're necessarily doing that on purpose but I think a lot of this discussion has led to that so I will not support your your motion because I do think accountability is already built in thank you thank you Miss Keys gamar Miss mcclaflin so miss Schultz I do understand where your concern is on this one and especially trying

294to sort through what's going to happen here um but part of what a lot of us have been talking about tonight to the community um on this issue is that the Forum is two board members who have connections to that particular school and at larges as we understand we want to respect and value that they're elected by everybody in the county so they do represent all of the community so they're one piece of it The Other Board member if we try to start delineate this further and further the best example I can give you because it it depends on which adjective we end up using significant preponderance majority um you and I both share uh Lake bradic and we usually debate on whether you've got 60 I have 40 I have 45 you have 55

295um and then there's Woodson where I have 60% and then there's a whole lot of other Schoolboard members that have you know pieces of that other 40% and yours actually through a boundary change you have very tiny number now at Woodson but that would be an example of you could say you heard in the community that people feel they want to change Woodson High School so you could bring it to the Forum with any one of the out larges and say hey we're bringing a forum topic we're going to change the name of Woodson High School I would say in that Forum I'm sorry I represent 60% % of that school I represent a large portion of the community in which the school sits no one wants that name changed so I'm going to ask

296my colleagues do not Grant the cons even the consideration of this because it's going to create a lot of turmoil and there's no justification for it if I do a good enough job then the other board members are going to listen to the two who brought it to the Forum and listen to me and maybe some others join in the chorus with me and say you know what thank you you two for bringing forward but Megan and the others made a compelling argument we're not interested in changing that name so we're voting it down and that is the end of it so I don't feel as worried about being able to say by what adjective does that magisterial board member need to have because in the end it's the board who's going to decide if

297it even lives to be considered to be considered it could never come out of form and that would be the end of it that's the checks and balances that I believe happens through the Forum so I don't particularly like the word preponderance because I was reading it looking up as well it's it is a legal terminology and in terms of people understanding preponderance is weight or significance so if we've gone with majority I still wouldn't support that either because you can have really close majorities between the two so I understand where you're going with this I'm comfortable we've got checks and balances here I don't feel like one of the things we learned in the prior name change experience was the more adjectives we put in there then the public ended up parsing it out

298and in fact we found ourselves having to explain in a courtroom what was it going to mean and and how was it defined by the board Miss Evans uh thank you I I am going to oppose this amendment um we don't limit what board members can bring to a forum where when have we ever limited what board members can bring to a forum we haven't this is already a higher bar than we have on anything else that we have to have to board members to bring a forum topic today I could bring a forum topic on a school outside my district and I'm within my rights to do it now typically we don't both because uh we uh consider it a matter of courtesy and we consider it that the magisterial board member is in

299touch with their community so we don't do it but there's nothing keeping any board member currently from bringing a forum topic on something in someone else's district there just isn't I mean and I'll give an example I was one of the foremost opponents of closing Clifton what business was it in my mine I didn't live there I didn't have one student there uh and not this was before Mel's time um but the magisterial board member at the time wanted to close it um but community members came to me and I was well within my rights of expressing a view that was counter to the then magisterial board member um we we don't limit that I mean this is already a higher bar than we have on anything else else so I don't see how we

300can limit it again but going back to what others have said it does require a majority of the board to trigger to trigger just consideration of this and then we have a fairly elaborate system of um uh two comment periods before we can change the name I am going to push back too on uh we did not manipulate the process for Jeb Stewart we didn't manipulate that process we used that process it wasn't as clear as it might have been uh it was a fairly messy process but it was the process that we had we did not manipulate that um going back to what others have said too um there's a lot of misinformation out there about what um what we're doing and uh where we're heading with this but I'll I'll save those comments

301for for the next round uh but this makes this simply makes no sense to um add yet another requirement um not only to board members but it has to be you know a very specific one you know all of us are elected to use our judgment on these things so I oppose this amendment thank you Miss Evans Miss Schultz so this is the why um good healthy debate at the board table is productive because actually I'm going to thank Miss Evans and Miss McLaughlin you specifically helped move the conversation forward I am G to um step back and say that well um and she's leaving the table for right now miss Keys gamara um appeared to be offended by my um attribution that this is a moral argument um those those were the terms that

302were discussed during the Jeb Stewart um name change that it that we had a moral obligation as a board and it was said many many many many times that this was a moral obligation it was said by members of the community it was said by Advocates it was said by board members so my use of the word moral obligation in the discussion that um was uh intwined throughout the conversation by both members of the public this evening and members of the table we're we this is how we've lost our way because we're we're talking about a policy right now but right behind the policy is one school and the one school is being associated because it's a Confederate named School except there's other schools so we're we're into and and I still think it should

303be preponderance um I would say for example um I have 38 to 39% of Fairfax High School I don't have the majority of Fairfax High School but I have a preponderance I get that it's a different Juris ition but that would be a perfect example that there's a significant number there and I do think it should be somebody that has a significant um representation clearly it's not going to pass so we can go ahead and vote on this um but I I specifically entreat my colleagues that it is discussion at the table this is actually why Robert's Rules is is used um it's a very ancient form of um U of governance that allow ows um very disperate parties on very difficult issues to come to a decision through the use of Robert's Rules if

304it's used appropriately and to arrive at a decision not not to have a a baked um in solution but to use logic use rhetoric use debate in order to come to a better um decision and and I thank my colleagues Miss Evans and Miss McLaughlin for um being so articulate in their explanation I understand you're not going to support this with that I will call for the vote on the amendment to the main motion the amended main motion uh that Miss Schultz has put forth which would be to insert the words a preponderance after the term at least one magisterial board member member representing insert a preponderance of students and then pick up the existing language which is of students attending the facility and one at large School Board member all those in favor of

305Miss Schultz's Amendment we have Miss Schultz and we have Mr Wilson all those against we have Miss Strauss we have Miss Hines we have Miss uh palic Mr mine Miss Daren kofax Miss Keys gamar Miss uh mlin and Miss Evans those abstaining since I don't quite understand enough as to what you're trying to do here versus other language that could have been in there so that motion fails so if we could remove that and we will go back to a discussion of the amended uh main motion and I have Miss mofin thank you um I I do want to speak to some concerns that have been raised at the board table as well as um in the public uh regarding what will these changes mean and uh you know what what's what we really talking

306about here and I appreciate that many of my colleagues have been trying to say that uh we went through a very very difficult name change process with um steuart to Justice high school and the board was really Mindful and that's why we supported Mr Wilson's request to say let's go back and look at what we had in policy and in regulation and see if we could do better on a going forward basis with the recognition that the justification for changing the Jeb Stewart name that we certainly had Robert E Lee as another school for consideration we talked about that in work sessions I am on camera saying you're going to change Jeb Stewart how are you leaving Robert E Lee in place so then we have Miss darnette kofax who brought forward her Forum topic

307which as I'm looking at the news article pulled in front of me that it was on February 7th of 2019 um that she brought forward and said here's here's what we want to direct the superintendent out of that forum and one of the things is it said is we direct the superintendent to provide the board via a work session information on the schools named after Confederate soldiers named after individuals with confederate ties it says specifically from our own board docs in IT staff research has determined that there are three schools named after Confederate soldiers and four named after individuals with confederate ties of the three named after actual soldiers one is sidley Sydney lanir middle school and at that work session we determined that's a the city of Fairfax School is not under our jurisdiction

308or authority to make any decision about Sydney lanir so that took that one off that brings it down to two schools that are considered named after um Confederate soldiers well Mosby Woods is the name of uh Housing Development so what what the board whether it's this board of 12 whether it's the next Board of 12 they can make that decision um but this notion that there are 31 schools with confederate ties and that the school board is going to commit $30 million toward that effort I mean this is what I I actually heard last night from from someone in the community and yes we are in a a political environment right now but nothing could be further from the truth this board speaks as a body there are 12 of us as the audience and

309God bless our superintendent and the staff that are still here 12 individuals 12 different perspectives what M Hines might believe on the issue of our school names may not be where I'm at but M Hines was elected to represent her District I was elected to represent mine collectively as a body seven or more of us have to decide anything and we've now just said in this policy that it will include a very robust engagement with the community with multiple opportunities for them to speak with us so just because out of a forum topic the board says we'll now consider this examination now it's going to go through a full month of the community getting to talk with us and say well I'm glad you wanted to consider the idea and we're telling you there's not

310the support for it or the community come forward and say it's about time I don't know what took you guys so long that in the end though this the 12 of us will have to be making our own individual decision on any school renaming and I've certainly am proud of the record I've built on my eight years of service on this board that I am always fiscally conscious of every dollar that this school system spends but that I'm also going to be very mindful when we talk about um having a school like Robert El Lee that has been identified nothing's being hidden from the public we've talked about it now for more than several years uh we're just mindful that if and when some board members want to bring that forward and say they have

311a specific school they want to rename do we have a better process in place for it and I will just say it one more time because it Bears repeating we can't control what the public says but I darn sure hope that my colleagues will join joined me in saying staff research showed there are three high schools named after soldiers and only two of them are in under our Authority that's it the other four you know again I've not even heard anyone in the community mention haco Le Corner Sangster or shwood my other 11 colleagues are more than welcome to bring that up to a forum topic but those are the six that have any Authority and have been identified by our staff and are recognized as as being something for any board member to want

312to bring forward thank you m mlin I don't see any oh Mr Wilson thank you madam chair um so four years ago um this board modified the same policy about the same time uh in the year it was actually a little later I think in December uh to allow allow for uh name change of an existing school if there was a compelling need and um I relistened to that conversation which included um you know uh comments by members of this board about the importance of getting um support of the community uh that there was a robust Community process that was had was being developed by the superintendent um and the vote happened uh and the changes were made and I I think that one of the consistent themes that I that I hear in my

313community is that the perception of the community is that we we're not Direct in what we're what's happening so when that amendment was made to the policy um there was already a plan to rename Jeb Stewart high school but the change to the policy didn't include anything about Jeb Stewart high school at that time the conversation included you know compelling need and uh you know whether or not there was going to be Community engagement if we ever did want to rename a school but yet the board members knew that there was going to be a renaming in the offing and I think that in this case um you know well I guess fast forward so when the Stewart renaming process started the Jeb Stewart Community uh that was concerned um led by the Jeb Stewart

314Alumni Association um read the regulation that said the that there would be meetings and surveys and other tools to determine the extent to which there's community support for changing the school facility name and if there's sufficient support to change the school facility name the proposed name for consideration will be solicited so they so there was a there was a process that was conducted by the then superintendent um and there was quite a bit of opposition actually to the name change at Jeb Stewart and I think the community then felt that well wait a minute if you're going to continue going forward despite the significant opposition really what you were meant to say to us was that all of that really wasn't that meaningful about soliciting and determining Community Support which is why I raised the

315question question earlier about the amendment of Miss mlin that it didn't include that concept and I think while that does that does solve the problem that happened during the Jeb STP process it in it it in fact highlights the the the the the problem I'm I'm explaining now which is that the community feels like we say one thing when we really actually are planning to do something different and and that that frankly happens over and over and and and I hear it from the community um on a number of different issues and and that's I think what we're doing tonight I think that the changes tonight to change compelling which may not be the most artfully crafted language to just being appropriate uh is because there are schools that uh will be renamed and um

316those schools whether or not there's six or or 31 as super former superintendent Steve Lockard handed me a list at at a work session of these are the schools that you that are connected um uh to the Civil War and slave owners and and plantation owners whatever the number is there is a number of schools and and we've clearly identified Lee High School as one of those schools in in our conversations but I think there's more and I think this is the problem that the community has is that you know we don't need to change this policy from compelling to appropriate so because we can determine something is compelling or we can determine that's appropriate what what we really should do is have a conversation that is more Frank and that these are the schools

317we want to rename this is the cost of expenditure and when we have our budget discussions let's line it up with all the other budget priorities that we have and make decisions um I think that that that that approach um frankly would be refreshing to the community i' like to call the question second uh called a question by Miss Strauss seconded by Miss Keys gamara all those in favor that's Miss uh Evans Miss keys gamar Miss Daren copex Mr mine Miss uh palic Miss Hines Miss Strauss and so that's that's eight that motion carries back to the main motion Let's uh vote on it it's I move that the school board approved the revisions to policy 8170 naming school facilities and dedicating areas of school facilities or grounds as detailed in the agenda item and

318as amended all those in [Music] favor so it's Miss Evans Miss mofin Miss Keys gamara Miss Nar kofax Mr mine Miss palchik Miss Hines Miss uh Schultz Miss Strauss Miss Corbett Sanders that motion uh those opposed Mr Wilson that motion carries okay we're going to go to the rest of the agenda the elementary professional development school internship program has been removed from tonight's agenda and will be rescheduled for a later date consent agenda are adopted rules of parliamentary procedure Roberts rules provides for a consent agenda listing several items for approval of the board by a single motion many items listed have gone through Board review and documentation has been provided to all board members and the public in advance items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member prior

319to the meeting 6.01 award the contract for the rooftop unit replacement at Bush Hill Elementary to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder service Mechanical Inc in the amount of $35,000 and authorize the division superintendent or the assistant superintendent of facilities and transportation services to execute and administer the contract on behalf of the board 6.02 award a contract for the Edison High School stem lab Phase 1 renovation project to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder Pinnacle Construction Inc in the amount of $472,500 three award the contract for the rooftop unit Replacements at Fairhill Elementary School to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder service Mechanical Inc in the amount of $266,000 and authorize the division superintendent or the assistant superintendent of facilities and transportation services to execute and administer the contract on behalf of the school board

3206.04 award a contract for the Franklin Sherman Elementary School roof replacement project to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder Co bear Roofing ink in the amount of 59400 855 and authorize the division superintendent or the assistant superintendent of facilities and transportation services to execute deliver and administer the contract on behalf of the school board item 6.05 award a contract for the PO Middle School roof replacement project to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder rdbean Inc in the amount of $987,500 Min Minister the contract on behalf of the school board item 6.06 award the contract for the automatic temperature control system replacement at Ros Hill Elementry School to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder bowl and train Services Inc in the amount of $488,500 7 adopt the policy to address possession Administration and distribution of Canada

321cannabidoil oil and thca oil as detailed in the agenda item 6.08 appoint individuals to serve on committees as detailed in the agenda item is there any objection to approving the consent agenda hearing and seeing no objection the consent agenda is approved seven new business the following are new business agenda items there will not be a vote tonight on these items but action is scheduled at a future meeting 7.01 adopt the 2020 Fairfax County School Board State and federal legislative program 7.02 approve the Strategic plan goal for resource stewardship fiscal year 19 report as detailed in the agenda item 7.03 approve the revisions of policy 5015 procurement of professional and consultant Services 7.04 approve the high school science basal instructional resource Review Committee appointments as detailed in the agenda item 7.05 approve the Middle School language

322arts basil instructional resource Review Committee members as Det detailed in the agenda item 7.06 award the contract for the chiller replacement at anandale high school to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder and authorize the division superintendent or the assistant superintendent of facilities and transportation services to execute and administer the contract on behalf of the school board 7.07 awarded contract for the Columbia Elementary School roof replacement project to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder and authorize the division superintendent or the assistant superintendent of facilities and transportation services to execute deliver and administer the contract on behalf of the school board 7.08 authorize the division superintendent Chief Operating Officer or the assistant superintendent facil for facilities and transportation services any one of whom may act without the others in consultation with the legal counsel for the school

323system to negotiate ex execute and administer on behalf of the school board a lease agreement for the instructional program support center for warehouse space located at 6732 Industrial Drive Springfield Virginia 22 151 including all related documentation within the parameters discussed by the school board inclosed meeting 7.09 award a contract for the Robinson Secondary School replacement project to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder and authorize the division superintendent or the assistant superintendent of facilities and transportation services to execute deliver and administer the contract on behalf of the school board 7.10 award the contract for the running track replacement at Westfield High School to field Turf USA Inc in the account of $788,000 and authorize the division superintendent or the assistant superintendent of facilities and transportation services to execute and administer the contract on behalf of the

324school board 7.11 award contract for the title 9 softball uh field modification project at Ocean Hall Park Andale High School to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder and authorized the division superintendent or the assistant superintendent of facilities and transportation services to execute deliver and administer the contract contracts on behalf of the school board 7.12 award a contract for the title 9 softball field modification project at Justice Park formerly Jeb Stewart Park Justice High School to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder and authorized the division superintendent or the assistant superintendent of facilities and transportation services to execute deliver and administer the contracts on behalf of the school board eight superintendent matters I now call on Dr braan thank you chairman Corbett Sanders today actually this month is October okay this is October and October is National

325principal month I want to take a moment to honor our outstanding principles in Fairfax County I got to spend the day with them or I got to spend yesterday with them engaged in deeper learning around the theory of action and we had a great meeting uh earlier today um and I really appreciate our principles how dedicated they are for their outstanding service the other thing I want you to know um uh today is um budsman day it's National EMB budsman day and we're fortunate to have the EMB budsman office to serve family students and now we're actually supporting our employee staff effective October 1st thank you to Armando Perry and Don Clement for their outstanding work thank you thank you Dr Bray brand board committee reports is next on the agenda I call Miss Evans

326for an update on the governance committee uh thank you we had a very busy uh governance committee meeting uh we discussed uh the uh Forum topic that Miss uh Corbett Sanders and I had brought about contracts and uh committee members weighed in with their thoughts on uh how we should provide more oversight Dr Bray brand is going to um create some recommendations based on those comments and the decision was made at governance that um we should take that recommendation to a work session we should um ask Miss Corbett Sanders and Miss daret kofx to schedule a work session and in the meantime uh that Miss Corbett Sanders and I would meet with the superintendent to discuss his recommendations um so that hopefully will be coming to a work session fairly soon uh we also did

327get um data on chronic absenteeism in connection with Mr mine's uh Forum topic on uh Civ engagement uh we did ask staff to go back and uh bring us some ideas on how to um provide for more Civic engagement among our students which is certainly a worthwhile goal without uh potentially impacting schools um overall chronic absenteeism rate which is uh something we have to watch carefully um because of uh the new accreditation standards um so that will be brought back to us uh hopefully at our November meeting uh we did talk about uh and this is relevant to the policy that in the reg that we just discussed now uh we talked about creating a more orderly and systematic way of reviewing policies and regulations um the as you know we get the no change

328memos and there's a often a long list of of policies on there uh governance wanted to create a system by which uh we can anticipate and uh have have an orderly way for us to do our five-year review the the state requires us to review every policy at least every five years and um our um Amendment today Miss mclin's Amendment today was also in keeping with the governance committee's um new uh approach to trying to get more uh detail into our policies and not leave it entirely up to to regulation uh we did uh because we were looking at several policies on the no change memo uh that where we did want to get uh more detail into the policy uh we did ask the superintendent to review several and uh bring them bring them

329back to us at the next meeting and I will um I will remind my colleagues that they have been sent the revised strategic governance manual and we're going to have a work session on that in about a month and I hope board members will remember to send me any uh suggested changes in that so we can compile them before we have our work session thank you thank you Miss Evans and now we go to board matters and I'm going to call on you again well thank you um because the the hour is late I'll just say that I I want to thank all the uh principles I've been uh doing the rounds in May and district and meeting with with principles i' I'm I'm I've almost completed the rounds but not quite and I just

330want to say uh how helpful it has been to me to uh to have these these meetings and how generous the principles have been with their time and uh the only other thing I want to mention is I'm looking forward to meeting with uh PTA and PTO presidents uh this Sunday um for uh a conversation about Mason District Schools uh at my home Mr Wilson pass Miss mlin uh just briefly I did want to make note that I will be having uh my bradic district office hours uh next Wednesday the 16th at 9:30 a.m. in the bradic district supervisor's office and uh that I also want to express my appreciation to the north Springfield Elementary PTO who invited the entire anandale High School pyramid uh Community to come to a uh PTA meeting last night

331Miss Evans and I along with uh Regional superintendent FAO zuluaga had a a really great uh Community conversation with everyone about uh the anandale pyramid and just wanting very much to create uh strong uh Community connections and so it was uh really lovely to be there with Miss Evans especially since uh my time with Miss Evans is is growing shorter by the day Miss keysar she knows how many days it is um I'm gonna pass good night M Dar copex I'll be quick I want to thank armanda Perry and nardis King and all the PTA and PTO presidents who attended my Round Table discussion on Tuesday I really appreciate your time and being there and I think we had a great substantive conversation also thank you to uh you know Teresa Johnson Dee Baylor and

332their whole team for the Fantastic Dr Bray brand too your team for putting on an uh the sixth annual U mental health and wellness conference that was done very well and continues to grow and improve every year um also uh thank you to Island Creek principal um Mr mccr for uh principal for inviting us to Dr Bray bran I tagged along with him to Island Creek um to all the great things that are happening there I really appreciate it and thanks to all who um came out to my kofax coffee last week I really appreciated the conversation have a good night Mr mine thank you and it's homecoming season which is a very exciting time for um all of us in the community and particularly our our alumni uh the past couple of weeks I've

333had the honor of participating in three uh per raids at Fairfax uh Madison and chanelli um and I've made it to a total of I think nine homecoming games which has been great uh getting to TJ Langley mlan and then this past weekend to let's see um Lee Woodson Centerville Oakton and Madison so it was that's been exciting and tomorrow night I will be playing in a charity basketball game at uh Marshall High School schol uh which the proceeds of which will go to their all night grad party um so hopefully I'm not too out of shape for that but um again happy homecoming to everyone Miss Schultz yeah I just want to um do a save the date um having Community office hours on Monday October 21st um doing both a morning and an

334evening um for the convenience of my constituents at Burke Center Library the morning is 10 to noon and the evening is 6:30 to 8:30 again Monday October 21st um I will also for my my PTA presidents I have my PTA uh presidents Roundtable I think it's going to be at the m center on Wednesday October 23rd and I just also have a save the date um for anyone out there to be a part of our terrific FCPS Foundation luncheon um that is going to be at Fairview Park Marriott Save the Day Wednesday December 4th 11:30 to 1:30 put it on your books go online get your tickets um and help support teacher grants into the classroom I'll pass okay well I just want to uh have a couple of comments tonight I want to thank

335the uh Hayfield uh High School Hayfield Secondary School counseling department who asked to review their ramp applic and it's going off today uh was very exciting all the great work that they're doing with um all grade levels uh at that school so want to thank them for having me additionally I would like to um welcome our newest Grand involved chapter from Gum Springs Senior Center who will be providing support at Holland Meadow Meadows Elementary School and um this a little off topic but I want to thank an NOA Health System many of you um have been so supportive of me um as my brother had some major um health issues with a couple of Strokes three weeks ago and I am thrilled to be able to announce that with the uh wonderful doctors and staff

336at Anova Fairfax my brother is moving on to physical therapy and um it is just the best news I've had in a month so um Anova thank you I know we have a great partnership with you in our schools but it's also a great partnership with our community and last but not least I will be celebrating uh with uh my colleague delegate Paul creac our 40th reunion from Groveton High School this weekend and in addition to the celebration of the 4 th reunion West pomac will be initiating they started tonight their very first um athletic Hall of Fame and so it's a a wonderful celebration weekend and I look forward to seeing uh many of my uh high school friends and my uh Community colleagues over the next few days and with that this meeting

337is adjourned nope just send it out