FCPS School Board Meeting - October 11, 2018

001[Music] this October 11th 2018 regular meeting of the Fairfax County School Board will now come to order please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance a moment of silence and the performance of the national anthem by Carl Sandburg middle school Cora let's under the direction of Sarah Martin [Music] [Applause] Twilight's last gleaming whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight or the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming the bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night that our flag was still there oh say does that star-spangled [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you so much to the Carl Sandburg er Sandburg Cora let's is principal Barker in the auditorium no well please extend our thanks to him in order to comply with section 2.2 37 12 D of the Code of Virginia it is

002necessary for the board to certify that since the fairfax county school board convened a closed meeting on October 11th 2018 to the best of each members 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 or considered by the board during the closed meeting do I have a motion a motion by miss Strauss seconded by mr. moon all those in favor and that motion is unanimous with mrs. Schultz away from the table a few other announcements before we begin tonight's meeting if you would like to review 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

003by going to school board on the FCPS homepage and selecting board Docs under upcoming school board meetings the meeting is also being streamed live online select school board from the full menu then click on the watch live button on the school board meetings web page please turn off or silence your cellphone's now I call on mr. signor for announcements thank you madam chair and good evening it's National School Lunch week from October 15 to 19 2018 National School Lunch week is officially scheduled for October 15 to the 19th by an act of Congress using the theme school lunch lots to love the National School Lunch week promotes excitement about the benefits of students consuming wholesome healthy school lunches of fresh fruits and veggies whole grains and milk the 2018 event was designed to help students

004and school nutrition professionals connect and share with parents school officials the media and the public what each loves most about school lunches 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 many other excellent child nutrition programs there's 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 hopes of achieving more health a healthful citizenry for today and the future Disability Employment and awareness month is October did you know that October is National Disability Employment and awareness month this year's theme is America's workforce empowering all each year Fairfax County Public Schools participates in the

005National Disability Employment Awareness Month and de Am which promotes career development for individuals with disabilities through hands-on career exploration and job shadowing in the following fields administrative support animal care business management communications IT and Parks and Recreation and de Am strives to encourage students to explore potential career or employment opportunities to learn more about business and their own community and begin to plan to achieve more successful employment outcomes thank you madam chair item 3.0 for LGBT History Month I call on mr. McElveen for the recognition thank you madam chair LGBTQ rights are something about which so many of us on this board are passionate and that passion has been reflected in our policy making back in 2014 and 2015 this board made great strides and led the Commonwealth and adding sexual orientation and gender identity

006to our non-discrimination policy what on paper may have seemed like a small action has had a profound impact on so many of our students who know that without question we love and respect each and every one of them for who they are as I look back on all the work our board has done over the past decade or so we've done a great deal to make our school system a better and more welcoming place for all students when you look at the various initiatives our board has taken we have slowly but systemically worked to dismantle the barriers by which I'll be LGBTQ students and staff are disproportionately affected these include mental health staffing and suicide awareness efforts our work on restorative justice and bullying prevention dress code reform and most recently sexual misconduct prevention of

007course our work on these issues is not yet complete but we will continue our work towards more perfect policies and regulations there's perhaps no more fitting Dadeland today National Coming Out Day to read this recognition of LGBT History Month and on behalf of our school board and school system recognize all those students employees and members of our community who are members of the LGBTQ community and refer reaffirm our strong belief that we love and respect each of you for who you are the Fairfax County School Board along with the National PTA the Fairfax County Council of PTAs and the Fairfax County Education Association recognize October is LGBT History Month according to National PTA negative attitudes towards lesbian gay bisexual and transgender students puts them at an increased risk for violence and bullying negative attitudes also

008impact a student's ability to learn at school LGBT History Month is recognized in October nationwide and an FCPS to acknowledge and celebrate that LGBT students staff and families are an integral component of our nation and a Fairfax County Public Schools 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 for gay and lesbian rights on October 14 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 schools in the county welcoming not only LGBT students but friends and those interested in creating safe schools LGBT History Month in October is an opportunity for Fairfax County Public Schools staff and students

009to celebrate and to 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 History Month to join me and my colleagues at the dais for a photo with the board [Applause] so mr. Schultz had to leave this evening for a family emergency and so I'm going to call on Miss mcLaughlin for national school bus safety a week recognition the week of October 22nd to 26th has been designated as the national school bus safety week based on the theme quote my driver my safety hero unquote the 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

010be aware of laws requiring them to stop and wait behind a school bus when it is loading and unloading student writers the major responsibility for school bus safety in Fairfax County rests firmly in the hands of our school bus drivers and attendants who daily transport more than 140 2,000 students in over 1600 school buses on more than 6,500 separate routes traveling over 17 million operational miles each year motorists are encouraged to practice patience and drive gently around our school buses and in our neighborhoods and school communities at this time please join me in welcoming our amazing staff from facilities and transportation department to the desk to take a photo with the board and again our tremendous appreciation to mr. platenburg and his incredible team that support our students each and every day I now call

011on Miss Darren at Koufax for a recognition of the unified champion schools that's what I like applause before during and after on behalf of the Fairfax County School Board it is my honor to recognize Lee high school Robinson's secondary school frost middle school and Bush Ville elementary school 4d named yes go ahead unified champion schools by the Special Olympics international 131 schools were selected nationwide in 2018 and out of the six schools chosen in Virginia Busch Hill was the sole elementary school yes together under the ideals of our strategic plan these schools illustrate the caring culture focus of a welcoming and supportive culture unified champion schools are recognized for creating an environment that promotes acceptance and inclusion of individuals with intellectual disabilities by combining sports education and leadership to encourage collaboration between all students and

012staff through the 10 standards of excellence these schools implement unified sports where students with and without disabilities compete as teammates inclusive youth leadership that provides opportunities for all and whole school engagement that impacts the entire school climate and influences how students act both at school and outside of the school doors with these efforts FCPS can reduce bullying fight stereotypes and build relationships all leading to a unified generation that chooses to include congratulations against again to Lee Robinson frost and Bush Hill and please join me in welcoming deidre Lavery principal and Peter Kelly assistant principal of Lee High School Matt Uihlein principal of Robinson secondary school Mary Duffy principal and Suzanne bond assistant principal of Bush Hill Elementary and Anthony Harris principal of frost middle middle school to the dais for a photo with our board

013congratulations before we move on to item 3.0 seven on our agenda I would like to go back to mr. tigner because he is going to recognize some special guests in the audience thank you madam chair I would just like to recognize the Boy Scouts of pack 688 they're out here from Fairfax station and are here to work towards the citizenship in the community merit badge please stand to be recognized thank you madam chair so now I call on mrs. Hines for the resolution on climate change action thank you madam chair this is the resolution of the Fairfax County school board calling for state and federal action on climate change whereas an overwhelming majority of credentialed scientists in the US and abroad support the finding that climate change is happening and that human activity is a

014key contributor and whereas if left unaddressed the consequences of climate change will harm all Americans most especially children and those living in poverty and saddle future generations with the costly burden of a dangerously damaged planet and whereas climate instability is a global challenge requiring bold innovative and sustained actions at all levels of government local state and federal and whereas the size of Fairfax County Public Schools physical footprint provides an unparalleled opportunity to advance the use of renewable energy sources and reduce greenhouse gas output in Northern Virginia and whereas pursuant to school board environmental stewardship polish'd policy 85 42 FCPS leads the nation and energy efficiency the development of green building design standards and award-winning classroom opportunities for student advocacy and learning through the get to green program and whereas the Fairfax County School Boards commitment

015to the safety well-being and future success of all children in our community also demands a high priority on reducing carbon consumption and our decisions regarding capital improvement energy use transportation and other policy priorities within the board's control and whereas the Fairfax County School Board depends on committed partners in local state and federal government to realize our climate action goals and recognizes the efforts and progress made to date especially fairfax county governments recently announced request for proposals for solar installations on public buildings to include schools now therefore be it resolved at the Fairfax County School Board one calls on the members of the Virginia General Assembly and the United States Congress to act boldly on climate change and provide a regulatory framework that removes barriers to progress on climate action and encourages encourages the rapid replacement

016of fossil fuels with renewable energy technology and two directs the superintendent to report timely to the board changes in state and federal policy that support the goal of reducing carbon consumption along with staff proposals to make best use of those opportunities and facilities and transportation planning I so move is there a second mrs. Hines would you like to speak to your motion thank you very much I would and thank you madam chair for helping me to put this on the agenda tonight resolutions can seem like just words and not as meaningful as action and it's true it's not as meaningful as action action is also on the board and superintendents agenda we will receive a report in November or December I believe from staff that will allow us to begin to make to put carbon

017reduction projects in the next Capital Improvement Program and to make other real progress here in the school system so we are also people of action on this issue and and we will see that very soon but our voices also matter we should lend our influence on behalf of the children we serve the recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on i'ma change the ipcc and some of you may be aware of it is absolutely alarming overwhelmingly scientists across the globe tell us that we have a very narrow window to save a livable climate for ourselves my generation and certainly the next generations that we serve we have to do more and we have to do it faster that is the message we cannot take our eyes off this issue so this resolution I hope will send

018our message will reflect our voice to the community and to those who also serve this community it is based on research of many similar calls to action by local entities across the country and I want to thank the citizens climate Lobby for their work collecting that research and for their advocacy nationwide to to make bold change and innovation happen I want to also thank the students teachers and parents and community members who have contacted us in support of this and other work on the climate of the school system and the board and this resolution is not just words we do have some follow-ups and those include the timely reports that we will receive from the superintendent with plans for further work so we will respond when our state and federal representatives make these important changes

019we will respond and make the best use of them that we can we also I will follow up in our legislative program discussion we do that in November timeframe November or December and we will make sure that in our legislative program through which we advocate at the state and federal level that we are much more specific and much bolder in our language and our demands of our representatives at those levels we know that neither Virginia nor the United States government is leading on this issue and we need leaders we need leaders so that we can do what we want to do here at the local level and our children need leaders everywhere and also I believe that the chair of our board has spoken with the chair of the Board of Supervisors the county and

020we are in the process of putting together some joint coordinated work and some of that will be a public summit of some sort and my hope is that part of that conversation will lead to climate reduction goals of certain percentages of carbon output by certain dates so I hope that we have much more work to come after this but I think it's very important I really appreciate the opportunity and I hope that my fellow board members will support this opportunity as we head into the legislative season in the General Assembly and we're starting to talk to our representatives that we we have a very bold and clear statement about what we need and what we expect on behalf of our children thank you ms hynes ms pal chuck would you like to speak to your

021second I would love to thank you first of all I want to echo miss Hines and thank her for her leadership in this and her collaboration and working with every one of us on the board sometimes as part-time members it feels rushed but definitely it felt that we all had a chance to have input and to make amendments to the resolution so I'm very happy with what we have here today as well as what is to come I also want to thank members of my constituencies including citizens climate Lobby Sierra Club professionals working in the field of sustainability as well as today meeting with a physician who's very concerned about some of the effects he's seeing in our community the thing about science is you can ignore it but it still exists Fairfax County's public

022schools have nearly 200,000 students enrolled and direct and maintain nearly 200 schools and centers and their associated real estate we operate over 1,600 buses and vehicles employ nearly 25,000 employees the School Board asked for this resolution on behalf of all of our students thank you those of you who are here today and employees and in the name of those in the future who will depend on the school system to set an example and establish responsibility for the thoughtful and careful use of all of our resources without action our student body will be adversely affected by damage to our infrastructure and physical assets higher operating costs an adverse impact to student health and more the Intergovernmental Panel of climate change has determined that stabilizing the climate will require immediate and significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions

023and that the continued release of the gases into the atmosphere from human activities threaten stability of our Earth's climate the physical consequences of climate change are already evident in Virginia including rising sea levels increased storm intensity and flooding we have seen recently and periods of drought and species migration our students and the future of our county depend on us to take leadership and bolder actions Virginia and Fairfax County can lead by example the size of FCPS physical footprint provides an unparalleled opportunity to advance the use of renewable energy sources and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Virginia we can make some of those changes ourselves and have with the help of our staff begun with our programs some award-winning programs through our schools our education and our facilities however more needs to be done to move

024the mean the needle which will also require a regulatory framework that removes legal and policy barriers to take the necessary climate action and incentivizes the rapid replacement of fossil fuels with clean energy and clean transportation technologies with this resolution we must step up our advocacy at the state and the federal levels and as miss Hines mention move forward in our collaborative work with our partners on the county and we and I look forward to having these conversations and bringing the community together so with that being said I am very happy to second this resolution and I hope that the members of our board will vote in favor thank you thank you ms palchik mr. tigner I see that you would like to contribute here thank you very much much yeah as the United States were

025the second largest carbon dioxide emitter the entire world and on a national level you and recently released a report displaying that if we want to keep the environmental net change many three degrees Fahrenheit we need to be cutting our emissions by 1 billion tons of co2 per year and that has to be done started within the next 10 years and 3 degrees Fahrenheit it may not sound like much but to put that into perspective the ice age 15,000 years ago that was 9 degrees below we are right now that was an ice age so 3 degrees even though there's a third of that that's already more extreme than we'd ever want to be so I plead the board that you guys support this resolution and really we need to push for this kind of change

026in our county and sort of set an example as well for other people to follow thank you mister tigner miss Strauss thank you very much and thank you miss Hines and miss Paul cheque for bringing this resolution forward this is these are very important issues that we dedicate ourselves to and I want to thank our students I'm very proud of our young people in fairfax county public schools we don't have to convince you what we need to do you're out there convincing the community because it is your world it is your home it is your earth and you are the ones who are carrying the ball and it makes a huge difference we are listening I'm very proud of our curriculum four years in fairfax county where we have had a full set of studies

027and activities in climate science in environmental science the trips that maybe some of you made in middle school to Chesapeake Bay we have looked out for mother earth but we've got to look out a whole lot harder than we ever have before the other interesting piece is that many years ago our own facilities people began to calculate our carbon footprint and when people would come and say why can't you just tear down that school and build a new one we had a formula I think was Kevin Steen who did it and figured out what sort of the carbon cost of just tearing everything down and starting all over again you need to reuse what you've already you need to reuse those bricks and I'm proud of the fact that we so many years ago figured

028that out and when we would go to the community and share this people were a little taken aback I don't think they've thought about that before so we've been on this train a long time but I think as you students who are now in charge so go hard I believe we already have some bills before the General Assembly that have already been filed Virginia has a ways to go because in order to actually make alternative fuels and some of these adventures more possible as a business model more needs to be done as I understand it and being able to sell back to the ground grid any electricity so we have work to do thank you very much students keep pushing us hard thank you thank you miss Strauss miss McLaughlin I want to absolutely express

029my support for this resolution and my gratitude to my two colleagues who've brought forward this remarkable resolution as my colleagues know I was born and raised in Northern California and my childhood was deeply shaped by the importance of being mindful of our environment it was very common that we already had solar panels on roofs to heat our Doughboy pools for anybody knows what a Doughboy pool was back in the day garden coke composting recycling reusable canvas grocery bags this was my childhood back in the 70s fast-forward here we are the 21st century and yes we are still trying to get people to use reusable grocery bags but the presence of those plastic bags are still very prevalent here in Fairfax and around the country very few jurisdictions around the world have finally banned them all

030together and we know they are horrible pollution to our country but we have an opportunities the tenth largest school system to lend this voice and I hope that school boards around the country become aware of the voice that we can bring to this and bring it to our state is General Assemblies bring it to our Congress and say that we cannot ignore what the most recent UN climate report has said I was actually visiting my native Santa Rosa the town where I grew up in to see my mom she lost her home in the wildfires what is happening in this country with our climate change is real and what that report says is we are very close to not being able to reverse what's happening and if it hasn't shaken people to their core especially

031those of us who are looking at the younger generation my three sons and what kind of world we're looking at we cannot continue to ignore where we're at and so I just really hope that this resolution will bring not just some inspiration but it will be an important statement about where this board is and as ms hynes captured so well we're so appreciative to mr. platenburg to our superintendent his team this is something with get two green that FCPS has cared about and it's something that we can be proud of as fairfax county residents but i hope that we will continue to push the neill further and that we really are going to be able to save this planet thank you miss mcLaughlin mr. McElveen please Thank You Madame chair so it seems like every

032few months a new study comes out with the same conclusion that we're in big trouble when it comes to the issue of climate change however the study that was released this week by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was different it was the culmination of 91 scientists examining the research findings from over 6,000 journal articles their conclusion were an even bigger trouble than originally expected the world in 2040 in 22 years when some of our students reach my age and when some of our mid-career employee's reach mr. moons age that world sorry sorry that's Batman that never changes that world that that world in 22 years sounds like an amalgamation of the chapters from Dante's Inferno inundated coastlines intensifying droughts widespread poverty food shortages wildfires and a mass die-off of coral reefs but the

033ultimate goal of the IPCC study was not to paint this weak picture but rather to say that there's still time for governments around the world to act before this becomes a reality this resolution before us tonight is more important than ever the current administration is simultaneously pulling back from the Paris agreement and ramping up coal burning where our country pulls back we must push forward at the state and local levels and that includes school boards which brings me to the question that many may pose why does this matter for school systems well first of all the Dante's Inferno that I described is well within the lifetime of our students and many of our communities adults we can no longer push off action to the next generation because in school systems we are the next generation

034second school systems and Fairfax County schools in particular have a huge building footprint when it comes to infrastructure our square footage as many have heard is greater than the size of four Pentagon's and we see how important school infrastructure is in communities that have been affected by increasingly strong natural disasters five weeks after Hurricane Florence kids are still out of school in North Carolina more than a year after Hurricane Maria students were still out of school in Puerto Rico and many with means fled their homes to other places in the United States where they could in fact access schooling third there will be fiscal impacts of climate change the two point seven degrees of warming that are projected by 2040 will cost the world 54 trillion dollars the United States could lose roughly 1.2 percent

035of GDP for every one point eight degrees of warming that will affect all of us not just businesses but also the budgets of governments and interns school systems I'm so proud of our community advocates and students who are stood up in groups like Solar on our schools and been persistent in their advocacy on behalf of their peers finally is legislative state legislative liaison I want to commit on behalf of this board that we will continue working with advocates and work to amplify your voices by including these issues as part of our state and federal legislative program which we will adopt next month and finally I do want to thank Pat and Dahlia for bringing forward this resolution and I am proud to support you in this endeavor thank you mister McElveen miss Evans thank you

036very much and I too want to thank miss Hines and miss Paul cheque for bringing this forward this is one of the most critical issues of our time in fact it sometimes seems like such a huge issue that it's hard to even tackle it but tackle it we must for the future of our children our children's children we have to heed the very dire warnings that we see now every day from our scientists but also from Mother Nature it is very clear we cannot ignore this any longer FCPS we have our part to play in this too and we will play our part in it at the same time we need to call on our partners at the state level at the federal level at the international level to work with us we need to

037work together for the future generations and I will agree with mrs. Straus that the young people and also with others who have said this that young people have seen this they're willing to tackle this so we need to do our part thank you so I'd like to take the chairs privilege to provide a couple of comments on my own thank you to both ms hynes and Miss Powell cheque for bringing this resolution to the board I know that many will say that this resolution is beyond the scope of this boards work however I think it is important for us to address these issues that have an impact on the health and well-being of our students climate change does have an impact on our students Virginia's climate has warmed about one degree Fahrenheit over the past

038century and levels have risen one to two inches every decade over the same period of time we have an increase in coastal flooding along the waterfront in my own Magisterial District carbon dioxide levels have increased by 40 percent since the House of Burgesses was formed in the state of Virginia increases in water temperatures are impacting our ecosystems and increased air temperatures have an impact on student health conditions such as allergies asthma heart and lung diseases according to the state climatologist we also are seeing an increase in mosquito and tick borne infections with the higher temperatures all of us need to work together at the federal state and local level to address this important issue and reduce our carbon footprint when I first spoke with ms hynes about this resolution I suggested that we might want

039to work together with the Board of Supervisors on this important issue after all the school board maintains more building space than the whole county and I was glad to see that subsequently Chairman Bulova made a similar suggestion of having the two boards work together develop to develop a coordinated approach to our local activities so I will plan on reaching out to her in the coming days to make sure we get this on our joint board calendars and with that I'd like to take the vote all those in favor of this resolution please say aye and that vote is unanimous with mrs. Schulz away [Applause] so now section 4.0 one of our agenda is citizen participation tonight seven citizens have signed up to address the board and we also have one video testimony speakers are requested

040to limit their remarks to no more than three 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 refrain 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 young children in the 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 who have come to speak to us tonight miss Amanda Campbell will be our first speaker

041followed by Diane Cooper Gould and Agnes Maillard during his keynote speech at the Leadership Conference dr. braver imposed a series of questions for leaders to think about one of the questions was are we spending our resources where they need to be spent so that we can meet the needs of every child as enough CPS parents since 2015 my answer to that would be no from the moment Sara entered FCPS as a nonverbal three-year-old we ran into a lot of gatekeeping with regard to resources when her initial speech-language consult came back it recommended one hour of speech a month she was not introduced to a high tech 80s device until over a year later she didn't have the screen you saw me use just now with hundreds of words on it until January of 2018 that's

042over five years of her life without the access to a robust vocabulary much less seeing it be modeled appropriately as you saw with my use of the device using AAC is akin to learning a foreign language the words may be the same but learning how to find them and put them together is an entirely different challenge to put this in perspective quote by 18 months babies have heard four thousand three hundred and eighty hours of spoken language and we don't expect them to be fluent speakers yet if AAC users only see symbols modeled for communication twice weekly for twenty to thirty minutes which is the amount of service my daughter currently receives it will take eighty four years for them to have the same exposure to aided language as an 18 month old has two

043spoken language FCPS needs to seriously reconsider its staffing models for slps and assistive technology in order to meet the needs of students with significant speech delays and disorders as FCPS looks at the cost per pupil per year I would ask that you not just look at the cost per year but the cost over the course of a child's pre-k to 12 experience neuroplasticity most constant and rapid during the first five years of a child's life what would happen if we opened up our resources as much as possible in the preschool in early elementary years what if Sarah had access to a high tech ets device and an ia to focus on modeling for her with speech services 20 to 30 minutes a day for at least three for the last three years how would her

044need for services now be different would it be less most likely what F F CPS took advantage of those critical years for neuroplasticity rather than acted as gatekeepers would they spend less the same or more in the long run I would love to see CPS collect and share data on this dr. Brian ended his keynote speech talking about joy love and trust resource stewardship requires honesty and transparency in the past I've had an F CPS administrator tell me a certain service was not possible a service which I had as a substitute been paid by F CPS to provide so I knew it was possible trust is trust is damaged when those who are supposed to be your equal partner in your child's education are not truthful with you about what services are available I was

045lucky to have the background that I did so that I knew it was available but many parents are not so lucky as CPS needs to make it much more clear what services are available in the county so that parents can be truly equal partners in our children's education thank you [Applause] good evening tonight I want to talk about the return on investment aspect of resource stewardship as defined in the strategic plan well I've had more than one FCPS staff member ask me personally why additional investment should be made into special education programs as the outcomes are not good regardless of investment I have yet to have a single staff member be able to tell me how special education program efficacy is being tracked and evaluated in a data-driven matter in Manor and Fairfax County how

046is the school board being responsible stewards of SCPs resources when it does not insist on meaningful evaluation of programs that they have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars developing and piloting throughout the county for example programs like unstuck and on target that address executive functioning and just words for dyslexia make no mistake these are excellent programs these are programs that are proven to improve outcomes for students when administered with fidelity but that's not what's happening programs must be implemented with fidelity otherwise they're not scientifically proven to have successful outcomes yet despite having amazing resources available through the Department of Special Services the administrative structure of Fairfax County Public Schools prevents DSS from having the power to insist that any staff member including special education staff be trained in the implementation of specific remediation programs there

047is literally no requirement that a single teacher in any school be trained to administer specific programs with fidelity training and school-based availability or optional practically this means that while we know that 15 to 20 percent of our population is affected by dyslexia there's no guarantee that any teacher on staff in a given school will have the training to administer our approved dyslexia programs to students in need in order for a principal to know if anyone on his staff is trained to administer dyslexia program he must contact central office request a report on his staff and await results this is time-consuming and laborious and tracking these qualifications is not mandated how can any one measure efficacy if programs are not being implemented with fidelity metrics of success are not being explicitly defined and data is not

048being collected on the implementation and outcomes of said programs as tracked on a countywide scale the notion that outcomes are bad for differently abled students without having meaningful implementation and tracking of evidence-based programs administered with fidelity is nothing short of discriminatory it's a cultural holdover of values that values typical development over neural and physical diversity I challenge you to presume competence tear down administrative structural barriers to giving evidence-based programs to our students and redefine what success looks like in a more inclusive way you must track the short and long term outcomes oh thank you sorry it didn't beep through clearly defined metrics and data thank you [Applause] good evening madam chair school board members dr. Bray brand I appreciate the chance to speak to you tonight as you recognize LGBT history Hispanic heritage Disability Employment

049Awareness National School Lunch week and national school bus safety week thank you for your dedication to our children and your commitment to students and staff in Fairfax County I want to speak to the FCPS strategic goal number for tonight resource stewardship in terms of what I deeply believe to be your most precious resource the people who work and support our children I wasn't able to attend the pathways to Leadership Conference this Monday but I've learned that I missed a key distinction drawn by dr. Bray brand and I apologize if this third hand understanding is not accurate but what I hear is that we now prefer to view the class of non instructional staff as operational rather than the educational support partners that we have long considered ourselves to be as an Fe a member I

050proudly wear red for ED on Wednesdays a favorite shirt proclaims that we can't spell respect without ESP the educational support professionals your children are cared for and yes by whom their instruction is supported we are the school based and central office staff safety and security facilities management transportation skilled trades Human Resources financial services food services and classroom instructional support staff the IAS pH TAS and PHAs who together make FCPS instruction for our children as possible in 2003 my principal loved to tell us that his IAS gave him the most bang for the buck well that's a pretty hollow boast when you understand that ni a 15 years ago did not approach and one who is hired today is far below a living wage for Fairfax County few IAS can afford to live without additional jobs

051or the support of a spouse and it is a travesty I think that an entry-level ia does not make enough to live in Fairfax County an entry-level step as is listed now as twenty two thousand three hundred and eighty dollars that's 36 percent below the fairfax county cost of living and i ask you to consider making it possible for those folks to live in inc here and serve your children we had tina williams followed by emma Leighton and Sophie Despres GU Lane good evening school board superintendent Bray bran leadership team and the community I'm Tina Williams of school counselor and president of Fairfax County Federation of Teachers Union Local 24:01 I thank you for this opportunity to speak on behalf of my members tonight we appreciate your director for dr. Bray bran to work with

052the teacher unions on developing a permanent solution to mitigate the lost potential earnings for teachers on the top of the ba lanes this action initiated for meetings with Marty Smith and leadership including the voices of stakeholders to resolve this issue shows regard and consideration for this group of employees we believe this is the start of this process this is an opportunity to do no harm and to do the right thing for all on the be a leans we continue to hear from members and share their concerns how the BA lanes matter is handled we'll speak loudly and clearly to your employees the community on your values Fairfax County educators this community students and families are watching I am hopeful and ready to continue this collaborative partnership with the new leadership staff there are many opportunities

053to restructure and redesign the ineffective processes policies and regulations meant to protect our members and FCF T wants to assist I look forward to addressing concerns with fairness and justice as a means to make our schools their very best and FCPS employment highly sought-after imagine the impossible 100% funding of FCPS schools and programs mastery of skills as priority healthy and safe school buildings with healthy food transparency and equity for all desirable class sizes early education and career technical education programs enough instructional and mental health support staff respectful wages and for all professional educators and our professional educators regarded as absolute professionals now is the time for brave and necessary changes in the FCPS culture FCF t looks forward to continue to work with the school board the superintendent leadership team other unions and all of

054our members to address all opportunities to improve equity for all students and employees this work takes each of us coming together to positively shift this culture in a way this county has never experienced before I stand with members of all the unions and asking for continued thoughtful decisions that uphold their dedication and professionalism Thank You Emma Layton good evening my name is Emma Leighton and I'm currently a senior at Woodson high school I'm here today representing a student-led group called solar on the schools which endeavors to incorporate solar into the current FCPS energy system today I'm here to speak to you in favor of the resolution on climate change as we have seen over the past couple years climate change is becoming an increasingly significant actor in our politics our energy and our well-being according

055to a recent press release by the IPCC reducing global warming by 1.5 degrees Celsius will require rapid far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society but their changes we have to make for the sake of our ecosystems our natural resources and our safety as our solar technology gets better and cheaper we have the power to take a huge step towards a greener cleaner future with an influential County like Fairfax leading the charge we will positively influence the rest of Virginia to follow suit so I'd like to thank you all for considering an issue that's so important to your constituents and I'd like to emphasize the significant impact the positive impact this vote will have on the future of energy as somebody inheriting the worlds that you strive to make better it means a lot

056to see things like climate change things that will directly affect me and my peers for the rest of our lives talked about in government today by being here we show that we want change but today by voting green you make that change a reality thank you for your time and thank you for your vote have a great evening also so if you had a lot of homework so she couldn't make it please give Sophia our best regards and Miss Walton hello good evening madam chair and the school board members and dr. Bray bran and leadership team I'm really excited tonight I wanted to take the opportunity since you were recognizing the unified Special Olympic schools I wanted to take an opportunity to brag about Robinson for the next three minutes because one thing that's going

057on at Robinson the Special Olympics is only one little piece and so I just wanted to I know dr. Bray brand early on you said that you really wanted to hear about programs that were working well so that we could replicate them all over the county so this is a program that is working well and it's already been created by the teachers so it's ready to roll and actually the teachers have actually been working with other schools like frost Woodson and like Lake Braddock to start the replication effort on your behalf so but basically what has happened at Robinson over the past several years is that they have created a partnership class so they have 60 students some are peer mentors who have to apply to be in this class it's an elective and then

058they are partnered with and they work with their the students that have intellectual disabilities it's a really hard class to get into and it starts in tenth grade and then what we're finding or what they're finding my colleague over here Jennifer that I've been working with has told me about it basically what they're finding is that the students in tenth grade they want to continue doing it in 11th grade and in 12th grade and then what she's also but they're also accomplishing over there is to solve the issue of this special ed teacher shortage that we're seeing because a lot of the students that are in this progress ship class are going on to become special ed educators and then that is only another piece because what they have also is after school the partnership

059club they are doing so many activities after school with these kids they do karaoke they have dances they have evening activities as well it's just amazing the schedule is really really filled for the children and they're making a lot of efforts and really inclusive environment one great story was that they had the winter dance this past year at the school and you know they nominate you know a snow queen and a snow king and the student who was the winner of the snow queen was one of the students from the partners class so that was really exciting and when her mom was sharing about this she they were saying oh you mean at this special I had danced right no this was like the school dance oh it wasn't just the special ed dance so

060that's that was to me a really powerful example of the the work and the success that they're having but they are also doing this literally out of the goodness of their hearts and so what really needs to be happening is some adequate funding to support these teachers and all of their efforts with these amazing amazing classes and activities and cooking clubs and just a lot is going on in fact one thing that they're doing to raise funds for this class is this Saturday if you're available they're gonna be having a unified run at Robinson at 8 a.m. so come on over for a 5k and we hope to see you there thank thank you and we now have a video testimony good evening school board members dr. Brenda and senior staff my name is Robert

061Rigby jr. I am the president of the FCPS pride which is an organization for LGBTQ employees parents of LGBTQ students and LGBTQ family members I want to thank you for recognizing LGBTQ History Month tonight means a great deal to me personally and to members of my community this recognition underscores how much the school system has changed since I first spoke to this board 18 years ago when these whiskers were read but it is not all sweetness and light or some would say rainbows and unicorns each month friends for the news the church that we no longer have friends and allies in the federal government not even on the Supreme Court let me speak as someone with a great deal of privilege in this world the Trump administration in the Cavanaugh Court are not likely to

062take anything away from from me personally I myself am safe but for many people in this country these are dangerous times you must be the bulwark to protect not only algae bt q students but african-american students Latino students Muslim students female students Jewish student students of Asian descent or students from other backgrounds students who are immigrants students with disabilities and students of minority religions you are on the front lines now in continuing to uphold the equity did Fairfax values be brave and be strong we will support you as well the voters of Fairfax County thank you for listening I now call on mr. tigner for student representative matters thank you madam chair me and the other student representatives for the assistant Weiser committee met last weekend and we discussed some methods that you could do

063personally as a student or pass on to your children to improve their mental health one of these is of course my favorite naps those are always great take advantage of study hall or downtime at school get some of the homework out of the way so you have more free time later on exercise get out there do something for yourself at a point every time of the day stay physically fit as well as mentally fit you can perhaps drink some tea or coffee if that helps you get that extra kick to get that homework done and there's a great thing that's been passed on our school is a mindfulness minute at the beginning of classes this was actually started or introduced to us by one of our English teachers and if you're a student you can

064pass this on your teachers see if they like it as well it's just a minute beginning of every class where you sit down and they didn't the lights and you just take a minute to de-stress and sort of calm down before beginning a lesson and it sort of helps you relate to the teacher as well so you start that lesson off with a better mindset or approach to learning tomorrow I'll be attending the ADHD college success lecture and this is a personal issue from me as well I have ADHD and I was diagnosed and I believe eighth grade and you know I've had my own personal struggles with it but sometimes the best ways to sort of improve yourself is just to reach out and look online find different methods and I found methods for

065myself and I applied them and it really helped me and sort of my path through through secondary education and through this conference hopefully I can be exposed better ideas pass them on you guys and hopefully help them to spread some other ideas as well we talked about climate change tonight as well a little bit but there's I really encourage I think get to Green was mentioned I really encourage you to go and check it out a search gets a green for FCPS online and see what your school does and what their footprint is on the environment thank you so much Thank You mr. tigner I now call on dr. brave ran for the introduction of the strategic plan goal for resource stewardship report Thank You chairman Corbett Sanders it's a pleasure to have Marty Smith

066or chief operating officer and our assistant superintendent Lee burden and thank is Alice here tonight as Alice here with us tonight no we're gonna do that presentation so Lee hey there you are so you want to come on up and we'll get started good evening madam chair members of the board dr. Bray brand I'm here to review our accomplishments for goal for resource stewardship remember that you know we will have a more detailed discussion on Monday at the work session that I believe starts at 5:30 as outlined in the strategic plan go for resource stewardship FCPS commits to championing the needs of our school communities and to be responsible stewards of the public's investment it's important to mention that this report looks back at fiscal 18 and at the overarching strategy's 10 and 11 which

067involve maximizing and aligning FCPS resources and promoting our value to the community by providing better information to increase understanding we've been successful in resource stewardship evidenced by the examples noted on the one pager that were those part of your packet error costs per pupil compared to wavy participants which is the left-hand chart in the middle of the page is very favorable the average is fourteen thousand eight hundred and twenty seven air costs per pupil is fourteen thousand seven hundred and sixty-seven the original goal was to be within one thousand dollars of the average and we were within sixty dollars of the average so I'd say that we met our goal ere costs per pupil again ranks in the middle of the web' participants and I think it's important to note that all of the wavy

068participants adhere to the same cost per pupil formula and while it's true that we do enjoy some economies of scale because of our size the smaller divisions don't have those economies of scale it should be noted that it may not be that simple salaries and class sizes have the greatest impact on cost per pupil Prince William has the highest class sizes according to the wavy guide which is self-reported by them and you can see that their cost per pupil is the lowest their middles they reported that their middles class sizes twenty-eight point one two one compared to our twenty five point one and their high school goes up to twenty nine point three compared to air twenty five point nine so having those larger class sizes means less teachers and that's going to push their

069cost per pupil down salaries also play an important part in the cost per pupil mostly because k-12 education is so labor intensive Arlington and Alexandria pay the most and they have the highest cost per pupil so that's not surprising and the division that's closest in size to us is Montgomery County and they have similar demographics their cost per pupil is about eight and a half percent higher than ours they spend almost thirteen hundred dollars more per student than we do and we would need about two hundred and fifty million more dollars in air budget to spend the same amount that Montgomery County does their salary career earnings for a master's degree are comparable to Fairfax and but their class sizes are a little bit smaller which may account for their increased cost per pupil compared

070to Fairfax County Public Schools but I believe firmly that the cost per pupil is the right metric and absolutely documents air efficiency successful resource stewardship is also shown by protection of the classroom and that's evidenced by the 2002 additional school-based staff added since 2009 coupled with the reduction in non school-based staff of one hundred and seventy four since two thousand nine and that's the chart in the middle of the page on the right and more recently from eighteen to nineteen we added about two hundred school-based positions and just five non school-based positions and that five non school-based was actually is actually a net because recall that we added a number of positions for OSS and equity office as part of a realignment and reorganization so that the net was five additional positions in non school-based

071it's important to note that as enrollment grows not only does the need for teachers but also the work of operational support or non school-based it's just not as directly so continued reductions operational support or non school-based positions may not be sustainable in the future over the last ten years reductions or minimal increases have occurred in non school-based positions despite greater demands for information data and analysis again this one pager just provides the cost per pupil and the school-based and non school-based position increases and decreases compared to an enrollment as an example some other indicators of success of resource stewardship will be gone over in more detail on Monday but just to name a few enrollment is one of our metrics and with the exception of fiscal 16 we have an absolute projection variance of less

072than 1% and most years that variance is 0.2 or 0.3 compared to waggy participants and their ability to project enrollment we have a much better track record there those divisions variances range from 0.6 to 1.5 you know and I think it's important to acknowledge that individual schools are much more difficult to project enrollment than doing it in the aggregate but the best the best metric that we have is how we are doing looking at it overall we met our goals in revenue projections we met our goals and expenditure projections we had a successful CIP the number of temporary classrooms went from 990 to 798 which is a 19% reduction which increased the number of seats 6895 and as you all know we got an additional 25 million dollars from the county for our capital improvement

073program we receive stakeholder feedback on the Ignite plan from focus groups and we conducted surveys with employees about the content and design our IT metrics have also improved in the areas of network service availability call abandonment resolution rates and finally we're promoting FCPS s value to the community by providing increased and better information to increase understanding and a couple of examples of that are air partnerships we have 36 new completed partnerships to date and we also provide increased information and an example of that is the disaggregated cost per pupil if you look at the bottom of your one pager we're moving forward on the return on investment and strategic decision-making cycle and it should be noted that analyzing programs takes a significant amount of time and resources that will recur that requires the assistance of

074every department and every school last year's goal for reporting described the strategic decision-making cycle for resource allocation so I won't go over that in any detail you know that the office of research and strategic improvement created this framework for FCPS and it relies on a plan do study act cycle I will say that it focuses on a series of systematic steps for deciding how and where to allocate funds and other resources and although this figure looks like a static process it's actually quite dynamic it's a living cycle and programs or initiatives will be in different stages on different levels for different things at different times so don't be fooled by how it looks on the page it's it's definitely a living thing looking at the second picture figures shown about the pathway to implementation of

075a decision making over the last year we began initial implementation of the SDM C framework most of the work was focused on prioritizing our strategic work which included collaboration with the LT and the school board to determine the strategic focus for the next couple years additionally the leadership team piloted efforts to tie budgeting within the SDM C cycles and developed recommendations for enhanced metrics for the school board that could be used within those cycles moving forward this year we will begin to implement full SDM see cycles action plans for each strategic focus area we'll detail our activities and associated costs in support of desired outcomes so that at the act phase of the cycle there's evidence for which actions should be continued or which should be modified or ended and by monitoring the relationship between

076the results or the impacts of our activities in support of the strategic plan in funding and resources and then taking actions based on that data we'll be able to improve the alignment of resource allocation and budgeting towards the aims specified in the strategic plan and we can talk about this in far greater detail on Monday again October 15th and the report will be discussed and a PowerPoint has been provided and I guess we'll see you then thank you miss burden and we do look forward to having a fuller discussion about this report on Monday that will be Monday October 15 that's correct and the work session starts at 11:00 a.m. on Monday item 5.0 one confirmation of action taken in closed meeting this is the portion of the meeting where the board will confirm any

077action regarding issues that were discussed in the closed meeting these issues may include action taken regarding student disciplinary matters board members have discussed each individual case and at this time we'll make a motion to confirm the recommended action I now call on mrs. Evans for a motion thank you I moved to grant in part the school reassignment appeal of a student who was charged with and convicted of a serious criminal offense related to a community-based incident and to modify the Disciplinary decision of the division superintendent do I have a second all those in favor that's miss Hines miss palchik mr. McElveen mr. moon miss McLaughlin miss I'm sorry miss Keyes Gemara miss Evans and miss Strauss all those opposed miss Darin at Koufax those abstaining mr. Wilson and Miss Schultz away from the table that

078motion carries I now call on miss Evans for a motion regarding local graduation requirements for science and social studies for the standard diploma this item was removed from the consent agenda at the request of miss Evans thank you I moved it's a school board approved changing the local FCPS graduation reach higher requirements in science and social studies for the standard diploma to match the video II requirements in science and social studies for the standard diploma as recommended by a steering committee with representation from the school and central office leadership second do I have a second it's like a seconded by Ms Strauss miss Evans would you like to speak to your motion I guess I would I just briefly we had a work session on this issue and the reason I asked for it to

079be pulled off the consent agenda is because I did think that we needed to discuss it at the board table I'm supporting the change and I believe the information that we got after we went to the students at the superintendent's Advisory Committee that they also supported these changes that was one thing that the board requested that the superintendent and staff do to get in touch with the the students and get their position on this as well I did have a couple of questions one that was raised at well first of all I guess I would I would ask dr. Bray brand if you were staff would just for the public summarize what we're doing here and and why because I do think that it's important for the the public to understand that what we are

080doing is we we are changing the requirements you know but it will now be in line with video we it won't be beyond video II if you want to give us a little bit more detail about that I'll do a short summary and then I'm gonna let dr. Presidio share some additional points but the bottom line is the Virginia Department of Education is giving us additional flexibility when it comes to the standard diploma and we're utilizing that flexibility so that students can who are pursuing the standard diploma have an opportunity to pursue additional coursework that aligns with their passion and interest and we think that's really gonna be an opportunity for many students to really get the college and career ready preparation that they need and let me let dr. presidio see if there's anything

081else that you would like to add yes I wouldn't add too much just a few points first of all this was an item in the school division strategic plan that really came out of community conversations when the strategic plan was being developed was this idea that we wanted to create more flexibility and more personalization in students high school course taking experiences so dr. Barron said these changes would align the FCPS requirements graduation requirements for a standard diploma with the state graduation requirements for a standard diploma in the areas of science and social studies so in the area of science FCPS currently requires three credits in three different science disciplines so biology physics chemistry for example the state requires three credits in two disciplines so this would create a little bit more flexibility and then the

082other item under the board's consideration right now is in social studies where FCPS requires four credits and the state requires three credits so this would create a little bit additional course taking flexibility in the area of social studies as well and I think the most important point probably to remember is that this is just for the standard diploma so students pursuing the standard diploma in about a third of our students pursue the standard diploma and about two-thirds of our students pursue an Advanced Studies diploma and this does not change any of the requirements for an Advanced Studies diploma thank you very much I appreciate you going through that and flexibility is I think increasingly important so the fact that this doesn't preclude anyone from taking more they can take more if they choose to one

083question that came up at our work session was I believe the board was coming around to the idea that rather than it only being perspective for students who were starting their starting now with planning out their high school career that it also be available to to all students that can benefit from it and I just wanted to to confirm with you that in fact that is the case dr. Presidio that is the case so current students that have not yet fulfilled those requirements the the course taking flexibility would take effect essentially next year for any of our current students okay I I appreciate that just wanted to clarify that for the board and and finally what I would I have to admit I'm disappointed with the answer that we got on it was an answer

084that I expected because I had received it before but the the question I have on that is with the definition of what is a CTE course I had asked the question for could we consider avid which is an excellent an excellent course to take and it helps many of our students prepare for college prepare for work if that could be again in light of wanting to have more flexibility if it could be considered either a CTE recur ear in technical education requirement or if it could be considered a practical and Fine Arts requirement and I the short answer seems to be no but my my question is is is that because do we have is that because we don't think we should or are we reading state requirements that that we cannot I think the

085answer that we provided as a follow-up to the work session was primarily focused on the definition of the state requirements in our interpretation of the state requirements which we do not believe would allow for abotu substitute as a finer practical art or CTE course that does not however preclude us from advocating with the state and the State Board of Education to see if we could get additional flexibility there for the future well thank you and I that's where I was heading with this if it if it is a matter of the interpretation with the State Board then I would ask our board to consider advocating either with the General Assembly or with the Board of Education or both to open up that that possibility and if my colleagues agree I would I would ask that

086we include that as part of our legislative package so with that I'll simply say that I do fully support this change and hope that my colleagues do as well thank you thank you miss Evans miss Strauss would you like to speak to your second I'm very pleased that we actually pull this off of consent so that the the community could understand the significance of this and thank you dr. presidio for your detailed explanation of this and I very much support this this gives our students considerable flexibility which is welcome the ability to take more CTE or to be able to take a different sequence in science so I think this is a welcome change thank you thank you miss Strauss miss mcLaughlin thank you I'm glad that MS Evans brought up the issue about the

087retroactive nature of this because that was something that at our work session that I'm proud our board was very sensitive to and I want to make sure that the public understands that all students right now in high school regardless of where they are in their path and dr. braver and I certainly hope that with this action from the board that you and dr. Presidio and the regional area superintendents will very very quickly get this information to our directors of student services our principals I want to draw some attention to where this benefit will also be which is for our military students and our other families moving into the district I recently met a Navy family whose daughter is now a junior and when she arrived here the pressure being put on this young lady which

088so many of us know junior year is one of the toughest years for a student and because of the diploma requirements even at the standard level it's tough and so idea that coming from maybe a state that has common core and we don't and where there isn't the alignment this is going to go a long way to helping those families and we are really county where we have so much influx of military families and and just families that move here for the great jobs and opportunities so I'm pleased about this and I also want to just echo that yes while this is for the standard diploma I will also raise awareness to my colleagues and to dr. Bray bran that because we're a high-performing school district the default often by our amazing guidance counselor's is

089to guide kids towards the Advanced Diploma but this also goes to again balance and and finding the best fit for each individual child and in the grand scheme of even those who are wanting to challenge themselves at the highest level go compete for the best universities in the country the standard diploma or the Advanced Diploma is not going to affect your college admissions opportunities so having sanity for students in terms of fulfilling standard versus advanced diplomas I also hope that will be part of our future conversations with our students and with our staff because while it might be optimal to move toward an advanced diploma for for high high academic students it is an essential and really being able to help them build a curriculum and taking the courses that are most beneficial to their

090overall educational learning and preparation to go to college is something that we've got at pay attention to and MS Evans in terms of your advocacy on avid not only am I absolutely in agreement that we should have in a follow-up from dr. Bray bran through a briefing what is the simplest path to get avid recognized as a CTE course you know I don't want to necessarily have to go Lobby the general assembly I don't even know that they can legislate something like that I thought it was done through the Virginia Board of Education but this is what staff can direct us on but I absolutely support your statements here tonight about avid and I did get a text message from one of my wonderful principals who's watching tonight they would like avid in their school

091so I'd like to see us grow avid to all of our schools thank you miss mcLaughlin I see dr. Bray bran would like to provide a response just a comment you know we certainly can go and and figure out the right pipeline to look at the avid question when I was principal here in Fairfax avid was a great new program it has tremendous track record of results for kids particularly kids in the middle and that's an area where I think we can continue to try to make sure that we're meeting every child by name and by need an avid has a philosophy that aligns with that in skill sets the other thing I just like to say that miss McLaughlin pointed out is absolutely right colleges are looking at the transcript not necessarily the diploma

092and this gives our students and our families an opportunity we have people come from all kinds of backgrounds who come in for four years of traditional high school or coming in the middle or want more flexibility to access our rich elective programming that some kids simply run out of space to take so this is really going to be I think frankly the balance of those diploma options may change as families and students choose some of this additional flexibility to take some of our rich CTE offerings or fine arts offerings in a way that they perhaps have not before so we appreciate your support for these these changes thank you dr. brand and with that I would like to repeat the motion the motion before us is that the school board approved changing the local FCPS

093graduation requirements in science and social studies for the standard diploma to match the video e requirements in science and social studies for the standard diploma as recommended by a steering committee with representation from school and central office leadership all those in favor and that is miss Strauss miss Evans miss Keys Gemara well to people away from the table I just keys Gemara thank you miss mcLaughlin I'll continue miss mcLaughlin mr. moon miss Darren echo effects mr. McElveen mr. Wilson miss Hines with Miss palchik and Miss Schultz away from the table that motion passes now I call on miss McLaughlin to discuss the item 6.01 which has been removed from the consent agenda to be on our action agenda and regarding miss helen nixon to appointment to the ER FC board miss mclaughlin i move that

094we approve the appointment of helen nixon to the ER FC Board of Trustees through June 30th 2019 do we have a second seconded by miss Strauss miss McLaughlin would you like to speak to your motion yes I asked that this be removed from the consent agenda in no way reflecting dr. Nixon's value-add to serving the board of trustees I did ask that's become an action item because all too often this board when it does its annual appointments to the ER FC Board of Trustees it's placed on consent we don't have a conversation about it half the time the board isn't even know who we appointed to it and so I just felt that this would be an optimal time that is we get to may you know continue to raise the profile dr. Nixon joining

095our staff but also being able to help the public have and our employees have a better understanding of what are these roles as board of trustees for er FC so I had shared with our clerk that if someone on staff who I was not told who was going to be that person oh it's going to be mr. Smith could just speak briefly to the number of appointees that the board tewi RFC and what are those duties and responsibilities so I'd be happy to share that information the ER FC board of trustees is comprised of seven trustees three of those trustees are appointed by the school board the other three are elected by the ER FC membership and our seventh member is selected by the Board of Trustees and is generally a non FCM non FCPS

096employee who is also a Content expert and so we currently have Michael Burke who is our non FCPS employee and that individual is also approved by the board so you appoint three individuals from staff and then approve the appointment of the non FCPS employee our current staff appointees are I am one of the trustees as the chief operating officer miss burden is one of the trustees is our chief financial officer and we now have dr. Nixon as a trustee representing Human Resources we generally like to have a mix of Human Resources and finance given the the roles of benefits with Human Resources and finance given the complexity of the work that that happens within the the trustee boardroom and what we do as trustees is that we're responsible for monitoring the performance of the fund

097of the the dollars that we have invested as part of our retirement plan we work very closely with our investment advisors to manage those investments and make decisions on those investments we work to allocate do our asset allocation within the plan and most importantly we work to set those employer contribution rates and you noted with dr. or with Eli Martinez his report we talked about the increase in those employer rates but that's the work of our trustees in a nutshell but at the end of the day it's to ensure that we're making the best investment decisions for all of our members of the and fund so mr. Smith I appreciate that you had walked through the three staff that the school board appoints and approves along with Michael Berg what is his actual background professional

098background it's in finance and investments okay so he has the subject matter expertise for finance and investments yes yes he does and then we also again work very closely with our investment advisors and make those decisions based on the recommendations of our investment advisors okay and then who are the other three members you mentioned that the trustees vote on themselves well and I want to make sure that I get everyone mentioned and mentioned correctly and so as I said before those board members are elected by the ER FC membership we have an annual election for those board members it's a staggered membership our chair is Kimberly Adams she is elected by the RFC membership Darryl rich Richards who is a math teacher here in our system is the vice chairperson and trustee and our third

099elected member is Cathy Pfeffer Hahn and she is also a teacher here in the system so it's comprised of those three teachers who are elected to the board the three appointees here by staff and mr. Michael Burke who is our subject matter expert and how do you how do those individuals who are elected to ERF see how do they apply to be elected do they submit applications and then you all decide on who you're going to elect I mean so there's an there's an open election to all a RFC members and it's an open vote it goes out to all of our members via email and our candidates have an opportunity to share statements via email with the membership and then they are elected through an electronic vote by our membership thank you because I

100was I was under the impression that the trustees we're doing it but it's the actual ERF see members of which are our employees it's the actual RFC members the only member that we would make recommendations to it would be the non FCPS member who is a subject matter expert and so we bring that name to the board every year for your approval and as mr. berg been serving for quite some time Michael Burke so I've now been on the board for this is the beginning of my fourth year as a trustee and he's been on during that entire time I'm not sure how long he has been on the board but I do know that he was very willing to be part of the board for another three-year term okay and it says oh it's

101a three-year term yes it is a three-year term okay but the appointments we do for staff its annual so the appointments now were in a situation where we are fulfilling terms that were vacated by previous staff member so if you remember when Miss Quinn left we then had to follow behind with dr. Amy when Miss Michael left we followed behind with miss burden and so we were just going to the end of that term and then we will appoint for another round but but again those are annual or they three-year terms those are three-year terms everybody's on a three-year yes until I'm on a three-year term and I was just reading last year for the my my second term okay well thank you very much for indulging my questions and to my colleagues I hope

102you ended up finding some of this helpful information as well and I have no further questions thank you thank you miss mcLaughlin miss Strauss would you like to speak to your second no I just want to thank mr. Smith for that very clear and complete description of what it is that we're voting on and thank you miss McLaughlin for bringing it up Thanks and dr. Baron would you like to make a comment the only thing I would like to say is we've talked about a little bit here with the board over the last several years er FC is a tremendous benefit to being part of the Fairfax County Public Schools family it's tremendous tremendous value for our employees it's a tremendous benefit and mr. Martinez is working on a massive marketing strategy to Bret better

103bring out the true value proposition that it is for er FC so we're you'll be seeing more of our ability to work and market that program both to our internal stakeholders but also to let those who are applying the Fairfax County know that you're not only getting a great salary you are getting great total compensation and so we look forward to sharing more of that with you the future thank you dr. brave ran so the motion before us is to approve the appointment of Helen Nixon to the ER FC Board of Trustees through June 30th 2019 all those in favor and I have miss Hines miss palchik mr. McElveen miss Darin a Koufax mr. Wilson that motion is unanimous with Miss Schultz away from the table we now come to the consent agenda item 6.0

104our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure Robert's Rules provides her consent agenda listing several items for approval of the board by a single motion many items listed have gone through board review and documentation has been provided to all board members and the public in advance items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member prior to the meeting item 6.01 award a contract for the annandale high school roof replacement project to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder function enterprises inc in the amount of 1 million one hundred and seventy five thousand six hundred and fifty dollars and authorized 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 6.0 to award a contract for the

105bellevue elementary school renovation project to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder Meridian construction company Inc in the amount of 20 million seven hundred and ninety thousand dollars and authorized 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 six point zero three award a contract for the Chantilly high school roof replacement project to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder Rd being inked in the amount of 1 million seventy thousand nine hundred and seventy five dollars and authorized the division superintendent or the assistant superintendent of facilities and transportation services to execute deliver and administer contract on behalf of the school board item 6.0 for award the contract for the running track replacement at Edison high school to FieldTurf USA Inc

106in the amount of two hundred and ninety nine thousand nine hundred and seventy three dollars and authorized the division superintendent or the assistant superintendent of facilities and transportation services to execute and administer the contract on behalf of the school board item six point zero five award the contract for the automatic temperature control system replacement at McNair elementary school to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder Siemens industry Inc in the amount of five hundred and eighty six thousand one hundred and eighty dollars and authorized the division superintendent or the assistant superintendent of facilities and transportation services to execute and administer the contract on behalf of the school board item six point zero six award the contract for the automatic temperature control system replacement at Navy elementary school to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder engineered Services

107Inc in the amount of $298,000 one hundred two hundred ninety eight thousand one hundred and ninety dollars and authorized the division superintendent or the assistant superintendent of facilities and transportation services to execute and administer the contract on behalf of the school board item six point zero seven 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 items seven on the agenda 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 approved the goal for resource stewardship report as detailed in the agenda item 7.0 to award a contract for the Robinsons secondary school roof replacement project

108to the lowest responsive responsible responsible bidder and authorized 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 7.03 that ms keys Gemara at law school board member and school board members from Braddock and drains Ville districts shall select committee appointees to the high school language arts Basel instructional materials adoption committee as detailed in the agenda item 8 superintendent matters next on the agenda is superintendent matters and I call on dr. brave Hren Thank You chairman Corbett Sanders I'll be brief tonight but I'm really excited to share I don't think I've shared it with you all that keen mill elementary school was named a national Blue Ribbon School and it is a national Blue Ribbon School named so by the

109US Department of Education it's one of 349 schools to be named for the program this year it was recognized for academic excellence and for closing achievement gaps among student subgroups demonstrating that all kids can achieve in the classroom in order to qualify for the exemplary high performing schools designation a school must be in the top 15 percent of schools in the state based on state assessments and reading and math or a composite index including those assessment results and I want to just come in and congratulate Renee Miller her administrative team the instructional staff for achieving this prestigious recognition under principal Miller's leadership keen mill is a model for equity and excellence that reflects the hard work and commitment of an entire school community and we want all of our schools in Fairfax County Public Schools

110to be Blue Ribbon Schools it's great that King Mill has gotten this honor and we hoped for many more in the years ahead thank you dr. Barron next on the agenda is board reports and I call on mr. moon for an update from the September 27th forum work session thank you madam chair the forum discussion by the board was had f-for the regular meeting so there was a late at night close to 11 o'clock but we had great discussion regarding a topic requested by mr. Hines from hon trauma district related to development of a draft charges for the school board advisory meetings as you know the school board has number of advisory committees who support the work of the school board and each year the board gives them keep the advisory committees charges they should

111be working on for the following school year and what happens is what usually happens is at the end of the career the advisory committees present their approach to school board and after their is done then it's you immediately start working on and when the charge is to be given by the board for the following year but sometime in the order lag and the school board does not I do not always have a sufficient time to discuss about advisory charges that charge for the following year so therefore per request from the miss Hines and as agreed to by the entire board that from the next year the advisory committees being request to include in their representations for the proposed charged with the following year Thank You mr. moon now I call on miss Evans for an

112update from CPD C and I thank you madam chair CPD C is continuing to work on the direction under the direction of the school board on what issues we are going to focus on we did over the course of two meetings come up with a fairly long list but we are going to hone that down and bring that back to the board for consideration we did make clear as part of our committee work that we do need to be seeing our planning and development issues under an equity lens and under the principles of one Fairfax so that's something for us to bring back to the board soon thank you very much miss Evans for being a pitch hitter on the update from CPD C tonight now I call on board matters miss Strauss thank you

113first I want to congratulate the FCPS artist teachers in their exhibition at the Lorton workhouse in theme acquire woods gallery it is in exhibition from September 26th to October 21st again many of our our teachers and the arts are also producing performance themselves and I would like to graduate Mali rumberger who is our theatre teacher at South County she has the starring role in the wedding singer at next stop theatre I saw her last week she was wonderful she is also a graduate of Westfield High School a Cappy Award winner in the 2007 2008 season so she was wonderful I also want to thank drains ville elementary school lemon road Elementary School heard in Middle School in Cooper middle school I visited these schools in the last week I very much appreciate the hospitality of

114the principals because I always want to know what does the school board need to know in order to support our students better and I will be visiting all the schools in the drains Ville district in the next couple of weeks thank you thank you miss Strauss miss Evans would you like to oh yes I just wanted to mention some some of the school specific events and then one one major event coming up on Saturday I appreciated the conversation with the Glen forest elementary school community last week we were discussing how to deal with the fact that there were so many of their students are in modulars outside so we wanted to deal with the issue of capacity issues as well as traffic issues and so we will be following up with that community very soon

115on on some of their ideas I appreciate everybody coming out for that conversation and thank you to North Springfield Elementary School inviting me to come to their PTA meeting last night with a regional assistant superintendent dr. zuluaga we had a good conversation there and appreciated their hospitality I want to thank delegate que corre for visiting two of our schools and reading to two classrooms she's working on a project that to encourage more girls and women to run for public office so she read a story called grace for president at Sleepy Hollow elementary school and at Bailey's upper and so the the students were wonderful to to talk with and interact with there and so lastly I would invite everyone to come to the taste of Annandale this Saturday at 10:00 a.m. on Tom Davis Drive

116in Annandale it's a great event with lots of food and music and tables with information and so I will see everyone there on Saturday mr. Keith Kamara thank you madam chair just a few things I had the opportunity to speak at the Centreville Rotary Club and also attend a title 9 walk workshop with a few of my colleagues it seems like a lifetime ago now but about a week girl and that was very informative as we were working on those issues I also have the opportunity to attend the chorus festival which is a celebration of the Korean community in the DMV area wonderful event and I love the food also and this Saturday I will be at a Girl Scout suicide-prevention walk so that's kind of what's going on thank you miss mcLaughlin I just

117want to share with product district residents that in my newsletter today I shared that next week I will be holding monthly office hours at the Kings Park library it will be next Tuesday in the morning from 9:30 to 11:00 and then Wednesday evening from 7:30 until 9:00 p.m. and the evening one will be held in actually supervisor cook's brat a call I hope people will use that as an opportunity to come out and share with me the thoughts and issues that are on your mind I also want to again compliment Keene mill elementary for the recognitions of Blue Ribbon School as dr. Baron shared this evening miss Schultz and I have about 50% of the students each attending out of our Magistrale districts so we're very proud of principal miller and her staff and it's

118very exciting recognition for that community and then I also want to again express my my pride and excitement for the Braddock district schools frost and middle school and Robinson secondary for being recognized this evening for their work with the United champion schools recognition that truly is an example of how we teach our young people what it means to truly engage with all students and create a warm and inclusive environment for all students so it's it's great to see our schools doing that type of work and otherwise looking forward to preparing for Monday's work session mr. moon thank you madam chair just briefly I I want to thank miss KarenT is Gemara for joining me at the chorus Festival on Saturday and what's so happy to see welcome birthday mr. Mac Living God mr. Mac abilities

119were with an entire family thank you thanks for coming a a few days ago there was a delegation from a one of the provinces in Korea a doing a school visit in Fairfax County and I want to thank you for in turn dr. brand meeting with you know visiting visiting delegation there were about 30 educators including the superintendent and answering their questions and also at that meeting we had officials from the Korean embassy with a fair Czech grand chapter and your grandchild to us it was close to $100,000 so over the years the Korean government has given us close to $700,000 and I'm hoping that we can invite in hopefully the Ambassador our Republic of Korea to join us sometime so that we can formally thank them this is something and I hope that you

120know we can we can we can accomplish because generally ambassadors don't come to us school board meetings but but I'm hoping that I can I can somehow convince him to come to our meetings mr. moon we would be very honored to have the Ambassador join us I'm sure mr. net Koufax thank you and I also want to congratulate all of those who were part of the mental health and wellness conference I mean putting it together as always there were excellent sessions and I stayed around for a few and as well listen to the keynoter the keynoter it was a me press wore ski a doctor a me press wore ski and she talked about how to channel stress and make it your advantage and that stress can be good so I encourage my colleagues who

121didn't attend to listen to that because I think it would benefit all of us I might go back and listen to it again I attended a PTA meeting at West Potomac with my colleague Karen Corbett Sanders and I want to thank Jeff platenburg and Tom Morello for answering the community's questions about facilities and safety we really appreciate you being there last week I was approached by a team of physicians and I provided a free showing of the movie screen Agers which explores the potential problems of prolonged screen usage via our phones social media or gaming and it also in the movie itself also offered offered potential solution there was a great turnout Thank You Edison High School for hosting it principal Brumfield for your assistance on the two physicians who reached out we're doctor Evy

122caseros and dr. Cheung they saw these issues within their community and they thought this movie could reach a broader audience because they're consistently being asked by their patients what can I do to help my child deal with this almost addiction that they have with their screens mr. moon joined me so thank you so much for being there and I do want to thank my executive assistant miss Angela Petro for putting together the many many logistical items that had to get into place to make this happen it was a movie that was shown at TJ tonight during this meeting time and I think the physicians are going to reach out to other schools and communities so if any board members are interested in hosting that I can give you the names of these doctors and I'm

123sure they'll be happy to host it at one of your schools yesterday morning I had a great time at Hayfield secondary's senior breakfast we were asked to come there to talk about the importance of registering to vote and talk to students about their post graduation plans I also enjoy being mr. Mackall Dean's photographer at that events thank you to also to all the district PTA presidents or their representatives who came out last night to my meeting I asked dr. Francisco Duran to give us an update on the new equity initiatives that we have just begun and dr. durán gave an excellent presentation he's not here but Thank You Francisco for doing that it was greeted with much success anticipation they can't wait to get started and and work with their principals and start spreading the

124word about our equity initiatives and finally I just wanted to share that my family if you notice some of my colleagues I am no longer with my last child graduated I am no longer in need of my minivan so what I did is I donated it to our foundation for applied technologies education the foundation for applied technical education student auto program and for those of you who aren't familiar with this this program provides hands-on experience for students to refurbish used cars that have been donated by community members and those that and then they can go and resell it so it is a great opportunity it gets kids involved from the beginning they can refurbish the car there's another team that sells the car and it's really a win-win for you if you are a community

125member you get the blue Blue Book value of your car the day you donate it and it's a wonderful opportunity for the kids so this is my second minivan that I've donated there and if you have an old clunker like mine with over 150,000 miles on it I encourage you to do it and and they were really appreciative so thank you thank you miss Darren echo effects mr. mcavee I think we have a competition going for the number of clunkers between mr. moon and miss miss Darren a Koufax you both have to write Wow very impressive pass Patrick yes thank you and and I got my dad to donate his clunker a few years ago so with you I've been starting school visits again this year and been very busy with those and very excited

126to join dr. Brianna man to my old elementary school last week to do our yoga and mindfulness and movements and to see to see everything that's happening in the school although it is one of my many schools that is having capacity issues so I hope we do continue to look at that as a system I also had a chance to go to the Graham Road PTA Fall Festival on Friday night it was packed house perfect weather and the whole school in the community were really enjoying that evening last night we had a I think it was last night or two nights ago a meeting with the Schriever PTA another school that is looking to encourage kids to walk to school and this is really will take a collaboration we had Vida supervisor Smith the parks

127and trails representatives because it is as many people don't real in Virginia the county does not own our county roads our roads are mostly owned by Vida and so it really is a partnership and also it was really fun on Monday I got to go visit teachers on their teacher work day at Lanier middle school with her new principal and they had at camp and they even had s'mores no fires don't worry to go along with their camps it was really neat I was a little sad I wasn't going to see kids but it was really exciting to see teachers learning and working collaboratively miss they are not cofax actually it's very exciting that the the film screening jurors is screening on October 17th at gate house is the next membership meeting for the FCC

128PTA and the current president MS Miscavige had screened it back at through middle school when she was PTA president to a full cafeteria so I know dr. Barron will be there October 17th and they will be screening the film as well as if you contact the FCC PTA they have a special licensing fee and can work with any PTA to screen screen a jurors so that's a great event and in addition on October 20th at TJ the FCC PTA is hosting a Family and Community Engagement conference all day so to really I think important events to bring out the PTAs last night I joined a false church High School PTA pyramid PTA meeting I know miss Evans was not able to join us we were it was a wonderful meeting and I hope they do

129more of this and really bringing together every level especially because at middle school since it's just two years it's such a challenge to recruit and maintain parents so hopefully we can start to build them and recruit them at the elementary school level and bring them into the middle school so I want to thank the Fosters PTA principals they were all presents they had three students speak from Luther Jackson and it was just a great evening to see such a wonderful turnout and then finally on Tuesday I was able to go down to Richmond with principal Jackson Muir for the first meeting of the state's Sol Novation committee meeting it was mostly an introductory meeting we will be unfortunately not focused on what was done in the past of trying to reduce and change some of

130our SOL structure this year but we will be looking at how to help innovate and and ensure deeper learning which we do so much of it here in Fairfax but to figure out how to improve that across the state so I do want to thank everyone for our wonderful meeting tonight I think we had some good conversations and I look forward to our work session Monday will be just as efficient I'm sure thank you thank you Miss Patrick mr. Wilson thank you madam chair and you're welcome miss ball check for this wonderful meeting tonight and I agree I think that our speed tonight reflects a great economy on our part and I do appreciate that madam chair to keep the pace moving I would like to echo mr. net kopacz comments about screen agers I

131saw it actually at Gate House a couple of years ago and it is it is quite good and and I would make the observation that at this Dyess there the screens outnumber the people by two or three times so if you haven't seen it please please go see it and I think you know it is it really is insightful in terms of what those screens do to you and your in your brain as you're watching them so and as a parent for it has it is an amazing thing to watch the kids and and how how dependent they seem to get on their screens themselves I also wanted to thank mr. Annette Koufax for the clunkers reference I have to in my driveway and you've given me a good idea for I'm one of them

132that is currently in need of some repairs a 2,000 said a n so thank you for that idea I will I will consider it whether I've been clunking and around in them enough finally I just wanted to do well first I wanted to give a shout out to dr. Copeland at Westfield High School a parent reached out to me to let me know a really bright glow for the treatment and the response of the school to her family's needs and I think that's really a great example of the exceptional response that Fairfax County Schools can give to families when when issues are brought to their attention and and so just a shout out to him and finally I just wanted to commend the folks that came out tonight to talk about the special needs issues

133that were raised by two of the citizens that spoke really great points and I look forward to following up with them because I think those are issues that we probably could do a little better on thank you thank you mr. Wilson miss Hines yes thanks just a couple of things it was a great honor to participate last Friday evening in a dedication ceremony at Madison High School of a new field house for Lenny Schultz who was a beloved teacher and coach who passed away tragically and suddenly a couple of years ago so it was just a lovely coming together of community members they built a little Fieldhouse right next to the football field and that's the snack building and it's a space that apparently coach Schultz thought they needed the whole time that he was

134coaching and the football team was there it was also the night that they played Westfield and almost beat them um so it was a good game it was senior night as well so I got to participate in that I've never stood out there and greeted the seniors as they come on as they come down the track I want to thank principal hood and all the staff at Madison for putting them together a beautiful ceremony and for including me I want to thank my colleagues mr. McIlvain and MS Keyes Gemara for being there as well the mayor of Vienna Laurie de Rocco was there and our delegate mark came as well so it was a nice ceremony and finally I am looking forward to a visit at my school that I teach at in Arlington Key

135elementary Spanish immersion school by dr. zuluaga assistant superintendent here and my colleague Dahlia palchik and some other leaders from this school system to come and see the key school Spanish immersion model which actually has been around for almost 25 years and really does a remarkable job I think I'm very fortunate to work there and I look forward to your visit thank you miss Hines now I will take a few moments myself I want to encourage everybody that next week December 5th October 15th is the last day you can register to vote for the upcoming election so I encourage you to register if you're not registered encourage your students to register if they will be 18 on November 6 and encourage your students to ask for an absentee ballot if they are away at school also

136next week is digital citizenship week and a number of our schools will be promoting positive behaviors in digital citizenship and so that is particularly important in light of the screen agers discussion from tonight and I would encourage everybody to embrace some of those citizenship skills if you aren't using them already next Friday we will have a ribbon-cutting for the first Community School in Fairfax County Walt Whitman and that will happen the Friday the 19th and I know that dr. Bray brand and mr. net Koufax and others will be there so it's a wonderful opportunity to recognize all of the hard work of the skiped committee that has been advancing the community in schools model for several years and so I'm very excited about that also want to thank the West Potomac community for Hosting miss

137Darren at Koufax and myself in the very important discussion about capacity at that school and also the Mount Vernon substation leadership as they are about to launch for the second year the Powell's program which is police at lunch for fort hunt and Riverside elementary schools where officers in the community go and spend time with our students at those two schools so it's very exciting and we really appreciate their commitment and with that this meeting is adjourned