FCPS School Board Meeting - May 10, 2018

001[Music] good evening this may 10th 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 the Madison High School madrigals under the direction of Claire Rowan [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you so much Madison singers that was beautiful and I'd like to recognize Greg foot who is our fine principal in the audience thank you all very much and thank you to the parents if you helped bring our students here this evening in order to comply with section 2.2 - 3 7 1 2 D of the Code of Virginia it is necessary for the board to certify that since the fairfax county school board convened a closed meeting on

002May 10th 2018 to the best of each members knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the board during the closed meeting was there motion moved by Corbett Sanders seconded vitamins Paul jack all those in favor that motion ok it is Evans McLaughlin Paul check Corbett Sanders Straus moon Hines deer net Koufax Keys Gemara opposed abstention Mitchell's thank you a few other announcements before we tonight begin tonight's meetings Mr McElveen is absent this meeting this evening and mr. Wilson has a family emergency if you would like to review a copy of the agenda in any agenda item that is being discussed tonight that information is on the table by the

003auditorium entrance tonight's agenda is available by going to the school board on the FCPS homepage and selecting board Doc's under upcoming school board meetings a 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 and please turn off or silence your cell phone I will now call on Miss feta Conda thank you madam chair next week is food allergy Awareness Week created in 1998 by food allergy research and education incorporated food allergy Awareness Week shines a spotlight on the seriousness of food allergies and helps to improve public understanding of this potentially life-threatening medical conditioned by increasing awareness we can encourage respect promote safety and improve the quality of life for all those affected by food allergies and

004anaphylaxis food allergies affect up to 15 million Americans including nearly 6 million children roughly 2 in every classroom nearly 30% of children with food allergies are allergic to more than one food every three minutes of food allergy reaction send someone to the emergency room in the US you can learn more about food allergies and anaphylaxis by visiting the food allergy research and education website at food allergy org thank you thank you I will now turn the gavel over to miss Corbin Sanders I would like to invite miss Strauss for a resolution thank you with pleasure I will read the resolution naming the observatory at McLean High School mr. Harth where are you can you raise your hand so that I can yes there he is how wonderful where as Dean howarth after graduating from Florence

005Township Memorial High School in Florence New Jersey in 1983 attended Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University where he earned a Bachelor of Science and education while majoring in physics graduating from Virginia Tech in 1987 and whereas mr. Harth had a remarkable teaching career from 1987 until his retirement in 2018 with each of his 31 years spent teaching physics and astronomy at McLane High School while also serving as a junior varsity softball coach and the sponsor of the astronomy club project enlightenment and its academic and educating my three daughters whereas mr. Howard served as a guide and mentor for students by consistently challenging them to think analytically about the world around them it's past in its future a sponsor of McLane's historical reenactment Club project enlightenment a group that provided students an opportunity to share multiples

006perspectives on the past with members of the public both young and old and whereas mr. Hayworth was consistently with us with esteem by his students and colleagues for his regular use of captivating interactive labs and demonstrations that engage students while allowing their creativity to flourish whereas mr. Hayworth worked tirelessly and joyfully to perform the behind the scenes work ought required to ensure the success of the McClane high school astronomy program including the development of the curriculum for the astronomy course acquisition of funds for the maintenance and repair of the observatory an orchestration of community-wide observation nights now therefore be it resolved that the fairfax county school board names the observatory at mclean high school the Dean Howarth Observatory in honor of this exemplary educator colleague friend is citizen and mentor I so move so is

007there a second second mr. moon mrs. Straus would you like to speak to your motion yes I would Dean Howarth is not just a science guy he is a Renaissance intellectual in a much-loved teacher many MacLean graduates remember him as the one special teacher who left an indelible mark yes indeed mr. Howe earth kids graduated 20 years ago remember you and talk fondly about their classes with you he taught more than physics in astronomy he taught philosophy ethics and history he presented important scientists who were trailblazers in their time he helped students make connections with historical trends and events so that students could be better people themselves mr. Howe earth was a practitioner of project-based learning before it became a mark of best practice he created and taught project enlightenment whereby students became characters from

008the Enlightenment period and were living history impersonators at Mount Vernon engaging tourists and conversations pertinent to the period students fondly remember the huge spaghetti bridges and the travel Shay's I remember that one he sponsored clubs and invited students to his classroom for lunch to discuss pop culture and current affairs he helped them organize and develop their skill when they wanted to speak out on issues they were concerned about from free Tibet to better salaries for teachers he also played classical music during exams to help them relax and open their minds to culture the kids really liked it the observatory which will be named for mister howarth lay abandoned and unusable for years mr. Howarth took on refurbishing the telescope gathered other volunteers raised funds organized heavenly gazing and thus opened a new door for learning

009for our students mr. Harth on behalf of the school board and the MacLean community we thank you [Applause] mr. moon would you like to speak to your second actually everything that mr. Strauss is sad then I'd like to take a vote all those in favor and that vote is unanimous with mr. McElveen and mr. Wilson away at this time I would like to invite Dean Howard his wife dolly dr. Ellen Riley principal McLean High School Megan Percival and Robert Bouchard McLane high school teachers and Robert Plunkett assistant principal Longfellow middle and former McLane high school teacher to join me at the day as for a picture with the board and congratulations mr. Howard [Applause] now I will call on Miss Kees Gemara to recognize the Delta Sigma 2 Chi sorority thank you madam chair on

010behalf of the Fairfax County School Board it is an honor for me to recognize the Fairfax County alumni chapter FC AC of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority founded in 1913 Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated is a private nonprofit organization dedicated to providing services and programs that promote human welfare including economic development educational development international awareness and involvement political awareness and involvement in physical and mental health the Fairfax County alumni chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority charted in 1993 provides services and programs that enhance the quality of life and social welfare of Fairfax County residents FC AC will celebrate its 25th anniversary on May 23 2018 since its chartering FC AC has implemented many impactful service projects for students across Fairfax County to ensure their academic success some of the ways FC AC has been actively involved

011in our community include road to success luncheons for high school students which prepare students for academic social and financial transition from high school to college various mentoring programs to provide students with tools and experiences to enrich and sharpen their educational skills to prepare them to be leaders partnerships with local organizations such as rest and community center to provide prom dresses and accessories for high school students at no cost and the Fairfax County Department of Family Services parenting education program to provide dinners and babysitting services and participation in numerous school backpack drives and donation efforts since 1993 F CAC has awarded three hundred and twenty thousand dollars in scholarships to Fairfax County High School's senior girls on May 20th 2018 at its 25th anniversary luncheon FCA si will award an additional twenty seven thousand dollars in

012scholarships to nine Fairfax County senior girls FCA C is proud to have former and current Fairfax County public school teachers and administrators as members of this chapter congratulations on your 25th year anniversary at this time I would like to invite members of the fairfax county alumni chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority who are here this evening to join me at the Dyess for a picture with the board [Applause] next I will call on mr. moon for recognition of national continuing education week okay thank you madam show actually is a national continuing education month that's may 2018 and madam chair I am very proud of part of the school system that supports educating not only K to 12 students but also as many students as possible in pre-k and also the continuing education needs of others

013in Ferris colony we have more than 23 to 24 thousand orders signing for classes through our AIDS program the adult and community education program of Fairfax County Public Schools began with an action by the school board in 1955 and in the over 60 years of program's existence thousands of others have known essential skills and completed their high school education through the years others have learned new languages acquire job skills transition to new careers and grown as workers citizens and parents the fairfax county community has looked to age to help develop our workforce provide solutions to community problems through education and create a culture of lifelong learning for residents of all ages although attend community education has made major contributions to the school system as a laboratory of innovation for piloting of a new programs and

014services in support of pre k12 education through Family Literacy summer programs extended day programs enrichment courses and Driver education through creative programming and targeted advocacy for adult learner as well as providing enrichment opportunities for youth beyond the school day ace has helped create a dynamic learning community for all generations in Fairfax County and at this time out writing by adult and community education step along with if there are members on a Sun Visor committee to join me and my colleagues at the Dyersville photo [Applause] I will call on mrs. Schultz for recognition of the Chantilly Academy Virginia State cyber Patriot award I heard up big that ones are good that was before I even said anything on behalf of the Fairfax County School Board it is an honor for me to recognize Chantilly Academy a

015governor's stem Academy team for winning Virginia's first place in the open division of CyberPatriot the air force associations National Youth cyber defense competition led by coaching staff Davy Anson and George Bennett the Chantilly Academy team is made up of Adam Batory J gosh minjun Kim Jonathan Lou Ian Schiff and Sean Wu all of whom attend Chantilly high school the team was praised for demonstrating outstanding teamwork critical thinking skills and technical knowledge traits acknowledged by CyberPatriot as a key to a successful career in cybersecurity it was named a platinum tier team representing the highest scoring team in its division the national youth cyber defense competition is designed to excite educate and motivate students towards careers in cyber security and other STEM disciplines the teams in this competition are challenged to find and resolve cyber security vulnerabilities

016and simulated environments this achievement is a testament to your talent your dedication and hard work we wish you continued success for the remainder of the school year and all the best in your future endeavors at this time I would like to invite the coaches Davie Anson George Bennett and the Chantilly high school principal Scott Poole Academy administrator Scott setter and members of the winning team from the Chantilly Academy to join me at the Dyess for a photo with the board and before are as you go down before there's clapping from the audience this is the most unfilled job opening for the foreseeable future I say that as the spouse of a cyber security executive the the need to protect not only the country from a national defense perspective but every company its information your information

017money [Music] intellectual property secrets this this is the cutting edge and I'm so proud of the students and our staff that this is the type of work coming out of out of our schools congratulations [Applause] I call on mrs. McLaughlin for a resolution naming the chorus you're just supposed to call on me into the resolution all right yes yes thank you Miss Strauss I know it's hard there's a lot tonight I will explain in a little bit a little bit here before I begin I do need to share with you that we have someone very special here in the room with us this evening and so I would like to invite mr. Michael Ehrlich to the podium please right that right here the reason why I had to quickly interrupt our chair is because it's

018to my understanding that you're not aware about what I'm about to do here and you are standing there mr. Ehrlich because we are about to officially name the coral room at Woodson High School in your honor and so I would like to read that resolution here with all of us with deepest appreciation and so therefore in honor of the coral room that will be named the Michael L Ehrlich Corus room I'd like to say that whereas Michael L Ehrlich has passionately and faithfully served the WT Woodson high school students and staff parents and community members for 30 years as the school's choral director bringing the school and our community together throughout through your common love of music and performance whereas he has committed to the betterment of the music community and families through his unwavering

019dedication in and out of the classroom day and night weekdays and weekends rain or snow he consistently put his students above himself and whereas he grew the Woodson choral department to a record high of 300 members to include generations of choral students who will always have the road rising to meet them the wind at their back and the sun shining on their faces and where is Michael L Ehrlich whose name is synonymous with professional and caring inspired our students under his tutelage to envision the importance of music education and Performing Arts to build student-teacher relationships encouraging every one of his students to reach his or her potential and whereas his countless rehearsals with more on song voules then there are periods in the day created superior performance results and students with a lifelong dedication to

020musical performance and appreciation now therefore be it resolved that the chorus room at WT Woodson high school will be named the Michael L Ehrlich chorus room in honor of this truly special music educator consummate professional leader colleague and friend I so move for a second seconded by Ms Paul check miss McLachlan would you like to speak to it I think I have to vote first you want us to speak to it first or else beat to it first mr. Ehrlich I was not so lucky as a former collegiate singer to have my three boys benefit from your tremendous teaching skills their sports careers took them a different path but I was very blessed as a supporter and friend of so many of your students in these years to come see the performances and experience the

021joy that you have lit in the lives of these young people and even though you arrived when my brother-in-law was a freshman at Woodson in 1988 and now my youngest will be leaving Woodson 30 years later you have certainly spanned the generation of to McLaughlin sets of families and your legendary status has been known throughout and I just want to say on behalf of the Woodson families thank you for the gift of your teaching these past three decades and being able to name that choral room means that we will always be able to smile and remember the joy that you have brought to our community and that will stay forever congratulations miss Paul Chuck would you like to add a few words I would love to thank you and actually I will be sharing the

022words of a dear friend who had the chance to work with you he said six hours a week for four years in high school while I attended TJ there were so many friends of mine who spoke of you and chose because of You mr. Ehrlich mr. Ehrlich is the most generous person I have ever met he gave us the support we needed to stretch ourselves pride in our shared accomplishments and a lifelong love for music he didn't have to spend his time rehearsing advanced extracurricular ensembles producing dessert on Broadway or mentoring individual students but chose to do so mr. Ehrlich taught me to invest fully and the people and the causes that I care about and to find joy in the pursuit of excellence so on behalf of entire community and many who are here

023with us tonight former parents and students we thank you for all you've done for FCPS and Woodson thank you thank you and I will call for the vote all those in favor of this wonderful resolution that motion is unanimous and machlup and miss McLaughlin would you like yes as we did with the some of the other schools I do right now want to invite not only mr. Ehrlich to join us for a photo with the board but I would also like to invite principal Karlin Floyd assistant principal Mandy Berg assistant principal Shashi Madan and Paula DeSalvo Kathy Martin Adam Attenberg our director of student services Beth lash Michaels partner and family and friends along with our awesome regional superintendent who I see Francis IV please join us all for a photo at the dais all

024family and friends please come to the table and I see you there we need our former principal please come Scott Poole [Applause] next we have another very important part of our evening tonight we honor the Fairfax County public school teachers who have earned or renewed national board certification for the 2017-2018 school year we are pleased to recognize these teachers for their dedication and contributions to the education of our students as they master the skills reflecting a portrait of a graduate it is also my pleasure to welcome members of the city of Fairfax school board who are here this evening to celebrate the accomplishments of teachers from Fairfax High School Lanier middle school Daniel's Run elementary and Providence elementary school joining us are mr. John Buttram chairman Carolyn pitches vice chairman and members dr. Mitch Sutter

025field and Toby Sorensen and I believe they've just been reelected congratulations also joining us is city of Fairfax school superintendent dr. Phyllis Pichardo so please join me in welcoming them our true partners thank you very much I will now call on dr. Baron Thank You chairman Strauss you know it's teacher appreciation week and there is no better thing to do on Teacher Appreciation Week than to celebrate our best and brightest and I'll tell you National Board Certification is a grueling process that these folks have to go through and it is so awesome tonight to be celebrating the best and brightest teachers here in Fairfax County Public Schools let's give them a big round of applause and since you mentioned chairman Strauss the fairfax city school board I know a little something about that city school

026board with my previous time in the county it's not only their presence here tonight but the city school board currently and has for some time financially supported all teachers in their four city schools with national board certification so I thank you you know in fairfax county we really have as I've told you before really unmatched educational professionals and teachers tonight your impact on student learning as is unmatched as reflective practitioners you've enhanced instruction developed and demonstrated advanced teaching knowledge and continuously implemented best instructional practices all of which lead us to the FCPS portrait of a graduate the national board program was designed to develop retain recognized accomplished teachers and to improve practices at schools national board is the most recognized voluntary professional certification available in education teachers are certified in 25 different areas pre-k through

02712th grade since the program's inception in fairfax county over 22 years ago 470 teachers in fairfax county have become national board certified 262 are currently serving in our classrooms and more than 60 continued to serve our division as leaders in school-based administration or central office leadership with this number of national board certified teachers fairfax county public schools is ranked 26th among all school districts in the United States we are proud of our teachers who have partnered and pursued this high accomplishment of national board certification and were awesome we're excited to honor their awesome achievement tonight to further the program it is my honor and privilege to introduce to you the executive director of professional learning and Family engagement dr. Kathleen waltz Thank You dr. Bray brand and it is such a pleasure to be here

028tonight to celebrate our national board certified teacher especially during teacher appreciation week the teachers we recognized tonight have earned or renewed their national board certification by successfully completing a voluntary assessment program designed to recognize effective and accomplished teachers who have met high standards based on what teachers should know and be able to do the process is designed to assess a teacher's ability to put into practice the five core propositions which demonstrate that teachers are committed to students and their learning know the subject they teach and how to teach those subjects to students are responsible for managing and monitoring student learning think systematically about their practice and learn from experience and our members of learning communities in order to earn certification teachers analyze their instructional practice and ability to meet the needs of their students submit

029videos of their teaching and provide student work samples that demonstrate academic growth all of which are examined through a process of reflective analysis at this time I would like to introduce one of our national board certified teachers Pam Klingon Peel who will highlight her journey to national board certification ms klingon peel is a PE teacher at her alma mater Lanier middle school where she serves as the department chair for health and physical education as a teacher leader she has been instrumental in providing professional learning opportunities about adolescent brain development ADHD and the importance of movement for learning and behavioral improvements to both Lanier staff and the community she also holds a master's certification in mind brain and teaching from Johns Hopkins University she is an active member of the Society of health and physic educators

030of America miss Klingon peel holds the distinction of being the only national board certified physical education teacher at the secondary level in Fairfax County Public Schools please join me in welcoming miss Klingon Peele hello good evening before I begin I'd like to take this moment to thank efex County Public School Boards and the leadership the Berks County Public Schools leadership for this opportunity to speak to you tonight about my journey on become a nationally board certified teacher I'd want to become national board certified for some time and when the opportunity was presented by my principal Erin Lynn our financial support by Fairfax City School Board and the cohort class-b and how that linear I kind of felt like all the pieces were coming together and my goal was within my reach when I started this

031journey I received a variety of reactions from my colleagues from yes you've got this too you can retire in five years why would you put yourself through this I chose to take this challenge on so that I could continue to improve as a teacher in order to meet the needs of my ever-changing students after doing some research and understanding more about the requirements I realized the professional learning and leadership opportunities afforded to me by the school system had prepared me well for this challenge we are a remarkable school system with extraordinary resources the national boards requirements parallels a lot of what the county already provides for us and expects from its teachers I know that the journey to be a nationally board certified oftentimes feels for physical education teachers to be unreachable or not necessary

032because so much of the academics in education are surrounded by the academic four core what I appreciate about Fairfax County Public Schools is that we believe in educating the whole child mind body and spirit so really the work done in physical education should be perceived as one component of the three core if you will the national boards process really forces you to think outside the box it helps me to be more reflective in my practices things like making timely adjustments to my formative and summative assessments because feedback is so important to the learning process some of the modifications I made in my class included the use of technology such as iPads so my students could participate in peer and self-assessment additionally my students worked collaboratively together to bit to create Fitness law of fitness stations

033to enhance and improve their five components of fitness the National Board for professional teaching standards also emphasizes working collaboratively with colleagues and other professionals to strengthen the physical education program enhance student learning and to advocate for the importance of exercise and movement in all classrooms to improve learning at Lanier this is evident with a lot of our teachers incorporating brain breaks exercise breaks and the use of items like fit desks in their classrooms above all this endeavour has taught me that no matter how long someone has been teaching there's always room for improvement continuous learning is at the heart of who we are as professionals and a learning organization every single day in my classes I asked my students to take a chance step outside of their comfort zone and extend themselves because if you

034believe anything is possible becoming the nationally board certified teacher for me was my way of walking the talk since I asked my students to do this since I believe my students can do this I am proud to say that I have stepped outside of my comfort zone believed in myself extended myself and achieved this goal I am also proud to say that I have set an example of what I hope for my students thank you for this time in this privilege thank you miss Klingon Peele I would like to share a couple more highlights of the national board certified teaching program in Fairfax County the teachers in this room know this the certification process was updated recently with new standards and components in order to add flexibility in recognition of the demands on teachers time

035candidates may now elect to participate in the certification process in one year or across three years the components of each certificate area assess candidates on content knowledge differentiation and instruction teaching practice and learning environment and being an effective and reflective practitioner the office of professional learning and family engagement is proud to support those seeking initial certification or renewal by offering professional development and candidate support currently there are 36 teachers working through the renewal process and 18 working through components one through four in preparation for submitting their portfolio for assessment Opie ofe thanks Mary Lou Carmack for tirelessly advocating and supporting those teachers seeking national board certification Mary Lu please stand and be recognized I would also like to recognize the candidates support providers and instructors who are with us this evening please stand and be

036recognized additionally I would like to thank the staff of OPI Fe for their work to organize this wonderful event please stand and be recognized at this time dr. Bray bran would you please join me to present the certificates to the honorees we will honor teachers by region and each region assistant superintendent will be invited to participate by reading the names of our honorees from their region please welcome dr. Fabio's Eluga region 2 assistant superintendent thank you dr. wold the reality is that the best part of our job as regional assistant superintendents is that we get to see these wonderful teachers every single day the teachers that I am honoring this evening are teachers that I had the pleasure of observing them every day and they're phenomenal teachers they are these teachers really are true ambassadors

037of the work the wonderful work that happens in our classrooms so I mrs. Karen Karen all of Pine springs elementary school earned the art early and middle childhood certificate principal Armando Perry mrs. Crain Pinkerton of Shri wood elementary school earned a journalist early childhood certificate principal Michele Eugene [Applause] mrs. Cydney reef of grand road elementary school earned the generalist middle school certificate principal dr. Lindsey Elliot I also get the privilege to honor the teacher representative from region 3 on behalf of the mystery date we have mrs. Heather hot hatch case of Lee High School earned the science adolescent and young young adulthood certificate principled Daedra Lavery [Applause] mrs. Heather Hotchkiss of Lee high school earned designs adolescence and young adulthood certificate principal mrs. Daedra Lavery please join us thank you dr. zuluaga and now we

038would like dr. Angela Atwater region 4 assistant superintendent to read the names of the region for newly certified teachers Thank You Jamie Moochie low of Kings Park Elementary School earned the generalist middle childhood certificate principal Dottie Lynn Thank You dr. Atwater and now please welcome our reader dr. Francis IV Region five assistant superintendent I am extremely proud to recognize Brian on near of Whitsun high school who earned the English language art at adolescence and young adulthood certificate principal Carlin Floyd Margaret Arnold of linear middle school earn the mathematics early adolescent certificate principal Aaron Leonard Pamela Klingon peel of linear middle-school earn physical education early adolescence through young adulthood certificate principal Erin Leonard Lisa Greaves of Fairfax High School earned the English language arts adolescents and young adults certificate principal Dave Goldfarb Jennifer Hitchcock of Fairfax

039High School earned the history adolescence and young adulthood certificate principal david goldfarb Dale Grinnell o of linear middle school earned the school counseling early childhood through young adult certificate principal Erin Leonard Bradley Webster of Fairfax High School earned the science adolescents and young adults certificate principal Dave Gulf art juliana whittle of linear middle-school earned the music early adolescence through young adulthood certificate principal Erin Leonard and last but certainly not least Laura Voorhees of Daniel's run Elementary School earned the generalist early childhood certificate principal Adam herb rec thank you please join me once again in recognizing the accomplishments of all of our new national board certified teachers congratulations at this time we would like to invite our region leaders or designee xand administrators to come forward for a group photo with a new national board certified

040teachers after the board to please yes and after this photo opportunity we're going to invite the city of Fairfax school board members for a photo with the city of Fairfax newly certified teachers thank you you can hold your plaque straight kind of tilt important okay those energies now it's time to recognize our national board certified teachers who have renewed their certification and I would like to introduce anti diaper system-wide coordinator to read those national board certified teacher honorees welcome Annie dr. Bray bran would you join me again to present certificates thank you so again honorees when your name is called come forward for your certificate and then join here in the front for your photograph Michelle all spa Edison High School renewed English Language Arts adolescence and young adulthood certificate Prince Allah Pamela Brahm felt

041[Applause] Christina amaretti of Providence elementary school renewed music early and middle childhood certificate principal Dan Phillips Linnet Blackston of Mantua elementary school renewed music early and middle childhood certificate principal Jan Murray Fernandes Deirdre Christie Olli of Madison High School in absentia renewed mathematics adolescence and young adulthood certificate principal Greg hood Darleen Dooley avianna elementary school renewed generalist early childhood certificate principal John Carmichael Mary Gress ik of Oak View Elementary School renewed generalist early childhood certificate principal Sara Brooker Lana lamer of Jackson middle school renewed science early adolescent certificate principal Chad layman [Applause] mark levin dick of Madison High School in absentia renewed English Language Arts adolescence and young child young adulthood certificate principal Greg hood Nancy McCaleb of Lee high school renewed art early adolescence through young adulthood certificate principal Deirdre Lavery Kathleen Mooney Bay

042of Mountain View High School in abstention renewed English as a new language early and middle childhood certificate principal Gary Morris a meanness of Mount Vernon High School renewed science and adolescents and young adulthood certificate principal Anthony Terrell Sharlene O'Brien retired from Annandale Terrace Elementary School renewed generalist mini middle childhood certificate principal Lisa Pilsen Frances Peterson of Liberty middle school renewed Career and Technical Education early adolescence through young adulthood certificate principal Kathy sipperley Jeannine P Adela a Fairview Elementary School in absentia renewed school counseling early childhood through young adulthood certificate principal Lynn Mayer Larissa Sheehan of Graham Road Elementary School renewed generalist mini middle childhood certificate principal Lindsey Elliott James Smith of Herndon middle school in absentia renews social studies history adolescence and young adulthood certificate principal Justine plena Mary Alice solar of Cub run elementary

043school renewed literacy reading language arts early and middle childhood certificate principal Jenny Coakley Marquinho of Groveton elementary school renewed literacy reading language arts early and middle childhood certificate principal James swagger Theresa Kelly of McNair elementary school renewed generalist Smiddy middle childhood certificate principal Melissa Godin Julie Ivanovitch of Fairfax High School in absentia renewed mathematics adolescence and young adulthood certificate principal David Goldfarb Janet Veon of Mount Vernon High School in absentia renewed mathematics early adolescent certificate principal Anthony Terrell kristen wylie office of school Support renewed generalist middle childhood certificate executive director mark Greene Felder tarah willem Brock of Westfield High School in absentia renewed mathematics adolescence in young adulthood principal Anthony Copeland congratulations to our national board certified teachers at this time we would like to invite dr. Scott brave and school board members Regent assistant

044superintendents and or designee z' administrators to come forward for a group for for photo with our renewed National Board thank you sir [Applause] and if the city of Fairfax teachers would remain we invite the city of Fairfax school board and dr. Pichardo to join the city of Fairfax renewed candidates for a photograph please join us again as we congratulate this year's Fairfax County Public Schools national board certified teachers they are to be commended for their dedication to helping students achieve success in and out of the classroom let's give them another round of applause and thank you all three we will take a brief three minute recess so that folks can go off and enjoy and celebrate their accomplishments we'll resume in about three minutes thank you Ford members will please return to the table thank

045you board members please return to the table we will resume the meeting thank well thank you we will resume the meeting the next order of business is citizen participation tonight ten citizens have signed up to address the board and we also have two video testimonies speakers are requested to limit their remarks to not 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

046that there are often young children in attendance at these meetings or watching at home so language should be appropriate for all age levels thank you for your cooperation and thanks to those who have come out to speak to us tonight our first speaker is Ruby Nick da uh your FLE curriculum Advisory Committee made changes to the FLE education curriculum that do not speak the truth and will hurt the children and confuse them and these are the ones we are trying to protect I'll address two of the bad changes Fairfax students will now be taught they might have been born in the wrong body replacing biological sex with sex assigned at Birth students will be taught to embrace transgender identity but won't be told about the risks statements I reference next are from the American College

047of pediatricians that gender ideology harms children first of all a person's biological sex does not change human sexuality is an objective biological binary tree X Y and X X are genetic markers of male and female respectively not genetic markers of a disorder no one is born with a gender everyone is born with a biological sex people who identify as feeling like the opposite sex or somewhere in between do not comprise a third sex they remain biological men or biological women a person's belief that he or she is something they are not is at best a sign of confused thinking an objective psychological problem exists that lies in the mind not the body and should be treated as such it is a mental disorder so what are the risk that children won't be told beauty bertie

048blocking hormones can be dangerous it inhibits growth and fertility those taking cross-sex hormones are associated with dangerous health risks including but not limited to cardiac disease high blood pressure blood clots stroke diabetes and cancer what compassionate and reasonable we condemn young children to this faith knowing that after puberty as many as 88% of girls and 98% of boys will eventually accept reality and achieve a state of mental and physical health in conclusion I have two points do not replace biological sex with sex assigned at Birth provide resources that really help students but don't create or enable their sexual confusion thank you the next speaker is Kathy Bruce a good evening I am a mom in Fairfax County of young children I'm a lawyer I'm also an academic language therapist with little dyslexic clients and I

049am music director at my elementary school I would love to be here talking to you about the great hope that dyslexic children now experience with early intervention or the joy and lifelong learning that early musical performance can provide to the young child but I'm not here to talk about those things but it is my love of children that compels me to come here to talk about the changes to the sex ed curriculum you will be I believe seeing a PowerPoint later of recommending certain changes and I'm here to talk about what that PowerPoint leaves out let's call them the seven worst changes number one kids will now be taught that they weren't actually born male or female the advisors scrubbed biological sex from every lesson and replace it with the politically charged to term sex

050assigned at birth now in the PowerPoint you will see that the advisors claim that the American Psychological Association defines sex as sex assigned at birth not true I have the definition right here the American Psychological Association defines it as sex the biological indication of male and female such as sex chromosomes gonads sex hormones non-ambiguous internal and external genitalia number two kids will be taught to embrace transgender identity but the advisors voted to tell children nothing about the harmful side-effects of gender transitioning or the health risks number three fourteen year olds will now be taught about the daily drug regimen known as prep what is prep the Centers for Disease Control says prep is designed for people quote at very high risk of contracting HIV and they go on to define this group as men who

051have sex with men without using condoms prep is controversial even for this population leading AIDS experts call it a catastrophe because it encourages risky sex and here's the kicker crap has not even been approved by the FDA for children under 18 it's not approved for children and yet this board is about to approve yearly instruction in prep for all high school students every single year number 4 students will no longer be told that abstinence is the only is the only 100% effective method to prevent STI s5 they won't be told about the risks or side effects from contraceptive six advisors voted to take away parent's rights to opt out of a family related lesson and finally number seven the sex ed advisors have at last found a word that they find too offensive for children

052to hear the word is clergy they voted to remove the word clergy from the list of trusted adults that students could talk to about their sex identity concerns don't vote in these changes they will only make a bad curriculum much worse Fairfax kids deserve better thank you the next speaker is Meg kill cannon good evening my name is Meg kill Ganon I'm a mom with four children three are still in Fairfax County Public Schools I do not FA miss Payne's job of designing a curriculum on the topic of human sexuality there's no topic more personal important or controversial let's examine just one of those controversial topics the inclusion of consent as an objective for FLE there's a lot of talk about affirmative consent as a standard for youth to address rape culture which makes consent

053both a political issue and a matter of personal safety in thinking about consent a question we might ask is do you practice what you preach does Fairfax County as a school system gain the affirmative consent of parents to teach children about sexual consent as a matter of fact you don't all that is required of the school system to do as it pleases is for parents not to say no as long as we don't say no it's assumed we consent to sex Edie so you'll be teaching about consent without having true parental consent for the sake of comparison FCPS does require affirmative consent for field trips or for r-rated movies in class but right now not saying no is enough for teaching children to consent to sex another possible issue we might consider about consent is

054that teaching children to consent to sex is a grooming tactic there are many learned people in academia on the intellectual right and left who believe that the focus on consent for children safety is misplaced and indeed dangerous the opposite of teaching consent is teaching children meaningful refusal skills and respect for personal boundaries as a parent and a taxpayer I would hope for nuanced conversation about the natural tension between these two ideas of sexual consent and fusil were these kinds of issues discussed by the fleet Kanak does the fleet CAC truly advise and debate controversial topics or is it really just a rubber stamp for administrative proposals the vote totals that you'll see in the PowerPoint lead me to conclude that it's a rubber stamp a we parents hear over and over again that the school

055board members are not experts and that you rely on the staff for the details that's understandable but parents are wondering who does the staff rely on I think we can all agree that health and safety must be our priority for children physical health mental health emotional health and sexual health I hope there are some honest discussions of these difficult topics that were not addressed by the very politically divisive and stacked fleek hack at the work session on Monday I hope you'll consider modeling authentic consent by making FLE opt in instead of just opt out thank you the next speaker is Mary Mathison [Applause] good evening the family life education curriculum addresses high-risk behaviors that may cause sti's HIV and pregnancy as well as treatment and prevention methods it does not currently contain objectives addressing prep

056pre-exposure a pre exposure prophylaxis a medication that has a 90% success rate of preventing HIV without encouraging the inclination to ignore other preventive measures such as condom use that research was conducted by the CDC and validated by medical professionals around the world we know that young people will engage in risky behaviors the sense of immortality that is a natural part of development allows young people to believe that many behaviors including sex come without consequences we can debate the morality of these behaviors and we can debate the morality of homosexuality versus heterosexuality but students simply will behave in ways that we much wiser adults understand have devastating consequences we are responsible for protecting our youth sometimes from themselves we can't force them to do or not do anything we can't make them take birth control use

057condoms or even abstain from sex or IV drug use all we can do is provide them with information I strongly support an F le curriculum that encourages abstinence moral and religious ideals aside it's just the safest and best way to avoid consequences that can last a lifetime or even cut a life short but it is unrealistic to believe that young people will always listen to the pros and cons of any risky behavior including sex so in addition to information about consequences what we can do is arm students with information about how to protect themselves from pregnancy from SDI's and from HIV it befuddles me that there is even a conversation about including prep prep in the curriculum detectives we let students know about birth control because even if we want them to abstain we know

058that some won't and we want them to think at least a little bit no matter what our moral convictions are about LGBTQ issues we know that young people will engage in sex outside of what some in our society call the norm so how is it possible that ignoring the value of information the value of informing kids about a medication that might allow them to avoid the most devastating consequence letting them know it's available is giving them information to be a little responsible even if they refuse to be entirely responsible there's no downside to mandating information about prep just like there is no downside to mandating information about birth control why are we not doing the same for HIV prevention medication I sincerely hope that it isn't because we care less about gay lives than we

059do about other lives thank you for your time the next speaker is David aponte [Applause] good evening to the members of the Fairfax County School Board dr. Bray brand school staff in the fairfax county community my name is david aponte and I am the co-chair of glisten Nova an organization dedicated to creating safe and affirming schools for all regardless of sexual orientation gender identity or gender expression I am also currently a regional facilitator for the anti-defamation league's a world of difference Institute which focuses on anti bias training for people at all levels I'm here to speak in support of the sensible reasonable recommendations from the family life education curriculum Advisory Committee regarding lessons in grades 8 through 12 first I'd like to voice my support and moving emotional and social health unit 8.4 to general

060health instruction through my work with both the anti-defamation league and with glisten I've seen the need for conflict resolution and effective communication lessons and regular instruction it is an important part of growing up in something that all students can benefit from regardless of their current social and familial situation these skills are useful throughout life in school is a necessary place to have those calm sessions second I would like to express my support and Glisan support for changing the lesson objectives in grades eight nine and ten to strike biological sex and gender and replace it with sex assigned at birth this is a reasonable and evidence-based recommendation that young people are already including in their own conversation trend student educational resources a nonprofit organization completely run by trans youth and allies notes that biological sex is

061an ambiguous word that has no scale and no meeting besides that it is related to some sex characteristics it is also harmful to trans people instead we prefer sex assigned at birth which provides a more accurate description of what biological sex may be trying to communicate to add some more color to the phrase some sex characteristics refers to several characteristics some scientific and some not that many people believe makes up someone's biological sex the reality is that sex isn't something we're actually born with it's something that doctors or parents assign us at birth most people have no idea what their actual chromosomes are but are assigned to gender at birth based on what can be seen on the outside recognizing that this is a public school board meeting I think I can spare some of

062the graphic details here in favor of trusting that we can all do some research using fact-based studies and come to the same conclusion the term biological sex is often used in a derogatory way against trans people to other them or to ask a question that really is unnecessary for young people it is essential that they understand the contracts constructs that exist in society around gender and that it is okay to identify as their true self while this wording change may seem small or even negative to some of us I can tell you that a step like this can be in the world to someone who is trans no one wants to feel less than in any room they are in and this can help finally I'd like to voice my personal support of including pre-exposure

063prophylaxis or prep as a prevention method for HIV thank you for taking the time to listen to my statement tonight the next speaker is Kathleen Gillette Mallard [Applause] good evening superintendent Bray brand FC school board members this evening you've heard from other concerned parents and members of the fairfax county community regarding the proposed changes to the family life education sex ed curriculum since january many individuals have taken valuable time to attend and record the FLE committee meetings in February we were stunned by the abrupt removal of Laura Hanford without due process then we were alarmed by the rapidity with which changes to the sex ed curriculum were being proposed and voted on we have written you and we have published articles in the public domain we are trying to sound the alarm about these changes

064changes that will not promote the health of our children in fact they could even prove to be fatal the change biological for example to change biological sex for all FAL lessons and replace it with sex assigned at birth is false science there are medical emissions too numerous to count approval of 7th and 8th grade transgender lessons without the warnings of the permanent health risks and side effects have been omitted this is almost criminal prep daily HIV regimen is designed for promiscuous adult men and adult woman who engage in sex without condoms it is not for children it is not for teenagers in fact I am sure that this is possibly illegal the FLE changes are not innocuous efforts to help our children they are purposeful efforts by influential groups with an agenda and they are

065funded by great big tons of money federal money included Big Pharma organizations such as glisten caecus Planned Parenthood Playboy Foundation ETR associates advocates for youth these organizations have received millions of money and private funding no matter what you well intentioned administrators believe these changes to the FLE programs are designed to push an agenda an agenda that confuses kids devastates families and can even once again I will say be fatal teachers are being asked to do so much more than they should and are disciplined for not remembering the correct pronoun to use tonight you celebrated so many incredible educators let them educate don't force this other agenda on them anyway the programs do nothing to combat high tragically high suicide rates I have distributed a copies of my remarks and I hope you will take the

066time to read the rest of what I said thank you so much the next speaker is Erika yalla wicks good evening and happy teacher appreciation week I know many of you are or happy teachers so thank you for all your hard work for educators for schools and for students my name is Erika Alouettes and I was born raised and confirmed as a Roman Catholic God and my faith kept me strong everyday I am a family-oriented woman a wife a sister a daughter and a mother I care deeply about the children in our community my faith has taught me to feel and believe that all humans are equal before the eyes of God that he loves us just the way we are and he daily invites us to be compassionate and to love and accept others

067as we want him to love and accept us my faith has taught me that some things are not negotiable in life and one of those things is humanity this does not change with a psychological change of sex physiological state change affects excuse me the family life education curriculum has to be inclusive of our children whether they carry the sex assigned at Birth court have gone through the courageous and difficult decision to change it as allowed by our law and our current science language is important because it delivers a message to the students who are subject to it I invite this board to embrace trans exclusive language and warrant equal treatment and respect that all of our young people deserve as honorable individuals thank you for your time the next speaker is Keith Arthur's okay thank

068you for the opportunity to speak I'm from Vienna and I have three girls in FCPS I want to speak on the family life education community advisory committee known as sleek act recommendations I strongly oppose the recommended change of all of all occurrences of biological sex in the curriculum to sex signed up birth the FLE CAC recommended use of sex assigned at birth is scientifically incorrect the phrase is appropriately used in very rare contexts when a child is born with ambiguous Anatomy the doctor makes a decision as of the best sex assignment in that case this is a very rare condition and is not the context of FLE in a context of human reproduction and pregnancy prevention biological sex is the most relevant term it's what's used most in biology medicine and common English using assigned

069is ridiculous since the sex and most babies is identified and not assigned their sex is intrinsically part of them and if not decided for them the use of at birth is ridiculous too since you usually identify baby sex much earlier than that it's on a sonogram so should we use sex identified on sonogram no I don't think so perhaps flick Act made a bad change the support and narrative that gender transgender people are born with the wrong body at birth but there are no scientific studies that conclude that in fact science shows that gender dysphoria felt during adolescence is transient in most kids many long term follow-up studies all conclude that most kids with gender dysphoria don't become transgender adults they desist even the American Psychological Association in their latest diagnostic manual dsm-5 cites this

070fact using sex assigned at birth to imply a false narrative the vulnerable of students with gender dysphoria is wrong and even unethical it may be harmful to mislead the kids who are going to desist to imply that they have the wrong body at birth it will confuse them biological sex is what has always been used in sex education because anatomical biology is relevant to human reproduction and pregnancy prevention we need to support science and not false narratives I also want to point out the lack of diverse community representative on our fleet CAC is a stacked deck of like-minded members appointed because they hold the same ideological point of view as the majority board members and as a result fleek hack recommendations don't reflect nor respect the county's collective diverse views on sensitive topics zoning in

071on the removal of clergy as the trusted adult zoning in and removing clergy as the trusted adult also supports my past complaint that fleek hack is biased and even holds bigotry against religious students I previously pointed out that the non-discrimination policy taught to kids in eppley leaves out the word religion from the non-discriminatory list it's like why would they it's bigotry held by those appointed in conclusion until there's evidence that the fleek AK is an accurate reflection of the moral diversity of fairfax county families i recommend not approving the unscientific unrepresentative and even offensive recommendations except for the guidelines that were added as required by law thank you the next speaker is allison Munchie [Applause] good evening I'm a parent and part-time teacher here in FCPS thankfully the opposition to transgender and gender non-conforming protections

072is minimal statistically and for my family anecdotally the majority of people support kids like my daughter I'm not here to demand better treatment for her fortunately I haven't needed to but I recognize that not all LGBTQ kids are as lucky and tonight you heard from others with an earnest motivation to discredit the overwhelming research that supports the need to affirm transgender and gender non-conforming students I'm convinced that this small but vocal minority would accept and maybe even understands my daughter if they walked just a few steps in my shoes if they allowed themselves to understand the hours and energy put into learning about the best way to support her if they witnessed her bravery at a young age to show us the person she knew herself to be if they reminded themselves that parents of

073trans and gender non-conforming kids are like all parents we want the best for our kids even if it means we support them when we know there is a chance others may not we want them to be happy and loved and our hearts break when we're reminded of a world that can sometimes be cruel and often times requires us to wipe our tears and choose our bravery my kid chose to be brave she chooses it every day actually and so I will continue to choose to speak up and to educate to counter those who think she's confused or that we her parents have some kind of nefarious agenda even if it's more difficult because of that vocal minority Thank You FCPS school board members for choosing to do what is right and best for all students

074learning LGBTQ terminology and what it means to socially and medically transition does not make someone transgender using the appropriate term sex assigned at birth will not persuade a student to question their gender because it's cool or interesting I know and you know being transgender is an intensely personal knowledge and understanding of oneself our job as educators is to support our students and give them the knowledge and education they need to thrive based on the best available research and resources thank you the next speaker is Manny Solon [Applause] I yield my time to Karen Silva we did call this morning I wasn't sure I was gonna be able to be here and that's how I was told to do this glad to be here my name is Karen Solan I've been a resident of Fairfax County

075for 45 years my children graduated from the County Schools I'm a former social worker and retired early childhood educator and a longtime advocate for children and families and and youth I'm speaking tonight in support of the proposed update to the FLE program by using the word sex assigned at birth my journey to my remarks tonight began in the mid-1980s I was the hospital social work when the birth of an intersex child sent parents and doctors to a geneticist before sex could be assigned how could I have not known such children existed it would be years before I learned what happened to them my perspective has been informed in my life enriched by knowing many transgender individuals beginning in 1992 for six years from 1997 through 2002 I provided child care for families attending the true

076spirit conferences an annual gathering of transgender people their families and allies from all over the country these historic and life-changing conferences are described in the book transgender warriors by Leslie Feinberg who also wrote stone butch blues the stories told by these courageous pioneers moved me well beyond my initial comfort zone opening my life to cherished relationships and to the simple realization that we truly are just people trying to live our lives authentically with the dignity and respect we all deserve the words sex assigned at Birth acknowledged those of us whose assigned sex has matched the gender in which we are happy to live our lives but those words also acknowledge that for some individuals gender gender identity or expression will not match we know intuitively that all of us are not just our body parts

077but that each of us has a spiritual life with gifts and talents and interests that make each of us unique among the many gifts transgender invite us to do that they offer us is the the invitation to re-examine our assumptions and our attitudes about gender and perhaps to realize that we all pay a price for gender roles that are too rigid in the words of Audrey Lorde children need to learn that they do not have to become like each other in order to work together for a future they will all share in transgender warriors Feinberg writes quote there are no rights or wrongs in the ways people express their own gender style no one's lipstick or flat top is hurting us no one's gender expression is any more liberated than anyone elses students whose sex

078and gender match will benefit greatly from the inclusion of transgender students in their lives like me they too can expand their capacity for empathy can learn to be comfortable in their own identities while allowing others to live authentically in theirs thank you for the time I'll close and I will email my remarks to the board I'm sorry I wasn't well enough to do that [Applause] thank you to everyone now we have two video testimonies the first is presented by Claudia Wilde and the second by Monique Baroody my name is Claudia Wilde I have been been an ESL teacher in Fairfax County Public Schools for 12 years I want to speak about family life education I recommend that the school board adopt the recommendations of the family life education curriculum Advisory Committee as written those recommendations

079include using a language sex assigned at birth consistently when we discuss human sexuality it is already used in the seventh grade and it would be good to use it consistently it is preferred to the older term biological sex for a number of reasons first members of the transgender community and their family members and allies prefer the term sex assigned at birth if we were to use a different term we would be erasing those members of our community this language and using the frame sex assigned at birth would include the majority of our students without excluding transgender students and peers the phrases biological sex anatomical sex physiological sex and natal sex have are the terms preferred by other groups that are not related to what trans people desire to be referred to themselves indeed the Trump

080administration following the lead of the Family Research Council er Council uses the phrase biological sex in its ill-starred memo denying military service to transgender people using the term biological sex is done deliberately to justify discrimination Fairfax County Public Schools has been used started using sex assigned at birth and they should continue to use that at all there fo league documents and curriculum thank you the second video is presented by Monique broody according to the family life education curriculum Advisory Committee biological sex is irrelevant when teaching Fairfax County school children about human growth and development in fact at the March 8th fleet hack meeting mrs. Keys gomorrah's representative to fleek hack actually stated that biological sex is essentially meaningless if biology is meaningless why is it that only women can carry and deliver babies anyone who

081has ever had a child knows that one of the many issues expecting parents discuss is whether or not they want to learn the gender of their baby before birth some couples like to wait for the surprise in the delivery room but ever-increasingly parents are learning the gender of their children via sonogram or one of the other DNA based methods the earliest parents can learn the gender of their baby is about 7 weeks post conception gender is not assigned at birth but is determined by chromosomes at conception there are physiological differences between boys and girls that no amount of surgery or hormones can change the Olympic record for the marathon is 2 hours and 6 minutes for men and 2 hours and 23 minutes for women the Olympic record for the 100-meter dash is 9 point

0826 3 seconds set by Usain Bolt in 2012 to this date not a single woman has managed to break the 10-second mark the Olympic record for the 50 meter freestyle is 21 point 3 0 seconds for men and 24.0 5 seconds for women the highest total for Olympic weightlifting for men is 1042 pounds for women the highest total is 734 pounds so why aren't the women stacking up to the men are you seriously going to tell me that they aren't training as hard as the men or that they don't want it as much as the men no that would be ridiculous could it possibly be that there are simply biological differences between boys and girls absolutely and you should be ashamed to try to tell our children otherwise the next item on our agenda is

083student representative matters and I will call on Miss Betty Conda thank you madam chair so I'd first like to start with recognizing our boy scout in the audience for working on his citizenship in the community batch please stand to be recognized thank you for coming to this meeting so regarding the FLE CAC report so I uh I've actually appointed four students to the committee one in each of the high school grades to provide feedback on the content that the fleet had committee proposed and in many cases the students provided their own language and we're very active this year and providing thoughtful feedback to the committee to bring forward the proposed changes that will be presented with and I believe will make our curriculum more accurate relevant to our students and more inclusive throughout the year

084I've been working with these students to determine what the new changes were including the change from biological sex - sex assigned at birth and the change from one of the lessons to the general health curriculum which I believe we can all agree on and I've been working with these students all four of them to understand what they've been doing and the issues they've been confronted with throughout the year and I truly believe that these proposed language changes are the most reflective are what our students need in their FLE committees and their FLE curriculum my dad and I look forward to a productive work session on this topic and to move forward with approving this proposed language thank you thank you next is the FY 19 approved budget I will call on dr. Bray brand for

085a presentation and information Chairman Strauss members of the school board good evening it's my pleasure to bring to you tonight the 2019 fiscal year approved budget the this budget I believe has the resources necessary to meet our community's expectation on the educational services that we provide collectively I'm actually excited as you know the Board of Supervisors voted just recently to fully approve my approved budget request and that is the first time assistant superintendent Lee burden told me since 1995 this has happened so I think it's a it's a good year to be superintendent in Fairfax County and in Fairfax County Public Schools our approved budget approach really was simple this is our FCPS it's the school board's it's the Board of Supervisors it's the entire community of students parents teachers principals support staff and we

086really this year in the budget put our Fairfax family first we invested and salaries market based salaries for our employees specifically looking at our teacher salaries the nation the Commonwealth is facing a teacher shortage and we need to be sure in Fairfax County we have the best teacher in every classroom as you can see this year our budget with our strategic plan ignite really really pay particular attention to premiere workforce we know that our teachers and staff are the Fairfax difference it's the secret sauce and we need our best and brightest employees to continue to enhance the great things that we're doing in Fairfax we saw many of our great teachers tonight here for the National Board Certification ceremonies we need to keep them we need to keep their families and we need to keep

087our entire community focused on being a part of Fairfax County Public Schools our approved budget overview many of these things frankly are not different from what you heard when I spoke to you in January with the advertised budget our overall budget is about 2.9 billion which would be a 4.3 percent increase over last year's approved budget we really focus on our budget on instructional programs 86% of it is this year this budget as I said the priority was employee compensation and we did see some required cost drivers around enrollment growth yes we continue to see more kids in our school system and around some healthcare benefits as I said to you earlier we really focus this year on employee salaries you can see with it we included in this budget step increases for all eligible

088employees on all scales and that was about a 2.3 percent average we did teacher salary scale enhancement fifty three million dollars to really invest in getting our teachers to that market scale that we want so that we can keep teachers bring teachers in and get them to stay with us we also included this year in the budget a funding for the BA Lane teachers a step this year and as you know we talked in our work session about continuing that for next year as well not only did we want it to not just take care of our teachers in this budget we wanted to look at our non teacher salary scales and align those with the market and we have done that a little under 18 million looking at our school-based administrators or clerical custodian

089psychologists social workers central office in total we focused employee salaries at 116 million dollars and this was the right focus and will remain the focus in Fairfax County investing in our people as you know and we talked about before especially when a lot of the budget again is around our teacher salaries getting our teachers to that market and this proposed FY 19 scale gets us to this year's market average we really know that we want to continue to work to have a scale that brings dollars earlier in the career for our employees and focusing on career earnings so this budget has got a long way to put us our teachers at the market average we also want to say or I also want to share I'm very proud in Fairfax and many of you know

090about our er FC our local supplemental retirement program it's been a great benefit to our employees and really when you look at ER FC that adds about four percent to really what would be sort of our total compensation and that's still what we've done here with the market along with er FC keeps us in that target range of the market from 95 to a hundred percent of the market average we're proud of the work that we've done we know we have some more to do but we really focused on our teachers and it's in this budget we also did a little bit with employee benefits we saw a slight reduction from the VRS which is good news for our costs and that state system I am happy that the state has worked over the last

091few years to make sure that VRS is fully funded and that no dollars from VRS can be used to fund other priorities in the state budget we saw no change to the RFC contribution rate we saw a slight increase to FC ers which about 6,000 of our employees are in the county's policy and there were some slight increases there and then in health insurance we saw about a five point five percent increase in health insurance rate at a cost of thirteen point four million dollars enrollment as I told you was also a cost driver in the end as I come to you now in May it was a driver of about twenty million dollars our total projected enrollment is coming out over a hundred and ninety thousand that's an increase of over eleven hundred kids

092from the approved budget back in the fall was a little bit more like we thought it would be seven hundred when we got our spring enrollment data we added a little over another four hundred kids so now eleven over over eleven hundred kids more projected compared to the FY eighteen approved budget we still are seeing some increases in the number of students that are free and reduced lunch eligible eight percent a lot of that we believe is impacted because Virginia participated in a pilot to directly certify students eligible for Medicaid which tells us that we've had some kids out there that have really been free and reduced lunch eligible but simply they or their families have not been able to do the paperwork necessary for certification we're seeing a sliding uptick in our English for

093speakers of other languages though maybe not as great as we've seen in previous years and also in special education we continue to see an increase of our special education students of about a thousand or four point one percent increase compared to the number of special education kids before that gives us about twenty million dollars additionally in enrollment in student demographics some other expenditure increases I'm so excited to have a budget that brings back for the first time in over a decade tuition reimbursement we also created a master's cohort for our teachers and those ba lanes so they can get to that new ba scale excuse me the new master scale from the BA scale that they are currently on and I believe so much that tuition reimbursement is a signal it's a signal to our

094teachers that we believe in teaching and learning tonight you saw with the National Board Fairfax City offers just a small stipend to help cover that and look at all the teachers who participate when we have even you might go on a big big a million dollars but if you signal to teachers that we value teaching and learning you'll see more and more of our teachers continue to be lifelong educators and lifelong learners there's a little bit in this budget for support for preschool we want to continue to do work there and we are reducing the wait list this coming year and serving more students math resources a little bit of additional money three hundred thousand to support 3.3 million we already had set aside and some contractual increases in our maintenance and service contracts that

095add about 2.3 million to the budget if you go to the next slide you'll see some other slight tweaks the reoccurring corley fund grant adjustment that's really for special education it's IDE a federal dollars that was actually already shared with you back in January I also shared with you in January the equity resources funding to support the equity work that this board has committed to we shared an equity plan with you back in March one thing that's new in the budget based on your direction from our advertised budget was additional esal support and we have worked in this budget to bring additional wraparound to newcomer high school we saw students we present an implementation plan to the school board in April and this budget has that plan also since January there was board direction to

096find additional dollars to support parent liaisons employee benefits for those that are working that 25 to 29 hours per week that is in there we have a very very slight amount that we need for skip but we're working with our own budget folks to take care of subs and stipends for an EDI pilot that we're doing in conjunction with the county and this budget does have since January an additional dollar amount for an additional hearing officer we've seen an increase this year in the volume of cases and many of you have asked for some additional information about that and provided a little bit and we'll be providing more and be able to talk about that at our budget work session as you so request the next slide around reductions we had based savings that's the

097position turnover when people of greater seniority leave and others come in and are hired at a salary less than those that have left we saw some savings from the adult transitional high school that's been a two-year process and we are going forward with the program redesign for next year this redesign saved some money but it also provides more equitable course opportunities and reduces administrative overhead and our system we did do reorganization of staff I cut a chief of staff position shortly after I arrived and I cut the assistant superintendent for equity and innovation certainly positions that had importance but we need to do as much as we can to be a school centric be a school centric school system and really find everywhere we can to find efficiencies find effectiveness and our central office and

098support functions to support our schools we wanted as we did in this budget pay all of our folks both schools and central office additional dollars for the work they do but where we can find ways to be more efficient we should there's some additional dollars to the transfer of the construction fund savings based on projects for the CIP for next year that came back to us we have a little bit increase in laps and turn over our budget remains though that lapse at about two point one percent of total compensation so we're really keeping the same percentage that we've had each and every year we have a little bit of reduction with food services indirect cost which are really dollars that they pay over for us for our overhead support of our foodservice operation and

099our office of school Support many of you remember that we presented a plan to provide additional supports into the region taking project momentum which has gotten tremendous school results and expanding it we did that by two a little bit of the formula for needs based staffing that actually generated office staffing for elementary and we moved the cut point from twenty percent to twenty five that even with the plan that we had we found a little bit of additional savings of a hundred thousand dollars so the total and reductions is a little is at thirty three point six thirty three point six million all through this budget it's as I said before we want to focus on excellence in Fairfax County we want to focus on equity but you also want to focus on effectiveness we

100want to be an effective school division that uses the public's dollars wisely even with this budget even with our investment the right investment in our teachers and our support staff and our employees this cost per pupil when next year's budget would put us still in the middle of the pack compared to other school divisions as we look at the FY 18 cost per pupil the revenue summary as you know the county and state provide nearly 95% of our FCPS operating revenue we have to fund a much larger portion of our school budget with local funds due to the state's methodology for allocating funds to school divisions we continue to see even while state funding this year has increased that inflation adjusted the state per pupil k12 direct aid funding for the FY 18 this year

101is still below FY 2009 almost 10 years later we still get less money on the inflation-adjusted per pupil basis than we did almost 10 years ago revenue our beginning balance did have a decrease our County transfer is 4.3 percent as I said they voted just a week or two ago and I want to again thank the Board of Supervisors for working with us and I want to also publicly thank County Executive Brian Hill who worked with me every month every week sometimes every day and by the hour work together to collaborate together to get the information necessary to the Board of Supervisors into his staff to help make the argument for advocacy for our budget and it was greatly rewarded with their support and the Board of Supervisors support and I think them for that

102state revenue we did see some growth this year as we said we're still in catch-up mode 31 million of additional dollars some increase in sales tax which is is really coming on strong and we hope that continues in the months and years ahead some additional federal aid that's the IDE a grant I talked about earlier the tuition from Fairfax City one reduction in revenue as you know in the budget and Niharika has talked about this I proposed eliminating the extracurricular activity fee that was put in last year I believe again the second part of the secret sauce the first part is our people and the second part in Fairfax County isn't just what happens inside the classroom it's what happens outside that classroom on the field in clubs where opportunities are are forged for kids

103and we don't want barriers up for any of our children to feel that they have to pay to play a sport or a club or an activity that total for revenue gets us 116 point nine million and again we are pleased with that revenue picture so our budget timeline there will be public hearings next week there's a work session as you know and I'm letting the community know that there'll be a budget work session and then May 24th we will adopt the approved budget and we are still have many opportunities here for discussion from the board as well as your input from our community but I've got to tell you it's so exciting to come back and be superintendent in my first year and see a community see a school board see a Board of

104Supervisors reaffirm the Fairfax that I began in five years ago fully supporting our people fully supporting our schools fully supporting our community we're off to a great start together and I hope for many many years ahead so thank you very much and we look forward to dialoguing with you and answering more detailed questions at the work session next week thank you dr. Bergeron we certainly concur with our gratitude to the board of supervisors and the citizens of Fairfax County for agreeing to fund our budget 1995 was a long time ago so it is wonderful to be able to see particularly the pay increases for our hard-working educators and support staff for the first time many of my colleagues on the board we have not had to worry about raising class size cutting programs looking at

105fees I know new Eureka's very pleased getting rid of that so this is just I think a celebration all of her all of us and we've heard from the board of supervisors as well that we are very pleased with the collaboration between you dr. Bray bran and the county executive mr. Hill so I think we are off to a great start now I have some of my colleagues who have questions we will have more opportunities but certainly welcome questions tonight first we have miss Paul check then miss Hines and then miss McLaughlin thank you it was first thank you and I will have more questions at the work session for tonight I was hoping a couple of things you could clarify for us or our wonderful staff yes I have miss Lee Burton here our

106assistant superintendent and our chief operation officer Marty Smith and they'll be glad to answer any question I struggle with okay hopefully not even the first one is to end this for us all so for the audience is kind of a big question out there right now is the state budget so I was hoping you could clarify for us at this point they have not passed their final budget I am it what what will happen and how that affects us the lack of a budget currently I don't believe that it affects us at all we have an appropriation that was given to us by the local governing body or the county on May 1st and that's really all we need to move forward now having said that you know only 23 percent of our funding comes

107from the state and so that's typically like it's like the divisions that rely much more heavily on the state and that does present a problem for them but I do not believe that it presents a problem for us and hope if I could say and while I'm here and I'm glad to be back I want the community to know whether you're in Northern Virginia Tidewater Virginia central Virginia Southside Virginia Southwest Virginia the state needs to do its job and pass a budget there are some school districts that rely on the lion's share of their budget it's actually the opposite way 60 to 70 percent of their budget is from the state they can't wait their teachers can't wait and I believe and I am hopeful that our state folks are closing in on being able

108to give good news to school divisions in the weeks ahead and and to be clear for us it will be seen next year as a quarter end it will not affect our current approved budget I just want it clear no we don't believe that it will because all of the increased funding that have been assumed in the fiscal 19 approved budget is due to enrollment increases rebenchmarking and the change to the local composite index and so those funds that are derived from those items wouldn't change wouldn't normally change as a result of the deliberations by the General Assembly but we're not able to assume those for this budget correct okay thank you beyond that just want to share my concerns and I'm still waiting I believe for the budget response on our employees who are

109still below our living wage in the counties living wage so I look forward to that and having a conversation with my colleagues and with you and staff once that data is in yeah we'll have that before the work session we just don't have it available yet perfect thank you especially as I see that we've had a savings in food service I would love to find a way to bring all of our employees to our living wage and then looking forward to the to some of our pre-k services and supporting our students we've been able to do a bit more with easel support and Family Services but still have a long way to go so thank you and I look forward to Monday's session thank you miss Hines yeah thank you very much this is good

110news but I have a question it's slide just for people in community who may be checking in for the first time we've had a long conversation about it but just to clarify on slide 11 you record the reorganization savings of $500,000 including eliminating the assistant superintendent equity and innovation and I just want to make sure the community knows to reference slide 10 which shows that actually although we did not create the equity innovation position we did give that work to the chief academic officer and provide $300,000 in resources for him to do that job that's correct yes ma'am so we're not just cutting that work we redirected from really a higher administrative position into support positions under the chief academic and equity officer right thank you and just one other question you mentioned that the

111state continues to be behind in real dollars per pupil spending from 2009 I believe that we are also still behind in real dollars our per pupil spending from 2009 I mean I if I understand it last year or maybe the year before we could calculate that at about a thousand dollars per child in real dollars that we were spending less than we were spending in 2009 I haven't asked that budget question but I'd be interested to see where we are now well we can have it for next Thursday okay thank you do you have it now miss burden if you have it now but otherwise I think we only have it going back to 2011 yeah so let's see we'll get that for you for Thursday okay miss mcLaughlin thank you uh I know that

112we had a brief work session conversation on this and we'll have more in-depth conversation on Monday but I didn't want to on slide 11 just kind of briefed the public as well as my colleagues that last week I tended with some members of the county a community schools national conference in Baltimore and it was really compelling but during that time up there being able to have more robust conversation about how you best serve students especially with need through the various services and we talked about dr. Barry Brown the positions that are listed there on slide 11 it on slide 10 then yes on the esal support for our students the wraparound services again I'm just gonna reiterate to everybody as your resident social worker on the board and talking with county and school social workers

113here with an F CPS I still have concerns that was $700,000 we want to make sure we're funding the best positions possible and it even at Stewart High School where the principal penny gross is looking to get additional supports for social workers that's where the need is for wraparound services and it's a very different position than when a school counselor is and I love our school counselors but I I'm gonna be bringing this up on Monday that I really hope we're a hundred percent behind that seven hundred thousand dollars no question but I wanna make sure we fund the right positions okay so that's a big piece of it and then secondly I'm just gonna reiterate what we said again because dr. Barry and I hope have a more robust conversation at Monday's work session

114many of us raised question about adding $100,000 to the budget for another assistant hearings officer and so we're gonna really need some yes we'll have some yes ma'am so those those are kind of the two primary concerns that I have I I want to echo what ms hynes said that certainly this board has been for many years now talking about how we would have an office of equity and I really want to thank you and dr. durán and everyone involved in looking at how we could bring this best to an operational approach and so I'm very pleased that while this isn't as much money as we might want to invest right away at least we're moving in the direction that we need to so that's really good news I'm probably a highlight for me on

115the budget thank you and I do want to clarify that the budget work session will be Thursday evening at six o'clock great thank you know we have we have the but we have a hearing on May 15th and then we have the bedroom what excuse me 717 but it is next week thank you mr. Smith I thought for sure we were gonna have a conversation on Monday so we just have two conversations letting the board know and letting the community know okay thank you Miss Schultz yeah I actually have a question about the thing we didn't talk about tonight which are budget questions and budget responses and I thought that we had previously identified the desire to know what questions have been asked and I'm not seeing a list in the responses that you know

116the public may have questions about some of those because okay there hasn't frankly been a lot of discussion about what our questions are and so we have the responses to the questions that have been responded but we don't know the status of all of the rest of the questions that have not yet had responses okay and so I think it would be a good idea we're staff to list the outstanding questions and I don't even know if there's a possibility of indicating when they're gonna be answered but we're running out of time okay let me look into that so the outstanding questions so that the public knows that the questions have been asked got it um we have you know definitely concerns from you know certain employee you know sectors or our employees around some

117of the spending you know and some other things so I would like to see that and we'll be looking forward to finding out what's what's remaining outstanding yes ma'am all right Thomas Corbett Sanders first thank you very much thank you and the whole team for the incredible hard work that went into preparing the budget and the continuous dialogue and collaborative approach to this budget with the county and I think that this is a step in the right direction and certainly a positive climate for sets the standard for future collaboration with the county with the Board of Supervisors and we are very appreciative not only of the work of our Board of Supervisors in fully funding our budget request but also with our two new executives both you dr. Bray brand and mr. Hill so it's

118it's greatly appreciated I do want to make people aware that this board has been working very closely with you to really prioritize our strategic plan and make it much more streamlined and I hope that means that we have a commitment to our budget process next year fully aligning our budgeting process with our strategic plan this is something that I feel that it is a best practice and given that we always extol the importance of best practices this would be one area that we should continue to focus on getting there yes ma'am additionally I wanted to talk a little bit about the hearing officer position and just kind of give you a heads up and a heads up to the rest of the board that in looking at that position and I understand the importance of

119it but that I would like to see as part of that position a focus of either the position or a renewed focus within that office of doing outreach and training at the elementary middle and high school levels on restorative justice and diversion first practices it is so important that we embrace that and that we continuously reinforce those practices and that mindset of let's find a way of addressing the issues at the at the level of the school that the kids are going to working with the kids working with the parents and working with the staff and so I would hope that that position truly has a piece that says we need to have a focus on training and best practices and professional development Thank You mr. Koufax thank you dr. Bray brand and yes as

120many of my colleagues have already expressed this is a good news budget so thank you for your hard work and we appreciate your your work and your team's work on this many if you knew so very exciting for all of you who are who are doing this miss McLaughlin didn't call me today about the comments she made regarding the position to deal with you know the the schools that are being affected with this surge of our safe I saw one and you sell to level learners and I do think when we have the opportunity to have an additional work session I think dr. durán and his team if you could please clarify for us you know the rationale for putting in the position that you talked about is to do pó as you know in

121addition to the one miss McLaughlin is talking about I think it's important that we as a board refer back to you and your expertise and they and what we're here at what you're hearing from those on the ground who are using these positions and what is what is best practice what would be best for these schools because as we know this this amendment if you will it's not an amendment at this point it's incorporated into the budget came as a result of several years of surge in populations in a specified number of schools which continue to see growth year after year after year in some of these populations which are you know bring different challenges to our schools which we haven't seen before because the number and the need needs of these students so I

122think it's important that we talk that through thoroughly because I do know that there is a need in these schools there has been a need for several years as you said October I ran at the last work session this is a beginning a band-aid you called it and we we need additional supports at these schools but I don't want the conversation to break down because we can't agree on something okay and I don't use Miss Schultz's comments often but she always often says Vita don't let perfect baby what is it but don't let perfect be the enemy of the good so I think in this case we have to be really strong and look at that and say you know this this may not be the perfect solution but it is a good suit is

123it a good solution and it is is it a solution that is going to assist these schools which have been struggling well if you and miss Schultz are collaborating on comments I think I can collaborate with dr. durán and the principals and have a little more information by next Thursday so there you go also I do want to comment Miss Korbut Sanders is not alone in her desire to have the district the strategic plan for those of us who sat on the board prior to the current board that sits here one of the reasons it came about as a result was is we had legislative priorities we had but when you looked at the system as a whole the superintendent may have had different priorities than the board did or you know every board had

124different different priorities and so when we were asked I think there it was and I remember this very clearly because I was the state legislative liaison making the presentation and when we were asked by state legislators but what are your priorities as a system where do you want to go we get where you want to be legislatively and so that was the impetus for several of us who sat on the earlier you know the board prior to this one the reasons why so it it makes that is the reason a strategic plan was developed there is no reason that the budget priorities should not align with those priorities in the strategic plan and that was as I said the reason we all came to to get to it it is I think you understand that

125and I think we all agree on that and as you said this this year you know a premier workforce is where our focus is and as we move forward we just need to ensure that our priorities are aligned as a cohesive unit and anybody who comes and looks at our system they can say these are the priorities and this is how they're funding their abilities I miss McLaughlin has it go back yes briefly as mr. Smith was correcting me on my dates the reason Thursday is not on my mind is my son is graduating from Georgetown University next Saturday but the University Convocation is Thursday afternoon so in the event that our felony celebration runs long you might only be hearing me right now so I do want to just have a quick follow-up to

126these two things miss Koufax you're correct we never want perfect to be the enemy of good what I am asking for this board to consider in collaboration with our superintendent is that rather than in that line item of 0.7 million or $700,000 for esau support right now it says says provide wraparound to newcomer high schools you all dented as a school counselor since it doesn't say necessarily it has to be a school counselor I would just ask that if that's the intent of the superintendent that he would then be working with staff over to determine in the end especially the leadership team what is that real need because depending on what supports were trying to bring to those seven other schools just making sure we're hiring and staffing with the right position and anyone who's

127read the job description and knows the actual educational preparation a school social worker and a school counselor are very different responsibilities so I just wanted yeah in all candor I haven't had that conversation yet with dr. durán I know it came up the work session it's just been a lot of a lot of other things and I will have had it by next Thursday hopefully we'll have some context for it yeah you can also add the one you're absolutely correct that what we did in terms of the budgeting was to look at a the salary at that step for a school counselor but the intent was that it was wraparound support services and so just like in the case of Stewart and Lea in the pilot we provided two FTE funded for teacher positions but

128we worked with them to allow them to use those funds to support the students as they best saw fit and in both cases they're using that for counselors so the reason why we recommended the counselor funding piece under the umbrella of looking wraparound support is because we saw many of our schools are currently trading positions for a counselor so we wanted to start with that that is not to say it's limited that if a school would work with us to say we would rather use those funds for other things that would under the guise of be wraparound support services that we would say it had to only be a counselor but we chose to work with his learner Kovacs and I chose to look at it from the lens of what were schools trading out

129currently for wraparound support services so the intent was that they would not have to use their positions for that that is not to say that that means you can only now buy a counselor with these funds does that help it does I'm just making macro level comment the value in the beauty of this school division is that we have enough funding to have the most experienced and knowledgeable central administration and our schools based staff we have to still use central administration to help inform them the difference between these positions and how one might actually meet the greater need of wraparound services so I just would hope we are going to help guide the conversation not have them just say to us this is what I think I need and this is what I'm the guidance

130we had provided and which is the plan we presented a year ago was inclusive of Social Work psychologists counselor and parent liaison not looking at our budget constraints we couldn't put all that forward because that would have been much much more than the 700,000 we started with what we're schools currently trading for right now but all of the guidance you asked a question or maybe was mr. net Koufax can't remember how about the research all the research shows that to do true wraparound support you need that team of individuals so that is the guidance that we've been providing that's the plan that we presented where we looked at the numbers based on the numbers of students in level one and two and how what percentage would you need of a social worker of a psychologist

131of a counselor to provide that true support so really if we wanted to think about what we needed here it's much more than just this but this is where we started with thank you dr. durán I appreciate that I the other thing that I wanted to go back on is because I've had this conversation with Miss Korbut Sanders and I was trying to bring the clarity about the assistant hearings officer position if this board with all of its intentional work is about restorative justice restorative justice work as I understand it comes out of special services in Teresa Johnson's shop it's not through the hearings office so the hearings office does the hearings office work but I would like my colleagues to consider that actually we can take that position and it's not about having the

132hearings office now try and you know teach and model restore justice that's not their role and that's not their training what I would consider and I'll talk to my colleagues between now and next Thursday is that that that position be redirected over to increasing our restorative justice training and maybe they're going to spend some time with the hearings office helping them understand where referrals are to the hearings office for you know those decision-making processes but I again send restore justice doesn't that's not their job and role so that position could be better housed over with special services Corbett Sanders miss mcLaughlin the the point of my comments were that we need to increase training and development in that area I leave it up to the superintendent to figure out where the best place in his

133organization is I appreciate that you two agree that it needs to be a focus on this and it needs to be a focus throughout the system I think what has happened thus far as we tend to focus this activity at the high school level and we really need to have development in restorative justice practices and diversion from the hearings office starting at an elementary school middle and high school and so I welcome that conversation but it is not I was not trying to suggest that there's only one way of doing something but I also suggest that that's where the superintendent is best positioned to tell us how to as long as we capture what we want done to get that accomplished okay thank you very much I was waiting with our budget chair miss Evans

134is when I say this but since she is not I just want to remind both the members about bringing your amendments to work session next Thursday so that we can all discuss as much as possible on that evening thank you now thank you miss can I just say you all don't have any amendments that's okay with me as my first year superintendent I hear usually you have no amendments and the budget approval process is just about 15 20 minutes I think that's what mrs. Evans said when she was chair was 5 10 minutes so if that's how it goes I'm fine if you have one or two amendments we'll be glad to look at them and and I will reiterate that if there are amendments to please contact our budget staff so that we can

135help contact Lea and with Assisi to me so that we can help with language and costing of your items dr. Bray ran we only said that to bring you here sorry again may 15th is a public hearing on the budget I believe people can still sign up to speak the work session is on May 17th and it will be here at Luther Jackson televised and the final vote on the budget will be on May 24th again at our regular meeting here at Luther Jackson the next item on our agenda is confirmation of action taken in closed meeting this is the portion of the meeting where the board will confirm any action regarding issues that were discussed in the closed meeting these issues may include action taken regarding student disciplinary matters board members have discussed each

136individual case and at this time we'll make several motions to confirm the recommended action first I will call on mrs. Schulz I moved to expel a student who assaulted another student and who was convicted of a serious community-based crime second second if I miss Hines thank you all those in favor it is Evans McLaughlin Paul check Corbett Sanders Strauss moon Hines Scholl stir and a Koufax Keith camara abstention mr. Wilson thank you I will call on miss Hines for a motion I moved to deny the school reassignment appeal of a student who possessed a weapon at school and threatened to harm other students and to confirm the disciplinary decision of the division superintendent second sang-doo by mr. moon all those in favor Evans McLaughlin Paul check Corbett Sanders Strauss moon Hines Schultz Jericho facts Keys

137camara abstention mr. Wilson will column mr. moon promotion thank you madam chair I moved to deny the school reassignment appeal of a student who disrupted the educational process and mistreated a Fairfax County Public Schools teacher and to confirm the decision of the division superintendent second second by mr. Schultz all those in favor Evans my clock pull check Strauss moon Hines Schultz Keys Gemara opposed abstention is Wilson Corbett Sanders Jericho fix I call on Miss Schultz for emotion I moved to deny the school reassignment appeal of a student who harassed assaulted and improperly touched another student at school and to confirm the disciplinary decision of the division superintendent second seconded by mr. moon all those in favor it is mcLaughlin pull check Corbett Sanders Strauss moon Hines Schultz Darrin echo facts opposed Evans abstention mr. Wilson

138and miss Keith camara that passes Nexen the agenda is consent agenda our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure Robert's Rules provide for a consent agenda listing several items for approval of the board by a single motion many items listed have gone through board review and documentation has been provided to all board members and the public in advance items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member prior to the meeting first 6.01 approved the minutes of the April 26 2018 regular school board meeting 6.0 to award the contract for the boiler replacement at Crestwood elementary school so the lowest responsive and responsible bidder boiler and furnace cleaners Inc Hurley company division in the amount of two hundred and fifty two thousand six hundred dollars and authorized the division superintendent or the

139assistant superintendent facilities and transportation services to execute and administer the contract on behalf of the school board is there any objection to approving the consent agenda hearing and seeing no objection the consent agenda is approved next is new business the following our 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 recommended media and lesson objectives as detailed in the agenda item and is reviewed and recommended by the family life education curriculum Advisory Committee seven point zero to adopt the FY 2019 approved budget as detailed in the FY 19 advertised budget modified by the adjustments included in the agenda item superintendent matters talk to Bree brand Thank You chairman Strauss we have five fairfax county public school counseling programs that have

140been recognized by the american school council associations called Aska as model programs and they were recognized with Rant designation in 2018 for successfully demonstrating their comp hence of school counseling program benefits for all students I remember doing this work when I was a principal at Fairfax High it's a lot of work but it is a amazing testament to the work that school counselors can do and being instructional leaders in the school and really supporting and providing social emotional supports that really ties to academic and instructional results so a wonderful wonderful program that we've been doing for some time in Fairfax County Burke school Edison High Liberty middle South County High School and Woodson high will be recognized at the national conference in Los Angeles in July and as I said it recognizes those schools that

141are committed to a comprehensive data-driven school counseling program I also want to say thank you to all of our wonderful teachers if you're still watching but you're probably not now 10 o'clock getting ready for another day tomorrow Friday it's the last day of teacher appreciation week and we really value all the work that our teachers do every day for our students and for for for their families and for our whole community we're really lucky to be in a wonderful place that values our teachers and all the work that they do so I hope they enjoy their last day of teacher appreciation week and then finally we had a wonderful retirement ceremony this week it's the first one I've ever participated in here as superintendent and it was so moving just to see and hear the

142stories of people who've given their life some people over 40 years of service we had one bus driver who drove a school bus in Fairfax County for 38 years and there was story after story after story we recognized a choral teacher 30 years of life in one school and again all these folks their years of service for the system so so so powerful and I want to thank dr. Rainey and the HR staff for all the work to create such a special evening at TJ and it was really really one of the highlights of my first year coming back in this role so thank you very much chairman Stroud just an update the fleek hack presentation will be given at the work session on Monday there was a question to that board reports missiles do

143you have an update on CPT C or not and I'm not sure hope the switch not push the button I do have a update unfortunately C PDC is comprised of four board members three from this board one from the fairfax city board we have had difficulty fully staffing the CP DC meetings with at least three of us so that we can conduct a meeting however the status of our open F PAC applications is such that we're still looking for for Sully for one at-large and Lea and Lea so if anybody would like to submit an application to volunteer for the facilities and planning advisory committee we've extended the applications until almost the end of May and then we will go through those as committee and make a suggestion but we have asked for time on

144a future board work session to bring formally a recommendation to the board that we align c pd c as a standing committee of the board and i'll provide more information to you on that but the the timeline of renovations and the need to address boundaries and trailers and just there's a substantial amount of work coming in the future on on so many things one fairfax issues that we we feel that it's going to be prudent and will recommend a discussion of the board look at standing committee of facilities okay thank you the next supported matters and i will begin with miss Keith Kamara thank you madam chair it has been a busy couple of weeks I also have the opportunity to go to the retirement we honor you reception which was inspiring to see the

145joy that people expressed or you could just see how the light that they showed and the enjoyment that they've had with our children and so I'm grateful to the people who have dedicated their lives to our kids I've also had an opportunity to visit several schools MacLaine including McLean High School Chantilly and Falls Church High School I look forward to doing more of that and some other community activities I just want to wish everybody a Happy Mother's Day this is a hug your mother week so thank you mr. Nate Koufax thank you and a happy teacher appreciation week we want to thank our teachers you I know you are the heart and soul of our school system we so appreciate all the work that you do and all of the great gifts you give our

146children teaching the next generation it's it's a wonderful honorable profession and we don't think we can't even thank you enough so I also had some fun opportunities to do I saw many of our talented students in the last few weeks I was able to go to Edison High School and see their production of Cinderella I was also treated to Lee high school's production of Bye Bye Birdie and with many of my colleagues I had the privilege of hearing the over 800 voices of our sixth-grade County chorus it is an amazing production and quite moving so if you haven't had the chance to go see it please do I also had the pleasure of speaking to the Springfield Estates PTA meeting last week we talked about budget the new Bush Hill aap Center and the one

147Fairfax policy so happy Mother's Day to all of those out there I hope you enjoy a wonderful festive weekend MS Schultz just a couple of things one my my heart goes out to the Robinson community in the loss of one of our students rather tragically and particularly I'm heartbroken for my alma mater J mu where where Brennan was bound Brennan Lauderdale and I just want to emphasize again you know if students are struggling with you know mental health or just stress issues don't hesitate to crisis text or call either the regional Crisis link or national suicide hotlines reach a trusted adults a clergy member since that should still be a word that we embrace as a faith community if if they are one it was very hard yesterday to be at at a church full

148of hundreds and hundreds of students and staff and family members and my heart just goes out to them I do want to address unfortunately she had to go home because of the late hour miss veticon de brought up earlier her support of the upcoming I thought we were having a presentation tonight to fle recommendations but in particular there I share deeply a concern that FLE CAC is not representative of the community um I am worried particularly at the exclusion of parents voice I do note that the state standards the first line and the state standards on what the family life education program should look like the very first line says a community involvement team or school health advisory board shall be identified and should include persons such as a person from central office a an

149elementary school principal a middle school principal a high school principal teachers a school board member which we don't have parents plural one or more members of the clergy so that's okay for the State Board of Education a member of the medical profession a mental health practitioner and others in the community the student representative on the flee CAC appoints which is a committee of the superintendent not of the board because it's a curriculum committee the student representative who is a non-voting member of this board and frankly a non-voting member of the public appoints for people to flee CAC four students are on there representing a 400% increase in the voice that any one of us as elected officials and voting members of this of this board have so I I worry about that I worry that

150parents are clearly indicated in the second line from the state standards that says that there must be evidence of broad-based community involvement and the opportunity for parents and others I mean parents are mentioned yet again in the second line and to my knowledge of a committee that's I don't know 25 30 40 people large there are fewer than a handful and maybe even smaller than that and down into the very small single digits of people on that board who are current FCPS parents not teachers who you know are there and their role representing as teachers or other staff members who may have a child in our system but people who are there to represent a current view from a parent perspective that is diverse that is equitable that is socially and religiously sensitive to a

151broad base of concern in a County where we have people from 160 countries and 200 languages and we have sought a greater student voice than any member of this board and so I do look to the superintendent and and beseech that we be reflective of the parent voice and add a medical health practitioner to it and also have representatives of the clergy and others that are maybe missing and so I will work with my colleagues to the greatest extent that we achieve real equity and real authentic public engagement on something rather than slowest something through in the coming you know meetings as we discuss those recommendations and any potential vote thereafter miss Hines thank you I'm sure mrs. Schultz does not intend to give offense but I was elected by my constituents because they trust

152me to make decisions such as naming people to advisory committees and to do that in a way that is responsible and that reflects the values of my constituency and I know very well personally the person who I have named to flee cap I know that he represents the values of my community I know that he represents a particular religious tradition personally he does but more than that he represents the values of the people of the hundred mill district I really have no doubt about that and I think the concern that for students on that committee is too many it's true that no one of us school board members get to appoint for people but the 12 of us appoint 12 people so that's 12 school board member appointees compared to four students so you know

153the students are obviously well outnumbered by adults on that committee I don't think we have too many students so I would take issue with mrs. Schultz's comments right there I would also just like to echo I had a great time at the retirement ceremony the other night I think miss dr. Bray bran you pointed out we had 15,000 years of service in that room that's amazing and I always run into a few people with whom I've worked as a teacher this is a kind of a small family when you go to things like that you realize and I just wanted to thank you in particular dr. brain right it was fun to watch you interact with all those retirees it really was I think your warmth your commitment your sense of family really came through

154and it was just really a joy to watch and to be there that night so thank you mr. moon thank you madam chair I also enjoy being at the retirement ceremony tRNA whether other colleagues of mine and enjoyed Cinderella arisen mr. Rock effects and I was also at 20 meters cooler for the performance of Puri and the best and even got to see the principal mr. Chuck Miller showing his foot skills he was a quite a dancer along with his a student performers tomorrow I will be going to a Fairfax High School for their annual performance and then on Saturday another performance by this time rodeo elementary school students 70 member cast the Pirates over the quarry being Miss Korbut Sanders yes I too enjoyed the retirement ceremony it really is overwhelming to see the

155level of professionalism and joy that is brought to our schools with the full range of employees everybody from people that work in the custodial areas the bus drivers our teachers our counselors our psychologists it just a wonderful wonderful event so thank you to all the organizers but most importantly thank you to all of the retirees is for being so inspirational and so dedicated to the success of our children and remember to come back and visit us either as substitute teachers or being involved in Grand involved in our title one schools I will be err actually last night I was at West Potomac High School for the Academy Awards there were 23 Oscars given out for the student of the year in each of the disciplines offered in that Academy it was so much fun and

156it was pretty amazing because all of the certification tests that are given in that Academy which next year will have over 900 students in it had an average pass rate of 92% and these kids leave high school being able to immediately start work in the medical fields and the IT fields in the culinary arts there was one young man which I'm going to be coming back to this board to celebrate I hope who was leaving the Academy Awards last night at West Potomac high school to go to New York City to receive the number one award for the international student Film Festival for his short documentary and that's just so amazing that our kids are able to achieve to obtain these wonderful skills and then apply them and be recognized on the international stage I

157looked at that group and they are truly a portrait of an FCPS graduate so those parents that don't know about our our Academy programs please look into them they are amazed and this weekend I will be at Walt Whitman for their Mother's Day tea on Saturday afternoon so if anybody wants to join me you have to wear a hat and it will be at two o'clock mr. Paul Chuck I'll look for the Hat I also want to think our teachers I know those of us who are trying to balance teaching and school board right now know how difficult this time is for our teachers out there five more weeks to go I especially want to thank our teachers who are also moms and celebrating Mother's Day on Sunday thank you for what you do and

158give up of your family time to support our FCPS students I was honored it was the first time and my being on the board at one of the retirement ceremonies where I was able to honor a former teacher of mine not many left in FCPS but still a few out there and many others who worked for many years in our schools and while I was a student to support us whether in facilities and transportation and across the board as teaching staff so thank you for all you've done last Saturday I did one of my favorite springtime activities came away with only a little bit of poison ivy removing invasive species at Nodaway Park we had a great turnout from our students at Kilmer Thoreau frost Madison Woodson and Marshall I believe that's all the schools

159we were out there for three hours pulling those invasives and protecting our native dogwood so thank you for that organized by the Friends of not away and had a chance to go to the Tyson's open house with members of our community on Thursday night moving forward looking forward to the budget hearings and hearing from our community also to a date with my father at the Fairfax symphony on Saturday so he my grandmother was a pianist and a piano and English teacher and so their family sport was who could guess the compose in the name of the piece first so I'm looking forward to sharing that reception with him and giving my mom a break before summer Mother's Day and finally to those families students and teachers and staff will be celebrating participating in Ramadan just

160a reminder that will be starting next week I believe on Tuesday so please be mindful and respectful of our students and families who will be honoring that and finally going back to some of the comments and community participation I know that we have a few items that we cover on the school board that are emotional that we all have strong feelings about very different feelings about and that I'm grateful that here we have advocates and community members and school board members who take the time and staff who take the time to work through them to discuss and to provide recommendations and to move forward I will ask our community I know we our school board members and it is important that we represent you and to disagree and to respectfully disagree there are volunteers you're

161all volunteers who serve on those committees so just want to ensure that we're keeping on the conversation respectful that our committee members feel that they can all provide their input feel safe to do so and feel that they are providing constructive feedback and in dissension to each other so just want to make sure we're careful about the tone of that I know that that some in our community or maybe feeling less comfortable to share their opinions and their thoughts and to represent their respected school board members in their community in that so that being said I wish you all a good evening and happy end of the week miss mcLaughlin thank you I just want to echo what miss Schultz said about the loss at Robinson high school both miss Schultz and I went to

162the funeral and in the church with the Robinson community the sadness and the grief was really almost words can't express the loss of this remarkable young man beyond just his many achievements in the classroom and his extracurriculars what was most affecting is what a deeply caring young man he was to so many in that community and his beautiful beautiful spirit will continue to live on in every life he touched but it didn't help ease clearly the difficulty and so I just ask everyone to be really keeping Robinson in their prayers but for us as a community to remember that life is precious and we can be very passionate about the things we believe in and wanting to make this world a better place and there's no doubt that every single one of us in this

163room parents audience members LTE and board but life life and your loved ones that's everything on a lighter note I did want to just give a little more context to my experience at the Community Schools conference in Baltimore it's a national conference they were celebrating 20 years of Community Schools and it is one of the best conferences I've ever attended you'll be happy know that skipped paid for our registration fees so that was nice that it came from not school dollars to do that but certainly really incredible to the work that we're doing on skip subcommittee on community schools but I just wanted to highlight San Francisco Unified schools Oakland Unified schools Philadelphia public schools New York City public schools which the number was staggering to me how many students they have I think they're

164like 1.7 million I'm I mean we think our 190,000 is pretty amazing but and and then Baltimore City Schools has a amazing partnership of the University of Maryland my alma mater the School of Social Work and the wraparound services and Kami's schools and so just came away really excited and was so glad that many of the skips subcommittee members were there from County and schools and we're gonna debrief on all the sessions it was a two and a half day conference so just so much was learned from it but I was really just so excited to think that Fairfax County Schools is going to take some really great work we've been doing but with some more intentionality and more orchestrated structure and I think it's going to be a wonderful accomplishment for our school system

165to continue growing in that net area to my female colleagues on the school board I I know some are younger than others for those of us who were on the more mature side I hope that each and every one of you is given the love and hugs and wishes as Miss Keys Kamara said from the children that we've worked so hard to to bring into this world and and then for those of us who are blessed to still have our mothers with us I hope that whether they're near or far you'll be able to you know convey as well your love for them have a good night mr. Wilson thank you madam chair and I would like to echo and wish all of the moms in the community and happy Mother's Day and to my

166own mother if you're watching happy Mother's Day to you of course you made the best chocolate cake and the best pies imaginable and still do and you were always there to comfort me when I was not feeling well and you were unfailing your encouragement of me and in fact you have an indomitable spirit I'm the sixth of seven kids some of you may know and my father was in the military we moved every couple of years and my mother is handicapped and she looped us all with force of will and and quite a bit of discipline mixed in there but in the process she taught all of us that we are to serve each other and especially those that are less fortunate than us and she also taught us a very important lesson that often

167the things that you should do are not fun and so with that I think that I'd like to express my disappointment that we weren't able to have the fleek Act presentation today which was on the agenda and though it is a very difficult topic many many people came out tonight and and presented on that topic and for those people watching at home it was left sort of out of context without receiving the fleek AK presentation I understand we'll receive that I hope dr. brand that this year's report includes three members dissenting position on the fleek AK recommendations I hope that those members are allowed to present to the board as we've done for previous committees so I'm forgetting the Jeff Stewart committee had two reports that were presented I think it would be helpful for

168the board to be able to ask questions as to why they felt the need to write a dissenting report which is quite detailed and I encourage everyone to take the time to read it I think there are a number of very good questions that were asked tonight with regards to plea kak I think the question of why was there a vote to remove the reference to clergy that is something that I think many in the community would would would wonder about and I think I think mr. Schultz does make a valid point that the student member of this board a non-voting member has four times the appointees as any individual board member here but most importantly I think that the the issue that I think rings through the Fluke Act presentation is a is a

169is a sense within the community the parent community that although they may have an opportunity for input essentially their opinions are dismissed and not taken seriously and especially if they're inconsistent with proposed changes to the Family Life Education Committee to make it meaningful we absolutely have to have real input and maybe we need to maybe need a public hearing to allow folks to express their opinions I have a number of particular questions that I would have asked miss Payne if she had presented and I'll present those next week but I guess the most significant is fundamentally do we believe as an organization FCPS that biological sex no longer matters this is a really fundamental question we're talking about Mother's Day tonight I think my own mom asked me after raising seven kids could she still

170be a man and ask it obviously jokingly because of course she doesn't believe that but I think the community owns an answer to that question do we believe that could I be a mother at this point in my life at 52 I think that's a legitimate question that we have to answer that question I think part of the answer is going to be explained by where our curriculum committees and developing the curriculum draws on their sources what resources do they drop on develop them and when if when the fleek Act committee votes to make a change does the staff representative on fleek act feel it's incumbent on her to present those to the board because I think the most controversial changes were actually made by committee members and not proposed by the staff and I

171would question my question would be does the staff actually agree with all of the changes that were proposed in in the revised curriculum lastly I think I have to talk a little bit about the structure and process of the FLE committee FLE committee meetings are typically as far as I know always schedule on nights we have board meetings as many of you probably know I took time on February 8th to attend the FLE CAC meeting and was quite surprised at the process that was used by the committee to extinguish conversations on topics that dissenting members of the committee wanted to have discuss motions and so those techniques were quite troubling you know calling the question after really before anyone had it had a chance to make any input on a proposal and I'm not alone

172in my reaction to how that meeting was handled and I don't know about subsequent meetings but in the audience that night public audience a writer who who I published an article online and he described it this way he said one citizen member made a motion to remove the phrase sex assigned at Birth from the lessons and simply used the word sex through parliamentary maneuvers other members of the committee made sure the amendment was put off indefinitely without debate the vote to cut off debate and never speak about it again passed 23 to 3 the member who offered the amendment asked for a roll call so that those voting to keep insects assigned at birth would have their names associated with their vote the motion for the roll call vote was killed by voice vote no

173debate no accountability another citizen member made a motion that somewhere in the numerous lessons about various contraceptive methods taught beginning in eighth grade there ought to be something about the possible health risks of certain contraceptives this shoe was shut down without debate by a vote of 23 to 3 a roll call vote a roll call of the vote was shouted down by voice votes I think that description reflects a broken committee and I think what mrs. Schulz was talking about the lack of parents on the committee with children in our school system is reflected in that sort of committee behavior I don't know why the behavior was permitted since it's a staff run committee but it was frankly embarrassing and I do believe that members of the community have videoed the actions of that committee

174and those those videos are now online and in the public forum so we we definitely need to make changes to that committee so that we can feel and know that the fleeca committee is in fact operating in a manner that is consistent with best practices for citizen advisory committees because I think what was demonstrated to me at least in that committee room was a committee that in fact was not interested in discussing difficult topics and so I hope that everyone on Monday that we can have these difficult conversations these are important conversations for many many families many of whom you know demonstrated that tonight by coming out and taking time to present to us there's there's just a lot it's not it's not simply an emotional topic it's an important topic it's it's not simply

175a spiritual topic it's a medical topic and I think we owe it to the community to have this conversation to allow the public to have their input as much as that public would like and I think we need to honor the wishes of our parents and and and maybe that means to have a consent opt-in so that we don't have the situation where parents feel like well they didn't give consent to this just because they didn't opt-out doesn't mean they consented to the instruction that was provided to them I think that's a very powerful point and we need to talk about it and and and see whether or not that's a feasible mechanism to put in place with that I'll finish thank you miss Evans oh you thank you madam chair I'm not gonna get

176into the Fla tonight just because as as you know we're gonna have our presentation on Monday we're going to have a lengthy work session and so I'll actually I'm running that as one of the meeting managers so I'll look forward to that conversation and the presentation on Monday and we can have all of the questions that anyone wants to ask and have answered we will do that and of course that's a public meeting as well as being videotaped so anyone who can't make it can certainly pick up on that and watch it on our website I do want to say how thrilled I was to once again go to the Hispanic Leadership Alliance scholarship celebration with Miss Paul chick it was it's always amazing to talk with the students and and hear their stories there

177were 15 students honored that night and by the hla three of whom were from Stewart so I was very pleased to be able to sit with them for a while and talk with them and hear about how they're going to be moving forward to the next stages of their their lives I also was very happy to go to the retirement ceremony and and here the the the the joy and the some sorrow with people having to end lengthy careers and as they went through the line some of them said you know just how much they would miss the kids including you know the couple of bus drivers that were retiring so it was a lovely ceremony and and dr. brand you did a great job as did dr. Rainey and presenting the awards so it

178was it was a lovely celebration I was very pleased to welcome Virginia Secretary of Education Kearney to some of our schools he came and visited some of our schools last week including he attended some of our esal and newcomer classes at stewart high school and talked with the the students and talked with teachers and got a better sense of what was going on with in particular with with esal and newcomers so I very much appreciate his his coming and seeing the great work that's being done there and at our at our other fairfax county schools and thank you to all of our teachers out there you do an amazing job we have the the very best in fairfax county public schools so congratulations and thank you to all of our teachers as we we finish

179up teacher appreciation week and with that happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there thank you I would like to thank the people who support our meetings these are live streamed meetings they are complicated I want to thank particularly miss Moberg miss Madea our wonderful tech staff we have people out in the truck outside and the people up in the booth these are complicated meetings and tonight there were changes in moving parts as we were going so thank you all very much you do a great job and with that happy Mother's Day and this meeting is adjourned thank you