FCPS School Board Meeting - February 8, 2018

001good evening this February 8th 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 Holmes middle school advanced treble chorus under the direction of Carly editor and one nation under God Oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] that was absolutely beautiful and I also wanted to recognize principal Margaret Barnes who's here with us tonight thank you so much mrs. Barnes for being with us and thank you parents for bringing your very talented children here tonight thank you yes thank you very much for our students your parents and we even always enjoy our wonderful musical renditions so thank you I'd also like to say that I believe dr. Phyllis Pichardo the

002superintendent of Fairfax City Schools is here with us this evening yes there's dr. jart Oh welcome first 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 February 8th 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 we're heard discussed or considered by the board during the close meeting is there a motion move by mr. McElveen seconded by miss Hines all those in favor that is unanimous with my schulz away and mr. Wilson away from the table thank you with great pleasure we

003are introducing tonight our new assistant superintendent of financial services so first I will call on miss Hines for a motion I move that the school board a point eally burden as assistant superintendent of financial services effective March 8 2018 and authorized the chair to execute a contract reflecting this action for a second secondly miss Corbett Sanders all those in favor that motion is unanimous yes the motion is unanimous with my schulz away and mr. Wilson away from the table thank you very much dr. Bray Brianna in introduction please Thank You chairman Strauss I am pleased this evening to introduce to you our new assistant superintendent for financial services Lee burden she will be assuming her duties on March 8th Lee is a veteran school finance officer who has been with Loudoun County Public Schools since

0042007 where she was responsible for leading all financial operations in Loudoun County including in gladden County schools including budgeting accounting purchasing payroll and employee benefits for over 14,000 staff members and directing a budget of over 1 billion dollars she has also served as director of financial services from Manassas City Public Schools prior to joining Manassas City Public Schools she worked as a fiscal administrator and chief financial officer for the Department of Family Services for Fairfax County government and she was a financial analyst and budget coordinator with Arlington Public Schools and a management technician in the Department of Financial Services for FCPS so she is truly coming back home to Fairfax County where she started her career a little bit earlier than now as board members you may actually recognize Lee she's been a presenter for

005multiple years to the Virginia School Boards Association as the expert in the Commonwealth on budget and finance issues and she's provided financial information to aspiring leaders at workshops sponsored by the woman education leaders of Virginia burden has earned her bachelor's degree in business administration from Radford University and a master's in public administration from one of my favorite universities Virginia Tech ladies and gentlemen please join me in welcoming Lieber into the leadership team of Fairfax County Public Schools thank you very much um thank you all for the very very warm welcome that I received tonight and I can honestly say that I am honored to be selected as the next assistant superintendent of financial services for Fairfax County Public Schools and I would like to thank dr. Braverman and mr. Smith for providing the opportunity as

006dr. Braverman said my career in k-12 financial management started 20-some years ago here at Fairfax County Public Schools in the budget office then as budget coordinator in Arlington CFO in Manassas and I've spent the last 10 years as the assistant superintendent of Finance for Loudoun County I'm a product of Virginia's public schools from kindergarten through graduate school and that coupled with my time working in Northern Virginia school divisions means that I have spent almost my entire life either attending or serving Virginia public schools and I am very proud of that it's good to be coming back to Fairfax I'm a longtime resident of Fairfax County and delighted to now work in the community where I live and where my son attends high school I look forward to working with all of you in the future

007to support Fairfax County students thank you again [Applause] again thank you very much miss Burton for agreeing to join our team we welcome you and now a few amount announcements before we begin tonight's meeting mrs. Schulz is absent this meeting she's out of town mr. Wilson Pitt will be away from the table for a while I believe he will be back a little later if you would like to review a copy of the agenda and any agenda item that is being discussed tonight that information is on the table by the auditorium entrance tonight's agenda is available by going to the school board on the FCPS homepage and selecting board Docs under upcoming school board meetings the meeting is also being streamed live online select the school board from the full menu then click on the

008watch live button on the school board meetings web page please turn off or silence your cell phone I will now call on miss feta Conda for announcements thank you madam chair February 14th is crossing guard appreciation day the Virginia safe route to school program has status designated the second Wednesday in February as crossing guard appreciation day this is a statewide event to say thank you to the individuals who help students cross the street safely on their way to and from school and will be celebrated in Virginia on Wednesday February 14th FCPS will observe the day by honoring 80 crossing guards who manage 174 school related crossings every day FCPS crossing guards are employees of the fairfax county police department while the focus of crossing guard Appreciation Day is on crossing guards in the work that

009they do it can also be a good time to remind students how to safely cross the street thank you thank you now we have recognition of custodian Appreciation Week and I call on Miss Hinds Thank You it is such a pleasure to recognize the unsung heroes of the school system if you have children or you even know children you know that usually they're better at making messes than cleaning them up right so as an elementary teacher I know at the end of the day one of my most important jobs is to cajole bribe somehow convince the kids before they fly out the door to at least get the classroom in good enough shape that the custodians can and dust and cleanup right and I'm always telling them they drop something on the floor I said

010well who do you think is going to pick that up and is it fair to add work to probably the hardest-working person or people in this building so I I think it's really important that we take this time to honor our custodians so here's the resolution the school board recognizes the hard work and unending dedication of the custodians who work for Fairfax County Public Schools our custodians are the first employees to arrive in the morning and the last ones to leave at night by providing clean and safe school environments the custodians at FCPS have a direct impact on the educational success of our students many custodians take additional training leading to certification as professional custodians the week of February 19th through 23rd has been named custodian Appreciation Week to recognize and thank our dedicated custodians

011whose attention to detail and high standards affect all students employees and many members of the community at this time I'd like to invite the custodians who are in the audience this evening to please join us at the dais for a picture with the board [Applause] thank you now I will call on mr. moon for a recognition the Westfield field hockey team thank you madam chair it's my pleasure to do two recognitions for less favor this evening one I'm doing on behalf of my colleague Thomas would Tom Wilson this is for Westfield whisperer field hockey team members out here okay good luck good to see you guys I saw you at the Westfield remember me all of involving so the 2017 Westfield varsity field hockey team kept up their season this past former with an unblemished

012record of 24 and all the bull yes the Bulldogs gave up seven defensive goals while scoring 89 goals Westfield won the Concord district title reason six north title six a virginia state championship in the state final game play the attend a tional training center in Virginia Beach West filled with field matched up against seven times state finalists first colonial from the beach after scoring on a penalty corner from inside Nikki Magnum are up to McKenzie car for the first goal first colonial fought back to tied it up before the halftime the second half proved to be an exciting game with a play going back and forth but Westfield would continue to shut FC down must be first a colonial and down and not let them finish in the circle Westfield struck again on a penalty

013corner from insider Nikki Magnum RT Mackenzie Carr who passed to the far post - Delaney golian who would put the ball in for what would be the eventual game-winner the first colony would have a few more chances and a penalty stroke with a 7 minutes left in the game but goalkeeper Peyton Moore would make a save to help seal the victory for the Bulldogs it was a fairytale ending for a group of seniors who came together and believed in team and never gave up and believed in the system at this time I would like to invite head coach star car and members of the state champion West perversity field hockey team to join me at the dais for a picture with the board our also invite principal dr. Andrea Copeland join us [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

014and mr. moon gets to recognize the Westfield varsity football team Westfield diversity football football players are you guys in here raise your hand you guys certainly remember me right you better remember me I was there several times all right is for the Westfield Bulldogs the football team was able to accomplish a tremendous feat they were able to win the vhss State football title three years in a row and against the same team for all three years this year the completed your season 15 and oh they played in the state championship on December 10 at Hampton University they defeated Oscar Smith high school by a score of 28 to 21 coming from behind I originally planned on going down to Hampton to watch the game personally but when they change the game day from December 9

015to December 10th due to the weather I just could not I'm so sorry but but so what did I missed again but I was finally able to watch the video a couple of nights ago and so all those interceptions by interception and fumble recovery by Taylor and running game by Dante and etcetera trust me I watched again the team showed explosive offensive plays tenacious defense grit and discipline and it was able to come away victorious we wanna congratulate coach Simmons his staff and all the versatile players on a great season and a great accomplishment well done Bulldogs and I would like to invite all the football players and coaches Simmons once again principal dr. Tony Copeland to join us but before you do that there's a little story that I want to share with you

016then I'm not going to name the player here but in a few days after Westfield Bulldogs team won the state championship I got a phone call from this grandfather the whom I have known for many years and he introduced himself as the grandfather or someone on your team again I'm not going to name the players name here so we talked about how great your football team was and how excellent player his grandson was and I was added to it by the way he was not just an excellent player but he was you're so handsome and grandfather said mr. moon he takes after me so with that I wanna invite all the players and coach and principal [Applause] now I will call on Miss Paul check to recognize the James Madison High School national winner of

017the national ban associations blue ribbon award Madison High School band where are you tonight welcome glad to have such a great turnout this is especially I want to thank miss Hines even though Madison is in her district I have many students and ban was my life in high school so it is a great honor as a former bass drum number three percussionist to honor you this evening and thank you to principal hood and to mr. hug bars for being here as well I hope I didn't chop your name on behalf of school board member Pat Hines and myself we are pleased to have the board recognize James Madison's high school band this evening on their selection as a national winner of the prestigious national band associations Blue Ribbon award the band qualified for national consideration

018by earning first place in the Southern Division competition last fall and moved forward as the divisions representative Madison's band is one of only four national recipients to earn this award congratulations to director Michael Hackbarth and principal Greg hood and all of the band members blue ribbon award selections are based on a comprehensive assessment of a band programs consistency in performing at the highest level appellate applications must include a minimum of 35 minutes of recorded music from at least two different school years and excerpts from multiple ensembles within the band program written a substantiation from the past two to four consecutive years is required to include a list of all honors and awards received for complete concert band programs rating forms and adjudicator sheets from festivals a comprehensive repertoire list of all works performs a report

019on the number of students accepted by addition to regional and state honor bands a report of solo and ensemble participants with ratings and an estimated number of graduates who continue to perform after high school graduation and it's very clear from this detailed assessment of excellent sir only the highest caliber band programs qualify for award consideration congratulations on this outstanding achievement we applaud your talent dedication and commitment to excellence at this time I would like to invite the director the principal and all the members of the award-winning band from James Madison High School to please join us at the Dyess for a photo with the board [Applause] I am handing the gavel to Miss Korbut Sanders I call on mrs. Straus for the resolution thank you it is bittersweet but I'm going to honor Susan Quinn

020tonight so Miss Quinn if you would like to step to the podium while we say kind things about you on the one hand we are very sorry to see you retire but I guess we'll have to let you do that Chuck is here tonight he would he would he would not be happy if we didn't let this go forward so I am very pleased to honor you with this resolution whereas Susan Quinn has served Fairfax County Public Schools with distinction for a total of 24 years in different roles including comptroller assistant superintendent of the Department of Financial Services and chief operating officer and whereas she championed and led the divisions efforts to replace its legacy financial system with an enterprise resource planning system implemented online travel and received clean audit options opinions every year during

021her tenure thereby enhancing support for employees and increasing resource stewardship and led the district financial management system with unparalleled transparency which brings national awards every year and whereas she served on the education employee supplementary Retirement System of Fairfax County er FC Board of Trustees the local four five seven supplemental retirement savings plan board and was chair of the state other post-employment benefits o peb board and whereas she strengthened relationships between county and school staff and government and celebrated employee achievement and whereas she gave of herself tirelessly to Fairfax County Public Schools as an employee a Foundation board member and as a friend now therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County school board extends its deepest appreciation to Susan Quinn for her outstanding service and dedication to the Fairfax County Public Schools in to our

022students and community members and also congratulations and best wishes to our retirement a new journey in life I so move is there a second mrs. Strauss would you like to speak to your motion all in favor and that is unanimous with mr. Wilson away from the table and mrs. Schulz not present tonight great thank you it is with deepest appreciation and congratulations that we say goodbye to you and i know that you have you and Chuck have planned some wonderful adventures which you sow to serve susan has always been not only so knowledgeable of the areas of finance and budget and operations always so professional you have moved as many steps forward as an organization and for that we are very very grateful you have been patient with all of us we have a large

023board of 12 members anybody hasn't noticed consequently our questions are long involved but you have always very coolly and calmly answered them in great detail I know that you work eight to nine days a week sometimes were a little concerned about that I probably check doesn't always see you but you have you have always worked until the job was done regardless of how long it would take so it is unusual in your your dedication to our children and our employees in our organization so we are grateful we wish you the best of luck we will miss you you can come back and volunteer any time you would like so with that I believe we are going to have a picture and some gifts and then if you want to share some words with us mr.

024Moran would you like yes speak to your second absolutely absolutely I would miss that opportunity for one last time for Susan that there is going to be a huge empty in my heart you know there Susan that I think I said this several times that that whenever I see you reminds me of my own sister that there are a lot of resemblance a lot of resemblance I told you that several times a list that you are such a solid rock that your honor flapper unshakable consummate professional I mean appreciate for many years of your dedication and support of this board especially being as a one board member that who's not always easy to work with correct ask you a lot of questions ask your quizzes but how would I go back to something that I

025said back in 2014 when you became chief operating officer I was quoted on Washington Post which I'm gonna repeat again that you have been the first the only Asian American to be a part of a leadership team in MCPS and I hope that you're not going to be the last one I strongly do not hope you the last one but you have inspired inspired so many paper so many other Asian Americans that includes me that includes me who might otherwise hesitate and coming into publication education but see you as a role model see you as an inspiration see hoping through you that they can also achieve their colors they can also advance and they can make a good clear out in public education you came to the u.s. from Korea at the age of ten

026in the same article Washington Post article yourself that the only new few words of English that you knew how to say your name my name is Susan my name is Susan when somebody would ask you how old I you know you say my name is Susan that's how I started too long ago so with that even though you know tomorrow's your last day and I may not see you I'm coming to your reception tomorrow but I'm gonna see at least all my time as an employee of the Christian but hopefully we'll see you again see you again as you know community volunteer well just you can sit down have a chat have a coffee and I will invite chocolatier so uh once in a while do that but I'm gonna I'm gonna search any miss

027you and I have on that one last question for you how old are you thank you thank you mrs. Darrin at Koufax hi Susan I have a brief up-to-the-minute story about Susan's dedication sotin earlier tonight or tonight I have a budget amendment that I'll be presenting later and it's been amended several times going through lots of conversation but at 2:30 I get an email from Susan with some potential revisions when they give her a call and she tells me I'm cleaning out my desk drawers right now but I looked over your amendment and I thought this language would help and the thing about it is you have to understand the monies weren't a concern it was the language and the way it was going to be presented and that was Susan that's who you are

028you gave me some very thoughtful reasons about why this change that you're suggesting would help and I took her advice as I have so many times during these years Susan you're professional you're calm you're hard-working you're dedicated and you've never been to overwhelmed or too close to retirement to stop helping our system move forward I've had the privilege of working directly with you as the chair and the budget chair and your team has made this job as much fun as a sunny day Beach well maybe not maybe not quite but your team and you what you the way you operate your professionalism you've been awarded many awards for transparency and clarity in the budget process and I can truly say I've never had a budget question that has gone unanswered and know many how time

029how many times an answer has to be repeated I was per din your ear a couple times how do you do it you've never lost your patience with this board this community or this process or your service to our school system so thank you chuck it's nice to meet you we wish you and Susan all the best as you begin this new life adventure together congratulations and stay in touch mrs. Evans please thank you I I just want to add my words of thanks and praise for Susan Quin she was one of the first people to sit down with me when I first came on the board to try to explain the budget to me if ever there was a big task to do that that was one of them and since then I've had

030the distinct pleasure of working with Susan as budget chair as budget vice chair and Anna's chair as well and it has been a true pleasure always Susan is is truly the height of professionalism it just it doesn't get better than Susan Quinn so I with your I would say your encyclopedia acknowledge of our 2.9 billion dollar budget that's that's quite something to be able to say and to not only understand it but to help others understand it that's a different trait and a different skillset and and you do have it as you know in the last few years our budget has not had a lot of humor in it but I will say that whenever we discussed it you always had you dealt with it with with good grace and also a nice sense of

031humor you know one of the things that is important to for us to keep perspective so you will you will definitely be sorely missed you know I will miss being able to pick up the phone and ask you a question and have you answered off the top of your head because you either know it or because you're ready to delve into it and get me the answer very very soon there have been years when you've had to deal with deep deep budget cuts and you've always done it with with with great grace and professionalism so you will be very very missed Susan and I hope we see you again and I hope you have great new adventures that don't necessarily have to do with numbers mrs. Keyes Gemara well I will be brief I know

032there's people who were doing tear-jerking is for you but I just wanted to note that I met you in 2015 when I was on the Budget Committee with those other 60 people or so and I never saw you lose your cool and you were just so you you definitely just the quintessential person of excellence and I always recognize that I'm pretty sure you have a superpower of some sort and so just I just want to thank you for being so very cool in the sense that young people talk about it but also cool no matter what you had to deal with and that came across and gave people like myself who were trying to learn about something very big in a very short amount of time a lot of confidence because you never sweat the

033small stuff or the big stuff so thank you and I look forward to hear what you're gonna do with that superpower when you leave here and mrs. Hines please yeah thank you so I was gonna start with how when I started as a board member I knew nothing about the budget 2.5 billion dollars whatever would just make my knees shake and I would wonder can I actually do this kind of represent my constituency and do a good job on this and then I had my first conversation with you and Susan I know that by the time you met me you had answered all the questions I had many many times and I asked many of them more than once myself because it took me a while to really understand that everything cuz it's just so

034huge and then you know four years later when I had the opportunity to be a chair of the board and it was a pivotal year as they all are for the budget and I'm standing up there in front of our funders at the Board of Supervisors I felt confident I felt like I knew what I was talking about and I that's on you and your team completely you know because I think I I think it was Jack Dale who described you on time as you know financial genius is about so much more than numbers it's about empathy it's about being able to tell the story to understand what people care about what they worry about and figure out how to make the numbers work as best we can and you just have that gift I

035think that's part of your superpower and I just you know McGrew through life still growing up you know and you are I really I will look back on my life and you are one of my role models just the way you handle so much challenge with so much grace and you use your gifts for others I have never once heard you complain and you have plenty to complain about and so I mean I'll just end with weo whoever originally hired you we this board this community this school system all these kids owe that person a great debt of gratitude because you I think are one of the pillars of this modern school system so thank you so much miss palchik well I need to be optimistic so knowing you Susan we know you won't be

036gone for long soon you will get bored of hanging out and having fun and not thinking about numbers or kids or your lovely board members in the meantime I think so much has been said definitely you have been a role model this is a role I had never imagined playing in my own school system and I know that coming in as an educator without the financial background without the knowledge of the operational side you your team your work your endless time grace style empathy knowledge it's it's hard to quantify exactly how that impacts every single one of our kids every day but knowing especially and the and what we struggled in the past years with the budget what you do what your team does I can't imagine how much more we would have lost or

037had difficulty without you I think you've always kept that in mind you've always known that it's about doing everything we can with everything we have responsibly for our kids and sharing that with all of us and with the community it will be some very big shoes to fill I hope you enjoy her for a little while and we will miss you and on a personal level it will be yes I'm not going to cry but Thank You Susan for everything I wish I had more time with you and I do hope you enjoy your time off and expecting your call in a couple of months thanks dr. brand I just wanted first the board to know that the leadership team had an opportunity off-site with the help of Mary Beth roof class to have Susan

038over and and Kristin to who we've honored previously to personally do what you're doing publicly share with them privately how much they've meant to Fairfax County public school system for excellence Susan is you know you use the word genius and I told her privately I told her this I've met thousands and thousands of people she is one of the two smartest people I have ever ever met you can ask her any question and without any reference it comes straight out and it's right I mean I don't know I don't know where that gift comes from but we are gonna miss you you are not replaceable and you've left a big legacy not only for the school system but frankly as mr. moon said for lots of young women to know with hard work and tenacity

039there's no dream they can't dream and you've given us a big gift of your time and service we'll miss you and honestly in a couple of months we're gonna find an hourly project for you to work on so thank you miss mcLaughlin well I didn't want to necessarily repeat the well-deserved praise that my colleagues had for you but something that hasn't been touched upon yet is that your incredible institutional knowledge wasn't just about FCPS it was also about the county and as you know one of my big passions was to make sure that we had parity with the county no more no less but that you know our employees deserve comparable raises how they handled their debt how they handle their their budgeting it was really important to me that we changed the conversation and

040that the school system stopped being what I felt at times was under criticism as the nice way of putting it and I I really valued the fact that when I could come to you and ask you know help me understand I'm hearing this about us and how we do things and you were a wealth of knowledge at being able to really help frame out and provide context and that is absolutely going to be a huge leap for us to not have your wealth of knowledge and without question you are an inspiration for all of us not just for young women but really for boys and girls to be able to see someone just really be able to handle the stressors of your incredible responsibilities it's it's been a pleasure and certainly well deserved retirement at

041this point but since you're very young and I look forward to all of us getting to hear about what your next chapter and adventures will bring to you best wishes at this time I'd like to invite Miss Quinn her family friends and colleagues to join us at the dais for a picture thank you [Applause] okay Susan thank you please share cylinder look good bye I'm not used to being in the limelight so this is really um affecting me so chairman Strauss members of the school board superintendent Brady brand leadership team and my perfect family all those folks that came out I am truly honored and humbled I'm not used to being in the limelight like as I said so I appreciate Papa kind words but like you mentioned it was me and my team and

042everyone else in Fairfax that made all of this happen so I'm only standing in front of you because of all the wonderful people that have influenced and shaped who I am today I've worked for and with many talented individuals and without their constant support and encouragement I would not be here today I've been very fortunate to have a great family support system we all know our jobs require sacrifices from our families as we serve the students of Fairfax County so first a huge things goes out to chop wood roof my partner and best friend for his understanding all these years waiting for me each and every night and actually listening as I shared my experiences and you know it's time to go because now he's limited me to 15 minutes it takes a lot longer

043than 15 minutes to share my day I also need to thank him for encouraging me to take more risks and giving me the confidence that I can do more who knows without his support I may still be searching for what I want to do when I grow up I also need to acknowledge my parents who moved here from South Korea some 40 years ago to provide better educational opportunities for their children which we all took full advantage of they also instilled in me the values and the work ethic that I bring to my work each and every day respecting others and doing my best and to the FCPS family thank you for fording me the numerous opportunities being on the leadership team opened my eyes to the possibilities of what each and every child can

044achieve I can't possibly mention all the folks that have made a difference but I did want to recognize dr. Dale for introducing me to the leadership team throughout my career I have been surrounded by exceptional individuals who coached mentored and inspired me we learned together as a team no matter what position you held within the organization we challenged each other working late into the night to do better and to think outside the box so when somebody said we've always done it that way that's what our regulations say we say together as we pushed ourselves we always had in mind the main thing was what's best for the students and the organization I want to tell you a story about from early on I worked with great leaders from the very beginning you know back then

045I was this typical bean-counter when I first started with the school system a shy individual doing my thing and this tiny little desk that they assigned me and then one day my coordinator approached me and said he had a perfect professional development opportunity for me and I'm thinking okay not another accounting course I just got done with my CPA exam I wasn't up for taking another class but instead he sent me to a training class called how to be assertive one of the best I've taken to bring me out of my shell and that was the start some of my colleagues agree now or they say that maybe I didn't need that class after all but I know it had a significant impact on me and he knew immediately what I needed to succeed so

046I'm grateful to all my Fairfax colleagues past and present for supporting me through this journey they are the superstars and you've all said me and my team they are the superstars the Fairfax community should be proud there is a quote in good to great by Jim Collins get the right people on the bus in the right seat FCPS is doing just that in addition to the excellent instructional staff we have the most dedicated and passionate support staff from bus drivers food service workers facility staff custodians to analysts and specialists and managers in our central offices the support teams work tirelessly behind the classroom teacher to ensure a positive experience for our students and teachers we all know that the classroom teacher is the most important factor in a student's success but that success is only

047made possible by the incredible work and dedication from the support staff I've always said that the support side of the organization is like a foundation of a house a solid foundation allows for the amazing work in our schools yet at times like many of us and like a house a foundation is sometimes forgotten behind the scenes solid it's good but I know the school board and the superintendent are fully behind supporting all FCPS staff they know that to sustain this premier school system the foundation must stay strong to allow for the excellent and innovation to continue in our system it's been an honor and I'm proud to say I was part of this world-class school system thank you for allowing me to call FCPS in the county my second home for 29 years I will

048miss being part of this great team just not the late nights it's a Fairfax citizen I look forward to staying involved as a community member and a huge supporter and cheerleader for FCPS so thank you school board and the Fairfax team for your service and commitment to the Fairfax family and community so thank you [Applause] thank you again Susan you are wonderful and I'm assuming you're going are you going to stay and help us with the budget tonight are you going home [Laughter] [Applause] thank you enjoy your retirement and we will welcome you back for some hourly interesting projects that are obviously very complicated and will take every brain cell that you have so we're looking forward to that thank you Susan we're looking for CTE teachers okay our next item is the establishment of

049the new level for advanced academic center at Bush Hill Elementary and adoption of a new people assignment plan and I will call on dr. Bray Brandt for the introduction yes I'd like dr. presidio our assistant superintendent for instructional services to come up and share with the board this presentation all right well thank you very much I've drawn some difficult speaking assignments lots of my past but I don't think anything ever quite like this we are definitely losing a great friend to all of us and certainly a true gem in the school system but I do appreciate the opportunity to speak to this agenda item this evening we have been working very hard in the instructional services department with the region 3 assistant superintendent mr. Dade and all of the principals in region 3 to develop

050this proposal to open an advanced academic center at Bush Hill Elementary School and we're joined by mr. day this evening and Miss Mary Duffy from Bush Hill elementary school along with a few staff members from the AAP office as well so the rationale for opening the center really centers on the overcrowding capacity issues and enrollment issues at Springfield Estates elementary school and the opportunity to open a new center and bring all of the Edison pyramid AP students back into the Edison pyramid for AP services and so that they can matriculate through the k-12 system as a cohort of students Springfield estates as I said right now is facing very very significant enrollment issues there was a recent renovation there but they still have overcrowding issues and a lot of that is really fueled by the

051fact that they have four teen elementary schools that feed into the center for aap services which results in a composition of students at Springfield estates that is larger in terms of the AP population than the base school enrollment and the average number of feeder schools per Center in Fairfax County is about five so it gives you a sense of how many more students are really feeding into Springfield estates right now for AP services mostly tonight what I wanted to point out is the great job under principal Duffy's leadership that Bush Hill has done to be able to meet all of the county's criteria to open a new center program first of all they have a critical mass of students they have 223 students grades 3 through 6 that would be able to ultimately return to

052Bush Hill so they meet our critical mass requirements of at least two sections per grade level they had the full capacity ability to run the program grades 3 through 6 although we will likely require a modular once grades 3 through 6 are implemented at the center but really most importantly the teaching staff is ready under principal Duffy's leadership the staff has been highly engaged in professional development we've been working very closely with them and the ISD office and principal has completed not only many of the courses but she's completed many of the courses and worked right alongside the teachers to make sure that she fully understands the instruction that needs to take place in the center as well and I definitely applaud that the extra curricular programs are in place so there's science math opportunities

053after school world languages and the like music programs so they have really met all the readiness criteria and we've had a significant community engagement process which will culminate in just a few moments with a public opportunity to have a forum session on the opening of the center but we had two community events one that was held at Busch Hill on October 1 that was held at Springfield estates in November we had a community survey that went to all of these Edison pyramid feeder schools into Springfield estates element we received 400 responses to that survey 81 percent of the respondents favor opening a new Center 67 of those respondents favor opening a Center at grade 3 next year with grade 4 enrollment being optional 32% prefer to open the center at grade 3 only next year

054and add one grade level per year until the center is fully completed and enrolled in 2021 2022 so notwithstanding the the larger percentage of community members that would like to move forward a little bit faster with implementing the center the staff recommendation is to open the center with grade 3 only next year and add one class per grade level in each subsequent year and the reason for that is we have a past practice of really trying to make prudent implementation decisions and making sure when we open a new program that the quality will be similar to a well-established program and that requires all that readiness criteria to be met as I mentioned but we provide a lot of ongoing coaching and support when we open a new Center so working very closely with that third

055grade team is going to be really really important for us the second factor of consideration is there are currently 56 third grade students who would be rising fourth grade students next year that would be eligible to attend Busch Hill and if we allow enrollment at 4th grade to be optional we would need almost every one of those students to choose to enroll in Busch Hill to be able to meet that critical mass requirement so that really completes the the brief presentation I wanted to provide you with today I'm happy to address any questions that you might have now we've got two weeks before the board will vote I'm certainly very happy to follow up offline with any individual board member questions as well okay thank you dr. presidio I don't see any board questions but

056we do have now a public hearing for the community to comment so I will officially open the public hearing on the Busch Hill Elementary School revised people assignment plan an optional aap Center in the spring of 2017 and CPS leadership began to explore options for Edison High School pyramid students to receive level 4 aap services without leaving the pyramid and to relieve overcrowding at Springfield Estates elementary school level 4 Center tonight we have four speakers please come forward to the lectern when I call your name you will have three minutes to address the board if you have not registered to be to speak tonight but would like an opportunity to address the board please see the clerk to sign up for one of the five extra reserve speakers slots our first speaker is Sharon Gagner

057good evening my name is Sharon Gagne and I have been a resident of Fairfax County since 1992 my four children have attended Fairfax County Public Schools since 2005 I'm pleased to say my eldest graduated in 2017 from Edison and I am currently at Bush Hill Elementary School with a 5th grader at Mark Twain middle school with a 7th grader and at Edison High School with a 9th grader I have also had one of my children attend C's and with the AAP program I am asking you the Fairfax County Board to please support the proposal to create an elementary school Center a ap Center for pyram and five at Bush Hill Elementary School the needs of pyramid five children have not been met as the increase of students that are eligible for the level four services

058while I can speak to the increased class sizes it sees the transportation is used the lack of community by not not being part of the home-based pyramid I feel you're quite familiar with all of those discussion points I want to speak to being a parent of an AP student I chose not to seek level four center services for my three children after the experience of my first at C's while he was fine with the increased curriculum and the expectations he did not thrive socially taking him out of his base pyramid sees feeds into Lee while Bush Hill feeds into Edison his typical day began earlier as he has to take the bus to seize and when often not at home until 4:45 or 5:00 p.m. and have to be rushed to after-school activities he was

059not a to interact with children in his own neighborhood after school and build the relationships to carry him through high school he felt it was extremely difficult to cultivate and maintain relationships with classmates who are so spread out between all the schools the distances for projects and social time were too great to travel this lack of community feeling could be felt by us the parents and also the student himself he stated it was just a place to go to school I just felt like one of the many that no one knew he missed being at school with his pyramid-- peers that he would meet in community activities sports the pool church etc he never felt like part of Busch Hill or part of Springfield estates according to the principal and walkthroughs cadet they were conducted

060Busch Hill will be able to accommodate the increase in student population numbers it has the needed facilities to handle the increase in student size in the available classrooms cafeteria gymnasium and playground areas the staff is preparing for this exciting proposal there will never be a perfect solution to overcrowding at the schools and no decision will make everyone happy but according to the survey on the proposal to designate Busch Hill Elementary over 80 percent of the respondents were residents of the period medicine pyramid and over 80 percent of them supported opening the center thank you for your time and I appreciate your support for Period five and look forward to welcoming you the program to Busch Hill next year thank you the next speaker is Leilani Stan's be hi my name is leilani stains b i

061am the current president of the bush Hill Elementary School PTA parent-teacher Association group I wanted to come and speak actually on behalf of the community so you know we had one of our members talk about the impact to the students and to the parents Bush Hill is the most welcoming and inclusive community I think in all of Fairfax County the school really prides itself on inclusion one of the concerns that you hear a lot of the advanced academic placement programs is in US versus them mentality specifically for some of the reasons that she mentioned there are a lot of students who don't live in the community where the schools are they find it really difficult to interact with the rest of the students and it impacts their sense of community and ownership in their education

062whereas at Bush Hill we are extensively experienced and actually having an inclusive community Bush Hill is also the school that has a lot of the special education programs for the pyramid and we have a lot of activities such as the Special Olympics program where we are bringing in the students with special needs and integrating them with the rest of the students we have a buddy program a Special Olympics team that has both the regular students and the special needs students all playing together come out and support us at the end of February if you have an opportunity but that kind of inclusive community with over 30 languages spoken in the school and a real sense of community I think is one of the things that's going to make Bush Hill a really great place for

063this advanced academic placement program specifically because it'll allow the students in the Edison pyramid to stay in the pyramid to stay in the community they'll be able to see their fellow students at the community events at all of the after-school programs that we have at the school and they'll be able to take advantage of the inclusion and community that Michelle has to offer we do a lot of work with our fellow schools both in after-school programs and in you know making sure that we are taking advantage of programs and are offering them to each other um so we have a lot of joint learning programs and some of our after-school activities as well the parents are overwhelmingly in favor bringing this program to Bush Hill one of the things that we do want to make

064sure is that while we see 67% support for doing both third and fourth grade anybody who's studied change leadership which I'm sure a lot of you have recognized that you sometimes have to go slow to go fast one of the things that we really want to make sure is that we don't rush into this in a way that creates a lot of difficulties for the teachers and for the new coming students and the existing students as well we really believe that if we go third grade only to start with this will give the school and the parent-teacher Association dealing with a lot of new parents the opportunity to make sure that we're fully integrating all of the new students and that we can come together as an inclusive community learn the lessons from that year

065and move on to the next year thank you thank you the next speaker is Monique Mitchell Mitchell miss Mitchell here if not our Tina Williams good evening dr. Bray bran FCPS leadership team in the school board and happy Black History Month I'm Tina Williams elementary school counselor and president of Fairfax County Federation of Teachers Union I will be speaking on behalf of our teachers and school employee members tonight we support the legislative priorities of FCPS and will continue to work towards advancing these efforts FCF t will always stand for and defend public education for providing excellent and equitable learning opportunities for every child and for paying each of its members liveable wages with that said FCPS is proposed budget consists of 2.9 billion dollars where eighty six point one percent goes towards instructional programs f

066CFT applauds this effort to move employee salaries in the right direction as you know our county is confronted with a public education crisis that threatens the prospects of its current and next generations Virginia teacher salaries fall well well below the national average and our state ranks 34 out of 50 in state support of public education I asked the school board to please continue to work diligently and equitably to address attention retention and recruitment issues in this county we at F CFT are eager to learn more and yet monitor our superintendents focus on teacher diversity and hiring by placing Fairfax families as priority we can reverse the trend of excellent teachers leaving life while simultaneously attracting a new generation of committed educators by demonstrating your intent consistently with your actions you will convey care and respect

067for the work of each and every FCPS employee when you talk of the family you just cannot forget about a single person FCF team members and I ask that you keep in mind instructional assistants and educators on the BA means that have dedicated their careers to serving our community please promote a caring culture for each and every member of the Fairfax family as if they are truly sincerely a member of your very own classroom experience excellence and dedication to this district are qualities that just that are just as important as an advanced degree yes advanced degrees are phenomenally important but they are not the only measure of equality educator FCS FCPS will continue to lose quality seasoned educators and mentors if they are not careful with the message that conveys members are already approaching us

068and telling us that they believe age is perceived as a hindrance in our school system they're telling us that their age and extensive knowledge are not respected as much as a bright new face with a master's degree in hand thank you thank you is Monique Mitchell here if not are there any other speakers who wish to comment on the Bush Hill Elementary School revised People assignment plan and the new AAP Center if there are no other speakers on this issue then that public hearing is closed but I will now open another public hearing and that is on the Luther Jackson Middle School proposed boundary adjustment FCPS is considering a boundary adjustment to provide capacity relief to Jackson middle currently Jackson has more than 1,400 students in a building with design capacity of 1314 students through

069middle school which is close in proximity to Jackson middle school recently completed a renovation it increased its design capacity to 1395 students current enrollment at Thoreau is at about 900 enrollment at Thoreau middle school is projected to have surplus available capacity in the future we have one speaker for this public hearing if there are any others who wish to speak on this matter please register with the clerk we do have extra space so at this time Hilary Duffy to speak on the Luther Jackson issue thank you listening my name is Hilary Duffy and I'm the mother of a rising seventh grader at Oakton I went to the first meetings that Oakton elementary last year with many parents I'm sure this has been brought to the board before and you've heard the overwhelming support that our

070school and community has had we sat in small groups we discussed pros and cons the most common thing I heard that night as a parent was I wish this happened years ago the numbers that you mentioned speak for themselves the school here at Luther is overcrowded it from what I heard have heard it has a safety issue with being overcrowded just in the hallways and then of course it affects instruction so we all want our students to have an equal fair playing field in the classroom and currently that doesn't happen with throw millions of dollars put into that renovation there's an empty classroom sitting there now the numbers make sense ended up themselves as a parent I would love for my daughter and her friends to be together in middle school middle school yeah is

071tough if everyone looks back on those years and remember socially how important those friendships are when you're becoming independent and learning who you are as a person the high school boundaries isn't going to change but for my daughter personally to have more years with the friends that mean everything to her and they become a bigger part of our life socially would be a big benefit number one the education the classroom size we can all agree the numbers make sense if you have teachers with a smaller classroom the students benefit and our community will benefit so thank you for listening I hope that this is approved on February 22nd thank you thank you is there anyone else here who wishes to speak on the Luther Jackson matter yes and come to the lectern and please make

072sure that you introduce yourself and you have signed up yes it says yes great thank you go answer chairman strauss and members of the board my name is Michael McDonald I am the proud parent of an eighth grader here who attends Luther Jackson middle school under the leadership of Prince principal Lehmann Luther Jackson has made a great positive difference for my daughter as she prepares for Oakton high school our daughter has benefited greatly from Luther Jackson strong anti-bullying culture well organized chorus program and inclusive theatre arts program as a parent of a sixth grader at Mosby woods elementary school there's nothing more that we want than our our son to attend Luther Jackson middle school in the fall so I ask that you choose option C so the kids of Mosby woods can attend Luther

073Jackson this fall thank you thank you are there any other people who have come tonight to speak on this matter seeing no other people wishing to speak than the public hearing on the Luther Jackson Thoreau matter is closed the next item on the agenda is citizen participation this is the general opportunity for people to come and address us at our public meetings tonight we have ten citizens who have signed up to address the board 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

074identifiable information in connection with an individual student speakers are expected to deliver their comments with the decorum and respect appropriate to the conduct of the public's business please be mindful that there are often young children in attend that these meetings are watching at home so the language should be appropriate for all age levels thank you for your cooperation and thanks to those who have come out to speak tonight our first speaker is Catherine Stewart good evening my name is Catherine Stewart I'm a member of more recess for Fairfax County and more recess for Virginians I'm just here speaking to you tonight on behalf of those groups but also on behalf of the school health advisory committee for which I am the Celie district appointee the school health advisory committee also known as Shack has been

075working with staff to amend the health and wellness policy regarding a student's right to recess we on Shack as well as more recess for Fairfax County believe that kids need breaks to move and that our students have a right to participate in recess unless they are endangering themselves or others during recess we propose adding the following language to policy 2100 recess should not be withheld to manage behavior or used for instructional activities such as completing classwork homework or remediation activities if extenuating circumstances impact recess the principal or designee will review the circumstances and take appropriate action in each case this language provides a balance between the needs of students to participate in recess and not have their recess withheld and the needs of educators who require flexibility because we recognize things happen our intent is

076that kids will not be doing homework during recess the kids will not miss recess to take a test and that they will not miss recess because they say a curse word in English class because those are all real things that have happened in elementary schools in Fairfax County we hope we can count on your support for this policy amendment to better serve the students in our County and we recognize that just changing policy doesn't give teachers the tools they need to comply with the policy in addition to this policy change the FCPS staff have told me that they will prepare professional development materials that will explain the policy to elementary school teachers and principals as well as provide them with some information about the benefits of recess best practices for managing recess in schools and

077some alternative behavior methods strat behavioral management strategies that don't involve withholding recess more recess for Fairfax County has offered to send resources and information to help develop these training materials because we want teachers to understand the recess will help them in the classroom and that recess especially recess outside is important to the development of our children finally I just wanted to give you a brief update on our state lobbying efforts you can see now we have official t-shirts we're all wearing senator chap Peterson's bill SB 273 has passed the Senate that one would include recess in the definition of instructional time Kari Delaney delegate carried Alana's bill House bill 14 19 is up for a vote vote in the house next week her bill would not only include recess in the definition of instructional time

078but would also reduce the amount of hours that must be spent teaching only English math science and social studies these two bills are a direct response to what you the members of the school board told us that you needed in order to offer more recess in Fairfax County we look forward to working with you to expand recess in our County once those bills are passed thanks thank you the next speaker is Rob Kirk mr. Kerr good evening school board dr. Bray bran and leadership team my name is Robert Kerr and I'm a social studies teacher at West Potomac high school I truly teach and celebrate the diversity that Fairfax County Public Schools offers as I teach AP US history team taught u.s. history with special education avid and combating intolerance I love teaching and learning

079from students who come from a variety of cultural racial social socio-economic and religious backgrounds more importantly I love the challenge that comes with meeting students at different ability and readiness levels I come to speak before you today as a concerned teacher and taxpayer of Fairfax County I worry that we do not truly embrace the words that we have adopted many of us celebrated last April when you adopted the Fairfax County statement on diversity in action stating Fairfax County boards of Supervisors does hereby affirm our strong commitment to maintaining a community culture that values and celebrates the similarities as well as the differences among our neighbors have we made enough progress on the goal to which we are working I worried that for our transgender community we have not made that progress quickly enough how can

080we truly embrace our statement by adopting regulations that specifically protect trans students as equal members of that diversity can that diverse community we boast of and offering professional development opportunities for teachers to create that open and welcoming community not being native to Fairfax County I didn't know what to expect when moving here five and a half years ago as any aspiring teacher should do I did my research and learned FCPS as much as I could from the website I couldn't help though hearing my now late father's advice of not believing everything you hear you read on the Internet it makes me wonder can a candidate today believe what they read about FCPS embracing diversity let me invite you into my classroom for just a moment during the first part of every one of my classes

081we discussed current events earlier this year one of my sis students we will call them student a brought the brought up the president's tweet disallowing the trans community for the military during a great discussion I called on one of my students who is trans and we'll call them student B by his preferred name after student be shared student name was confused not by what student B said but that I had called him by his preferred name rather than his dead name student a had gone to school with student B since elementary school and I was the first student I was the first teacher to call student B by his preferred name at least in the presence of student a calling a trans student by their dead name has been likened to that of emotional abuse

082yet teachers who lacked specific regulations and teacher training victimized their students without their knowledge this is why I urge you to create and adopt both specific specific regulation protecting the trans community and professional development opportunities to ensure that we embrace our words and celebrate that diversity thank you for listening to me tonight thank you the next speaker is George Becerra good evening dr. Brenda and school board members I wanted to talk to you about three items tonight lucky enough there is open spots so I'm talking one topic in two extra ones that are now on first one is your forum topic like I like to take the full board for passing this along to dr. Raven to either for a work session or to a memo or to pager I'm fine with that I don't

083think this issue is really hard I think you already know what theories and it being worked on I'd like to thank personally Miss Carrie incorporate Sanders and Miss mcLaughlin for bringing this forward I also like to thank miss Karen he's Gemara for having discussions with me and how we can improve this and the discussion had today and how to improve this policy or other aspects to look at instead of just shared custody sole custody foster parents grandparents it's all one family all parent engagement I like to thank you for that also also miss dare net Koufax for also sharing her thoughts on this the second item I'd like to talk about is the amendments in the followings tonight I know the policy is not to talk about budget but this is one of those budget

084items thereafter budget public hearings and this is the only opportunity to talk about this no brainers here I support them all only things I like to talk about to the makers of the follow up to the amendments is to not it's not the money amount but to find out the total cost of all the students that are affected in these programs I know dr. brave an you talked about getting total cost on everything especially closing the achievement gap obviously the 1 million dollars at Esau schools is not going to make the whole difference but it won't make a difference the 250,000 for added for the budget I understand that for that good officer this is just some baseline foundations or markers so hope more improvement will be on that on the total cost when you

085do them from the implementation plan third item like talked about is a recent article in The Washington Post Oh black black and Hispanics having a lower rate of the fuel process it's contrary to the belief I've been in the system for a decade I also have a daughter in two Magisterial districts this year I've heard three presentations on aap the things I see SCPs doing are pretty good they inundate you heavily on PR aap from birth here in this county and and then also in day one from schools announcements on weekly parent folders aap is also on all of the school websites it's on aap information night now and then parents have to take ownership I know some minority families where people think it's the system sometimes you have to take ownership for your child's

086education one thing I could suggest though is in their literature in the presentations I never hear the appeal process parents don't want to realize that their kid by not getting or they fail but they need to hear that and then know their rights as parents legal rights like you said miscarry Pisco tomorrow about the folder state law federal laws they need to know that in all aspects other aspects like the here's miss McLaughlin I know you're not here but she did all you know is my son here's a first student intern but a lot of people didn't know that I had to file the appeal in seventh grade room and that took extraordinary time a lot of people don't know he finished with 11 AP classes got into UVA in a tech but now and

087then I had to be a pair of it that PTA meetings to talk to the school as a finality so thank you very much have a good day thank you the next speaker is Mike knee a few weeks ago my son is seventh grade students at Arak Iran middle school he told me excitedly dad well I have a new gym and a new locker room dear school board I will talk about rocking around renovation projects the good news is the county has on-site staff overseeing construction planning and updating to the staff the found has been set aside from the school bound for this important capital improvement project and in 2020 the students will enjoy new classroom new junior locker room new furniture that's a great news but how many other students are schools our entire

088needs for capital renovation reconstruction and repair how can we make our taxpayers money the back the biggest band of the Gulf expenditures a most recent study from the county contract and management audit shows that we have a lot of things to improve on mainly the sole sourcing contract as you we all know at a federal level the sole sourcing sole sourcing is about only 20% majority of the contract is granted at a request for proposal or invite for competition for bid the reason is so sourcing is a wasteful and inefficient using Obama's word but in our County our sole sourcing is 67% its tripling the national average we all know by sole sourcing you invite fraud you invite waste you invite comfort the interest no look no further then the battle for greed for kids

089the sole sourcing vendor and their for superintendent dr. Garza so I ask you three questions so where is the status of the investigation of a Garza's in connection or even council interests with the battle for vendor second question why are we still allowing the battle for kids still serving our our County even under the investigation and number three when do we get a read off the sole sourcing we implement the request for proposal and evite for bid when I see my son's excitement in his eyes I want every child in all our County can benefit the more capital improvement the more new classrooms we have to work together to make sure all our money are well spent well controlled and we eradicate fraud and the sole sourcing contract thank you the next speaker is Tony

090yang good evening sack support and give me opportunity to talk here about security and House of student and staff so first day I'll talk about safety safety I mean it's an issue for every school not just for Fairfax a particular a still remember again to 2012 December 14th the real tragedy happened in steady Hook elementary school you Newton Connecticut a mental health worker a guy with mental health problem had gone and went into the school and killed 20 kids there those kids are just six to 70 years old and the signal 7/7 stop I also killed this use this country I mean Eric country there are a lot of people has a progress of crazy and particularly in this country it's very easy to get Michelle calm so the security is I mean it's her

091past several years but we still need to remind the school board and the management that it's a issue for our country and it's also useful for Fairfax particularly we know that for recent years there are trees of calm activities Care Act he was like m13 festering in Fairfax County is a community you probably the school so we need to address those things I don't know I mean the school - no it was good probably I don't know we can have a police officer to patrol the school in the morning and afternoon time or rather may patrol so that to scare those people away so that student out of staff he was cut our safety so ii would see how to talk about his health as this not a particular to fairfax but it's also a

092ternary problem so I know they recruited street has talked about allowing boys into a chorus bathroom or lower cost to boys locker room as a parents many Paris I really have concern about this because I heard that some kids are just scared go to the bathroom so dear what is it was who the hotel in the school day other would get home the first to see is the rushing to a bathroom so little kids they are very scared since like this and we usually I mean if you if your paid member as your Paris if you want your kids you feel taught her how use a bathroom with the boy if you want your daughter will get into the locker room is a boy if you seek if you have your kids is a situation

093you want for it if you don't find your kids you through that situation to 12 forties but don't you treat yourself thank you very much the next speaker is Robert Rigby yeah good evening school board members dr. Brandon senior staff my name is Robert Rigby jr. I am the current president of FCPS pride a certified organization for LGBTQ employees and allies I am also in my 20th year of teaching in FCPS first I want to say that several parents of transgender students have recently recently shared with me their positive experiences working with the staff in their schools and the senior leadership staff such news makes me proud to be an employee of Fairfax County Public Schools I would like to like to speak to policy 2100 and tie it to its impact on transgender students

094that policy includes elements addressing mental health suicide prevention and student stress many people are spoken here about the stress on transgender youth of not being fully accepted and integrated in school I will encourage you to take the simple step of resurrecting the regulations proposed by the superintendent in July of 2016 many parents teachers and students have expressed that while our system may not be terrible it is short for sort of ideal a group of parents of transgender students has recently formed in Arlington County Public Schools to advocate for much the same thing that we are advocating for in Fairfax we could wait for our intend to go first alas the General Assembly today in committee tabled the LGBTQ inclusive non-discrimination policies that would have made our work here in Fairfax much easier do we wait

095for another draw from the Hat do we wait for another election do we wait for with redistricting in courts the district in appellate courts across the country are ruling in support of trans students in Wisconsin in Pennsylvania and you know in Ohio and the Gloucester case is still pending do we wait for the Supreme Court we make accommodations when parents advocate strongly yes but what about the children and parents who do not have the resources information leisure and heart to advocate hard we end up with what Ron Perry meant to aptly labeled to Fairfax's I myself can afford to be patient but the children only get to grow up wants so please take action sooner rather than later thank you for listening thank you the next speaker is Kathy Mallard Kathy Mellon yes thank you

096good baby I don't have my glasses with me so I hope I can read this good evening doctor Bray brand or bra brand okay good I got that right and Fairfax County Public School Board thank you for this opportunity to speak with you regarding policy 2100 tonight I speak on behalf of many concerned parents and citizens of Fairfax County a number of whom are actually across the street tonight meeting with the FLE committee as I read over policy 2100 several items came to my attention first of all under purpose on page one Fairfax County Public Schools places the health and wellness of FCPS students and staff members at a level of importance no less than that which is accorded to academic achievement another item page 1 section 1c cites the critical need of the school

097board to respect and collaborate with parents on the health and well-being of their children and the students respect and collaboration with parents so so important over the course of the last several years many parents have testified before you they have invested a great deal of time research and expertise to prepare well research statements regarding to a variety of student health issues including teen suicide the dangerous of drugs family life sex education curriculum and of course the transgender policy occasionally some breakthroughs are made and we are very relieved at the book Locker 15 about teen suicide was removed from the health curriculum another item page for letter F number two cites intervention of students with mental health issues and the importance that school officials provide information and resources to families to support access to mental health

098care outside of the school system however some school officials appear to be pushing the dangerous and harmful policies to promote gender dysphoria transgenderism ignoring factual medical scientific data which explained that it is a mental health issue some school board members appear to lend greater credence to individuals and groups who emotionally advocate for the reinstatement of the illegal and very harmful transgender regulations which were suspended in 2016 only after a long list of legal health safety and privacy questions were submitted to members of the school board and to legal counsel these questions have yet to be answered in full you have heard from others about the many groups whose rights are ignored by the inflamation implementation of the transgender policy female students special needs just one more sentence Female Athlete students who adhere to strict religious

099beliefs elevating a tiny group with a mental health disorder while punishing the rest is not show respect for the vast majority of your student body attached to the statement I gave you is the AGF Alliance defending freedom paper outlines of fear and evil process thank you very much for this opportunity and on behalf of so many students and their families we implore you to please read through the Alliance defending freedom paper thank you very much for this evening thank you the next speaker is Alan kolecki Alan to lucky good evening board my name is Alan so liking I'm a resident of Fairfax County since 1972 I'd like to speak on the policy 2100 I'm very concerned with regard to anything related to help safety and the well-being of the children in schools more specifically I'm

100alarmed that there is a constant push at these board meetings by activists who advocate policies that would be harmful to children including to push the reinstatement of the illegal and harmful transgendered regulations that were justifiably suspended in July of 2016 and the reason they were suspended in 2016 was because there was a long list of legal help safety and primacy questions submitted to the board and legal counsel which have not been fully and adequately addressed to the public and if they have I suggest a full public disclosure warranted for transparency and review by lawyers non-consenting parents and residents these unresolved questions remain involved in the rights of the children and parents negatively impact by such poorly thought-out and ill-conceived transgender policy which include the result of victim groups as such as the ten thousand female

101students who are sexually assaulted victims that can bring on depression trauma suicide and and really do not want males in bathrooms locker rooms where they undress many special needs students with anxiety disorders depression suicidal thoughts do not want to share shat showers and bathrooms with the opposite sex female athletes who would be discriminated against and the direct violation of title nine and possibly severely injured by allowing males to compete in the same sports thousands of children are in poverty in this county who would be taught this confusing harmful concept which they would have to sort out on top of all the other Chan in life imposed upon them more than half of the school population our religious ardent including 35,000 Muslim children 35,000 cap Catholic Latino children and 30,000 evangelical Asian children it's puzzling how

102such an impressive regulation could be considered when it's flagrantly violates so many constitutional protections including the First Amendment is fairfax county really going to punitive lee coerced beach among the non-consenting force on one in association private facilities penalize religious students and ban any news reports that does not affirm the delusions of activists and it is stunning that the school system would jeopardize the proteases reputation relying on activists I'll conclude here by saying the school system shouldn't be ensuring the protection of all students to have equal access to the quality education without coercion harassment punishment exploitation by the school system instead of pushing a radical regulations that try to elevate a tiny group with a medical disorder at the expense of others thank you very much for your time thank you the next speaker is Kevin

103Dickerson all right palate cleanser good evening school board superintendent Brian staff I don't know I'm just speaking extemporaneously tonight and I want to talk about what dr. Bray Brian calls glows and groves and some of my travels around the county so I spent seven mites my time last year 75 schools I've been to 20 this year and on Tuesday I spent time at a school that just blew me away and so I wanted to focus on some of the glows Tara set elementary school first of all Jeff platenburg great job and your staff did a great job in that school um beautiful if you haven't been there you should my staff was wowed floored by just what FCPS can do grows a couple weeks ago and we were talking about CIP and you know the

104Board of Supervisors has a lot of tough decisions to make and if we want schools that look just like Terra set we're gonna need to pay for them and we're gonna need to find ways to do so so Board of Supervisors if you're listening please let's get on that more glows so when I was at the school I was you know the break room is interesting it's you know where people discuss things sometimes they tell you to avoid the lunchroom with your faculty because sometimes it can be negative sometimes you know you're talking about things students it just you you just avoid it in most instances but this one I was there and they were just all bright and chipper about the the great stuff that they were doing there and um I noticed that

105they were all wearing these buttons and it says teach piece and I mean everybody had him on their lanyards had him on their sweaters and I asked what it was all about because that's a lovely sentiment and you know back in the winter break there was a great there was a great tragedy that happened that a community and they decided to show their support for the community by putting on these buttons and telling their students that they we need to be peaceful in this world and it's like one of those small drop things that you just you know one drop here one drop there and it all of a sudden turns into an ocean of sentiment that is great and that is good things that are happening and FCPS sometimes it's nice not about the

106academics it's about what we can do as human beings to teach empathy to each other so glows grows I didn't see any there I know that there probably are but Lyndsey trout you get a shout out as a principal of that elementary school your staff has a lot of great things to say about you and so that's it thank you Thank You mr. Hickerson teach peace I like the idea if they would like to send us some of those buttons I think we would welcome them thank you very much our last speaker is Marsha st. John cunning Marcia hi good evening school board members leadership team and dr. Baron I'm also speaking extemporaneously Kelvin actually inspired me to do so today I'm here to definitely give a glow and to thank all of the support

107that the school board and the leadership team gave last year to the initiative to help get parent liaisons some of them contracted physicians and so I really want to thank you for that and there's been a great improvement in morale and I really wish that you could see that across the board I want to talk to you about this Tuesday a situation which is multiplied throughout the school system a ten year old little boy very bright was having a lot of behavioral issues let's bring the mom in to talk to the teacher the social worker what's going on because of the relationship that the parent liaison had built with this mom the mom felt comfortable to talk and to talk to a social worker that sometimes can be very intimidating mom shares her story when

108her son was five years old there were bullets that were flying over the courtyard where he was playing and he saw his father shot someone covered him and said that everything's going to be okay and it was except for that dad was shot the parents stayed in that community dad was not fatally shot but had to leave the country because his life was in danger a few years later mom who was still living in the country was beat up as she was trying to protect her three-year-old sister from and his three-year-old sister from intruder because she was he she was being raped by this person mom was able to prevent the rape the son saw it and mom left with her kids and went to a cousin's house she said I can't go back there

109after me the cousin said I have $200 she goes I'll take it six months it took them six months to walk across three countries to get here they were able to get political asylum because she was able to share that story that family is now getting help because of that trust this is one story of hundreds across her County I'm here to say to you that in order for all of our students to achieve the excellence that they should achieve and in order for this little boys future to be as bright as he is which i think will happen now because he's getting the help that you need to support the personnel that helps those families equity begins at the top we must model what we preach so I'm asking you to keep growing your

110support and to make the parent liaison program across the board something that all the equity that the 35 that habit now gets spread across the board thank you thank you and thank you to all those who have come out to speak to us tonight I will call and miss pett akanda for student representative Mathers and I believe we have some boy scouts in the audience as well thank you I'm going to start out with the Boy Scouts because I know it's getting late so will the Boy Scouts from Troop 1978 from Vienna please stand to be recognized these Boy Scouts are earning their citizenship in the community badge and I would just like to join the rest of the school board in congratulating them so on the issue for tonight on the advertised budget I'd

111like to provide kind of my what I hope that we can accomplish moving forward in the approved budget process I know that dr. Moran has eliminated the $50 extracurricular activity fee and I would like to keep that in the approved budget process as a priority even if we do not receive the total amount of money that we're hoping for I'd also like to make sure that we're continuing to track aap participation and receive the data from the opt-out forms that I believe were submitted last week I think so that we can see if students are being discouraged by the current fee and can potentially work out a system where we defer some of the cost for AP exams past the six to six exam maybe through a reduced fee or a sliding scale fee that

112would allow more students to take AP exams on Monday I'll be meeting with the Student Advisory Council to discuss their four issues they're doing student work sessions on the budget the strategic plan mental health and school of the future so I look forward to bringing you their perspectives on the budget there will be one student from each high school working on each of the topics thank you thank you very much since we did not finish our closed session work we will go back into closed session after the end of this meeting so we will not do any confirmation of action taken in closed meeting for those who are keeping track of the agenda the next is the FY 2019 advertised budget and I will call on Miss Evans for a motion I moved that the

113school board adopt the FY 2019 advertised budget as detailed in the agenda item seconded by mr. moon miss Evans yes thank you madam chair I'm very pleased to offer this motion to approve the fiscal year 2019 budget this is a very straightforward budget this year that recognizes the board's top priority is raising teachers salaries as well as improving pay for all of our wonderful employees to keep us competitive this is a 2.9 billion dollar budget that requests at four point nine percent transfer increase from the Board of Supervisors it would invest another fifty three million dollars into improving our teacher salary scales this investment will bring us closer but still not all the way to where our compensation study told us we should be the budget also calls for step increases for all eligible employees

114at a cost of forty three point nine million dollars and adds seventeen point nine million dollars for improving pay scales for school-based administrators and employees on our other salary scales so clearly this is a budget focused on competitive pay after years of having made deep deep cuts where we were not able to provide the pay increases that we would have liked to have provided and which our employees so richly deserved we are ready to turn a corner this budget does that by focusing on getting back to where we need to be as a premier school system while the explosive growth of a few years back has slowed we still do continue to grow as a school system an additional fifteen point eight million dollars is needed in this budget to deal with the additional students

115that we expect to see next school year with more of those students qualifying for special needs and free saw services with that I again want to thank miss Quinn and for her entire team for all of her work in putting this budget together and for dr. Bray rands leadership and with that I will urge my colleagues to support this budget mr. moon would you like to speak to your second just briefly I am Adam share as a miss Evans stated that it's just straightforward proposal from Superintendent I want to applaud you know superintendent to bringing a very bold step about forming this you know boys belief that fair compensation for our teachers is the top priority and I always want to applaud dr. Bray brain again that in his approach the rather than waiting three

116years for be able to bring our salary up to the market that we should do sooner than that that this proposal calls for accelerating that process and we should be able to a and we should bring the salary of our teachers in America in two year period of time rather than three years and just one point of clarification is that even though we are seeking four point nine percent transfer request over our budget is really going up by four point three percent thank you thank you i callin miss Hines for an amendment miss Paul check okay it was joint so either way okay sure I will read it okay I moved to amend the main motion by a reinstating funding of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the office of the chief academic and

117equity officer to support equity related work and be increasing the county transfer request by two hundred and fifty thousand dollars second second things like my name is Heinz thank you Miss Paul sugars like to speak to motion yes thank you and I appreciate my colleagues who engage in our conversation at our last work session I think it's to be clear we want to ensure that we are funding the equity work under the new chief academic and for the officer position while we do not have that finalized plan that will be presented to us in March we wanted to make sure and I hope what colleagues will support this that in the 2019 budget well I'm happy that we will be seeing savings in many areas do not want to see a savings in the equity

118work we have combined a position that was slated to be an assistant superintendent purely for equity and what we are doing is taking the budget that had been set aside for that separate assistant superintendent position and putting it toward the equity office that will now be under the chief academic and equity officer so and to be clear this is you know a communication of those values and of our commitment to the one Fairfax policy this could include some of the work that some of my colleagues are bringing forward tonight it could include work to support our our ESL students in our high schools that could include work around parent liaisons and other things that are really working to support our students my hope is that after this year once dr. durán fully takes on the

119work under his office for equity office equity work is that we will not be individually bringing forward amendments to address different areas of need that we see in the community but at this point it is a new office we want to make sure that he feels that when he brings this forward that the best possible plan in conjunction with dr. Barron and staff will be funded that we as a community and as a school system do see the value in this and just want to see this a little bit as a placeholder to say this is not where we want to see savings and so I do hope that our colleagues can support this we did recently pass the one Fairfax policy with the Board of Supervisors and I hope that when we send the

120transfer request and the advertised budget to them that this important office is is funded future thank you Miss Heinz yes thank you I can't say much more than that thank you Miss Paul took for removing that and and speaking to it I think dr. Baron this is a very good budget I think we're sending the right message to our funders we're sending the right message to the community this school system needs an investment it needs a significant investment and we need to put that investment in the people you know who are working with the children what I the reason that I support this one what I think is a small change is just for the the optics of going out with that great message and saying go and while we're at it we're going to

121find this really small and in this grand scheme of things amount of savings in something that we have all stated is a is you know our number one strategic goal with which is to really make progress on our concerns about equity and closing gaps and so I just I I think generally speaking my philosophy is to wait until later in the process after we know what our funding is going to be and and then to then kind of lay out all of our priorities and figure out what you know what we can do what we will do but this to me is important to do it this time because we will have more information soon about how that equity office is going to do its work and what will actually be needed so I feel

122like at this time if we can just take that out of the message we're sending to the community hold on to it figure out how much of it we really need and then you know pay for it in in May with the final budget so I thank you again miss Paul chick for making this motion mr. Corbett Sanders thank you and thank you mr. Powell cheque for bringing this forward last year when we adopted our budget we talked about our budget being a values budget that the budget actually demonstrates the values of this school board and I believe that dr. braver and when you brought to us the budget this year it truly did focus on the values of our community to ensure that we pay all of our teachers a market-based wage offer competitive

123salaries so that we can not only attract the best and the brightest but we can retain the best and the brightest so I think that you started with the right balance however I do want to talk a little bit about this as this amendment as a means of increasing the community's awareness of this boards commitment to equity our community our commitment to equity is evident in the work of the skiped committee that both miss McLaughlin and Miss Darrin AK Koufax have been active in as well as Miss Powell check on that committee and for those in the audience who don't know about the work of the skipped it is in this form that the initial work on the one Fairfax was developed the board has been advocating for increased work in the area of equity

124for several years and we encourage a greater focus on equity in the course of our we've encouraged a greater focus on equity in the course of our interviewing dr. brave ran for the job as the superintendent we're especially pleased that dr. Bray brand decided to consolidate the equity portfolio under the chief academic role because it shows the combined focus as being very intentional and that's what we need is we need to have an intent 'fl work on equity that we will be able to address our concerns that have been raised about opportunity gaps and access to opportunities to programs like advanced academics for students throughout the county regardless of the zip code in which they live or the color of their skin it is it is through an equity lens that I am optimistic that

125we will be able to address many of the needs of our English language learners that require both access to English acquisition programs as well as a pathway to success to successful completion of high school and our college and career ready although I am concerned that the 250 thousand dollar place holder does not include a fuller description of how the will be spent I am optimistic that the how's and the whys of the equity plan will be provided to us in March per our earlier decision I also know that mr. anak Koufax will be offering an amendment which will request the superintendent to dedicate funds and efforts to provide wraparound supports for our schools I will let her address that but as Miss palchik mentioned I am optimistic that this placeholder of two hundred and fifty

126thousand dollars will be married up with those efforts and the efforts to of mrs. Evans in making sure that we competitively compensate our parent liaisons miss McLaughlin I want to first say that I greatly appreciate both miss Paul Chuck and miss Hines bringing this amendment and the strong words and support for why we should be including this in our proposed budget I have spoken about this for years I served as the liaison for the school boards minority student achievement Oversight Committee and long before me there was former school board member dan stork who also served as a liaison and his pal chuck was actually an appointee at the time this is something that MSA OSI has been asking this board and this school system for many many years now is that we are the tenth

127largest school system in the country we are extremely diverse and we have educational gaps that we must be more intentional with and when our former superintendent created the equity and strategic planning position some of us didn't necessarily agree with that approach in terms of combining that position to dr. Barron's desire that this be included with our chief academic officer I fully support that so long as we still need to have an office of equity and anyone who studied this issue knows that Montgomery County Public Schools has an office of equity Fairfax County public schools used to have an office of equity and what's happened in probably the last 15 plus years or so is during but tough budget times the office was eliminated so ms hynes i think you said it best it's really important

128that we lead with this budget and communicate out to the board supervisors to the community our commitment to this important work and I was very pleased that the two of you identified this as rather than waiting for the board to get the report in March I think it's it's just as important that we go ahead now not just to the supervisors but to each other and to superintendent Brad Brown to say you know you've built a two point nine billion dollar budget but this is a part that's really important to us and well I think that we could have maybe looked at the newest language that came from Miss Koufax where she kind of earmarked it as here's where we want to make sure we target funds and you will need to do some you

129know pencil sharpening dr. brave ran to find you know monies elsewhere between now and may in the end we know that's what we're gonna have to do regardless and so I didn't see the point in needing to put anything other than to say Bravo to both of you thank you for giving this board an opportunity to speak on something that's very important dr. Daren obviously I think you're starting to hear a chorus from the board that we value this responsibility you've been given and we really do look forward to seeing the plan but I would say don't feel rushed I mean if you bring it to us in March you bring it to us in April I'd rather you feel like you were able to frame out the best plan possible that's just my own

130individual one of 12 opinions so so I appreciate that you're having to do that work behind the scenes on how this will play out and obviously if it's if it's essential and more funding needs to be brought to the table we would want you to bring that to us as well but I'm I'm proud to be part of a board that recognizes the intentionality and importance of this and I think without a question this reflects this boards not just verbal but intentional action in our commitment to equity in this county mr. Nicol FEX thank you madam chair when we as a board passed the one Fairfax resolution that policy put into place with intentionality the goal of achieving equity and parity and all that we do and as a board we put a place altar

131to ensure funding to begin in this process as this will not significantly increase our ask I'm looking forward to making sure that the continued hard work that our schools in our County have been committed to and working together will continue I know that these funds will continue to help guide and informs our collective actions and support the our goal of achieving equity in our community so I will be supporting this amendment seeing no further asks to speak then we will I will call for the vote on the amendment I've read it again is to amend the main motion by reinstating funding of $250,000 to the office of the chief academic and equity officer to support equity related work and increase the county transfer request by two hundred and fifty thousand dollars all those in favor

132of the amendment they're ago the vote is unanimous thank you with mr. Wilson and Miss Jules absinthe thank you very much that motion passes I will call on mr. Nicole for an amendment I moved two men the main motion by a step by establishing a set-aside of 1 million to provide to provide additional resources to high schools with the highest percentage of newcomer ESL students to support wraparound services a detailed implementation plan should be provided for discussion by the April budget work session and be directing the superintendent to identify funding of 1 million dollars as part of the FY 2019 approved budget process there a second shot Thank You mr. Nico effects would you like to speak to your motion in clarify is this an additional cost or is it certified is it to be

133set a set aside from funds that are already being asked for I'll answer so public I understand to be set aside from funds already asked for thank you thank you yes I do and my colleagues who were here please indulge me as this is a different forum and different members of the public are here because I said many of these words last week at our budget session so a little historical perspective about this about three and a half years ago we realized that many of our schools needed additional support for our newcomer students we saw that not just the number of children was growing but we were seeing their needs were growing too we were seeing students with interrupted education students with limited literacy in their own language limited numeracy and limited knowledge of the

134English language as the number and needs of our students grew we realized that our curriculum needed to be modified to meet the needs of these children so we look to others who are a bit ahead of us in this area to see what their best practices were staff principals and school board members traveled to school systems in Texas Maryland the District of Columbia and other Virginia school systems and as a board we then requested that our staff review these other systems policies and develop a crosswalk well what FCPS was currently doing and what other systems were doing and how we could improve our curriculum delivery to the newcomer students staff came back to us with recommendations and from this we developed two pilot programs in two schools that at that time had the highest number

135of newcomer students that being Lee and Stewart High School since that time we have also made changes in the curriculum to allow our newcomer high school students to get standard level credit in English and government which puts them on the path to their goal of becoming a high school graduate as a board member I appreciate all of the work that staff has done to make these positive changes and all of the the positivity that that has brought to our students my amendment specifically speaks to the ongoing need of these students currently we have 3,700 students in our system whose needs are the greatest those were as I described and we we call them level 1 level 2 or safe students students with interrupted education so after many conversations with my colleague consider several iterations of

136my amendment what I have tonight is asking dr. Bray brand once are once we have a better idea of our funding to look we estimated I worked with dr. durán to get an estimate of what it would cost to possibly this is one possible answer to possibly add eight more schools to this pilot program that was so successful in Lee and Stewart high schools but in speaking to my colleagues I realized that there while this is something that I understand intuitively because I've been involved with it there were questions there was also questions about perhaps are we doing the best in in those schools or do we need to make changes as we move on to other schools as those conversations as I was thoughtful about listening to my colleagues and the conversations that we

137had that's how I came up with the 8th amendment that is before us today I do believe after three and a half years the time must come we're not just two schools are served by these curriculums and best practices that we have have done and enhanced we need more of these students to be able to have the benefits of the curriculum that we know is enhanced we know is the best practice and I'm hopeful that this year because it isn't a year of severe cuts that this is the time to move forward with something that we have talked about for over three and a half years and because it's been so successful I think the time is right to move forward in the next school year so I look forward to my colleagues support on

138this amendment mr. moon would like to speak to you second really madam chair I want to thank a mr. anakov ex for bringing this to our attention that 1 million dollars is a modest modest investment a very important investment therefore this board to have in-depth discussion bar in depth discussion before we adopt a final budget as I was going back to the English Learner study that was published by office of research and strategic improvement back in October 2017 there is a very important finding that which should be obvious to all of us and members in the public as well is we have one uniform standard in a formula staffing formula for the counselors 290 for high scores but when they are on many more level 1 and level 2 students in a particular school that

139needs of those students are greater and those schools really suffer from lacking sufficient expertise and time and the language barrier itself is a tremendous for the our counselors to be able to health issues there is why the recommendation from that Office of Research I'm gonna go back to get user name again or si office of research and strategic improvement was recommending for superintendents and board to consider a revising high school level counselors standing standard possible using weighted needs-based but staffing factor I want to help with their opportunity they filled up to finalize it and see how we can best utilize and million dollars to be able to help mr. Nikolic stated that about thirty seven a list of thirty seven hundred students in high score thank you I'm going to just go down the line

140many likes so miss Keith tomorrow I will be supporting this motion many of you know in my background I work with a number of students and this is simply needed we have had an influx of students sometimes for various reasons it may be hurricanes and maybe a number of reasons but we've had students come in with different learning needs and our staff members have worked hard with the resources that they have but we just need to face the fact that it is not enough I know that I have advocated in my in my professional life to try to improve those situations it's kind of fun to do it from this position and with my colleague thank you but it really is something that impacts all of our children because when you have kids of different

141needs within the same school system with trying to serve them all with one particular model that just simply is not addressing those needs it impacts everyone and so I'm looking forward to this process as an opportunity first of all to hear about the successes that you've already had but also to take a little look at what we can continue to do look around it other perhaps other jurisdictions and and see what they are doing so that we can continue to improve and continue to serve serve our changing demographics thank you miss Hines yeah thank you I think mr. Annette Koufax for bringing this up and for the late-night conversation last night to talk about it I really want to support this but I want to know exactly what I'm supporting so dr. brand if I

142could ask you your understanding of this amendment when we say establishing a set-aside of 1 million dollars are we are you thinking that you will set aside a million dollars because to set something aside to my mind means take it out of something else what's the opportunity cost are we committing ourselves to a million dollar item in May in the you know the final approved budget or do you see this as you will go back and create a report for us on what a million dollars could do and then we will still at the end of the process when we know how much funding we have we will put that out on the table with all the other things that we might want to do with that money well thank you mrs. Hines that's the

143thoughtful question let me try to give an equally thoughtful answer the way I interpret this is in word a process midway through we don't know the final numbers from the county we don't know the final numbers from the state but between now and that time either through additional dollars that we're able to find through those final numbers that we get from the county or state or from relooking at how we've already allocated existing dollars that we would have a million dollars identified that would do this whether it would be a cut or whether it would come from additional revenue I really wouldn't be able to say at this time if it ended up being something where it would be having to take from existing resources I would it would be my intention on anything where

144I would do that is I would identify where it was coming from and then the board could decide whether that million dollar set-aside is worth the trade-off or whether to lower that amount so that's what that's what I would share to share to you now and I to be honest I'm reading the language night with you I know there was a lot of activity going on this afternoon and I was in an all-county principal's meeting so I haven't had full time to digest those numbers but that's the spirit of either through additional revenues or I would identify resources I would reallocate and then let the board decide whether that is an appropriate trade-off or not so then what I'm hearing is if I support this tonight I'm we are directing you to commit a million

145dollars in you know our final you know FY 2019 approved budget there will be I'm sorry a million dollars there will be a million dollar item in there for this no matter what else we might want to do so let's say in the worst case we don't get anything we ask for do we then say you know that this item comes ahead of everything else we might want to do am I am i misunderstanding mr. netcode yes well the one piece is when I read the second sentence a detailed implementation plan should be provided for discussion by the April budget work session hopefully we'd be closer to knowing what our numbers would be and if it wasn't going to be additional dollars I would be able to say what resources I was taking it from

146to create that set aside and that would be as part of the budget work session I mean dr. Brennan in our budget I think and the signs there there's always room for movement this is an intentional step to say this is what we believe the funding will cost us to bring these additional resources to eight additional schools it is my intent at the April work session to have dr. durán and his staff and you all present to us if you think the ideas that we've already established at Lee and Stewart are those best practices if they still would cost that much and what other options would be but I think it's extremely important to you know as being that the budget chair in the past and and the chair I know that there there are

147opportunities for conversation and opportunities to particularly when if we if this is a good year like many of us are hoping there there will be opportunities to to find funds within or find savings in other areas in order to reallocate funds to this area and I understand none of us can predict how that might happen right now because we don't have the funds if I could add to something because I've been working with Missouri Annette Kovacs on that and a couple of statements that have been said I want to be really clear when we're saying we want to expand this to eight other schools we have already expanded providing students with the additional curriculum opportunities at all of our high schools so we're not expanding that aspect what this is talking to is as we

148looked at our two schools that we started in the pilot they currently received two additional positions at the teacher salary scale so there's two additional positions that are added to those schools if we were to include eight more schools eight times those two would be 16 additional positions which is about nine hundred and seventy thousand dollars that's where the million came from so to provide equity and parity to provide all those top ten schools who have a large number of students who are level one and level two with the same resources we've been providing to Lee and Stuart that is in order for those schools to be able to use those monies specifically for wraparound support services for the level one level to incise students that they're seeing in very large numbers are disproportionally seeing

149of their esau students but i don't want the board to think that we have not already begun to put in place the curricular side and the changes to the to the opportunities for students to gain their standard English and their government credit but that does not mean though that we're that's with challenges and with a lot of wraparound supports that are needed at those other schools thank you if I could just I'll just finish I you know Thank You dr. durán I I think this is a very good program it's proven we do need to make further investments in it but if I'm gonna put my hand up tonight to something that says there is baked into what we vote on in in May a million dollars for this item and that means we need

150a majority of votes to take it out I am Not sure I'm ready to do that right now because I don't know what our funding will be I don't know what kind of circumstances we'll be in we've made a commitment to teacher pay as well and I frankly you know I'm glad some people feel really positive and optimistic about the Board of Supervisors this year but I don't always you know I think we can't make assumptions so anyway this is my this is my agita I'm still unclear about what I'm voting for if it's just please come to us in April with a plan that will have about a million dollar sticker on it great I'm happy to support that but I am not voting for something that bakes in a million dollar item right

151now mr. Corbett Sanders thank you I thank you miss Taryn a Koufax mr. moon for bringing this to us tonight this board has always had an emphasis on best practices and looking at best practices around the world and around across the country a recent study that was released by the OECD on increasing on increased diversity in education recognized that extra funding should be targeted to immigrant students facing a transition into a new education system this is what this is this should pursue according to the OECD this should persist until they have closed gaps with Native students to take the example of Canada a provincial funding program exists for before and after school activities for new Canadians and wraparound programs that should be considered to address the needs of the new students the OECD participants acknowledged

152that resources are needed for teacher professional development in funding an accessibility of specialist support such as experts and mental health trauma response and those can I can identify students at risk were important these types of investments in these students led to bridging the opportunity gaps and increased social cohesion so I look forward to supporting this I look forward to the work of dr. durán and his team and what they bring to us in the March April timeframe on how you'll put best practices in place in the equity area and I also expect that part of the plan will draw on financial resources that are available through different grant programs of the federal and state government and so thank you very much for this and I will be supporting it mr. Paul check thank you I

153think this is one of the few instances where I'm still considering and at the table what my vote will be partly I think I appreciate mr. and that cofax reaching out I do want to ensure that we are a empowering dr. durán to help us make these decisions and drive them moving forward I do appreciate that this main motion has changed from the original one because my concern was that while things work in certain areas and we talked about different districts every school district is not the same and every schools not the same so I am much more comfortable with this then with the the original motion because a I haven't had a chance to reach out to principals and see how they would implement it and what they would implement I guess my concerns

154are a little bit aligned with what miss Hines was saying I am more optimistic than in previous years but I'm not sure what this year will look like and so I would like to know if we commit to this does that mean we cannot fund the parent liaison work does that mean we can't fund other equity work I know I think what I appreciate so much about dr. Braverman is he's really pointed out that we've had flat progress on the achievement gap over the past several years and I I want to ensure that what we're doing will really truly make a difference and we was forward so I guess my questions for dr. durán mr. Heric Koufax and I apologize if this was shared is how did we come to this number of two positions

155at I assume this will at each of the top 10 high schools we currently for Lea and Stuart provide two additional positions and so in thinking about adding the other eight schools looking at the ten highest schools with level one and level two in size students if you multiply 8 times 2 16 additional positions comes out to about nine hundred and sixty-three thousand and and what is the difference in number between the number students those two staff positions are working with Lea and just as high school versus the other schools we're looking at what is the difference well I guess if you have to position serving how many students in those schools stewart current justice stewart currently has nine hundred and excuse me four hundred and forty-one level 1 and level 2 and then Lea

156has currently a hundred and ninety in between that there are four schools that range anywhere from 350 to 200 level one and two students so there are four in between those and then there are six additional ones they range anywhere from 135 up to 189 those other additional four schools below that took so essentially that number ten would be about a hundred and thirty five up to Justice Stewart 441 okay so they are within a pretty similar range yes and again there are four in between the two schools that actually have you know in that middle area that have more than Li okay and how I mean how do you see from what you've noticed do you feel that this is really what's needed to make that difference in those schools well in speaking with

157the I didn't get to speak with today the principal store I spoke with the principal from Lee and she definitely said that those two additional positions have helped her and her team to be able to provide that wraparound support services and being able to dedicate teachers to that as well as a additional counselor and adds apparently Azon hours to be able to support that population so definitely it is one that's needed and it's helpful again we have schools that are doing it in those other eight but it is a challenge some of them are having to look at other resources in their current budget to make it happen so this in some schools is affecting the the and allowing for more parent liaison hours yes okay and I guess do you see this is something

158you were considering and may I ask in the plan you were going to bring us in March or April not specifically this but certainly we were part of the plan in March you're talking about the equity plan was definitely looking at all of our student populations that need additional supports so yes in the bigger picture it was part of that discussion okay and I had one more question the parent liaisons effect it and in the end do you see that do we foresee that this plan allows I believe it allows schools to choose what kind of positions specifically they're looking for or does this give a little bit of flexibility for a school decide the recommended positions are additional bilingual counselor lingual social worker school psychologists he saw instructional coach or additional parent liaison hours

159and schools could choose amongst those to be able to use those resources as they best need for their community okay thank you miss mcLaughlin I am so thankful for Miss Koufax for bringing this amendment to our main motion both miss Koufax and MS Evans have the newcomer schools in their districts and have really had an opportunity to spend time with the principals in a way that I have it because it's it's not necessarily been the same issues that come into my district but regardless of district and I say this with a smile to my at-large colleagues we are one Fairfax not only this is a county but as a school system and all 12 of us are very concerned and wanting to make sure that each and every child has an opportunity to be successful

160and that we also recognize that across this very diverse County there's going to be diverse needs for funding and as a social worker myself in listening to Miss Koufax and talking about the needs of the students especially our newcomers coming to the school system we as a board absolutely need to come with a strong voice to our principals and to our communities and say we welcome our children into our building and when there are schools that have additional need we as a board need to provide that type of leadership and governance and so the way I looked at mrs. Kovacs Amendment and what I really wanted to compliment her and mr. moon because I know they worked on together is the language is very broad it enables our superintendent and leadership team and staff to

161basically look at the needs of these schools and what kind of wraparound services are so dr. durán I think you you kind of helped provide some really great clarity just like all 200 of our schools where our principals have some latitude in deciding their staffing needs with the support of our regional superintendents to make sure you know we really are making good choices I don't see this as being any different in addition we have a 2.9 billion dollar budget and our responsibility is to make sure that when we approve this proposed budget that we as a board have looked at what the superintendent and leadership team has have built they've built a 2.9 billion dollar budget if we pass miss Koufax amendment it doesn't mean that suddenly the the prior amendment that we just approved

162of for the office of equity or the follow-on motion that we're considering for MS Evans those are just to a significant number of expenditures that we have and the way that our budget works anyway is that we designate how we intend to spend the funds but there's no law that that and nothing that we're doing here tonight that doesn't allow for a latitude and flexibility the superintendent can come to us and say thank you we passed this 2.9 billion our budget I communicate it to you and the board supervisors and the public how we intend to spend that money but we actually see that there's a greater need here and so with with board support I'm gonna shift this here so I look at this 1 million dollars is we're in no way taking from

163one important area to another and you know miss Hines I know you've been a great advocate on you know class size issues our employee compensation and I'm I think those all continue to be very important things I'm just not reading this that that Ms Koufax's amendment here suddenly says you know that's going in at all costs and nothing else once we get our transfer from the board supervisors as we know that budget is fair game on anything and I actually think employee compensation and meeting are the needs of our diverse schools with additional staffing and our office of equity and looking at the equity for our parent liaison employees all four of those things are important and we may find something else in the budget through the expertise as number B says directing the superintendent

164to identifying funding in that budget so part of the homework between February and May is gonna be dr. Bray Braun and his team looking at it saying if this is a priority what else you know then are we going to look at we have to find cost savings but I think it's important that we go forward and reassure our community and especially our principals and staff that we not only see value in our newcomer schools but that we understand the need for providing essential supports and this is essential so I hope everybody will feel comfortable supporting it tonight I think it's a good and important step miss Evans well thank you mr. net Kopacz and mr. moon for working on this amendment I think that this is an important step forward that we really do

165need to make I appreciate the the changes that you made which I agree gives us more flexibility I think some of the the earlier versions were prescriptive so I as I read this we're gonna have the conversation in the spring about exactly what we need to do with these funds where they need to go and I'm seeing that it talks about wraparound services yes and that and the schools with the highest newcomer isaw students but it doesn't specify exactly how they need to be used and I do think we have to have a thoughtful conversation about where the money needs to go and and and how it needs to be used because schools are different and they may very well have different needs but I know from the experience at Stewart high school that the

166newcomer program there has been extremely successful and it has it has worked there they work very hard and I just want to point out to people when we talk about it it's not just newcomers we have when we're talking about level 1 students we're talking about students with with virtually no English and and level 2 a little bit of it one of the issues that we have it so many of our schools with high numbers of newcomers though are the students who come to us with with little or sometimes no formal education in their home countries and that is a different situation than somebody who comes and it's it's it's just needing to get the language that's that's a different thing than somebody I was talking to an elementary school principal who was telling me

167how many new students she's had in just in January and how many of them are homeless and disabled and one one who's an older student with with no formal education from the home country and this is what some of our schools face so I'm glad to see we're going to have some flexibility here and just pointing out it is it's it is different to have eight students with with with interrupted formal education and having 80 you know it's just different so I think we do need to talk and when we have this conversation in the spring we need to talk about where exactly the needs are and and focus it on those on those needs you know where they are the greatest because we we do have some communities where you have reunification issues it's

168it's not just the the whole family comes together some of these students are coming to us that have been separated from their parents for many years and so that is something that requires more psychological services as well you know we have students who who are homeless we have students with with all kinds of different issues coming from places where they may have been traumatized as well so we can have that that conversation but I certainly support this amendment the way it's written now and I look forward to are providing more of these resources directed at the students who need them so very badly mr. McElveen thank you madam chair so the issue that staring at Koufax and mr. moon had brought before us tonight I think is the is the greatest challenge we face and

169that is equity and equity in all its forms whether it's salaries class size facilities access to programs it all starts with this and for that reason I'm proud to support this amendment in fact I was would also have been proud to support the larger number that mrs. Darren and Kovacs had before us until it was reduced to this lesser amount I think when it comes to solving the equity issue the County residents more and more looking to the school board to solve this issue and they're looking for us to put our money where our mouths are and this does precisely that and I know we will have further discussions on what precisely this encapsulates but I think it's an important effort to show our the residents of the county that we are serious about this

170and now is the time to act mr. Keith Kamara I really wanted to just make sure that in some some of my colleagues I've cleared up some of the issues that I wanted to discuss but I also want to make sure I am committing to having this conversation and when we don't set aside a time call it Thanksgiving where family gets together no matter what no matter who and how difficult that might be it's more likely not to happen and I don't think that we can afford to do that anymore I see that I see this as a commitment I see it largely as a placeholder but I also see that we will be having additional conversations to make sure that we understand what can happen or what will happen if we choose to go

171forward with this but I am absolutely committed and I believe that this board is committed to having the conversation ms hynes yeah thank you so I'm gonna try one more time to make sure I understand what I'm voting for our equity challenge is a beast with a thousand heads right there's so many ways and so many things that we do that are not equitable I mean you can talk about after-school programs you can talk about transportation you can talk about so many things almost everything we do presents an equity challenge it's all important if if what we're asking for here is for dr. Bray brand to come to us and dr. Brennan I really want to know what you're hearing from us tonight because I want to know what I'm telling you to do if

172what we're asking you to do is to come to us with a you know fully thought-out motion you know an amendment and a million dollar amendment that then we can put on the table with everything else that we think is important at the end of the day and we can weigh it against everything else I think it's very likely I will put it very high on the things that I want to support then then I can agree with that right but when I hear the word set-aside if we're setting aside time absolutely but if we're setting aside money that means to me when you set aside money you're taking it off the table and putting it over here that means all the other priorities we might have at the end of the day comes second

173to that million dollars that is off the table so I just want to make sure that I know all we're doing is asking the the superintendent to come up with a fully considered researched million dollar amendment for this program that we can that's ready to go if we choose to vote it in there and that we're not making it in to what we vote on in May this is the simplest way I could say it if we have additional dollars when all is said and done from both the county and the state I will make sure 1 million of those additional dollars goes to this if we get no additional money no additional money from what we have in the budget right now from local and state I will reallocate dollars to the amount of

1741 million dollars and I will show you where I've reallocated those and then you can decide whether that reallocation meets with the values and goals discussion that this board is having obviously I would need to be thoughtful about what I'm taking it from to put to this I don't have that answer for you tonight as I said I'm just looking at this but I will give it thought and it may be I'm not in a position even tonight to really speculate what what it would look like my mind honestly is you all are talking I'm trying to listen and think about how how this could work but you know the one thing I can say to the board tonight it is February there's time in May I'm learning this process this middle process for me

175is new as a superintendent we had the beginning in the end but not this middle and I certainly regardless of what the board's final decision is you know I'll move forward appropriately if there's new money I will apply a 1 million instead of the first million of that new money will go to this if there is not I will find a reallocation equal to 1 million you look at weather that's what you want to do the trade for so I guess what I would say is I think that's still kind of squishy for me and so what I would say is I will support this with my understanding and make her the motion if I'm wrong tell me now because that will affect my vote I'll support this with the understanding that this is we

176are not saying tonight that this is part of the omnibus amendment that we do in May right or this is not part of the that we're not committing tonight that this is part of the main motion that we make in May I don't want to commit to that now is that correct the way dr. brand expressed it is is exactly the way I intended it to be if there's additional funds 1 million dollars will go to look at this it may be less it may be more it depends what dr. durán comes up with what what we see as is what these schools need if however there are no extra funds to this dr. Brian will have to come back to us and say how can I save a million dollars what will I have

177to detract from so that's the way I see it now you have to remember miss Hines though as well we as a body if you've been to those budget meetings for six years now we as a body can say that's not what I want to do at the end but what I want him to come with to us is with a plan and with these numbers allocated because these numbers at this point in time provide equity in programming for those schools who are seeing these numbers with two schools and I feel that the time is now that we should do that I yeah I'm sorry I don't want to take up everybody's time I just I feel like I still don't understand what we're committing to tonight you know either if we have extra money

178this is what we're gonna spend it on if we don't I'm gonna take money from other things and spend it on this that sounds like we're committing to put this in the main motion in May and I you know I don't like it I don't think it should Bogart everything else we want to do I think there are additional opportunities to discuss if this is not your preference about where you want funds so I understand if you're not gonna support it right now mr. McKee I just want to make a couple of couple of points one point of a clarification and second is about what our unit Ruster discussing one may may not happen in in april/may timeframe first of all when mr. narcotics initially and it was sharing with other board members about what

179she was thinking about doing I think she thought about adding about 12 positions that two positions each to four scores with the highest number of 11 level two and one position each to next four scores with the highest level that I chose asset or 12 positions as opposed to 16 for about a million dollars at the time and when I saw that I mean again I want to thank mr. narcotics for bringing this important issue to my attention and my colleagues attention that that I felt that my having just this kind of a discussion a little more in depth with a more time rather than at the budget table in in in april/may timeframe and might give us another maybe a better opportunity to to be able to do something maybe in a more effective

180way rather than you know for example if does not necessarily have to be a full position it could be 3/4 position depending upon number ie another one durable - it could have four position you may not have to be so limited to a scores it could be ten scores could be 12 scores depending about how how our discussion goes and what the recommendation from step you know possibility so I wanted to have that you have that opportunity which mr. knockoff excavation so you agree that they may be a better way to go but but what do I as true a miss Hines question that I know miss you know madam chair has done this much longer than I have but this is my 19th budget season and that we have done over the years a

181little different ways probably their mighty I'm a pretty different way to do it but recently over the last several years were even doing loss when we do not get exactly kind of revenue we are seeking to support our food our ties birthday April May time frame usually many timeframe at the work session superintendent will bring us a recommendation so how do I adjust how you know what adjustments we need to make in his view to the advertised budget now that's kind of a proposed budget but to death he's gonna my my expectation will is superintendent but my expectation from superintendents is to bring forward with steps recommendations based upon this amendment but at the same time this is a digital school if this amendment passes this will be attractive to superintending something to us little

182more detail but superintendent in his own professional judgment can also bring us his own recommendation that based upon overall funding needs minionese this may not be the best way to go maybe not full million dollars it could be half a million dollars or maybe not this year we don't know they're gonna give we're gonna be able to give him an opportunity and then port at the time we'll make a decision what to go into omnibus basically we thought that we've done that before that is my expectation it's Paul Chuck and then miss mcLaughlin Thank You mr. moon I appreciate that I think that's very helpful I I do really appreciate that this has come forward and especially in light of that we have not had that equity office so I am feeling more comfortable because

183I guess my question was a little bit of that is if we do not have the people and the in the and the structures in place to start in eight new schools next year and are we just throwing money at something that can't be done properly next year I cannot support that I want to make sure that yes it's based on research but it's also based on our capacity our ability to properly implement it knowing we have a new office that's not yet open not yet running so what will this look like and because I still have reservations from the original plan and I'm so happy that over time it shifted and now it has been successful in to schools and so roll out into eight additional schools just give me a little bit of

184cost and make sure that it would be done properly and I will be supporting this keeping in mind for the future I do hope that this is part of our larger discussion that we're able to all board members have these conversations see the impact see the equity dashboard with dr. durán without their brain and I'm moving forward as we look at how we achieve equity that we're not doing it so piecemeal at the board table also I assume but I want to make it clear that because it's I would prefer that we direct the superintendent if we want to add something where it will come from but since we're asking the superintendent to do that for us that it will not touch our priorities it will not touch teacher salaries it will not touch salaries

185of instructional assistants and staff or class size or other priorities that are also so critical and that affects our schools that need that so much and that lose teachers because of the salary gap so I just want to ensure that if we if we don't get those fine that if we need it whether it's a million whether it's half of that that we feel confident that it will come from a place that won't have a negative effect I think that's where I want us to be cautious so I will support this you know cautiously I do want to make sure that when we have these conversations in March April and May that we take into account what it means and how it will be implemented and what our future plans are and where the funds

186will come from so I guess I just want to be clear that I think this is important work I want to make sure it's done well and coordination with the principles and that we keep in mind of where these funds could come from if we do not have that transfer money miss Paul check I want you raise two issues one is the effectiveness of this and whether or not it can be fully implemented it is being fully implemented very well we have a lot of research that shown that we have our or C reports so this is an effective way that we can support our newcomer level-1 level-2 incise students we can talk more about that but we definitely have seen that we have asked all of our schools to do it with out the

187additional resources and they are doing their very best but miss Darrin our Colfax intent I believe in having conversations with her is that if we're going to ask all of our schools to do it with a similar population then she wanted to have this be an equitable opportunity to give them the same resources your second point though is one that warrants much discussion amongst your colleagues and all of us on the leadership team on this side is where is the prioritization because as miss Hines said there are so many things that we have that are inequitable in terms of resources and things that we have to confront and we don't always have the ability to do all with the limited resources that we have so that is the second issue which is separate but I

188want to on the first issue raise assure you in the board that this is a program that is working that will continue to work and that we will be continuing to support those students that need that extra resource and schools are doing it to the best of their ability but not with parity amongst the amount of resources that they're getting no and I appreciate that and I think that's important and as I heard miss Evans speaking I also heard from that principal is right this is the high school level so it means we're not yes right looking I know we have somebody needs a pre-k at elementary school middle school and so just looking at down the road what will we be doing there for those students I know that's a big part of our

189work and and I and I I know that it's being done in our schools I just want to make sure that we're ready to next year say here you go we're going to fund these are all of those rules ready that's all thank you and it's important to add that as dr. Brennan brings a recommendation to the board that by the time we get to the approved stage the board can consider that recommendation and and way of variety of factors and and act accordingly so if the board doesn't feel that the recommendation is appropriate they don't necessarily have to vote on that recommendation in the positive miss mcLaughlin did you wish for go back yes like other colleagues I did I I'm I'm concerned about perhaps maybe the audience is listening to this as well

190and wondering okay so what happens with this potential trade out so I'm gonna kind of reiterate the point I made earlier this is a two point nine billion dollar budget there are hundreds of not thousands of line items in this budget and all this motion is doing or this amendment to the main motion is to say that this board is supportive of this school system rolling out these newcomer programs at additional high schools because the need exists and we want to make sure that we've communicated to our superintendent and to his team that funding for this is important whether it had said earmarked instead of established earmark a million dollars I've been hearing ms hynes and i'm I guess I'm trying to hopefully maybe reassure nothing's saying that this set aside is that sacrosanct like

191that's the million dollars that's untouchable and it's in this you know crystal box locked up and and everything else can get slashed and cut if we don't get enough money but that's sacred I didn't hear that what I heard is this is it wasn't included in our proposed budget it is a priority it's important but I like the idea that this seven or more of us tonight put this in and say it now becomes our proposed budget and it's it's not part of an omnibus it's just it is part of our budget and then if we don't get our four point nine percent transfer then we're gonna have our work cut out for us to not just address this million dollars we're going to have our work cut out for all of our new spending

192but our new spending may end up being our top priority 1 million dollars is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the hundred million or so that we're saying we need over next year and I cannot imagine being a board member supporting a rollout of additional newcomer schools and not providing the sufficient staffing support that's needed or whatever the resources are which is what's staying here additional resources and that is where the subject matter expertise of dr. durán and his team are gonna look at and say alright we heard from you that you you believe in our newcomer schools you believe in the progress they're making and we understand you've now been intentional in your commitment to making sure that we're we're earmarking setting aside this million to make sure we can do it

193I don't want miss Koufax to have to come back and barter one line-item over another line-item this one to me rises to the top with the other things that we prioritize of class size and employee compensation but the real work is gonna be once we get our transfer and we figure out how we're gonna spread the dollars around but this one we got to do it and I hope everybody will support okay thank you I will support this amendment I see it as an important value statement well the reality is coming when we know exactly how much money we have basically the entire budget is back on the table for for our discussion but I believe what this does is it enables us it commits us to a hard discussion and we know that in

194March we will be getting a report on our our equity plan so that all of those things are very important to us and in the end we have to figure out exactly how we are going to approach them also with that I will call for the vote and the amendment is to establish a set-aside of a million dollars to provide additional resources to high schools with the highest percentage of newcomer esau students to support wraparound services a detailed implementation plan should be provided for discussion by the April budget work session and then direct the superintendent to identify funding of a million dollars as part of the FY 2019 in other words internal to the budget not asking for an increase in the bottom line so with that all those in favor of the amendment that

195is evans McLaughlin Paul check McElveen Corbett Sanders Strauss moon during echo fix keys Gemara opposed abstention ms hynes thank you that carries now we are back to the main motion as amended correct I do not see any other calls all right I am not yes yes yes we're voting on the main motion as amended oh yes well first I needed to know if there were any other amendments that we're going to come to the floor that I'm not aware of that's what I wanted to make sure okay seeing no other amendments coming to the floor then what we have is the main motion as amended so if there are others who would like to speak then on the main motion as amended miss McLaughlin yes I put my light on like I'm supposed to I

196just I wanted to say since this is the first proposed budget from dr. Bray bran that I very much appreciate the approach you've taken with this and the quick work you've done with your team this as you can see from a virtually empty auditorium is because the approach you have taken is to say look we've got key priorities and that's employee compensation it's trying to reduce our class size and we recognize that we really can't necessarily incorporate a lot of new spending but that this is the budget you're presenting to us and we're about to vote on and present to the board supervisor says this is our needs based budget this is what we need to be a premier school system and yes while we know four point nine percent is not what the board

197supervisors have indicated that the economic growth is in the county and there's only so many dollars coming in from revenue and the board supervisors will next have the next big step but what's different about this experience from past budgets that I've been a part of and I think this is now going on my seventh budget is that we are not creating that initial fear and consternation among our community of saying you know what here's our ask but if not we've got this very scary cut list about what we might have to eliminate and I look forward to hopefully carrying forward on dr. Bray brands efforts here which is that it's a collaborative dialogue with the board supervisors the county executive we do the very best we can to say here's our need they end up

198looking at the needs of the other departments and that from there the they'll look at ensuring that by history we typically get about 50 to 53 percent of the revenue that comes into the county and then we'll have to figure out if they determine that the revenues not enough and they're going to raise the tax rate that's in their hands but the best part about this is is that I heard from certainly not just in my district but around the county massive fatigue factor in the community of feeling like they're constantly having to rally around their their areas of funding and services that we provide and it's very stressful on our employees and our families and so I just I did want to take just a moment I know it's late and everybody's ready to

199move on but I thought it was important to take a moment and say thank you for absolutely executing on the commitment you made to this board when we hired you which is that we were going to try a a renewed effort on collaboration and diplomacy with the supervisors and I feel very comfortable telling my supervisor in Braddock district and all of the supervisors we understand we're asking for more than the guidance you gave us but we're also presenting you the reality and then it will be uncommon upon the 12 of us to also continue to communicate with our supervisors how important getting as close to the four point nine percent request getting funded is imperative and we certainly encourage our families and our employees and our teacher associations employee associations to help us with that

200but I'm so relieved that this is we're not starting out the gate with a lot of fear and anxiety that's happened sometimes in years past okay seeing no other requests to speak then I will go ahead and call for the vote it is on the those colleagues who are away from the table I will give you about 30 seconds to return thank you all right the motion on the table is that the school board adopt the FY 2019 advertised budget is detailed in the agenda item and as amended all those in favor all right that motion is unanimous thank you very much with mr. Wilson miss Schultz away now we will call on Miss Evans for a follow on motion thank you madam chair I moved to direct the superintendent as part of the FY

2012019 approved budget process to prioritize the funding required not to exceed zero point six million dollars to provide full benefits eg health insurance and retirement to those parent liaisons working an average of 25 to 29 hours per week full benefits are currently are offered currently to those parent liaisons working an average of 30 or more hours a week seconded by Ms Paul check miss Evans who'd like to speak to it yes I would madam chair just briefly last year we took a major step forward in recognizing the critical position that and role that the parent liaisons play in so many of our schools particularly our our high needs schools by putting them on a salary scale and making them eligible for step increases at the same time we also provided full benefits for those that

202worked at least thirty hours a week and that was a great start we put them on the same schedule schedule H with bus drivers and food service workers but at the same time we didn't we we still have a couple of steps more to go to to provide more of the parent liaisons to have more of them be eligible to get health benefits and retirement benefits it's so with this I'm hoping that we can add those parent liaisons who average at least 25 hours a week and the fact of the matter is we we know that they pack many many things into those 25 or 30 or 39 hours a week that parent liaisons work we heard from from one tonight thank you for talking about all of the the the very important issues that

203that parent liaisons take on at high needs schools these are absolutely imperative for bringing our students and our families into to bring them into the schools and to in for student success so I'm hoping that my colleagues will support this and bring more of these employees into the being eligible for full benefits miss Paul check yes thank you I want to thank miss Evans for continuing to bring this to our attention to ensure that we do find equity as we talked about that this evening for our parent liaisons I think we often talk about some of the invisible barriers for students to be able to learn and to thrive in our school system and personally knowing what a difference it would have made to have apparently he's on it to see so many of our

204kids in our in our schools today and our family so grateful for the support for being able to navigate our system they do everything from interpreting to being informal social workers connecting families to legal assistance food transportation and so much they wear so many hats and as we talk about parity and equity between staff employees and our system and the county it's really important that we look at at this position that we have grown over the years as we've had the need tried to catch up with that and to assure that our kids really do have that voice in the building that they feel welcome that parents are able to engage in advocates be informed and welcome I know recently I heard from a parent who was concerned had not heard when testing was going

205to happen had not heard how to support her child or or how to advocate for her child and reached I reached out to me and had we said to her parent liaison so sorry it's been a long evening but it's so grateful that you're here with us and that they continue to do this work despite the lack of equity in the positions and in the ability to ensure that they put in so many hours for our kids often beyond what they are paid and to ensure that they're able to have health benefits and to have parity with our staff so I know tonight I'm actually very grateful that beyond such a wonderful budget my fellow members and I are looking at how to address equity in our system and ensure that we work toward closing

206the achievement gaps and supporting our our students and this is one very very key and component to that so I hope that our fellow board members will support it once again this is giving our superintendent a little bit more work to help us figure out how we will fund this moving forward and hopefully we'll also send a message to our community and to our colleagues and partners on the board of supervisors and down in Richmond that we need to fund these priorities for our schools and our kids miss Hines yeah thank you and thank you Miss Evans for being persistent on this you are a persistent voice for something that's very important I will be supporting this I my feeling is that doing this sort of thing as a follow on motion making it clear

207that this is a priority and that we would like the superintendent to spend some time in the next couple months as we talk about the budget bringing to us something that we're pretty clear about what we'd like it to look like right and then giving us a chance to talk about it this I I feel like this is a better way to do it what were what I think miss Darren at Colfax was was trying to do and I apologize if I'm getting hung up on language but I think set aside says something to me that's different from prioritize you know I think we're going to be making priorities but this will give us a chance to you know take a look at a sort of a you know a fully cooked Amendment right that

208then we can we can be knowledgable about as we go forward so I appreciate this and I'll be supporting it miss Corbett Sanders thank you so every year we have themes last year it was the values budget this year is really about equity and I am so proud of this board because of its focus on equity we've talked about equity in three separate areas tonight one is with a two hundred and fifty thousand dollar increase to the budget asked to ensure that the office of equity has the resources necessary to achieve our objectives we have a second area which we talked about a few moments ago about addressing the needs of our newcomers and making sure that the schools that have higher percentages of newcomers are able to have the resources on par with other

209schools that have newcomers so equity and so now we talked about our heartbeat our heart of our organization our parent liaisons and our parent liaisons are really the heart of many of our schools they are the ambassadors they are the point of contact that welcomes the newcomer families into our community they're the ones who are there answering questions developing those close relationships that then allow us to best meet each of these children by name and need and so the other thing about our parent liaisons is they are the only part-time employees that work this number of hours that aren't or maybe not the only but they are one of the groups of part-time employees that does not receive the same benefits as other employees that you know work similar amounts of hours and so what

210our parent liaisons do is they often take on multiple jobs to be able to make sure that they have benefits to take care of their own families while at the same time often going beyond the number of hours that are allocated to them to meet the needs of the families that they so love and so I am happy to support this I will encourage dr. Bray brand and dr. durán to take a look at all three of these the two amendments and the motion to see how we can weave them together into a coherent approach a holistic plan and so hopefully that will be part of the conversation we have March in March and April so I'm happy to support mr. Koufax yes I know miss Evans and I have talked about this and the

211need to ensure that our parent liaisons who work so hard for us get the support that they need and this shows them that we want to we we value their professionalism and this is something that we as a system can offer them so I thank you for bringing this forward this has also been one that you've been working on piece by piece for several years so thank you and I'll be happy to support it as well miss mcLaughlin so miss Evans and I had played phone tag and while I certainly support the merits of this follow-on motion I did want to just get a little bit of clarity do we know in terms of our own employees in the school system if they work less than 30 hours and in this case the 25 to

21229 hours do we already provide full benefits to other employees within the system we do we for the food service workers they're a bit unusual that starts at 15 hours a week and the bus drivers is at 20 or 25 20 20 hours and weeks so it's 20 hours a week and I just got an answer today about custodial workers but but to answer your question yes other employees it starts with fewer hours so dr. Bray bran with this follow-on motion request would it be your understanding that when you bring more information to the board on this because what this is saying is it's that we're directing you to look at this as a priority but obviously then I would expect at a future work session we would get more information about what this would

213look like in terms of cost and what's being offered and the reason I ask this is that there's no doubt this board has spoken extensively about the value of parent liaisons and I also think it's very important that we have equity as much as possible among our part-time employees and those hours of 25 to 29 hours does fall within a part-time status if the school system is offering benefits to as mrs. Evans stated the food service worker school bus drivers then I would hope we would consider this the parent liaisons you know as equally deserving to have those options but I think it would be helpful for the board if we can have some of that helpful context someone had asked me if this means that do we provide comparable employer contribution percentage-wise that we

214do for a full-time employee and I don't know the answer that but I think it's I'm seeing mr. Smith nodding would you like to comment yes so we look at those employees as being benefit eligible so all of our employees who are benefit eligible we provide the same employer contribution and so that's for our full-time employees and for our part-time employees who are contracted and work more than half okay and and do we know what the county government does for their part-time employees do they have follow a similar process of benefits I don't know exactly what they do but we can get that information for you okay I think that would just be helpful because one of the sensitivities I I have is the the fact that we have in community residents taxpayers who live

215in the county and and work out in the community and jobs in a similar part-time fashion and I don't know that they have these types of benefits and so I'm just sensitive to the fact that we we should have some sort of consistency whether if as a county government and therefore a school system which is in my mind a part of our county government if we've made the commitment to our part-time employees to offer benefits then it should look similarly across the board but I it would be more helpful to me to again have that contextual information I very comfortable supporting this I echo what other colleagues have said appreciate you being a champion for our parent liaisons and I think just getting some information when we come to a future budget work session will

216probably help all of us be more comfortable in understanding the funding that we're going to commit to this and that it's it's certainly the right thing to do but you've all heard me I've said before I'm a middle child and I just want what's fair so if we're giving you know benefits full benefits to our parts of employees our parent liaisons are just as deserving okay I will call for the vote and the it is a follow-up motion so it is not to increase funding in what we just voted on but it guarantees a conversation on the issue and for the superintendent to come back to us with a plan so this is move to direct the superintendent as part of the FY 2019 approved budget process to prioritize is funding required not to exceed

2170.6 million to provide full benefits health insurance retirement to those parent liaisons working on average of 25 to 29 hours per week full benefits are offered currently to those parent liaisons working on an average of 30 or more hours per week all those in favor emotionally is unanimous thank you it passes and with mr. Wilson Mitchell's not here we have one more motion and this is a housekeeping motion my colleagues you don't need to speak on it miss Evans yes I move that the division superintendent is granted authority to make necessary minor changes to comply with the intent of the school board and is further directed to prepare fund statements reflecting all school board approved changes together with the estimate of funds required by Fairfax County Public Schools during FY 2019 in the format prescribed

218in Section 22 point 1 - 92 of the Code of Virginia for submission to the County Board of Supervisors submission of these approved documents to the County Board of Supervisors fulfills the responsibilities of the school board under title 22 chapter 8 section 22 - point 1 - 92 of the Code of Virginia second second by mr. moon all those in favor great that motion is unanimous it carries thank you very much now we are on to the consent agenda our adopted rules of parliamentary procedures Robert's Rules provides for a consent agenda listing several items of approval of 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

219of any board member prior to the meeting 6.01 approved the minutes of the January 25th 2018 regular board meeting 6.0 to appoint individuals to serve on committees as detailed in the agenda item 6.03 award the contract for the exterior home side bleacher on press box replacement and Annandale high school to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder in tanta Clayton corporation in the amount of 599 598 thousand nine hundred dollars and authorized the divisions who print ended or the assistants who pretended facilities of transportation services to execute and administer the contract on behalf of the school board 6.0 for award the contract for the telescopic bleacher replacement at Lake Braddock secondary school to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder TJ distributors of Maryland Inc in the amount of two hundred and eighty six thousand one hundred

220dollars and authorized the division superintendent or the assistant superintendent of facilities on transportation services to execute and administer the contract on behalf of the school board 6.05 approved the appointment of chase Raimi to the ER FC Board of Trustees through June 30th 2018 6.06 award a contract for the rocky run middle school renovation project to the lowest responsive responsible bidder Keller brothers Inc in the amount of thirty six million nine hundred and sixty eight thousand dollars and authorized the division superintendent or the assistant superintendent of facilities and transportation services to execute deliver and administer the contract on behalf of the school board 6.07 approved the request to submit the secondary transition to employment program step for the vsba excellence in workforce readiness award 2018 congratulations thank you very much great there any objection to approving

221the consent agenda seeing none and hearing none the consent agenda is approved new business following our new business items there will not be a vote tonight on these items but action is scheduled at a future meeting 7.01 approve a standard boundary adjustment of some Jackson middle school students to Thoreau middle school any approved boundary adjustment related to Jackson middle school will not change the high school boundary some students who attend Oakton Mosby woods and Marshall Road elementary schools would be reassigned from Jackson middle school to throw middle school if the boundary adjustment option a is approved 7.02 approved the establishment of a new level for advanced academic center program in fall of 2018 at Bush Hill Elementary School and also adopt the following pupil placement plan in the fall 20 of 2018 Edison based rising

2223rd grade Center eligible students currently assigned to Springfield as state's elementary would be assigned to attend the new Bush Hill elementary school level for Center in the fall of 2019 Edison based rising 3rd and 4th grade students currently assigned to spring Phyllis States will be required to attend Bush Hills level 4 Center an additional grade level would be added each year until full implementation of grades 3 through 6 for the level 4 center at Bush Hill Elementary in school year 2020 122 7.03 adopt policy 2100 point 3 student and staff health and wellness as detailed in the agenda item superintendent matters dr. Bray Brad Thank You chairman Strauss it's been a it's been a full day woke up today at 4:25 a.m. to do the check to make sure there was no ice on the

223roads and we got a good green light so we had a regular school day and I know it's good to get back on a regular routine for our students and speaking of students I want to share students from eight of our schools received an invitation to the 2018 state science and be at tournament based on the results at a regional tournament shots ville last week and that's teams from Kilmer coober Louise Archer Colvin Ron Mantua Thomas Jefferson Fairfax and Oakton were all in the top finishers and that's Science Olympiad is a great program that helps emphasize teamwork and commitment to excellence they're challenged in a variety of problem categories anatomy psychology excuse me physiology astronomy chemistry coding ecology hovercraft optics remote sense sensing thermodynamics solar system and meteorology so it's a great program glad to

224see so many schools do well I'm also pleased tonight to share with you that February is school board Appreciation Month so tonight and you look at the crowds standing-room-only crowd we look at that I love it I love it celebrating the service dedication the overall contributions of the board you know what I got a script the people don't appreciate for what you're paid for in the hours you put on it's cents on the dollar you know really when we talk about part-time people and paying other people benefits you've got the lowest paid part-time job with the biggest responsibility frankly in the Commonwealth billions of dollars of budgets for cents on the dollar for the work that you do for us we're very very honored that you do this work each day and as US you

225have a certificate of appreciation Karen yours is coming from vsba you're just so new that there it's hot off the press and each of you got a I know what it is but I'm just trying to remember the name of it a pastry Expo cupcake so come on out there's already done our our budget is paying teachers not giving school board members big gifts so they got a nice cupcake that they can have this evening or tomorrow or in a little bit it will be tomorrow and they can have it on the way home but we do why isn't County free its calorie free mr. moon and we did want to we did want to really honor you what you do each and every day public schools are the foundation of democracy and you all

226are really the leaders in making sure we can have the future that we need for our young people ironically again I want to thank you for that while we'll probably be done it looks like Capitol Hill will still be up till 2:00 or 4:00 in the morning to finish their votes so this school board is meeting the effectiveness that I like to talk about you will be wrapping up sooner rather than later and beating the federal government so congratulations thank you although we still have to finish our closed session oh okay having said that those board members who wish to speak more it is time for port matters I will begin with miss Keith mark is that optional knows it is optional at quarter to 11 because we have more work to do [Music] thank

227you for baptizing me into the budget process I appreciate it from all of my colleagues lots of meetings this week really getting acquainted with some of the things that are due to my heart such as mental health and bullying and things of that nature and talking to folks who really want to partner with our schools so I'll keep it short and sweet and let's go to closed session but thank you very much have a great week miss Darren echo effects quickly yes thank you dr. Bray ran for those kind comments and the cupcakes and quickly Miss Korbut Sanders and I over the weekend went to the National School Boards Association advocacy forum down in DC and we met with we were able to meet with Senate senator Tim Kaine the staff of Senator Mark Warner

228and the and and Congressman Connelly and miss Keith Kamara Mae met with congressman buyer as well so we talked about many of the priorities overall for school systems and some of the congressmen we were able to speak specifically to Fairfax needs so we were excited to do that and if anybody has questions I'll share with you what we heard by miss Hines yeah I would just say not only did we beat Congress to the gavel we have a budget done and done at least for tonight so there you go a couple things yes I wanted to thank mr. Arnett Koufax and Miss Korbut Sanders for taking one for the team and going to Capitol Hill and fighting for us up there I also over the weekend attended the NSBA s equity symposium it was the

229same weekend as the Advocacy Institute and came away with some great information which I'll be sharing with the superintendent and with dr. durán just some things that are going on around the rest of the country that we might be able to take advantage of so thank you good night thank you I'll be eager to see what you would you got from that into science Thank You mr. moon I am going to yield my time the mrs. McLaughlin so I'm going to encourage everybody to take advantage of some of the wonderful events surrounding African American History Month this month there are wonderful events at the Frederick Douglass House this weekend as well as gum springs museum and gum springs community center which will be having some events on Saturday I urge you to take your children

230and learn more about the rich history that is African American history that is American history and so we have so many wonderful places that you can delve in learn more including the Smithsonian's African American History Museum and do this as a family and talk about what you learn there I know that our leadership team here in Fairfax County visited the African American History Museum just yesterday and those of you who have not had the opportunity please take the opportunity to do so mr. McElveen I can attest to the fact that miss during that Koufax enjoyed her cupcake and I have photographic evidence of it mr. poolcheck yeah my comments align with Miss Korbut Sanders I've had the opportunity with my wonderful colleagues at work teaching to delve into further deeper learning and study and reflection

231with our kids around Black History Month this year we watched a film by teaching tolerance on the children's March we were all moved and as one of my students said I didn't realize there were so many people beyond Martin Luther King especially children who really drove the movement it's an excellent film documentary I highly recommend it and we are now diving into claudette colvin and some of the other figures and leaders in the movement so definitely an opportunity look at exhibit museum also has one that our students went to this week and in additional films on Sunday and a chance to reconnect with one of my religious school classmates who who joined us was part of inclusion in my religious school and the reelabilities Film Festival in a film a beautiful French film about a

232child and his father who reconnect and together do the Ironman in France in 2013 so a lot to do out there to learn and expand your minds and so I hope everyone has a wonderful evening and gets to learn and and dive deeply into different facets of our community miss mcLaughlin so mr. moon was having fun with me because the two of us along with Neha Rika our student representative school board the three of us attended the Northern Virginia district PTAs 2018 safe safer internet day panel and it was really amazing it was here in Luther Jackson I think it was Tuesday night and one of the things that I brought for my colleagues I'm gonna pass out is it this was a brochure from the Department of Homeland Security says stop think connect and

233it's a resource guide and in it it says that cybersecurity is our shared responsibility 74% of parents admit to not knowing about their children's online behavior and yet 65% of youths say they would change their online behavior if their parents were paying attention and it was really an amazing hour and a half long panel with experts on online safety and it did talk about things like online bullying but also just identity protection and also monitoring and protecting your child against information on the internet that they you don't want them exposed to it was just really an outstanding panel and it's my understanding that FCPS not only did a live stream for people to watch it live and this auditorium was almost completely filled so over 400 people were here for it but also I believe

234they're gonna make that available along with the PowerPoint presentations that were presented to us dr. Brian make sure and tell Mary Beth love glass that the Tammy Sisk who's one of our IT specialists presented and did an outstanding job and so I just I really wanted to kind of spotlight that because it was one things that makes me so proud of living in an area here like Fairfax County in Northern Virginia that you know looking at ways to inform and empower parents is so important and I think we've got to look at ways getting more information into the hands of our families and then just briefly I did want to tell my colleagues this has come up this week and I must admit it's something I think we're gonna all really need to start checking

235in on our districts regrettably these cigarettes and vaping are becoming an issue particularly in our high schools and if you don't know much about it I must confess I don't know much about even though I've have three teenage adolescent sons I just thought east cigarettes were like the 21st century old-fashioned cigarette but it's not and we're gonna need to probably have more of a conversation with the board and the superintendent and our collaboration with Fairfax County school resource officers but it's I'm hearing that this is something that we've got to get in front of this to help with prevention and and a lot of prevention has to do with education and awareness and and so I just kind of wanted to put that in front of my colleagues attention that I'll pull together some of

236the information I've been getting on it but I think we're going to want to really kind of take a proactive voice on this to help our students and help our families miss Evans given the hour I will pass thank you I'll read the motion for going back into closed session the board will now make a motion to go into closed meeting to one discuss and consider disciplinary matters concerning to students pursuant to section 2.2 - 3 7 1 1 a2 of the Code of Virginia to consult with legal counsel for matters pertaining to actual probable litigation where such consultation or briefing an open meeting would adversely affect the negotiating or litigation litigating posture of the public body and regarding specifically to legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice by such counsel specifically personnel matters

237and claims made by the general contractor on a school renovation project pursuant to section 2.2 - 3 7 1-1 a 7 & 8 of the Code of Virginia and 3 discuss and consider personnel matters is there a motion I need a motion move by mr. moon seconded by miss Hines all those in favor we are in closed meeting thank you very much